DCI Barbara Black investigates the curious death of Adrian Mansfield, an artistic young man cast adrift in a boat on Amberton lake. He has been tied into a sitting position with an insulting sign hung about his neck. Murder is assumed, but Barbara's investigations take us into escalating family tragedy and Adrian's dark, antinatalist philosophy. Thought-provoking detective fiction.DCI Barbara Black investigates the curious death of Adrian Mansfield, an artistic young man cast adrift in a boat on Amberton lake. He has been tied into a sitting position with an insulting sign hung about his neck. Murder is assumed, but Barbara's investigations take us into escalating family tragedy and Adrian's dark, antinatalist philosophy. No-one seems surprised that Adrian has died. He was, we learn, obsessed with his dead sister, a talented young writer, who took her own life a few years earlier. So, indeed, is Martha Bottomley, a retired social worker and friend of the family, who has, according to Barbara's sergeant, a morbid interest in the deaths of young people. Philosophical and thought-provoking detective fiction - a why rather than whodunnit.

Two teenage boys participate in a ridiculous Snake Dance enactment at a mansion in 1960s Arizona.Creative expression is an intense means of learning - all of human experience can and should be our subject matter. I would ask you to consider reading The 2012 Um-Yangian. This current collection, a condensation of a lifetime of off and on again writing, is (just like the title says) not quite publishable. For although there are little gems scattered throughout, putting this work into the public realm is akin to going to the beach after a long winter of becoming pale and gaining a lot of weight - it seems like a good idea until you actually get there – umm what was that? No, no really. I honestly thought this was a clothing optional area….As I said in the opening, creative expression is an intense means of learning - you open yourself up to the criticism and ridicule you thought you had long ago learned to avoid in middle school. But what is our alternative? Job, family, leisure time can all be either futile distractions and death bed regrets or opportunities for really living - your portal to self expression, growth, enlightenment, uh disdain, ridicule, pity... So here's to all the fools, life is what we make of it, some day we'll all become wise or dead ...

James Jordan never expected his past to come back to him like this. Now he's in danger, dodging horrors and nightmares that he thought he'd left behind. And the one person who could help him might have vanished forever...For James, a night of punk rock and witchcraft is just the beginning.New Wave Detectives is a 10 part series. Punk Rock Theatre is episode one.As night falls on Midsummer's Eve, Elliot joins the noteworthy of Neppon society as they gather for the city's gala ball. All does not go as smoothly as planned however, as the first hints of a plot against the Roscans casts its shadow across our stage.*The city of Neppon drifts through the shallows, where the walls circling the mortal realm are thin. Here the daemons gather out of the surrounding night, drawn by its promise of candle flame warmth.As the election for the city's mayoral office approaches, one man stands head and shoulders above the other candidates. His reputation is as a bastion for all that is good and honest, in a world beset from all sides by horrors. But Jaret Roscan carries a secret. A secret that could bring ruin to his political career, and chaos to his beloved city.One person carries the key to his salvation. The question is, will they come forward in his hour of need?Harlem's Deck; a story in instalments. Keep your hand close to your chest...*Read this if you enjoy the work of Joe Abercrombie or Scott Lynch, or love watching Tru Blood or Battlestar Galactica.

The Children of the Wolf is another chilling tale from the pen of Karl Tutt. The master of mystery and murder has created Priss Maybry, a tough detective, and a villain who trades in human flesh. A girl is missing. He father is frantic . . . and dangerous. It might be too late.Priss Maybry is good at what she does . . . removing human trash from the streets of Miami. But sometimes you get dirty . . . even damaged . . . and nothing will wash off the stench. She hides her vulnerability behind a mask of sandpaper and grit, but in her business, sometimes its just not enough. A predator is on the loose, and a deranged maniac. She needs to get them both, before they get her again.

The story of a prince with 'extraordinary ears' who by loving, listening and being bold helps create a better world for his people, children and grandchild. To be enjoyed by anyone from 10 to 110!A prince with 'extraordinary ears' realises that his people are no longer happy in their noisy, busy world. The birth of his first grandchild spurs him on to find a way to create a better world. He discovers that listening to his heart, rather than his head, helps him to come up with a plan which he then boldly carries out.

This story is a fictional account of the mission and execution of the neutralization of a sensitive intelligence collaborator that potentially endangered the lives and welfare of the men and women who supported Operation Restore Hope, a UN Humanitarian mission that erupted into violence in 1993. The US Marine Corps sent the 6th Counterintelligence Team to disrupt the threat.Somali Warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid ruled the streets of Mogadishu with an uncanny elusiveness that frustrated US/UN coalition strategists. Our mission was to quell intra-Clan violence and secure major supply routes for aid. It was assessed that Aidid might be the beneficiary of an intelligence leak. Joint Task Force Headquarters responded with a clandestine Counterintelligence operation designed to identify and neutralize this “Insider Threat.” This classified operation was known as Operation Looking Glass. The Counterintelligence community pinned the success of this sensitive operation on the shoulders of one man. Political infighting would complicate the mission’s agenda, but not after a relentless pursuit to expose a collaborator., This novel was subjected to a Department of Defense pre-publication review on 8 January 2013.

