This is a simple volume of short stories by author Clayton Blanchard. They primarily deal with fantasy and vary in length. This volume is intended to be a quick read.'This is well-written, very funny and I raced through it, occasionally squealing in horror at the antics of Kate's colleagues. It's also a joy to read about a strong woman with a big job and fiery opinions, a nice antidote to the sugary sweet sort of chick lit.' THE DAILY MAILKate King is furiously flailing to keep afloat. As her team bicker, finger-point and cheat their way through rumours of sackings and site closures, her ill-tempered husband is becoming increasingly embittered and secretive. Kate knows she must address his petulant question: “Surely there’s more to life than this?” but all her energies are required to dodge the corporate bullets constantly fired in her direction.Under pressure from an attractive, younger colleague, Kate is also concerned by her sudden invisibility to the opposite sex and the alarming appearance of back fat. Disturbingly, beige knitwear has started to call to her from the shelves of M&S.Growing more and more suspicious of her husband’s activities, pressure builds on Kate both at work and at home until her turbulent year reaches its climactic end. Can she continue to balance precariously between work and marriage, or is one end of the scales going to hit the ground with a resounding thud?

Modern twenty-first century poetry. There’s always room for a little poetry in anyone’s life. Many feel that poetry is not for them, but these people are wrong. Contemplation Height peers through the window into the mind and works of Adam Elias Zain. The best bit is this round is on the house. Enjoy!In this prequel novella to the epic fantasy series The Triadine Saga, we follow the Elven Princess Rozlynn as she struggles with her role in The Prophecy and what she must do to keep the world from falling into darkness.This is a story of love and conflicts, personal growth, and freedom to choose your own destiny. The world of Elves, Dwarves and humans, is inexorably tied to magic, wizards and dragons, as the battle of good versus evil, light versus darkness, wages on.Will Rozlynn make the sacrifices and the choices necessary to ensure that The Prophecy stays on the right path? Will her sister, the Elven Queen, prevent her from making her own choice? Will Rozlynn's love for an Elven Hunter betray her and lead her astray?Join Rozlynn and many of your favorite characters from The Watcher's Keep and The Dragon Rises to find out how it all started.

A woman with a fear of fireworks is dragged to her town's 4th of July celebration by her friend, with terrifying results.At only 14 years old, John Malcolm finds school tough taking every hit on the chin (literally). John finally retaliates and the bully ends up violently injured. This attack causes John to go on the run making life even more difficult. On the run - John barely makes it out of his home town when a friendly stranger takes him in. With no escape John endures things that are far beyond imagination and holding onto hope keeps him going, or does it? “A bone chilling short story.”About the AuthorGareth Parker - educated at a military boarding school, always telling stories and with a proved vivid imagination finally decided to put pen to paper to create thrilling short stories for eBook readers. Parker - now enjoying the Welsh life in Cardiff works for a blue-chip company, even though he's always on the go spends his spare time enduring creativity for others to enjoy.

This short story is a telling of a few important days in the ordinary life of Ann Marie Jensen, a woman who lived during both World Wars and the Great Depression. Her few days include falling in love, starting a family, and losing loved ones. Her life is ordinary, yes, but that just means anyone can relate.This short story follows certain days in the ordinary life Ann Marie Jensen’s, the daughter of a Marine Officer who heads out to fight in World War one. We watch as Ann Marie and her family move from their hometown, and start a new life without her father and her lover. A lot happens in these few important days of her ordinary life, including the death of loved ones and living in the times of both World Wars and the Great Depression. Anyone can relate to her life, especially those who lived through the times.

