20.09.2014. Завершено

FOUR SCORE AND SEVEN YEARS FROM NOW… In the 21st century, Planet Earth was in the grip of an orientalized, paternalistic World State that gave all—and took all. Only in the land that was once the United States were the principles of freedom paid so much as lip service, and even there liberty flickered toward extinction. In such a world as this the Jeffersonians were a band of hopeless visionaries, political cranks, a quixotic underground dreaming of the reinstitution of the American Constitution. But then a star drive was developed and the Jeffersonians were sentenced to eternal exile. On a world twenty light years and a century from their homes they set out to create a society conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that the individual is more important than the state. They are the New Americans. This is their story. SPECIAL BONUS: The Hugo and Nebula Winning THE QUEEN OF AIR AND DARKNESS, and HOME. The benevolent, paternalistic World State regarded the freedom-minded Jeffersonians as a minor embarrassment whose violent elimination would cause more disruption than their demise would merit. So both sides were happy when the chance came for voluntary exile to a distant planet. But two hundred years later the less benevolent descendant of the World State that had let them go was to decide that the cosmos was not big enough to hold both it and a free people… [Best viewed with CoolReader.]

Ben Marcus, one of the most innovative and vital writers of this generation, delivers a stellar anthology of the best short fiction being written today in America. In New American Stories, the beautiful, the strange, the melancholy, and the sublime all comingle to show the vast range of the American short story. In this remarkable anthology, Ben Marcus has corralled a vital and artistically singular crowd of contemporary fiction writers. Collected here are practitioners of deep realism, mind-blowing experimentalism, and every hybrid in between. Luminaries and cult authors stand side by side with the most compelling new literary voices. Nothing less than the American short story renaissance distilled down to its most relevant, daring, and unforgettable works, New American Stories puts on wide display the true art of an American idiom

NEW AND…IMPROVED? by Jill Shalvis (Makeover Madness) – - GOING FROM GEEK TO GODDESS AIN'T EASY! – As far as Kent Wright was concerned, Becca Lewis was just fine the way she was. A little mousy, maybe, but a sweet friend and a darn good chemist. So why did she have to go and wreck it all by having a makeover? Now she looked like some sexy siren out of a lingerie catalog, and when it came to chemistry… there was only one kind on Kent's mind! ANDREW IN EXCESS by Jennifer LaBrecque SHE'S GOT THE BABY BLUES… Teacher Kat Devereaux was free spirited, unorthodox… and had a little problem with excess. And right now, her biological clock was ticking excessively loudly. What she needed was a temporary husband – one she couldn't possibly fall for. Andrew Winthrop III was stuffy, conservative and needed a wife. A marriage of convenience would solve both their problems. Only, neither one anticipated enjoying their mock marriage so excessively…

 New Arabian Nights by Robert Louis Stevenson, first published in 1882, is a collection of short stories previously published in magazines between 1877 and 1880. The collection contains Stevenson's first published fiction, and a few of the stories are considered by some critics to be his best work, as well as pioneering works in the English short story tradition New Arabian Nights is divided into two volumes. Volume 1 The first volume contains seven stories originally called Later-day Arabian Nights and published by London Magazine in serial format from June to October 1878. It is composed of two story groups, or cycles: "The Suicide Club""The Rajah's Diamond" Volume 2 The second volume is a collection of four unconnected (standalone) stories that were previously published in magazines: "The Pavilion on the Links" (1880), told in 9 mini-chapters"A Lodging for the Night" (1877)"The Sire De Malétroits Door" (1877)"Providence and the Guitar" (1878)

An electrifying anthology of new horror stories by award-winning masters of the genre. Twenty-one brand-new stories of the ominous and terrifying from some of the horror genre’s most talented writers. In ‘The Dead Thing’ Paul Tremblay draws us into the world of a neglected teenage girl and her younger brother and the evil that lurks at the heart of their family. In Gemma Files’ ‘Bulb’ a woman calls in to a podcast to tell the terrifying story of why she has escaped off-grid. And Rio Youers’ ‘The Typewriter’ tells in diary form of the havoc wreaked by a malevolent machine. Infinitely varied and beautifully told, New Fears 2 is an unmissable collection of horror fiction

