A collection of short stories by the author of Balls and The Trap-Door, most have which have been selected for publication in literary magazines. Quality literature ranging from humour to the unsettling.Detective Sergeant Harriet is working the night shift in a backwater town in Ireland. In the interview room, she is surprised to see a fully blown cowboy, bruised and belligerent.“It was three hours past sundown,” he says. He describes, “some no good wastrel whooping it up with a lady.” Then he clams up like a clenched fist. He will say no more in front of “a lady.” I almost look around for one but he means me. She digs the truth out of him, and in getting him to acknowledge his influences, finds some truths out about her own.Please note: This is a COMPLETE short story, 1,989 words. I think one of the reviewers has the wrong end of the stick. At the end of the short story is the first chapter of my full length novel. You can skip it if you like! Views: 807
Un giorno la piccola Claire, sottraendosi ai genitori litigiosi, si rifugia nella discarica dietro casa, dove trova uno specchietto rotto dal quale si sente stranamente attratta. È un brutto pezzo di vetro tagliente, ma ha il magico potere di trasformare anche la più squallida realtà in un mondo fiabesco: il cielo bigio nel riflesso diventa azzurro paradiso e la casa di Claire, una modesta villetta di periferia, si trasforma in un castello turrito sormontato da fantastiche conchiglie. Intanto il tempo passa e Claire cresce, sempre accompagnata dal suo specchio magico, in cui può vedere il proprio viso senza l’acne dell’adolescenza, e il padre che abbraccia teneramente la madre al pub. Ma nella realtà il padre sta flirtando con la sua nuova fidanzata, per la quale abbandonerà la famiglia, e il ragazzo di cui Claire è innamorata sta con la sua peggiore nemica. Quello specchio crea solo illusioni e Claire, arrabbiata, sta quasi per buttarlo, quando interviene Peter, un ex compagno delle medie. Ma quando lui la invita a uscire una sera e le dà appuntamento alla discarica, Claire rimane sbigottita: anche Peter ha trovato un pezzo di specchio rotto, che in realtà è il tassello di un puzzle più ampio. Views: 807
**Winner of the 2013 *Costa First Novel Award (under the title The Shock of the Fall*)
While on vacation with their parents, Matthew Homes and his older brother snuck out in the middle of the night. Only Matthew came home safely. Ten years later, Matthew tells us, he has found a way to bring his brother back...
What begins as the story of a lost boy turns into a story of a brave man yearning to understand what happened that night, in the years since, and to his very person. Unafraid to look at the shadows of our hearts, Nathan Filer's rare and brilliant debut Where the Moon Isn't shows us the strength that is rooted in resilience and love. Views: 806
Alternate cover for this ISBN can be found here
Discover Haroun and the Sea of Stories, Salman Rushdie’s classic fantasy novel
Set in an exotic Eastern landscape peopled by magicians and fantastic talking animals, Salman Rushdie's classic children's novel Haroun and the Sea of Stories inhabits the same imaginative space as The Lord of the Rings, The Alchemist, and The Wizard of Oz. In this captivating work of fantasy from the author of Midnight’s Children and The Enchantress of Florence, Haroun sets out on an adventure to restore the poisoned source of the sea of stories. On the way, he encounters many foes, all intent on draining the sea of all its storytelling powers. Views: 806
Excerpt from Miss. Marjoribanks, Vol. 2 of 3 While Lucilla made this rapid summary of affairs and took her stand in her own mind, Mr Cavendish had taken a chair and had opened the conversation. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. Views: 806
How do you know he's The One?
Are you getting butterflies just thinking about him?
Have you dreamt of marrying him?
Do you just know?
When Lucy meets Nate in Venice, she knows instantly he's The One. And, caught up in the whirlwind of first love, they kiss under the Bridge of Sighs at sunset. Which - according to legend - will tie them together forever.
But ten years later, they've completely lost contact. That is, until Lucy moves to New York and the legend brings them back together. Again. And again. And again.
But what if Nate isn't The One? How is she going to get rid of him? Because forever could be a very long time...
