Two short stories, from the English novelist and short story writer, whose writings can be seen as critiques of Victorian era attitudes, particularly those toward women, with complex narratives and dynamic women characters

"Stunning action, excellent tradecraft… just about perfect." – Lee Child In the fourth novel in the New York Times bestselling series, Marine sniper Kyle Swanson finds himself in the sights of a man he once idolized-a true American hero turned traitor Swanson and his beautiful girlfriend, CIA agent Lauren Carson, are on a mission in Pakistan when their world is turned inside out. Kyle is captured and thrown in prison. Lauren is accused of being a double agent. The one person they trust to help is the man who sent them on the black operation-Jim Hall, a legendary CIA agent, Kyle's sniper mentor, and Lauren's boss and former lover. But Hall has gone rogue. He is selling America's innermost secrets to a ruthless Pakistani warlord who wants to mold al- Qaeda into a legitimate political party, and secure a nuclear arsenal. For Jim Hall, his former protégé Swanson is the final obstacle. Success or failure pivots on whether Swanson can stop the old friend who trained him to be a shooter. From the streets of Washington to the Bavarian Alps, the two snipers stalk each other in a deadly hunt that has only one possible outcome

From a dark past, a forbidden love, a secret comes. Among the confusion and the chaos of an unwanted reality, two women find something they neither want nor can deny. Blayne Ashton-Carlyle is aloof, self-sufficient, and used to damage control. She is at the top of her game, has always contained herself, and has never come up against any contention she could not handle. Gabriella Matheson is a sculptor. The perfect daughter, she appears to have the ideal marriage, complete with two lovely children. A shocking revelation is approaching with a vengeance, and all that stands in its way will be eradicated. Both women are on a collision course to a passion they cannot fight, to a love they cannot ignore, to an ending that will change everything

In 1982 William T. Vollmann, one of our most versatile talents, traveled to see the war in Afghanistan. In An Afghanistan Picture Show, his first book-length work of non-fiction, Vollmann paints a brutally honest and dryly comic portrait of a young American coming to terms with his political naivete. It is the story of a would-be giver who finds himself a perpetual Stranger, unable to comprehend the simplest things he hears and sees, and continually compelled to rely on others for help. In two narrative perspectives, Vollmann wryly confronts his own inadequacy in the face of limitless suffering and comes to the realization that one who went to aid and to understand could only hope, trust, and receive. In An Afghanistan Picture Show Vollmann describes a Cold War world of spies and lurking strangeness, a world in which his younger self asks unanswerable questions of orphans, refugees, guerrilla leaders, bureaucrats, corrupt officials, and prescient has-been politicians. He tells of Pakistan, a country as gracious in spirit as she is materially poor. And in his unnerving innocence Vollmann explores a land in which others continually invest him with almost supernatural powers simply because he is American. An ingenious narrative which inverts the very concept of the "white man's burden" and questions the idea of "truth" in non-fiction, An Afghanistan Picture Show stands as William T. Vollmann most entertaining-and autobiographical-work to date

Texas Cattleman's Club Rule #3: Do the Right Thing With no warning, Mitch Hayward's superefficient, self-effacing assistant has done a complete 180 – becoming captivating before his very eyes. And on one very special night, the interim club president gives in to this brand-new temptation. Instinct takes control. But protecting Jenny Watson's heart from his own bachelor ways is the only right thing to do. If he has to, he'll even set up the lovely Jenny with someone more suited to her hearth-and-home desires. And then he'll pretend that he's not jealous of her every look, her every touch

At a crisis in his second marriage, Ron Galloway dropped out of sight. Having said good-bye to his wife and his sons in Toronto, he started out for his hunting lodge, where he had invited some friends to spend the weekend with him. When Ron failed to appear, two of his friends, Ralph Turee and Harry Bream, took it upon themselves to investigate his disappearance. Even before his body was found, they discovered that Ron had been leading a double life. The doubleness of Ron’s life was more than matched by the doubleness of his death, and the events that followed his death. Because a beautifully controlled irony is its keynote, any further summary of the story would reveal too much, and too little. When revelation does come, to Ralph Turee and the reader, it comes with the shock and illuminative flash of a carefully laid explosion

