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By Mary Hoffman. 2015
Emily Crawford, a young American wife and mother, seeks a long-overdue self-respect in this absorbing and dramatic portrait of an…
expatriate family experi-encing life in an exotic Arab culture at the start of the 1960s. Revelatory episodes unfold against the enter¬tainments of the well-to-do and influential, among the lives of ordinary citizens, and during explorations of ancient cities in the Holy Land and beyond.By Jowhor Ile. 2016
An unforgettable debut novel about a boy who goes missing, a family that is torn apart, and a nation on…
the brink During the rainy season of 1995, in the bustling town of Port Harcourt, Nigeria, one family's life is disrupted by the sudden disappearance of seventeen-year-old Paul Utu, beloved brother and son. As they grapple with the sudden loss of their darling boy, they embark on a painful and moving journey of immense power which changes their lives forever and shatters the fragile ecosystem of their once ordered family. Ajie, the youngest sibling, is burdened with the guilt of having seen Paul last and convinced that his vanished brother was betrayed long ago. But his search for the truth uncovers hidden family secrets and reawakens old, long forgotten ghosts as rumours of police brutality, oil shortages, and frenzied student protests serve as a backdrop to his pursuit. In a tale that moves seamlessly back and forth through time, Ajie relives a trip to the family's ancestral village where, together, he and his family listen to the myths of how their people settled there, while the villagers argue over the mysterious Company, who found oil on their land and will do anything to guarantee support. As the story builds towards its stunning conclusion, it becomes clear that only once past and present come to a crossroads will Ajie and his family finally find the answers they have been searching for. And After Many Days introduces Ile's spellbinding ability to tightly weave together personal and political loss until, inevitably, the two threads become nearly indistinguishable. It is a masterful story of childhood, of the delicate, complex balance between the powerful and the powerless, and a searing portrait of a community as the old order gives way to the new.From the Hardcover edition.By Jennifer Gilmore. 2006
Poignant, raw, and insightful, Jennifer Gilmore's third novel is an unforgettable story of love, family, and motherhood. With a "voice…
[that is] at turns wise and barbed with sharp humor" (Vanity Fair), Gilmore lays bare the story of one couple's ardent desire for a child and their emotional journey through adoption. Jesse and Ramon are a loving couple, but after years spent unsuccessfully trying to get pregnant, they turn to adoption, relieved to think that once they navigate the bureaucratic path to parent-hood they will have a happy ending. But nothing has prepared them for the labyrinthine process--for the many training sessions and approvals; for the constant advice from friends, strangers, and "experts"; for the birthmothers who contact them but don't ultimately choose them; or even, most shockingly, for the women who call claiming they've chosen Jesse and Ramon but who turn out never to have been pregnant in the first place. Jennifer Gilmore's eloquence about the human heart--its frailties and complexities--and her razor-sharp observations about race, class, culture, and changing family dynamics are spectacularly combined in this powerful novel. Suffused with passion and fury, The Mothers is a taut, gripping, and satisfying book that will stay with readers long after they turn the last page.By D. B. Shuster. 2014
Neurotica SeriesAcademia has never been so naughty.The university men in Professor Melanie Stevenson's life pressure her to take her proper…
place--under them. While the proper professor indulges in daring daydreams of ... submitting to their will, her "evil" twin cracks the whip, so to speak, to work out the kinks in higher education.Poetry Slam Professor Melanie Stevenson's naughty twin crashes an open mic event and lets everyone there, including the stranger she seduces, imagine the racy woman reciting suggestive poetry is the unplugged version of the uptight professor.Note: This is a short story, approximately 5,000 words in length.By D. B. Shuster. 2015
Neurotica SeriesAcademia has never been so naughty.The university men in Professor Melanie Stevenson's life pressure her to take her proper…
place--under them. While the proper professor indulges in daring daydreams of ... submitting to their will, her "evil" twin cracks the whip, so to speak, to work out the kinks in higher education.Woman on Top Professor Melanie Stevenson's "evil" twin decides the Department Chair needs to be punished for his... misdeeds in the library. While her kinky tease is designed to render poetic payback, another university woman takes Simon...in hand with a far more sinister and sophisticated version of "woman on top."Note: This is a short story, approximately 5,000 words in length.By D. B. Shuster. 2014
