Description: In this stirring, life-affirming debut novel, a young woman must reconcile her past with its far-reaching consequences on her quest for redemption.
I think about this a lot lately, trying to figure out how I got here. I trace my life back in time, looking for all those places in the past where, if I could change one key detail, I would never have seen what I saw or done what I did that terrible February night.
Venus Black is a straitlaced, straight-A student obsessed with the phenomena of astronomy—until the night she commits a shocking crime that tears her family apart and ignites a media firestorm. Venus refuses to talk about what happened or why, except to blame her mother. Adding to the mystery, Venus’s developmentally challenged younger brother, Leo, suddenly goes missing.
Five years later, Venus emerges from prison with a suitcase of used clothes, a fake identity, and a determination to escape her painful past. Estranged from her mother, and with her brother still missing, she sets out to make a fresh start, skittish and alone. But as new people enter her orbit—including a romantic interest and a young girl who seems like a mirror image of her former lost self—old wounds resurface, and Venus realizes that she can’t find a future while she’s running from her past.
In this gripping story, debut novelist Heather Lloyd brilliantly captures ordinary lives upended by extraordinary circumstances. Told through a constellation of captivating voices, My Name Is Venus Black explores the fluidity of right and wrong, the meaning of love and family, and the nature of forgiveness.
Description: It is 1914, and twenty-five-year-old Frances Marion has left her (second) husband and her Northern California home for the lure of Los Angeles, where she is determined to live independently as an artist. But the word on everyone’s lips these days is “flickers”—the silent moving pictures enthralling theatergoers. Turn any corner in this burgeoning town and you’ll find made-up actors running around, as a movie camera captures it all.
In this fledgling industry, Frances finds her true calling: writing stories for this wondrous new medium. She also makes the acquaintance of actress Mary Pickford, whose signature golden curls and lively spirit have earned her the title “America’s Sweetheart.” The two ambitious young women hit it off instantly, their kinship fomented by their mutual fever to create, to move audiences to a frenzy, to start a revolution.
But their ambitions are challenged by both the men around them and the limitations imposed on their gender—and their astronomical success could come at a price. As Mary, the world’s highest paid and most beloved actress, struggles to live her life under the spotlight, she also wonders if it is possible to find love, even with the dashing actor Douglas Fairbanks. Frances, too, longs to share her life with someone. As in any good Hollywood story, dramas will play out, personalities will clash, and even the deepest friendships might be shattered.
Description: Yochi Brandes is one of the top authors in Israel. The Orchard, her eighth book, is considered the most daring and ambitious of her novels. Critics went so far as to call it a cultural phenomenon after it eclipsed the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy on the Israeli bestseller lists. The novel depicts the beginnings of modern Judaism and Christianity (in the first and second centuries) and the historical circumstances and tumultuous disputes that accompanied their births. The heroes of that generation (such as Rabbi Eliezer, Rabbi Ishmael, Rabban Gamaliel, Paul of Tarsus, and many others) become flesh and blood in this stunning interweaving of biblical and Talmudic lore into a page-turning read. At the heart of the book is Rabbi Akiva and his complicated relationship with his wife, Rachel, who met him when he was a forty-year-old illiterate shepherd, married him against her father's wishes, and compelled him to study the Torah until he became the nation of Israel's greatest sage. His novel method of interpreting Scripture provides his people with a life-giving elixir, but also gives them a lethal injection the Bar Kokhba Revolt (the second rebellion against the Romans), which brought a terrible holocaust upon the nation of Israel that nearly caused its end. The Orchard offers a brilliant narrative solution to the riddle of the Bar Kokhba Revolt by tying the rebellion to one of the most fascinating stories in the Jewish tradition, the story of four sages who entered a metaphysical orchard: one died, one lost his mind, one became a hater of God, and one, Rabbi Akiva, made it out unscathed. Or did he?
Description: A gripping, edge-of-your-seat thriller of family intrigue and dark secrets, from the author of Someone Is Watching and See Jane Run.
There was no shortage of words she could use to describe her father, almost none of them complimentary. Serves you damn right, she thought.
A voice mail from her estranged sister, Melanie, sends Robin’s heart racing and her mind spiraling in a full-blown panic attack. Melanie’s message is dire: Their father, his second wife, and his twelve-year-old stepdaughter have been shot—likely in a home invasion—and lie in the hospital in critical condition.
It’s been more than five years since Robin turned her back on her father when he married her best friend. Five years since she said goodbye to her hometown of Red Bluff, California, and became a therapist. More than two years since Robin and Melanie have spoken. Yet even with all that distance and time and acrimony, the past is always with Robin.
Now she must return to the family she left behind. As she attempts to mend fences while her father clings to life, Robin begins to wonder if there is more to the tragedy than a botched burglary attempt. It seems that everyone—Robin’s mercurial sister, her less-than-communicative nephew, her absent brother, and even Tara, her father’s wife—has something to hide. And someone may have put them all in grave danger.
New York Times bestselling author Joy Fielding has written a gripping edge-of-your-seat thriller of family intrigue and dark secrets. The Bad Daughter explores the deadly differences between the lies we want to believe and the truths we wish not to know.
Description: A woman running from a dark past stumbles upon a tangled nest of seductions and secrets in this psychological thriller of obsession and betrayal.
Catherine, no last name, doesn’t bury the dead. She rescues the living—from intolerable, abusive, dangerous lives. Her darknet-based witness protection program, the Burial Society, is the last hope for people who desperately need to disappear. Catherine takes care of them and provides new identities. She is effective and efficient—until she discovers that her slipup may have compromised a client, maybe even killed her. Powerless to help without exposing her shadowy profession, Catherine makes a drastic move.
With her covert service relocated to Paris, Catherine’s done her best to move on. But when a dark part of her past suddenly appears in the City of Light, she refuses to run—and her life takes a harrowing turn.
Using all the tricks of her unusual trade, Catherine weaves her way through a dangerous landscape of treachery, infidelity, paranoia, and secrets that bind as deeply as blood. But the evil of the enemy she’s pursuing runs deeper still—to the bone. And even Catherine’s most cunning skills may not be enough to save herself.
Description: Over the course of performance car history, and specifically muscle car history, big-block engines are particularly beloved, and for good reason. Not only are they the essence of what a muscle car is, but before modern technology and stroker engines, they were also the best way to make a lot of horsepower. All of the Detroit manufacturers had their versions of big-block engines, and Ford was no exception. Actually, Ford was somewhat unique in that it had two very different big-block engine designs during the muscle car era.The FE engine was a design pioneered in the late 1950s, primarily as a more powerful replacement for the dated Y-block design because cars were becoming bigger and heavier, and therefore, necessitated more power to move. What started as torquey engines meant to move heavyweight sedans morphed into screaming high-performance mills that won Le Mans and drag racing championships through the 1960s. By the late 1960s, the design was dated, so Ford replaced the FE design with the "385" series, also known as the "Lima" design, which was more similar to the canted-valve Cleveland design being pioneered at the same time. It didn't share the 1960s pedigree of racing success, but the new design was better in almost every way; it exists via Ford motorsports offerings to this day.In Ford Big-Block Parts Interchange, Ford expert and historian George Reid covers these engines completely. Interchange and availability for all engine components are covered including cranks, rods, pistons, camshafts, engine blocks, intake and exhaust manifolds, carburetors, distributors, and more. Expanding from the previous edition of High-Performance Ford Parts Interchange that covered both small- and big-block engines in one volume, this book cuts out the small-block information and devotes every page to the MEL, FE and 385 series big-blocks from Ford, which allows for more complete and extensive coverage.
Description: An incandescent group portrait of the midcentury artists and thinkers whose lives, loves, collaborations, and passions were forged against the wartime destruction and postwar rebirth of Paris.
In this fascinating tour of a celebrated city during one of its most trying, significant, and ultimately triumphant eras, Agnes Poirier unspools the stories of the poets, writers, painters, and philosophers whose lives collided to extraordinary effect between 1940 and 1950. She gives us the human drama behind some of the most celebrated works of the 20th century, from Richard Wright’s Native Son, Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex, and James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room to Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot and Saul Bellow's Augie March, along with the origin stories of now legendary movements, from Existentialism to the Theatre of the Absurd, New Journalism, bebop, and French feminism.
We follow Arthur Koestler and Norman Mailer as young men, peek inside Picasso’s studio, and trail the twists of Camus's Sartre's, and Beauvoir’s epic love stories. We witness the births and deaths of newspapers and literary journals and peer through keyholes to see the first kisses and last nights of many ill-advised bedfellows. At every turn, Poirier deftly hones in on the most compelling and colorful history, without undermining the crucial significance of the era. She brings to life the flawed, visionary Parisians who fell in love and out of it, who infuriated and inspired one another, all while reconfiguring the world's political, intellectual, and creative landscapes. With its balance of clear-eyed historical narrative and irresistible anecdotal charm, Left Bank transports readers to a Paris teeming with passion, drama, and life.