A funny, magical romantic comedy about how finding The One doesn't always have to mean happily ever after. Views: 805
You can run but the shadow of The Bomb falls wherever you might go. For Jason and his fiancé Thelma, the bomb meant he never had to invade Japan and maybe die or at least be wounded. For Fred, the bomb means guilt and fear, wondering why it had to be dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki as his wife Sally tries to help help him.You can run but the shadow of The Bomb falls wherever you might go. For Jason and his fiancé Thelma, the bomb meant he never had to invade Japan and maybe die or at least be wounded. For Fred, the bomb means guilt and fear, wondering why it had to be dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki as his wife Sally tries to help him. For Soviet and East German scientists, trying to develop a sufficient weapon of mass destruction means involuntary servitude to a nation intent on catching America in an arms race. For a federal employee who worked where the first bomb was developed, life spirals into a search for an escape from nuclear annihilation.When Jason discovers that radioactive fallout from the tests conducted after the war may be responsible for his child's handicaps, he too looks for a safe haven, even if it's only a bomb shelter.Day of the Bomb is Book One of the Victory to Dystopia series. The series covers the 150 years of American history from 1945, when the United States took on the mantle of the number one world superpower, until 2095, when it has descended into a dystopia controlled by soulless private citizen messianic technocrats and governmental bureaucrats and the computers and drones they use to control a no longer free people.Book Two is The Human Factor.Book Three is You Will Be Like God. Views: 805
When you read a novel by Rosamunde Pilcher you enter a special world where emotions sing from the heart. A world that lovingly captures the ties that bind us to one another-the joys and sorrows, heartbreaks and misunderstandings, and glad, perfect moments when we are in true harmony. A world filled with evocative, engrossing, and above all, enjoyable portraits of people's lives and loves, tenderly laid open for us...
Caroline travels to Scotland, hoping to make contact with a brother she hasn't seen for years, and return in time for her wedding to the man her strong-willed stepmother thought so suitable. Then a sudden snow strands her in an isolated house with a young man recovering from tragedy. Both are on the brink of terrible mistakes, but perhaps they can save each other. Views: 805
On the last night of 1937, twenty-five-year-old Katey Kontent is in a second-rate Greenwich Village jazz bar with her boardinghouse roommate stretching three dollars as far as it will go when Tinker Grey, a handsome banker with royal blue eyes and a tempered smile, happens to sit at the neighboring table. This chance encounter and its startling consequences propel Katey on a yearlong journey from a Wall Street secretarial pool toward the upper echelons of New York society and the executive suites of Condé Nast--rarefied environs where she will have little to rely upon other than a bracing wit and her own brand of cool nerve.
Wooed in turn by a shy, principled multi-millionaire and an irrepressible Upper East Side ne'er-do-well, befriended by a single-minded widow who is ahead of her time, and challenged by an imperious mentor, Katey experiences firsthand the poise secured by wealth and station and the failed aspirations that reside just below the surface. Even as she waits for circumstances to bring Tinker back into her life, she begins to realize how our most promising choices inevitably lay the groundwork for our regrets. Views: 805
A frantic midnight phone call sparks one man's quest to find his daughter before SHE does.The ringing of the phone alarmed the sleeping man, and the frantic voice of his daughter sent chills through him as he learned the unthinkable: her mommy was trying to find her and kill her. After racing to his daughter's house, he sets out to carefully explore the vaulted mansion and locate his little girl before her mother, his ex-wife, does. She is mentally ill and a most powerful practitioner of ancient rites, leading to a deadly challenge. The man must trudge through the dark house in an effort to elude the woman and save the girl. Will he be successful and save his beloved Lexi, or will both of them fall under the blade of a mother who has gone crazy... Views: 805
A self-assured warrior stumbles into a game of Go that turns fatal. An ambitious lord leaves his nephew for dead and seizes his lands. A stubborn father forces his son to give up his wife to his older brother. A powerful priest meddles in the succession to the Lotus Throne. A woman of the Old People seeks five fathers for her five children, who will go on to found the Spider Tribe and direct the fate of the country.
As destiny weaves its tapestry in Lian Hearn's Tale of Shikanoko series, an emotionally rich and compelling drama plays out against a background of wild forests, elegant castles, hidden temples, and savage battlefields in Autumn Princess, Dragon Child.