A contest is announced! The winner gets a fairy kingdom all his (or possibly her) own.Timon hopes he'll be the lucky one, and takes his friend Hamnet along. He has to prove his claim to royal blood - through combat, through ordeals, through multiple choice tests. Is he going to make the final cut?A story with a little twist in its fairy tail.This story happily stretches the imagination. Kids love it. Age 4 and over.

Things haven't gone well for Chris lately. His girlfriend dumped him. He's been fighting with his friends. Is it time for a change? Or is it just time to focus on what he does best--being a super villain?Things haven't gone well for Chris lately. His girlfriend dumped him, and now every time they argue, he literally fears for his life.He's been fighting with his friends. They used to know how to party, but now everybody but him has gotten old. They all need to go home early because their wife is calling or they have to pick their kids up from the game. Nobody wants to take over the world anymore, or even cause some widespread panic.Is it time for a change? Or is it just time to focus on what he does best--being a super villain?

If a mouse in the middle of the night can’t bring out a woman's hidden powers, nothing can. Driven by the nocturnal activities of said mouse, a knitter discovers a strange power in the stitches of her latest knitting project. But when her heart is broken, she learns that love is more powerful than even the strengths and pitfalls of the earth’s own magic.If a mouse in the middle of the night can’t bring out a woman's hidden powers, nothing can. Driven by the nocturnal activities of said mouse, a knitter discovers a strange power in the stitches of her latest knitting project. But when her heart is broken, she learns that love is more powerful than even the strengths and pitfalls of the earth’s own magic.This story is included in the collection Wizards, Woods and Gods.

poems about life, love, old age, death, birds, beaches, nature, chemistry, time, guns, and mice. Along with the usual unanswerable questions.Welcome to the magical town of Cottontail Pines, where animals talk, and there is always a friend around the corner. In this new story called “Blacky’s Birthday,” Blacky the skunk wakes up on his special day expecting to be lavished with attention… and cake. Unfortunately, nobody seems to want to talk to him at all, and worst of all… no cake! Have all of Blacky’s friends decided not to like him anymore? And most importantly, will he never, ever get to eat any cake?! Find out what happens in this cute new story by T.K. Wade.

A sequel to SHANTARAM but equally a standalone novel, The Mountain Shadow follows Lin on further adventures in shadowy worlds and cultures. It is a novel about seeking identity, love, meaning, purpose, home, even the secret of life...As the story begins, Lin has found happiness and love, but when he gets a call that a friend is in danger, he has no choice but to go to his aid, even though he knows that leaving this paradise puts everything at risk, including himself and his lover. When he arrives to fulfil his obligation, he enters a room with eight men: each will play a significant role in the story that follows. One will become a friend, one an enemy, one will try to kill Lin, one will be killed by another... Some characters appeared in Shantaram, others are introduced for the first time, including Navida Der, a half-Irish, half-Indian detective, and Edras, a philosopher with fundamental beliefs. Gregory David Roberts is an extraordinarily gifted writer whose stories are richly rewarding on many levels. Like Shantaram, The Mountain Shadow will be a compelling adventure story with a profound message at its heart.

A new world in chaos, and a legendary love that never was… Hatter and Alice. Alice and Hatter. Two parts making up one whole. Their love was legend, until a curse came and ripped them apart forever. Rewriting their past, present, and future. But a couple of powerful fairy godmothers and one taciturn god are determined that curse or no, the lives of two of Kingdom’s most famous inhabitants will be set to rights. Only problem is, one of them has just died and time is now running out for the other. Can Kingdom ever be restored again? Only time will tell…

If you're going to shoot Joe Kurtz, you'd better shoot to kill. Ex-PI Joe Kurtz's survival is on the line when an ambush leaves him badly wounded and his parole officer, Peg O'Toole, clinging to life. Their respective professions have ensured that neither suffers from a shortage of enemies, so narrowing down the suspects isn't easy. But Kurtz knows who's at the head of his list: Angelina Farino Ferrara, the lethal beauty who leads the Farino crime family, and her mob rival, Toma Gonzaga. The odd thing is, each would rather hire Joe Kurtz than fire at him. Someone's causing trouble beneath the gray skies of western New York, and it's drawn the notice of the mobs and the cops. Kurtz is caught in the middle along with the rest of them, and no one knows who's tightening the vise.

