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Exile
B.K. Greenwood - 2021
It's a battle he won't survive.When he awakens three days later, clawing his way from a shallow grave, Marcus must face the reality of his new existence. He cannot be killed--but that won't stop him from dying time and again over the next 2,000 years.Meanwhile, others like Marcus plan to bring the world crashing to its knees. Can he prevent the inevitable and find redemption?"An extraordinary idea extraordinarily well-told. Greenwood has a special talent for creating believable characters in a believably realized historic setting."---Ron Miller, Hugo Award-winning Author
Quichotte
Salman Rushdie - 2019
Together with his (imaginary) son Sancho, Quichotte sets off on a picaresque quest across America to prove worthy of her hand, gallantly braving the tragicomic perils of an age where “Anything-Can-Happen”. Meanwhile his creator, in a midlife crisis, has equally urgent challenges of his own.Just as Cervantes wrote Don Quixote to satirise the culture of his time, Rushdie takes the reader on a wild ride through a country on the verge of moral and spiritual collapse. And with the kind of storytelling magic that is the hallmark of his work, the fully realised lives of DuChamp and Quichotte intertwine in a profoundly human quest for love and a wickedly entertaining portrait of an age in which fact is so often indiscernible from fiction.
The Islanders
Christopher Priest - 2011
The Dream Archipelago is a vast network of islands. The names of the islands are different depending on who you talk to, their very locations seem to twist and shift. Some islands have been sculpted into vast musical instruments, others are home to lethal creatures, others the playground for high society. Hot winds blow across the archipelago and a war fought between two distant continents is played out across its waters. The Islanders serves both as an untrustworthy but enticing guide to the islands; an intriguing, multi-layered tale of a murder; and the suspect legacy of its appealing but definitely untrustworthy narrator. It shows Christopher Priest at the height of his powers and illustrates his undiminished power to dazzle.
The Cure for Death by Lightning
Gail Anderson-Dargatz - 1996
The Cure for Death by Lightning sold more than a staggering 100,000 copies in Canada alone and became a bestseller in Great Britain, later to be published in the United States and Europe. It was nominated for the Giller Prize, the richest fiction prize in Canada, and received a Betty Trask Award in the U.K.The Cure for Death by Lightning takes place in the poor, isolated farming community of Turtle Valley, British Columbia, in the shadow of the Second World War. The fifteenth summer of Beth Weeks’s life is full of strange happenings: a classmate is mauled to death; children go missing on the nearby reserve; an unseen predator pursues Beth. She is surrounded by unusual characters, including Nora, the sensual half-Native girl whose friendship provides refuge; Filthy Billy, the hired hand with Tourette’s Syndrome; and Nora’s mother, who has a man’s voice and an extra little finger. Then there’s the darkness within her own family: her domineering, shell-shocked father has fits of madness, and her mother frequently talks to the dead. Beth, meanwhile, must wrestle with her newfound sexuality in a harsh world where nylons, perfume and affection have no place. Then, in a violent storm, she is struck by lightning in her arm, and nothing is quite the same again. She decides to explore the dangers of the bush.Beth is a strong, honest, and compassionate heroine, bringing hope and joy into an environment that is often cruel. The character of Beth’s haunted mother infuses the book with life by means of her scrapbook of recipes scattered throughout, with luscious descriptions of food, gardening, and remedies, both practical and bizarre. Seen through Beth’s eyes, the West Coast landscape is full of beauty and mysteries, with its forests and rivers, and its rich native culture.The Globe and Mail commented that The Cure for Death by Lightning was "Canadian to the core," with hints of Susannah Moodie and Margaret Atwood and Alice Munro. Anderson-Dargatz’s vision of rural life has drawn comparisons with William Faulkner and John Steinbeck. A magic realism reminiscent of Latin American literature is also present, as flowers rain from the sky, and men turn into animals. Yet the style of The Cure for Death by Lightning, which the Boston Globe called "Pacific Northwest Gothic," is wholly original. Launched in a year with more than the usual number of excellent first novels (1996 was also the year of Fall On Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald and Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels), this book with its assured voice heralds a worthy successor to Margaret Atwood, Carol Shields, Margaret Laurence and Alice Munro.
Forever
Pete Hamill - 2002
. . forever. Through the eyes of Cormac O'Connor -- granted immortality as long as he never leaves the island of Manhattan -- we watch New York grow from a tiny settlement on the tip of an untamed wilderness to the thriving metropolis of today. And through Cormac's remarkable adventures in both love and war, we come to know the city's buried secrets -- the way it has been shaped by greed, race, and waves of immigration, by the unleashing of enormous human energies, and, above all, by hope.
