Sometimes we are the architects of our own fall.Akash Choudry wants a love for all time, not an arranged marriage. Still, under the weight of parental hopes, he agrees to one. He and Jaya marry in a cloud of colour and spice in Bombay. Their marriage has barely begun when Akash embarks on an affair. Jaya cannot contemplate sharing her husband with another woman, or looking past his indiscretions as her mother suggests. Cornered by sexual politics, she takes her fate into her own hands in the form of a lit match.Nothing endures fire. As shards of their past threaten their future, will Jaya ever bloom into the woman she can be, and will redemption be within Akash’s reach?

    Well, perfect except for one thing…the neighbor.

    Carlos Ninguna is seventeen. His father is a snake-handler and Carlos is his apprentice. When a man who may or may not be on the FBI's Most Wanted List moves into the apartment above them, Carlos is faced with a whole tangle of complicated decisions.Anthony Doerr is one of the country's most honored young story writers. His short stories have appeared in the Atlantic, McSweeney's, the Paris Review, and Zoetrope: All-Story, where "The Snake Handler" originally appeared. His most recent collection, Memory Wall, won the 2010 Story Prize.

    James as standing 'absolutely in the first rank as a writer of ghost stories'. The House by the Churchyard is perhaps his best novel in this genre. Set in the village of Chapelizod, near Dublin, in the 1760s the story opens with the accidental disinterment of an old skull in the churchyard, and an eerie late-night funeral. This discovery relates to murders, both recent and historical whose repercussions disrupt the complacent pace of village affairs and change the lives of many of its notable characters forever. Charm and chilling darkness abound in equal measure in one of the greatest novels of a Victorian master of mystery.

    Each story goes off like a tiny depth charge in the mind, leaving you with the trace memory of some new urban myth - comic, absurd and disturbingly true.

    You won’t find any dazzlingly handsome, wealthy action heroes or beyond belief beauties here, but real characters … hard working, Irish country folk who grow to depend upon each other through a dangerous and oppressive time in Ireland’s history … a time of hardship, fear and persecution.Liam Flynn travels across Tipperary, his destination the shores of Lough Derg, his objective to fulfill a lifelong dream. The perils he encounters on the road are only the beginning for this young itinerant carpenter. He finds himself thrust into an impossible situation when, with the help of an old Franciscan priest, he tries to save the tiny Irish village of Gortalocca. If he is discovered by the authorities, he faces almost certain execution for treason and, when the villagers discover what action he has taken in his efforts to help them, he becomes the object of their contempt and hatred.These are dangerous times in Ireland and, as the country struggles to piece itself back together after a hundred years of conflict, the very fabric of society has changed. English Parliament has begun to impose harsh Penal Laws in Ireland which will ban Catholics from voting, from receiving an education, even from practicing their own faith. Catholics can no longer own their own land. More than ninety percent of Ireland’s land will be confiscated and given to English and Irish Protestant landlords, who will charge the rightful owners rent as they try to eke out a living on land which their families have worked for generations. Liam and Father Grogan risk their lives in an effort to save their peaceful Irish village from dissolution.A consummate loner, Liam has led a solitary life so far but he finds romance in Gortalocca, not with a retiring Irish lass, but rather with the feisty daughter of Michael Hogan, the owner of Gortalocca’s only store and bar. Roisin grew up in a man’s environment and has seen enough to know that she will never wed if it means compromising herself by marrying a man she doesn’t love. Now, at the age of nineteen, Roisin Hogan is a spinster.There is plenty of fast-paced action in our story and villains abound, from Gortalocca’s homegrown bully, Sean Reilly, and his gang of thugs, to the menacing dark man who appears from nowhere, posing a threat to Liam’s plan and adding a further complication to his life.You will meet Moira, the ancient and mysterious old hag who lives alone in a tiny cottage, hidden deep inside the forest. Moira is one of the ‘wise ones’, a healer, with her own blend of the spiritual and the ritualistic, the Christian and the Pagan. She is feared by the villagers who think her a witch and do not dare to gaze upon her … unless one of them is ill, and then she is beckoned for help. Moira becomes the source of wisdom for Liam and a strange and shadowy, yet important, part of the plot.Of course, an Irish story would not be complete without humor, and there is plenty of ‘craic’ to be had here. In Hogan’s bar, you will experience, first hand, the humor which epitomises the character of the people of Ireland, and sustains them, especially in times of crisis … an unconscious humor, one of habit. You will sit at the bar with Paddy Shevlin, the pig farmer and Ben Clancy, the shepherd, whose banter provides a welcome respite from the tension, and who never let the truth spoil a perfectly good story.Allow yourself to be stirred into this cauldron of Irish stew.

    To save them from the workhouse, Nell returns to the family home - a mere two rooms at the top of a condemned tenement.Nell finds work at a biscuit factory and, at first, they scrape through each week. But then eight-year-old Róisín, a delicate from birth, is admitted to hospital with rheumatic fever and fifteen-year-old Kate, rebellious, headstrong and resentful of Nell taking her mother's place, runs away.When Liam finds work in London, Nell stays to struggle on alone - her unwavering devotion to her sisters stronger even than her love for him. She's determined that one day the Dublin girls will be reunited and only then will she be free to follow her heart. Look for more gripping, heartwrenching page-turners from Cathy Mansell - don't miss A Place to Belong, out now.

    I know exactly what Jolly would say: I know because I've written words to mistresses before. Hundreds of them."On the day of her 26th birthday, Jane is recently single, adrift at her job, and intrigued by why Clem - her much older, married boss - is singing to her.Meanwhile her alter-ego, the online agony aunt Jolly Politely, has all the answers. She's provided thousands of strangers with insightful and occasionally cutting insights to contemporary life's most vexing questions.When she and Clem kiss at a party, Jane does not follow the advice she would give to her readers as Jolly: instead she plunges head-first into an affair. One that could jeopardise her friendships, her career and even her life.

