Russian Treasures


Elvira Baryakina - 2011
    Trade continues to boom in its colorful cities, couples tango in ballrooms, and grand mansions of nobility stand untouched, quiet and poetic. Yet within three months, the Bolshevik revolution will tear the Russian Empire apart.Klim Rogov returns from abroad and senses that a storm is coming—his journalist’s instincts never let him down. His plan is to claim his inheritance and return to Buenos Aires where his successful career, fame, and fans await.Upon setting foot in his deceased father’s house, Klim runs into an uninvited guest. Passionate, strong-willed, and fearless, Nina Odintsova dazzles him. Despite her odds, she has managed to run a successful business and keep her family afloat. Now she is about to lose everything in the flames of the Bolshevik revolution.Klim knows that if he stays in Russia, he will pay a terrible price. But he cannot desert the woman he now loves, and he makes the decision to remain in the Land of the Soviets where he will fight for their lives amidst the bloody clashes between the Red Army and the White Guard.RUSSIAN TREASURES is a story of impossible love, insane courage, and the most difficult choices a person could ever make.Inspired by the most dramatic events in Russian history, Elvira Baryakina’s uplifting novel illuminates the complex reasons for the October Revolution of 1917 and introduces the readers to a fascinating yet eerie world of the nascent communist dictatorship.

The Queen's Birthday Telegram: The Year of Short Stories – June


Jeffrey Archer - 2011
    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 And Thereby Hangs A Tale, Jeffrey Archer’s sixth collection of short stories, The Queen’s Birthday Telegram is an irresistible, witty and ingenious short read.Albert Webber and his wife Betty are utterly thrilled when he receives the honour of a telegram from the Queen, on the occasion of his hundredth birthday. The whole town celebrates in style, and Albert looks forward to the time when – in three years – his beloved wife can also celebrate with her own telegram. But when Betty’s birthday comes, there is no telegram. Albert decides to take this up with the Palace . . .

This Is Paradise: Stories


Kristiana Kahakauwila - 2013
    Exploring the deep tensions between local and tourist, tradition and expectation, façade and authentic self, This Is Paradise provides an unforgettable portrait of life as it’s truly being lived on Maui, Oahu, Kaua'i and the Big Island. In the gut-punch of “Wanle,” a beautiful and tough young woman wants nothing more than to follow in her father’s footsteps as a legendary cockfighter. With striking versatility, the title story employs a chorus of voices—the women of Waikiki—to tell the tale of a young tourist drawn to the darker side of the city’s nightlife. “The Old Paniolo Way” limns the difficult nature of legacy and inheritance when a patriarch tries to settle the affairs of his farm before his death. Exquisitely written and bursting with sharply observed detail, Kahakauwila’s stories remind us of the powerful desire to belong, to put down roots, and to have a place to call home.

The Scribner Anthology of Contemporary Short Fiction: Fifty North American Stories Since 1970


Lex WillifordSandra Cisneros - 1999
    JonesCold snap by Thom JonesDoe season by David Michael KaplanPatriotic by Janet KauffmanGirl by Jamaica KincaidTerritory by David LeavittThe kind of light that shines on Texas by Reginald McKnightYou're ugly, too by Lorrie MooreThe management of grief by Bharati MukherjeeMeneseteung by Alice MunroGhost girls by Joyce Carol OatesThe things they carried by Tim O'BrienThe shawl by Cynthia OzickBrokeback Mountain by Annie ProulxStrays by Mark RichardIntensive care by Lee SmithThe way we live now by Susan SontagTwo kinds by Amy TanFirst, body by Melanie Rae ThonAble, Baker, Charlie, Dog by Stephanie VaughnNineteen fifty-five by Alice WalkerFever by John Edgar WidemanTaking care by Joy Williams

Welcome to the Funhouse


Kelly Brocklehurst - 2021
    With twelve grisly stories of coming-of-age terror, carnival cruelty and fairground frights, this collection brings together the best and most exciting talents in the horror community. Roll up! with the following stories:"Mirrors" by Robin Grieve"Candy Apple Smiles" by Christopher Robertson"The Cyclone Sisters' Travelling Circus" by Angela Sylvaine"Anna and Abby" by L. Pine"The Prop" by Nikki R. Leigh"The Viperess of Las Cruces" by C.W. Blackwell"The Golden Tickets" by Roxie Voorhees"Dance With Us" by Kelly Brocklehurst"No Strings" by Jamie Stewart"Family Outing" by Briana Morgan"Mirrored" by Dave Musson"Smile at All the Good Times We Had" by Spencer HamiltonWith a foreword from the editors.

D. H. Lawrence: The Rainbow


Frank Glover Smith
    

The Lilac Bouquet


Carolyn Brown - 2017
    After three generations of Massey women with children out of wedlock, she wants the whole town of Hickory, Texas, to witness the legitimacy of her union with Logan Grady. But dream weddings aren’t cheap. So she accepts a highly lucrative stint as a home health assistant to retired realtor, and town recluse, Seth Thomas—a decision her great-grandmother Tandy is dead-set against.Seth isn’t happy about it, either. The eighty-two-year-old doesn’t want a “babysitter”—much less a Massey—something he makes clear when Emmy arrives at his house, an empty mansion built for the woman who broke his heart. But as Emmy stays and the two eventually open up to each other, she learns the reason behind a feud between Seth, Tandy, and Logan’s grandfather Jesse Grady that goes back six decades. She also uncovers a secret that forever changes how she sees her past and her future…

The Feud


Amanda James - 2019
    After losing his wife to leukaemia, he wants to make a fresh start. His new life is going well until Matt returns to his cottage to discover a grim warning on his doorstop. The message is clear – Leave now and go back to London.Not wanting to give up his new life, Matt eventually discovers that there has been a 200-year-old feud between his family, the Trevelyars, and another local family, the Penhallows.When Matt learns that one of his ancestors burned down a barn belonging to the Penhallows, and that there were tragic consequences, he understands why his family name is mud. But why is Matt paying for the sins of his ancestors now? And is there more to the feud than meets the eye? Amanda James is the bestselling author of the psychological thrillers Another Mother, The Cornish Retribution and Rip Current, as well as the heart-warming women's fiction novel, The Calico Cat. The Feud is a suspenseful drama which will appeal to fans of authors like K.L. Slater, Shalini Boland and Lucy Dawson.