Description: A crumbling lighthouse is not part of the inheritance Army doctor Ben Garrison expects to claim when he journeys to Hope Harbor. Fresh out of the service, he wants only to unload the tower of bricks, decompress from years of treating battlefield trauma, and prepare to launch his civilian career.
Hope Harbor Herald editor Marci Weber has other ideas. She may not be a Hope Harbor native, but the small Oregon seaside town has become home—and she's determined to save the Pelican Point landmark.
Sparks fly as the two go head to head over the fate of the lighthouse. But when they start to cooperate, a different kind of fire ignites. And as they work together, might Hope Harbor heal the hearts of these two romance-wary souls?
Bestselling author Irene Hannon invites readers back to their favorite town for a story that will light a beacon of hope within their hearts.
Description: When Sir Reginald Mouse disappears from his apartment, the neighbors in the building advertise his room for rent. One prospective renter after another comes to see the apartment but finds fault with one or another of the neighbors. The hardworking Ant finds the Hen lazy, the Rabbit criticizes the Cuckoo for abandoning her young, the Pig finds the Cat beneath him because of her color (and is roundly chased out by the neighbors for his racism), and the Nightingale thinks the Squirrel just a noisemaker. At last the Dove arrives, bringing with her an eye for the good and restoring an atmosphere of peace.
This simple classic has been the bestselling children’s book in Israel for fifty years. Now English-speaking children have access to its Jewish wisdom, given over with gentle charm.
Description: Some say the great mystery of how one can live in two worlds at once died with Thomas Hunter many years ago. Still others that the gateway to that greater reality was and is only the stuff of dreams.
They are wrong. In the small town of Eden, Utah, a blind girl named Rachelle Matthews is about to find out just how wrong.
When a procedure meant to restore Rachelle's sight goes awry, she begins to dream of another world so real that she wonders if Earth might only be a dream experienced when she falls asleep in that reality. Who is a simple blind girl to have such strange and fantastic dreams?
She's the prophesied one who must find and recover five ancient seals—in both worlds—before powerful enemies destroy her. If Rachelle succeeds in her quest, peace will reign. If she fails, both worlds will forever be locked in darkness.
So begins a two-volume saga of high stakes and a mind-bending quest to find an ancient path that will save humanity. The clock is ticking; the end rushes forward.
Description: A collection of darkly playful stories based on classic folk and fairy tales (but with a feminist spin) that find the sinister in the familiar and the familiar in the alien—from Mallory Ortberg, author of Texts From Jane Eyre.
From Mallory Ortberg comes a collection of darkly mischievous stories based on classic fairy tales. Adapted from her beloved "Children's Stories Made Horrific" series, "The Merry Spinster" takes up the trademark wit that endeared Ortberg to readers of both The Toast and her best-selling debut Texts From Jane Eyre. The feature has become among the most popular on the site, with each entry bringing in tens of thousands of views, as the stories proved a perfect vehicle for Ortberg’s eye for deconstruction and destabilization. Sinister and inviting, familiar and alien all at the same time, The Merry Spinster updates traditional children's stories and fairy tales with elements of psychological horror, emotional clarity, and a keen sense of feminist mischief.
Readers of The Toast will instantly recognize Ortberg's boisterous good humor and uber-nerd swagger: those new to Ortberg's oeuvre will delight in her unique spin on fiction, where something a bit mischievous and unsettling is always at work just beneath the surface.
Unfalteringly faithful to its beloved source material, The Merry Spinster also illuminates the unsuspected, and frequently, alarming emotional complexities at play in the stories we tell ourselves, and each other, as we tuck ourselves in for the night.
Description: A mesmerizing, indelible coming-of-age story about a girl in Boston's tightly-knit Ethiopian community who falls under the spell of a charismatic hustler out to change the world.
A haunting story of fatherhood, national identity, and what it means to be an immigrant in America today, Nafkote Tamirat's The Parking Lot Attendant explores how who we love, the choices we make, and the places we’re from combine to make us who we are.
The story begins on an undisclosed island where the unnamed narrator and her father are the two newest and least liked members of a commune that has taken up residence there. Though the commune was built on utopian principles, it quickly becomes clear that life here is not as harmonious as the founders intended. After immersing us in life on the island, our young heroine takes us back to Boston to recount the events that brought her here. Though she and her father belong to a wide Ethiopian network in the city, they mostly keep to themselves, which is how her father prefers it.
This detached existence only makes Ayale’s arrival on the scene more intoxicating. The unofficial king of Boston’s Ethiopian community, Ayale is a born hustler—when he turns his attention to the narrator, she feels seen for the first time. Ostensibly a parking lot attendant, Ayale soon proves to have other projects in the works, which the narrator becomes more and more entangled in to her father’s growing dismay. By the time the scope of Ayale’s schemes—and their repercussions—become apparent, our narrator has unwittingly become complicit in something much bigger and darker than she ever imagined.
Description: Enter for a chance to win 1 of 20 copies of "You Can't Fire the Bad Ones!": And 18 Other Myths about Teachers, Teachers Unions, and Public Education - - - - - - “For some time now, it has been fashionable for so-called reformers to attack teachers and teacher unions. This important new book debunks those attacks by drawing attention to the actual work that teachers do every day to support children, even as they carry out their duties under constraints that our policymakers steadfastly ignore.”—Pedro A. Noguera, author of The Trouble with Black Boys
Description: Enter for a chance to win 1 of 20 copies! - - - - - - “Jeanne Theoharis is one of our nation’s finest civil rights scholars. She brings an incisive, urgent and unique critical perspective to our understanding of an era that is increasingly distorted and misunderstood. A More Beautiful and Terrible History is an important book that sheds new light on our recent past and yields a fresh understanding of our tumultuous present.”—Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption
Description: Enter for a chance to win 1 of 20 copies of Her Body, Our Laws: On the Frontlines of the Abortion War from El Salvador to Oklahoma.
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“Drawing on her fascinating journeys into the abortion-hostile territories of El Salvador and Oklahoma, Oberman gives a penetrating analysis of both the power and limitations of laws governing abortion. This beautifully written and thought-provoking book offers the reader a novel way to consider the endless abortion conflict in the United States and elsewhere.”—Carole Joffe, author of Dispatches from the Abortion Wars
Description: Enter for a chance to win 1 of 20 copies of In Sickness and In Health: Love, Disability, and a Quest to Understand the Perils and Pleasures of Inter-abled Romance! - - - - - - “In this chronicle of will and hope, Ben Mattlin demystifies the interabled relationship, showing that it should be a matter neither of wonder nor of pity. This is an urgent, deeply felt, and sometimes hilarious account of marriages that feel as obvious to those within them as they are bewildering to many people outside them. Mattlin gives us a testament to the deep humanity that can manifest in any kind of body, and to the passionate love such humanity can provoke in others.”—Andrew Solomon, author of Far from the Tree
Description: Win 1 of 20 copies of Infinite Hope: How Wrongful Conviction, Solitary Confinement and 12 Years on Death Row Failed to Kill My Soul! - - - - - “His account is largely without bitterness or outrage—and is all the more powerful because of it. . . .A well-written, matter-of-fact, inspirational account of how a man prevailed against a criminal justice system that is deeply flawed.” —Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review
Description: nter for a chance to win 1 of 20 copies of Saving Talk Therapy: How Health Insurers, Big Pharma, and Slanted Science are Ruining Good Mental Health Care! - - - - - - This is a compelling and essential read for mental health professionals and consumers alike.”—Ben Gorvine, assistant chair, Department of Psychology, Northwestern University
Description: Berlin, 1967: four members of the British rock band Pearl Harbor die at the same time but in separate locations. Inexplicably, the police conclude natural causes are to blame.
Brussels, 2010: A homeless man is hit by a car outside the Gare du Midi, leaving him with locked-in syndrome, able to communicate (sometimes) by blinking.
An Irish journalist's interest is piqued. How did the members of Pearl Harbor die, and how is this linked to the homeless man in Brussels?
Description: In Luca D’Andrea’s atmospheric and brilliant thriller, set in a small mountain community in the majestic Italian Dolomites, an outsider must uncover the truth about a triple murder that has gone unsolved for thirty years. New York City native Jeremiah Salinger is one half of a hot-shot documentary-making team. He and his partner, Mike, made a reality show about roadies that skyrocketed them to fame. But now Salinger’s left that all behind, to move with his wife, Annelise, and young daughter, Clara, to the remote part of Italy where Annelise grew up—the Alto Adige.
