One night. No hope. Damaged property.Mauled animals.Mutilated bodies.There's something on the loose, prowling the dense forests of the Ozarks, leaving a trail of horror and devastation in its wake and striking fear deep in the hearts of all who live there.A monster, they say. A behemoth creature with long teeth and sharp claws.On a cold November night, three men head out into the dark wilderness, searching for the beast, hoping to take it down before it kills again. But as the men are pushed to their limits, they're left wondering if they'll survive the hunt......or will they have to sacrifice themselves in order to save the lives of others?

    As Louise Glück observes in her foreword, “Green Squall begins and ends in the garden”; however, Hopler’s gardens are not of the seasonal variety evoked by poets of the English lyric—his gardens flourish at lower, fiercer latitudes and in altogether different mindscapes. There is a darkness in Hopler’s work as deep and brutal as any in American poetry. Though his verbal extravagance and formal invention bring to mind Wallace Stevens’s tropical extrapolations, there lies beneath Green Squall’s lush tropical surfaces a terrifying world in which nightmare and celebration are indistinguishable, and hope is synonymous with despair.

    A Winner of the 2016 Alex AwardsNightmarish villains with superhuman enhancements. An all-seeing social network that tracks your every move. Mysterious, smooth-talking power players who lurk behind the scenes. A young woman from the trailer park. And her very smelly cat. Together, they will decide the future of mankind.Get ready for a world in which anyone can have the powers of a god or the fame of a pop star, in which human achievement soars to new heights while its depravity plunges to the blackest depths. A world in which at least one cat smells like a seafood shop's dumpster on a hot summer day. This is the world in which Zoey Ashe finds herself, navigating a futuristic city in which one can find elements of the fantastic, nightmarish and ridiculous on any street corner. Her only trusted advisor is the aforementioned cat, but even in the future, cats cannot give advice. At least not any that you'd want to follow.Will Zoey figure it all out in time? Or maybe the better question is, will you? After all, the future is coming sooner than you think.

    Billions in sales. But, unlike Tesco or BP, few have heard of it. The Cartel is Britain’s biggest drugs organisation, a shadowy network stretching from the freezing, fog-banks of the Mersey to the glittering marinas of Marbella, from the coffee shops of Amsterdam to the trading floors of Canary Wharf. Run by godfathers as rich as Branson but kept in line by a new generation of teenage killers. Here is the inside story.

    All three are in their mid-thirties and have been unlucky in love. “Out of every ten replies I’ll probably get two perverts, two nerds, two frauds – usually married – and four genuine guys. Not a bad percentage really.” Claire is apprehensive about it and Megan downright sceptical but Viv, with her usual joie de vivre, takes to it with gusto. Many men and many dates later – from the boring to the bizarre – Viv thinks she has found her Mr Right. But does the course of true love ever run smooth? Meanwhile she coerces a doubtful Claire into joining the dating site too. Add to this mix Claire’s nasty sister Sarah who, bored with marriage, embraces online-dating with even more enthusiasm than Viv. Not to mention Megan’s thrice-married mother who’s looking for a toy boy not a husband . . . Is online dating the answer for all these women?

    It's a place where magic spells, enchanted artifacts, steam-powered machines, firearms and mechanical golems are a part of everyday life.Gamer Andrew Falk begins his journey in a small village on the border of Orcish territory. The locals are the keepers of many secrets, but their behavior is too realistic for characters in a game; so realistic, in fact, that Andrew starts to treat them as if they were real people. Maybe because of the way he plays, or maybe just thanks to good luck, he becomes one of a mysterious class of people known as "sliders,” and Elenia, the goddess of fate, sends him on an epic quest. But he quickly comes to understand that it's not just his stats as a gamer that are at stake here, but his real life. The virtual goddess turns out to be capable of affecting the real world in order to force Andrew to complete her assignments within the game.Now Andrew's going to have to turn Arktania upside-down in his quest for five ancient swords. But the "Loner" curse means that he won't have anyone to rely on but himself.

