Book picks similar to
Sequence by Arun Lakra
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award-winners-and-nominees
The Best Kind of People
Zoe Whittall - 2016
His wife, Joan, vaults between denial and rage as the community she loved turns on her. Their daughter, Sadie, a popular over-achieving high school senior, becomes a social pariah. Their son, Andrew, assists in his father’s defense, while wrestling with his own unhappy memories of his teen years. A local author tries to exploit their story, while an unlikely men’s rights activist attempts to get Sadie onside their cause. With George locked up, how do the members of his family pick up the pieces and keep living their lives? How do they defend someone they love while wrestling with the possibility of his guilt?With exquisite emotional precision, award-winning author Zoe Whittall explores issues of loyalty, truth, and the meaning of happiness through the lens of an all-American family on the brink of collapse.
Shoot Me
Lesley Crewe - 2010
She mothers everyoneher social work clients, her husband, her twenty-something daughters, and her reclusive sister who lives in the attic. Elsie is committed to taking care of everyone--everyone but herself. So, when crazy Aunt Hildy writes to demand a bedroom in their Halifax home, Elsie cant help but say yes. When Hilda arrives, she enchants and enrages the family with her moxie. That and her proclamation that she has hidden treasure in the house and the kings ransom will go to whoever loved her most. When someone threatens Aunt Hildy, she responds with her trademark sass: Go ahead. Shoot me. I dare you. Whoever it is takes her up on it. Suddenly, the house is turned topsy-turvy as Elsies family searches for a treasure that Elsie doesnt believe even exists, and for a killer that could be any one of them. Shoot Me is a funny and sometimes heart-wrenching story about family, fortune, and figuring out who you are and who you love. In Elsie, Crewe has created a character who speaks with humour and honesty to conflicts that exist in the lives of so many women: between work and home, between loving one man and wanting others, and between feeling fulfilled not only as a wife and a mother, but as a woman.
A Blessing in Disguise
Cathy Bramley - 2015
She’s happy working at the café round the corner from Ivy Lane allotments and her romance with her new boyfriend is going well, she thinks, but a part of her still misses the beautiful rolling hills of her Cumbrian childhood home: Appleby Farm.Then a phone call out of the blue changes everything…Freya’s beloved Uncle Arthur and Auntie Sue need her help. For the first time in years, Freya is back on the farm feeding the chickens, mucking out the stables, and loving every moment. As her visit comes to an end, she has a difficult decision to make: stay, or go?Freya has to follow her heart, but just where does her heart lie?
Appleby Farm is an irresistibly charming novel told in four parts – following the adventures of Freya Moorcroft in love, friendship and a spot of farming – beginning with A Blessing In Disguise. It features some friendly faces who appeared in Cathy's bestselling series, Ivy Lane, but it can be read and enjoyed as a standalone story.
Each part of Appleby Farm contains 10 chapters.
Praise for Cathy Bramley and Ivy Lane:
‘Delightfully warm with plenty of twists and turns’ Trisha Ashley‘A perfect blend of the two greatest pleasures in life – love and gardening!’ Fern Britton'A witty, laugh-out-loud romantic comedy' Miranda Dickinson
The Crash
Kip Nelson - 2016
This mission will have him escorting the prisoner across America. When things go awry, Mack finds himself in the middle of a forest surrounded by the plane’s debris. Initially, he believes the crash to have been the result of a mechanical error, but soon discovers that the electrical malfunction may have been the result of an EMP. As the sole survivors, Mack and Grace will have to band together to find their way to a military bunker for shelter, but she lacks the necessary skills and means to survive. Will her inexperience be too much of a cross to bear? Can they find out the truth about what caused the devastating crash before succumbing to the elements?
One Step at a Time
Beryl Matthews - 2006
She is intelligent, but has trouble with words. How is she going to survive when her father is hanged for murder and her mother dies, leaving her alone?
Ben Scott, an artist she has met only once, finds her at this crucial time and takes her back to his landlady, who gives her a home. The people living in the house become her family, and, step-by-step, the past is put behind her. In 1939 she marries a young doctor, John Sterling, and her happiness is complete. Then war comes to tear her family apart. John is killed during an air raid, and Ben is reported missing.
Is she destined to lose the two men she adores? And how many painful steps will it take to regain her happiness?
The Son
Florian Zeller - 2018
Believe me. I don't know what's happened, but something has. He's changed. He . . . And I'm wondering if . . . To be absolutely honest with you . . . I'm even wondering if . . . Nicolas, just two years ago a smiling boy, is going through a difficult phase after his parents' divorce. He's listless, skipping classes, lying. He believes moving in with his father and his new family may help. And a different school, a fresh start. When he doesn't feel comfortable there, when he senses he isn't wanted, he decides that going back to his mother's may be the answer. But at some point, options are going to dry up. And then what?I'm telling you. I don't understand what's happening to me. Florian Zeller's The Son forms the final part in a trilogy with The Mother and The Father, all of which are translated by Christopher Hampton. The Son premieres at the Kiln Theatre, London, in February 2019.