Description: Seventeen-year-old Christina McBurney has led a sheltered life. But when her twin brother, Jonathan, dies of consumption, Christina, unwilling to be farmed out as a nursemaid or teacher, runs away from home and her destiny. In Owen Sound she boards the Asia, a steamship that transports passengers and freight throughout the Great Lakes. She doesn't really have a plan other than to get to Sault Ste. Marie. She'll figure things out once she's settled.
But a violent storm suddenly rises on Georgian Bay, and the overloaded and top-heavy steamship begins to sink. Christina is tossed overboard. Pulled to safety just before she loses consciousness, she finds herself on a lifeboat, surrounded by a number of bedraggled and terrified passengers and crew. One by one they succumb to their injuries, until only Christina and a brooding young man named Daniel are left alive.
The usual rules of society no longer apply—Daniel and Christina must now work together as equals to survive.
Big Water is a fictional account of the real-life story of the only two survivors of the sinking of the SS Asia in 1882.
Description: Five siblings fall through time and space into a strange, unkind world — their arrival mysteriously foretold — and land in the center of an epic civil struggle in a country where many citizens have given themselves over to their primal fears and animal passions at the urging of a power-hungry demagogue.
When siblings Susan, Max, Nell, Kate, and Jean tumble one by one through a glowing cobalt window, they find themselves outside their cozy home — and in a completely unfamiliar world where everything looks wrong and nothing makes sense. Soon, an ancient prophecy leads them into battle with mysterious forces that threaten to break the siblings apart even as they try desperately to remain united and find their way home. Thirteen-year-old twins Max and Susan and their younger siblings take turns narrating the events of their story in unique perspectives as each of the children tries to comprehend their stunning predicament — and their extraordinary new powers — in his or her own way. From acclaimed author Adina Rishe Gewirtz comes a riveting novel in the vein of C. S. Lewis and E. Nesbit, full of nuanced questions about morality, family, and the meaning of home.
Description: Winter is finally melting into spring — but with everything in flux, from Cody's friendships down to her shoe size, will she be able to stay true to herself?
In Cody's life, some people keep her on her toes — just like Mother Nature, who is warm one day and snowy the next. Or like Cody's brother, Wyatt, who has started wearing collared shirts because his girlfriend likes them. Meanwhile, Pearl has begun playing soccer and it's all she can talk about. Spencer is busy creating a mysterious museum underneath GG's house and he's never around to play. And Spencer's mom doesn't look any different. . . . Could she really have a baby growing inside her? Maybe the baby is like Cody's beloved ants, waiting patiently inside the earth for spring to arrive. It seems like everything around Cody is changing — from seasons to friendships — but if she can just navigate it all with her trademark enthusiasm and charm, maybe the most important things will stay the same.
Description: From award-winning author Willy Vlautin, comes this moving novel about a young ranch hand who goes on a quest to become a champion boxer to prove his worth. Horace Hopper is a half-Paiute, half-Irish ranch hand who wants to be somebody. He's spent most of his life on the ranch of his kindly guardians, Mr. and Mrs. Reese, herding sheep alone in the mountains. But while the Reeses treat him like a son, Horace can't shake the shame he feels from being abandoned by his parents. He decides to leave the only loving home he’s known to prove his worth by training to become a boxer.
From the bestselling author of the Shopaholic series and the novel Finding Audrey comes the first of a duology for young readers about a girl learning to become a fairy from her imperfect fairy mom, with a tech twist.
Ella Brook can't wait to grow up, because one day she will become a fairy and have her own sparkly wings and a teacher on Fairy Tube, just like her mom! Until then, Ella has to learn by watching her mom in action. But sometimes spells go wrong, and Ella's mom can never seem to remember the right magic codes. A lot of the time, it's up to Ella to come to the rescue. Does she have what it takes to be a fairy one day? Or will there be more glitches than glitter?
Description: Enter for the chance to win a copy of a beautifully illustrated, funny and thought-provoking children's picture book for building confidence and encouraging children to express their feelings
Description: When young, beautiful Cassie Jensen arrives unconscious to the intensive care ward at St. Catherine’s hospital after being struck in a hit-and-run while out walking her dog, chief nurse Alice Marlowe thinks she looks familiar. She starts digging deeper into Cassie’s relationships, only to discover something about her patient that she’d been keeping secret from everyone, including her devoted husband and family. Soon Alice finds herself obsessed with her patient’s past and future, even willing to put her own career on the line in her single-minded search for answers.
Description: A fierce, intelligent, and often hilarious novel about a young African American attorney who struggles to keep his cool in the personally and politically turbulent ’90s.
In Knucklehead we meet Marcus Hayes, a black law student who struggles, sometimes unsuccessfully, with the impulse to confront everyday bad behavior with swift and antisocial action. The cause of this impulse is unknown to him. When he unexpectedly becomes involved with the brilliant and kind Amalia Stewart, her love and acceptance pacify his demons. But when his demons return, he is no longer inclined to contain them.
Set amid the racial violence of the 1990s, Knucklehead is hard-hitting, hilarious, and frank. The social situations Marcus navigates are as prevalent today as they were twenty years ago. And the parallels to our present-day political climate are poignant and telling.
Description: IN A FUTURE WORLD WHERE TRUTH CAN BE MANIPULATED, YOUR MIND IS THE BATTLEFIELD
When Lain Fisher wakes up in a hospital bed, she can't remember anything from the past few months. It's no ordinary amnesia. As a trained Mindwalker, Lain knows all about wiping memories - she just never thought it would happen to her.
When two young men break in and take her away, she's not sure if she's being rescued or kidnapped. One of them, Ian, she knows. The other, Steven, is a stranger to her…but he claims they were friends. More than friends.
Outside, the world has changed beyond recognition. Right is wrong, enemies are allies, and Lain's erased past may be the key to fighting a totalitarian state with the power to manipulate the human mind. The only thing she knows for certain is that she needs her memories back. Her life depends on it.
Description: Enter for a chance to win an early copy of this beautifully crafted short story collection by rising star Lucy Caldwell, stories of longing and belonging, they culminate with the heart-wrenching and unforgettable title story.
Description: Summer, San Francisco, 1947. A dame walks into a bar . . .
Sammy Tiffin is tending bar when an enigmatic and comely dame named Stilton (like the cheese) sidles in, followed by an Air Force general. The general needs a favor and he’s hoping Sammy’s the guy to get the job done. Turns out that the first flying saucer has just been spotted up by Mount Rainer and there’s been a mysterious crash in Roswell, New Mexico. Lured by the beauteous Stilton, Sammy must face his own dark secrets on the mean streets of the City by the Bay.
Think Raymond Chandler meets Damon Runyon with more than a dash of Bugs Bunny. It’s all very, very NOIR. It’s all very, very Christopher Moore.
Description: The noir quotient of this legendary Eastern European city will enthrall and terrify readers from across the globe.
Akashic Books continues its groundbreaking series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir. Each story is set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the city of the book.
Brand-new stories by: Chaim Cigan, Martin Goffa, Irena Hejdová, Michaela Klevisová, Štěpán Kopřiva, Ondrej Neff, Markéta Pilátová, Jirí “Walker” Procházka, Petra Soukupová, Petr Stančík, Michal Sýkora, Petr Šabach, Kateřina Tučková, and Miloš Urban.
While Prague might today be one of the world’s top tourist destinations, and a cosmopolitan capital of European culture, it remains an open-air monument to a history of violence. Here, Prague’s top writers explore the hidden corners of the “City of a Hundred Spires,” pulling back the curtain to reveal gloom and despair.
From the introduction by Pavel Mandys:
How to write noir in a city where, until 1990, the profession of private detective hadn’t existed? Where the censors insisted on portraying police in the media and literature in a positive light? Where freelance organized crime hadn’t existed, but where the largest criminal group was the secret police? Before you delve into the fourteen stories in this collection, a heads-up: most of the stories owe their allegiance more to Prague than the noir genre . . . but if the concept of “noir” is extended, and considered a characterization of literary works containing elements of crime, danger, threat—or where central characters find themselves in critical life situations—then you will find fourteen such stories in this collection.
