Indian mythology is replete with tales of Dévas battling the Asuras constantly. The interesting thing to note is that whether it is a God or an incarnation of a deity in human form, aka an Avatār, there was also a human element involved in these stories. The teachers of the Dévas (gods) and the Asuras were human sages, known as Rishis.    Find out what happens when seemingly unconnected individuals get drawn into a world of suspense and action, as mythology collides with their world in the book 'The Mahāsiddha Field', the first in a new sci-fi/fantasy series!   An elderly wandering mendicant in South India, two young Indian-American men, two soldiers from the Indian Army and a mysterious sage from high up in the Himalayas are thrown together in an adventure unlike any other; as a most unlikely adversary leaps out of the world of Indian Mythology to challenge their beliefs, their sanity and their courage.

    If only she’d stayed in Wisconsin, she might never have met Anthony Shaw, and she would have held onto the future she’d so carefully planned for herself. Instead, Ann ends up harboring a devastating secret that strains her relationship with her parents, sends her sister Poppy to every corner of the world chasing waves (and her next fling), and leaves her adopted brother Michael estranged from the family. Now, fifteen years later, her parents have died, and Ann and Poppy are left to decide the fate of the beach house that’s been in the Gordon family for generations. For Ann, the once-beloved house is forever tainted with bad memories. And while Poppy loves the old saltbox on Drummer Cove, owning a house means settling, and she’s not sure she’s ready to stay in one place.Just when the sisters decide to sell, Michael re-enters their lives with a legitimate claim to a third of the estate. He wants the house. But more than that, he wants to set the record straight about what happened that long-ago summer that changed all of their lives forever. As the siblings reunite after years apart, their old secrets and lies, longings and losses, are pulled to the surface. Is the house the one thing that can still bring them together––or will it tear them apart, once and for all?Told through the shifting perspectives of Ann, Poppy, and Michael, this assured and affecting debut captures the ache of nostalgia for summers past and the powerful draw of the places we return to again and again. It is about second homes, second families, and second chances. Tender and compassionate, incisive and heartbreaking, Christina Clancy's The Second Home is the story of a family you'll quickly fall in love with, and won't soon forget.

    For three months, this humble fishing village will serve as the playground for New York City’s wealthy elite. Beatrice Bordeaux was looking forward to a summer of reigniting the passion between her and her husband, Harry. Instead, tasked with furthering his investment interest in Montauk as a resort destination, she learns she’ll be spending twelve weeks sequestered with the high society wives at The Montauk Manor—a two-hundred room seaside hotel—while Harry pursues other interests in the city. College educated, but raised a modest country girl in Pennsylvania, Bea has never felt fully comfortable among these privileged women, whose days are devoted not to their children but to leisure activities and charities that seemingly benefit no one but themselves. She longs to be a mother herself, as well as a loving wife, but after five years of marriage she remains childless while Harry is increasingly remote and distracted. Despite lavish parties at the Manor and the Yacht Club, Bea is lost and lonely and befriends the manor’s laundress whose work ethic and family life stir memories of who she once was. As she drifts further from the society women and their preoccupations and closer toward Montauk’s natural beauty and community spirit, Bea finds herself drawn to a man nothing like her husband –stoic, plain spoken and enigmatic. Inspiring a strength and courage she had almost forgotten, his presence forces her to face a haunting tragedy of her past and question her future. Desperate to embrace moments of happiness, no matter how fleeting, she soon discovers that such moments may be all she has, when fates conspire to tear her world apart…

    But can she survive the next chapter of her life?Alternating between wartime Paris and 1950s New York publishing, Paris Never Leaves You is an extraordinary story of resilience, love, and impossible choices, exploring how survival never comes without a cost. The war is over, but the past is never past.

     Evelyn set aside her career to marry late, and motherhood never became her. Her daughter Laura felt this acutely and wants desperately to marry, but she soon discovers her husband Gabe to be a man who expects too much of everyone in his life, especially his musician son. Grace has moved out from Laura and Gabe’s house, but can’t seem to live up to her potential—whatever that might be. In A Cloud in the Shape of a Girl we see these women and their trials, small and large: social slights and heartbreaks; marital disappointments and infidelities; familial dysfunction; mortality. Spanning from World War II to the present, Thompson reveals a matrilineal love story that is so perfectly grounded in our time—a story of three women regressing, stalling, and yes, evolving, over decades. One of the burning questions she asks is: by serving her family, is a woman destined to repeat the mistakes of previous generations, or can she transcend the expectations of a place, and a time? Can she truly be free? Evelyn, Laura, and Grace are the glue that binds their family together. Tethered to their small Midwestern town—by choice or chance—Jean Thompson seamlessly weaves together the stories of the Wise women with humanity and elegance, through their heartbreaks, setbacks, triumphs, and tragedies.