One night at Trieste in September 1943 a seriously wounded soldier is found on the quay. The doctor, of a newly arrived German hospital ship, Pietri Friari gives the unconscious soldier medical assistance. His new patient has no documents or anything that can identifying him. When he regains consciousness he has lost his memory and cannot even remember what language he speaks. From a few things found on the man the doctor, who is originally from Finland, believes him to be a sailor and a fellow countryman, who somehow or other has ended up in Trieste. The doctor dedicates himself to teaching the man Finnish, beginning the reconstruction of the identity of Sampo Karjalainen, leading the missing man to return to Finland in search of his identity and his past. New Finnish Grammar won three literary prizes in Italy in 2001: Premio Grinzane Cavour, Premio Ostia Mare and Premio Giuseppe Desi and has received critical acclaim across Europe

Ten stories of wonder and imagination by an author named Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. In the collection’s title story, Frederick Gray is closing in on seventy and has outlived his usefulness as a professor of law. He has no family; his best friend, fellow faculty member Ben Lovell, has recently died. Before Gray moves into a retirement home, he takes a final canoe trip to a favorite fishing spot he and Lovell had visited many times, only to find that someone has built a house on the remote riverside. When an accident leaves Gray stranded and in pain, he returns to the shelter seeking aid and instead finds a new reason for living. Nine additional tales showcase Clifford D. Simak’s talent for spinning stories that allow us to glimpse the possibilities of life beyond Earth as well as expand our wisdom of what it means to be human. Each story includes an introduction by David W. Wixon, literary executor of the Clifford D. Simak estate and editor of this ebook

Amy Bloom masterfully curates a star-studded cast of contributors, including Michael Cunningham, Stephen L. Carter, and Roxana Robinson, to portray the city’s underbelly

East Germany, January 1990. Enrico Türmer, man of the theater, secret novelist, turns his back on art and signs on to work at a newly started newspaper. Freed from the compulsion to describe the world, he plunges into everyday life. Under the guidance of his Mephisto, the ever-present Clemens von Barrista, the former aesthete suddenly develops worldly ambitions even he didn’t know he had. This upheaval in our hero’s life, mirrored in the vaster upheaval gripping Germany itself after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the birth pangs of a reunified nation, is captured in the letters Enrico writes to the three people he loves most: his sister, Vera; his childhood friend Johann; and Nicoletta, the unattainable woman of his dreams. As he discovers capitalism and reports on his adventures as a businessman, he peels away the layers of his previous existence, in the process creating the thing he has dreamed of for so long — the novel of his own life, in whose facets contemporary history is captured. Thus Enrico comes to embody all the questionable aspects not only of life in the old Germany, but of life in the Germany just taking form. Once again Ingo Schulze proves himself a master storyteller, with an inimitable power to reconjure the complete insanity of this wildest time in postwar German history. As its comic chronicler, he unfurls a panorama of a world in transformation — and the birth of a new era

An elite shifter academy, a hot guy, an arch-nemesis, and a whole shitload of trouble. Elena Jensen doesn't belong at Alpha Wolf Academy, the most prestigious shifter university in North America, but she has no choice. She's stuck here whether she figures out how to fit in or not. Her solution comes in the form of guy with emerald eyes and dark, wavy hair...but with that solution comes danger. Because just as Elena begins to rethink her opinions on soulmates, her crush's twin sister makes it her personal goal to destroy Elena's reputation and get her expelled. But those problems soon take a backseat when the academy is besieged by soldiers, and the only way to save the school and everyone in it is to put herself in danger. When it's life or death, the enemy of your enemy is your friend... or at least, Elena hopes so. Because more than just her life depends on it. Fans of Vampire Academy and Legacies will want to sink their teeth into Alpha Wolf Academy!

