Oliver’s variety of subject matter, wit, characterisation and stylistic elegance are on display, as is his gift for telling a good story. The rivalry between two former MI5 members in a seaside town escalates into something deeply sinister and mysterious. . . . The one-time assistant to a musical genius is dying in early nineteenth-century Vienna and cannot escape his obsession with their last collaboration. . . . In Weimar Germany a mass murderer is awaiting his execution with perplexing eagerness. . . . There are two novellas in this collec-tion. ‘Lord of the Fleas’ is a study of a sinister eighteenth-century architect, told through various documents, including an unpublished fragment of Boswell’s Life of Dr Johnson, and a series of increasingly desperate letters from a young woman to her cousin in the style of the epistolary novels of Fanny Burney. The other novella, ‘A Child’s Problem’, inspired by a painting in the Tate Gallery by Richard Dadd, was nominated for ‘best novella’ in the Shirley Jackson Awards of 2012.Reggie Oliver is an English playwright, biographer and writer of ghost stories. His work has appeared in a number of anthologies, including the Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror and The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror.Flowers of the Sea contains: ‘Introduction’ by Michael Dirda, ‘A Child’s Problem’, ‘Striding Edge’, ‘Hand to Mouth’, ‘Singing Blood’, ‘Flowers of the Sea’, ‘Lord of the Fleas’, ‘Didman’s Corner’, ‘The Posthumous Messiah’, ‘Charm’, ‘Between Four Yews’, ‘The Spooks of Shellborough’, ‘Süssmayr’s Requiem’, ‘Come Into My Parlour’, ‘Lightning’, ‘Waving to the Boats’, ‘Author’s Note’.Flowers of the Sea is a sewn hardback book of 388 + x pages with decorated boards, silk ribbon marker, head and tailbands, and d/w. Also available as an ebook.

    Kane knew he'd lost his strength, and perhaps his soul, when he entered the erotic web of the vampire. . . .

    However, the English have made smuggling almost impossible, and so order after order is waiting at the distillery until it’s safe enough to continue shipments. Most customers understand this. Most customers are reasonable. The Duke of Danby is not most customers. So after a number of demands from His Grace, insisting upon his order, Mary decides to deliver the whisky herself since no one else is available. Benjamin Storm, Earl of Kenley, breathes a sigh of relief when his summons from the Duke of Danby has nothing to do with matrimony or a stack of special licenses. Instead, his uncle just needs Benjamin to travel to Scotland and procure his missing whisky shipment in time for his holiday festivities. The chore sounds easy enough, at least until he encounters a most unusual smuggler on her way to Danby Castle. Benjamin’s life may never be the same. *This story originally appeared in “The Duke’s Christmas Summons” anthology.

    He and his mother endured the cold and humiliating attitude of their relatives who like most people were driven by greed.First published in Khawateen Digest, it is now available in Meri Zaat Zarra-e-Benishan.

    Standard procedure. You pick it up the first time a white friend leads you across a room just to stand you up by another Indian, arrange you like furniture, like you should have something to say to each other. As one character after another tells it in these stories, much that happens to them does so because "I'm an Indian." And, as Stephen Graham Jones tells it in one remarkable story after another, the life of an Indian in modern America is as rich in irony as it is in tradition. A noted Blackfeet writer, Jones offers a nuanced and often biting look at the lives of Native peoples from the inside. A young Indian mans journey to discover America results in an unsettling understanding of relations between whites and Natives in the twenty-first century, a relationship still fueled by mistrust, stereotypes, and almost casual violence. A character waterproofs his boots with transmission fluid; another steals into Glacier National Park to hunt. One man uses watermelon to draw flies off poached deer; another, in a modern twist on the captivity narrative, kidnaps a white girl in a pickup truck; and a son bleeds into the father carrying him home. Rife with arresting and poignant images, fleeting and daring in presentation, weighty and provocative in their messages, these stories demonstrate the power of one of the most compelling writers in Native North America today.

    Her husband has left her, a schizophrenic alcoholic, to raise their youngest four children without his help. Her children watch through the living room window as the police come and arrest her for disturbing the peace, leaving them alone in the house. Thus begins the astonishing story of a family always living on the brink of disaster. The story unfolds, told through the eyes of Marie's children. Not only are they impoverished, but they are dealing with Marie's erratic and often bizarre behavior. Through it all shines Marie's sense of humor and her unconventional ways of dealing with her difficult situation. How they manage to not only survive, but to grow into well-adjusted adults is a true story that shows how the miracle of love can overcome all obstacles.