The Rainwater Secret
Monica Shaw - 2017
Single and feeling there is nothing left for her in small-town England, Anna embarks on an adventure as a volunteer with the Medical Missionaries of Mary to teach the leper children in Africa. Life as Anna has known it, is forever changed as she learns the culture that would banish its sick, disfigured, and crippled to the jungles. Babies are left to die on roadsides, children are chased away to live by whatever means they can find. The aged are abandoned. Anna’s daily life is an adventure as she travels from one village to another across a hostile land with few passable roads, rickety bridges threatening to fall apart and cast its occupants on the jagged rocks far below, and weather that turns a calm river into a roiling death trap. In spite of the trials, Anna also manages to find love and family in this godforsaken land. Follow this adventure through disease, weather, strife, death and determination to turn a few acres of land into a loving home for the outcast lepers of Nigeria.
24 + 1 Christmas Tales: Butterfly Adventures in Santa's Secret City
Alexander Ruth - 2011
They are accompanied by their friends the three electric blue fireflies and the fearful phoenix. Whether it be helping to check wish lists, granting a white Christmas or manufacturing magical Christmas presents, the butterflies can be found everywhere: their mission is to make Christmas bigger, better and more perfect.
The Sin Soldiers
Tracy Auerbach - 2019
Yellow exhausts them. Blue drives them into a state of ravenous addiction. The thief Kai knows about the chemically controlled soldiers of the Eastern forces and their savage, deadly nature. When a robbery attempt at Club Seven goes wrong, Kai is captured by a handler and his bestial soldier-boy. She wakes up inside the military base with no idea what happened to her twin brother, Dex.Things go from bad to worse when Kai is started on a drug and training regimen, and forced to take injections of blue compound. The scientists in charge plan to make her into a working soldier who will mine the mysterious power crystals beneath the desert. Kai becomes a victim of the bully Finn, a handsome but nasty soldier whose years on red compound seem to have erased his humanity. Still, she begins to pity the Seven Soldiers, including the monstrous boy who tried to rip her to shreds at the club. They appear to be nothing more than genetically enhanced, drug-controlled teenagers.On the outside, Dex and his tech-savvy boyfriend try to crack the soldiers’ chemical code to find a weakness that will break the system. But Kai has already been drawn deep into her new world. Strong feelings for the soldiers she’s come to know have started to cloud her judgment. Can she escape and find Dex without becoming a monster herself?
Let's Not Do That Again
Grant Ginder
Not that that’s her slogan, although it should be. This is what she’s worked so hard for over the years after her husband’s untimely death (which was definitely not her fault) and inheriting his seat in the House of Representatives. She’s said all the right things. Passed all the right legislation. Chapped her lips kissing babies. There’s just one problem: her grown children.Greta and Nick Harriman are adrift. Nick, recently heartbroken, is floundering in his attempts to write a musical about the life of Joan Didion (called Hello to All That). And then there’s his little sister Greta. Smart, pretty, and completely unmotivated by anything, allowing her life to pass her by like the shoppers at the Apple store where she works.But then one morning the world wakes up not to Nancy making headlines, but Greta. She’s in Paris. With extremist protestors. Throwing a bottle of champagne through a beloved bistro’s front window. In order to save her campaign, not to mention her daughter, Nancy and Nick must find Greta before it’s too late.Smart and poignant, funny and tear-jerking, Let’s Not Do That Again proves that like democracy, family is a messy and fragile thing that means more than any mother, or senator, could ever dream.
The Redhead of Auschwitz: A True Story
Nechama Birnbaum - 2021
She often dreamed what it would look like under a white veil with the man of her dreams by her side. However, her life takes a harrowing turn in 1944 when she is forced out of her home and sent to the most gruesome of places: Auschwitz.Upon arrival, Rosie’s head is shaved and along with the loss of her beautiful hair, she loses the life she once cherished. Among the chaos and surrounded by hopelessness, Rosie realizes the only thing the Nazis cannot take away from her is the fierce redhead resilience in her spirit. When all of her friends conclude they are going to heaven from Auschwitz, she remains determined to get home. She summons all of her courage, through death camps and death marches to do just that.This victorious biography, written by Nechama Birnbaum in honor of her grandmother, is as full of life as it is of death. It is about the intricacies of Jewish culture that still exist today and the tender experiences that are universal to all humanity: family, coming of age, and first love. It is a story that celebrates believing in yourself no matter the odds. This is a story about the little redheaded girl who thought she could, and so she did.