Il giorno del diciottesimo compleanno di Isabella un piccolo incidente domestico riesce a mettere in crisi la tranquillità della sua vita in compagnia del fidanzato-vampiro Edward e della famiglia di lui: le ripercussioni sono tali da convincere la famiglia ad abbandonare la cittadina dove abitano, e Edward a lasciare Bella. La ragazza vive un lungo periodo di solitudine e tristezza, in cui taglia i ponti con le proprie amicizie e si rinchiude in se stessa, fino alla quasi casuale riapparizione nella sua vita di Jacob Black, il giovane indiano che per primo aveva fatto nascere in lei i dubbi sulla vera identità della famiglia di Edward. Più il rapporto di amicizia tra Jacob e Bella si rafforza, più lei sembra tornare alla normalità che le mancava da tempo. Ma la quiete appena ritrovata è turbata da eventi misteriosi, tra cui una strana serie di omicidi ai margini della foresta e l’apparizione di nuove, strane creature della notte

Концепция New Normal была придумана в США Биллом Гроссом и Мухаммедом Эль-Эрианом из фонда Pimco. Основная идея этой концепции состояла в том, что низкие темпы экономического роста и высокая безработица – это не временная ситуация, в которую экономика попала после острой фазы финансового кризиса и из которой она скоро вернется к докризисной норме. Наоборот, это новая норма для экономики, и продолжаться такая ситуация будет довольно долго

Brand-new stories by: Ace Atkins, Laura Lippman, Patty Friedmann, Barbara Hambly, Tim McLoughlin, Olympia Vernon, David Fulmer, Jervey Tervalon, James Nolan, Kalamu ya Salaam, Maureen Tan, Thomas Adcock, Jeri Cain Rossi, Christine Wiltz, Greg Herren, Julie Smith, Eric Overmyer, and Ted O’Brien. [A portion of the profits from New Orleans Noir will be donated to Katrina KARES, a hurricane relief program sponsored by the New Orleans Institute that awards grants to writers affected by the hurricane.] New Orleans is a third world country in itself, a Latin, African, European (and often amoral) culture trapped in a Puritan nation. It’s everyone’s seamy underside, the city where respectable citizens go to get drunk, puke in the gutter, dance on tabletops, and go home with strangers, all without guilt. It’s the metropolitan equivalent of eating standing up — if it happened in New Orleans, it doesn’t count. The city was always the home of the lovable rogue, the poison magnolia, the bent politico, the sociopathic street thug, and, especially, the heartless con artist — but in post-Katrina times it struggles against... well, the same old problems, just writ large and with a new breed of carpetbagger thrown in. Combine all that with a brilliant literary tradition and you have New Orleans Noir, a sparkling collection of tales exploring the city’s wasted, gutted neighborhoods, its outwardly gleaming “sliver by the river,” its still-raunchy French Quarter, and other hoods so far from the Quarter they might as well be on another continent. It also looks back into the past, from that recent innocent time known in contemporary New Orleans as “pre-K,” to the mid-nineteenth century, the other time the city was mostly swampland

This sequel to the original best-selling New Orleans Noir takes a literary tour through some of the darkest writing in New Orleans history

When New Reality, a fully immersive, five-dimensional entertainment experience, was introduced to the world, everyone logged on. Everyone except Jake and Tom. It doesn’t take long for the world to crumble into ruin, leaving Jake and Tom wandering through leveled cities occupied by New Reality dreamers. In order to find one gamer among many, they must risk everything—going up against Rixon, the corporation behind New Reality. Facing starvation, the New Reality headsets offer sustenance from a synthesized sludge pumped directly into the gamer’s body. With a headset, they’ll get fed and their only limitations are their own imaginations. They can have paradise, comfort, and peace. They have the power to realize their deepest desires. But for Tom, it’ll mean sacrificing his son to the false reality masterminded by Rixon. For Jake, it’ll mean sacrificing his dream of living a true existence, no matter how stark. Wrestling with the decision, they soon find out they aren’t the only ones living in the ruins. Someone… something else, has taken an interest in the pair. Turning from scavengers to prey, they have to make a decision. Family or self? Faith or fear? Truth or New Reality?

