Containing a handful of short stories and the novelette 'Frost', this holiday anthology brings together stories about the dark side of the season. This blackly humorous and chilling collection explores aspects of the holidays you won't read about in Chicken Soup for the Soul. Get your whiskey; it's going to be a long night.An unedifying episode from the unorthodox life of Captain Hesperus, star trader. Money is tight, the engines are failing, and there's soup on the ceiling ... still, there's nothing that can't be fixed with one sweet deal. A cargo of machinery destined for a low-tech Anarchy system: what could possibly go wrong?A novella set in the universe of the classic computer game "Elite", and its fan-made remake "Oolite". Views: 318
EAST COAST is THE WIRE in a rural setting as RCMP Sgt. Jerry Northup works to keep his narcotics squad motivated in the seemingly unwinnable war on drugs while raising three kids with his wife, Isobel.Her sentence is death.Evil turns the life of Ysane Wulfsingas, a woman of gentleness and peace, into a nightmare that drives her to murder. When a new enemy, the fearsome knight Fallard D'Auvrecher, charges headlong into her life intent on picking up where her former husband left off, her only defense is to guard well her heart.Captain Fallard D'Auvrecher holds the opportunity of a lifetime within his hand. To keep it, he must rescue Ysane Wulfsingas from execution, for the beautiful Rose of Wulfsinraed is the key to all he has fought for in his years as a knight of King William. Fallard must conquer not only the rebel commander who desires Wulfsinraed for himself, but also the demesne's serenely obstinate mistress.Though he has waged countless battles, Fallard soon learns the greatest challenge of all is the fight for the lady's heart. Views: 318
The spectacular new novel by the bestselling and critically acclaimed author of the reader and bookseller favourite, Little Bee.
In the tradition of his beloved previous novel, Little Bee, Chris Cleave again gives us an elegant, funny, passionate story about friendship, marriage, parenthood, tragedy, and redemption. This time, the setting is the upcoming London Olympics. Gold is the story of two women, Zoe and Kate, world-class cyclists who have been friends and rivals since their first day of elite training years ago. They have loved, fought, betrayed, forgiven, lost, consoled, triumphed, and grown up together. Now, on the eve of London 2012, their last Olympics, the two must compete for the one remaining spot on their team. In doing so, the women will be tested to their physical, mental and emotional limits. They will confront each other and their own mortality, and be asked to decide: What will you sacrifice for the people you love? Views: 318
Comprising:
Nanny (1955)
The Turning Wheel (1953)
The Defenders (1953)
Adjustment Team (1954)
Psi-Man (Psi-Man Heal My Child!) (1955)
The Commuter (1953)
A Present for Pat (1954)
Breakfast at Twilight (1954)
Shell Game (1954) Views: 318
Shortlisted for the 2015 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse prize for comic fiction
A rampaging force of nature is wreaking havoc on the streets of Edinburgh, but has top shagger, drug-dealer, gonzo-porn-star and taxi-driver, ‘Juice’ Terry Lawson, finally met his match in Hurricane ‘Bawbag’?
Can Terry discover the fate of the missing beauty, Jinty Magdalen, and keep her idiot-savant lover, the man-child Wee Jonty, out of prison?
Will he find out the real motives of unscrupulous American businessman and reality-TV star, Ronald Checker?
And, crucially, will Terry be able to negotiate life after a terrible event robs him of his sexual virility, and can a new fascination for the game of golf help him to live without… A DECENT RIDE?
A Decent Ride sees Irvine Welsh back on home turf, leaving us in the capable hands of one of his most compelling and popular characters, ‘Juice’ Terry Lawson, and introducing another bound for cult status, Wee Jonty MacKay: a man with the genitals and brain of a donkey.
In his funniest, filthiest book yet, Irvine Welsh celebrates an un-reconstructed misogynist hustler – a central character who is shameless but also, oddly, decent –and finds new ways of making wild comedy out of fantastically dark material, taking on some of the last taboos. So fasten your seatbelts, because this is one ride that could certainly get a little bumpy… Views: 318
Pristina, Kosovo, 1999. Barry Ashton, recently divorced, has been deployed as a civil engineer attached to the Royal Engineers corps in the British Army. In an extraordinary feat of ventriloquism, Adam Mars-Jones constructs a literary story with a thoroughly unliterary narrator, and a narrative that is anything but comic through the medium of a character who, essentially, is. Exploring masculinity, class and identity, Batlava Lake is a brilliant story of men and war by one of Britain's most accomplished writers. Views: 318