The Handyman Homicide (Reckless Camper Cozy Mysteries Book 1)
Libby Howard - 2022
The Advent of Dreamtech (DREAMWORMS #1)
Isaac Petrov - 2021
Definitely for the cerebral high concept sci fi fan.”A POST-APOCALYPTIC FIRST CONTACT EPIC — NO-BULL SCI-FI AT ITS BEST!
Aliens, First-Contact, Collapse, Dreamtech, Revolution and Extinction.
Twenty-first century: An exhausted Earth destroyed civilization.THAT WAS THE FIRST COLLAPSE.Twenty-second century: An intractable disease destroyed humanity.THAT WAS THE SECOND COLLAPSE.What little remains is the rural utopia known as Goah’s Gift, a rural paradise that expands a dying world. A world where you live quickly.A world where you love intensely.A world where you live quickly.A world where you love intensely.A WORLD WHERE YOU DIE CERTAINLYON YOUR TWENTY-SEVENTH BIRTHDAY.Aliens have been watching us for millennia. They know us well.They know humankind cannot take a Third Collapse.They just revealed themselves. To a few.INSIDE THEIR DREAMS.—————BOOK 1 of the DREAMWORMS series includes:EPISODE I: 2399 First ContactThe wu-sarc is truly a wonder of alien technology, the dream of every dreamer.EPISODE II: Alien MasterDo not let the words fool you, Overseer Yog. Human speech is as unstable as the surface of the ocean during a storm. After centuries of study, I have learned to find the truth beneath the waves. This human loves her parent with unusual intensity, even for a young female.EPISODE III: 31st December 2399Propaganda is like a recreational drug: it feels good, it feels right, but it eventually corrupts you, and kills you.—————Is this book for YOU? No-Bull Sci-Fi! Do you love Science Fiction that feels like it matters? That digs into the truth of human condition and the purpose of civilization? Engaging characters, escapist settings, intense adventures, wildly imaginative plots and EPIC stakes.
Eve of Snows
L. James RiceL. James Rice - 2018
Great for fans of George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series, R. Scott Bakker’s Prince of Nothing series." - Booklife ReviewsFive hundred years ago the world shattered, banishing the gods from the Sister Continents and stealing the memories of the mortal peoples in an event known as the Great Forgetting. In 17 days the stars will align, and a religious cabal will summon the gods back to the realms of men. In the northern tundra priests search the Steaming Lakes, a place tormented by the Wakened Dead. Deep in the mountains, demonic shadows assail priests at a holy shrine. In the south, the clans know something foul is afoot, and dispatch warriors to seek answers, but instead they find horrors. A young priestess named Eliles stands in the heart of this conspiracy; on her shoulders rest decisions which could prevent a holy war or demonic genocide. Through lies, manipulation, and murder, everyone is on a 17-day march to fulfill or defy prophecy; the world will end or begin anew, come the Eve of Snows.
Winter's Tale
Mark Helprin - 1983
One night in winter, Peter Lake, orphan and master-mechanic, attempts to rob a fortress-like mansion on the Upper West Side.Though he thinks the house is empty, the daughter of the house is home. Thus begins the love between Peter Lake, a middle-aged Irish burglar, and Beverly Penn, a young girl, who is dying.Peter Lake, a simple, uneducated man, because of a love that, at first he does not fully understand, is driven to stop time and bring back the dead. His great struggle, in a city ever alight with its own energy and besieged by unprecedented winters, is one of the most beautiful and extraordinary stories of American literature.
Let's Never Talk About This Again: A Memoir
Sara Faith Alterman - 2020
But Sara's world changed for the icky when she discovered that Ira had been shielding her from the truth: that he was a campy sex writer who'd sold millions of books in multiple languages, including the wildly popular Games You Can Play with Your Pussy. Which was, to the naïve Sara's horror, not a book about cats. For decades the books remained an unspoken family secret, until Ira developed early onset Alzheimer's disease . . . and announced he'd be reviving his writing career. With Sara's help. In this cringeworthy, hilarious, and moving memoir, Sara shares the profound experience of discovering new facets of her father; once as a child, and again as an adult. Let's Never Talk About This Again is a must-read confessional from a woman who spent years trying to find humor in the perverse and optimism in the darkness, and succeeded.