"Fingernails" quickly became a sensation when it was released and has long been a bibliographic rarity and one of the most read texts on the Russian internet.

    Carol Shields' first novels, "Small Ceremonies" and "The Box Garden," each told from the viewpoint of a sister, published as one.

    The hood raised her, but she's determined to let her humbled spirit take her out of it. Living a normal life is only a choice that she's made, however. Unlike Gianni, her mother, Tommy, is a bigger queen pin than any king pin in Tallahassee Florida and in the down south area. She takes care of Gianni and her two kids with no problems. Tommy could easily give Gianni the salon and big house that Gianni has always dreamed of, but Gianni wants to accomplish her goals on her own. Due to her mother being in and out of Federal Prison, Gianni reminds herself that she has two kids to think about, and she can not and will never leave her kids behind, like Tommy did her. Instead, Gianni allows her baby's father, Lamont, to take care of her and her kids. She feels he owes her that much, due to all the pain he's caused her. However, dealing with him has caused nothing but heartache, distraction and drama. After finding out about the third child that he could possibly have on her, she finally decides to stray away from him and focus on she and her kids. She meets a handsome and wealthy man by the name of Kreed at her mother's house during Tommy's known 'gambling day'. Kreed is a different breed, and though Gianni only wants friends so that she can do a little living, Kreed is hard to shake. He has that smart, hood, and smooth demeanor that Gianni admires. Being surrounded by drugs and a lot of money didn't mean a thing to Kreed. He loves his legal businesses and he enjoys living his life the right way. He's feeling Gianni just as much as she's feeling him, but he when Lamont finds out that there's a new man in town who's stole Gianni's heart, he makes she and her kids life a living hell. Which causes Kreed to bring out his old vicious ways! Tumultuous drama starts to unfold, and it will be up to Gianni to get everything in line to save what she has with Kreed.

    They had been together for a few months, but it wasn’t working out. They got along good, had fun together, but the sex left something to be desired. She dealt with it because he was such a nice guy. But then she got an anonymous note from a neighbor. One that heard their antics and offered to help her. Kate was in need of some good lovings and the note promised just that. She wasn’t sure who it was that offered such things, but she was intrigued. When she found out who it was, Kate was ready to take on his offer and once she got a taste, she was never going to look back.

    The big foyer at the Bell House has been decorated for the holidays and Polly's family has been hard at work decorating the rest of the house. She's ready for anything. The managers of the Sycamore Bed and Breakfast, Reuben and Judy Greene, have moved into town. While the old farmhouse is in the middle of its restoration, they plan to renovate a storefront down the street from Sweet Beans. They found something incredible in the upstairs apartment, bringing old and new together for a heartwarming moment. Moments like that prevail in this story. Last year, Polly and Henry brought two new little boys into their lives on Christmas Eve. This Christmas Eve, Noah and Elijah help the family create a beautiful new tradition. Like always, there are a few surprises. Your job is to hold them close so others can enjoy the fun. It truly is the most wonderful time of the year in Bellingwood.

    Love, Lies, and Murder is a collection of 19 short stories that explore the extremes of human emotion and the conflicts that result. Every story will leave you tense and breathless as the characters race to a conclusion that is as unexpected as it is satisfying. Intense and gripping, each story features a hero that seeks justice and the triumph of good over evil by whatever means necessary—regardless of what society’s rules find acceptable. The collection is taut, visceral, and addictive. All the emotions we feel every day, when taken to their extremes, offer a roller coaster of passion, conflict, and chills. Nineteen droplets of suspense in a thrilling anthology that will leave you unsettled, longing for more. Fans of David Baldacci, Robert Dugoni, and James Patterson will love reading Leslie Wolfe.

    Watching the mysterious transformation of your mother as she dolls herself up for a night on the town--with a man other than your father. Watching your best friend fall for the bad boy in town. Wondering if the man at work you're secretly in love with means something by the hand he lets linger on your arm. Kissing a man named Gable on a moonlit night when you've just found out you have only a few months left to live.With an irresistible narrative voice that captures both the humor and heartbreak of love, Nanci Kincaid paints a portrait of women's lifelong courtship with men that will make you laugh and cry in recognition.

    And  a grouping of four stories at the end follows a divorced psychiatrist in an arc that constitutes a short novel.   Included are: “His Women,”  “Great Sex,”  “Old Love Affairs,” and  “The Drinking Club,”  “Patients, “The Wrong Mexico, “ and “Earthquake Damage.”

