short stories related when a retired physician looks back upon his colleagues, a long career in an english hospital, and life outside. many tales have a grain or two of truth and some contain much more.short stories related when a retired physician looks back upon his colleagues, a long career in an english hospital, and life outside. many tales have a grain or two of truth and some contain much more. tales are grouped as follows:- family and medics - very mixed ; tales from abroad and other times ; miscellaneous prose ; tales from nearer home ; plays various ; a few of our travel tales.

The Republic Ship Freedom has been ordered to remove a group of defiant miners from the dead world LX-925. As UN inspector Dr. Remy Duval marvels over the advanced technology at the crew's disposal, he quickly understands the horrific downside to these wonders. Risking everything, Remy schemes to bring a peaceful end to the stand-off before it escalates into genocide.In the early 23rd century, four nations dominate interstellar travel. Their programs have remained a mystery to the people of Earth, including their own people, and the UN wants to know why. Previous inspectors have yielded little insightful information. Dr. Remy Duval is the latest to venture into the unknown.The Republic Ship Freedom has been ordered to remove a group of defiant miners from the dead world LX-925. As Remy marvels over the advanced technology at the crew's disposal, he quickly understands the horrific downside to these wonders. Risking everything, Remy schemes to bring a peaceful end to the stand-off before it escalates into genocide.

The fourth installment of the saga of the Forgotten Ornament finds the little girl facing the consequences of her heroism. She needs every bit of her strength to weather what awaits her in the aftermath of doing the right thing.Jasmine has wanted her very own pet for years. On her seventh birthday, her wish finally comes true! She adopts Cuddles from the local animal shelter. They quickly become best of friends. Follow the adventures of Cuddles and Jasmine!This is an excellent storybook for early readers, reading aloud at home, and as a bedtime story.* 5 fun short stories for kids* Includes "just for fun" activities* Short story chapter book with pictures* Perfect for a bedtime story for kids* Excellent for early and beginner readers* Big and cute illustrations for early and younger readersThis book is great for quick bedtime story or to be read aloud with friends and family!

Social science fiction with a sprinkling of humour. Gay to straight or straight to gay? Would you change your sexual orientation if you could? When the scientists gave a large dose of insulin to the mice in their food, a number of the mice began to engage in same-sex sexual activity.Social science fiction with a sprinkling of humour. Gay to straight or straight to gay? The story was that some scientists in Edinburgh had carried out experiments on mice. When the scientists gave a large dose of insulin to the mice in their food, a number of the mice began to engage in same-sex sexual activity. Would you change your sexual orientation if you could? How does sexuality and sexual orientation actually work? These are the questions facing a group of young people living in the North of England. Along the way, they confront issues of sexual role, family breakdown, social isolation and what's going on in John's fridge - you name it. "I find this story a fascinating read, as Mr Reed manages to give his characters a kind of complexity that feels real in many ways." -Hot Sauce Reviews“Despite its short length, Reed presents the reader with a complex, well-realized characters, and interesting questions to think about. It makes a statement about social activism, sexual identity, the role of the media, and the desperation some people feel to be accepted.” - David L. Felts, SFReader"A quick read that makes you laugh as much as it makes you think. " - A BookLikes reviewer"What an odd, short, minimalist thought piece. I enjoyed it." - A Goodreads Reviewer"I have never read a story quite like this. Often authors don't dive into touchy subjects like this one, but Michael Reed did an excellent job!" - A Goodreads Reviewer"This book brought a lot of questions to mind." - A BookLikes reviewer

Soul Catcher (1972) is a novel by the science fiction writer Frank Herbert. Soul Catcher is about a Native American who kidnaps a young white boy and their journey together. It is a story of vengeance and sacrifice. In the conflicted anti-hero, one may see many truths to the feelings harbored by those who were conquered. Many Native American myths are touched upon; e.g. that the bee does not haphazardly sting its victim, rather it chooses that person. The book is committed to seeing the sacrifice through and the “lamb” must be an innocent to represent the many Native American innocents slaughtered. Therein lies the conflict with our tragic hero, that he may actually have found respect for his young white hostage, yet he knows what it is that he must do for his people.