Paperback Dreams
Rahul Saini - 2013
All he wants is to earn loads of money and have hot girls chase after him wherever he goes. Rohit Sehdev, a one book old popular fiction writer is furious when he finds out that his publisher has cheated him out of his royalties. Karun Ahuja is a highly ambitious schoolboy who wants to win the heart his lady love by writing a novel about it and he doesnt mind playing dirty to get to the top. Ruthlessly exploiting these ambitious young men is their unscrupulous publisher. Sometimes funny, sometimes shocking, Paperback Dreams is the story of a new breed of young writers who will do anything to get famous, fast.
The Mark Midway Box Set: Books 1-4
John Hindmarsh - 2016
He doesn't know by whom, where or why. He doesn't know his parents. All he wants is a quiet life and a family experience. The fates conspire against him.Mark OneMark Midway is adopted by two scientists and is reared in a genetic research laboratory. Nine men, ex-military, are on a mission to destroy the laboratory and capture Mark. They are supported by four rogue CIA agents, who have commandeered a test drone and a missile at a Marine base. The team attacks the genetics laboratory complex before dawn, during a raging blizzard. Within hours, seven of the men are dead, one is severely wounded and one barely escapes. Mark also destroyed the drone with its missile. The next morning the four rogue agents are found dead from carbon monoxide poisoning, their killer unknown.Mark flees the laboratory complex, seeking safety and somewhere he can call home. The FBI is on his case and a mysterious organization offers him its assistance. Unknown killers are chasing him and he needs to protect himself and his friends. He needs to surviveMark TwoWe continue the story commenced in Mark One, with a young genetically engineered Mark Midway, FBI Special Agent MayAnn Freewell, and the mysterious Archimedes Schmidt who reports directly to the President. Mark—whose only desire is to be normal––shoots and kills two would-be kidnappers and discovers his search for peace again will elude him. Mark needs to survive. All he wants is a normal life.Schmidt works with FBI Special Agent Freewell to investigate a secret organization—Cerberus––which is infiltrating the FBI, the US Army, and other government departments with genetically engineered humans. Schmidt attempts to take control of Cerberus and discovers his personal relationships are not as reliable as he thought.Mark TwoSchmidt works with FBI Special Agent Freewell to investigate a secret organization—Cerberus––which is infiltrating the FBI, the US Army, and other government departments with genetically engineered soldiers. As Schmidt attempts to take control of Cerberus, he discovers his personal relationships are not as reliable as he thought.Mark ThreeA young woman escapes from a luxury yacht under attack by Chinese pirates in the Mediterranean. American law enforcement agencies collude and conspire to bring about an end to Cerberus, uncaring who gets in their way. Mark Midway faces deadly assaults by unknown enemies. A military helicopter is brought down over Washington by a Russian missile and General Archimedes Schmidt is in critical condition.Mark meets his sister and travels to London to rescue three more genetically engineered children. He finds romance, but he and his companions are under attack in both the US and England. Mark knows only one response - fight back.Mark FourMark Midway returns to America to re-build his home, which was destroyed by a gang of mercenaries. Police collude to effect his kidnap on his way back to Boston. His enemies include terrorists, a rogue NSA senior officer, a retired general, and a wealthy businessman; the latter wants control of all the Cerberus and LifeLong genetic engineering intellectual property. Cerberus teams in the US and UK rally to rescue Mark, but first they need to discover his whereabouts. General Schmidt and the NSA officer are enemies.
Stranger Than Kindness
Mark A. Radcliffe - 2013
It is 1989 and Community Care is about to reboot the industry of psychiatry. In a soon-to-be-closed asylum a bruised nurse, Adam Sands, is feeling less like a purveyor of kindness and more like a concentration camp guard with every passing drink. Many years later Adam has got used to the quiet life when his past finds him. Maybe this time he can do some good. Even make a diference. But redemption, like magic, can come from the strangest of places.
The Lonely Hearts Hotel
Heather O'Neill - 2017
The Lonely Hearts Hotel is a love story with the power of legend. An unparalleled tale of charismatic pianos, invisible dance partners, radicalized chorus girls, drug-addicted musicians, brooding clowns, and an underworld whose economy hinges on the price of a kiss. In a landscape like this, it takes great creative gifts to thwart one's origins. It might also take true love.Two babies are abandoned in a Montreal orphanage in the winter of 1910. Before long, their talents emerge: Pierrot is a piano prodigy; Rose lights up even the dreariest room with her dancing and comedy. As they travel around the city performing clown routines, the children fall in love with each other and dream up a plan for the most extraordinary and seductive circus show the world has ever seen. Separated as teenagers, sent off to work as servants during the Great Depression, both descend into the city's underworld, dabbling in sex, drugs and theft in order to survive. But when Rose and Pierrot finally reunite beneath the snowflakes after years of searching and desperate poverty the possibilities of their childhood dreams are renewed, and they'll go to extreme lengths to make them come true. Soon, Rose, Pierrot and their troupe of clowns and chorus girls have hit New York, commanding the stage as well as the alleys, and neither the theater nor the underworld will ever look the same.With her musical language and extravagantly realized world, Heather O'Neill enchants us with a novel so magical there is no escaping its spell.
