Jhumki: A Poignant Story Of Unconditional Love Beyond Blood Ties


Farah Naqvi - 2020
    Unwilling to give up, you pursued life relentlessly. This time you planned for love and happiness meticulously keeping it in the most secure cabinet of your body while you waited to welcome it with bated breath. Lo! the cabinet lock is broken, and you are left alone again.Do you have the right to give up now, lose hope and become a mental health case or will life give love and happiness another unprecedented chance? Read the story of Nimisha, Nitin, Pari and Jhumki embroiled with unconditional love, inevitable misfortunes, unexpected blessing and the unfolding of a divine decree or preordained fate.

Creeper


Stuart James - 2021
    He's not real.A story so terrifying, the locals won't mention his name.It's said that Creeper is an urban legend, a chilling, made-up character fabricated to scare children into behaving themselves.He's known as Painswicks own Bogeyman.Parents tell their children that Creeper will come if they're naughty.Adults continually look over their shoulders.It's said that he hides out front late at night or crawls around in the basement. Others believe Creeper watches them as they sleep.Eight women have gone missing over the last twenty years. They're known as the Painswick eight.Now, a ninth woman has vanished.Billy Huxton, an ex-private investigator, resides at a retirement home and tries to persuade the local, flamboyant entertainer, Declan Ryan, to help him solve the case.Sean and Jenny make documentaries, creepypastas, the paranormal, and unsolved mysteries. Together with their children, they move into a rundown farmhouse on Gallows Lane.As they begin to learn of Creeper and the terror many believe he brought to Painswick years ago, they begin to make a film, delving into the chilling story.But they soon learn it may not be just a story.Whatever happens, pray you don't see Creeper...

The Year of the Rat


Clare Furniss - 2014
    Pearl deals with death, life, and family in this haunting, humorous, and poignant debut.The world can tip at any moment… a fact that fifteen-year-old Pearl is all too aware of when her mum dies after giving birth to her baby sister, Rose.Rose, who looks exactly like a baby rat, all pink, wrinkled, and writhing. This little Rat has destroyed everything, even ruined the wonderful relationship that Pearl had with her stepfather, the Rat’s biological father.Mum, though… Mum’s dead but she can’t seem to leave. She keeps visiting Pearl. Smoking, cursing, guiding.Told across the year following her mother’s death, Pearl’s story is full of bittersweet humour and heartbreaking honesty about how you deal with grief that cuts you to the bone, as she tries not only to come to terms with losing her mother, but also the fact that her sister — The Rat — is a constant reminder of why her mum is no longer around.

The Inheritance


J. Galliano - 2020
    

Ghosts of The Silent Hills


Anita Krishan - 2019
    You have arrived in the hills. In here, you are surrounded by dense, menacing forests, enveloped in a deadly silence... You never know what lurks here in the Cold, dark night. Do not walk alone after sunset in the hills. A beautiful woman in white haunts the Lonely pathways, looking to enchant and ensnare men... All the people who died in accidents here... They say you hear their screams at night. And the deserted lodges sitting amidst lush greenery and calm streams... Spirits lie in wait here, ready to prey on the living. There are sceptics who did not heed these warnings. They tried to rationalize what they saw, what they felt. But when they came face to face with the beings that they believed didn’t exist, they couldn’t run away anymore... Ghosts of the silent hills is a collection that will make your nights a little scarier, encompassing the very best spine-chilling stories based on true hauntings.About the AuthorBorn in Shimla in 1955, Anita Krishan spent the initial twenty-two years of her life in this pristine Himalayan town, earning her master’s degree in English literature from Himachal University, and moving on to a career of introducing delights of the language to her young learners. In her long tenure as an educator, she has enriched the lives of countless students with the mystery of the narrative. A versatile writer, each of her literary works appertains to a different genre... from the joys and travails of life, to terrorism that has brought the world to its tenterhooks, to now the paranormal. She has travelled extensively around the globe absorbing the diverse human ethos and cultures—the delectable food for her thoughts. Presently, she lives in Gurgaon with her family.

Ships That Pass


Shashi Deshpande - 2012
    Ships That Pass tells the story of Tara and Shaan, near strangers to each other after fourteen years of being married, and Tara's sister, Radhika, recently engaged, almost on a whim, to someone she barely knows. Even as Radhika tries to understand how a once ideal marriage has come undone, and struggles with her own feelings for an older man, tragedy strikes: Tara dies in mysterious circumstances and Shaan is arrested for murder. In the aftermath, Radhika realizes that while life may seldom turn out as expected, the only hope lies in finding the courage to take one's chances. A meditation on the nature of love and marriage, this subtle novella is vintage Shashi Deshpande. '[A] mesmerizing writer. . .you can never walk away from her stories.' About the AuthorShashi Deshpande, daughter of the renowned Kannada dramatist and Sanskrit scholar Shriranga, was born in Dharwad. She studied economics in Mumbai, then moved to Bangalore, where she gained a degree in law. Her writing career began in 1970, initially with short stories, of which several volumes have been published. She is also the author of eight novels, the best known of which are That Long Silence, which won the Sahitya Akademi award and is considered a landmark in Indian writing in English; The Dark Holds No Terror; Small Remedies; Moving On; and The Country of Deceit.

