“My father’s wife died. My mother said we should drive down to his place and see what might be in it for us.” So begins this remarkable novel by Amy Bloom, whose critically acclaimed Away was called “a literary triumph” (The New York Times). Lucky Us is a brilliantly written, deeply moving, fantastically funny novel of love, heartbreak, and luck.Disappointed by their families, Iris, the hopeful star and Eva the sidekick, journey through 1940s America in search of fame and fortune. Iris’s ambitions take the pair across the America of Reinvention in a stolen station wagon, from small-town Ohio to an unexpected and sensuous Hollywood, and to the jazz clubs and golden mansions of Long Island.With their friends in high and low places, Iris and Eva stumble and shine though a landscape of big dreams, scandals, betrayals, and war. Filled with gorgeous writing, memorable characters, and surprising events, Lucky Us is a thrilling and resonant novel about success and failure, good luck and bad, the creation of a family, and the pleasures and inevitable perils of family life, conventional and otherwise. From Brooklyn’s beauty parlors to London’s West End, a group of unforgettable people love, lie, cheat and survive in this story of our fragile, absurd, heroic species. Views: 18
This is a collection of all four, complete episodes (previously published separately): Episode 1--Seduced by the AngelClaire Sawyer's life is about to change in a way that she never could have imagined. Blind since a terrible childhood accident, she dies for the second time in her relatively short life only to find herself in the arms of an angelic being. Is he her guardian angel, or the monster responsible for the deaths of her parents so many years ago? Claire will search for her answers as she is swept up into events involving the divine and their relation to the vampires and werewolves that she encounters in her incredible journey to discover the truth.Episode 2--Taken by the VampireClaire awakens in a hospital room to find a man sitting quietly, waiting for her. Except that he is no ordinary man, adorned as he is with dark wings and burning in black flames. Is it the angel of death, come to take her away at last? Or is he the lord of all vampires, come to steal the prize from his adversary, the Messenger, the being who has healed Claire's blindness?Flying high above the city lights in his cold arms, Claire shall find herself brought to a lonely fortress where blood drinkers await her and werewolves roam the darkness, all of them waiting for the ravishment to come. Episode 3--Claimed by the WolfFrom certain death at the hands of vampires, Claire Sawyer finds herself surrounded by hundreds of wolves. Are they her saviors, or the culmination of the doom that follows her at every turn? Cursed or no, Claire must fight for her survival, even if that means becoming one of them, wolves in heat with just one thing in mind.Episode 4--Redeemed by the ConquerorIn the stunning conclusion to the four part series, Divine Fornication, Claire Sawyer finds herself caught between vampires, werewolves and angels. Three races of beings willing to battle for the one thing they value most--Claire's eternal soul. Will Claire's guardian angel return at last, in her final moments? Or, will she be lost forever to eternal damnation? Views: 18
Twelve O'Clock Tales is the fourth collection of short fiction by legendary novelist and memoirist, Felice Picano (The Lure, Like People in History, True Stories). A personal homage to the storytellers of his youth, Edgar Allen Poe, E.F. Benson, and H. P. Lovecraft, as well as his acquaintances, Arthur C. Clarke and Harlan Ellison. Eleven dark tales, eerie, bizarre, and dreamlike, the tales will thrill and disturb, discomfort and titillate, enthrall and leave you wondering. Picano ranges across time and space, from tribal West Africa to the American heartland, to a lab in Venezuela, and a California Highway fifteen years from now. His characters range from a teen accident survivor with a secret, to a far-future scholar forced to travel to a galactic backwater, to a retired L.A. cop who dabbles in astrology, and a peasant girl in B.C.E. Israel encountering the strangest of strangers. The thirteen tales include brand new stories and acknowledged Picano masterworks... Views: 18
Lure of Obsession: Book #1 of the Muse Chronicles Views: 18
A VINTAGE CRIME/BLACK LIZARD ORIGINALA hit man stalks his mark at a race track. A sociopath crosses every moral boundary to become a published author. An ex-mercenary obsessively defends his “perimeter” from a dangerous interloper. A man for hire grudgingly accepts help from a teenage girl to track an online predator. In a dystopian future, young people struggle for survival underground, forming themselves into vicious gangs with only the graffiti of the “last journalists” accepted as truth. Andrew Vachss collects twenty tight, powerful stories—all from the past decade of his career, including some now published for the first time—along with an original screenplay. Together, they form Mortal Lock, a searing portrait of the criminal underworld, with both its depravity and humanity on display.Review"A collection of white-hot short stories." --Kirkus Reviews“Vachss’s reverence for storytelling is evident in the blunt beauty of his language.” —Chicago Sun-Times“Vachss is a contemporary master. . . Decidedly hard-boiled, his prose is lean, tough-edged, and brittle.” —The Atlanta