Haroun and the Sea of Stories (Stage Adaptation)
Tim Supple - 1998
With the help of David Tushingham, he has adapted Salman Rushdie's classic children's novel, Haroun and the Sea of Stories for the stage. Set in an exotic eastern landscape peopled by magicians and fantastic talking animals, Rushdie's novel inhabits the same imaginative space as Gulliver's Travels, Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz. Haroun sets out on an adventure to restore the poisoned source of the sea of stories. On the way he encounters many foes, intent on draining the sea of all its storytelling powers.
The Prairie Bridesmaid
Daria Salamon - 2008
While her almost-but-not-quite ex-boyfriend Adam is on a work assignment in Europe, Anna finds herself tricked into a ditch-the-loser intervention by her supportive yet meddling girlfriends. More frustrated than ever, Anna starts to smoke, asks Buddy, the backyard squirrel, for advice, and finally seeks out the help of a caring but fashion-challenged therapist. Adding to the emotional overload, Anna's beautiful but rash sister decides to move to the Middle East. Luckily, Anna has a resource even better than Buddy or the therapist: her devoted grandmother, who tells it like it is, refuses to conform to anyone's expectations, and who continues to live on her prairie farm all alone, half-blind, and completely happy. In her richly rewarding debut novel, Daria Salamon explores the bonds that make and break family, friendship, and love with warmth and good humor.
Aftermath
Elle Charles - 2014
Every action has a consequence and this is the aftermath. My name is Kara Petersen. I am one of life’s survivors, but my life has not been easy. I am the product of a dysfunctional, broken home and parents who don’t care. Fallen from grace, abandoned and betrayed, I am now alone. Then there was hope. A boy, a saviour. He saved me, empowered me, and gave me the strength and courage to leave. To live. His actions will not be in vain. I will do whatever it takes to survive. My name is Sloan Foster. I am one of life’s failures, but my life has not been fair. I am the product of a loving home, a mother and father who adored each other, until death paved the way for the devil. Trapped inside a world with a gilded façade, I have always felt alone. Then there was hope. A girl, an angel, a beacon of pure light in the dark. She subconsciously called to me, reached deep into my soul, unknowingly claiming a part of myself I had let die years ago. I promised I would do whatever it took to be her protector. My promises were unachievable and futile. I will do whatever it takes to find her again. Please note this is a 36,000 word novella, chronicling the lives of Kara and Sloan and the ‘missing’ eight years. It is not a continuation of the present story, and should be read after Fractured and Tormented.
Bugging Home
Jerry D. Young - 2012
YOUNG When the grid goes down and the SHTF Greg knows exactly what to do. ABOUT AUTHOR JERRY D. YOUNG Author Jerry D. Young has been a fixture in the survival and prepping communities for more than twenty years. The author of more than 100 novels and short stories, Jerry’s writing has been a staple for men and women of all ages and from all walks of life that are interested in prepping, survival, and all-around self-sufficiency. Jerry’s books are written with the goal of educating as well as entertaining and generally enjoyed by all who seek to expand their knowledge of prepping and survival topics while enjoying a good book or short story. As daunting as the end of the world, nuclear fallout, World War III, Civil unrest, economic collapse, solar flares, EMP attacks, and other apocalyptic scenarios may be, society has always been interested in the “What If?” of a Post-Apocalyptic World. Jerry’s stories provide interesting and practical perspectives of heroes and villains navigating Post-Apocalyptic scenarios including everything from Mad Max type of events to more relevant plot lines that seem as if they could have come from the headlines of the modern world. Find more about Jerry D. Young at www.CreativeTexts.com.
The Beatrix Rose Box Set
Mark Dawson - 2014
A decade later, she emerges from the Hong Kong underworld with payback on her mind. They gunned down her husband and kidnapped her daughter, and now the debt needs to be repaid. It's a blood feud she didn't start but she is going to finish.Beatrix has already crossed one name off her Kill List. Her second target is a mercenary being held hostage by Somali terrorists. Can she infiltrate the most dangerous failed state on the planet and scrub him off the List, too?BLOOD MOON RISING"Murder's out of tune, and sweet revenge grows harsh."Ten years ago, Beatrix Rose headed an off-the-books hit squad that did the dirty work of the British Government. When she discovered that the commander of the squad was corrupt, he sent five of his assassins to rub her out.But they failed. Bad mistake.There were six names on Beatrix's Death List and now there are four. She's going to account for the others, one by one, even if it kills her. Beatrix has returned from Somalia with a fresh target in her sights. Bryan Duffy is in Iraq, surrounded by mercenaries, with no easy way to get to him and no easy way to get out.Will Duffy prove to be a challenge too far?BLOOD & ROSES"Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves."Beatrix Rose has worked her way through her Kill List. Four are dead and just two remain. But now her enemies know she has them in her sights. The hunter becomes the hunted.In a thrilling conclusion to the breakneck trilogy, Beatrix and her daughter must fight them in North Africa, New York and finally in the swamps of North Carolina. It's a lightning-paced roller-coaster of action that pits a deadly assassin against the might of the most powerful private army on the planet.It's long odds for Beatrix. And that's just how she likes it.