    

    Each book follows the individual story of one of the survivors of this horrible new existence. They can be enjoyed as standalone tales or as part of a larger, overall narrative.---------------------------------------BOOK 1: Jeremy's ChoiceBeing a security guard at a news station meant Jeremy found out about the peeling before anybody else. But that didn't prevent the deadly, unknown virus from infecting his wife. After years of neglect, unfaithfulness, and lies, is it finally time for Jeremy to do right by the woman he loves? Or is it too late?---------------------------------------------------BOOK 2: The StadiumBrett went to the football stadium for safety. They all did. But the deadly, flesh-eating virus, The Peeling, doesn't care about walls. It isn't long before the stadium starts to look less like a refuge and more like a prison.---------------------------------------------------BOOK 3: WarriorsWith barely a soul alive, Sergeant Parker and his squad scour the land, looking for survivors, but will they succeed only in finding more nightmares?---------------------------------------------------BONUS CONTENT - Also includes the prequel story: The Peeling Of Samuel Lloyd CollinsPublished author, Iain Rob Wright, was born in 1984 and lives in Redditch, a small town in the West Midlands, UK, with his loopy cocker spaniel, Oscar, his fat old cat, Jess, his many tropical fish, and the love of his life, Sally. Writing is the passion that fills his life during the small periods of time when he isn't cleaning up after his pets.He is the author of several novels, including the critically acclaimed, The Final Winter, and the deeply disturbing thriller, ASBO.

    

    He took on arguably the toughest extreme sport on the planet - to swim non-stop across seven of the world’s deadliest oceans wearing only swim trunks, cap and goggles. It is not a test for the faint-hearted: swimmers face freezing temperatures, huge swells and treacherous currents, potentially deadly marine life (from sharks to Portuguese men o’ war), vomiting and burning off a week’s calories in a single swim.In 2007, Adam, then a toaster salesman, saw a fi lm about a man attempting to swim the English Channel and change his life in doing so. Inspired by this, he decided to try to emulate the feat. After a year of rigorous training without a coach - his first open-water swim was in 9 degrees and he nearly died from hypothermia - Adam achieved his goal in 11 hours 35 minutes, despite a ruptured bicep tendon leading to medical advice to give up long-distance swimming. In 2011, after two operations and a change to his swimming style to take pressure off his injured shoulder, he became the first Briton to achieve a two-way crossing from Spain to Morocco and back. In the process, he broke the British record one way.Shortly afterwards, the Ocean’s Seven challenge was born, a gruelling equivalent to the Seven Summits mountaineering challenge. At fi rst it seemed that injury would prevent Adam from participating but, ignoring medical advice, he developed an innovative technique - the Ocean Walker stroke - that would enable him to continue with the ultimate aim of completing this seemingly impossible feat. Whether man would triumph over ocean, or fail in the attempt, forms the core of this extraordinary autobiography.Always intriguing, sometimes terrifying, and occasionally very funny, Adam’s story is about sport in its truest form: rather than competitions between teams and individuals, it is about man against nature - and against his own failings.

    After his parents died in a horrific car crash, he uses the inheritance money to start a brewery and gets married.Happiness doesn't last very long. The brewery is struggling, and his marriage is rocky. Still, he has his team at work supporting him. Until he doesn't.Microbrewer Alchemist is the story of a man who stumbles upon a secret that he is still trying to understand while turning his life around at the same time. There are no intimate scenes or harems, but there is a bit of swearing.

    Gorgeous, strong fierce…and soon he would be alpha of her werewolf pack. But then the marriage was set. No choice. No looking back. Except, she did. Lillian started looking forward, too, and wondering if eighteen was too young to give away her life.Certainly, it is tonight. A rock concert. She and her friend, intoxicating music, sweat, bodies, freedom…and him: Paul. The human bassist’s touch makes her soul sing like the strings of his axe, and everything is possible. Yet, Lillian’s parents, her secrets, her entire world lies elsewhere. Paul doesn’t even see what she is, what she can do. What she must do. This to-die-for human is not of her kind. And yet, something special, something terrifyingly perfect, something eternally true has been…born of lies.

