In the Spur Award-winning title story, a Pinkerton detective, a couple on the run, a wanted man, and a traveling salesman with mysterious wares all converge on the banks of Crucifixion River to take shelter from an impending storm. Views: 69
Truth and lies…With Earth’s Ancient weapons chair at the center of an international dispute, Dr. Daniel Jackson is sent to Antarctica to sooth diplomatic tensions. Meanwhile, General Jack O’Neill reluctantly takes charge of a radical new weapons chair training program.But when a natural disaster hits Antarctica, the future of the Ancient outpost – and of Earth itself – is thrown into jeopardy. Yet again, Earth’s fate lies in the hands of SG-1, but this time the team are lost and powerless to help. Trapped within a strange reality, SG-1 encounter old friends and enemies as they struggle to escape and stop the Ancient cataclysm that’s threatening to destroy the planet. Views: 69
The last time Pete saw his cousin Wendy was when she got married twenty years ago. There was something not right, and when he got home, he told his fiance he thought Wendy's new husband might be a wife beater.Now, after a marriage and a divorce, Pete arrives home to see a message from Wendy on his answer machine. She has hitchhiked from Texas to California, is thirty miles away, tired, hungry and dirty.MY COUSIN WENDY takes you through a year of holidays with Pete and Wendy as he finds out why she was willing to walk from Texas to California with only the clothes on her back if that's what it took to get away. T's a year in which Pete helps Wendy try to figure out who she is and put herself back together and discovers some things he's been hiding from himself along the way. A year in which they fall in love with each other. Views: 69
Seamen: from mariners on huge yachts to competitive sailors in races like the America’s cup to recreational boaters, the combination of men and water is irresistible. Whether they’re wearing Speedos or slickers and handling megayachts or windsurfers, these guys can set sail right to our heart. Neil Plakcy, the editor of Hard Hats, Surfer Boys, Skater Boys, The Handsome Prince and Model Men sailed the high seas and gazed through many a porthole looking for stories of navy men, yachtsmen, and even a pirate or two and the fun they get up to, on land and on sea. These naughty and nautical guys will turn you on with their large masts, from fresh-faced tan youths to the rich yachtie with silver flecks in his hair. Imagine watching those muscles work as they grind winches to set and control sails, steer from the helm, or tack a sailboard. Views: 69
The Latest Bestseller by Vivien Sparx, author of 'Her Master's Kiss'.Lucien Lance - a ruthless, relentless corporate raider. A man known for his single minded determination and his uncompromising thirst for money and power. A man so fearsome they had a name for him on Wall Street. Lucifer.When young Angelica meets Lucien at a business function she quickly discovers just how dangerous and sexy Lucien is, as he seduces her into an erotic world of dominance and submission using a mysterious pleasure technique called the 'Devil's Touch'.But Lucien's hunger for wealth and control comes with a cost... and Angelica must decide how much she is willing to risk to earn the chance of love. A story of approx. 42,000 wordsJUST A TASTE:The first brush of his tongue was broad and soft, setting a swathe of new nerves on edge. Then when she felt his mouth again, it was as a series of hardened rapid flickers around – but never quite on – the jutting stiffened nub at her center.“Oh, God. I... I can’t take... I’m going to scream!” she hissed.“Do it!” Lucien encouraged her. “Scream, Angelica. No one will hear you. Scream as loud as you can.”And she opened her mouth wide and the cry in her throat was a release of all her humiliation, her wanting, and her ecstatic rapture that sounded as a long exultant roar in the most absolute and shattering moment of Angelica’s entire life.Her eyes fluttered open slowly, and there was a dreamy, almost intoxicated glaze to her expression. Lucien was kneeling on the bed holding a glass tumbler of water. Angelica blinked up at him.“You fainted,” he said, and handed her the water.“I... I fainted?”Lucien nodded. “Just for a moment. It’s nothing to worry about. The Devil’s Touch does that to every woman.” Views: 69
