After her mother is killed in a tragic hit-and-run, her mother's childhood guardian, Ursula, also dies suddenly, leaving everything to Lexy. But as Lexy reads through Ursula's hidden papers, what she discovers raises doubts about her own identity and if she really is now all alone in the world.Desperate to find out if she has any surviving family, Lexy travels to Africa hoping she can unravel the mystery she's now tormented by, only to find that she's stumbled into a past full of lies and deceit and that her life is in grave danger.Winner of the Sunday Mail Fiction Competition 2015"Part detective thriller, part emotional journey, Ursula's Secret is a highly enjoyable and intelligent adventure that will appeal to fans of Kate Atkinson and Maggie O'Farrell. A very promising debut."SOPHIE COOKE, author of The Glass House"Lovely straightforward and absorbing story telling of complex lives and a secret that spans decades and continents."ISLA DEWAR, author of Dancing in a Distant Place"The complex story accelerates to a dramatic denouement that leaves Lexy enlightened and chastened, and on the verge of a new phase in her life, and leaves the reader wholly satisfied with Wilson's adept, sympathetic and colourful storytelling."MORAG JOSS, award-winning author of the Sara Selkirk novels'Ursula's Secret is packed full of tension, questions, problems, secrecy and intrigue right until the concluding chapter.'EMMA CROWLEY, Shaz’s Book Blog'This book is filled with twist after twist, secret after secret which will keep you guessing right to the end.'PORTOBELLO BOOK BLOG'I was completely captured from the beginning of Ursula’s Secret, enveloped in the mystery and memories of Ursula and the beauty of her home. With it’s ‘smiling’ staircase and Lexy’s obvious wonder I was lost to the tale and it’s descriptive content… I loved this read.'**** TRACY SHEPHARD, Postcard Reviews Blog

    Approx 1,550 words and 6 chapters. The man who looked after the weather said to his son, “Tom, it’s time you learnt how to do my job. I’m going into town tomorrow and I want you to look after the weather huts.” “Yes, Father, I can do that,” Tom said with a smile. So the next morning Tom waved bye to his Father as he got into his van. His father called out, “Watch out for the bears!” “Watch out for the what?” Tom called back. “The bears that live in the forest!” his father shouted. Tom shook his head. Bears that lived in the forest! He’d never seen any bears. What was his father talking about? Tom soon finds out ...

    Sex. Detox. Art. Recovery. Prostitution. Music. Street life. Poetry. Toxic love. And, those are just on the surface. The layers and complexities of Addictarium will shock and enthrall you... When wild-child, and south Florida escapee, Danielle Martino finds herself curled in a ball on the cold tile floors of her filthy rank bathroom in the tiny studio she rents with her fiancé and partner-in-crime, she knows it's time to quit abusing heroin. Severely impaired from shooting a bad batch of black tar heroin, and already partially blind from the infection that the muddy poison has caused, she is forced to hitch a greyhound bus to New York City, and to abandon her care-free, American-bohemian, drug infested life-style.Hailed by many as a beautiful, unique, honest, raw and poetic account of recovery, Addictarium takes readers on a compelling journey through the life and eyes of the narrator; a creative, nomadic, deep--but, incidentally broken--young woman, and underlines the contributing factors to what it's really like to suffer from addiction. With magnificent candor--and sometimes emotionally crippling descriptions--we witness Danielle's fight towards recovery from more than just heroin, as Addictarium brings the readers on a fascinating and harrowing, brutal tale of a young women's recovery from total and mass self-destruction. --Addictarium highlights in the starkest of lights, why it is so difficult for addicts to receive the recovery they seek, when they finally do decide to put the drug down.

    These stories span characters and emotional states with canny details that touch the depths of your soul. Picturing the complexities of love, misery and mystery, the stories try to gnaw your heart like never before.• What does a flower teach us we often fail to see?• “The belly is an ungrateful wretch.” Is it true?• Ever wondered about the sparseness and illusions in life?• Does death put an end to true love?• Have all the ascetics won over their emotions?With the power of simple language, this book transports the readers to a world scarcely thought of in our bustling lives. The allegories maintain an intense rhythm of life prompting the readers to perceive things from a unique angle.“A whole bookful to make you think, cry, think again and move on.”

     Detective Sergeant Joe Galbraith starts what seems like one more depressing investigation of the untimely death of a poor unfortunate who was in the wrong place, at the wrong time. As the investigation spreads across Scotland it reaches into a past that Joe has tried to forget, and takes him back to the Hebridean island of Harris, where he spent his childhood. Among the mountains and the stunning landscape of religiously conservative Harris, in the shadow of Ceapabhal, long buried events and a tragic story are slowly uncovered, and the investigation takes on an altogether more sinister aspect. In The Shadow Of The Hill skilfully captures the intricacies and malevolence of the underbelly of Highland and Island life, bringing tragedy and vengeance to the magical beauty of the Outer Hebrides.

