Welcome to Camp Pikachu, where kids can act out adventures from their favorite Pokémon games and cartoons, battling other teams to earn points ans badges and, if they're lucky, make it into the Summer Camp Hall of Fame!During their first week at Camp Pikachu, Marco and his friends on Team Treecko find the perfect secret base: a tree house straight out of Fortree City. They proudly post their team flag out front. But during a game of capture the flag, someone vandalizes their base. Who did it?Marco thinks he knows: Team Fennekin, led by Stella and her brother, Sam. Sam is always up to no good. And his big sister is as mean as Meowth, the cat that prowls the camp.During the next round of capture the flag, Team Treecko bands together and tries every Pokémon trick they know. Logan makes mud balls and Pitfall Mats. Nisha creates a catapult inspired by Clemont. And Maddy? Well, she'd help, too, if she weren't so busy making Poké Puffs.But when Sam gets... Views: 33
'I caught my breath, even from across the room. All I wanted to do was look into her eyes. It was as if she knew the reason I was there and that I was looking for her.'
The body of a young woman found in an Arizona border town walks out of the morgue. To the CDC investigator called in to consult the local police, it's a bizarre medical mystery.
More bodies, dead of a mysterious disease that solidifies their blood, begin disappearing from morgues nearby. In a futile game of catch-up, the CDC, the FBI and the US government realise that it's already too late to stop it: the vampire epidemic will sweep first the United States, and then the world.
Impossibly strong, smart, beautiful, and commanding, these creatures refuse to be called 'vampires', they prefer 'gloamings'. They quickly rise to prominence in all aspects of modern society: physically graceful at sports, endlessly enthralling on TV and incredibly intelligent at business - soon people are begging to be 're-created', willing to risk death if their bodies can't handle the transformation.
But just as the world begins to adjust, the stakes change yet again when a charismatic and wealthy businessman, recently turned, decides to do what none of his kind has done before: run for political office.
This sweeping yet deeply intimate fictional oral history - told from the perspective of several players on all sides of the vampire uprising - is a genre-bending, shocking, immersive and subversive debut that is as addictive as the power it describes.
**Review
Praise for *A People's History of the Vampire Uprising*
''A wide-angle, wild and weird exploration of politics, pop culture, and a diseased America. This tale of misguided hero worship and encroaching terror may be the perfect analogy for our own strange times.'' --Thomas Mullen, author of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist *Darktown*
''A People's History of the Vampire Uprising is that rarest of rare creatures, an absolutely unique work of the writer's art that, while drawing on several distinct streams of narrative style, emerges from all of those rivers without any parallels... Villareal starts this brilliant sideways take on the vampire genre by setting up 'The Gloamings'--his sardonic name for the vampire changelings that are the book's driving force--as a problem for, get this, the Center for Disease Control, a witty--and risky--take that, in less skilled hands, could have forced the book into a narrative box car on a one-way track to Been There Ville. Because Villareal has the skills to hold several competing plot-lines and a cast of intriguing characters in his head and the talent to deal them out with economy, style, and a sardonic wit, the book becomes, among other gonzo things, a political parable for these lunatic times, a horror story, a trip down some of the darkest corridors of The Ancient World, and finally, an oddly epiphanic take on what it means, exactly, to be human. It cries out to be made into--not a movie--it's too good for that -- but into a television series, and when this happens, and it will, I'll be binge-watching it. Well done, Raymond Villareal. Welcome to the world of writers, and may God save your immortal soul.'' --Carsten Stroud, author of *Niceville*
''Told in the jumbled, frenetic urgency of a discarded case file, this is the history of both a social movement and a vector for disease. Mr. Villareal's vampires are not the ones we find most comforting. They are not seductive or beautiful or tormented anti-heroes. No, they are more terrifying than anything like that, an infection that will spread throughout our body politic, our institutions, our history, and ourselves.'' --Paul Park, author of The White Tyger and *All Those Vanished Engines*
''A major document dump--and that's a good thing! We have it all here: a complete oral history of how our world--our species changed forever. Raymond Villareal's sense of fun is palpable as he plays with legal thrillers; good, old, dogged police work; international intrigue; hard science; dirty politics; and, yes, classic, heart-stopping horror. Somewhere, Dracula himself is sitting up late into the day enjoying the hell out of this.'' --John Griesemer, author of Signal & Noise and filmmaker of the web series *Parmalee*
