Book three of the Charleston Harbor Novels, coming Spring 2018. Views: 40
The Last Gunfighter series by William W. Johnstone continues to expand the reach of the author's creative powers, placing the American frontier front and center with tales of down-and-out drifters, simple settlers, gregarious gunmen and loathing lawmen. In The Drifter, farmer Frank Morgan was an honest man with a future and a family before a barbarous baron pushed him off his hard-earned Colorado homestead. Now drifting through the New Mexico territory, Frank has given up his future and embraced his past: as a gunfighter, the only profession left to this most desperate desperado. But just when he thinks he's got nothing to live for, the citizens of the mining town that took him in find themselves in a precarious situation. The mining town that took him in is in a precarious predicament themselves. Their only hope is the quick draw and resolute spirit of...The Drifter. Views: 40
The author of the highly acclaimed novels Jernigan (Pulitzer Prize Finalist) and Preston Falls (National Book Critics Cirlce Award Finalist) offers up a mordantly funny collection of short stories about the faulty bargains we make with ourselves to continure the high-wire act of living meaningful lives in late twentieth-century America. Populated by highly educated men and women in combat with one another, with substance abuse, and above all with their own relentless self-awareness, the stories in The Wonders of the Invisible World take place in and around New York City, and put urbanism into uneasy conflict with a fleeting dream of rural happiness. Written with style and ferocious black humor, they confirm David Gates as one of the best-and funniest-writers of our time. From the Trade Paperback edition.Amazon.com ReviewDavid Gates writes practically perfect American stories. Perfect, first of all, in their staid adherence to American short-story tradition. There will be no rioting in the cafés over his first collection, The Wonders of the Invisible World, with its glimpses of characters daunted by love. Here are creatures we know well: Manhattan quasi professionals taking their lumps; urbane fortysomethings trying out small-town life. It's all Updikean adultery, Cheeveresque drinking, some drugs, a life-altering accident or two. But Gates's stories step beyond being perfect examples of their form to become something fresh, compassionate, and witty. He has an astonishing handle on the way people talk, not just to each other, but to themselves. In the title story, a husband remembers the day his wife left him: "She appeared holding a tall glass in each hand as if she were--forget it, no stupid similes. She was a vision. A vision of herself." In "Beating," a Jewish woman is fed up with her Leftist, activist husband, who owns Pound's collected works. "I fantasize sometimes about making a big stink and demanding that he at least put Ezra Pound away where I won't have to see it every day of my life. I'd be like, Hey hey, ho ho, Ezra Pound has got to go."This kind of attention to the goofy music of interior dialogue is normally found in comic fiction. But Gates is concerned, too, with the little failures of language, and so the failures of relationships. His territory is not comedy, it's the tragedy of failed optimism. In this way, too, he is a perfectly American writer. --Claire DedererFrom Library JournalThe hard lesson learned by the characters in these smart, sometimes harrowing stories is that intelligence and sophistication are no protection against making a mess of your life. Newsweek staffer Gates (Preston Falls, LJ 12/97) creates bright, self-aware protagonistsAtoo educated in many cases for the circumstances in which they find themselvesAwho battle their personal demons with little more than a finely honed sense of irony. The title story concerns a divorced college dean who risks losing his student lover as he has lost his family. "Star Baby" is about a gay New Yorker who discovers an unexpected side of himself when he returns home to care for his drug-addicted sister's young son. Gates deftly mixes compassion and sarcasm throughout. For all public libraries.ALawrence Rungren, Merrimack Valley Lib. Consortium, Andover, MA Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. Views: 40
Winner of the S&S/WI short story competition.A homeless man walks into a charity shop - his life has gone wrong and he doesn't know how to fix it. A woman is working at the charity shop after the death of her father. She is at a crossroads in her life and is unsure which way to go next.Here in this charity shop their lives meet and cross over in the most unexpected of ways. Fair Exchange is a short story about a secret and about the truth that lies beneath the surface of us all. Views: 40
As ex-drug baron Bazza Mackenzie runs for
parliament, ex-cop Paul Winter knows that his time with Bazza must, at
whatever cost, come to an end, in the 12th in this highly acclaimed
series of police procedurals DI Faraday
is gone and the police are left reeling. As his boss attempts to limit
any possible PR damage, his one time shadow on the force, ex-DC Winter,
is ever more concerned that he may have made the biggest mistake of his
life throwing in his lot with the city's drug baron, Bazza
McKenzie—especially as Bazza becomes increasingly desperate and violent
as his empire begins to crumble under the weight of austere times. And,
in the person of DS Jummy Suttle there's a new will at the heart of the
embattled police force to nail Bazza once and for all, the one man
Faraday was always desperate to bring to justice. Graham Hurley's
trademark authenticity has been allied to an ever increasing sense of
drama as he charts the lives of his vivid characters and paints a
stunning portrait of a city and a country at war with itself, a war
which throws the police into the front line.
Views: 40
Joey is excited and nervous about the school dance because Marlen, the love of his life, has agreed to be his date. But Joey has heard rumors that she might be meeting someone else, and as he waits for her to show up he can't help but worry the gossip may be true. Sure enough, a suave, well-dressed stranger asks Marlen to dance before Joey can even get to her. And soon the handsome couple is burning up the dance floor—literally!In this collection of stories based on Mexican-American folklore, author and educator René Saldaña, Jr. spins age-old tales with a contemporary twist. Lauro and Miguel run for their lives—with La Llorona's cold breath on their necks— after being caught smoking cigarettes down by the river. There's Felipe, who's so determined to win back the Peñitas Grand Master Marble Champion title that he's willing to make a deal for a shooter with a supernatural edge. And when Louie's leg swells up after he cuts his toe playing with a knife, he can't help but... Views: 40
After his sister is in a horrible car accident and then vanishes from the hospital, FBI agent Ford MacDougal, along with agents Lacey Sherlock and Dillon Savich, learn that the murder of an elderly woman is linked mysteriously to his sister's disappearance and they are plunged into a world of evil. Views: 40
A high school senior attempts to salvage her reputation among her Ivy League–obsessed classmates by writing their college admissions essays and in the process learns big truths about herself in this mesmerizing debut novel-in-verse, perfect for fans of Gayle Forman and Sonya Sones.Nic Chen refuses to spend her senior year branded as the girl who cheated on her charismatic and lovable boyfriend. To redefine her reputation among her Ivy League–obsessed classmates, Nic begins writing their college admissions essays. But the more essays Nic writes for other people, the less sure she becomes of herself, the kind of person she is, and whether her moral compass even points north anymore. Provocative, brilliant, and achingly honest, 500 Words or Less explores the heartbreak and hope that marks the search for your truest self. Views: 40