TheKing James Version Bible (KJV)was authorized by King James I and is sometimes referred to as the “Authorized Version”. It was translated by the Church of England and was first published in

There’s always a new threat. A year after the Event, horrific memories of the vessels linger in Dean’s mind as he tries to find his way forward in his new life. But now the Heroes of Earth face a new threat that endangers the fragile remnant of humanity. Two rebel hybrids have escaped from their segregated encampment. Dean and his team pursue them across the galaxy, racing to catch them before they reach an unseen enemy. This new threat is looming over Earth, their name spoken softly and fearfully by anyone who knows of them. When a line is drawn, whose side will Dean stand on? New Threat is the second book in the Survivors series. Look for New World, the epic conclusion to the series, on May 2, 2018!

In the woods behind their Delaware suburb, Bennet, Toshi, and Jay decide to build a sex fort as a lure for girls. This summer, before they start tenth grade, they’ll lose their virginities. But things go awry, and Jay’s anger, fueled by his involvement with a white supremacist group, throws the friends into turmoil. When Bennet and Jay take desperate measures to escape their problems, they encounter unhappily divorced men, Florida swamp monsters, and bizarre strangers, until all their worst decisions begin to implode the world around them

Upon the death of their leader, a group of Tuareg, a nomadic Berber community whose traditional homeland is the Sahara Desert, turns to the heir dictated by tribal custom; however, he is a poet reluctant to don the mantle of leadership. Forced by tribal elders to abandon not only his poetry but his love, who is also a poet, he reluctantly serves as leader. Whether by human design or the meddling of the Spirit World, his death inspires his tribe to settle down permanently, abandoning not only nomadism but also the inherited laws of the tribe. The community they found, New Waw, which they name for the mythical paradise of the Tuareg people, is also the setting of Ibrahim al-Koni's companion novel, The Puppet. For al-Koni, this Tuareg tale of the tension between nomadism and settled life represents a choice faced by people everywhere, in many walks of life, as a result of globalism. He sees an inevitable interface between myth and contemporary life

In a brilliant, nuanced and wholly original collection of essays, the novelist and critic Colm Tóibín explores the relationships of writers to their families and their work. From Jane Austen’s aunts to Tennessee Williams’s mentally ill sister, the impact of intimate family dynamics can be seen in many of literature’s greatest works. Tóibín, celebrated both for his award-winning fiction and his provocative book reviews and essays, and currently the Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Columbia, traces and interprets those intriguing, eccentric, often twisted family ties in New Ways to Kill Your Mother. Through the relationship between W. B. Yeats and his father, Thomas Mann and his children, and J. M. Synge and his mother, Tóibín examines a world of relations, richly comic or savage in its implications. In Roddy Doyle’s writing on his parents, Tóibín perceives an Ireland reinvented. From the dreams and nightmares of John Cheever’s journals, Tóibín illuminates this darkly comic misanthrope and his relationship to his wife and his children. “Educating an intellectual woman,” Cheever remarked, “is like letting a rattlesnake into the house.” Acutely perceptive and imbued with rare tenderness and wit, New Ways to Kill Your Mother is a fascinating look at writers’ most influential bonds and a secret key to understanding and enjoying their work

Всех с Новым Годом, до которого осталась неделя, и с Рождеством, до которого осталось всего ничего. Если помните, в начале прошлого января мы (все) усиленно подшучивали по поводу не наступившего кризиса 2000-го года. Так вот, «Y2K» возник как раз тогда. По даренному сюжету. Весь рассказ написался очень быстро и с тех пор по-крупному не редактировался (по разным причинам). Думаю, именно этим объясняется его «бамбуковый» стиль. И еще. Это — своеобразное проникновение на чужую территорию. Hа самом деле я все-таки «он», а не «она». Просто так, к сведенью. Надеюсь, мои действия не будет сочтены попыткой нарушить запрет на компьютерную тематику. Искренне Ваш, Pan. P.S. А еще я хотел вставить сюда эпиграф про роль хранительницы очага, которая закрепилась за слабым полом с древнейших времен, и так далее, но не попалось ничего подходящего. Может еще попадется, кто его знает. Так уж получилось, что этот текст выходит на всеобщее обозрение только сейчас, в преддверии — угадайте, чего? Так уж получилось, потому что совсем скоро снова наступит день, когда у кого-то (а вдруг!) летает кровать и появляются из ничего гостевая тумбочка, замерзший пруд и старинный подвал. И — кто знает, кому в этот день суждено… ну, вы понимаете

