13:55 EST makes - she counts on her fingers - about 6pm in Berlin. He'll be on his way home. Alice settles into the armchair and dials the number...If Alice hadn't bumped into Will then she would probably never have phoned that afternoon. And if Alice hadn't called, then Michael, poor Michael, might still be alive today...In a digital age of world-spanning communications and easy travel these stories explore how interconnected and yet fragmented our lives have become, and how - no matter where we live or what we do, no matter how different our lifestyles - the universal desires for love and happiness draw us ever onward.Both short story collection and novel, 13:55 Eastern Standard Time finds Nick Alexander at his best. Sometimes disturbing, sometimes funny, these are stories of lives that cross and collide in life-ending drama, or simply run peacefully alongside for a few hours - lives filled with characters who are attracted and repelled, hopeless and yet inspired. Narrated in Alexander's trademark tense prose, these interwoven stories explore the ripples emanating from our every act, ripples that alter distant destinies, and occasionally bounce back, catching us from behind to haunt or inspire.13:55 Eastern Standard Time repeats the success of Alexander's first novel, 50 Reasons to Say Goodbye because again, as with life itself, the whole is mysteriously greater than the sum of the parts.

    Dark. Gorgeous.” – The Rumpus“Completely screwed-up and fantastic.” – Continual ProgressBestselling Independent Novel – Strand Book StoreOn the night he decides to jump off his Upper West Side rooftop, a prep school teen encounters a lost girl dancing on the ledge. They split cigarettes, spill secrets, and hatch an unexpected plan: to play out a romantic relationship over the course of one night, and discover whether magic can truly exist. As the game propels them through scattered haunts of the city, the line that separates fantasy from reality blurs, leading each to reconsider what is real, what is illusion, and whether the dawn will bring with it a new beginning or a violent end.In his triumphant debut novel, newcomer Nathaniel Kressen weaves a real-time psychological love story, introducing two unforgettable characters searching for meaning in post-9/11 New York City.

    Written in the genre of The Final Quest trilogy, this is a prophetic allegory that goes deeper, further, and higher, illuminating some of the most important truths of our times.

    Hollywood Boulevard, with its bars and used-book stores and the legendary Chinese Theater, is the psychic killing ground where Sydney must learn the rules of an old supernatural rivalry -- and choose to save either the woman he loves, or his soul.

    An upright, unmarried spinster, Louisa has spent her life looking after others. In the aftermath of a hurricane that turns her life upside down, she finds a battered diary kept by one of her ancestors. The journal recounts the story of Diana, a 19th-century slave who worked for the Hilliards, but sought to improve her life and her means, and was severely punished. Diana's fate is gradually revealed, even as Louisa discovers objects in her house missing, moved, dented, and seemingly handled by an unappeasable presence. In some small way trying to set right age-old wrongs, Louisa discovers how her own life is entangled in her family's haunted history. So Far Back is a nuanced and resonant portrait of two families sharing an enduring past and an uneasy present.

    A green hell where death waits behind every tree, in every pooling shadow, and in every mist-haunted hollow. Boobytraps and bullets, landmines and rockets. Mike McKinney went to write about the war, about the terror and frustrations, soldiers and people and a landscape forever altered by the conflict...but he ran across something even worse: a primeval horror straight out of the darkest Vietnamese folklore. A monstrosity that stalks human heads among the twisted, jungled hills of the Central Highlands. Now it is hunting him. And nothing can stop it.

    He is excited and afraid; he wants to recapture the love he knew with his parents before they died and become a doctor like his father. But in his new home of celebrities, crooks, untrustworthiness, and excessively wealthy deviants, lust and want thwart his search for selfless caring love, and in his quest to become a doctor, he discovers the altruism of health care and scientific discovery riddled with profit motivation and deficient moral standards. A finalist in the 2012 William Faulkner-William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition.

    Leif Enger's debut, Peace Like a River, is one such work. His richly evocative novel, narrated by an asthmatic 11-year-old named Reuben Land, is the story of Reuben's unusual family and their journey across the frozen Badlands of the Dakotas in search of his fugitive older brother. Charged with the murder of two locals who terrorized their family, Davy has fled, understanding that the scales of justice will not weigh in his favor. But Reuben, his father, Jeremiah—a man of faith so deep he has been known to produce miracles—and Reuben's little sister, Swede, follow closely behind the fleeing Davy.Affecting and dynamic, Peace Like a River is at once a tragedy, a romance, and an unflagging exploration into the spirituality and magic possible in the everyday world, and in that of the world awaiting us on the other side of life. In Enger's superb debut effort, we witness a wondrous celebration of family, faith, and spirit, the likes of which we haven't seen in a long, long time—and the birth of a classic work of literature.