Jamaica in 1665 is a rough outpost of the English crown, a minor colony holding out against the vast supremacy of the Spanish empire. Port Royal, Jamaica′s capital, a cut-throat town of taverns, grog shops, and bawdy houses, is devoid of London′s luxuries; life here can end swiftly with dysentery or a dagger in your back. But for Captain Charles Hunter it is a life that can also lead to riches, if he abides by the island′s code. In the name of His Majesty King Charles II of England, gold in Spanish hands is gold for the taking. And law in the New World is made by those who take it into their hands. Word in port is that the Spanish treasure galleon El Trinidad, fresh from New Spain, is stalled in nearby Matanceros harbor awaiting repairs. Heavily fortified, the impregnable Spanish outpost is guarded by the blood-swiller Cazalla, a favorite commander of King Philip IV himself. With the governor′s backing, Hunter assembles a roughneck crew to infiltrate the enemy island and commandeer the galleon, along with its fortune in Spanish gold. The raid is as perilous as the bloody legends of Matanceros suggest, and Hunter will lose more than one man before he finds himself on the island′s shores, where dense jungle and the firepower of Spanish infantry are all that stand between him and the treasure. With the help of his cunning crew, Hunter hijacks El Trinidad and escapes the deadly clutches of Cazalla, leaving plenty of carnage in his wake. But his troubles have just begun. . . .

Go back in time, fifty years before the events of New York Times bestselling author P.C. Cast's Partholon books... Something isn't right at Guardian Castle, and Aine can't figure out what. As Healer, she's supposed to be making things better, but there's a darkness that can't be brightened. And then Aine finds an injured Fomorian--winged, dark, blood-thirsty and inherently evil. Or is he? Because there's something about Tegan that Aine can't resist...and once they've shared blood, Aine realizes that everything she's always believed is going to be cast aside....

It was as a poet that Samuel Beckett launched himself in the little reviews of 1930s Paris, and as a poet that he ended his career. This new selection, from Whoroscope (1930) to 'what is the word' (1988), describes a lifetime's arc of writing. It was as a poet moreover that Beckett made his first breakthrough into writing in French, and the Selected Poems represents work in both languages, including the sequence of brief but highly crafted mirlitonnades, which did so much to usher in the style of his late prose, and come as close as anything he wrote to honouring the ambition to 'bore one hole after another in language, until what lurks behind it - be it something or nothing - begins to seep through.' Also included are several of Beckett's translations from contemporaries - Apollinaire, Eluard, Michaux, Montale - in versions which count among his own poetic achievements. **** Edited by David Wheatley

Andie had it all planned out. When you are a politician’s daughter who’s pretty much raised yourself, you learn everything can be planned or spun, or both. Especially your future. Important internship? Check. Amazing friends? Check. Guys? Check (as long as we’re talking no more than three weeks). But that was before the scandal. Before having to be in the same house with her dad. Before walking an insane number of dogs. That was before Clark and those few months that might change her whole life. Because here’s the thing—if everything’s planned out, you can never find the unexpected. And where’s the fun in that?

To the hero of the title story of this collection, all of England has the glow of an afterlife: “A miraculous lacquer lay upon everything, beading each roadside twig . . . each reed of thatch, each tiny daisy trembling in the grass.” All of these stories, each in its own way, partake of this glow, as life beyond middle age is explored and found to have its own exquisite dearness. As death approaches, existence takes on, for some of Updike’s aging characters, a translucence, a magical fragility; vivid memory and casual misperception lend the mundane an antic texture, and the backward view, lengthening, acquires a certain grandeur. Here is a world where wonder stubbornly persists, and fresh beginnings almost outnumber losses.

Joyce Carol Oates is one of the most prominent writers of her generation, and she is fearless when exploring the most disturbing corners of human nature. In Evil Eye, Oates offers four chilling tales of love gone horribly wrong, showing the lengths people will go to find love, keep it, and sometimes end it. In "Evil Eye," we meet Mariana, the young 4th wife of a prominent intellectual. When her husband's brazen first wife visits one night, Mariana learns a terrible secret that threatens her marriage and sanity. In "So Near, Anytime, Always," shy teenager Lizbeth meets Desmond, a charming boy who offers this introverted girl the first sparks of young romance. Yet just as their relationship begins to blossom, Lizbeth realizes that beneath Desmond's perfect façade lies a dark soul that could wreak havoc on Lizbeth and her loved ones. In "The Execution," spoiled college student Bart Hansen has planned the perfect, brutal crime to get back at his parents for their years of condescension. Yet what he didn't plan for is a mother whose love is more resilent than he could have ever imagined, who threatens to derail his carefully laid-out plans.