Sharply observed, beautifully rendered stories about gender, sexuality, and nationality by a fresh new voice. The stories in New York 1, Tel Aviv 0 speak to a contemporary generation and explore the tension between an anonymous, globalized world and an irrepressible lust for connection. The result is an intimate document of niche moments, when relationships either run their course, take flight, or enter holding patterns. The characters in this collection are as intelligent and charming as they are lonely. In some stories, realistic urges materialize in magical settings: a couple discovers the ability to stop time together; another couple lives in an apartment where only one of them can hear a constant beeping, while the other must try to believe. In other stories, a nameless voice narrates the arc of a love affair through a list of the couple’s best and worst kisses; a father leaves his daughter in Israel to pursue a painting career in New York; and a sex worker falls in love with the Israeli photographer who studies her. The stories in this ambitious and exciting debut share a prevailing sense of existential strangeness, otherworldliness, and the search to belong, while the altering of time and space and memory creates unexpected magic. And yet there is something entirely familiar about the experiences of these characters, who are so brilliantly and subtly rendered by Shelly Oria’s capable mind

New York Times bestselling author Kim Stanley Robinson returns with a bold and brilliant vision of New York City in the next century. As the sea levels rose, every street became a canal. Every skyscraper an island. For the residents of one apartment building in Madison Square, however, New York in the year 2140 is far from a drowned city. There is the market trader, who finds opportunities where others find trouble. There is the detective, whose work will never disappear—along with the lawyers, of course. There is the internet star, beloved by millions for her airship adventures, and the building’s manager, quietly respected for his attention to detail. Then there are two boys who don’t live there, but have no other home—and who are more important to its future than anyone might imagine. Lastly there are the coders, temporary residents on the roof, whose disappearance triggers a sequence of events that threatens the existence of all—and even the long-hidden foundations on which the city rests. New York 2140 is an extraordinary and unforgettable novel, from a writer uniquely qualified to the story of its future

From Publishers Weekly Woods's latest (after Palindrome) is a slick thriller set in Manhattan's Upper East Side, the stomping ground of Stone Barrington, a well-bred but unpretentious detective who, in a city of several million people, always ends up in the right place at the right time. Late one evening, as Stone trudges home from Elaine's Restaurant, popular TV newscaster Sasha Nijinsky plummets 12 stories from her terrace and lands on a heap of dirt 20 yards away from him-remarkably, still alive. Stone fails to apprehend the person who flees Sasha's penthouse and, after the ambulance carrying her collides with a fire truck, Sasha herself disappears. Despite the fact that no corpse is in evidence, the baffled NYPD eagerly pins a murder rap on Sasha's distraught lesbian lover. Stone refuses to accept his colleagues' pat solution and even maintains that Sasha might have survived thanks to skydiving training and her billowing, parachute-like robe. Bed-hopping TV newspeople, a sexy blonde judge sporting a red dress beneath her robes, a serial killer targeting cabbies and a creepy med-school dropout turned mortician who idolizes Sasha romp through this calculatedly melodramatic crime story all the way to its grisly B-movie finale. 75,000 first printing; $125,000 ad/promo; author tour

The rhythms of jazz and beat poetry punctuate this sweeping, firsthand account of New York City’s 1950s literary scene from the Bowery to Spanish Harlem National bestselling author Dan Wakefield first came to New York City in 1952 with the intention of receiving a proper literary education on the ivied campus of Columbia University. An equally enlightening experience, he quickly found, was hiding in the smoky bars and cafés of Greenwich Village frequented by the most talented writers of the fifties, including James Baldwin, Joan Didion, and Allen Ginsberg. Wakefield recounts drinking at the White Horse Tavern, Dylan Thomas’s Village haunt, as well as the offices of Esquire and the Nation, capturing rare, intimate moments of spirited camaraderie between some of the most influential artists of their generation. Like Hemingway’s recollections of 1920s Paris in A Moveable Feast, New York in the ’50 sshowcases a city in its artistic heyday, replete with Wakefield’s remembrances of brushing shoulders with literary icons such as Jack Kerouac and Norman Mailer, and watching Thelonious Monk play jazz at the Five Spot Café. Wakefield’s experience as a journalist and chronicler of Americana allows him to capture the subtleties of a decade of unparalleled artistic expression

