The year is 1969, and young Jimmy Koprowski returns from his stint in the airforce to Raysburg, his blue-collar Polish American hometown where nothing much happens beyond working at the steel mill, going to Mass, and getting drunk at the local PAC. Jimmy's efforts at rebuilding his life result in sleeping off hangovers in his parents' attic and drifting into a destructive affair with a married woman. But things change when his younger sister Linda decides to start an all-girl polka band, and Jimmy falls for the band's star clarinetist, Janice, whose young life is haunted by tragic events that happened before she was born. The threads of Jimmy's family life, the legacy of WWII Poland, and the healing power of music, language, and tradition all begin to converge.

    In the life she constructs as a barrier against the emotional wreckage of her family tragedy, Anna settles comfortably into a career as a teacher of deaf children. But a challenge arrives—in the form of a young girl. Adrea’s disarming vulnerability and obvious need for love offer Anna the possibility of reconnecting with the world around her—if she has the courage to open her heart. In this debut novel, Rachel Stolzman has crafted a moving and poetic witness to love’s power to transcend grief, pain, and the constraints of human language. The Sign for Drowning is a poignant story of loss and the unexpected occasions of grace that enable us to heal from it and grow beyond it.

    He is organized, methodical and certain to kill again. And now he's set his sights on Birmingham psychologist Jenna Kincaid.Convinced that the Inquisitor killed his only sister, ex-army Ranger Sean Murphy has been hunting for him with one thing in mind: revenge. If his instincts are right, Jenna Kincaid will lead him to his prey.But Jenna has gotten to Sean in a way that no one has in a very long time. And now he's desperate to keep her safe -- because the madman is taking a terrifying pleasure in the game unfolding. And if the killer wins, it's Jenna who will pay the ultimate price....

    Accompanied by strangers in pursuit of the same outlaws, Daisy takes to the Colorado plains with an old revolver and a hunger for revenge. But the Hopkins gang isn’t easily found, and as their pockets run dry and the trail goes cold, Daisy and her companions may be at the end of the road. She must learn how to survive in this dangerous world of outlaws and gunslingers, or her only chance at avenging her family may be lost.Don’t miss Whiskey City, the next book in Daisy’s cutthroat quest for revenge. Praise for Pistol Daisy! "The voice was amazing, easily the best part of the book. I felt so immersed in this world and really loved how the voice was able to convey so much of the shift in emotion of our main character." ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Review"I usually don't read westerns, but this one really intrigued me. I was drawn into Daisy's world from page one and stayed through to the last page...and I didn't want to leave! The end left me wanting to dive right into the sequel, Whiskey City, as soon as it becomes available!" ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Review"Natalia Leigh writes her characters with such effervescence that you can't help but be swept up in the whirlwind of their world, their wants, and their journey."★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Review

    As in her acclaimed novels The Siege and A Spell of Winter, world-class storyteller Helen Dunmore shows us with subtlety and humor precisely who her characters are and why we should care for them. In each taut, agile tale, they grow to surprise, concern, and move us as they negotiate situations that are often both mundane and bizarre: a cafeteria cook confronts her Polish pen pal in a meeting that is unexpectedly intense; a divorced mother gains insight from a parking meter; a boastful writer is put in his place in spectacular fashion; and in a chilling future, conception is ruthlessly controlled by the government. In several stories a soulful, curious woman named Ulli takes up residence in the reader's imagination -- stumbling across a strangely magnetic collector of religious icons, contemplating a youthful pregnancy, and remembering a troubled lover. In Ice Cream, Dunmore reveals both her poet's ear for the concise and piercing potentialities of language and the novelist's ambition of scope, proving her status as "a master of the shorter form" (The Sunday Telegraph). "Spellbinding ... She captures a moment in time and leaves us reeling at the echoes." -- Michael McLoughlin, The Irish News "Cool, elegant, and beautifully controlled, the stories collected in Ice Cream display Dunmore's virtuosity of language." -- Pamela Norris, The Independent on Sunday "All the senses are vibrantly alive in these stories." -- Katie Owen, The Sunday Telegraph

    She becomes intrigued by a 1908 safari and the British nobleman who died mysteriously. The further she probes, the more deeply she is drawn into past lives and ancient, mysterious forces of violence.

    Growing up in the slums of London with her siblings, trying to avoid their violent, drunken father, Rose still has an insatiable thirst for knowledge, and is sure she andher loved ones deserve a better life. Can she open the door and seize the chance to make something of herself? Told with humour, warmth and love, The Open Door is the first in a trilogy following the lives of Rose and her family. Beryl Matthews joined a writers' group when she retired five years ago and starting working on her own novel. The result was The Open Door, the inspiration for which came from her own mother's early life. Beryl is currently working on the second part of the trilogy of Rose Webster's life. She lives in Hampshire with her husband.