Secret service agent Ethan Burke arrives in Wayward Pines, Idaho, with a clear mission: locate and recover two federal agents who went missing in the bucolic town one month earlier. But within minutes of his arrival, Ethan is involved in a violent accident. He comes to in a hospital, with no ID, no cell phone, and no briefcase. The medical staff seems friendly enough, but something feels…off. As the days pass, Ethan’s investigation into the disappearance of his colleagues turns up more questions than answers. Why can’t he get any phone calls through to his wife and son in the outside world? Why doesn’t anyone believe he is who he says he is? And what is the purpose of the electrified fences surrounding the town? Are they meant to keep the residents in? Or something else out? Each step closer to the truth takes Ethan further from the world he thought he knew, from the man he thought he was, until he must face a horrifying fact—he may never get out of Wayward Pines alive.

Flora Mackie was twelve when she first crossed the Arctic Circle on her father's whaling ship. Now she is returning to the frozen seas as the head of her own exploration expedition. Jakob de Beyn was raised in Manhattan, but his yearning for new horizons leads him to the Arctic as part of a rival expedition. When he and Flora meet, all thoughts of science and exploration give way before a sudden, all-consuming love. The affair survives the growing tensions between the two groups, but then, after one more glorious summer on the Greenland coast, Jakob joins his leader on an extended trip into the interior, with devastating results. The stark beauty of the Arctic ocean, where pack ice can crush a ship like an eggshell, and the empty sweep of the tundra, alternately a snow-muffled wasteland and an unexpectedly gentle meadow, are vividly evoked. Against this backdrop Penney weaves an irresistible love story, a compelling look at the dark side of the golden age of exploration, and a mystery that Flora, returning one last time to the North Pole as an old woman, will finally lay to rest.

Cavalry captain Gabriel Lacey returns to Regency London from the Napoleonic wars, burned out, fighting melancholia, his career ended. His interest is piqued when he learns of a missing girl, possibly kidnapped by a prominent member of Parliament. Lacey's search for the young woman to murder, corruption, and dealings with a leader of the underworld. At the same time, he struggles with his disorientation transitioning from a soldier's life to the civilian world, redefining his role with his former commanding officer, and making new friends--from the top of society to the street girls of Covent Garden. Book 1 of the Captain Lacey Regency Mysteries. This is a full-length novel.

In the fifth of his bestselling series Ben Aaronovitch takes Peter Grant out of whatever comfort zone he might have found and takes him out of London - to a small village in Herefordshire where the local police are reluctant to admit that there might be a supernatural element to the disappearance of some local children. But while you can take the London copper out of London you can't take the London out of the copper. Travelling west with Beverley Brook, Peter soon finds himself caught up in a deep mystery and having to tackle local cops and local gods. And what's more all the shops are closed by 4pm...

SUMMER IS AROUND the corner, and the rivalry between the Malloys and the Hatfords is heating up! The kids have two weeks to earn money for a fundraising contest sponsored by the local hospital. Those who collect $20 or more for the new children’s wing can choose to be in the annual Strawberry Festival Parade or get all the strawberry treats they can eat. There’s only one place Caroline Malloy—wants to be: smack dab in the middle of the glamourous Strawberry Queen’s float. But how will she earn the money in such a short time? Do the Hatford brothers have moneymaking secrets that they’re not telling the girls? From the Hardcover edition.

A professor invites a colleague from the art department to his home to view a painting he has kept secret for decades in Susan Vreeland's powerful historical novel, Girl in Hyacinth Blue. The professor swears it's a Vermeer -- but why exactly has he kept it hidden so long? The reasons unfold in a gripping sequence of stories that trace ownership of the work back to Amsterdam during World War II and still further to the moment of the painting's inception.