She is a shimmering, tattooed, and acerbic angel, flown from Paradise to save him from the suburbs of hell. He, an accountant worn down by the day-to-day struggles of the nine to five, is dreaming of a white Christmas, a little garden and someone to love. She attempts, with scornful wit, to shock him out of his commuter's habits and into an experience of ecstasy. Man Booker Prize shortlisted Deborah Levy whips up a storm of romance and slapstick, of heavenly and earthly delights, in this passionate work of dramatic poetry. ever since i arrived on your blue planet most of it ocean i hear the breath of an octopus bigger than a car eggs in her arms calling for you Deborah Levy writes fiction, plays, and poetry. Her work has been staged by the Royal Shakespeare Company. Her most recent novel, Swimming Home (2011 And Other Stories UK publication and 2012 Bloomsbury US publication), was shortlisted for the 2012 Man Booker Prize, 2012 Specsavers National Book Awards (UK Author of the Year), and 2013 Jewish Quarterly Wingate Prize, while her most recent collection of short stories, Black Vodka: ten stories, was shortlisted for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award and its title story "Black Vodka" shortlisted for the 2012 BBC International Short Story Award. An Amorous Discourse in the Suburbs of Hell was first published in 1990 in the United Kingdom and appears now in a new edition, its first US edition

Includes a never-before-published Sookie Stackhouse story! What could be scarier than the first day of school? How about a crash course in the paranormal from Charlaine Harris and Toni L. P. Kelner, editors of Home Improvement: Undead Edition? Your worst school nightmares — taking that math test you never studied for, finding yourself naked in school assembly, not knowing which door to enter — will pale in comparison to these thirteen original stories that take academic anxiety to whole new realms. In #1 New York Times bestselling author Charlaine Harris's story, "Playing Possum," Sookie Stackhouse brings enough birthday cupcakes for her nephew's entire class but finds she's one short when the angry ex-boyfriend of the school secretary shows up. When her guardian, Kate Daniels, sends her undercover to a school for exceptional children, teenaged Julie learns an all-new definition of "exceptional," in New York Times bestselling author Ilona Andrews's "Magic Tests." For those who like fangs with their forensics, New York Times bestselling author Nancy Holder offers "VSI," in which FBI agent Claire is tested as never before in a school for Vampire Scene Investigation. And in New York Times bestselling author Thomas Sniegoski's "The Bad Hour," Remy Chandler and his dog Marlowe find evil unleashed in an obedience school. You'll need more than an apple to stave off the creatures in these and nine other stories. Remember your first lesson: resistance is fruitless! Includes stories by: ILONA ANDREWS, AMBER BENSON, RHYS BOWEN, MIKE CAREY, CHARLAINE HARRIS, DONALD HARSTAD, STEVE HOCKENSMITH, NANCY HOLDER, FAITH HUNTER, TONI L.P. KELNER, MARJORIE LIU, JONATHAN MABERRY, THOMAS SNIEGOSKI

The City of San Francisco is locked in a grip of fear. A series of occult murders has lead, Inspector Thomas James to a crime scene similar to a murder committed 90 years ago in the once grand Aleris Hotel. A place where power barons of the early 20th Century engaged in witchcraft. And silent film stars indulged in the most wicked of sins. A place where no one questions the black smoke that rises from the hotel's incinerators in the middle of the night

A lot of remarkable things have happened in the life of Sam Pulsifer, the hapless hero of this incendiary novel, beginning with the ten years he spent in prison for accidentally burning down Emily Dickinson's house and unwittingly killing two people. emerging at age twenty-eight, he creates a new life and identity as a husband and father. But when the homes of other famous New England writers suddenly go up in smoke, he must prove his innocence by uncovering the identity of this literary-minded arsonist. In the league of such contemporary classics as A Confederacy of Dunces and The World According to Garp, An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England is an utterly original story about truth and honesty, life and the imagination

October "Toby" Daye is a changeling-half human and half fae—and the only one who has earned knighthood. Now she must take on a nightmarish new challenge. Someone is stealing the children of the fae as well as mortal children, and all signs point to Blind Michael. Toby has no choice but to track the villain down—even when there are only three magical roads by which to reach Blind Michael's realm, home of the Wild Hunt—and no road may be taken more than once. If Toby cannot escape with the children, she will fall prey to the Wild Hunt and Blind Michael's inescapable power