Seventeen-year-old Greer, a scholarship girl at a prestigious private school, St Aidan the Great School (known as STAGS), soon realizes that the school is full of snobs and spoilt rich brats, many of whom come from aristocratic families who have attended the institute throughout the centuries. She's immediately ignored by her classmates. All the teachers are referred to as Friars (even the female ones), but the real driving force behind the school is a group of prefects known as the Medievals, whose leader, Henry de Warlencourt, Greer finds both strangely intriguing as well as attractive. The Medievals are all good-looking, clever and everyone wants to be among their circle of friends. Greer is therefore surprised when she receives an invitation from Henry to spend a long weekend with him and his friends at his family house in the Lake District, especially when she learns that two other "outsiders" have also been invited: Shafeen and Chanel. As the weekend unfolds, Greer comes to the chilling realization that she and two other "losers" were invited only because they were chosen to become prey in a mad game of manhunt.
Description: Del's great-aunt, Kitty, has retired from a life of crime and embarked on a new venture, the B-Team. Although Del works at an animal shelter by day, by night she, her great-aunt and their cohorts, Dino and Ritz, use their criminal skills to right wrongs. In this fun book, the modern-day Robin Hoods set out to return a necklace to its rightful owner but along the way discover they've been duped by an imposter who also wants to get her hands on the necklace. The problem is, criminals can't go to the police, even if they are on the side of the good. Del comes up with a new plan, and the B-Team saves the day. Not without a few detours along the way.
Edgar Brim is a sensitive orphan who, exposed to horror stories from his father as a young child, is afraid of almost everything and suffers from nightly terrors. His stern new guardian, Mr. Thorne, sends the boy to a gloomy school in Scotland where his dark demons only seem to worsen and he is bullied and ridiculed for his fears. But years later, when sixteen-year-old Edgar finds a journal belonging to his novelist father, he becomes determined to confront his nightmares and the bullies who taunt him. After the horrific death of a schoolmate, Edgar becomes involved with an eccentric society at the urging of a mysterious professor who believes that monsters from famous works of literature are real and whose mandate is to find and destroy these creatures. With the aid of a rag-tag crew of friends, the fear-addled teen sets about on his dark mission, one that begins in the cemetery on the bleak Scottish moors and ends in a spine-chilling climax on the stage of the Royal Lyceum Theatre in London with Henry Irving, the infamous and magnetic actor, and his manager, Bram Stoker, the author of the most frightening and sensational novel of the day, Dracula. Can Edgar Brim truly face his terror and conquer his fears?
The pulse-pounding second book in a gripping gothic trilogy, featuring monsters from classic literary tales, secret societies and the fight between good and evil.
After vanquishing the terrible creature that stalked the aisles of the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edgar Brim and his unusual crew of friends return to their mentor only to discover that he has been brutally murdered by an unknown assailant. The group go into hiding, Edgar desperate to protect his friends and family from what may be a second horrific creature torn from the pages of literature. Meanwhile, Edgar's guardian, Alfred Thorne, forces him to pursue a trade, and so Edgar begins working with his uncle, Doctor Vincent Brim, and a renowned vivisectionist, the brilliant yet mysterious Doctor Godwin. The more time Edgar spends in the company of Godwin, the more he begins to wonder about Godwin's motives. And time is running out for Edgar and his friends. A monstrous creature is chasing them, a beast seemingly impervious to Thorne's weaponry. Can Edgar Brim once again defy the horrors that pursue him, and protect those dearest to his heart?
Description: On a crisp April day in Philadelphia, Poppy Starkweather, in her mid-twenties, begins the rounds of her clients—Penelope, Fauna, Horatio, Bliss, and Chutney, accompanied by her own hound, Spock—assuming that this will be another ordinary day. Since abandoning a Ph.D. program in literature, Poppy has stumbled into walking dogs as a stopgap while she figures out what to do with her life. Although happy in a steady relationship, Poppy is leery of further commitment while in career limbo, fearing she might commit the age-old error of hiding from herself inside marriage. Shouldn't she get it all figured out first? By noon her day will be careening off course, diverted by an unexpected visit from her brother, a scary medical appointment with her boyfriend, and an urgent request from a client. By the small hours of the night Poppy will be questioning her assumptions about what it means to be truly adult.
Description: Enter for a chance to read this gripping and intelligent new novel from Stav Sherez, following detectives Carrigan and Miller on another dark and gritty case, exploring disturbing contemporary themes with all the skill and dark psychology for which Stav Sherez’s work has been so acclaimed. You won't want to miss this book, hailed by Ian Rankin as 'A Silence of the Lambs for the internet age.'
Description: Missy Turner thinks of herself as the most ordinary woman in the world. She has a lot to be thankful for: a great kid, a loving husband, a job she enjoys and the security of living in the small town where she was born. Then one day everything gets turned upside down. She loses her job, catches her husband making out with the neighbor and is briefly taken hostage by a young man who robs the local café. With her world rapidly falling apart, Missy finds herself questioning the certainties she's lived with her whole life.
Originally published in 2010, The Middle Ground was a 2011 Golden Oak Award Nominee and an early work from an award-winning author. This edition includes discussion questions at the back for reading and literacy groups.
Perfect for fans of Amélie, this is a charming story about the power of friendship, love and pink polka dots to turn rainy days into sunny ones and sadness into joy.
When it's bright outside, Adele is the heart of her community, greeting everyone who comes into her café with arms wide open. But when it rains, she can't help but stay at home inside, under the covers. Because Adele takes such good care of her friends and customers, one of them decides to take care of her too, and piece by piece leaves her little gifts that help her find the joy in a gray, rainy day. Along with cute-as-a-button illustrations, The Pink Umbrella celebrates thoughtful acts of friendship.
Description: In an anthology of revolution and resistance, a sisterhood of YA writers shines a light on a century and a half of heroines on the margins and in the intersections.
To respect yourself, to love yourself, should not have to be a radical decision. And yet it remains as challenging for an American girl to make today as it was in 1927 on the steps of the Supreme Court. It's a decision that must be faced when you're balancing on the tightrope of neurodivergence, finding your way as a second-generation immigrant, or facing down American racism even while loving America. And it's the only decision when you've weighed society's expectations and found them wanting. In The Radical Element, twelve of the most talented writers working in young adult literature today tell the stories of girls of all colors and creeds standing up for themselves and their beliefs — whether that means secretly learning Hebrew in early Savannah, using the family magic to pass as white in 1920s Hollywood, or singing in a feminist punk band in 1980s Boston. And they're asking you to join them.
Original stories by: Dahlia Adler Erin Bowman Dhonielle Clayton Sara Farizan Mackenzi Lee Stacey Lee Anna-Marie McLemore Meg Medina Marieke Nijkamp Megan Shepherd Jessica Spotswood Sarvenaz Tash
A sweet and funny picture book that looks at the blossoming friendship between an elephant and a tank and encourages kids to make friends, not war.
Tilly the elephant is taking her morning stroll when she notices something strange on the horizon. Is it another elephant? The newcomer has a trunk and tail, but he’s a very curious shade of green. Tank, on the other hand, notices an odd-looking creature approaching. It has a barrel and a turret, like Tank, but is a curious shade of blue. Is it a new enemy tank? Tank’s alarm sounds and he goes BOOM, scaring Tilly off. But when Tilly returns with a flower, Tank begins to understand that she might not be an enemy at all.
Tilly and Tank is a heartwarming tale of friendship, peace and understanding by debut author/illustrator Jay Fleck.
“An endearing picture-book debut about tolerance and the assumption of enmity instead of friendship.” —Kirkus Reviews
Description: “[An] engrossing, surprising, and psychologically astute novel…Romano is a masterful storyteller, unfolding a captivating and imaginative tale." Foreword Reviews
On December 1, 1958, a devastating blaze at Our Lady of the Angels School in Chicago took the lives of ninety-two children, shattering a close-knit Italian neighborhood. In this eloquent novel, set nearly a decade later, twenty-year-old Anthony Lazzeri struggles with survivor’s guilt, which is manifested through conflicted feelings about his own body. Complicating his life is a retired detective’s dogged belief that Anthony was involved in the setting of the fire. Tony Romano’s delicate handling of Anthony’s journey is deeply moving, exploring the complex psychological toll such an event has on those involved, including families…and an entire community. This multi-faceted tale follows Anthony’s struggles to come to terms with how the events of that day continue to affect him and those around him. Aided by a sometime girlfriend, a former teacher, and later his parents—after long buried family secrets are brought into the open—he attempts to piece together a life for himself as an adult.
A classic story of imagination, friendship, rock bands and high-speed helicopter chases. For fans of Ivy & Bean, Judy Moody or Nate the Great.
Everyone’s favorite odd couple is back. Our heroine, Renata Wolfman (Wolfie) does everything by herself. Friends just get in the way, and she only has time for facts and reading. But friendship finds her in the form of Livingston Flott (Fly), the slightly weird and wordy boy from next door. This time, Fly has convinced Wolfie to join him in his one-man band. Before they know it, they’re playing live onstage in front of a stadium of screaming fans. But these fans are about to get out of control–and Wolfie and Fly have to make a daring escape!
