The NP had done remarkably well in elections in four states. It was the party’s heroic return. It was an even larger triumph for the Dalal family, who had survived several calls for their ouster from party leadership. The fireworks started at 11:59 and four bottles of champagne were uncorked, as the ‘Nationalists’ and few staff members watched the night sky from the garden below.BOOM. Huge explosions razed most of 10, Lokpath, the entire Dalal lineage reduced to body parts and blood splatter on the grass. Though the explosion was restricted to the property, the tremors would soon be felt throughout the country.Naresh Mistri was woken up at 1:08 a.m. His national security team had reached his residence. The PM saw the news on TV. Even BP’s staunchest supporters would suspect the party. First the dreadful electoral performance and now this! It could be the biggest threat to his political career. As the world’s gaze would firmly be on Mistri, would he lose his greatest asset of all, public opinion?The IB and RAW had more often than not failed to provide intelligence on such attacks. And there was no ‘national’ police force that could investigate and solve this crime and bring the culprits to justice quickly. No, the PM had to turn to someone else. He said, “I want ISSCO to investigate this.”Realising that India needed an agency like the USA’s FBI, Russia’s FSB, and UK’s MI5, which could work with surprise, speed, and intensity, Mistri had three months ago approved ISSCO, a covert, privately run but government-funded intelligence and security organisation. He had told ISSCO they were to do everything that IB, RAW, DIA, NIA, and NSG said couldn’t be done, and do it better, faster, and quieter.

    A perfume made from some very unusual ingredients becomes more effective than expected. A remarkable change in a woman's life leaves her family to make a decision. The secret and danger of high intelligence are revealed to a university student. A teacher discovers a way of making time stand still. And a book tells a young manager more than he wants to know.

    Past winners and shortlisted authors have included the Pulitzer winners Junot Díaz, Anthony Doerr and Adam Johnson, plus Hilary Mantel, Ali Smith, Yiyun Li, CK Stead and Elizabeth Strout.Six Shorts 2017 brings together the six stories shortlisted for this year's award: ‘Reputation Management’ by Kathleen Alcott; ‘Half of What Atlee Rouse Knows about Horses’ by Bret Anthony Johnston; ‘The Hazel Twig and the Olive Tree’ by Richard Lambert; ‘The Tenant’ by Victor Lodato; ‘Every Little Thing’ by Celeste Ng; and ‘Mr Salary’ by Sally Rooney.Chosen by a hugely experienced and prestigious judging panel that included Booker-winner Anne Enright, Orange- and Whitbread-winner Rose Tremain, Booker-shortlistee Neel Mukherjee and critic and novelist Mark Lawson, the six stories represent the very best in contemporary English-language short fiction.

    Released as one of a limited number of digital shorts released to celebrate the publication of Jeffrey Archer’s magnificent seventh short-story collection, Tell Tale. Taken from To Cut a Long Story Short, Jeffrey Archer's magnificent fourth collection of short stories, Other Blighters' Efforts is an ingenious, witty and brilliant short read. Henry Pascoe, the First Secretary at the British High Commission on Aranga, is determined to build a swimming pool for the local children. But despite his best efforts to convince local businessmen and the British government to fund such an endeavour he is desperately short of money. However, with his posting coming to an end he discovers a way to get the money he needs with the unwitting help of the High Commission’s bank manager . . .

    Or, rather, in his oblique way, which was perhaps a strategy of shyness, he’d simply told her that he was going hiking this weekend, and asked if she wanted to join him. The woman had been introduced to the man several weeks earlier, at a dinner party at a mutual friend’s home in the Berkeley Hills. The friend, closer to the man than to the woman, had said to the man, “You’ll like Mariella. You’ll like her face,” and to the woman, “Simon’s an extraordinary person, but it may not be evident immediately. Give him time.”