Warning: experimental translation (hybrid)The insane tale that is about to read has been created for introducing you in the ZEd Mundi, a new and unusual game of based role on the writing.When birthed into the world as the son of the great Mendac LeAnce, miraculous feats are expected from you. Mendac was the Fifth of Five, making him the final hero in the Of Five—a five-part series of fairy tales that stretches over 1,500 years.Bryson, unfortunately, was given the impossible task of following in his dead father's footsteps. And after sixteen years of mediocrity, the only time people notice him is to ridicule his existence. The world has given up on Mendac's son.But there are two people on Bryson's side: a stone-faced, lifelong best friend who's never expressed an emotion in her life, and a secret-riddled man who has taken care of Bryson since his father's death. They're his rocks. He has learned to appreciate and lean on their friendship, regardless of their more mysterious sides … even if those mysteries put Bryson's life in jeopardy.Things are looking up for the young LeAnce as the new school year at Phesaw begins. He receives a letter informing him of his induction into the recreation of the Jestivan, an elite group of students that had only existed once in the school's history—a group his father was once a member of thirty years prior. Its formation presents the opportunity of new friends for Bryson. But when ten highly talented students come together, there is bound to be conflict.Warring personalities and competitive attitudes are minor hurdles, however, considering the fact that warring kingdoms are more pressing. A 1,500-year war boils over as a traitor turns his back on his realm, threats of a dangerous king rising from the ashes begin to surface, one of the Jestivan goes missing, and someone close to Bryson is hiding something with more regard for the thing being protected than Bryson's life.The Jestivan must develop camaraderie, and do it fast. Otherwise, they're going to have to force it. And that can end in devastation.

There is no comfort zone in the post-Q world. You might be going through your morning routine just to have a stranger spring out from the wall, or a self-driving car run you over because you crossed the street at the wrong spot, not to mention dark figures with clubs skulking behind the corner. You have to be very good at your game, in order to survive. If you know what your game is.There is no comfort zone in the post-Q world. You might be going through your morning routine just to have a stranger spring out from the wall, or a self-driving car run you over because you crossed the street at the wrong spot, not to mention dark figures with clubs skulking behind the corner. You have to be very good at your game, in order to survive.If you know what your game is.

The Great Minecraft Tournament is about to begin, and Steve is one of those chosen to take part! Follow his tale as The Great Minecraft Tournament rips Steve from his normal life and throws him into a series of increasingly dangerous events, which will put his courage to the limits and change his life forever.GENRE: Children’s Adventure (An Unofficial Minecraft Book for Kids Ages 9 - 12 (Preteen) Sometimes, the biggest heroes come from the strangest places… Peaceful times have arrived to the Minecraft World after years of war. A young boy named Steve lives a comfortable life at the cozy town of Blueberry alongside his elder brother Gareth — who he looks up to and his parents. Until now. On one fateful day, an important official from the capital arrives and announces huge news: The Great Minecraft Tournament is about to begin, and Steve is one of those chosen to take part! One thing is for sure, Steve knows…Nothing will ever be the same again. Follow his tale as The Great Minecraft Tournament rips Steve from his normal life and throws him into a series of increasingly dangerous events, which will put his courage to the limits and change his life forever. Will the four Champions of Humanity be able to defeat those of the other races and mobs and ensure victory? What is secretly going on behind the scenes?Author’s Note: This short story is for your reading pleasure. The characters in this "Minecraft Adventure Series" such as Steve, Endermen, Creeper or Herobrine...etc are based on the Minecraft Game coming from Minecraft ®/TM & © 2009-2013 Mojang / Notch

Pat Conroy's memoirs and autobiographical novels contain a great deal about his life, but there is much he hasn't revealed to readers—until now. My Exaggerated Life is the product of a special collaboration between this great American author and oral biographer Katherine Clark, who recorded two hundred hours of conversations with Conroy before he passed away in 2016. In the spring and summer of 2014, the two spoke for an hour or more on the phone every day. No subject was off limits, including aspects of his tumultuous life he had never before revealed. This oral biography presents Conroy the man, as if speaking in person, in the colloquial voice familiar to family and friends. This voice is quite different from the authorial style found in his books, which are famous for their lyricism and poetic descriptions. Here Conroy is blunt, plainspoken, and uncommonly candid. While his novels are known for their tragic elements, this volume is suffused with Conroy's sense of...

In this sardonically funny gem of speculative fiction, Philip K. Dick creates a novel that manages to be simultaneously unpredictable and perversely logical. Poor Pete Garden has just lost Berkeley. He's also lost his wife, but he'll get a new one as soon as he rolls a three. It's all part of the rules of Bluff, the game that's become a blinding obsession for the last inhabitants of the planet Earth. But the rules are about to change--drastically and terminally--because Pete Garden will be playing his next game against an opponent who isn't even human, for stakes that are a lot higher than Berkeley. From the Trade Paperback edition.