Even though Wolfie thinks she’d rather be at home reading by herself, playing the drums in a rock band is actually pretty fun. Maybe there is something to this friend thing…
Description: “A remarkable book.” —Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature and Oil and Honey
“In this extraordinary narrative, Glassley, a geologist, describes his intimate relationship with Greenland’s ancient rocks in such a fashion that the reader who knows nothing about geology is hooked; that reader feels like he’s not only been transported to the rockribbed coast of West Greenland, but is also bent down and studying its rocks right along with Glassley.” —Lawrence Millman, author of Last Places and At the End of the World
“Profound and moving. . . . A superb tool for a better understanding of the natural world and why real science matters.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Poetic, enthusiastic. . . . Combining the strengths of travel writing and lyrical memoir, Glassley translates his own ‘incandescent experience of place’ into a conservation message: ‘We must share and celebrate the wild so that it might be saved.’” —Foreword Reviews (starred review)
Greenland, one of the last truly wild places, contains a treasure trove of information on Earth’s early history embedded in its pristine landscape. Over numerous seasons, William E. Glassley and two fellow geologists traveled there to collect samples and observe rock formations for evidence to prove a contested theory that plate tectonics, the movement of Earth’s crust over its molten core, is a much more ancient process than some believed. As their research drove the scientists ever farther into regions barely explored by humans for millennia—if ever—Glassley encountered wondrous creatures and natural phenomena that gave him unexpected insight into the origins of myth, the virtues and boundaries of science, and the importance of seeking the wilderness within. An invitation to experience a breathtaking place and the fascinating science behind its creation, A Wilder Time is nature writing at its best.
Description: What you choose to wear becomes part of your identity, but it doesn't affect just you. Your clothing sends a message to the world, whether you want it to or not! And often we don't know what that message really is. Can Your Outfit Change the World? looks at how and where clothes are made, how the people who make the clothes are treated and how the companies who sell the clothes affect the health of our planet. Armed with information, you can follow the book's guide to spending your fashion dollars in a responsible and eco-friendly way. Your outfits have more power than you might realize!
A collection of African wisdom gorgeously illustrated by artists from Ghana, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Canada, the United States and more.
Aphorisms are universal. They give guidance, context and instruction for life's issues, and they help us understand each other and the world around us. We use them every day, yet never think about where they came from or why they exist.
In this beautifully illustrated collection, Eric Walters brings us classic sayings from the places where this shared wisdom began. Ashanti, Sukuma, Akan and Kikuyu: all of these cultures use the portable and easily shared knowledge contained in aphorisms, and from these cultures and more this communal knowledge spread.
This book is a celebration of art, of community and of our common history.
Description: From sex slaves to drug mules, The Daily Beast's Rome Bureau Chief uncovers a terrifying and intricate web of criminal activity right on Europe's doorstep.
Caught between Camorra gunrunners selling to ISIS and Nigerian drug gangs along Italy's picturesque coast, each year thousands of refugees and migrants are lured into their underworld, forced to become sex slaves, drug mules or weapon smugglers. In this powerful exposé, investigative journalist Barbie Latza Nadeau follows the weapons trail, meets the trafficked women trapped by black magic, the brave nuns who try to save them and the Italian police who turn a blind eye as the most urgent issues facing Europe play out in broad daylight.
Description: The Classical Musician's version of 'When Breath Becomes Air', enter for a chance to win a newly released copy of Soundscapes, an account written after the author came back to life after dying on the operating table, the late Paul Robertson shares his insights on music and the passion that shaped his career.
Description: Space, Structure, and Story integrates Earth and space science with science fiction and nonfiction texts, poetry, and art. This unit, developed by Vanderbilt University's Programs for Talented Youth, is aligned to the Common Core State Standards and Next Generation Science Standards. Students explore advanced science and ELA content through the lens of structure—its parts, purpose, and function. Mobius strips, the hero's journey, dystopian fiction, black holes, Einstein's relativity, stars, moons, and tides are just a few of the captivating in-depth topics explored through accelerated content, engaging activities, and differentiated tasks.
Description: From one of the fiercest critics writing today, Morgan Jerkins’ highly-anticipated collection of linked essays interweaves her incisive commentary on pop culture, feminism, black history, misogyny, and racism with her own experiences to confront the very real challenges of being a black woman today—perfect for fans of Roxane Gay’s Bad Feminist, Rebecca Solnit’s Men Explain Things to Me, and Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie’s We Should All Be Feminists. Morgan Jerkins is only in her twenties, but she has already established herself as an insightful, brutally honest writer who isn’t afraid of tackling tough, controversial subjects. In This Will Be My Undoing, she takes on perhaps one of the most provocative contemporary topics: What does it mean to “be”—to live as, to exist as—a black woman today? This is a book about black women, but it’s necessary reading for all Americans.
Description: In an intergenerational keepsake volume, witnesses to World War II share their memories with young interviewers so that their experiences will never be forgotten.
The Second World War was the most devastating war in history. Up to eighty million people died, and the map of the world was redrawn. More than seventy years after peace was declared, children interviewed family and community members to learn about the war from people who were there, to record their memories before they were lost forever. Now, in a unique collection, RAF pilots, evacuees, resistance fighters, Land Girls, U.S. Navy sailors, and survivors of the Holocaust and the Hiroshima bombing all tell their stories, passing on the lessons learned to a new generation. Featuring many vintage photographs, this moving volume also offers an index of contributors and a glossary.
Description: After his much-acclaimed short story collection Dangerous Obsessions, which had war as a common background, Belgian/Flemish author Van Laerhoven surprises again with five stories that shed piercing light on our most self-destructive impulses. A steroid-spiked Syrian mercenary of Bashar-al-Assad is determined to become a “martyr,” after the loss of his right arm by “friendly fire.” A retired London tube-driver becomes obsessed by his desire to revenge the vicious killing of his parents in Croatia on his half-nephew. A Belgian travel-writer gets entangled in the madness of the Kosovo-war during the nineties and witnesses its dramatic consequences many years later in New York. A jaded art brut painter in Brussels betrays his best friend, a Rwandese art forger, to the Mafia, opening the door to guilt, lust, and murder. A born liar with the nickname Johnny di Machio seeks in the seventies, in Poona, India, salvation in Bhagwan’s ashram for his sexual problems, but gets trapped in a maze of long hidden violence.
Aldous Huxley wrote in Brave New World (1932): “Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly— they’ll go through anything.” This is precisely what Van Laerhoven does, relentlessly exposing our inner solitude and voracious egos. Heart Fever goes way beyond heartache.
Description: Glancing sideways, she was intrigued by his flawless profile. He had bronzed skin and a straight nose, with tousled blond hair that was effortlessly stylish. Lounging in his chair elegantly, he looked like the type of guy you could place anywhere and he would look at ease. He turned suddenly and caught her staring at him. Their eyes locked and suddenly she felt lost. They were the bluest eyes she had ever seen…Lydia Kelly is in a good place. Determined to pursue her dream of being a writer, she enrols to do a Master’s degree in English. It means being separated from her handsome boyfriend Dominic, but it’s only a year, right? Then they can be together forever… Life is simple until she meets Luca, a gorgeous blond American, who turns her life upside down. He causes her to question everything and suddenly she is forced to make difficult choices. Lydia has always played by the rules…until now…This novel tells the story of temptation and love. It moves from Cork to Dublin, from the ski slopes of Austria to the romance of Paris.Who will she choose?Who will get hurt?
Description: Laughter and Early Sorrow pays tribute to growing pains and the universal feelings of disappointment, wonder, and gratitude.
Set in Memphis, Tennessee during the 1960s and 1970s, these nine stories provide a summation of what it's like to play without a net, face people and situations that are inherently difficult, and emerge with your vital signs intact and your curiosity paradoxically enlarged.
Humorous, insightful, and heartfelt, Laughter and Early Sorrow recalls life’s most indelible moments.
Millionaire Milton is about as pleasant as a moldy block of feta, but when his juicy young wife drops dead at the Whine & Cheese Bistro, Amalia finds herself back in the thick of things.
Matters are further complicated by one very handsome paramedic. Will Amalia have a new love interest? And why is Nora back with the acidic Mr. Leonardo, Amalia’s arch enemy?
Drugs, mafia, escort agencies and a brown and yellow Mr. Kis as Amalia’s unexpected sidekick?! She’s “grateful” for his help, but things are getting “whey” too strange.
As the sleuthing continues, Amalia finds herself in a poisonous setting, and wonders if the wrong person was killed.