    When her firm becomes embroiled in what could be an international scandal around a key client and Brad begins asking questions about her past, an overwhelmed Mimi begins to sink into emotional chaos. One glance at herself in an old mirror leads her to dig into her past and courageously relive the traumas of her childhood. Thus begins the heart of Uyen Nicole Duong’s Mimi and Her Mirror, a poetic, passionate, and sometimes chilling novel about Vietnam and a girl known as Mimi Suong Giang, whose youth was destroyed as she attempted to escape during the fall of Saigon. Readers share young Mimi's hopes, dreams and courage as she valiantly struggles to find her way into the light.

    

    Hank is his long-time student. The aging Jake hopes that Hank will take over teaching for him. But the commitment-phobic Hank doesn’t feel up to the job, and Jake is beginning to exhibit behavior that looks suspiciously like Alzheimer’s disease. Is a guy with as many “issues” as Hank even capable of being a Zen teacher? And are those paradoxical things Jake keeps doing some kind of koan-like wisdom . . . or just dementia? These and other hard questions confront Hank, Jake, and the colorful cast of characters they meet during a week-long trip to the funky neighborhood of Central Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts. As they trek back and forth from bar to restaurant to YMCA to Zen Center to doughnut shop, answers arise—in the usual unexpected ways.

     The trade paperback edition of David Bowman's prize-winning first novel, Let the Dog Drive, has developed a cult following. Now Bowman's exuberantly praised second novel -- a hard-boiled comedy about love, abduction, and child care, set in a future where electricity has disappeared and fertility is on the wane, but human passions are as messy as ever -- is also in trade paperback.

    Convicted of deserting the German army, Sven Hassel was sent to a punishment regiment on the Russian Front. He and his comrades were regarded as little more than dispensable killing-machines, cannon fodder for Hitler's war. His unflinching narrative takes us to the most extreme outposts of war, where soldiers face an inferno of blood and butchery. THE SVEN HASSEL COLLECTION includes all 14 books in Sven Hassel's series and exclusive extra material.

    It could be the depression or the hallucinations, or it could be the little black creature that crawls in his window at night. Whatever the case, it is becoming a problem.The debut novel from Joshua S. Porter is a dark, comic and moving story of self-realization in a contemporary moral free zone.

    Books included in this are :- Ranger's Apprentice 1: The Ruins of Gorlan, The Burning Bridge (Ranger's Apprentice Book 2), The Icebound Land (Ranger's Apprentice Book 3), Ranger's Apprentice 4: Oakleaf Bearers, Ranger's Apprentice 5: The Sorcerer in the North, Ranger's Apprentice 6: The Siege of Macindaw, Erak's Ransom (Ranger's Apprentice Book 7), The Kings of Clonmel (Ranger's Apprentice Book 8), Halt's Peril (Ranger's Apprentice Book 9), Ranger's Apprentice 10: The Emperor of Nihon-Ja, Ranger's Apprentice 11: The Lost Stories. Description:- Ranger's Apprentice 1: The Ruins of Gorlan They have always scared him in the past the Rangers, with their dark cloaks and shadowy ways. The villagers believe the Rangers practise magic that makes them invisible to ordinary people. And now 15-year-old Will, always small for his age, has been chosen as a Rangers apprentice. The Burning Bridge (Ranger's Apprentice Book 2) For years the Kingdom of Araluen has prospered, while the evil lord Morgarath has lived beyond the impassable mountains. But he has not been idle. Now apprentice Will must embark on his most dangerous mission yet. The Icebound Land (Ranger's Apprentice Book 3) Kidnapped after the fierce battle with Lord Morgarath, Will and Evanlyn are bound for Skandia as captives aboard a fearsome wolfship. But Halt has sworn to rescue them, and he will do anything to keep his promise even defy his King. Expelled from the Rangers he has served so loyally, Halt is joined by Will's friend Horace as he travels towards Skandia. Please note these are normal standard books supplied by publishers which are then gift Wrapped in a generic slipcase specially for you to create your very own special gift box set ideal for Christmas, Birthday and any other special occasion.