From the highly acclaimed author of Atlas of Unknowns (“Dazzling . . . One of the most exciting debut novels since Zadie Smith’s White Teeth”—San Francisco Chronicle; “An astonishment of a debut”—Junot Díaz), a bravura collection of short stories set in locales as varied as London, Sierra Leone, and the American Midwest that captures the yearning and dislocation of young men and women around the world. In “Lion and Panther in London,” a turn-of-the-century Indian wrestler arrives in London desperate to prove himself champion of the world, only to find the city mysteriously absent of challengers. In “Light & Luminous,” a gifted dance instructor falls victim to her own vanity when a student competition allows her a final encore. In “The Scriptological Review: A Last Letter from the Editor,” a young man obsessively studies his father’s handwriting in hopes of making sense of his death. And in the marvelous “What to Do with Henry,” a white woman from Ohio takes in the illegitimate child her husband left behind in Sierra Leone, as well as an orphaned chimpanzee who comes to anchor this strange new family. With exuberance and compassion, Tania James once again draws us into the lives of damaged, driven, and beautifully complicated characters who quietly strive for human connection.Amazon.com ReviewGuest Reviewer: Karen Russel on Tania James's *Aerogrammes* *Karen Russell, a native of Miami, has been featured in The New Yorker’s debut fiction issue and on The New Yorker’s 20 Under 40 list, and was chosen as one of Granta’s Best Young American Novelists. She is the author of the short story collection St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves and the novel Swamplandia!, one of the *New York Times Book Review’s Ten Best Books of 2011. Fans of Tania James's sensational debut novel, Atlas of Unknowns, already know her to be a writer with the panoramic scope and liveliness of Charles Dickens, the sure-footed lyricism and emotional precision of Jhumpa Lahiri, the rocketship ebullience of Junot Diaz, and a voice and vision that are inimitably her own. Now those of us who have been eagerly awaiting James's story collection have a reason to celebrate—Aerogrammes is sensational. After reading Atlas, I became a James evangelist, raving to friends that she was a natural-born novelist, her gifts perfectly adapted to the large canvas of the novel. Now, with Aerogrammes, Tania James reveals that she is a master of the short story; I felt that I learned so much about craft by reading Aerogrammes. Each of these nine extraordinary stories is expertly structured, moving inexorably towards conclusions that feel both surprising and true. By turns ebullient and poignant, pinwheeling and wise, they are always devastatingly candid when it comes to their central preoccupations: exile and identity, the faultlines inside a family, grief and love. James's prose sparkles on the sentence level, her imagery pulsing with color and surprise (“Chilean flamingoes with their knotted knees”). Her first sentences are masterpieces in miniature, and you can feel the storyteller's pleasure that hums through every line of the collection. From “Ethnic Ken”: “My grandfather believed that the guest bathroom drain was a portal for time travel.” From “Girl Marries Ghost”: “That year, thousands entered the lottery for only a handful of husbands.”What I most admire about Aerogrammes is James's commitment to making her stories both comic and consequential—the humor always underscores some powerful insights into her characters' innermost natures. She is such a generous writer, deeply sympathetic to her characters' yearnings, a compassionate chronicle of even their craziest schemes and their stillborn ambitions (Mr. Panicker waits in vain for his son to visit him in "Aerogrammes"; Minal Auntie scrubs at her dark face and dreams of a paler alter ego dancing in the glow of a huge trophy in "Light and Luminous"). James lets us laugh at her protagonists' predicaments without ever making them the butt of the joke. Equally at ease in the first and third-person points of view, James creates characters who are wonderfully particular—I especially loved the widower who assuages his grief by burying roadkill, and Minal Auntie, a middle-aged dancing teacher who blames her students for her failure to ascend the Everest of the India Day competition (“Pinky, when you call to Krishna, don't make that sexy face”). But while the characters of Aerogrammes felt wholly original, the collection's themes are universal. These stories explore homesickness in all of its varieties: that of men and women who leave their birth countries, of children who outgrow their parents, of grandparents who outlive their usefulness to their children, of haunted people separated from their loved ones by oceans and decades, shipwrecked in the present to read the tea leaves of letters and photographs, brittle memories (one son, on trying to analyze his father's handwriting: "The rest of the letter is in Malayalam, and thus illegible to me"; a woman who returns to visit her chimpanzee "brother" struggles to recover their wordless language).I was awestruck by Aerogrammes, scenes of which have stayed with me with the vibrancy of my own memories thanks to the potency of James's prose. I would recommend this collection to anyone looking for proof that the short story is joyfully, promiscuously, thrillingly alive.ReviewA San Francisco Chronicle and Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2012“Tania James’ stories are funny, deeply tender, and each-and-every-one memorable. Aerogrammes is a gift of a collection from a talent who only grows.”