"Another""What It Means When a Crowd in a Faraway Nation Takes a Soldier Representing Your Own Nation, Shoots Him, Drags Him from His Vehicle and Then Mutilates Him in the Dust""The Only Meaning of the Oil-Wet Water""On Wanting to Have Three Walls Up Before She Gets Home""Climbing to the Window, Pretending to Dance""She Waits, Seething, Blooming""Quiet""Your Mother and I""Naveed""Notes for a Story of a Man Who Will Not Die Alone""About the Man Who Began Flying After Meeting Her""Up the Mountain Coming Down Slowly""After I Was Thrown in the River and Before I Drowned"From the Trade Paperback edition.

    They follow Miriam Batson, the protagonist of Paulette Alden's earlier short story collection, FEEDING THE EAGLES, into middle age, as she navigates the suicide attempt of one of her college students; the death of a beloved maid from her Southern childhood; the shock and anger of a job rejection possibly due to sex discrimination; and the sudden death of her father. Five of the stories track Miriam's efforts to stave off putting her mother in a nursing home, as her mother succumbs to Alzheimer's. Anyone who has experienced such a situation will relate to the poignancy, guilt, and sometimes painful humor involved in caring for a failing parent.

    These people tell us the truth–not only about themselves, their relationships, and their lives, but about ourselves as well. A Perfect Stranger powerfully and affectingly examines the complex, intricate network of experiences that binds us to one another. These stories are tender, raw, lovely, fine–and they reaffirm Roxana Robinson’s place at the forefront of modern literature.

    Joined by a boy who is similarly threatened, she must rescue the son of a hated enemy, who has fallen under the sway of the nefarious leader of an apocalyptic cult. To survive, she must venture into the dark world beneath the City of Lights, into the infamous catacombs of Paris. Caught between two enemies, she must fight for her life…while time ticks down toward a fiery apocalypse. But in the dark, surrounded by the moldering bones of the dead, even success does not equal survival. In the end, the only true hope for the world lies in a stunning act of betrayal.Included with this short story is a sneak peek at the first 70 pages of The Devil Colony, where a clue unlocked by The Skeleton Key will play a key role.

    

    Writer and performer Ivan Coyote has spent decades on the road, telling stories around the world. For years, Ivan has kept a file of the most special communications received from readers and audience members--letters, Facebook messages, emails, soggy handwritten notes tucked under the windshield wiper of their truck after a gig. Then came Spring, 2020, and, like artists everywhere, Coyote was grounded by the pandemic, all their planned events cancelled. The energy of a live audience, a performer's lifeblood, was suddenly gone. But with this loss came an opportunity for a different kind of connection. Those letters that had long piled up could finally begin to be answered.Care Of combines the most powerful of these letters with Ivan's responses, creating a body of correspondence of startling intimacy, breathtaking beauty, and heartbreaking honesty and openness. Taken together, they become an affirming and joyous reflection on many of the themes central to Coyote's celebrated work--compassion and empathy, family fragility, non-binary and Trans identity, and the unending beauty of simply being alive, a giant love letter to the idea of human connection, and the power of truly listening to each other.

    All royalties from the sale of this work will go to Irish animal rescue centres, making life better for our four-legged friends.

    Here, for the first time in English, the best of Costa Rica's writers conjure the country's allure and vitality, its coffee fields and palm groves, cicadas and songbirds, shrouded mountains and blazing savannas, while telling stories unique to Costa Rican life. Contributors include Alfredo Aguilar, Fernando Durán Ayanegui, Alfonso Chase, Quince Duncan, Fabián Dobles, Louis Ducoudray, Carlos Luis Fallas, Mario Gonzáles Feo, Joaquín Gutiérrez, Carlos Salazar Herrera, Max Jiménez, Carmen Lyra, Carmen Naranjo, Yolanda Oreamuno, Abel Pacheco, Julieta Pinto, Uriel Quesada, Samuel Rovinski, José León Sánchez, and Rima de Vallbona.

    As an only child of a single mother, she had her share of loneliness. But when her mother buys a fixer upper on a large lot just outside of town, Chloe feels the she is on the cusp of change. Dreaming of another world and a handsome but alien stranger has her questioning who she really is, and what is real....

    Except the shop owner is now Kyle Nichols and he is a dream. However, with her father on death’s door she is here to make peace with her mother after not speaking since she left, and not to find true love.  The last thing she expects to find is a plot to buy up her family’s land to build a shopping mall. Will she be able to stop Hawthorn Enterprises from running her town? Will she patch things up with her mother? Will little Bryce ever take a liking to her? Who is the blonde with Kyle? It all comes down to family and history in the tiny town of Snowy Mountain. Come on down and see if Juliana will ever make her dream of owning a diner a reality.Snowy Mountain SeriesBook 1: Juliana’s JourneyBook 2: Building Bailey’sBook 3: Patricia’s PatientBook 4: Hannah’s HandymanBook 5: Freeman’s FarmBook 6: Writing RomanceBook 7: Wendy’s Wild LoveBook 8: Jesse’s JewelBook 9: Cassie’s Cause …“These are stories of hope, fear, romance, suspense and true love.”... Brenda Clemmons and Katie Wyatt’s Clean and Wholesome Contemporary Western Romance series is enjoyable for all ages.

    Though the characters may not be human, the situations in these stories bear an uncanny resemblance to the insanity of everyday life. In "The Toad, the Turtle, and the Duck," three strangers commiserate about animal bureaucracy while waiting in a complaint line. In "Hello Kitty," a cynical feline struggles to sit through his prison-mandated AA meetings. In "The Squirrel and the Chipmunk," a pair of star-crossed lovers is separated by prejudiced family members.With original illustrations by Ian Falconer, author of the bestselling Olivia series of children's books, these stories are David Sedaris at his most observant, poignant, and surprising.