In White Light, a single mother seeks refuge in a religious cult, a young girl hijacks road machinery while her family dresses for church, another family down on their luck finds a gold ingot and the stability of a marriage is threatened by the arrival of a well-travelled ex-lover. O'Flynn takes us into his local neighbourhood where people, both the ordinary and the bizarre, wrestle with the challenges and puzzles that life throws at them. His characters delight us and his language never ceases to surprise.In this eclectic collection, O'Flynn, an accomplished poet, turns his hand to linked short stories, micro-fictions and monologues. He displays ventriloquist-like skill, conjuring Shakespeare's Iago, an illiterate inmate called Banjo and a famous Australian poet who finds herself trapped in a toilet cubicle. Monopoly and ping-pong become extended metaphors for the games of everyday life. The result is a heady mix of wordplay, philosophical ruminations and astute... Views: 22
Kate Reilly can;t remember a worse time in her life, on-track or off. She wrecks her race car at Road America in Wisconsin, sending a visiting NASCAR star to the hospital, and loses her cool on-camera, only to end the day by discovering her boyfriend with a friend of hers. A dead friend.With little time to grieve, Kate finds herself the pariah of the racing world, the target of vicious e-mail messages, death threats, and a frenzy of blame on racing sites and blogs, including an influential, anonymous blogger who;s trying to get her fired. But nothing is as bad as knowing her friend;s killer is still out there"and aiming at Kate.She;s riding a roller coaster of emotion, juggling an exciting new sponsor, a boyfriend she;s not sure she can trust, and new-found family she doesn;t want to claim. Dodging unfavorable media attention and a pit reporter with a bias against women in racing, Kate redeems herself by delivering stunning performances behind the wheel at the next race: Petit... Views: 22
A dual point-of-view pits hero against heroine in this sizzling, sensual futuristic thriller. In a world where androids and robots flood the job market, it's almost impossible for humans to find work. But stealing comes easy for Epic and his brothers, who rob strip clubs for the electronic currency they need to take care of their family. When the scintillating Phoenix steps into their lives, she snatches away their bounty and fogs up Epic's mind with her seductive scent. Shots blare, a chase ensues, and both sides refuse to yield. The small compromise that comes is brought by chains and a promise for a bigger hit—on a planet far away from Earth. Can Epic and Phoenix work together to rescue themselves from poverty? Or will they find another type of redemption, one lathered in lust and warmth, pleasure, and the type of undemanding love that no human can live without? Views: 22
This riotous collection at last gathers together an expansive selection of Flann O'Brien's shorter fiction in a single volume, as well as O'Brien's last and unfinished novel, Slattery's Sago Saga. Also included are new translations of several stories originally published in Irish, and other rare pieces. With some of these stories appearing here in book form for the very first time, and others previously unavailable for decades, Short Fiction is a welcome gift for every Flann O'Brien fan worldwide. Views: 22
Book 2 of the Extinction Point series! Reporter Emily Baxter survived the alien red rain that blanketed and annihilated the human race. But after the downpour, and the lethal contagion it spread, came an even greater horror: the rampant transformation of the dead into something utterly unearthly. With a terrifying new form of life emerging from the mutated landscape, Emily’s only hope is to flee toward distant Alaska where she can unite with the survivors who have reached out to her from a remote science facility. The journey from New York will be long and painstaking, and Emily has only her faithful dog and whatever she can carry. But, after discovering a small family of refugees along the way, Emily’s determination to escape the unfolding catastrophe and carve out a new future is renewed. Standing in their way are Earth’s new masters, equally determined to survive and thrive, and possessed of monstrous capabilities Emily and her allies can’t begin to imagine… ntil they’re face to face with the hideous reality. In the battle about to begin, there will be no room for mistakes or mercy—only the most ruthless instincts to survive. Views: 22
A vivid and powerful novel set in post-WWII Japan, Fireflies chronicles the lives of four interweaving characters navigating the war-torn streets of Tokyo during the American occupation.August 1945. Japan has been defeated in the Second World War. The country lies in ruins.Satsuko Takara and her teenage brother, Hiroshi, have lost their parents, and each other, during the firestorm that devastated Tokyo five months before. Hal Lynch, a haunted US reconnaissance photographer, has now become a photojournalist in Japan, where he stumbles upon a shocking story, concealed in the aftermath of war, and is determined to bring it to light. And Osamu Maruki, a dissolute writer, and once Satsuko's beloved, has returned from the South Pacific a broken and changed man.As these characters' stories spin out and converge, the war-torn streets of Tokyo come alive in this dazzlingly observed novel. Cinematic, brutal, yet beautiful, Fireflies powerfully portrays the shock... Views: 22
