As a youth, Qasim leaves his tribal village in the remote Himalayas for the plains. Caught up in the strife surrounding the creation of Pakistan, he takes an orphaned girl for his daughter and brings her to the bustling, decadent city of Lahore. Amid the pungent bazaars and crowded streets, Qasim makes his fortune and a home for the two of them. As the years pass, Qasim grows nostalgic about his life in the mountains while his hopelessly romantic teenage daughter, Zaitoon, imagines Qasim's homeland as a region of tall, kindly men who roam the Himalayas like gods. Impulsively, Qasim promises his daughter in marriage to a tribesman, but Zaitoon's fantasy soon becomes a grim reality of unquestioning obedience and unending labor. Bapsi Sidhwa’s acclaimed first novel is a robust, richly plotted story of colliding worlds straddled by a spirited girl for whom escape may not be an option. Views: 17
"While certain cities in past Akashic volumes might appear to lack an obvious noir element, Manila (like Mexico City, which shares many of the same problems) practically defines it, as shown by the 14 selections in this excellent anthology. As Hagedorn points out in her insightful introduction, Manila is a city burdened with a violent and painful past, with a long heritage of foreign occupation. The specters of WWII (during which the city suffered from U.S. saturation bombing), and the oppressive 20-year reign of dictator Ferdinand Marcos live on in recent memory. The Filipino take on noir includes a liberal dose of the gothic and supernatural, with disappearance and loss being constants."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)"This Southeast sampler is unique, possessing an overall gritty tone. Each slice of supernatural splendor pulls the reader in with their nontraditional heroes…Ultimately, readers get a strong taste of the real Manila and all her dark secrets, wanting more of while being slightly afraid of what she might do next. Manila is the perfect place for noir scenes to occur, and it is easy to get sucked into its deadly nightshade of doom."--Criminal Class PressBrand-new stories by: Lourd De Veyra, Gina Apostol, Budjette Tan and Kajo Baldisimo, F.H. Batacan, Jose Dalisay Jr., Eric Gamalinda, Jessica Hagedorn, Angelo Lacuesta, R. Zamora Linmark, Rosario Cruz-Lucero, Sabina Murray, Jonas Vitman, Marianne Villanueva, and Lysley Tenorio.Manila provides the ideal, torrid setting for an Akashic Noir series volume. It's where the rich rub shoulders with the poor, where five-star hotels coexist with informal settlements, where religious zeal coexists with superstition, and where politics is often synonymous with celebrity and corruption.From the Introduction by Jessica Hagedorn:Manila is not for the faint of heart. Built on water and reclaimed land, it’s an intense, congested, teeming megalopolis, the vital core of an urban network of sixteen cities and one municipality collectively known as Metro Manila. Population: over ten million and growing by the minute. Climate: tropical. Which means hot, humid, prone to torrential monsoon rains of biblical proportions.I think of Manila as the ultimate femme fatale. Complicated and mysterious, with a tainted, painful past. She’s been invaded, plundered, raped, and pillaged, colonized for four hundred years by Spain and fifty years by the US, bombed and pretty much decimated by Japanese and American forces during an epic, month-long battle in 1945.Yet somehow, and with no thanks to the corrupt politicians, the crime syndicates, and the indifferent rich who rule the roost, Manila bounces back. The people’s ability to endure, adapt, and forgive never ceases to amaze, whether it’s about rebuilding from the latest round of catastrophic flooding, or rebuilding from the ashes of a horrific world war, or the ashes of the brutal, twenty-year dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos . . .Many years have passed since the end of the Marcos dictatorship. People are free to write and say what they want, yet nothing is different. The poor are still poor, the rich are still rich, and overseas workers toil in faraway places like Saudi Arabia, Israel, Germany, and Finland. Glaring inequities are a source of dark humor to many Filipinos, but really—just another day in the life . . .Writers from the Americas and Europe are known for a certain style of noir fiction, but the rest of the world approaches the crime story from a culturally unique perspective. In Manila Noir we find that the genre is flexible enough to incorporate flamboyant emotion and the supernatural, along with the usual elements noir fans have come to expect: moody atmospherics, terse dialogue, sudden violence, mordant humor, a fatalist vision.Review"For those who love travel, history, and a little bit of lore, this anthology transports you to the Philippines and is filled with riveting and sometimes dark stories of the capital city."--Glamour (summer reading pick)"[Manila Noir] is among the most moving, effective and altogether noir entry in the entire series."--Bookgasm"Suffice it to say that what the Noir series in general, and Manila Noir in particular, does so well is to create a 360-degree mosaic of a place…By including so many perspectives, from so many walks of life, Manila Noir makes Manila seem as vibrant, and dangerous, and exciting, and confounding as it really felt to live there."