Neurotica SeriesAcademia has never been so naughty.The university men in Professor Melanie Stevenson's life pressure her to take her proper…
place--under them. While the proper professor indulges in daring daydreams of ... submitting to their will, her "evil" twin cracks the whip, so to speak, to work out the kinks in higher education.Scholarly Pursuit Professor Melanie Stevenson's chairman would like to continue the liaison Melanie's evil twin started while impersonating her. She has no knowledge of what took place during that heated encounter, but Simon wants more and will stop at nothing in his scholarly pursuit.Note: This is a short story, approximately 5,000 words in length.By D. B. Shuster. 2014
Neurotica SeriesAcademia has never been so naughty.The university men in Professor Melanie Stevenson's life pressure her to take her proper…
place--under them. While the proper professor indulges in daring daydreams of ... submitting to their will, her "evil" twin cracks the whip, so to speak, to work out the kinks in higher education.Tongue-Lashing from the ChairProfessor Melanie Stevenson doesn't know what her naughty twin did with her department chair while impersonating her, but her own encounters with Simon take an erotic turn and uncover an inner wildness she hopes her steady boyfriend can tame.Note: This is a short story, approximately 5,000 words in length.By Max Brooks. 2006
"Brooks [is] America's most prominent maven on the living dead...Gripping reading." --Hartford CourantThis collection, available exclusively as an ebook, brings…
together two New York Times bestselling titles from Max Brooks: The Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z. Fully illustrated and exhaustively comprehensive, The Zombie Survival Guide is the key to survival against the hordes of undead who may be stalking you right now. In World War Z, Brooks delivers an invaluable chronicle of the Zombie War, told in the haunting and riveting voices of the men and women who witnessed the horror firsthand.By Tetiana Brooks. 2014
If you read My Angel, you will be transformed. My Angel and two other titles were first published in Ukraine…
in Russian and Ukrainian. Tetiana says, "We are all people living on the Earth with the same feelings, the same problems, and the same joys."By John Kendrick Bangs. 2012
John Kendrick Bangs (1862-1922) has earned comparison with Mark Twain and L. Frank Baum for his humorous fantasies, including "A…
Houseboat on the Styx" and these wildly adventurous "Andiron Tales" -- featuring talking andirons, bellows and fire-pokers . . . and a voyage to the crescent MoonBy D B Shuster. 2014
Neurotica SeriesAcademia has never been so naughty.The university men in Professor Melanie Stevenson's life pressure her to take her proper…
place--under them. While the proper professor indulges in daring daydreams of ... submitting to their will, her "evil" twin cracks the whip, so to speak, to work out the kinks in higher education.Spanking the ChairProfessor Melanie Stevenson's verbally abusive department chair needs to be schooled, and her naughty twin is just the person to slap him with a punishment he'll never forget.Note: This is a short story, approximately 5,000 words in length.By D B Shuster. 2014
Neurotica SeriesAcademia has never been so naughty.The university men in Professor Melanie Stevenson's life pressure her to take her proper…
place--under them. While the proper professor indulges in daring daydreams of ... submitting to their will, her "evil" twin cracks the whip, so to speak, to work out the kinks in higher education.Fun with Toys Angry about their breakup, Professor Melanie Stevenson's ex-boyfriend shows up at her office with a box of sex toys he claims are hers, and her student, Hunter, is all too eager to encourage her to perform a show-and-tell during their one-on-one lesson.Note: This is a short story, approximately 5,000 words in length.By D B Shuster. 2014
Neurotica SeriesAcademia has never been so naughty.The university men in Professor Melanie Stevenson's life pressure her to take her proper…
place--under them. While the proper professor indulges in daring daydreams of ... submitting to their will, her "evil" twin cracks the whip, so to speak, to work out the kinks in higher education.Sex in the Stacks When Professor Melanie Stevenson submits to her department chair's...wishes during a private encounter in the library stacks, she never imagines she might actually be caught in a compromising position. Yet, with colleagues eager to find evidence of the Chair's misconduct, the suddenly very real threat of discovery forces her to consider whether she's prepared for the potential career consequences of her lust-driven decisions and whether she's still the "good" twin.Note: This is a short story, approximately 5,000 words in length.By D. B. Shuster. 2015