**New York Times bestselling author Charles Martin's breathtaking novel of love and redemption.
**Charlie Finn had to grow up fast, living alone by age sixteen. Highly intelligent, he earned a life-changing scholarship to Harvard, where he learned how to survive and thrive on the outskirts of privileged society. That skill served him well in the cutthroat business world, as it does in more lucrative but dangerous ventures he now operates off the coast of Miami. Charlie tries to separate relationships from work. But when his choices produce devastating consequences, he sets out to right wrongs, traveling to Central America where he will meet those who have paid for his actions, including a woman and her young daughter. Will their fated encounter present Charlie with a way to seek the redemption he thought was impossible--and free his heart to love one woman as he never knew he could? Views: 318
A.E.W. Mason was a 20th century British politician, but today he\'s best known for the classic The Four Feathers, a story about the virtues and vices of wartime. Views: 317
A cold—and terrifying—Christmas holiday on the Inishowen PeninsulaDecember on the Inishowen Peninsula in County Donegal—and solicitor Benedicta "Ben" O'Keeffe is working flat out before the Christmas holidays. While on a trip to Dublin to visit her parents, she runs into Luke Kirby—the man who killed her sister—freshly released from jail. On the surface he appears remorseful, conciliatory even, but his comment as she walks away makes her realize he is as evil as ever. Back in Glendara, she finds chaos. The Oak pub has burned down and Carole Kearney, the Oak's barmaid, has gone missing. And then, while walking the dog up Sliabh Sneacht, Ben and her partner, Sergeant Tom Molloy, make a gruesome discovery: a body lying face down in the snow. Another brutal attack in the small town and Ben plunges into full discovery mode. Who could be behind this vicious attack on Glendara and its residents? And why disturb such a charming town at Christmas? As Ben... Views: 317
From the acclaimed and bestselling author comes the fifth adventure of Captain Alatriste, "the brooding, charismatic hero of his wildly successful Spanish swashbuckling novels" (The New York Times).
In the cosmopolitan world of seventeenth-century Madrid, with its posh theaters and gleaming palaces, Captain Alatriste and his protégé, Íñigo, are fish out of water. But the king and court are keeping Alatriste on retainer-he has proved useful in the past. As a veteran with no other source of income, Alatriste chooses to remain, even as his "employment" brings him uncomfortably close to old enemies. Íñigo, now a young man and veteran of the Hundred Years War, chooses to remain with his master and press his ill-fated romance with the beautiful but sinister Angélica de Alquézar. Alatriste, for his part, begins an affair with the famous-and famously beautiful- actress María de Castro, and discovers that the competition for her favors may be much more dangerous than he'd bargained for, especially when Alatriste and Íñigo become unwilling participants in a court conspiracy that could lead them both to the gallows. Views: 317
Passionate and perceptive, the three short novels that make up Balzac's History of the Thirteen are concerned in part with the activities of a rich, powerful, sinister and unscrupulous secret society in nineteenth-century France. While the deeds of 'The Thirteen' remain frequently in the background, however, the individual novels are concerned with exploring various forms of desire. A tragic love story, Ferragus depicts a marriage destroyed by suspicion, revelation and misunderstanding. The Duchess de Langeais explores the anguish that results when a society coquette tries to seduce a heroic ex-soldier, while The Girl with the Golden Eyes offers a frank consideration of desire and sexuality. Together, these works provide a firm and fascinating foundation for Balzac's many later portrayals of Parisian life in his great novel-cycle The Human Comedy. Views: 317
When a seventeen-year-old girl vanishes,
A community is shaken.
Parents turn desperate.
Friends hold vigils.
And the boy who loves her searches.
When a year goes by,
The community is recovering.
Parents feel hopeless.
Friends feel helpless.
And the boy who loves her continues his search.
When ten years go by,
The community has forgotten.
Parents cling to the past.
Friends move toward the future.
And the boy who loves her . . .
Brings her home.
Jade Childs spent ten years in captivity, but now that she’s back, the real battle for survival begins. The media shadows her. Flashbacks haunt her. Her old life evades her. Her so-called new life rejects her. She spent too many years in the dark to recognize the light. She spent too long repressing her feelings to remember how to express them. She spent a decade abandoning hope and cannot dare letting it back into her life. Jade’s not just defined by what happened to her—she’s collared to it.
When the twenty-seven-year-old woman is found,
A community wants to know the story,
Parents want to forget the story,
Friends want to be a part of the story,
And the man who still loves her faces the greatest challenge yet: letting her go. Views: 317
"A fitting tribute to a great philosophical writer who found science fiction the ideal form tor the expression of his ideas." – The Independent Second Variety is the third in a massive five-volume collection of the complete shorter fiction of the 20th Century's greatest SF author – Philip K. Dick. It brings together 27 stories and includes such masterpieces as the title story, with its endless war being fought by ever more cunning and sophisticated robot weapons; "Impostor", in which a man is accused of being an alien spy and finds his whole identity called into question; and "Prominent Author", in which a fracture in space/time enables an ordinary future commuter to achieve unexpected literary fame. Again and again in these stories – written and published while America was in the grip of McCarthyism – Dick speaks up for ordinary people and against militarism, paranoia and xenophobia. But first and foremost these are marvellously varied and entertaining stories from a writer who overflowed with ideas. "One of the most original practitioners writing any kind of fiction." – Sunday Times "An elusive and incomparable artist." – Ursula LeGuin "The most consistantly brilliant SF writer in the world… author of more good short stories than I can count." – John Brunner Views: 317
Hermann Kermit Warm is going to die. The enigmatic and powerful man known only as the Commodore has ordered it, and his henchmen, Eli and Charlie Sisters, will make sure of it. Though Eli doesn't share his brother's appetite for whiskey and killing, he's never known anything else. But their prey isn't an easy mark, and on the road from Oregon City to Warm's gold-mining claim outside Sacramento, Eli begins to question what he does for a living - and whom he does it for.
With The Sisters Brothers, Patrick deWitt pays homage to the classic Western, transforming it into an unforgettable comic tour de force. Filled with a remarkable cast of characters - losers, cheaters, and ne'er-do-wells from all stripes of life - and told by a complex and compelling narrator, it is a violent, lustful odyssey through the underworld of the 1850s frontier that beautifully captures the humor, melancholy, and grit of the Old West and two brothers bound by blood, violence, and love. Views: 317