Will this unlikely duo get stomped on like a bunch of grapes, or flourish like a fine wine?
In this fictionalized memoir, a mother recounts the emotional journey she and her son take when he becomes mentally ill.
Jack is known as the Sun King because as a child he resembled the illustrated boy in his mother's deck of tarot cards. Already on the verge of madness, Jack leaves for college in Ohio but secretly decides not to take his medicine. When Jack becomes manic, his mother must retrieve him from a psychiatric hospital and bring him home to Oklahoma. She and Jack spend the next year dealing with court hearings, doctor appointments, and counseling sessions precipitated by his bipolar disorder and resultant psychosis.
Guiding Jack back to sanity leads his mother to a fateful decision—one that brings about her own emotional unraveling. In the end, it is the Sun King who must save his mother.
Description: Format: Ebooks are open, non-DRM file. Choose between epub, mobi (Kindle), or PDF.
It’s 2098 and the last season of baseball—forever. After the ravages of World War Three, the once all-American sport is now synonymous with terrorism and treason. Holograms now run the bases for out-of-shape players and attendance averages fifteen spectators per game.
As Puppy Nedick prepares for opening day, a chance encounter lands him face-to-face with former baseball greats. Determined not to go down without a fight, the players band together to revitalize the game for one last hurrah.
But not everyone wants peace. Will baseball become the catalyst for World War Four, or will it save America?
Description: Widowed World War I nurse Audra Donaldson returns from France planning to devote her life to helping those suffering the lingering effects of war—effects she knows all too well, as she suffers from them herself. When, staying at the Harwood House Inn on a Christmas visit to her brother, she hears a man in the throes of a violent nightmare, she goes to him without question—and is stunned by a physical attraction as strong as her desire to help.
About to embrace the beautiful angel come to save him from the horrors of the battlefield, former soldier Drew Harwood recoils when he realizes Audra is real—and has seen his “weakness.” Brusquely rejecting her offer of help, he intends to avoid her. But more than just her beauty continues to draw him back. Though this compassionate, kind, and giving soul has seen more of war than he has, somehow, talking with her brings him peace–and seems to comfort her, too. If he can just resist acting on the desire she’s ignited in him since his first glimpse of her…
But someone else was watching, too. After tragedy denied Felicity a future with Drew, her dying wish was that he live his life and be happy for them both. To her sorrow, a year later, her former fiancé is still struggling. Deciding Audra is the perfect lady to heal the wounds of her beloved, this determined ghost resolves to bring Drew and Audra together. Who can resist a love that lasts beyond time?
Description: Years ago, Harlan Sullivan broke Savannah Taylor‘s heart. Now, he’s back in Whiskey River as the new owner of the local construction company–and Savannah’s new boss. Giving up Savannah was the hardest thing Harlan ever had to do, but it’s way past time to explain why he did. Besides, after fourteen years, they have both moved on. Or so he thinks—until their unexpected meeting at Felicity’s Christmas Ball shocks him into realizing his buried feelings—and secret passion—are very much alive.
As long as she keeps a tight grip over her emotions, Savannah is confident she can weather having her old flame become her new boss. She’s even willing to indulge the desire that time seems to have intensified. But there’s no way she will let Harlan anywhere close to her heart.
Harlan soon realizes he wants more from the sexy, sultry Savannah than a temporary affair and sets out to convince her that this time, their love will last forever. But it will take a bit of Christmas magic from the Harwood Inn ghost to bring this reluctant banker’s daughter and determined Barrels Bad Boy to their happily-ever-after.
Description: Format: Ebooks are open, non-DRM file. Choose between epub, mobi (Kindle), or PDF. “…Ms. Daniell drives us through curves and unexpected hazards with a tale which ultimately arrives screeching into its exciting destination.” ~ InD'tale Magazine
She’s a non-conformist with an insatiable appetite for adventure. And trouble. It is no surprise when she finds herself eavesdropping on a Constable meeting. One word that makes no sense—Earth—sends Orion on a quest for answers. What is this "Earth?" And why has it never been mentioned before? Her search is soon over, but not without a heavy price to pay. Forced to leave behind the only home she has ever known, Orion fights for the chance to return. Every corner holds a new danger, and every shadow hides a secret. No one can be trusted. Constantly fighting for survival and the truth, she wonders if she is condemned to repeat this hell she now knows. Forever.
Description: That dandelion. A flash of stubborn yellow in a dark box of space. It had promised sunshine but had tasted sour.
Artefacts.
A dandelion. A mayfly. A family, bereft.
Items and mementos of a life, lived hard and with love, or long, empty, bitter.
In these sharply drawn and unflinching short stories, Rebecca Burns unpicks the connection between the lives we live and what we leave behind.
"If there was one word to sum up this beautiful collection, it is depth, for Burns has plumbed to the nadir of her own self in the writing, at once never failing to miss a moment of irony. Highly recommended." -Isobel Blackthorn, author of The Drago Tree.
Rebecca Burns is an award-winning writer of short stories. over thirty of which have been published online or in print. Her short story collections - Catching the Barramundi and The Settling Earth - were both longlisted for the prestigious Edge Hill Short Story Award, the UK's only prize for short story collections.
Description: After a rough year involving a serious car accident, painful recovery and broken engagement, Dakota Moore moves to Cherry Lake to rebuild her life. To embrace her new community, she volunteers to coordinate the annual Christmas tree gala.
Adam Clements has come home to help his mother run the family business while his father recovers from a heart attack. For the last decade, he’s been a high-flying soccer player, enjoying the life that comes with his popularity. But something is missing and he can’t put his finger on it… until he returns to Cherry Lake and remembers the feeling of home.
Adam tries to keep his distance because he knows he’ll be leaving, but he can’t deny his attraction to Dakota. With the countdown to Christmas on, can Dakota convince Adam that his home is right there in Cherry Lake, with her?
Description: Angels. Emma Cramer doesn’t consider herself an angel by any stretch of the imagination. Temporarily stranded, broke and unable to pursue her dreams of working in the big city following her mother’s death, Emma’s life changes when she rescues a small child and a puppy who get trapped in a garage where Emma’s truck has finally breathed its last . The girl’s relieved and grateful grandmother believes Emma has been sent by angels because her family needs temporary help. She offers Emma a job, a good salary and a place to stay until after the holidays. It seems like a Christmas miracle for both of them.
Angels often appear when least expected, but when the most needed. Cynical sheriff and rancher Cole Drayton has heard that all his life, but he’s never been in the market for much else. He can take care of his daughter, his ranch and his family on his own without his meddling mother, but his long protected heart and desire for isolation is no match for a beautiful stranded stranger and a misfit puppy who make his daughter laugh and him feel alive again.
Can unsuspecting hearts intersect at the moment when love and trust is needed most? Anything is possible with the magic of the Christmas season and faith in the Christmas angels.
Description: epub, mobi, and pdf versions available
It is 1862. A massive Union army is invading the verdant peninsula of Virginia to take Richmond and end the Civil War. In the rumble of the conflict, a young woman's wounded lover stands in harm's way. To rescue him, she must risk everything she holds dear and cross enemy lines. The fate of her young family hangs in the balance, as does that of the entire nation. The risk she takes turns out to test her heart beyond anything she could have imagined.
"Historical Fiction is rarely embraced and executed as well as the Widow Walk Saga. Gar LaSalle’s terrific captivating story invites the emotional engagement of readers, and in Book III the story follows the heroine onto the battlefields of the early Civil War. One might very easily compare this highly engaging journey to HBO’s Game of Thrones, but plausible — without the dragons.”
Bella, a freelance journalist from London, writes for women’s magazines on a range of issues, from relationships and motherhood to body image and sexuality. While researching an article on swinging, she realises that her intense interest in the subject may be more than simply professional. Over the following months, Bella finds herself drawn into a world where the power of fantasy and the strength of the erotic mind are all consuming, where risk and arousal are close companions, and where fear is a dangerous aphrodisiac.
Through the eyes of Bella, The Libertine Diaries explores the themes of dominance and submission, control, sexual identity, and the sometimes difficult separation of sex and love, as she is transformed by her sexual awakening.
Description: Format: Ebooks are open, non-DRM file. Choose between epub, mobi (Kindle), or PDF.
Genre: YA Steampunk
When Mimi Mockel discovers an unusual crimson tome in the public library, life suddenly becomes complicated. Attacked by two Ambassadors of Time who will do anything to retrieve the book, including killing her, she manages to escape.
Safely back at home with her younger brother Albert, she meets the author of the book: the posh, quirky, British time-traveling thief Sebastian “Bas” Barkley. Things go from bizarre to out-of-this-world-crazy when Bas saves them from another attack and brings them onboard his Bas House—a universe-hopping marvel of futuristic engineering.