    But what happens when those desires are thwarted, when dreams and goals fall apart? In It Needs to Look Like We Tried, Todd Robert Petersen explores the ways in which our failures work on the lives of others, weaving an intricate web of interconnected stories.A fastidious man takes a detour on the way to his father's wedding and kicks off a series of events that ricochets from the bride to her real estate clients; to a crazed former homeowner and his sister-in-law's reality TV lover; to a hoarding family whose lives are wrecked by their appearance on the second-rate show. Their daughter decides to escape the gravity of her tiny town with the help of her boyfriend who has a not-quite-legal plan to scrape together enough money to fund their departure.On their way across the country, these star-crossed lovers encounter our fastidious man, and the Rube-Goldberg machine of life continues. Their fling has petered out, and they are driving home, whatever home is left after walking away from everything they abandoned a month before.

    As Christmas comes around, Joe only wishes for one thing. Will his Christmas wish come true?

    They spend their time telling stories to the unborn baby, trying to pass on the lessons they've learned: tales of circuses and stargazing, selkie fishermen and domestic werewolves, child-eating witches and broken-toothed dragons. But each must keep their storytelling a secret from the other, as they've agreed to only ever tell the plain truth. Ruth tells her stories when Liska is at work, to a background of shrieking seabirds; Liska tells hers when Ruth is asleep, with the lighthouse sweeping its steady beam through the window. As their tales build and grow along with their child, Liska and Ruth realise that the truth lives in their stories, and they cannot hide from one another. A Portable Shelter is a beautifully produced collection of elegant, haunting short stories from one of Britain's most exciting new talents. Each story is accompanied by an illustration by award-winning artist Liz Myhill. Produced with the assistance of the Dr Gavin Wallace Fellowship.

    Angela Carter takes real people and literary legends - most often women - who have been mythologized or marginalized and recasts them in a new light. In a style that is sensual, cerebral, almost hypnotic, "The Fall River Axe-Murders" portrays the last hours before Lizzie Borden's infamous act: the sweltering heat, the weight of flannel and corsets, the clanging of the factory bells, the food reheated and reserved despite the lack of adequate refrigeration, the house "full of locked doors that open only into other rooms with other locked doors." In "Our Lady of the Massacre" the no-nonsense voice of an eighteenth-century prostitute/runaway slave questions who is civilized - the Indians or the white men? "Black Venus" gives voice to Charles Baudelaire's Creole mistress, Jeanne Duval: "you could say, not so much that Jeanne did not understand the lapidary, troubled serenity of her lover's poetry but, that it was a perpetual affront to her. He recited it to her by the hour and she ached, raged and chafed under it because his eloquence denied her language." "The Kiss" takes the traditional story of Tamburlaine's wife and gives it a new and refreshing ending. Sometimes disquieting, sometimes funny, always thought-provoking, Angela Carter's stories offer a feminist revision of images that lie deep in the public psyche.

    A poisoned apple and a monkey's paw with the power to change fate; a girl whose extraordinarily long hair causes catastrophe; a man with one human arm and one swan's wing; and a house deep in the forest, constructed of gumdrops and gingerbread, vanilla frosting and boiled sugar. In A Wild Swan and Other Tales, the people and the talismans of lands far, far away, the mythic figures of our childhoods and the source of so much of our wonder are transformed by Michael Cunningham into stories of sublime revelation. Here are the moments that our fairy tales forgot or deliberately concealed: the years after a spell is broken, the rapturous instant of a miracle unexpectedly realized, or the fate of a prince only half cured of a curse. The Beast stands ahead of you in line at the convenience store, buying smokes and a Slim Jim, his devouring smile aimed at the cashier. A malformed little man with a knack for minor acts of wizardry goes to disastrous lengths to procure a child. A loutish and lazy Jack prefers living in his mother's basement to getting a job, until the day he trades a cow for a handful of magic beans. Re-imagined by one of the most gifted storytellers of his generation, and exquisitely illustrated by Yuko Shimizu, rarely have our bedtime stories been this dark, this perverse, or this true.

    And mermaids are on display at the local aquarium.The Beginning of the World in the Middle of the Night is a collection of twelve haunting stories; modern fairy tales brimming with magic, outsiders and lost souls.

    But when your best friend has died and your other friends have moved away it can suddenly get a whole lot tougher. Now heartbroken Jenny has a female shaped hole in her life which - despite the presence of many women - won’t go away. Grief has turned her into a first class snob.Husband Lonny preps the house for climate change and is unable to halt Jenny’s unravelling. Then gorgeous Trudi wafts into the creative writing class bringing some much needed hope.Feeling that this is the only way out of her depression, Jenny’s intention to befriend Trudi builds to an obsession while facing all manner of setbacks. A motley crew of unsuitable local women is encroaching while lovely Trudi remains elusive. Why is something that used to be so easy, now so hard?Mixing serious issues with much hilarity ‘Friends and Neighbours’ is a feel-good story for our times.‘This book made me laugh out loud in many places and shed a tear in others’ Siobhan Curham. Author. 'An American in Paris'