Where I End and You Begin


Andra Brynn - 2013
    It may tangle, it may knot, it may stretch or fray, but it will never break. It is a future as indelible as the past.I hope that isn't true. I pity anyone destined to meet me.----For Bianca Ray, the past is always catching up, one way or another. Now in her third semester at college, it's doing it again. Too much drinking has led to plummeting grades and rising absences, putting her scholarships in peril. When she makes it clear that she needs help—all over the floor of her history class—she’s given one last chance to shape up: seek therapy and bring her grades up by the end of the semester, or she’s out.Enter Catholic seminarian Daniel McGuire. The last thing Bianca wants is an aspiring priest to counsel her on how to live her life, but the handsome graduate student is different from the holy rollers she fled from at home. Gentle and unobtrusive, he helps her pick up the pieces and find a new way to live: not running from the past, but facing it head on. But opening up her heart to release the pain means that something else can come in. As Bianca and Daniel grow closer, their relationship moves onto dangerous ground and the fragile courage Bianca has built up threatens to fail her. Can she exorcise the ghosts of her past, or will they catch hold and drag her down where not even Daniel can reach her?

Dark Circles


Udayan Mukherjee - 2018
    When the cremation rites are complete, Ronojoy is handed a letter from his mother that is not so much a farewell as a confession. As before, it is left to him to decide whether to share the disturbing contents with his brother, whom he has always sought to protect.Thus, begins another tumultuous cycle in the lives of the two brothers who already carry deep scars from their childhood; their fragile minds ever at risk of succumbing to the dark.Written in spare, stark prose, Dark Circles deftly weaves past and present, offering tantalizing glimpses of bottled truths buried deep in the recesses of repressed memory; brilliantly exposing the dark undercurrents that swirl under the seemingly placid lives of families.

"Of Mice And Men" (Penguin Study Notes)


Marsaili Cameron
    It includes character studies and summaries of the plot with discussions of the major themes, as well as a background to John Steinbeck.

The Haunting of The Meade Mansion (A Riveting Haunted House Mystery, #1)


Skylar Finn - 2019
    But when she and her husband Jesse arrived at the house, they discovered that Aunt Matilda was murdered—and the culprit was still at large. Guided by the ghosts of Matilda and the orphans she raised, can Emily and Jesse catch the criminals and save themselves?

Dark Blossom


Neel Mullick - 2018
    Initially he thinks he can cope with the loss, but finally seeks the help of Cynthia, an experienced therapist, to regain his equipoise. What he does not know is that Cynthia herself is trying to cope with a debilitating divorce and the sinister shadow of her ex-husband over her daughter...What happens when doctor and patient find themselves in the same sinking boat? Moreover, when they are rowing in opposite directions--one clinging to the past, and the other unable to get rid of it! In the midst of it all is Lily, Cynthia's daughter, who harbours a secret that has the power to explode the lives around her.

Radiant Apples


Joe R. Lansdale - 2021
    From son of a former slave, to buffalo soldier, to gun hand, to Marshal for Hanging Judge Parker. Now, entering old age, he's a train porter. A job he's happy to have, but not exactly the cream of his life. And then an unlikely train robbery and a moment of bravery gives him an opportunity to relive his past and perhaps redeem his wayward son. He's still got the skills, but he's also older and stiffer, and a little less certain. He'll need his old pal, Choctaw, to help him track down the murderous Radiant Apple Gang, so named for the odd, glowing cheeks of the two brothers who lead it. They're not exactly the James Gang, but then again, Nat and Choctaw aren't exactly in their prime, even if they do have an automobile and an expense account. From the train tracks and cotton fields of East Texas, to the Oklahoma hills and a corrupt town, they'll end up in a desperate struggle for survival that includes gun play, an outlaw, who though dreadfully wounded, doesn't seem capable of dying, to a man gagging on dirty underpants. They'll need the right hat, the right guns, and plenty of rest. The biggest question is can Nat and his companion, Chocktaw, survive bullets and lumbago, and come out on top.

The Longing


Jane Asher - 1997
    Was that so much to ask? A baby to nourish in her body, to give birth with pain and pleasure, to adore. A baby to suckle and care for, to clean and cuddle and comfort. A baby to make her whole and complete. But her womb was empty and its emptiness filled her days and her nights, invaded her dreams, determined every waking thought. A baby. All she wanted was a baby…

Summer of Grace


Shani Struthers - 2021
    Three are loners. One is new in town. Together they’re a perfect fit.2010: Tupper, the owner of the store and a pillar of the community, dies. Of the night shift, only three return to their hometown for his funeral.Jules, Lenny and Dean haven’t heard a word from Grace since they left for college in the fall of 1999, despite promises to keep in touch.No one in town remembers her either. Or so they say.Jules delves deeper into the mystery of her missing friend, and as she does, a dark secret unravels.One that could prove fatal.

Across Oceans: Historical fiction collection


Clare Flynn - 2018
    Each novel will transport you across oceans and back in time. A Greater World takes you to the beautiful Blue Mountains of Australia in the 1920s. Kurinji Flowers to the tea plantations of Southern India in the 1930s and 40s - the last years of British colonial rule. Letters from a Patchwork Quilt to the ugly industrial north of Victorian England and to St Louis, Missouri. None of the characters went where they had to go by choice, and all faced life–changing challenges. Can love make the difference? Will it stand the course? Warning – once you start reading you will be up all night.