About the Author
Raymond Villareal is a graduate of the University of Texas School of Law, and is currently a practicing attorney. This is his first novel. Views: 33
Killers in Cold Blood looks inside the dark side of the criminal mind. Taking a glimpse at the men and women who commit heinous acts with a gruesome disregard for human life. They do not conform to what society considers to be 'normal' standards, seemingly to act purely for self-gratification in their own little world of perversion. These are the people who inspire horror movies – shocking the world by murdering for profit, due to rage or for the sheer thrill of it – and the majority of the time making their victims suffer for as long as possible. The difficulty in bringing these monsters to justice is proving whether they are fully aware of what they have done or suffering for some mental illness. Adolf Hitler, Charles Manson and Jeffrey Dahmer are fine examples of men who killed in cold blood, they knew exactly what they were doing, they knew right from wrong, and yet they still committed their crimes. Views: 33
When a senator is disgraced by scandal, his hotshot attorney son, Dylan, rushes to pick up the pieces for the sake of the splintering Kelley family. Dylan's only ally is the feisty Cindy Jensen, whose loyalty to her boss is as compelling as her drop-dead-gorgeous looks.The senator's not the only one whose world is in disarray: Cindy's grappling with an unexpected pregnancy and bears scars from the past. The last thing she's looking for is romance, even with a man who's as sweet as he is steely. But little do she and Dylan know, Senator Kelley has even more secrets...secrets that might cost the newfound lovers their lives. Views: 33
Young doctor Mark Hinton is on the brink of a new beginning in his life, yet he’s still haunted by the past. Thanks to a caring older sister, a canny librarian, a cantankerous patient and Jane Austen, he finds the strength to search his own heart and discover the truth of a love that has never died. Influenced by Jane Austen’s PERSUASION, this short story is about finding love again after heartbreak.This story was the Grand Prize Winner of the Jane Austen Made Me Do It Short Story Contest and was included in the critically-acclaimed anthology of the same name. Views: 33
Wedding baker Laurel McBane is surrounded by romance working at Vows wedding planning company with her best friends Parker, Emma, and Mac. But she's too low-key to appreciate all the luxuries that their clients seem to long for. What she does appreciate is a strong, intelligent man, a man just like Parker's older brother Delaney, on whom she's had a mega-crush since childhood. But some infatuations last longer than others, and Laurel is convinced that the Ivy League lawyer is still out of her reach. Plus, Del is too protective of Laurel to ever cross the line with her-or so she thinks. When Laurel's quicksilver moods get the better of her-leading to an angry, hot, all-together mind-blowing kiss with Del-she'll have to quiet the doubts in her mind to turn a moment of passion into forever... Views: 33
"It has art, scandal, and hot French men set against a destination backdrop. Yes, please." (Redbook) A smart, obsessive debut novel about a young woman studying abroad who becomes caught up in a seductive French world—and a complex web of love and lust.When thirty-year-old Brooke Thompson unexpectedly runs into a man from her past, she's plunged headlong into memories she's long tried to forget about the year she spent in France following a disastrous affair with a professor. As a newly arrived exchange student in the picturesque city of Nantes, young Brooke develops a deep and complicated friendship with Sophie, a fellow American and stunning blonde, whose golden girl façade hides a precarious emotional fragility. Sophie and Brooke soon become inseparable and find themselves intoxicated by their new surroundings—and each other. But their lives are forever changed when they meet a sly, stylish French student, Veronique,... Views: 33
A promising attorney and political candidate, Raymond White was on the fast track when his life was suddenly derailed. Unexpectedly framed and convicted of murder, he is sentenced to solitary confinement in a maximum-security prison. Alone with his inner rage, Raymond methodically plots his revenge against those who schemed to ruin his career and take away his life. Now, after spending 18 years behind bars, Raymond makes his escape – and is ready to finally put his plan into action. Views: 33
Darkly funny, searingly honest short stories from Hans Fallada, author of bestselling Alone in Berlin In these stories, criminals lament how hard it is to scrape a living by breaking and entering; families measure their daily struggles in marks and pfennigs; a convict makes a desperate leap from a moving train; a ring - and with it a marriage - is lost in a basket of potatoes.Here, as in his novels, Fallada is by turns tough, darkly funny, streetwise and effortlessly engaging, writing with acute feeling about ordinary lives shaped by forces larger than themselves: addiction, love, money. Views: 33
