Before you try to judge or condemn me like you walked in my shoes or experienced half the pain I had to endure, First read my story! My life was far from a fairy tale. I've been victimized, falsely imprisoned, and crossed by everyone I knew. My journey to finding love and having everything go wrong in the process has changed me. I had no choice but to fight... Fight for a love I so desperately wanted but was never worthy enough to find. A love that ultimately altered my mental for the worst!My prayers went unanswered!My cries weren't noticed!My plea for salvation was denied!After the numerous trial and tribulations I had to endure... And being the product of such an horrific environment... There's only one question I want to know. "Am I wrong for turning into the person I've become?"

    The Frogs is an unforgettable read by one of India’s most-loved authors.

    Funny, sad, but always shocking, each tale carries a twist that will haunt readers for days after they turn the final page . . .This 25,000 word collection, available exclusively in this ebook edition, includes:12 Bolingbroke Avenue (First published in 1998)Number Thirteen (First published in 2010)Just Two Clicks (First published in 2004)Dead on the Hour (First published in 2006)Virtually Alive (First published in 1997)Meet Me at the Crematorium (First published in 2009)Venice Aphrodisiac (First published in 2011)Time Rich (First published in 2013)Christmas is for the Kids (First published in 1993)

    Yet it seems like only yesterday when I had my first book, Let's Meet on Platform 8, published. I'm so lucky to have an enthusiastic and devoted following of readers - some who've stayed with me from the very beginning and some who are recent converts. Without you reading and enjoying my books, I would never have had the fabulous career I've been blessed with. We make a great team!I thought it would be nice for you all to join the celebration with me and to offer a small token of my thanks and appreciation for all your support over the years. I love writing short stories and that's what helped to get me started on this road so I've put together a collection of a few of my favourites that have interspersed the last twenty-five books. Each one is very special to me for a different reason and has lovely memories. I hope you enjoy them too. Find half an hour to curl up on the sofa with them and raise a glass to toast twenty-five books and us!*Includes an exclusive extract from The Cake Shop in the Garden*

    Little by little, Jacinta’s mother lost her—first to college, then to a boy she said she loved, and then, finally, to the rage of a school shooter. Snap. In an instant it was all gone. All she has now is her daughter’s phone. Like an album, gripped in the palm of her hand—texts, photos, messages, and videos of her daughter’s first three years at college. With it, Jacinta’s mother is reconstructing her daughter’s last three weeks.In this uniquely moving exploration of mourning, fury, and reminiscence, Susan Straight evokes—through a grieving mother’s devastating internal monologue—both a modern-day nightmare and exquisite proof of love’s extraordinary power to overcome it.

    What she got was a skeleton, suspicious cops ... and Charlie. Ex-truckstop waitress/new heiress Lizbet Lange inherited a mansion from her ex-husband, who neglected to put in an outdoor, Olympic-size pool in the back "grounds" before he died. So, thinking it would be just the thing to cheer her up, seeing as how she's young and alone, she sets up a "dig" with the local pool company, who promptly unearth a human skeleton. And if that isn't bad enough, what with the cops and FBI and all, tromping around in her back yard, thirty minutes later the skeleton's owner, also shows up, albeit in ghost form, and asks Lizbet to help him find out who murdered him back in 1969!

    WHAT are the dangers of getting directions from a fairy tale frog? WHERE do archangels go to kick back and relax? HOW can a garden gnome mend a broken heart? WHO is the last person you’d expect to visit you at Christmas? WHY shouldn’t you let Satan organise your funeral? Find out the answers to these and other pressing questions in this collection of short stories from the authors of the Clovenhoof series.

    Peacock’s wife thinks he did it, the police think he did it, even Frank McAlpine said he did it, moments before he died. But Peacock knows he’s innocent, and he knows he’s going to work out who really killed Frank to clear his name. But commiting crimes are more in Peacock’s line of work, he doesn’t have the first clue about how to solve one. Luckily, though, he knows a man who does, a man who owes him a favour. A second Scottish noir writer, Ian Rankin, has featured Peacock as the main villain in one of his bestselling Rebus novels- A Question of Blood. And Peacock feels he was somewhat misrepresented, made out to be much more of a hardened criminal than he actually is. He’d been planning to seek compensation from Rankin, on a massive scale, but now he sees an opportunity for Ian to make things good. If Rankin can use his detective skills to work out who actually killed Frank McAlpine then Peacock is willing to drop the action for libel. The only questions are, will Rankin agree. And is he up to the job.

    One night, a carload of strangers appears on the Hollands' property, carrying the air of incipient danger underneath a veneer of pleasantries. Weldon finds himself inexplicably drawn to the group of trespassing vagabonds—who, despite being camped out on a hidden riverbank in the middle of nowhere, drive the most expensive automobile that Weldon has ever seen. In the unbearable, rainless heat of a Dust Bowl summer, Weldon will find himself mixed up in an encounter with the infamous bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde—an encounter that changes the course of Weldon's life…and history itself. Rich with criminal and social history of the American West and a young boy’s struggle to become a man, “A Dust Bowl Tale of Bonnie and Clyde” is just the beginning of Weldon Holland’s story.

    Jones, George Pelecanos, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Richard Wright, Langston Hughes, James Grady, Julian Mayfield, Marita Golden, Elizabeth Hand, Julian Mazor, Ward Just, Jean Toomer, Roach Brown, Larry Neal, and others.George Pelecanos is an independent film producer, the recipient of numerous international writing awards, a producer and an Emmy-nominated writer of the HBO series The Wire, and the author of fifteen novels set in and around Washington, DC. He is the editor of the best-selling first volume of D.C. Noir.

    But the neighbours are becoming concerned. Eileen Jameson and the boys haven't been seen for quite some time...When a gruesome discovery points the finger, quite literally, at the Professor's house, Inspector Max Carruthers and Detective Sergeant Lucas Matthews come knocking at the door. It's a day they will never forget ...

    Unfortunately, the Cresswill case was anything but. It started as a suicide, but then it was a murder pretending to be a suicide. Then it appeared that it was a suicide masquerading as a murder pretending to be a suicide. It was all so ridiculous, but the only thing a jury needs to acquit is a reasonable doubt, even when it seems quite unreasonable. Or is it? Or not? Perhaps to find the truth, the police need help that is every bit as unhinged as the case…

    But they lost touch and her dreams of a lasting love died. Now that she's back, Kaitlyn won't risk her heart again. But fate has other plans. She and Connor reconnect and he realizes the pendant makes her a target. As a government agent, Connor is conflicted between his duty protecting Kaitlyn and feelings he never got over. As the two race to find a centuries' old treasure, they discover first loves aren't easily forgotten.

    Tired, weak, and nearly broken under the weight of his guilt, he wanders the streets waiting for death to catch up to him. But when he is beset by bandits, he gains a new perspective. Maybe he doesn't have to feel guilty about feeding, after all.Theron - Theron travels by ship to his long ago home of Athens, Greece. He soon discovers the Council of Thirteen has put a price on his head so large every Bachiyr in the city will try to collect it, which leads to a very tense reunion with an old lover.The Ugliest Thing, by Daniel Arenson - Just what is it about the image in the telescope that makes people lose their sanity? Is it worth the risk to see for yourself?Also included is a preview of 61 A.D., the thrilling sequel to David's 2010 horror bestseller, 33 A.D.

    This is not an anthology of ill-conceived and inauthentic political thrillers. Instead, in D.C. Noir, pimps, whores, gangsters, and con-men run rampant in zones of this city that most never hear about.