For almost two decades, through the War of 1812, James Wilkinson was the senior general in the United States Army. Amazingly, he was also Agent 13 in the Spanish secret service at a time when Spain's empire dominated North America. Wilkinson's audacious career as a double agent is all the more remarkable because it was an open secret, circulated regularly in newspapers and pamphlets. His saga illuminates just how fragile and vulnerable the young republic was: No fewer than our first four presidents turned a blind eye to his treachery and gambled that the mercurial general would never betray the army itself and use it too overthrow the nascent union—a faith that was ultimately rewarded. From Publishers Weekly Anyone with a taste for charming, talented, complex, troubled, duplicitous and needy historical figures will savor this book. A Revolutionary War general at age 20, James Wilkinson (1757–1825), whom few now have heard of, knew everyone of consequence in the early nation, from Washington on down. But he squandered his gifts in repeated and apparently uncontrollable double dealing, betrayals (he spied for Spain), conspiracies and dishonesty in the decades following the war. Wilkinson seemed to pop up everywhere, always trying to make a deal and feather his nest. To those ends, he would as soon turn on those whom he had pledged to help as be traitor to the army he served. The only man he remained true to was Jefferson, who in the end spurned him. No one trusted him, as no one should have. Linklater (Measuring America) skillfully captures this sociopathic rogue who, for all his defects, still commands attention from everyone trying to understand the 50 years after 1775. His charisma reaches across two centuries to perplex and fascinate any reader of this fast-paced and fully researched work

In An Assembly Such as This, Pamela Aidan finally answers that long-standing question. In this first book of her Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman trilogy, she reintroduces us to Darcy during his visit to Hertfordshire with his friend Charles Bingley and reveals Darcy's hidden perspective on the events of Pride and Prejudice. As Darcy spends more time at Netherfield supervising Bingley and fending off Miss Bingley's persistent advances, his unwilling attraction to Elizabeth grows — as does his concern about her relationship with his nemesis, George Wickham.  Setting the story vividly against the colorful historical and political background of the Regency, Aidan writes in a style comfortably at home with Austen but with a wit and humor very much her own. Aidan adds her own cast of fascinating characters to those in Austen's original, weaving a rich tapestry from Darcy's past and present. Austen fans and newcomers alike will love this new chapter of the most famous romance of all time

On the outskirts of a small town in Bengal, a family lives in solitude in their vast new house. Here, lives intertwine and unravel. A widower struggles with his love for an unmarried cousin. Bakul, a motherless daughter, runs wild with Mukunda, an orphan of unknown caste adopted by the family. Confined in a room at the top of the house, a matriarch goes slowly mad; her husband searches for its cause as he shapes and reshapes his garden. As Mukunda and Bakul grow, their intense closeness matures into something else, and Mukunda is banished to Calcutta. He prospers in the turbulent years after Partition, but his thoughts stay with his home, with Bakul, with all that he has lost — and he knows that he must return

Die zwanzigjährige Frona Welse hat ihre Ausbildung in den Staaten beendet und kehrt zurück nach Alaska, in das Land, in dem sie geboren ist und in dem ihr Vater lebt. Mit mehr Mut und Ausdauer als mancher der zahlreichen Goldgräber bewältigt sie den Weg nach Dawson; hier hat der angesehene Großkaufmann und Minenkönig Jacob Welse sein Reich aufgebaut, von hier organisiert er die Wirtschaft des Landes. In Dawson begegnet Frona Dr. Gregory St. Vincent, der so interessant aus seiner abenteuerlichen Vergangenheit zu berichten weiß, der für jedes gesellschaftliche Ereignis unentbehrlich wird und der für Frona die Verkörperung der Tapferkeit darstellt; in Dawson sieht Frona aber auch den englischen Mineningenieur Vance Corliss wieder, den sie unterwegs kennengelernt hat - einen Mann, der von seiner Unerschrockenheit und Tüchtigkeit kein Aufhebens macht. Neben diesen drei Figuren läßt Jack London eine Fülle interessanter Gestalten lebendig werden, etwa den aufrechten, verantwortungsbewußten Jacob Welse; den etwas rauhbeinigen Del Bishop, der sich als treuer Freund zeigt; oder Matt McCarthy, der schon auf Frona aufgepaßt hat, als sie noch ein Kind war. Den Hintergrund des Geschehens bildet das harte, abenteuerliche Leben der Trapper und Goldgräber in Alaska. Der Autor Jack London (eig. John Griffith, später J. G. London nach seinem Stiefvater) wurde am 12.01.1876 in San Francisco geboren und wuchs in ärmlichen Verhältnissen auf. Er schlägt sich als Fabrikarbeiter, Austernpirat, Landstreicher und Seemann durch, holt das Abitur nach, beginnt zu studieren, geht dann als Goldsucher nach Alaska, lebt monatelang im Elendsviertel von London, gerät als Korrespondent im russisch-japanischen Krieg in Gefangenschaft und bereist die ganze Welt. Am 22.11.1916 setzt der berühmte Schriftsteller auf seiner Farm in Kalifornien seinem zuletzt von Alkohol, Erfolg und Extravaganz geprägten Leben ein Ende. - London hat hervorragende Tiergeschichten verfaßt, Kurzgeschichten, naturalistisch-romantische Abenteuerromane und sozialkritische Romane, denen zumeist eigene Erlebnisse zugrunde liegen