Rapture: The Big Daddy


Dustin Brubaker - 2015
    He intends to work hard and one day be wealthy just like Ryan promises everyone who moves to Rapture. He opens a small business. For a few years things are good, almost idyllic. The good life is shattered when one day his daughter mysteriously vanishes without trace. The police of Rapture don't seem to want to help. So Arthur sets out to find her himself. He is lead down into a seedy underworld that exists below the upmarket façade of Rapture. But can he find her in time? Would you kindly like to know more? Download now to find out for yourself. Scroll to the top of the page and select the buy now button. Product Tags: Rapture, The Big Daddy, Andrew Ryan, Rapture The Big Daddy,

Hurt Others


Sam Pink - 2011
    Someone had to be a bagger at a grocery store and fantasize about hitting children in the head with wine bottles. Someone had to fear a puddle floating at him from across the street. Someone had to celebrate beating up a pregnant woman. Someone just HAD to be a nanny, and stare at giant motorized spiders. Jeez oh man! Don't ask why a teenager in a Chicago Bulls overcoat is feeding baby rabbits to a toad. Don't ask why someone had to run around the backyard with a bedsheet cape after drinking moonshine. And don't ask why jumping down stairs feels like success.Just sit back, drink a piss-infused Bloody Mary, and learn to hurt others.

Life, Love, and a Polar Bear Tattoo


Heather Wardell - 2009
    After only two years of marriage, their guilt and pain have left them living together but apart, unable to really talk for fear of what they'll say to each other.Ian leaves for a month-long contract overseas, and Candice plans to use the time apart to decide whether her marriage can be saved. When her ex walks back into her life as the new client at work, ten years more attractive yet saddened by his own recent loss, she's left wondering what she really wants from life and love.

Black Light


Kimberly King Parsons - 2019
    In this debut collection of enormously perceptive and brutally unsentimental short stories, Parsons illuminates the ache of first love, the banality of self-loathing, the scourge of addiction, the myth of marriage, and the magic and inevitable disillusionment of childhood.Taking us from hot Texas highways to cold family kitchens, from the freedom of pay-by-the-hour motels to the claustrophobia of private school dorms, these stories erupt off the page with a primal howl—sharp-voiced, bitter, and wise. Black Light contains the type of storytelling that resonates somewhere deep, in the well of memory that repudiates nostalgia.

Twin Beds: Christmas at Heartbreak Hotel


Deborah Moggach - 2012
    Retired actor, thrice divorced, hapless father - Buffy is well versed in the complicated family Christmas, shuffling between exes and children.Except this year will be different. He has inherited a B&B in rural Wales, and can finally escape the nearest and dearest, and play 'Myne Host' to a group of paper-hatted strangers, on escape-routes from their own clans. But when the strangers check in with their emotional baggage, and the Cab Sav begins to flow, Buffy soon realises that Christmas is never without its little complications.Join the gang at Heartbreak Hotel as they run riot, and celebrate Christmas the Buffy way.

Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd


Holly BlackDavid Levithan - 2009
    Anderson, Libba Bray, Cassandra Clare, John Green, Tracy Lynn, Cynthia and Greg Leitich Smith, David Levithan, Kelly Link, Barry Lyga, Wendy Mass, Garth Nix, Scott Westerfield, Lisa Yee, and Sara Zarr.With illustrated interstitials from comic book artists Hope Larson and Bryan Lee O'Malley, Geektastic covers all things geeky, from Klingons and Jedi Knights to fan fiction, theater geeks, and cosplayers. Whether you're a former, current, or future geek, or if you just want to get in touch with your inner geek, Geektastic will help you get your geek on!

Drinking Coffee Elsewhere


Z.Z. Packer - 2004
    Already an award-winning writer, ZZ Packer now shares with us her debut, Drinking Coffee Elsewhere. Her impressive range and talent are abundantly evident: Packer dazzles with her command of language, surprising and delighting us with unexpected turns and indelible images, as she takes us into the lives of characters on the periphery, unsure of where they belong. We meet a Brownie troop of black girls who are confronted with a troop of white girls; a young man who goes with his father to the Million Man March and must decides where his allegiance lies; an international group of drifters in Japan, who are starving, unable to find work; a girl in a Baltimore ghetto who has dreams of the larger world she has seen only on the screens in the television store nearby, where the Lithuanian shopkeeper holds out hope for attaining his own American Dream.With penetrating insight that belies her youth—she was only nineteen years old when Seventeen magazine printed her first published story—ZZ Packer helps us see the world with a clearer vision. Drinking Coffee Elsewhere is a striking performance—fresh, versatile, and captivating. It introduces us to an arresting and unforgettable new voice.Brownies --Every tongue shall confess --Our Lady of Peace --The ant of the self --Drinking coffee elsewhere --Speaking in tongues --Geese --Doris is coming