Journal-Constitution“To read Andrews Vachss at his best is to take a ride on the dark side, where the plight of the oppressed and vulnerable . . . becomes the catalyst for revenge-fueled street justice.” —Los Angeles Times“Many writers try to cover the same ground as Vachss. A handful are as good. None are better.” —People“Vachss’s stories . . . burn with righteous rage and transfer a degree of that rage to the reader.” —The Washington Post Book World“Writing in a style so sleekly engineered that it purrs when you pop the hood, Vachss gives us such a smooth ride that it’s easy to forget someone is driving this thing.” —The New York Times Book Review “Vachss is red-hot and as serious as a punctured lung.” —PlayboyAbout the AuthorAndrew Vachss is a lawyer who represents children and youths exclusively. His many books include the Burke series and two collections of short stories, and his work has appeared in Parade, Antaeus, Esquire, Playboy, and The New York Times, among other publications. A native New Yorker, he divides his time between the city of his birth and the Pacific Northwest.READER BIOPhil Gigante has narrated over 70 audiobooks, including Audie Award winner The Dark Highlander. An actor, director, and producer with over 20 years' experience in theatre, film, television, and radio, he is currently the artistic director of Gigantic Productions and Little Giant Children's Theatre. He makes his home in the Midwest. Views: 18
Steward is a clone. A beta. His memories are fifteen years old, because his alpha never did have a brain-scan update. And in those fifteen years, the entire world has changed: The Orbital Policorp which held his allegiance has collapsed; dozens of his friends died in an off-planet war which he survived; an alien race has established relations with humanity; both his first and second wives have divorced him. And someone has murdered him.From Publishers WeeklyWilliams's novel Hardwired was a well-written but standard entry in the cyberpunk sweepstakes launched by William Gibson's Neuromancer. This followup, however, is much more interesting and successful. Etienne Steward is the clone ("Steward Beta") of a hero of the Artifact Wars, in which multinational corporations fielded armies to plunder alien ruins. He's been given Steward Alpha's memories minus the last years of the hero's life: the war and its aftermath. Now Steward Beta begins an investigation, tracking down Alpha's wife, friends, enemies and fellow vets to fill in the picture and learn why Alpha was murdered. In particular, Beta probes the war, its horrors, its betrayals and The Powers, the aliens who ended it. Resonances of Vietnam-era moral concerns make this deft updating of the postWorld War II genre of psychological thrillers about amnesiacs one of the best of its kind. Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. Review''Slick and intelligent entertainment. The tension remains high throughout. A taut, satisfying tale of space-age skulduggery.'' --San Francisco Chronicle''Resonances of Vietnam-era moral concerns make this deft updating of the post-World War II genre of psychological thrillers about amnesiacs one of the best of its kind.'' --Publishers Weekly Views: 18
What if a woman as strong and as complex as Eva Perón began her life as a robot repair assistant threatened by a powerful peacekeeping force that wants to take all she has from her? The discovery ship, Creative Fire, is on its way home from a multi-generational journey. But home is nothing like the crew expected. They have been gone for generations, and the system they return to is home to technologies and riches beyond their wildest dreams. But they are immediately oppressed and relegated to the lowest status imaginable, barely able to interact with the technologies and people of the star station where they dock, the Diamond Deep. Ruby Martin and her partner, Joel North, must find a way to learn what they need to know and to become more than they have ever been if they are to find a way to save their people.From the Trade Paperback edition. Views: 18
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain is a popular 1876 novel about a young boy growing up in the antebellum South. The story is set in the town of "St Petersburg", inspired by Hannibal, Missouri, where Mark Twain grew up. Views: 18
Passion and betrayal, violent desperation, ambivalent love that hinges on hatred, and the quest for acceptance by those who stand on the edge of society-these are the hard-hitting themes of a stunningly crafted first collection of stories by the bestselling author of House of Sand and Fog.A vigilant young man working in a halfway house finds himself unable to defend against the rage of one of the inmates in the title story. In "White Trees, Hammer Moon," a man soon to leave home for prison finds himself as unprepared for a family camping trip in the mountains of New Hampshire as he has been for most things in his life. And in the award-winning "Forky," an ex-con is haunted by the punishment he receives just as he is being released into the world. With an incisive ability to inhabit the lives of his characters, Dubus travels deep into the heart of the elusive American dream. Views: 18
The third and final chapter of the Shift saga. This is part 8 of the Silo Series, which began with Wool. All three Shift books will be collected in an Omnibus edition to save the reader a buck or two.Reading Order:WOOL (5 parts)SHIFT (3 parts)DUST (1 part) Views: 18