    Three cycles. Fists and possums and gunfighters and penises and hookers and short buses and dead babies and fireworks. The stories in this collection originally appeared in: HOBART, FICTION INTERNATIONAL, KITTY SNACKS, TEXAS OBSERVER, NEW BORDER and THE PURITAN.

    On his journey he meets Tau, a freed African slave, Ima, a vengeful German war maiden, and Sigmund, a gentle giant caught between worlds. Together they must ally with the Roman Legion to fight against an evil that threatens all the civilized world and pursue justice for those they have lost. Ulrich is the first novel of a series that explores events in and around the Roman empire of the fourth century A.D. A terrible force of invaders, the Alemanni, throw a continent into chaos on their quest for power and revenge and only a young Caesar Julian stands in their way. Action and adventure combine with historical accuracy to create an epic tale of hate, triumph, love, and loss. Through their actions our heroes raise and topple empires and make choices that shape the course of history.

    He can’t have been much of a husband to Trudy, either, judging by her sudden departure. It’s only when she returns, pregnant to someone else, that he discovers his surprising talent as a father. So when Trudy finds Jesus and takes little Peter away with her to join the holy rollers, Tom’s heart breaks all over again.Enter Hannah Babel, quixotic smalltown bookseller: the second Jew—and the most vivid person—Tom has ever met. He dares to believe they could make each other happy. But it is 1968: twenty-four years since Hannah and her own little boy arrived at Auschwitz. Tom Hope is taking on a batttle with heartbreak he can barely even begin to imagine.

    From Bristol to Barbados. . . .Emily Dawson has always been the poor cousin in a prosperous merchant clan—merely a vicar’s daughter, and a reform-minded vicar’s daughter, at that. Everyone knows that the family’s lucrative shipping business will go to her cousin, Adam, one day. But when her grandfather dies, Emily receives an unexpected inheiritance: Peverills, a sugar plantation in Barbados—a plantation her grandfather never told anyone he owned.When Emily accompanies her cousin and his new wife to Barbados, she finds Peverills a burnt-out shell, reduced to ruins in 1816, when a rising of enslaved people sent the island up in flames. Rumors swirl around the derelict plantation; people whisper of ghosts.Why would her practical-minded grandfather leave her a property in ruins? Why are the neighboring plantation owners, the Davenants, so eager to acquire Peverills—so eager that they invite Emily and her cousins to stay with them indefinitely? Emily finds herself bewitched by the beauty of the island even as she’s drawn into the personalities and politics of forty years before: a tangled history of clandestine love, heartbreaking betrayal, and a bold bid for freedom.When family secrets begin to unravel and the harsh truth of history becomes more and more plain, Emily must challenge everything she thought she knew about her family, their legacy . . . and herself.

    Their letters once traversed the East River to help Parker escape the loneliness of a childhood without her globe-trekking parents and communicate during her turbulent teenage years. Now, nearly a decade later, Parker begins to rediscover this letter writing tradition, as well as the family’s untold stories and, unexpectedly, letters from her grandmother’s own youth that paint a very different portrait of the woman who raised her.Letters carries us through the universally-shared experience of loss and the process of coping with life’s unexpected twists and turns. Through unusual and bold characters, the story moves through some of its heavier themes with honesty and humor.

    Amelie-Anaïs, buried on the Nebraska hilltop where the family home resides, tells this story of deceit, survival, and love from beyond the grave. Following Willow's life and Willow's incredible passion to paint despite loneliness, a physical handicap, and being raised by a father plagued with secrets, Amelie-Anaïs weaves together the lives of four enigmatic generations."Not since 'The Lovely Bones' have we experienced such a moving tale of love, suspense, and family secrets narrated by a ghost. Lukas creates a complex, moving story with brilliant lyricism and hard won realism. She is a rare writer who makes you devour her words. Readers of Alice Hoffman and Anita Shreve will love this novel...and stay up all night to finish it!" -Jonis Agee, author of "The River Wife"“Margaret Lukas has written a page-turner of a novel. 'Farthest House,' boldly narrated by an unsettled spirit, is part-ghost story and a full-out love story of a family coming to terms with its mysterious past, much of it lived in an ancestral home set within a gorgeously rendered Nebraska landscape. Above all, Farthest House is the story of Willow, a bewildered little girl who grows into a passionate painter. I can’t remember the last time I rooted so enthusiastically for a heroine.” –Anna Monardo, author of "The Courtyard of Dreams" and "Falling in Love with Natassia"“Haunting and eerily beautiful, Margaret Lukas' 'Farthest House' is like the family treasure chest one finds in the attic. It may seem inviting at first, but open at your own risk. An ode to both what we should and should never know about the generations that preceded us, 'Farthest House' is an unsettling, unforgettable book.” Holiday Reinhorn, author of "Big Cats: Stories"