Этот город постоянно меняется. Ночь время когда вся мерзость выплескивается наружу и человеку опасно существовать, а утро — время проснутся и начать всё заново… ©Kons

When a monster named Isaac McQueen—taken down by Eve back in her uniform days—escapes from Rikers, he has two things in mind. One is to pick up where he left off, abducting young victims and leaving them scarred in both mind and body. The other is to get revenge on the woman who stopped him all those years ago

Jack Dwyer is an ex-cop turned part-time actor (and, sometimes, part-time security guard in a discount supermarket — but he doesn’t particularly like talking about that) who, since giving up police work, really tries to mind his own business. But when Jane Branigan — his ex-live-in-lover — is found in a state of shock, holding a recently fired gun, he knows that his quiet days are about to become very complicated. Stephen Elliot — Jane’s present lover and one of the hottest young advertising executives in town — is found dead, and all evidence points to Jane. As far as the police are concerned, the case is closed; but not according to Dwyer. Who was Stephen Elliot — and who would have wanted him dead? Dwyer’s investigation takes him deep into the workings of the advertising industry, and into the sometimes luxurious, sometimes seedy, sometimes volatile lives of the people who work there. Could the murderer be Carla Travers — the blowsy, alcoholic media rep whom Elliot publicly humiliated weeks before; or David Baxter — the man who seemingly encouraged his wife’s affair with Elliot; or Bryce Hammond — the ineffectual owner of the Hammond agency — whose company falls into jeopardy with Elliot’s demise; or Phil Davies — the Hammond client who seemed to have a strange attraction toward Elliot’s women? New, Improved Murder is a gritty page-turner of a whodunit, whose solution lies in the secrets of the cutthroat world of advertising. In order to help Jane, Dwyer’s going to have to discover the truth behind the most brilliant — and deadly — hype campaign ever devised

модный роман

Detective Kyochiro Kaga of the Tokyo Police Department has just been transferred to a new precinct in the Nihonbashi area of Tokyo. Newly arrived, but with a great deal of experience, Kaga is promptly assigned to the team investigating the murder of a woman. But the more he investigates, the greater number of potential suspects emerges. It isn’t long before it seems nearly all the people living and working in the business district of Nihonbashi have a motive for murder. To prevent the murderer from eluding justice, Kaga must unravel all the secrets surrounding a complicated life. Buried somewhere in the woman’s past, in her family history, and the last few days of her life is the clue that will lead to the murderer

The first volume of this three-part autobiographical series begins in 1938 with the expulsion of the Kovacic family from their home of Switzerland, eventually leading to their settlement in the father's home country of Slovenia. Narrated by Kovacic as a ten-year-old boy, he describes his family's journey with uncanny naiveté. Before leaving their home, he imagines his father's home country as something beautiful out of a fairytale, but as they make their way toward exile, he and his family realize that any attempt to make a home in Slovenia will be in vain. Confronted by misery, hunger, and hostility, the young boy refuses to learn Slovenian and falls silent, his surroundings becoming a social, cultural and mental abyss. Kovačič meticulously, boldly, and sincerely portrays the objective, everyday world; the style is clear and direct. Told from the point of view of a child, one memory is interrupted by fragments and visions of another. Some are innocent and tender, while others are miserable and ruthless, resulting in a profound and heart-wrenching description of a period torn apart by conflict, reflected in the author's powerful and innovative command of language

For Better? Corporate wife Mallory McIver has promised her new husband a businesslike marriage, with no messy emotions involved. For Worse? Then Torr announces he's moving to the Highlands of Scotland to restore the derelict castle he's inherited. And he expects Mallory to accompany him… Forever! As Torr swaps his suits for jeans, Mallory is bewildered. She married a sophisticated city type, but in the country he's rugged, capable and altogether gorgeous… Soon Mallory realizes she's breaking the terms of their arrangement – by falling for her own husband!