Now it’s up to Mimi to save the people of the year 4218 from a vicious world-wide civil war—if she can only believe in herself—before all of time is erased.
Description: Format: Ebooks are open, non-DRM file. Choose between epub, mobi (Kindle), or PDF.
“LaDonna Cole gives the reader romance, adventure, fantasy, and at the same time, answers to deal with some of the most pressing problems of youth today.” ~Readers’ Favorite
Abducted to exotic worlds in quantum spheres, a sixteen-year-old beauty, Kate Wilson, and a team of teen misfits confront inner monsters and demons brought to life by quantum science. Dragons, aliens, sentient tornadoes, and tree-dwelling natives terrorize them as they fight for survival on strange planets and other worlds, and struggle to overcome emotional turmoil and mental illness. Kate is torn between sizzling passion and loyal stability, when two very different boys vie for her attentions. Trapped between self-loathing and independence, Kate must choose to live with horrifying consequences or kill the monster who loves her. A romantic thriller with action packed adventure, passion, science fiction and fantasy overtones for young adult readers of all ages.
Description: Hunter Wood wants to be respected. A talented cook, he’s ventured out on his own, opening a breakfast and lunch diner in Charity, Montana. He’s got a lot to prove—mostly to himself—and more than a few people to convince he’s a changed man.
Tracy Blevin is a registered nurse and pie baker extraordinaire, who is drawn to a most unlikely man, Hunter Wood. A nurturer by profession, she likes to feel needed, but the only thing Hunter needs her for is her pies. Their friendship has changed over the last six months as business partners. The more time Hunter spends with Tracy, the more he finds things to like about her. She’s smart, organized, and…those bright green eyes and delicate mouth are really starting to get to him. Maybe it’s time to move beyond just partnership…
When a Montana winter car crash leaves a baby an orphan, Godfather Hunter, lives up to his promise, taking in the ten-month old. With the season of miracles upon them, Hunter can no longer deny his strong attraction towards Tracy. Is her life-long wish for her own family finally being answered this Christmas?
Description: Ebook Format: .pdf The Balfour Declaration: Sixty-Seven Words – 100 Years of Conflict is a concise account of the players, motivations, and setting for one of the most consequential letters of modern history. The letter began a process by which the international community came to embrace the idea of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people. Jager brings to life the extraordinary personalities working amid the global conflict that was World War I. With the war still raging and despite political machinations and numerous secret deals, the Balfour Declaration was issued publicly. Britain promised Palestine to no one but the Jews – yet almost immediately, it began backtracking. One hundred years later, amid the Arab world’s unremitting rejection of the very idea of a Jewish homeland, this book spells out the backstory of today’s headlines.
Description: Sara knows her life would be easier if she married a man of her faith, but when has love ever been easy?
Raised by her immigrant Iranian parents, she’s been taught that a good daughter makes decisions based on her family’s approval, and she’s spent most of her life in their good graces. Until she meets Maziar, and her world is turned upside down. An instant electricity ignites between them, and it seems like fate when she discovers he’s also Iranian. Just as her mind begins to soar with the possibilities, he shatters her hopes.
Sara is Muslim. Maziar is Jewish. Will faith tear them apart?
Despite centuries of unrest behind them, Sara and Maziar embark on a forbidden love affair, attempting to navigate through cultural and religious prejudices.
Deep within the trenches of their battle, Sara finds herself more empowered and careless than ever before, but will her love and newfound life be worth the ultimate cost—her family?
Description: "A fresh new fantasy of an enchanting world." -Wendy Orr, author of NIM'S ISLAND.
ESME'S WISH is the first novel in a new fantasy/mystery series from Odyssey Books. When fifteen-year-old Esme Silver sets out to search for her missing mother, Ariane, she is transported to the alternate realm of Aeolia: a world enchanted by the gods, and steeped with myth and magic. With her newfound friends, Daniel and Lillian, Esme retraces her mother's steps in the glittering canal city of Esperance, untangling the threads of Ariane's double life. But the more Esme discovers about her mother, the more she questions whether she really knew her at all.
With themes of friendship, loyalty, and the unique bond between mother and child, ESME’S WISH is a whimsical tale for younger teens, or anyone who enjoys being swept into another world.
Kellan is a shape-shifter and a member of a secret society, the Sankhain, who protect a fountain of youth hidden in an invisible forest outside Madison, Wisconsin. When a stranger asks Kellan for her help with some documents, documents which shouldn’t exist, about the Sankhain, Kellan uses her unique sense of smell to follow the trail, which leads to the very heart of the Sankhain. What Kellan uncovers will shake her world to its core.
Description: He’s back from the dead… and he’s not the only one.
The city-state of Denver is tightly controlled. High-tech methods of food manufacturing and firm restrictions on reproduction keep the population stable. But even here, in this regimented society, violence is never too far away…
It was supposed to be a simple job. At least, that’s what Hans Ricker was expecting when he agreed to deliver a mysterious package for five-hundred dollars.
He was not expecting to get torn limb from limb while making the handoff. Nor was he expecting to emerge from a coma fourteen months later in the mile-high Denver General Hospital, his original organs replaced with regrown tissue. And he definitely wasn’t expecting to find himself entangled in a police investigation – one which takes a dangerous turn when an armed man tries to assassinate Greta “Grit” Ricker, Hans’ estranged sister and head of Denver’s security forces.
Shadow Life follows Hans Ricker as he sets out to find the person responsible for the multiple attempts on his and his sister’s lives. Pairing up with “Onyx,” a powerful Denver crime lord, Hans hunts down leads across the Midwest. From the overpopulated religious commune of Salt Lake to the mountains of Colorado, Hans and Onyx fight for their lives against drones and lab-grown human constructs, gradually unravelling the mystery of who wants them dead, and why…
Shadow Life is a high-octane noir-style adventure set in a deeply layered near-future world of complex political arrangements and fascinating new technologies, a must for fans of science fiction and cyberpunk.
Description: Elise Morley is an expert on the past who's about to get a crash course in the future.
For years, Elise has been donning corsets, sneaking into castles, and lying through her teeth to enforce the Place in Time Travel Agency's ten essential rules of time travel. Someone has to ensure that travel to the past isn't abused, and most days she welcomes the challenge of tracking down and retrieving clients who have run into trouble on their historical vacations. But when a dangerous secret organization kidnaps her and coerces her into jumping to the future on a high-stakes assignment, she's got more to worry about than just the time-space continuum. For the first time ever, she's the one out-of-date, out of place, and quickly running out of time.
About the Author: Wendy Nikel is a speculative fiction author with a degree in elementary education, a fondness for road trips, and a terrible habit of forgetting where she's left her cup of tea. Her short fiction has been published by Fantastic Stories of the Imagination, Daily Science Fiction, Nature: Futures, and various other anthologies and e-zines. For more info, visit wendynikel.com or subscribe to her newsletter.
Ebook is available in .Mobi (for Kindle) and .Epub (for most other ereaders. Winners will be emailed a download link.
Description: The only way to learn about your enemy is to die with your enemy.
Seven people, stolen from a Civil War, dropped into a sterile, featureless maze must learn to trust each other, fight off packs of bizarre monsters, if they're going to survive. But when the labyrinth resets itself again and again, they realize someone is watching them. Someone with an agenda. Is this some trap from the oppressive ruling Sayal regime, or is it a weapon of the freedom fighters, and what does the monstrous Grey - a creature inside the maze - want with them? Hanian Tris, not even a real general, hasn't seen much battle, but he'll learn from two highly skilled women, Ciege and Elise, freedom fighters in the Resistance. Working together, they might have a chance to escape the battles that bring them to the brink of Death... and back.
Description: The year is 1907, the setting is Baker Street, London. When the Martian Ambassador arrives at Holmes’ door seeking the Great Detective’s help in solving a grisly murder, how can he refuse?
The case will involve a trip to the Red Planet, where few humans have been privileged enough to visit. Ever since the second wave of Martians arrived on Earth, inoculated against the germs that had halted their tripods the first time around, and humanity accepted the aliens as their overlords, Holmes has been curious... Soon he and Watson are boarding one of the great Martian spaceships, where they discover their old friend Professor Challenger has been invited along for the ride. What awaits them at their destination is a plot more dastardly than any of them could have imagined.
In The Martian Simulacra, award-winning author Eric Brown delivers a novella that is a glorious mash-up of Sherlock Holmes and The War of the Worlds, seasoned with a dash of Conan Doyle’s The Lost World for good measure.
Description: Available in PDF, ePub, and mobi file formats.