    Some will like it.... some wont but its all fiction and TJ just wanted a good time for his last summer back home. NOTE ... Uncle Peter cheats on his wife, so if you will have issues with this, then this is not the book for you. It's all fiction, with some youthful exuberance. We were all young at some time in our lives and we may have made mistakes too.One last wild summer before college. TJ always spent the summer with his uncle since he was 15. He looked forward to spending time with Uncle Peter and all the adventures he got to experience. But now he was 18 and this summer was going to be different; he had a girlfriend whom he could not bear to leave behind. During those past summers, TJ had been the sole witness and confidant to Uncle Peter and his endless shenanigans with the different women in his life. As such, TJ felt Uncle Peter owed him and it was time to collect; it was time for Uncle Peter to return the favor and cover for TJ. To TJ's delight, Uncle Peter was more than eager to comply and he even came up with the perfect plan for the two of them to spend time together without TJ leaving his girlfriend's side. Follow the wicked adventures of this duo as TJ finds himself at a crossroads between being an honorable man or the ladies' man his uncle groomed him to be. Was it worth it when summer ended? That will depend on whose side you are on.Some readers focus on Uncle Peter's cheating ways and less on the crux of the story which is, the unique bond between a nephew and and uncle as well as your sins will find you out.

    They have a dream house and a dream marriage, and very soon they’ll have a dream family too. But life is rarely that simple. When their beautiful life is rocked by tragedy, they are forced to make an unbearable choice. Suddenly the future they’ve built together looks fragile and exposed.With aching hearts and their love on the line, they set off on a road trip through the stunning Californian landscape, hoping that time—and distance from the life they thought perfect—will help them start again. Matt is desperate not to lose Lisa, but as they confront their grief in different ways, he may have lost her already.Where there is love there ought to be strength, but this love has been tested to its limits. Have they endured too much heartbreak for one couple to take? Or will a journey down memory lane put them back on the road to love, hope—and each other?

    Now in her nineties, the famously reclusive painter remains devoted to her work. She has never married, never had a family, never had a child. So when a letter arrives disclosing that she has a granddaughter living in New York, her world is turned upside down and the past is brought painfully to life.Disowned by her bourgeois family, the young Ivory had gone to interwar Paris to study art, and quickly found her true home among the avant-garde painters and poets who crowd the city's cafes. In fellow painter Tacita, she finds the sister she never had. In the Zoological Gardens, she finds a subject for her art capable of fascinating her endlessly. And in Lev, the brooding, haunted Russian 'migr' painter fleeing the Revolution and destined for greatness, she finds the love that will mark her life forever.But she loses all this, and more, when the Second World War sweeps away the life she has only just discovered. In her grief, she turns to the project she had begun in Paris, and which will consume the rest of her life: a dictionary of animal languages. Part science, part art, the dictionary strives to transcribe the wordless yearning of animals, the lonely and love-laden cries that expect no response.By nature solitary, Ivory withdraws fully into herself as she pursues her life's work. Until the discovery of one of Lev's paintings from 1940, inscribed to Ivory and now worth a fortune, brings to light a secret from her time in Paris that even Ivory could never guess. Now in her nineties, she is forced to acknowledge afresh all she has lost, and also to find meaning and beauty in a world defined by longing.Masterfully written, and emotionally charged, The Dictionary of Animal Languages is about love and grief and art and the realization that, like tragedy, the best things in life arrive out of the blue.

    Her search for answers leads to a two-thousand-year-old medical mystery and the esoteric life of one of history’s most enigmatic women. Following the trail forged by her late husband, Katrina must separate truth from legend as she chases medicine from ancient Italy and Egypt to a clandestine modern-day war. Her quest will reveal a legacy of greed and murder and resurrect an ancient plague, introducing it into the twenty-first century.