Shrimply irresistible... Lola Quigley can't believe her good luck when she wins a spot on the Food Channel's popular Shop till you Drop. The show features amateur foodies competing to produce a prize-winning meal from staples commonly found in food banks, where people often unload their most unwanted pantry items. Having lived on a near poverty-level budget for a few dark years when her life imploded unexpectedly, Lola had grown to love the challenge of creating delicious meals with the cheapest ingredients she could find on the sale shelf of the grocery store, or—in a twist of irony—donated from her local food bank. She just has to win this: the prize money would help her launch the soup kitchen food truck she's dreamed of starting. It'll be her way of paying it forward after she managed to dig out of a financial hole she'd doubted she ever could escape.Levi Patton is pissed. He's stuck doing penance as a guest chef on an annoying cable reality... Views: 593
Longtime grifters Rachel and Sam are at it again, this time targeting Mack Foley, the owner of a chain of Sacramento area gyms. Posing as a CEO on tour to promote her company's ICO, Rachel approaches him at an upscale South Lake Tahoe ski resort, hoping the financial fall out from his recent divorce will prompt him to invest in their fake cryptocurrency. Staging the con has left Sam and Rachel strapped for cash, so when the mark is reluctant to bite, they get nervous. But Foley is a gambler and it's only a matter time before their hard work pays off—a little too well. They've hardly popped the cork on the celebratory Champagne bottle before they get some surprise investors and Rachel gets a surprise of her own. When Foley realizes he's been played and hires a fixer to exact his revenge, Rachel and Sam find themselves on the run again. With everything they care about on the line, they're in the race of their lives and this time, they might not win. Views: 593
In the early 21st century, the ghost of Sherlock Holmes turns up in the San Francisco flat of a young wanna-be detective, Sherry Holmes. His sudden appearance in the old Victorian building doesn’t shock her, since Sherry’s adoptive mother, a B-class Hollywood actress, told her she was a descendant of the fictional detective. But can she solve crimes as he did in the 19th century without his help? Views: 593
The dashing Duke of Selchester is on his way to visit Lord Upminster at Copple Hall when he is halted by a collision in the road ahead to find that a stagecoach has crashed into his own travelling carriage, the wheel of which is badly buckled.Worse still, his beloved pedigree stallion, Salamanca, needs re-shoeing.Arriving on foot at the nearest village, he finds a strikingly attractive young girl called Verena Winchcombe, who agrees to take him to the local blacksmith.It transpires that she has been awaiting the arrival of someone she calls 'the Odious Duke', who is due at Copple Hall, but who has so far failed to arrive. With horror the Duke realises that she is talking of none other than himself. So he introduces himself by his rank as 'Major Theron Royd'.When Verena confides in him about strange goings on at an old, perhaps haunted, Priory where he agrees to go along with her to investigate.And there he is bludgeoned unconscious by a... Views: 593
A Most-Anticipated Book of 2020 from The Millions * Bustle * BuzzFeed * Electric Literature “Swamy’s A House Is a Body will not simply be talked about as one of the greatest short story collections of the 2020s; it will change the way all stories—short and long—are told, written, and consumed. There is nothing, no emotion, no tiny morsel of memory, no touch, that this book does not take seriously. Yet, A House Is a Body might be the most fun I’ve ever had in a short story collection.” —Kiese Laymon, author of Heavy Dreams collide with reality, modernity with antiquity, and myth with identity in the twelve arresting stories of A House Is a Body. In “Earthly Pleasures,” a young painter living alone in San Francisco begins a secret romance with one of India’s biggest celebrities, and desire and ego are laid bare.... Views: 593
"The right story, at the right time, if you happen to be open to it ... can perhaps move you so far outside of yourself that you will not consider going back." "Like meeting a stranger, much of the pleasure of a story is its unknown power," writes Best Canadian Stories 2020 guest editor Paige Cooper. "The right story, at the right time, if you happen to be open to it ... can perhaps move you so far outside of yourself that you will not consider going back." From Festival du Voyageur to the shores of Lake Erie, Tbilisi to Toronto, the Amisk River to a hotel-turned-hospital in the midst of a mysterious pandemic, this wide-ranging anthology brings together the real and the speculative, small towns and big cities, grief and humour, introducing readers to stories that startle us into new understanding—of ourselves and each other, the worlds we inhabit and the ones they help us to imagine. Featuring work by: Maxime Raymond... Views: 593
Although Scottish born and bred, beautiful young Vara McDorn speaks with a refined English accent thanks to her education in the South, which is why she is called upon to become Reader to the new Chieftain of the McDorn Clan, who has been blinded by an Indian Fakir's curse while protecting the Viceroy at a Fort on the North-West Frontier of India.Troubled by his affliction and frustrated by his inability to understand the local Scots' brogue, the Chieftain, the Earl of Dornoch, soon comes to rely on Vara as his tutor in the customs and attitudes of his people as well as being his eyes on the estate.And, although he is terse and resentful at first, Vara finds herself warming to this haughtily handsome Nobleman.After taking him on an adventure that she hopes will restore his sight, Vara catches Hamish, the Earl's murderous relative, a rival for the title of Chieftain, attempting to stifle him with a pillow over his face and shoots him with her revolver,... Views: 593