—Nathan Englander “By turns rib-shakingly funny and poignant, pinwheeling and wise, these stories are always devastatingly candid when it comes to their central preoccupations: exile and identity, the fault lines inside a family, grief and love… Proof that the short story is joyfully, promiscuously, thrillingly alive.”—Karen Russell“These are stories that map out a fresh new world between America and South Asia with a rare blend of humor and sensitivity. Surprising and affecting.”—Romesh Gunesekera“From an Indian wrestler in 1910 England to a marrying ghost who plots a return to flesh, James writes the kind of stories I’ve always loved, by turns absurd and hilarious but also deeply consequential. James has got range and a phenomenal heart. Not to be missed.” —Junot Díaz“At every turn, James’ prose is crisp, observant and carefully controlled…James projects a deep emotional intelligence.” —Kirkus Reviews “Although most of the characters in these nine immaculately crafted short stories share a common native land—Kerala in southern India—their range of emotions is brilliantly diverse…James understands the nuances of emotional displacement.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)“A skilled storyteller…a refreshingly authentic new voice.” —Library Journal “Fleeting ties and temporary alliances underscore James’ zestful exploration of the elusive connections inherent to most relationships…Lushly exploring themes of identity and recognition, singularity and community, James crafts taut, complete worlds populated by complex yet recognizable characters who ultimately achieve catharsis and obtain enlightenment, often through unplanned and unconventional methods.” —Booklist “First-rate…James’ prose is clean, deep, limpid; the stories she builds throw strange, beautiful light on completely unexpected places…real, fresh and worthy.” —San Francisco Chronicle“Agile…authentic and deftly drawn.” —Washington Post“Like all great fiction, James’s stories emerge from a strange and beautiful source of inspiration, then proceed to transcend it…still and elegant.” —Huffington Post“Jam-packed and hectically lovely…flawless.” —DBC Reads Views: 69
For once, Frankie Wright's life is relatively calm. She's settled into her new role, working for the Vampire Council, she's getting used to being single again and she's reaffirmed her friendship with Will Campbell. She should have known that it was too good to last. First Will learns about the existence of vampires, then her parents turn up unannounced, expecting to stay with her. Frankie must juggle her friend and her family, all the while hunting for the psycho who is murdering young women and killing family pets. To top it all off, Dante is kidnapped and Frankie must race to find him before he becomes the next victim... Views: 69
Wolf shifter Alan has a problem—he wants his best friend Katie in the worst sort of way, but Katie's human and for a shifter male to choose a human for a mate is a death sentence—for both of them.Katie is so in love with her best bud, Alan, that she can’t see straight. Problem is, Alan doesn’t seem to see her that way. All she wants is for him to tear her clothes off and have at her but, sweet, reserved Alan would never... or would he? Warning: This novella contains sexy as all can be alpha male shifter that has been head over heels in love with his best friend for years. Oh yeah and some fight scenes and a jerk of a bad guy who might not be quite the jerk we thought. It’s also got some yummy sex described in it. Views: 69
Long Beach homicide detective Danny Beckett returns from a year-long medical leave badly scarred and in constant pain, yet determined to prove he still has what it takes to do the job. He gets his chance when a call comes in that shocks even the toughest guys in the squad room: A California congressman’s daughter-in-law and grandchildren have been brutally murdered in their upscale home. At first glance, it looks like a robbery gone wrong, but Danny’s not so sure. Something doesn’t quite add up. With state and local law enforcement in an uproar and the media circling like vultures, the pressure’s on for Danny and his partner, Jennifer Tanaka, to solve this one. Too much is at stake…and not just politically. Even if they manage to crack the case, there’s no guarantee the stress won’t derail Danny’s recovery. Because while the doctors can treat his physical pain, no one can erase the agony of the past that haunts every step he takes—and threatens to destroy his career once and for all.About the AuthorAs a child, Tyler Dilts dreamed of following in the footsteps of his policeman father. Though his career goals changed over time, he never lost interest in the daily work of homicide detectives. Today he teaches at California State University in Long Beach, and his writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Best American Mystery Stories, and numerous other publications. He is the author of A King of Infinite Space, the first in the Danny Beckett series. Views: 69