    "A poetic story for anyone who has longed to leave home, only to find that home resides within you."--Sandra CisnerosWe live in the dregs of Queens, New York, where airplanes fly so low that we are certain they will crush us...This remarkable story brings you deep into the lives of a group of friends--young women of color growing up in Queens, New York City's most vibrant and eclectic borough. Here, streets echo with languages from all over the globe, subways rumble above dollar stores, trees bloom and topple across sidewalks, and the briny scent of the ocean wafts from Rockaway Beach. Here, girls like Nadira, Gabby, Naz, Trish, Angelique, and many others, attempt to reconcile their immigrant backgrounds with the American culture they come of age in. Here, they become friends for life--or so they vow.Exuberant and wild, they sing Mariah Carey at the tops of their lungs and roam the streets of The City That Never Sleeps, pine for crushes who pay them no mind--and break the hearts of those who do--all the while trying to heed their mothers' commands to be dutiful daughters, obedient young women. As they age, however, their paths diverge and rifts form between them, as some choose to remain on familiar streets, while others find themselves ascending in the world, drawn to the allure of other skylines, careers, and lovers, beckoned by existences foreign and seemingly at odds with their humble roots.In musical, evocative prose, Brown Girls illustrates a collective portrait of childhood, motherhood, and beyond, and is an unflinching exploration of race, class, and marginalization in America. It is an account of the forces that bind friends to one another, their families, and communities, and is a powerful depiction of women of color attempting to forge their place in the world. For even as the dueling forces of ambition and loyalty, freedom and marriage, reinvention and stability threaten to divide them, it is to each other--and to Queens--that the girls ultimately return.

    But by the time of Stalin's terror, the contradictions of the revolution caught up with him, and he ended in despair.A major influence on American poets of the twentieth century, Mayakovsky's work remains fascinating and urgent. Very few English translations have come close to capturing his lyric intensity, and a comprehensive volume of his writings has not been published in the past thirty years. In Night Wraps the Sky, the acclaimed filmmaker Michael Almereyda (Hamlet, William Eggleston in the Real World) presents Mayakovsky's key poems--translated by a new generation of Russian-American poets--alongside memoirs, artistic appreciations, and eyewitness accounts, written and pictorial, to create a full-length portrait of the man and the mythic era he came to embody.

    So they rent out their California home--dog and cat included--and embark on a yearlong trip around the world. The couple is swept up in the adventure of a lifetime: traversing the Sahara on camels, trekking in the Himalayas, scrambling over Cambodian temples, crossing the Andes, scaling a New Zealand glacier.The book traces the odyssey in forty-eight colorful dispatches from six continents. Whether barreling across India with a former tank driver at the wheel, getting clipped by Vietnam's oldest barber, touring a notorious Bolivian prison with inmates as guides, or braving a cyclone in Fiji on a rubber raft, McIntyre taps his signature wit to convey the joys, perils, and frustrations of prolonged travel. He also writes eloquently of such touching moments as flying kites with a boy in Indonesia and sleeping under the stars in Morocco.Funny, heartwarming, and full of expert tips, The Wander Year will inspire and entertain veteran and armchair travelers alike."A superb writer."--Los Angeles Times"A reader's dream."--San Diego Union-Tribune

    “Well written and I was left wanting to read on.... It is certainly an intriguing concept” (Troubador)“Writing is dynamic and fast-paced. There's a definite charm about the novel that, I think, would appeal to the kind of audience cultivated by writers such as Marina Lewycka” (HHB Agency)“What a charming novel. I’m from Dundee myself, and the masterful way you wove together setting and culture was admirable. Your characters, too, were powerful yet compassionate, and the prose had a lovely twisting quality” (Canongate Press)“This is fresh and intriguing” (Andrew Lownie)Mrs Keiller's Marmalade is a book about marmalade, the isolation of old age, respect for tradition and the pain of abandonment. Maggie Keiller is a fictional descendent of John Keiller, the last patriarch of Keiller marmalade, whose clan famously created the first ‘Dundee Marmalade’. She is married John's son Billy Keiller in 1909 but lost him in the same year to a storm which visited their small enclave of Auchobane, a village perched precociously on the Dundee coastline of North-East Scotland. Forward fifty years, and Maggie lives a lonely life in Rose Cottage surrounded only by her jars of fine and vintage homemade marmalade. Her only visitor is Dougie, an elderly grocery man and decorated veteran. Maggie’s life is changed when she unexpectedly receives a letter from her estranged niece in London, asking for haven for her teenage daughter. Maggie takes her on, not out of affection for her niece whom she loathes, but to fill the void left by her childless marriage. Isla arrives in 1969, a year on the cusp of a revolution in the London she has just left, and in her own life, hiding the pregnancy she has kept from her mother. Maggie teaches Isla about her heritage, and hopes to pass on to her the tradition of marmalade making. For Isla, abandoned by mother and lover, and struggling to cope with the imminent arrival of an unwanted child, her bond with Maggie becomes a channel to help regain the self-esteem taken from her over her young years. The book culminates in Isla’s entry into the silver spoon Marmalade competition, fifty years after Maggie Keiller had taken the same prize.