A moving, funny, triumphant novel that exalts the quiet victories of the inconspicuous among us. We are in the center of Paris, in an elegant apartment building inhabited by bourgeois families. Renée, the concierge, is witness to the lavish but vacuous lives of her numerous employers. Outwardly she conforms to every stereotype of the concierge: fat, cantankerous, addicted to television. Yet, unbeknownst to her employers, Renée is a cultured autodidact who adores art, philosophy, music, and Japanese culture. With humor and intelligence she scrutinizes the lives of the building's tenants, who for their part are barely aware of her existence. Then there's Paloma, a twelve-year-old genius. She is the daughter of a tedious parliamentarian, a talented and startlingly lucid child who has decided to end her life on the sixteenth of June, her thirteenth birthday. Until then she will continue behaving as everyone expects her to behave: a mediocre pre-teen high on adolescent subculture, a good but not an outstanding student, an obedient if obstinate daughter. Paloma and Renée hide both their true talents and their finest qualities from a world they suspect cannot or will not appreciate them. They discover their kindred souls when a wealthy Japanese man named Ozu arrives in the building. Only he is able to gain Paloma's trust and to see through Renée's timeworn disguise to the secret that haunts her. This is a moving, funny, triumphant novel that exalts the quiet victories of the inconspicuous among us.

Set in Boston at the end of the First World War, New York Times best-selling author Dennis Lehane's long-awaited eighth novel unflinchingly captures the political and social unrest of a nation caught at the crossroads between past and future. The Given Day tells the story of two families—one black, one white—swept up in a maelstrom of revolutionaries and anarchists, immigrants and ward bosses, Brahmins and ordinary citizens, all engaged in a battle for survival and power. Beat cop Danny Coughlin, the son of one of the city's most beloved and powerful police captains, joins a burgeoning union movement and the hunt for violent radicals. Luther Laurence, on the run after a deadly confrontation with a crime boss in Tulsa, works for the Coughlin family and tries desperately to find his way home to his pregnant wife. Here, too, are some of the most influential figures of the era—Babe Ruth; Eugene O'Neill; leftist activist Jack Reed; NAACP founder W. E. B. DuBois; Mitchell Palmer, Woodrow Wilson's ruthless Red-chasing attorney general; cunning Massachusetts governor Calvin Coolidge; and an ambitious young Department of Justice lawyer named John Hoover. Coursing through some of the pivotal events of the time—including the Spanish Influenza pandemic—and culminating in the Boston Police Strike of 1919, The Given Day explores the crippling violence and irrepressible exuberance of a country at war with, and in the thrall of, itself. As Danny, Luther, and those around them struggle to define themselves in increasingly turbulent times, they gradually find family in one another and, together, ride a rising storm of hardship, deprivation, and hope that will change all their lives.

Don’t miss the epic finale in T. S. Joyce’s bestselling Red Havoc Panthers series The countdown is on. Crazy Lynn Matheson has six days until she’ll join all the other shifters who have lost their minds and been put down by their alphas. All she wants to do is get through the next week with the Gray Back Crew as quietly as possible, but some of the big, dominant males in Damon’s Mountains are pushing her to fight her destiny. The main culprit? A tatted-up, motorcycle-riding, trouble-making giant of a man named Jathan Barns. He’s watching her every move, angering the panther inside of Lynn. She wants nothing to do with love, but Jathan is stirring up emotions she never thought she would feel again, and now he’s making her question everything—her destiny included. The countdown is on. Jathan Barns has six days to save Crazy Lynn. She fell apart when she left Damon’s Mountains, and now no matter what it costs him, he is determined to keep her alpha from putting her down. He would fight every shifter on earth to keep her safe, but he can’t save a half-crazed panther shifter who doesn’t want to save herself. The plan is simple: manipulate Lynn into being the tough girl he knows she is, without losing his heart in the process. But the more time he spends with her, the more he learns things aren’t always what they seem. She isn’t weak like he thought, and as he begins to understand her, it becomes clear that her broken panther might be just the right match for his Bad Bear. Content Warning: Explicit love scenes, naughty language, and piles of sexy shifter secrets. Intended for mature audiences.