    She has confided only in Google and a shiny magpie.But she can’t go on like this, tirelessly trying to outstrip her past and in mortal fear of her future. Across the ward, Margaret Rose is running her chaotic family from her rose-gold Nokia. In the neighboring bed, Jane, rarely but piercingly lucid, is searching for a decent bra and for someone to listen. Sinéad needs them both.As You Were is about intimate histories, institutional failures, the kindness of strangers, and the darkly present past of modern Ireland. It is about women’s stories and women’s struggles. It is about seizing the moment to be free.Wildly funny, desperately tragic, inventive and irrepressible, As You Were introduces a brilliant voice in Irish fiction with a book that is absolutely of our times.

    In this chance encounter, she discovers that her immigrant husband of almost fifteen years was not an orphan after all. Instead, his aged mother Jo is alive and residing on the family’s isolated farm in the west of Ireland.Faced with news of her mother-in-law incarnate, the thirty-nine-year-old American prep school teacher decides to travel to Ireland to investigate the truth about her husband Fintan and why he kept his family’s existence a secret for so many years.Between Jo’s hilltop farm and the lakeside village of Gowna, Ellen begins to uncover the mysteries of her Irish husband’s past and the cruelties and isolation of his rural childhood. Ellen also stumbles upon Fintan’s long-ago romance with a local village woman, with whom he had a daughter, Cat. Cat is now fourteen and living with her mother in London. As Ellen reconciles her troubled relationship with Fintan, she discovers a way to heal the wounds of the past.Deeply rooted in the Irish landscape and sensibility, Dance Lessons is a powerful story of loss, regret, and transformation.

    James Carroll is the author of five novels and two acclaimed works of nonfiction, including the National Book Award-winning An American Requiem.

      “An epic saga that sweeps you into the life of a remarkable woman,” Ann Moore’s trilogy of breathtaking historical novels covers Gracelin O’Malley’s life from the 1845 Famine and the Young Ireland movement to the mass emigration to America, culminating in the wild frontier of 1850s California (Romantic Times). Through it all, Gracelin’s indomitable spirit and Moore’s “vivid historical detail” prove most hauntingly memorable (Kirkus Reviews).  Gracelin O’Malley: As the potato famine devastates Ireland, Gracelin openly defies her English husband by feeding the desperate souls who come to their door, and secretly sides with the rebels who call themselves the Young Irelanders—including her beloved brother, Sean—as they fight to free their homeland from the yoke of English rule.   “Lyrical, pitch-perfect prose . . . Historical fiction at its finest.” —Publishers Weekly  Leaving Ireland: Forced to flee Ireland, Gracelin takes her young daughter with her on an arduous transatlantic voyage to New York City. As she tries to make a new life for herself and her daughter, she reunites with her brother and befriends a runaway slave, getting swept up into the volatile abolitionist movement.   “Moore blends romance and adventure. . . . Strong and likable characters and a well-paced story will make readers look forward to Gracelin’s next appearance.” —Booklist  ’Til Morning Light: With her two children, Gracelin travels to post–Gold Rush San Francisco to meet the sea captain who has proposed to her. But when she arrives, he is nowhere to be found. Although destitute in a dangerous city, Gracelin vows to make a secure life for her children and find her brother.   “Readers who have been following the story of Gracelin O’Malley will be thrilled with the concluding volume in Moore’s trilogy.” —Booklist

    But even worse, she doesn't care. She blames God for taking her husband and has since lost her way in both her faith, and her community. But life must go on, and to support herself she makes and mends quilts for the Amish and Englishers alike. Living alone in an apartment above her shop, she works only to live and seemingly not much else as she feels the need to almost punish herself, and God, at the same time. But all that changes when Levi, himself a widow, comes into her shop to mend an old quilt as a surprise for his daughter's first child. He's immediately taken with Hannah. And as his job is repair and fixing broken things in his workshop, his trained eye spots a few problems around her home that could use some neighborly help. But his heart spots some problems, too. Yet Hannah doesn't want the help, or the attention. She resists, but Levi won't take no for an answer. He repeatedly shows up to work on things, trying to slowly chip away at her gruff exterior and win a smile, if not a friend. But Hannah is comfortable in her pain. She certainly has no time for friendships, let alone love. Yet God, and Levi, just might have other plans. Can two people find what they need in the other, when they both need it the most? A desire to mend against a desire to harbor old pains. Will love win out, in this sweet Amish Romance? Read this new book by Emma Maas to find out today...

    She had to do it-she could no longer live with herself. But how is she going to explain the sudden appearance of a baby in Hollybrook? How will she answer the probing questions sure to come? Tessa is tired of lies. Tired of deception. But her mother refuses to destroy their chance for a new life, a new beginning. So, the sham continues. When Tessa's affection for Levi Riehl grows into something unexpected, she knows it will never work. She struggles to stifle their growing love, but Levi isn't so easily deterred. But how can Tessa hold any hope for a relationship when she can't reveal the truth? And even worse, how can she hold any hope for peace or a normal life when she can't forgive herself? "In the tradition of the works of Beverly Lewis, Cindy Woodsmall, and Wanda Brunstetter, Brenda Maxfield continues to bring you gripping Amish tales of love, struggle, and restoration." Enjoy this inspirational Christian romance today!

    10 Stories of Love, Faith, and Family "Like Amish soup for the soul."From the author of the bestselling Amish romance series Forbidden Amish Love comes Amish Neighbors, a short story romance collection from the heart.Ten stories under one cover.