    A filmmaker and now a dry alcoholic, he's lived life to the full - sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll. Here, struggling to survive cancer, Noah evaluates his chequered past life, and as a picture builds of a brave and foolish man, gradually it becomes clear that he's a modern-day hero.

    Mr. Fortune is a good man, humble and earnest. He wishes to bring the joys of Christianity to the innocent heathen. But in his three years on Fanua, he makes only one convert—the boy Lueli, who loves him. This love, and the sensuous freedom of the islanders, produces in Mr. Fortune a change of heart that is shattering.

    Henry Prize stories collection has offered an exciting selection of the best stories published in hundreds of literary magazines every year. Such classic works of American literature as Ernest Hemingway’s The Killers (1927); William Faulkner’s Barn Burning (1939); Carson McCuller’s A Tree. A Rock. A Cloud (1943); Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery (1949); J.D. Salinger’s For Esme with Love and Squalor (1963); John Cheever’s The Country Husband (1956) ; and Flannery O’Conner’s Everything that Rises Must Converge (1963) all were O. Henry Prize stories. An accomplished new series editor--novelist and short story writer Laura Furman--has read more than a thousand stories to identify the 20 winners, each one a pleasure to read today, each one a potential classic. The O. Henry Prize Stories 2003 also contains brief essays from each of the three distinguished judges on their favorite story, and comments from the prize-winning writers on what inspired their stories. There is nothing like the ever rich, surprising, and original O. Henry collection for enjoying the contemporary short story.The Thing in the Forest A. S. Byatt The Shell Collector Anthony Doerr Burn Your Maps Robyn Jay Leff Lush Bradford Morrow God’s Goodness Marjorie Kemper Bleed Blue in Indonesia Adam Desnoyers The Story Edith Pearlman Swept Away T. Coraghessan Boyle Meanwhile Ann Harleman Three Days. A Month. More. Douglas Light The High Road Joan Silber Election Eve Evan S. Connell Irish Girl Tim Johnston What Went Wrong Tim O’Brien The American Embassy Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Kissing William Kittredge Sacred Statues William Trevor Two Words Molly Giles Fathers Alice Munro Train Dreams Denis Johnson

    Four stories that illustrate Muriel Spark's unique wit and wisdom: 'The Portobello Road', 'Bang-bang You're Dead', 'The Seraph and the Zambesi' and 'The Dragon', all taken from The Collected Stories (1994).

    When she accidentally gets pregnant, she has the epiphany she's been looking for—a way to transform the situation into an object lesson for mankind.A surprising story of freedom, choice, and desperate measures, Strange Animals is a fiendishly suspenseful and eye-opening novel from one of our most provocative writers.

    After a brief acquaintanceship with Mrs Springer, he marries her to defend himself against idleness and solitude. Then a foolproof plan strikes him, to introduce the order of the Knights Companion.

    In such classics as "The Beekeeper's Daughter," "The Disquieting Muses," "I Want, I Want," and "Full Fathom Five," she writes about sows and skeletons, fathers and suicides, about the noisy imperatives of life and the chilly hunger for death. Graceful in their craftsmanship, wonderfully original in their imagery, and presenting layer after layer of meaning, the forty poems in The Colossus are early artifacts of genius that still possess the power to move, delight, and shock.

    Angel is convinced that the voice belongs to his beautiful and enigmatic neighbor, Angela -- and that she is terrified for her life. He paces the floor, waiting for the phone to ring again, calls the police, searches her apartment, but there is no trace of her anywhere, not for days. So begins a haunted man's quest to uncover what happened to the woman he has fallen in love with. Only now does he realize that he knows nearly nothing about her. Angel has his secrets, too. He is the son of one of Hollywood's most successful movie producers, but he has turned away from that bright and power-ridden world. Instead, he leads a cloistered existence, nursing an unfinished screenplay as Ridley Scott's Blade Runner loops ceaselessly in his darkened apartment. But now, for the first time in years, because of Angela's sudden disappearance, Angel is propelled into action. Following the few clues he has gathered about her, he trails Angela through the hard glitter of Los Angeles days and nights. With every new piece of knowledge arrives another question and an even more chilling possibility: Did he merely imagine Angela? Is someone deliberately leading him? Is the phantom he is pursuing the very fear he has been running from? In the murky underworld beneath the bright surface of Los Angeles, everything he knew about her -- and himself -- begins to unravel. In this city of secrets that aren't meant to be told and people who aren't meant to be found, Angel may soon discover that the most dangerous lies of all are the ones you tell yourself.