Орсиния – это вымышленная страна в центре Европы. Страна средневековых лесов, недоступных городов, горных шоссе. В этой стране порой происходят самые невероятные и необычайные события. Кто же, как не мастер построения сказочных миров, знаменитая американская писательница Урсула Ле Гуин, сможет лучше всех поведать о жизни этой загадочной страны?

Fast talk, fast action — and slow-burning menace

In An Easeful Death, someone is killing beautiful young women and taking extraordinary risks to carefully pose their painted bodies in public places. The first is bronze, then silver who will be gold? Detective Sergeant Stevie Hooper, young, hard-edged and newly seconded to the Serious Crime Squad, finds herself haunted by increasingly disturbing flashbacks as the bizarre case unfolds. And, as she closes in on the killer, the carefully drawn line between her professional and personal life becomes increasingly blurred, till she doesnt know who can be trusted

Petina Gappah is the voice of Zimbabwe. In this powerful debut collection, she dissects with real poignancy the lives of people caught up in a situation over which they have no control, as they deal with spiralling inflation, power cuts and financial hardship — a way of life under Mugabe's regime

An Empty Room is the first book by the celebrated Chinese writer Mu Xin to appear in English. A cycle of thirteen tenderly evocative stories written while Mu Xin was living in exile, this collection is reminiscent of the structural beauty of Hemingway’s In Our Time and the imagistic power of Kawabata’s palm-of-the-hand stories. From the ordinary (a bus accident) to the unusual (Buddhist halos) to the wise (Goethe, Lao Zi), Mu Xin’s wandering “I” interweaves plots with philosophical grace and spiritual profundity. A small blue bowl becomes a symbol of vanishing childhood; a painter in a race against fading memory scribbles notes in an underground prison during the Cultural Revolution; an abandoned temple room holds a dark mystery. An Empty Room is a soul-stirring page turner, a Sebaldian reverie of passing time, loss, and humanity regained

MELTING FROSTY by Maggie Shayne For Matt, Christmas has aroused painful memories ever since his father died, leaving his family all but destitute and Matt with far too much responsibility too soon. Holly lost her family in a tragedy—but found solace and strength in the holidays her family loved so much. So when Matt and Holly cross paths, it’s more than fate—it’s a chance for both of them to find the one perfect gift they have both searched for all their lives… CHARLOTTE’S WEB by Erin McCarthy For the longest time, Charlotte Murphy has burned for Will Thornton. But as far as Charlotte can tell, Will sees her only as a friend. Tired of waiting for Will to recognize her as the sexy, wanton woman she truly is, Charlotte decides to fall back on her genes—and embrace the witch within her. Her newfound powers offer a tempting way to get what she wants out of who she wants. But does she really want a man like Will to love her because of witchcraft—or because he wants to? BEAT OF TEMPTATION by Nalini Singh Young Tamsyn has always held a special place in her heart for her powerful fellow packmember Nate. But as a dominant male leopard in the pack, the more experienced Nate doesn’t want to trap Tamsyn into the fierce demands of the mating bond—a bond driven by the animal within—when she’s hardly had the chance to grow into a woman. But Tamsyn knows what she wants for Christmas, and she’s going to get it… GIFTS OF THE MAGI by Jean Johnson Steve Bethel and his fiancée, Rachel, could use a few miracles right about now—the family bed-and-breakfast is mortgaged to the hilt, the biggest blizzard in half a century is ruining the shortest day of the year, and their guests are canceling right and left. Then three strangers show up at what seems like the darkest hour, looking for a place to stay for the holidays…