The Tale of Shikanoko, Book One: Emperor of the Eight Islands (April 2016)
The Tale of Shikanoko, Book Two: Autumn Princess, Dragon Child (June 2016)
The Tale of Shikanoko, Book Three: Lord of the Darkwood (August 2016)
The Tale of Shikanoko, Book Four: The Tengu's Game of Go (September 2016) Views: 805
A man named Nicholas Edwards lives in New Orleans renovating houses, doing honest work and making decent money at it. Between his family and his stamp collection, all his spare time is happily accounted for. Sometimes it's hard to remember that he used to kill people for a living. But when the nation's economy tanks, taking the construction business with it, all it takes is one phone call to drag him back into the game. It may say Nicholas Edwards on his driver's license and credit cards, but he's back to being the man he always was: Keller. Keller's work takes him to New York, the former home he hasn't dared revisit, where his target is the abbot of a midtown monastery. Another call puts him on a West Indies cruise, with several interesting fellow passengers-the government witness, the incandescent young woman keeping the witness company, and, sharing Keller's cabin, his wife, Julia. But the high drama comes in Cheyenne, where a recent widow is looking to sell her husband's stamp collection. . . Views: 805
Mia and Andrew's connection allowed them to fight circumstances that should have forever ripped them apart. As the darkest evil threatens to destroy them and all they love, Mia and Andrew fight to uncover what they actually are. Will revelations of their true nature, what they have created, and their connection to heaven and hell save them, separate them, or destroy them and all those they love?Although Mia has returned to the safety of Sanctuary and the loving arms of her family, she struggles to merge the psychiatrist and mother she was with the surgeon and woman who was singularly focused on bringing the only thing that made sense in her existence to life, the children’s wing of the hospital she left behind. With her sudden disappearance, the wing is in jeopardy and Dr. Davis is fighting to ensure that all of her efforts instead go to his plastic surgery facility. To save what she held so dear and what brought her back to Andrew, Mia needs to return to the existence she forged without Andrew and her children to resume her role as Jonathan’s bride. Determined to assist Mia in this endeavor, Andrew assumes Jonathan’s identity and they return to New York with everyone required to play a role and assume an identity which is not their own. To assist Mia in ensuring that the wing goes forward, Jeff returns as a visiting physician while Andrew ensures that the real Jonathan’s wishes are carried forward for the son of his girlfriend. The children enroll along with Jeff’s children in a new school where Grant, Julian and Paul have assumed positions as instructors and soon realize this new school holds secrets and hidden dangers of its own. The children quickly learn that the surreal world extends far beyond that which they have encountered in Sanctuary and with each challenge, their powers, especially Jacob’s explode.Despite the battles fought and lessons learned, Andrew and Mia are about to face their most surprising discovery. As the family struggles in their new roles, Mia quickly learns that certain demons can truly rip the souls from their victims. Unfortunately, in Mia’s case it was not her essence that Marlena seized, it was the soul of Alexander’s developing twin. Together, Alexander and his twin would have had the power to end the condemnation of those who walk this earth for all eternity and revert vampires back to human form. Unfortunately in sending a returning David back to the depths of hell before securing the souls of those he held to channel forth, Reginald sealed the fate of Alexander’s twin and that of the soul of his brother who even now chooses to stay to protect the child from being used to release the most heinous evil.To save them, Mia, Andrew, their family and friends must open the gate to hell on earth and face the truth of who they are and what they are willing to sacrifice to make things right and save those they love. As they face their final encounter, lives are lost, demons are released to heaven’s gates and the final secrets of the ties that bind Mia and Andrew to heaven and hell are revealed. Views: 805
On the morning of July 9th 2012, New York Times investigative reporter Andrew Stilman is jogging along the Hudson River when he feels a sudden, sharp pain in his lower back. He collapses in a pool of blood. When he regains consciousness, it's May 7th 2012—exactly two months earlier. From that moment on, Andrew has sixty days to uncover his murderer. Sixty days to find out who wants him dead and why. From New York City to Buenos Aires, Andrew embarks on a gripping race against time. By turns funny and heartrending, this page-turner builds up to a mind-blowing denouement. Views: 804
Reid Alexander's celebrity life is an open book. Every relationship, every error in judgment is analyzed by strangers. His latest mistake totaled his car, destroyed a house and landed him in the hospital. As his PR team works overtime to salvage his image, one thing is clear—this is one predicament he won’t escape without paying for it. Dori Cantrell is a genuine humanitarian—the outward opposite of everything Reid represents. When his DUI plea bargain lands him under her community service supervision, she proves unimpressed with his status and indifferent to his proximity, and he soon wants nothing more than to knock her off of her pedestal and prove she's human. Counting the days until his month of service ends, Dori struggles to ignore Reid’s wicked pull while challenging him to recognize his own wasted potential. But Dori has secrets of her own, safely locked away until one night turns her entire world upside down. Suddenly their only hope for connection and redemption hinges on one choice: whether or not to have faith in each other. Views: 804