After 10 years of globe-trotting, burned-out ex-CIA operative Donovan Lassiter was ready to return home. But Donovan needed solitude to wrestle with his demons. His cabin in the wooded hills of Maryland was the perfect place for a little soul-searching -- or so he thought. Donovan's peaceful existence was shattered when beautiful widow Andi Brady and her children moved next door. Andi needed help to prove her late husband's innocence and knew Donovan was the only man for the job. But could he focus on the case when he was in danger -- of losing his heart?

A vampire never gets old. But neither do his enemies. When a figure from Ethan's dark past makes a splashy debut in Chicago, Merit and her Master don't know whether he's friend or foe. But they'll have to figure out soon, because trouble is brewing in the Windy City. At an exclusive society soiree attended by the upper echelons of the human and supernatural worlds, Merit and Ethan barely stop the assassination of a guest. When the target turns out to be a shady businessman with a criminal edge, Merit suspects a human vendetta. But the assassins have fangs.... The connections to Chicago's Houses go deeper than Merit knows, and even one wrong move could be her last....

Start your engines and get in gear for an action-packed story from the bestselling author of The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, Alexander McCall Smith, with fun and energetic illustrations by Kate Hindley. When Max finds an old car that has his last name – Champion – on the bonnet, he learns that his grandfather used to make some of the best cars around ... and race them! That is, until his ideas book and his favourite car, Arabella, were stolen by greedy rival Mr Grabber. Can Max find a way to get back what Grandfather Gus lost? And will Arabella ever be seen again?

How do you live your life if your past is based on a lie? A new novel in both verse and prose from #1 New York Times bestselling author, Ellen Hopkins. For as long as she can remember, it’s been just Ariel and Dad. Ariel’s mom disappeared when she was a baby. Dad says home is wherever the two of them are, but Ariel is now seventeen and after years of new apartments, new schools, and new faces, all she wants is to put down some roots. Complicating things are Monica and Gabe, both of whom have stirred a different kind of desire. Maya’s a teenager who’s run from an abusive mother right into the arms of an older man she thinks she can trust. But now she’s isolated with a baby on the way, and life’s getting more complicated than Maya ever could have imagined. Ariel and Maya’s lives collide unexpectedly when Ariel’s mother shows up out of the blue with wild accusations: Ariel wasn’t abandoned. Her father kidnapped her fourteen years ago. What is Ariel supposed to believe? Is it possible Dad’s woven her entire history into a tapestry of lies? How can she choose between the mother she’s been taught to mistrust and the father who has taken care of her all these years? In bestselling author Ellen Hopkins’s deft hands, Ariel’s emotionally charged journey to find out the truth of who she really is balances beautifully with Maya’s story of loss and redemption. This is a memorable portrait of two young women trying to make sense of their lives and coming face to face with themselves—for both the last and the very first time.

Every day a different body. Every day a different life. Every day in love with the same girl. There’s never any warning about where it will be or who it will be. A has made peace with that, even established guidelines by which to live: Never get too attached. Avoid being noticed. Do not interfere. It’s all fine until the morning that A wakes up in the body of Justin and meets Justin’s girlfriend, Rhiannon. From that moment, the rules by which A has been living no longer apply. Because finally A has found someone A wants to be with—day in, day out, day after day.

When Lucy Waring's sister Phyllida suggests that she join her for a quiet holiday on the island of Corfu, young English Lucy is overjoyed. Her work as an actress has temporarily come to a halt. She believes there is no finer place to be "at liberty" than the sun-drenched isle of Corfu, the alleged locale for Shakespeare's The Tempest. Even the suspicious actions of the handsome, arrogant son of a famous actor cannot dampen her enthusiasm for this wonderland in the Ionian Sea. But the peaceful idyll does not last long. A series of incidents, seemingly unconnected - but all surrounded in mystery - throws Lucy's life into a dangerous spin, as fear, danger and death - as well as romance - supplant the former tranquility. Then a human corpse is carried ashore on the incoming tide... And without warning, she found she had stumbled into a nightmare of strange violence, stalked by shadows of terror and sudden death.