    Learning the work of marriage. Navigating the bumpy terrain of parenting. Maintaining social relationships. Facing grave hardship. Finding contentment in our career.As the years pass by, we sense how the good things in life are so often eclipsed by stress. We find ourselves doing everything we can just to endure adulthood, all the while wondering whether we are actually enjoying it. This is exactly why Dr. Anthony T. DeBenedet decided to write Playful Intelligence: The Power of Living Lightly in a Serious World, to show readers how playfulness helps us counterbalance the seriousness of adulthood."Five years ago, my life was becoming more intense and stressful," DeBenedet says. "My relationships, clinical work as a physician, and basic interactions with the world were blurring into a frazzled mosaic. Going through the motions became my norm, and every day brought busyness and exhaustion. I thought about whether I was depressed. I didn't think I was. Anxious? Sure, but aren't we all anxious on some level? I also thought about the lifestyle factors that could be making me feel this way. Was I getting enough sleep? Was I exercising regularly? Was I eating healthy? Was I playing and remembering to be playful?"Today, we live in a taxing world. The endless pressure to keep up with our responsibilities and the daily headlines swarming around us can be overwhelming. DeBenedet's work comes at a time when stress, uncertainty, and intensity levels are high. Playful Intelligence shows adults that there is a way to live lighter--and smarter--as we navigate the seriousness of adulthood. It's not about taking life less seriously; it's about taking ourselves less seriously.The book's core chapters are devoted to exploring the effects and benefits of five playful qualities: imagination, sociability, humor, spontaneity, and wonder. By examining playfulness as a sum of its parts, readers will gain a working awareness of its power and be able to apply playful principles to their own lives, bringing the magic of childhood back into their day-to-day existence. The book also offers practical suggestions on how to make life more playful in nature.

    Guilt holds her hostage, and she knows that she can never forgive herself for causing Eric’s death. When Tara meets Devan, a homeless man who seems to have been linked to Eric in some way, she decides to follow him. Desperate to find some connection with her late husband, Tara seeks it through Devan, but the truth that he holds is not one that Tara is willing to accept. As Tara inches closer to the truth, an invisible clock begins ticking …

    People the world over will identify with the story told within these pages. As the story progresses, some will feel guilty, some will cry, some will laugh, ...but all will follow the plight of James Quinn, a man who is not unlike so many of us all.The Story :Contemplating having an affair, bored with work, and convinced there must be something more to it all, James Quinn is a man just about to enter a mid-life crisis. At the pinnacle of his career, James leads a successful life. But is it the right life? Instead of a Product Manager in a Telecommunications company, should he have been a plumber, an Olympic athlete, or a stockbroker, or an artist? Life, as they say, isn't a practice run. This is it.Convinced the 'grass is greener' everywhere else, and worried that he may be missing out, James Quinn is a man full of doubts.It's not that he hates his own life. Far from it. His 'life', as others may call it, is good. It's just that, nowadays he can't stop looking at other people and wondering if, out of the thousands of different lives that he could be living, is he living the right one? What if James has got it wrong? And then there's Jane, the first girl he kissed at school, and the one that got away. What would life have been like if he had married her instead of his wife? Unable to control his curiosity he tracks her down through Facebook and discovers that she is now a beautiful woman, living in London, and unhappy in her marriage: like a moth drawn to a flame James finds himself heading for infidelity and feels powerless to stop. Then one day, during the normal underground commute to work in London, he looks up from his book and doesn't recognise the station name on the Jubilee Line, …and in a split-second, everything changes.Emerging onto a platform at "New Cross Gate North", a station that shouldn't exist, James finds that Canary Wharf has vanished. Gone. And so have Selfridges and mobile phones.Instead, James finds himself in an alternate and different London, where the city he lived in has subtly changed, and every moment is now a voyage of discovery into a new life: a new career in advertising, a new house, and a new wife: Jane-the object of all his fantasies.In this new world, James discovers that he is a flamboyant, intelligent, charismatic, successful businessman. Yet, even though he now has everything he has always dreamt of, he finds that he longs for everything else that he used to have but has now lost: his two children, Keira and Nicole, and his wife Sarah. Sarah, the woman he loved but took for granted. Convinced that both the past and present are somehow real, he realises that somewhere Sarah must be as real in this world as she was in the last. Longing to hold her in his arms again, and with no apparent way back to his old world, he sets out to find Sarah in his new world. Wherever she is. Using knowledge of her gained from their previous life together, he manages to track her down. But James realises that before he can truly be together with Sarah once again, he must first understand what went wrong between them in the other world to avoid it happening again. What is the secret that his subconscious has hidden from his conscious mind, and which made him want to turn away from Sarah and into the arms of another woman? Will it be possible for Sarah to fall in love with him again in this new world? And is it too late to find a way back to the old world, the old life, and the London he used to know?Or will he be stuck forever in this other world, yearning for the green, green grass of home…