    Yet they are engaging and fascinating at the same time.We all had evil thoughts throughout our lives. What is it that makes us different from those who actually act upon it? Is it the act alone? These are questions that many ask themselves, and these stories will help dig into the elements and psychology behind some of the most terrifying killers in history.This collection includes four true crime books, volumes 1-4, and each is filled with a variety of murder cases, from spree killers to massacres to even cannibals. You will explore the background, the act, and the aftermath of their violent acts. Some pages will be painful to read, due to the detailed description of the violent acts and the emotions behind them.

    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.

    December 4, 1978.In an appalling demonstration of the way in which a charismatic leader can bend the minds of his followers with a devilish blend of professed altruism and psychological tyranny, some 900 members of the California-based Peoples Temple died in a self-imposed ritual of mass suicide and murder.The followers of the Rev. Jim Jones, 47, a once respected Indianaborn humanitarian who degenerated into egomania and paranoia, had first ambushed a party of visiting Americans, killing California Congressman Leo Ryan, 53, three newsmen and one defector from their heavily guarded colony at Jones-town. Then, exhorted by their leader, intimidated by armed guards and lulled with sedatives and painkillers, parents and nurses used syringes to squirt a concoction of potassium cyanide and potassium chloride onto the tongues of babies. The adults and older children picked up paper cups and sipped the same deadly poison sweetened by purple Kool-Aid.This story is part of the TIME Classic Coverage Collection from Time Inc. This is a reproduction of a story that appeared in the December 4, 1978 issue of TIME magazine. Time Inc. is one of the world’s most influential media companies – home to 90 iconic brands like People, Sports Illustrated, Time, InStyle, Real Simple, Food & Wine, and Fortune. The Spotlight Stories in this collection aim to provide you with a quick read on a single subject, highlighting our readers’ most popular stories and featuring great reporting from our Time Inc. journalists.

    ContentsDummyDistanceThe LieSo Much Water So Close to HomeThe FlingPastoralMineFurious Seasons

    Some say it's Death, Some say it's darkness, I say it's a game of light...Gutsy 17-year-old Albert "Shoe" Horn is an apprentice plumber and part-time boxer in England in 1922, but when his mother dies, he finds himself responsible for an abusive, alcoholic father and a younger brother with special needs.This marvelous novel follows the indomitable Shoe's day-to-day survival with poetic grit, cynical genius, respect, and deep affection as he navigates a world full of very real characters: the gentle giant McAvy, his slave-driving boss, the Irish louts that resurrect his temper, the tempting ladies who seek him out, his hilarious plumbing clients, and the formidable “Dropper,” who Shoe fears will take away the most true thing in his life, his brother.

    A deft, masterful mix of both bizarro and horror."--Brian Keene, author of The Rising and Ghoul"Dark and grim and surreal." --Electric LiteratureMondays suck. You get mugged, your car won't start, you miss the bus, and your stylist burns a bald spot into your head. Suddenly you're single and unemployed, and the only friend you have left is a cat. By Tuesday, you've been murdered. But death isn't the end. You find yourself on an odyssey between weird worlds, reborn each time you die, stalked obsessively by the man who killed you.Even in death, you just can't seem to catch a break. Call it Mercury in retrograde, call it Murphy's law, call it . . .SHIT LUCK

    Chip Taylor’s girlfriend Liza had the perfect plan to rip off her rich sugar daddy. It should have been an easy in and out kind of deal. Nobody would get hurt and they would come out of it with enough loot to solve their problems. But things started going wrong as soon as they were inside the rich man’s house, and for Chip it was only the beginning of the longest, most terrifying ride of his life.

    The wonderful writings in Thalia Field's long-awaited new book Point and Line deny categorization, they are "nicheless." Perhaps describable as "epic poetries," these riveting pieces represent a confluence of genres in which Thalia Field has been involved over the course of her career: fiction, theater, and poetry. Written from a constructivist, post-genre sensibility, they elude classification, and present the author's concern with clarity in a world that resists it. For instance, in "Hours" and "Setting, the Table," Field uses indeterminate performance techniques to emphasize the categorical/conceptual nature of thought. Other pieces use generative schemes, portraits of mental shapes, which create meaning out of noise. Visually, each chapter is captivating, showing the author's need for shapes and colors in her work, her fascination with the contours of speech.

    Queen for a Day, Success Story, and Adultery trace fortunes of the Painter family in there pursuit of and retreat from the American dream. Banks also explores the ethos of rampant materialism in a group of contemporary moral fables. The Fish is an evocating parable of faith and greed set in a Southeast Asian village, The Gully tells of the profitability of violence and the ironies of upward mobility in a Latin American shantytown, and Chrildren's Story explores the repressed rage that boils beneath the surface of relationships between parents and children and between citizens of the first and third worlds.