Otto McGavin is peacefully idealistic by nature, an Anglo-Buddhist, who seeks employment with the Confederacion because he believes in its mission to protect human & nonhuman rights. The only problem is that the Confederacion needs him as one of its twelve Prime Operators for its secret service, the TBII. The TBII wants him as a spy, thief & assassin. It's not, of course, a problem for the Confederacion, which simply uses immersion therapy & hypnotic personality overlay for Otto's training, then sends him out in deep cover, encased in plastiflesh, on a variety of dangerous missions on a number of bizarre worlds. But for him, it's a different matter: what he has to witness & what he's forced to do take a terrible toll. Always he returns to his original self--his conscience stabbed by the memory of all those he'd killed in the service of interstellar harmony.

Razor-edge suspense in this original eBook short story from “one of the most versatile voices in thriller fiction today” (The Providence Journal) It should have been a night to remember, but Maura Isles can’t recall a thing. Maura is longing to ditch a ritzy cocktail party, along with her four-inch heels, when a handsome, charming stranger appears. But somewhere between sipping a fresh glass of champagne and waking up the next day on her sofa lies a black hole of forgotten time. As Boston’s medical examiner, Maura regularly teams up with police detective Jane Rizzoli on homicide investigations, and Jane’s latest case makes Maura’s blood run cold. A brutally murdered man has been found in a city park with Maura’s address tucked in his pocket. Maura IDs the victim as the charmer she met at the party. Her alarm turns to terror when she learns the murdered man was a predator with victims of his own. Fearing she may be guilty of a lethal crime she can’t recall, Maura races to recover the missing hours that hold the truth—and that hide a shocking secret. Don’t miss the thrilling preview of Tess Gerritsen’s new Rizzoli & Isles novel, Last to Die.

Fourteen-year-old Bobby Pendragon is not like other boys his age. His uncle Press is a Traveler, and, as Bobby has learned, that means Uncle Press is responsible, through his journeys, for solving interdimensional conflict wherever he encounters it. His mission is nothing less than to save the universe from ultimate evil. And he's taking Bobby along for the ride. Fresh from his first adventure on Denduron, Bobby finds himself in the territory of Cloral, a vast world that is entirely covered by water. Cloral is nearing a disaster of huge proportions. Reading the journals Bobby sends home, his friends learn that the desperate citizens of the endangered floating cities are on the brink of war. Can Bobby—suburban basketball star and all-around nice guy—help rid the area of marauders, and locate the legendary lost land of Faar, which may hold the key to Cloral's survival? Alternate cover for this ISBN can be found here CLORAL

When Hopeful Farm burns down, Alec’s dreams for the future go up in smoke. How can he get the money to rebuild? To make matters worse, a strong young colt named Eclipse has taken the racing world by storm, threatening to replace the Black in the hearts of racing fans. Against all odds, Alec sets out to save the farm and prove that the Black is still the greatest race horse of all time! “Everyone loves a champion. And when the champion is a gallant horse, when his story is told by a champion writer of horse stories, every reader is a winner.”—The New York Times From the Trade Paperback edition.

Imagine it – a sexy BDSM Master talking to thousands of radio listeners every night… giving women an erotic and sensual insight into the world of domination and submission. Jericho James is the man – the man with the power and the voice to make women around the country swoon and submit. But his personal life is haunted by a dark tragedy from his past, and a mysterious listener to his program who wants more from Jericho than he can possibly give. Because there’s one thing he just won’t do… One line he simply will not cross. Erotic BDSM written by a man from a man’s POV. Jason Luke is an Amazon Top Ten bestselling erotica author.

Veronica Roth's #1 New York Times bestselling novel Divergent is now a major motion picture starring Shailene Woodley, Theo James, and Kate Winslet! With never-before-seen photos; personal interviews with the directors, actors, and writers; and exclusive extras, this lush, oversize volume is a true behind-the-scenes look at the filming of Divergent.