Winterglass is a sci-fantasy about one woman's love for her homeland and her determination to defeat the Winter Queen who has overtaken the land.
The city-state Sirapirat once knew only warmth and monsoon. When the Winter Queen conquered it, she remade the land in her image, turning Sirapirat into a country of snow and unending frost. But an empire is not her only goal. In secret, she seeks the fragments of a mirror whose power will grant her deepest desire.
At her right hand is General Lussadh, who bears a mirror shard in her heart, as loyal to winter as she is plagued by her past as a traitor to her country. Tasked with locating other glass-bearers, she finds one in Nuawa, an insurgent who's forged herself into a weapon that will strike down the queen.
To earn her place in the queen's army, Nuawa must enter a deadly tournament where the losers souls are given in service to winter. To free Sirapirat, she is prepared to make sacrifices: those she loves, herself, and the complicated bond slowly forming between her and Lussadh.
If the splinter of glass in Nuawa's heart doesn't destroy her first.
Description: Available in PDF, ePub, and mobi file formats.
“Once upon a time there was a monster. This is how they tell you the story starts. This is a lie.”
Sometimes things are not what they appear to be. DNA doesn’t define us, gravity doesn’t hold us, a home doesn’t mean we belong. From circus tents to space stations, Damien Angelica Walters creates stories that are both achingly familiar and chillingly surreal. Within her second short story collection, she questions who the real monsters are, rips families apart and stiches them back together, and turns a cell phone into the sharpest of weapons.
Cry Your Way Home brings together seventeen stories that delve deep into human sorrow and loss, weaving pain, fear, and ultimately resilience into beautiful tales that are sure to haunt you long after you finish the collection.
Description: Gray Hawk of Terrapin is a heart-wrenching Y/A fantasy by Moss Whelan that introduces Melanie (Mool) Thames.
Ever since her father’s death, Mool has been talking with an imaginary green lion named Inberl. When Mool’s mysterious uncle gets sick, she and her mother take the train from Vancouver, Canada to the inner world of Terrapin, where Inberl is arrested because he’s looking for Gray Hawk. Springing into action, Mool sets out to rescue Inberl.
Mool’s know-it-all cousin, Olga, helps track down family friend Parshmander who might know how to save Inberl. They corner Parshmander at home, where they overhear mention of Gray Hawk, but the girls are captured and interrogated. Upon release, Mool feels success when she sees a secret map, finds a hidden bridge and crosses it with Olga. On the other side of the bridge, they find a secret city that keeps Terrapin at war.
Prepare yourself for a wrenching journey laced with evil, chronicling histories of cruelty, kidnapping, and false imprisonment in search of meaning and justice.
A teenager working in a mountain encampment during the Chinese Cultural Revolution stumbles upon an ambiguous utopia.
Lu Beiping is one of 20 million young adults the Chinese government uproots and sends far from their homes for agricultural re-education. And Lu is bored and exhausted. While he pines for romance, instead he’s caught up in a forbidden religious tradition and married off to the foreman’s long-dead daughter so that her soul may rest. The foreman then sends him off to cattle duty up on Mudkettle Mountain, far away from everyone else.
On the mountain, Lu meets an outcast polyamorous family led by a matriarch, Jade, and one of her lovers, Kingfisher. They are woodcutters and practice their own idiosyncratic faith by which they claim to placate the serpent-demon sleeping in the belly of the mountains. Just as the village authorities get wind of Lu’s dalliances with the woodcutters, a typhoon rips through the valley. And deep in the jungle, a giant serpent may be stirring.
The Invisible Valley is a lyrical fable about the shapes into which human affection can be pressed in extreme circumstances; about what is natural and what is truly deviant; about the relationships between the human and the natural, the human and the divine, the self and the other.
Includes 20 b&w pen-and-ink illustrations by Liu Guoyu from the Chinese edition.
Contributor Bios:
An acclaimed Chinese essayist and novelist, Su Wei spent ten years working on a rubber plantation during the Cultural Revolution, and afterward was among the first mainland Chinese students to pursue an advanced degree in the United States. He returned to China and played a key role as a leading intellectual in the Tiananmen Square student protests of 1989, was blacklisted by the Chinese government, and eventually fled to the U.S., where he has been a lecturer at Yale University since 1997. He has published three novels and several books of short stories and personal essays in Chinese.
Austin Woerner is a Chinese-English literary translator. His works include two volumes of poetry, Doubled Shadows: Selected Poetry of Ouyang Jianghe and Phoenix, and a novel, The Invisible Valley by Su Wei. He served as English translation editor for the innovative Chinese literary journal Chutzpah!, and co-edited the short fiction anthology Chutzpah!: New Voices from China. He holds a BA in East Asian Studies from Yale and an MFA in creative writing from the New School. He lives and works in Shanghai, China.
“The Invisible Valley is an extraordinary novel. It opens, even to Chinese readers, the world of a southern hinterland, a world of rubber groves, mystery and superstition. At the same time, the novel is intimately rooted in China's modern history and resonates with universal implications. Austin Woerner's vivid and supple translation has made it even more readable.” — Ha Jin, winner of the National Book Award
"Su Wei’s The Invisible Valley is a rich romantic story told with sharp humor and filled with vivid descriptions of the lush, dense highlands of a remote Chinese tropical island. Translated with a light hand and subtle wit by Austin Woerner, the novel moves in quick graceful stages after its hapless young hero, Lu Beiping, discovers to his dismay that he’s been ghost-married to a dead girl. Bizarre folkways, rituals and superstitions abound, along with hints of a great serpent awakening. It’s a joy to read such a strange, wonderful tale by a Chinese master in this brisk and lucid translation." — Patrick McGrath, author of Asylum
“Su Wei’s remarkable novel The Invisible Valley has drawn praise in Chinese literary circles both inside and outside China. Su Wei belongs to the generation of Chinese writers who ‘went down to the countryside’ at the behest of Chairman Mao in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and his novel was inspired by his personal experience in the wild, semi-tropical hills of Hainan Island in China’s far south. The power of this natural background—typhoons, jungles, giant snakes, pungent odors, and more—pervades the work and melds into the vivid human characters that populate it.” — Perry Link, Emeritus Professor of Chinese, Princeton University
Description: On June 2nd, 1894, in the wake of President Marie Francois Sadi Carnot's assassination, France descends into chaos and riots in the streets of Varbourg. Many lives are lost in the mayhem, but when one lady of the night is found murdered with brutal incisions and no sign of a struggle, it is clear something is amiss. Madeleine Karno, the tenacious protagonist from Doctor Death, must ask herself the terrifying question: Do they have their very own Jack the Ripper in France?
Madeleine is no stranger to cases such as this. Though she is a woman in forensic pathology (a career that is considered unseemly even for a man), her recent work with a string of mysterious deaths has earned her some semblance of respect—she has even become the first female student to gain admission to the University of Varbourg. But there's only so much her physiology courses can do to help her uncover the mysteries of a mad scientist's brutal murders. Madeleine must do whatever it takes—investigate the darkest corners of the city and even work under cover—to track down a murderer at large. But if there's one thing the press has right about "Mademoiselle Death," it's this: it takes a woman to find a killer of women.
Description: Readers will receive a code from the publisher for an audiobook download Is destiny your friend or your enemy?
A year after Pulitzer journalist Brenda Contay killed a killer, she’s convinced what she did has destined her to a life of unhappiness. Determined to run away from her past, and the man she loves, Brenda meets her next story in Naples, Florida.
James Rivera is smart, charming, and deadly. He believes he’s destiny’s child and that fate is why he’s getting rich by helping people who want to die. Even when they change their minds.
Brenda’s search for the story behind James Rivera will lead her back to her troubled past, and to a life-changing lesson: destiny isn’t waiting for us. It’s what we make it.
Description: From master anthologist Ellen Datlow comes an all-original of weird tales inspired by the strangeness of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There.
Between the hallucinogenic, weird, imaginative wordplay and the brilliant mathematical puzzles and social satire, Alice has been read, enjoyed, and savored by every generation since its publication. Datlow asked eighteen of the most brilliant and acclaimed writers working today to dream up stories inspired by all the strange events and surreal characters found in Wonderland.
Mad Hatters and March Hares features stories and poems from Seanan McGuire, Jane Yolen, Catherynne M. Valente, Delia Sherman, Genevieve Valentine, Priya Sharma, Stephen Graham Jones, Richard Bowes, Jeffrey Ford, Angela Slatter, Andy Duncan, C. S. E. Cooney, Matthew Kressel, Kris Dikeman, Jane Yolen, Kaaron Warren, Ysbeau Wilce, and Katherine Vaz.
This book is an eBook, not a physical book.