"A wicked romp through the hallowed halls of academia!"Laugh out loud at these clever and sexy tales. Academia has never…
been so naughty!The university men in Professor Melanie Stevenson's life pressure her to take her proper place--under them. While the proper professor indulges in daring daydreams of...submitting to their will, her "evil" twin, Violet, takes on the role of academic avenger and cracks the whip, so to speak, to work out the kinks in higher education. Written by a college professor, this witty series takes a darkly funny look at the neurotic people and politics of higher education. These eight consecutive short stories tell a larger tale with rich characters, escalating stakes, and steamy action. What Readers are Saying"Timid Professors, evil twins and a good dose of slightly naughty will have you chuckling over the office water cooler.""Love this series! Smart, funny, and sexy. Great brain candy!""Hot and hillarious!""These are awesome. They're over the top enough to be funny but really, really good."Excerpt from "Spanking the Chair""Spanked?" he repeated, his voice cracking. She licked her lips and nodded, knowing she had his full interest now."Yes, spanked." She coiled a lock of hair around her finger, looked down at her own knees. "You know, sometimes I miss that.""You miss being spanked?""It was so cathartic, you know? A hot hand on my backside, a good wallop, and all the bad was purged out of me. I'd done my penance and could go back to being good again." "I don't know what to say," he said. Perhaps not, but his thoughts broadcast loud and clear, as he undressed her with his eyes and likely imagined turning her over his knee. So not going to happen."Do you feel you need to be punished for what you've done?" he asked."I know corporal punishment is out of vogue," she said. "But truly, it could be so therapeutic." His head bounced like a bobble head as he communicated his willingness to give her what he most desired, him in the role of punisher.Time to change the game.She crossed her legs, leaned forward, and dropped her voice to a husky whisper. "Have you ever been spanked, Simon?"By Mahendra Singh, Tony Millionaire, Martin Olson. 2011
A tour de force of darkness, Encyclopaedia of Hell is a manual of Earth written by Lord Satan for his…
invading hordes of demons, complete with hundreds of unpleasant illustrations, diagrams, and a comprehensive and utterly repulsive dictionary of Earth terms.Since the customs and mores of humanity are alien and inconceivable to demons, Satan wrote this strangely poetic military handbook for the enlightenment and edification of his demon armies. A masterpiece expressing Satan's hatred for humanity and himself, the Encyclopaedia includes "Techniques of Stalking and Eating Humans," "Methods of Canning Human Pus," and "Dicing and Slicing Orphaned Children."Why the invasion? During the last century in particular, Hell has become seriously overcrowded. Satan needs more land mass for the damned and to use the human livestock to feed his hungry demon invaders.Since this book is the 666th commemorative edition, this Encyclopaedia contains special commemorative material.Martin Olson's savage wit provides the firepower for a preposterous literary feat unaccomplished since Mark Twain passed-channeling the real voice of Satan. Over the past fifteen years, Olson has written and produced nine comedy specials, inflicted on the populace via CBS, HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, and A&E.By Ann O'Loughlin. 2015
A bestseller in the UK, this moving debut novel is a modern Philomena story of love, both lost and found.Secrets…
can’t last forever. . . . In a crumbling mansion in a small Irish village in County Wicklow, two elderly sisters, Ella and Roberta O’Callaghan, live alone in Roscarbury Hall with their secrets, memories, and mutual hatred. Long estranged, the two communicate only by terse notes. But when the sisters are threatened with bankruptcy, Ella defies Roberta’s wishes and converts the mansion's old ballroom into a café. Much to Roberta’s displeasure, the café is a hit and the sisters are reluctantly drawn back into the village life they abandoned decades ago. But gossip has a long life. As the local convent comes under scrutiny, the O’Callaghan sisters find themselves caught up in an adoption scandal that dates back to the 1960s and spreads all the way across the Atlantic Ocean. Only by overcoming their enmity and facing up to the past can they face the future together—but can they finally put their differences behind them?By Margo Catts. 2017
For fans of authors like Barbara Kingsolver and Leif Enger, a stunning new voice in contemporary literary fiction."Tragedy and blessing.…
