A captivating love story about community and second chances.Country-girl Cressida Knight fills her days with her farm, a mischievous pet bull called Reggie and her volunteer emergency services work. The busier she keeps, the less she thinks about the cowboy who left her behind. She's convinced the small-town Woodlea grapevine that she's moved on, but now it's time to move on for real. Champion bull rider Denham Rigby shares Cressy's deep love for the land and all he's ever wanted was to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Cressy through life. But three years ago a dark family secret left him no choice but to run. Now family duty gives him no choice but to return to the bush. What Denham hasn't come home to do is to hurt Cressy by rekindling their relationship. He's nothing but a liability and the beautiful, self-reliant cowgirl has to stay off limits. But when faced with Cressy's desperation to save her drought-stricken farm, he... Views: 39
A darkly comic debut novel about advertising, truth, single malt, Scottish hospitality--or lack thereof--and George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. Ray Welter, who was until recently a high-flying advertising executive in Chicago, has left the world of newspeak behind. He decamps to the isolated Scottish Isle of Jura in order to spend a few months in the cottage where George Orwell wrote most of his seminal novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four. Ray is miserable, and quite prepared to make his troubles go away with the help of copious quantities of excellent scotch. But a few of the local islanders take a decidedly shallow view of a foreigner coming to visit in order to sort himself out, and Ray quickly finds himself having to deal with not only his own issues but also a community whose eccentricities are at times amusing and at others downright dangerous. Also, the locals believe--or claim to believe--that there's a werewolf about, and against his... Views: 39
Science Fiction. 76372 words long. Views: 39
"Tyrewala’s insightful introduction greatly enhances the reading experience, and the glossary helps, too . . . The collection is astonishingly diverse . . . Tyrewala’s anthology [offers] a sampling of brand-new authors and [a] superb introduction. It might provide a fictional contrast to Katherine Boo’s Behind the Beautiful Forevers."--Library Journal (Starred review)"Most of the 14 short stories in Akashic’s workmanlike Mumbai volume draw inspiration from the criminal networks and the sordid underbelly the city is infamous for . . . Armchair travelers will find plenty of amusement in touring the seedier parts of this island city in perfect safety."--Publishers WeeklyFeaturing brand-new stories by: Annie Zaidi, R. Raj Rao, Abbas Tyrewala, Avtar Singh, Ahmed Bunglowala, Smita Harish Jain, Sonia Faleiro, Altaf Tyrewala, Namita Devidayal, Jerry Pinto, Kalpish Ratna, Riaz Mulla, Paromita Vohra, and Devashish Makhija.Bombay’s communal riots of 1992--in which Hindus were alleged to be the primary perpetrators—were followed by retaliatory bomb blasts in 1993, masterminded by the Muslim-dominated underworld. Over a thousand citizens lost their lives in these internecine bouts of violence and thousands more became refugees in their own city. In a matter of months, Bombay ceased to be the cosmopolitan, wholesome, and middle-class bastion it had been for decades. When the city was renamed Mumbai in 1995, it merely formalized the widespread perception that the Bombay everyone knew and remembered had been lost forever.Today Mumbai is like any other Asian city on the rise, with gigantic construction cranes winding atop upcoming skyscrapers and malls . . . Right-wing violence, failing electricity and water supplies, overcrowding, and the ever-looming threat of terrorist attacks—these are some of the gruesome ground realities that Mumbai’s middle and working classes must deal with every day, while the city’s super-rich . . . zip from roof to roof in their private choppers. Abandoned by its wealthy, mistreated by its politicians and administrators, Mumbai continues to thrive primarily because of the helpless resilience of its hardworking, upright citizens.The stories in Mumbai Noir depict the many ways in which the city’s ever-present shadowy aspects often force themselves onto the lives of ordinary people. . . . What emerges is the sense of a city that, despite its new name and triumphant tryst with capitalism, is yet to heal from the wounds of the early '90s, and from all the subsequent acts of havoc wreaked within its precincts by both local and outside forces. Views: 39
Susan Callisto is pushing thirty and taking stock. The man in her life, Massachusetts police lieutenant Michael Benedict, has unaccountably left her without a word of goodbye. Her consulting firm caters to entry level candidates, and while business is good, money is short. Late in the season, political novice Charles Renfrow begs Susan to help him run for mayor of Telford. But Renfrow is a scientist not a politician, and his pockets are far too deep. Susan is tempted—Renfrow knows how to seduce—but her suspicions, if not her libido, are aroused.When a friend insists Renfrow's biotech company is dumping deadly toxic waste, Susan decides to find out the truth before committing herself. Instead of truth, she finds a corpse, Renfrow's gorgeous assistant Torie Moran. The murder weapon is a microtome blade, razor sharp and accessible to anyone at Renfrow's lab. After Torie's murder, violence shadows Susan and people close to her. She is attacked in her driveway. An... Views: 39
Battle Beyond Earth: Resurrection. The first instalment in an epic new series that tells of humanity's desperate struggle to survive in an uncertain and war-torn future. Four centuries have passed since the end of the alien invasion that almost destroyed humanity. The surviving races, human and alien, now live in peace as allies. But when a terrifying new enemy cuts a path of destruction through the Alliance, there seems little hope of resistance. The situation is desperate, and desperate measures are required. With reluctance, they agree to resurrect a hero from the past, Colonel Mitch Taylor. A mortally wounded man held in suspended animation since the end of the last war. A man who may hold the only key to their survival. Taylor emerges into a world he no longer recognises. A new alien race lives among them, a race he does not trust. Society, the Marine Corps, even the way he speaks, nothing fits this new life. Many in the Alliance refuse to accept him, for Taylor is an icon of a bygone era. Respected by some, hated by many. Isolated, alone, regarded as little more than a relic of a past era, he must accept the horror of knowing his old life is gone. He must also overcome the new enemy that stands before him, an enemy that wants nothing more than to destroy all known life in the universe. Battle Beyond Earth is a futuristic sci-fi action adventure, a standalone story in its own right. Yet it will also give a new perspective and a new storyline to the readers who followed Mitch Taylor's exploits in the epic series 'Battle Earth'. Views: 39