June 1941. Dutch diplomat Oscar Verschuur has been posted to neutral Switzerland. His family is spread across Europe. His wife Kate works as a nurse in London and their daughter Emma is living in Berlin with her husband Carl, a ‘good’ German who works at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Briefly reunited with her father in a restaurant in Geneva, Emma drops a bombshell. A date and a codename, and the fate of nations is placed in Verschuur’s hands: June 22, Barbarossa. What should he do? Warn the world, or put his daughter’s safety first? The Gestapo are watching them both. And with Stalin lulled by his alliance with Hitler, will anyone even listen? Otto de Kat is fast gaining a reputation as one of Europe’s sharpest and most lucid writers. News from Berlin, a book for all readers, a true page-turner driven by the pulse of a ticking clock, confirms him as a storyteller of subtly extravagant gifts

Overview: In the aftermath of the Civil War, an ageing itinerant news reader agrees to transport a young captive of the Kiowa back to her people in this exquisitely rendered, morally complex, multi-layered novel of historical fiction from the author of Enemy Women that explores the boundaries of family, responsibility, honour, and trust. In the wake of the Civil War, Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd travels through northern Texas, giving live readings from newspapers to paying audiences hungry for news of the world. An elderly widower who has lived through three wars and fought in two of them, the captain enjoys his rootless, solitary existence. In Wichita Falls, he is offered a $50 gold piece to deliver a young orphan to her relatives in San Antonio. Four years earlier, a band of Kiowa raiders killed Johanna’s parents and sister; sparing the little girl, they raised her as one of their own. Recently rescued by the U.S. army, the ten-year-old has once again been torn away from the only home she knows. Their 400-mile journey south through unsettled territory and unforgiving terrain proves difficult and at times dangerous. Johanna has forgotten the English language, tries to escape at every opportunity, throws away her shoes, and refuses to act “civilized.” Yet as the miles pass, the two lonely survivors tentatively begin to trust each other, forming a bond that marks the difference between life and death in this treacherous land. Arriving in San Antonio, the reunion is neither happy nor welcome. The captain must hand Johanna over to an aunt and uncle she does not remember—strangers who regard her as an unwanted burden. A respectable man, Captain Kidd is faced with a terrible choice: abandon the girl to her fate or become—in the eyes of the law—a kidnapper himself

Set in Birmingham, The News Where You Are tells the funny, touching story of Frank, a local TV news presenter. Beneath his awkwardly corny screen persona, Frank is haunted by disappearances: the mysterious hit and run that killed his predecessor Phil Smethway; the demolition of his father’s post-war brutalist architecture; and the unmarked passing of those who die alone in the city. Frank struggles to make sense of these absences while having to report endless local news stories of holes opening up in people’s gardens and trying to cope with his resolutely miserable mother. The result is that rare thing: a page-turning novel which asks the big questions in an accessible way, and is laugh-out-loud funny, genuinely moving and ultimately uplifting

In the aftermath of the Hard Rapture—a cataclysmic war sparked by the explosive evolution of Earth’s artificial intelligences into godlike beings—a few remnants of humanity managed to survive. Some even prospered. Lucinda Carlyle, head of an ambitious clan of galactic entrepreneurs, had carved out a profitable niche for herself and her kin by taking control of the Skein, a chain of interstellar gates left behind by the posthumans. But on a world called Eurydice, a remote planet at the farthest rim of the galaxy, Lucinda stumbled upon a forgotten relic of the past that could threaten the Carlyles’ way of life. For, in the last instants before the war, a desperate band of scientists had scanned billions of human personalities into digital storage, and sent them into space in the hope of one day resurrecting them to the flesh. Now, armed, dangerous, and very much alive, these revenants have triggered a fateful confrontation that could shatter the balance of power, and even change the nature of reality itself