The Kingdom of Larantyne has opened its collective arms wide to embrace its new Prince. Why, then, does Kirel feel so ambivalent about his role in life? Prince, Horsemaster, Commander of mounted troops, the new roles he must fill in life demand dramatic change in his thinking. But will Kirel manage to come to terms with his new life before the dangerous Northlands destroy him?Inspired by the legend of the plague doctor who took his own life on the now-haunted Poveglia Island, this companion piece tells the story through a philosophical and metaphysical lens, theorizing what happens to him in the after-life. After 2 years of when it was first released, Miasma is now revamped and the final piece of The Shroud Eater flash fiction, the story that intimately focusing on the nuances of what led to his suicide - both stories are now included in this version. Views: 367
Bryson's having issues living up to his legendary dead father, but promise looms near as he's inducted into the Jestivan—an elite group of ten students that his dad once belonged to. They must set aside their differences, infiltrate foreign realms and track down kings, as a dangerous relic is stolen, an ancient war boils over, and a friend is stolen from their ranks... A magical epic fantasy. Views: 367
One vampire.One witch.A love that should have survived the ages.Avery lived by three simple rules. Never be outside after dusk. Never give up fighting to survive. Never give in to the one man who ruled her heart and shattered everything they shared when he walked away from her.Conner has one mission: to capture the witch who killed his father and make her pay for her crimes. The problem is she's the only woman he's ever loved. The same witch whose innocent kiss made his immortal heart quicken with her freely given love. He walked away to save her life, and in return, she took everything from him. She left his world in ruins, and his heart a shattered mess.Can he ignore the attraction that still burns between them and get justice for those she murdered in cold blood? Or will her past be enough to convince him to forgive her? Views: 367
This companion to His Dark Materials and The Book of Dust offers a tantalizing new glimpse of Lyra and her dæmon, Pantalaimon.The world-changing events of The Amber Spyglass are behind them, and Lyra and Pan find themselves utterly changed as well. In Serpentine, they journey to the far North once more, hoping to ask the Consul of Witches a most urgent question.This brand-new story, a beguiling must-read for Pullman fans old and new, is a perfect companion to His Dark Materials and a fascinating bridge to The Book of Dust. Views: 367
Evelyn E. Smith was a popular American author during the mid-20th century, best known for writing short stories that featured in various sci-fi magazines like Fantastic Universe. Views: 367
In e-book for the first time, Full House brings together the Wild Cards stories that have been previously published on Tor.com, including works from:Daniel AbrahamCherie PriestDavid D. LevineWalter Jon WilliamsPaul CornellCarrie VaughnCaroline SpectorStephen LeighMelinda M. SnodgrassAnd more!At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied. Views: 367
The Exodus Towers features all the high-octane action and richly imagined characters of The Darwin Elevator—but the stakes have never been higher. The sudden appearance of a second space elevator in Brazil only deepens the mystery about the aliens who provided it: the Builders. Scavenger crew captain Skyler Luiken and brilliant scientist Dr. Tania Sharma have formed a colony around the new Elevator’s base, utilizing mobile towers to protect humans from the Builders’ plague. But they are soon under attack from a roving band of plague-immune soldiers. Cut off from the colony, Skyler must wage a one-man war against the new threat as well as murderous subhumans and thugs from Darwin—all while trying to solve the puzzle of the Builders’ master plan . . . before it’s too late for the last vestiges of humanity. Views: 367
British writer Kazuo Ishiguro won the 1989 Booker Prize for The Remains of the Day, which sold over a million copies in English alone and was the basis of a film starring Anthony Hopkins. Now When We Were Orphans, his extraordinary fifth novel, has been called “his fullest achievement yet” (The New York Times Book Review) and placed him again on the Booker shortlist. A complex, intelligent, subtle and restrained psychological novel built along the lines of a detective story, it confirms Ishiguro as one of the most important writers in English today. London’s Sunday Times said: “You seldom read a novel that so convinces you it is extending the possibilities of fiction.”
The novel takes us to Shanghai in the late 1930s, with English detective Christopher Banks bent on solving the mystery that has plagued him all his life: the disappearance of his parents when he was eight. By his own account, he is now a celebrated gentleman sleuth, the toast of London society. But as we learn, he is also a solitary figure, his career built on an obsession. Believing his parents may still be held captive, he longs to put right as an adult what he was powerless to change as a child, when he played at being Sherlock Holmes — before both his parents vanished and he was sent to England to be raised by an aunt.
Banks’ father was involved in the importation of opium, and solving the mystery means finding that his boyhood was not the innocent, enchanted world he has cherished in memory. The Shanghai he revisits is in the throes of the Sino—Japanese war, an apocalyptic nightmare; he sees the horror of the slums surrounding the international community in “a dreamscape worthy of Borges” (The Independent). “We think that if we can only put something right that went a bit awry, then our lives would be healed and the world would be healed,” says Ishiguro of the illusion under which his hero suffers.