Led by the Catalyst of the Sixth Extinction and the only man immune to the metal contagion within her, a shattered humanity takes to the stars in a jihad against an alien race. The sequel to Enemy, An End transports the reader to another universe ravaged by the machine species known as silver. The recipient of the gold medal for the Fantasy/Science Fiction category of the 2003 Independent Publisher Book Awards, An End is the second book in the Silver trilogy by Paul Evan Hughes

Dr. Stockmann attempts to expose a water pollution scandal in his home town which is about to establish itself as a spa. When his brother, the mayor, conspires with local politicians and the newspaper to suppress the story, Stockmann appeals to the public meeting - only to be shouted down and reviled as ‘an enemy of the people’. Ibsen’s explosive play reveals his distrust of politicians and the blindly held prejudices of the ‘solid majority’

An Enemy of the State (Book 1 of the LaNague Series) is the heart and soul of F. Paul Wilson's LaNague series, the story of the apocalyptic birth of the LaNague Federation. Peter LaNague's unique revolution sets out to topple the entrenched Outworld Imperium as well as fundamentally altering every Outworlder's concept of government. To accomplish this he must ally himself with a madman, trust the word of the last of Sol System's robber barons, make incisive use of the consummate warriors from the planet Flint (without allowing them to run amok), confound at every turn the omnipresent forces of the Imperium, and, every now and then, make it rain money. And those are the easy parts. LaNague's greatest challenge is to see his plan through to successful completion without becoming the very enemy he has vowed to destroy. Short stories "Lipidleggin'" and "Ratman" are reprinted in this edition as well as an introduction by the author

What would an English murder be? Why, it must be a murder of a kind entirely peculiar to England, such as are the murders related in this particularly ingenious novel. And, naturally, it takes a foreigner to savour the full Englishness of a specifically English crime. Such a foreigner is Dr. Bottwink who plays a very important part in the shocking events at Christmastide in Warbeck Hall. The setting seems, at first, to be more conventional than is usual in Mr. Hare's detective stories. The dying and impoverished peer, the family party, the snow-bound castle, the faithful butler and his ambitious daughter. But tins is all part of Mr. Hare's ingenious plan, and there is nothing at all conventional about the murders themselves and the maimer of their detection. In short, tins is a peculiarly enjoyable dish of murder

An astounding novel from Argentina that is a meditation on the beautiful and the grotesque in nature, the art of landscape painting, and one experience in a man's life that became a lightning rod for inspiration. An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter is the story of a moment in the life of the German artist Johan Moritz Rugendas (1802–1858). Greatly admired as a master landscape painter, he was advised by Alexander von Humboldt to travel West from Europe to record the spectacular landscapes of Chile, Argentina, and Mexico. Rugendas did in fact become one of the best of the nineteenth-century European painters to venture into Latin America. However this is not a biography of Rugendas. This work of fiction weaves an almost surreal history around the secret objective behind Rugendas' trips to America: to visit Argentina in order to achieve in art the "physiognomic totality" of von Humboldt's scientific vision of the whole. Rugendas is convinced that only in the mysterious vastness of the immense plains will he find true inspiration. A brief and dramatic visit to Mendosa gives him the chance to fulfill his dream. From there he travels straight out onto the pampas, praying for that impossible moment, which would come only at an immense pricean almost monstrously exorbitant price that would ultimately challenge his drawing and force him to create a new way of making art. A strange episode that he could not avoid absorbing savagely into his own body interrupts the trip and irreversibly and explosively marks him for life

My friend, lawyer, and fellow writer Gary Delafield handed me a great—and true—premise for a short-short about an old woman and the unusual advice she gets from her lawyer. Hijinks ensue. Never reviewed, so you'll have to make up your own mind

Set just after World War I, An Ermine in Czernopol centers on the tragicomic fate of Tildy, an erstwhile officer in the army of the now-defunct Austro-Hungarian Empire, determined to defend the virtue of his cheating sister-in-law at any cost. Rezzori surrounds Tildy with a host of fantastic characters, engaging us in a kaleidoscopic experience of a city where nothing is as it appears — a city of discordant voices, of wild ugliness and heartbreaking disappointment, in which, however, “laughter was everywhere, part of the air we breathed, a crackling tension in the atmosphere, always ready to erupt in showers of sparks or discharge itself in thunderous peals.”