Stories can be powerful. In 1719, Elizabeth Goose of Boston Massachusetts published a collection of rhyming spells as a children's book, creating a spellbook of terrifying power. The Librarian of that age managed to dispose of all copies of the book except one, which remained in the possession of Elizabeth Goose and her family, temporarily averting any potential disaster. However, strange things are happening, A window washer in San Diego who was blown off his elevated perch by a freak gust of wind, but miraculously survived by landing on a canopy over the building entrance. A woman in rural Pennsylvania who was attacked by mutant rodents without any eyes. And, a college professor in England who somehow found herself trapped inside a prize pumpkin at a local farmer’s market. Baird and her team of Librarians suspect that the magic of Mother Goose is again loose in the world, and with Flynn Carson AWOL once again, it is up to Cassandra, Ezekiel, and Stone to track down the missing spellbook before the true power of the rhymes can be unleashed.

In a novel that reaffirms her reputation as "America's Queen of Suspense," Mary Higgins Clark delivers a gripping tale of deception and tantalizing suspense. Nicholas Spencer, charismatic head of the medical research company Gen-stone, involved in the development of an anticancer vaccine, suddenly disappears. His private plane crashes en route to Puerto Rico, but his body is not found. Early results of the vaccine seemed highly promising. Yet, coinciding with Nicholas Spencer's disappearance comes news that the FDA is denying approval. Then follows the shocking revelation that Spencer had looted Gen-stone of huge sums of money -- including the lifetime savings of people who had risked every penny they had. Marcia "Carley" DeCarlo, the thirty-two-year-old columnist for the Wall Street Weekly, is assigned to cover the story. Carley is the stepsister of Spencer's wife, Lynn, an aggressive PR woman and socialite, whom she dislikes and distrusts. The day after news of her husband's disappearance rocks the financial and medical world, Lynn attends a meeting of the stockholders of Gen-stone, flaunting expensive clothing and jewelry. Accused of having participated in the scam, she appears indifferent to the anger and despair of the people attending, among them a man whose child has cancer and who is now about to lose his home. That night, she narrowly escapes death when her mansion in Bedford, New York, is set on fire. She turns to Carley, begging her to use her investigative skills to prove that she was not her husband's accomplice. As Carley proceeds with her investigation, she is confronted by seemingly impenetrable questions: Is Nicholas Spencer dead or in hiding? Was he guilty or set up? Why the sudden reversal in medical opinion of the vaccine from recognition to condemnation? And as the facts begin to unfold, she becomes the target of a dangerous group involved in a sinister and fraudulent scheme. The Second Time Around is Mary Higgins Clark at her best, telling a story that intertwines fiction with the stuff of real-life headlines in a novel of breathtaking suspense and surprises.

For Nikki Donovan, being a teenager can be hell. Literally. Nikki didn't thinks her life could get any more complicated after she moved to the dreary town of Erin Heights - fitting in at a new school while navigating the social scene was stressful enough. But when her sixteenth birthday rolls around, she's visited by a mysterious stranger, Michael, who tells her that her long-lost father is actually the demon king of the Shadowlands - the dimension that protects our world from the Underworld and Hell. Maybe it's because she's in shock, or maybe it's because Michael is seriously cute, but Nikki follows him into the Shadowlands. There she learns about her half-demon powers, about the potential war between the Shadowlands and the Underworld, and that her father wants her to assume the throne - forever. Not to mention that her growing crush on Michael is completely forbidden.... Ruling the kingdom, navigating a secret crush, and still making it home by curfew - what's a teenage demon princess to do?

Before Prophecy of the Sisters, before Alice and Lia became pawns in the curse that turned sister against sister, the burden of the prophecy belonged to their mother, Adelaide. This is her story. Adelaide Milthorpe is losing her grip on sanity. She is a Gate-a human portal to the Otherworlds, destined to bring forth Samael, the most powerful demon of all time, and his Lost Souls. Prowling the halls of Birchwood Manor, Adelaide is haunted by the whispers of the otherworldly Souls, who seek to use her for entry into the real world, where they would wreak havoc and rule beside their leader, Samael, in chaos. Their pleas plague her, torture her, tempt her. Samael calls to her, his promise of peace in the Otherworlds increasingly difficult to resist. And the stakes are high, for if Adelaide gives in to his urgings, her two daughters will inherit the same curse, forcing them to make the same impossible choice as they, too, are cast in the roles of Guardian and Gate. In this novella that delves further into the Prophecy, Adelaide's struggle to reconcile her two worlds as she descends into madness will captivate fans of the Prophecy of the Sisters series and new readers alike.