    Love, laughter, and occasional tears - no need to turn on the Hallmark Channel this winter. Snuggle up with this feel-good anthology instead!Warning: reading this anthology may cause cravings for cider sugar donuts, French toast, pimento cheese, cherry cola, and maple syrup ice-cream, as well as happy ever afters

    Don’t miss this special release from New York Times and USA Today bestselling author, Stephanie McAfee.

    This is to keep you on the edge with each turn in the alleys of the Labyrinth.Labyrinth: Short Stories is an array of fifteen tales that cover genres like adventure, romance, paranormal, fantasy, history, and many more.Summary Of The BookLabyrinth: Short Stories, published in 2012, is a collection of fifteen short stories written by various Indian authors. Each tale belongs to a different genre and era, thereby giving this book a unique and refreshing feel. Labyrinth: Short Stories starts off with The Martyr, which has been written by Mainak Dhar. It revolves around young Kemal who finds himself in the middle of a war in Afghanistan. Puppet Show, by Aditi Chincholi, explains how a doctor cannot find a way to break a spell that has been cast over the natives of a valley.Bagheera Log Huts takes readers into the heart of an Indian jungle, where the search for a wild cat turns into an unexpected adventure. Shawn Pereira’s I'll Be Back describes an out-of-body experience, which shows how things can take a downward spiral when one is caught in the wrong place, at the wrong time. Aditi Chincholi’s second story, Sym World, is set in a fantasy land which the protagonist Kyoto has willingly entered, but cannot find a way out. In Mortified, written by Jeevan Varma, readers will find themselves in a small Indian township where a mortified Sharmaji is going to be attacked. This is followed by Crashing Impacts, a tale of love and sacrifice that spans almost ten years.Rishabh Chaturvedi’s The Night Of The Wokambee describes how Revant is in a quandary when a strange creature visits his house every night. Both Mists of Time by Niharika Puri, and Russkaya Rulyetka by Shawn Pereira, illustrate how a person makes impulsive decisions when he is overcome with rage and jealousy. Candies shows readers that the pursuit of love is filled with ups and downs. Travel Through The Night, authored by Rishabh Chaturvedi, follows the protagonist into dense sugarcane plantations, where he encounters strange spirits who block his path. A Day of Battle is set during the great epic battle of the Mahabharata, and the author Abhishek Dwivedi shares stories of the bravery of some of the best warriors that this world has ever seen. The next story, Farming On Facebook by Sushant Dharwadkar, takes a huge time leap, and shows how the present generation is unaware of the real world, as their focus lies only on the screens in front of them. About The AuthorsLabyrinth: Short Stories has been written by Mainak Dhar, Richard Fernandes, Jeevan Verma, Rishabh Chaturvedi, Niharika Puri, Aditi Chincholi, Abhishek Dwivedi, Sushant Dharwadkar, Rohit Das, and Shawn Pereira. They are a part of the initiative by Litizen.com. Professionally they are accountants, chefs, media professionals, doctors, and students.

    Bingham's strange sense of morbid fancy collides with a gutsy realism; the result is splendid wreckage: a young man is seduced by his first cousin (or maybe it's the other way around) at her brother's wake ("The Other Family"); a bored couple plot to kill a man during their ski-resort honeymoon ("Marriage Is Murder"); a yuppie banker risks his whole perfect life for an affair with a junkie ("The Fixers"); an insurance-company bounty hunter tracks down walk-aways from drug and alcohol rehab ("Preexisting Condition"); and in the title story, an eleven-year-old boy is caught at the exquisitely uneasy intersection of the safety of childhood play and the pain of grown-up love and longing.These lean, potent stories are utterly original, and yet by turns recall Salinger, in their intellectual acuity, emotional depth, and wicked, dark humor; Fitzgerald, in their vivid chronicling of a new, restless social elite; and the work of "transgressive" writers, in their pervasive sense of the imminent possibility of danger and violence, even in the most civilized surroundings. Above all, the stories in Pure Slaughter Value mark the debut of a striking new literary voice--unsparing, bold, ironic, and true--that will haunt us for a long time to come.