Hot Vampire Seduction is the second book in a hot, erotic vampire series, but stands alone as its own story. Reading out of order will not hurt the enjoyment of the story. Explicit -- hot! Ménage included – you have been warned. About the series: The Wardens series begins with the three Brooks brothers, Evan (34), Aiden (32) and Taylor (28). They were early settlers of the town of Braunfels, Texas. When the town was haunted by a series of brutal animal attacks, that left a half-dozen townsmen murdered, the Brooks brothers took things into their own hands. Armed and ready for action, they set out into the wilderness, determined to find this animal and kill it. What they found was a female vampire who decided the brothers were scrumptious morsels, worth keeping around for a lifetime. She attacked the brothers and turned them to vampires. No sooner did she turn them, though, than another vampire appeared and killed her. This vampire declared himself a “Warden” of the Vampire Council. Wardens uphold the rules of the Vampire race and report to the Council. Killing a human is punishable by death and their ‘Maker’ had broken that rule. The brothers were then taken to the Council, where they were taught how to survive without killing, how to mingle with humans as if one of them, and when to move on from a location so that they would not be suspected as vampires. Most importantly, they learned who their enemies were and how to defeat them. In the end, the brothers were granted a financial dowry that had belonged to their Maker and given the choice of freedom, under Council rule, or an alternative—to become Wardens. Now, the brothers travel together as Wardens, tracking outlaw vampires, killing them and protecting innocent humans. It is their eternal duty. About HOT VAMPIRE SEDUCTION: The underground vampire population of Austin, Texas has taken to hosting orgies with human women who've been forced to indulge in a new aphrodisiac. The drug, Blood Red, is a mixture of a rare type of werewolf blood and that of a vampire. Blood Red creates an insatiable desire for sex in the user to the point of pain in the absence of pleasure. Sometimes that pain leads to death. Vampire Warden, Aiden Brooks, has spent more than a hundred years enforcing the laws of his race, and life has taught him that anyone that he allows into his world ends up dead. Despite knowing this all too well, having painfully loved and lost in his past, when his search for the creator of Blood Red places coroner Kelly Riggs directly in both his path, and that of a dangerous clan of vampires, his desire for her goes well beyond offering her protection. He's drawn to her bravery, seduced by her feisty spirit and beauty, but he is determined to resist her, fearing he will put her in harms way. But Kelly is already on the radar of the enemy, and when she gets too close to the evil vampire clan's secrets, she is given Blood Red. Now Aiden's hunger for her might be the only thing that can keep her alive but who will save her from him?

John Updike’s twentieth novel, like his first, The Poorhouse Fair, takes place in one day, a day that contains much conversation and some rain. The seventy-nine-year-old painter Hope Chafetz, who in the course of her eventful life has been Hope Ouderkirk, Hope McCoy, and Hope Holloway, answers questions put to her by a New York interviewer named Kathryn, and recapitulates, through stories from her career and many marriages, the triumphant, poignant saga of postwar American art. In the evolving relation between the two women, interviewer and subject move in and out of the roles of daughter and mother, therapist and patient, predator and prey, supplicant and idol. The scene is central Vermont; the time, the early spring of 2001.

Letting her into his life is not an option. Letting her go impossible. Out of Uniform, Book 4 One look at Thomas Becker s seriously ripped body, and Jane Harrison is having trouble remembering why she tracked down the Navy SEAL. Oh, yes, that hot scoop for her magazine. Instead they get trapped in an elevator together and she gets sizzling hot sex. After the delicious encounter is over, Becker s out of there, she s left off balance, and even more determined not to take no for an answer. Either for that interview, or another chance to find out if he always goes commando. One minute Becker is making it plain his answer is no. The next, he s using the only weapon at hand to calm her confined-space panic attack a kiss. And caving in to a fierce, unexpected need that wasn t even on his radar. Long term? Hell no not after the divorce that just spit him out. But a fling with the redheaded reporter with a brutally honest mouth and a body made for sin? Abso-effing-lutely. Trouble is, when the week is over, she isn t even close to being out of his system Warning: Contents under pressure. Hot elevator sex, a redhead who knows exactly what she wants, and a Navy SEAL who can t help but give it to her. May cause spontaneous combustion. Be sure to fan yourself frequently."

For all fans eagerly awaiting Marian Keyes' new novel The Mystery of Mercy Close - featuring Helen Walsh and out in September - here is a laugh-out-loud ebook-only short guide to everyone's favourite dysfunctional Irish family, Mammy Walsh's A-Z of the Walshes. It does exactly what it says on the tin but here's a brief word from its author, Mammy Walsh herself: 'There's this woman I know from bridge, Mona Hopkins, a lovely woman she is, even if I must admit I'm not that keen on her myself, and she said a great thing the other day. I was expecting her to say "Two no trumps," but instead she comes out with a saying about her children. She says, "Boys wreck your house and girls wreck your head." Isn't that a marvellous bit of wisdom - "Boys wreck your house and girls wreck your head!" And God knows it's the truest thing I've heard in a long time. I should know. I have five girls. Five daughters. And let me tell you, my head is wrecked from them. Although, now that I think of it, so is my house . . .' It's the perfect re-introduction to the Walsh family and Marian's new novel, The Mystery of Mercy Close.