Leave them alone long enough, and it gets real hard to tell them apart." Elena Alvarez is living a cursed life. From the deadly fire she accidentally set as a child, to her mother's abandonment, and now to an unwanted pregnancy, she knows better than most that small actions can have terrible consequences. Driven to the high mountains surrounding Leadville, Colorado by her latest bad decision, she's intent on putting off the future. Perhaps there she can just hide in her grandmother's isolated cabin and wait for something–anything–to make her next choice for her. But instead of escape, she finds reminders of her own troubles reflected from every side–the recent widower and his two children adrift in a changed world, Elena's own mysterious family history, and the interwoven lives within the town itself. Bit by bit, Elena begins to reconsider her role in the tragedies she's held on to and the wounds she's refused to let heal. But then, in a single afternoon, when threads of cause and effect tangle, Elena's fragile new peace is torn apart. It's only at the prospect of fresh loss and blame that she will discover the truth of the terrible burdens we take upon ourselves, the way tragedy and redemption are inevitably bound together–and how curses can sometimes lead to blessings, however disguised.By Ian Doescher, Jacopo Della Quercia. 2019
For readers craving a humorous antidote to the sound and the fury of American politics, this clever satire, written in…
iambic pentameter in the style of Shakespeare, wittily fictionalizes the events of the first two years of the Trump administration.No one thought that MacTrump—Lord of MacTrump Towers, Son of New York—would ascend to the highest position in the kingdom. Yet with the help of his unhappy but dutiful wife Lady MacTrump, his clever daughter Dame Desdivanka, and his coterie of advisers, MacTrump is comfortably ensconced in the White Hold as President of the United Fiefdoms, free to make proclamations to his subjects through his favorite messenger, McTweet.The Democrati, mourning the loss of their cherished leader O’Bama, won’t give up without a fight. They still remember the disastrous reign of George the Lesser, and they can see Putain’s dark influence on MacTrump. Their greatest hope is MacMueller, tasked with investigating the plot that empowered MacTrump’s rise to the throne.As Desdivanka schemes to overthrow her father’s councilors, and as Donnison and Ericson—trapped in their own Rosencrantz and Guildenstern-like storyline—prove useless to their father, MacTrump soon realizes he has no true allies. Will he be able to hold on to his throne? Only time will tell in this tragicomic tale of ambition, greed, and royal ineptitude.By Martin Walser. 2018
For readers of Colm Toibin’s The Master and Michael Cunningham’s The Hours, a witty, moving, tender novel of impossible love…
and the mysterious ways of art. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is so famous his servant auctions off snippets of his hair and children and adults recite from his many works by memory. When he was a young poet, his first novel, a story of love and romantic fervor ending in suicide, was an international blockbuster that set off a wave of self-inflicted deaths across Europe. Now seventy-three, sought after and busy with scientific pursuits and responsibilities to the Grand Duke, he has fallen in love with a nineteen-year-old, Ulrike von Levetzov. Infatuated, at the spa in Marienbad, he seeks her out. They exchange glances, witty words. In the social swirl, they find each other. On the promenade, they parade together arm in arm. Time spent away from her is sleepless, and when they kiss, it is in the “Goethian” way, from his books: a matter of souls, not mouths or lips. And yet, his years fail him. At an afternoon tea party, a younger man tries to seduce her. At a costume ball, he collapses. When he proposes nonetheless, Ulrike and her mother are already preparing to leave. Caught in a storm of emotion and torn between despair and unwillingness to give up hope, he begins an elegy in his coach as he pursues her: “The Marienbad Elegy,” one of his last great works.By Seth Grahame-Smith. 2007
Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid. From ghosts, vampires, and zombies to serial killers, cannibalistic hillbillies, and haunted Japanese videocassettes, How…
to Survive a Horror Movie shows how to defeat every obstacle found in scary films. Readers will discover: * How to Perform an Exorcism * What to Do If You Did Something Last Summer * How to Persuade the Skeptical Local Sheriff * How to Vanquish a Murderous Doll * How to Survive an Alien Invasion * How to Tell If You've Been Dead Since the Beginning of the Movie and much, much more. Complete with useful instructions, insane illustrations, and a list of 100 important films to study, How to Survive a Horror Movie is essential reading for prom queens, jocks, teenage babysitters, and anyone employed by a summer camp. From the Trade Paperback edition.