    Both Detective Mark Whitman and Sorcerer Merrick Stone have expressed a desire to woo her, but she’s had to put them both on the back burner while she and her son have gotten their thriving restaurant and B&B up and running. But now that things at Habernackle’s have settled down a little, Linda is at a crossroads. It’s time to pick which man has her heart! Unable to make up her mind, Linda enlists the help of local matchmaking witch Sweets Porter to help. But when everything goes haywire will Linda be forced to start back at square one again? Or will she finally choose one of the men to call her own? ​ This is a Witch Squad Cozy Mystery Short-Story. It falls after Witch School Dropout and before The Witch Within in the series. If you haven’t read the series yet you may discover a few character spoilers.

    a lovely blend of humour, sexual comedy and pathos' Daily Express 'A rollicking tale of a Welsh sailor with a girl in every port, but only one true love at home...Thomas has a rare gift for words...This is his best book and a celebration of his robust talents, which combine flesh with imagination. He always had a narrative verve, and this saga develops it into a turn of the wheel of life. Revolving Jones comes back at last to his eternal miss, and hopefully, Leslie Thomas will achieve a revolution in his reputation' The Times 'This exciting adventure story is also one man's pilgrimage, a lifetime's odyssey, a ritually layered tale of the quest for humour and love' Daily Mail 'He inhabits that "bestseller author" territory that includes the likes of Jeffrey Archer, Jack Higgins and Ken Follett, but he is a far better writer than any of them' Marcel Berlins, Sunday Times

    He avoids relationships lasting more than a few hours and sets his sights on breaking out of this college town and opening a shop in Miami. Hailey Matthews is ready to leave her college days behind her except for one last hoorah, getting matching tattoos with her sorority sisters by the best artists in the Tri-state area at Steele Ink. After passing out twice a few minutes into the tattoo, Vic Steele refuses to touch her skin again, at least not with the tattoo gun. When she shows up at his shop day after day demanding he finish the tattoo he finally agrees with one stipulation, she goes out to dinner with him. They both get more than they bargained for when their feelings take them by surprise and Hailey finds herself in the midst of the full Vic Steele experience, but Vic’s playboy status comes back to haunt him threating to ruin it all. Will Hayley’s first ink be her last or will Vic leave a permanent scar?

    Who have done the unforgivable. Who need to be punished." But when Lucy lures an influential man from her childhood back into her life—a painter she befriended when she was only seven years old—the charming temptress may be committing the ultimate crime: letting a long-buried secret interfere with the job at hand…

    The arcades, food stands, souvenir shops and tattoo parlors are boarded over for the winter but the bungalows tucked in the dunes are occupied by artists and transients looking for cheap rentals. She faces a long, cold, lonely winter but a bunch of old guys, that she calls The Geezers, begin regaling her with stories about the "old days" and about an ill-fated romance between the beautiful wife of a Boston mob boss and The Great Hercules, a sideshow strongman. She is also increasingly fascinated by an elusive roustabout who flirts with her and shows her the secret spaces in an old beachfront ballroom. As winter gets darker and deeper Layla's husband is both struggling with his writing and becoming suspicious of her behavior. What Layla doesn't know is that nothing is what it seems and her options are growing fewer every day. (Volume One of the Halcyon Beach Chronicles. Volume Two is Ghosts of a Lighthouse in Autumn.)

    5,000 words (16 pages).For Bafion, there is no farther to fall. Once a banneret, officer, and gentleman, he is none of those things now. He is a swordsman who has slipped through the cracks of society and is eking out an existence as a thug for hire.Bafion is presented with the opportunity to reclaim some of what was lost to him, but to do so will mean facing part of his past that he would rather forget.The Swordsman of Tanosa is a swashbuckling fantasy short story set in the same world as the Society of the Sword trilogy.