    In this volume of selected prose, Roethke articulates his commitments to imaginative possibilities, offers tender advice to young writers, and zings darts at stuffed shirts, lightweights and fools."Art is our defense against hysteria and death."With the assistance of Roethke's widow, this volume has been edited to include the finest selections from out of print collections of prose and journal entries. Focused on the making and teaching of poetry,On Poetry and Craft will be prized in the classroom-and outrageous Roethke quotes will once again pepper our conversations."You must believe a poem is a holy thing, a good poem, that is."Theodore Roethke was of an illustrious generation of poets which included Sexton, Plath, Lowell, Berryman, and like them he received nearly every major award in poetry, including the Pulitzer Prize and twice the National Book Award. In spite of his fame, he remained a legendary teacher, known for the care and attention he gave to his students, poets such as James Wright, Carolyn Kizer, Tess Gallagher, and Richard Hugo. Roethke died on August 1, 1963, while swimming in a friend's pool."But before I'm reduced to an absolute pulp by my own ambivalence, I must say goodbye. The old lion perisheth. Nymphs, I wish you the swoops of many fish. May your search for the abiding be forever furious."On Poetry and CraftI am overwhelmed by the beautiful disorder of poetry, the eternal virginity of words.The poem, even a short time after being written, seems no miracle; unwritten, it seems something beyond the capacity of the gods.We can't escape what we are, and I'm afraid many of my notions about verse (I haven't too many) have been conditioned by the fact that for nearly 25 years I've been trying to teach the young something about the nature of verse by writing it--and that with very little formal knowledge of the subject or previous instruction. So it's going to be lik

    But I wrote a lot of good poems.”So maintains Anita Liberty, the caustically funny New York City performance artist who was going along happily healing her hurt by hating and humiliating her detestable ex-boyfriend on stage and in print until the unthinkable happened: she had a good date. And one good date deserves another. And another. And another. And, all of the sudden, Anita Liberty finds herself in a predicament. Getting dumped launched Anita’s career–Will falling in love finish it? Who’s more important: her devoted audience or her newly devoted boyfriend? And on top of everything, Hollywood won’t stop calling and Anita can’t figure out if It wants a serious commitment or just a little bit of no-strings-attached fun. From digging mercilessly into the minutiae of her new relationship to dramatically torching every professional bridge she crosses in L.A., Anita refuses to let a big load of bliss get dumped right in the middle of her career path.“He said that my work was amazing and hilarious and smart and that he can’t wait to see me perform.So I had sex with him.”“My boyfriend asked me to change my look.To something other than contemptuous.”{BARGAIN} Whatever Hollywood ends up paying me for the rights to the story of my life.“It’s easier to go back to fantasizing about perfection . . .than to accept that perfection is just a fantasy.”“Boyfriend thinks I’d rather be right than happy.Boyfriend’s right.But I’m not telling him that.”Through blog entries, film scenes, poems, and to-do lists, Anita Liberty documents the perils and pitfalls of dating, sex, relationships, artistic success, and the kind of true love that sucks the creative life out of you to the point where you just end up staring at a blank computer screen and thinking gooey thoughts about your new boyfriend even though you should be writing.

    These prophetic, osmotic poems wage a daily battle for normalcy, seeking structure in the quotidian while grappling with the absence of forgetting.

    When he wrote it, Green had already published three of his nine novels and his style"a gathering web of insinuations"was fully developed.Pack My Bag is a marvelously quirky, clear-eyed memoir: a mother who shot at mangle wurzels (turnips) bowled across the lawn for her by the servants; the stately home packed with wounded World War I soldiers; the miseries of Eton, oddities of Oxford, and work in the family factory—the making of a brilliantly original novelist. "We have inherited the greatest orchestra, the English language, to conduct," Green once wrote. "The means are there; things are going on in life all the time around us." His use of language and his account of things that went on in his life inform this delightful and idiosyncratic autobiography, which begins: "I was born a mouthbreather with a silver spoon."

    No matter their subject, Zagajewski's essays have the subtlety and resonance of poetry; his is one of the most intriguing voices in today's Europe.

    It examines their chequered and surprisingly turbulent history, from the Enclosures Acts of the eighteenth century to the 1932 Mass Trespass on Kinder Scout in Derbyshire; and from the hard-won post-war establishment of great National Trails like the Pennine Way to the dramatic latter-day battles by the likes of Nicholas van Hoogstraten and Madonna to keep ramblers off their land.The story ranges far and wide, to all corners of the country and beyond, and is filled with the many characters that Mike engages with along the way - the poets and artists, farmers and ramblers, landowners and Rights of Way officers and campaigners, historians, archivists and anyone else who crosses his path (or even tries to block it).