It becomes increasingly clear that Banks is not to be trusted as a narrator. The stiff, elegant voice grows more hysterical, his vision more feverish, as he comes closer to the truth. Like Ryder of The Unconsoled, Ishiguro’s previous novel, Banks is trapped in his boyhood fantasy, and he follows his obsession at the cost of personal happiness. Other characters appear as projections of his fears and desires. All Ishiguro’s novels concern themselves with the past, the consequences of denying it and the unreliability of memory.
It is from Ishiguro’s own family history that the novel takes its setting. Though his family is Japanese, Ishiguro’s father was born in Shanghai’s international community in 1920; his grandfather was sent there to set up a Chinese branch of Toyota, then a textile company. “My father has old pictures of the first Mr. Toyota driving his Rolls-Royce down the Bund.” When the Japanese invaded in 1937, the fighting left the international commune a ghetto, and his family moved back to Nagasaki.
When We Were Orphans raises the bar for the literary mystery. Though more complex than much of Ishiguro’s earlier work, which has led to mixed reactions, it was published internationally (his work has been published in 28 languages) and was a New York Times bestseller. Views: 367
On a quest to find the ancient Trident of Poseidon, Deke, a non-magical Spec Ops soldier raised in a family of water elementals, joins forces with a mysterious woman who doesn’t know the nature of her own power. Sparks fly between them as earth and water meet and combine in the most tempestuous way imaginable. Will the human heir to an ancient legacy be the one to finally defeat the leviathan, and will he live to claim his very magical mate? Views: 367
This is an alternate Cover Edition for ASIN: B00OY5NLYO.
NEW YORK TIMES and USA TODAY BESTSELLING AUTHOR, ELLE CASEY, brings readers the Thriller/Romantic Suspense novel ALL THE GLORY: How Jason Bradley Went from Hero to Zero in Ten Seconds Flat.
Jason Bradley has everything going for him. He's Banner High's first-string varsity wide receiver, headed to another State championship, and the college recruiters are already knocking on his door. His girlfriend is every guy's dream, there's a brand new black Camaro with a 6.2L, V-6 engine parked in his garage, and he's on cruise control.
But when the school's beloved football coach turns up dead and Jason's found standing over the body, his cruise control cuts off bringing his charmed life to a screeching halt, and the reality of being an accused murderer of the first degree takes over.
When everyone else walks away and leaves him to hang, one girl can't. But it's going to take more than guessing and wishing to get through to him and the truth of what happened, since he seems bound and determined to accept his fate as a criminal, tried as an adult and eligible for lethal injection.
Can one really determined girl get to the bottom of the mystery when no one else seems to care? It would be so much easier to watch him go down, and for many, maybe just a little bit too satisfying. After all, who isn't guilty of finding pleasure in seeing that perfect someone suddenly exposed for the self-centered prick that he really is?
Content warning: For teens and adults. Some foul language, violence is mild in description but serious in effect.
A message from Elle about this book: I was lying in bed one night, almost totally asleep, and this story just popped into my head. It was so gripping, I forced myself to wake up so I wouldn’t lose the idea. I sat up in bed with my laptop computer that’s never far from my side and wrote out the first 10,000 words along with a plot outline. I’m a big fan of stories where people’s lives are completely turned upside down, so this was a real pleasure to dig into. For me, it was one of those books that practically wrote itself. Views: 367
Contents are: "Sail 25," "Ullward's Retreat," "The Last Castle," "Abercrombie Station," "The Moon Moth," and "Rumfuddle." "The Last Castle": The Mek was a manlike creature, native to a planet of Etamin. His tough rusty-bronze hide glistened metallically, the spines thrusting back from scalp and neck shone like gold. His sense organs were gathered in clusters at the site of a man's ears, his visage was corrugated muscle, not dissimilar to the look of an uncovered human brain. This was the Mek solitary, a creature intrisically as effective as man, but, working in the mass, by the teeming thousands, he seemed less admirable, less competent: a hybrid of subman and cockroach.. "The Moon Moth": The household had been built to the most exacting standards of Sirenese craftsmanship. The bow bulged like a swan's breast, the stem rising high, then crooking forward to support an iron lantern. The doors were carved from slabs of a mottled black-green wood; the windows were many-sectioned, paned with squares of mica stained rose, blue, pale green and violet. The bow was given to service facilities and quarters for the slaves; amidships were a pair of sleeping cabins, a dining saloon and a parlor saloon, opening upon an observation deck at the stern. Views: 367
Would you kill an innocent person if it meant saving your life? Find out what Jackson does in this short story inspired by actual events.Jackson has made a series of wrong choices throughout his life, leading him to a back alley in a Boston neighborhood where nobody cares if a kid is murdered. Now, with no one to turn to for help and the life of a stranger in his hands, he must make one more choice. Will Jackson do the right thing for once?A short story inspired by actual events. Views: 367
This collection of literature attempts to compile many of the classic, timeless works that have stood the test of time and offer them at a reduced, affordable price, in an attractive volume so that everyone can enjoy them.This collection of literature attempts to compile many of the classic, timeless works that have stood the test of time and offer them at a reduced, affordable price, in an attractive volume so that everyone can enjoy them. Views: 367