--Lit Wrap"A collection of stories like Akashic’s forthcoming Manila Noir is enough to set a crime-fiction addict’s mouth watering."--New York Observer"In…Manila Noir, the latest addition to Akashic Book’s series of original noir anthologies, poet, novelist, and artist Jessica Hagedorn writes of how ghosts of past occupations, buried secrets, corrupt political dealings, crime, and inequality have shaped the fabric of the Philippine capital city."--The Margins"Held closely to their breasts by the stories are messy, edged lives flaring out in seemingly random directions. But the 14 stories themselves are all elegant and smooth, like a bladed weapon concealed in a jacket. They strike suddenly but thoroughly, leaving you wounded. Embedded in each story is a deep acceptance of the fantastically flawed life in the big city and a step out of the ordinary…Manila Noir is a masterfully crafted anthology that reminds us that, if you truly love your city, you embrace its darkness as much as—if not more than—its brightness."--Inquirer (Philippines)"Excellently crafted and woven together, Jessica has compiled a series of short stories that exhibit the perfect setting and story for noir. Wonderful!"--FMAM MagazineAbout the AuthorJessica Hagedorn was born in Manila and now lives in New York. A novelist, poet, and playwright, her published works include Toxicology, The Gangster of Love, and Dogeaters, which was a finalist for the National Book Award. She also edited both volumes of the groundbreaking anthology Charlie Chan Is Dead: An Anthology of Contemporary Asian American Fiction. Views: 17
Widower Marie Koeppler and her grown daughter Beth reluctantly return to the Mennonite community Marie abandoned twenty-three years ago. Soon after their arrival in Sommerfeld, a series of mysterious thefts raises the community's suspicions against the "outsiders." Can Marie prove their innocence, or will she be forced to flee once more? Henry Braun thought he'd gotten his love for Marie out of his system, but soon begins to wonder if she's stolen more than his heart. When it's all said and done, can Henry and Marie let bygones be bygones, or has their love been doomed from the start? Bygones is book 1 in the Sommerfeld Trilogy. Other books in the trilogy include Beginnings: Book 2 and Blessings: Book 3. Views: 17
War rages, but the women and children of Liverpool's Dr Barnado's Home cannot give up hope. An Orphan in the Snow is the perfect heartwarming saga for Christmas. Views: 17
The FIFTH book in The 2nd Chance Diner Mysteries!
Rosemary Baldwin is happier than she's ever been. She never expected to find love and such good friends when she decided to pursue her dream of owning a diner. But she's got both. Her romance is flourishing. Her friends are great. Her diner is all that she wants it to be.
She doesn't even blink when a new diner opens and every review seems to compare The 2nd Chance Diner to Spencer's. She slaps a smile on her face and affirms that there's room enough for two places that sell pancakes and meatloaf. But then her rival is found dead and her recipe for cinnamon rolls is laying on his chest. Will they be able to find the real killer before The 2nd Chance Diner and her dream life is ruined? Views: 17
Shalia is a proud daughter of the desert, but after years of devastating war with the adjoining kingdom, her people are desperate for an end to the violence that has claimed so many of their loved ones. Willing to trade her freedom to ensure the safety of her family, Shalia becomes Queen of the Bone Lands, a country where magic is outlawed and the Elementae—those that can control earth, air, fire and water—are traitors, subject to torture . . . or worse. Before she is even crowned, Shalia discovers that she can bend the earth to her will. Trapped between her husband's irrational hatred of the Elementae and a dangerous rebellion led by her own brother, Shalia must harness her power and make an impossible choice: save her family, save the Elementae, or save herself. Views: 17
One decision can change the course of history, but would the results be so dramatically different if, simply, Kaiser Wilhelm II had persisted against the advice of his military commanders and ordered his troops already massed at the Belgian border in 1914 to re-deploy to the east against Russia instead?It nearly happened. Really. The Kaiser did order the invasion of Belgium halted, and yet it went ahead, bringing Great Britain and the rest of the British Empire into the war.This book explores what would have happened if the Kaiser’s decision had not been reversed and his troops had not crossed the Belgian border. It is fiction, of course, but the characters are real and, most of them, precisely where they were and where they would have been fulfilling their historical roles at that time.The story is vivid, realistic and exciting, following the action, the intrigue, the political upheavals as well as political apathy and inertia, meticulously researched and accurate in military and historical detail. Views: 17
