This collection of three stories were influenced by the art of Chinese storytelling. The title comes from the ancient Taoist master - Zhuangzi, who wrote of dreaming he was a butterfly.The three tales: The Papermakers' Apprentice, Mountain and Moon, and Sunrise and the North Wind bring to life the elemental of fairy tales.My Chinese name is Bai DaozhuangThe three tales in Butterfly Dreams came about through reading numerous ancient and modern Chinese tales, including fairy tales and classic epics. Zhuangzi was a Taoist sage who once wrote, "Zhuangzi dreamed he was a butterfly happily fluttering about joyously forgetting who he was. Suddenly Zhuangzi awoke, but he did not know if he was a butterfly dreaming he was a man, or a man who dreamed he was a butterfly."I have tried to emulate the rhythm and magical realism elements of Chinese tales in this three-story collection. The first tale "The Papermaker's Apprentice" begins in the modern world and proceeds to weave the magical tale of the ancient painting master Chen Hongshou and his supernatural apprentice. The second tale "Mountain and Moon" creates a mystical bond between the moon and a mighty mountain. It is a love story of deep longing and total devotion.The third tale "Sunrise and the North Wind" unites the demure Sunrise with the bold North Wind. This tale uses magical realism to craft a enduring love story.

A group of writers came together to produce this anthology with monthly themes.February - LoveMarch - luckApril - FantasyAn Award Winning Novelist Presents Star Guild, an Action Packed Science Fiction. In 1849, British archaeologist, Austin Henry Layard, uncovered over 20,000 clay tablets in the Ancient Sumerian city of Nineveh, in an area now known as Iraq. The tablets told of an ancient race that had come before humans, arriving on Earth long ago and bringing with them untold technologies, and a mass genetic breeding program that the tablets claimed to have brought forth the creation of humankind. And then these Beings left, taking with them everything they had, except the human race. The problem is, they took some of us. And, those whom were taken have not returned, and have all but forgotten about their past and that these Beings ever existed. These humans are now thriving someplace else...alone.They are about to be in for a rude awakening. Star Guild is action packed and riveting. You'll be carried along, feeling as though you're a part of the journey and falling in love with the characters as you progress. Scroll up and grab a copy today!

Free-form, prose poetry. Meditative. Wild. Painting with words. Musical words.Jayde Santiago only has two goals when turning 18: keep the partying to a minimum and stay away from her off again on again ex-boyfriend Antonio. None of this matters when she meets Kohl a few days before. He is a dark eyed stranger that is telling her things she never thought were possible...but is it the truth? Are all the stories really true about the Amazon? Can the place she only heard about in stories growing up actually be real? Could she really be Encantado? Kohl has been searching for the lost daughter since the beginning of his reign over Encante-North. Yet, he has no luck until he finds a green eyed beauty walking past him, effectively halting his search. Will he be able to look past her beauty to stop a war that has killed everyone he has ever loved?

A short fictional story. A woman's concerns are raised after observing a young male, shortly followed by an older male, emerging from a public toilet in a park. The younger of the two seems ill or ill at ease. The woman wonders if something untoward has occurred and the story follows her imaginings and speculations as to the character and motives of the older man.This is a short fictional story, inspired by thinking about the words supposition and speculation. Observing people in daily life, recalling snippets of overheard conversations and the comments of strangers enabled me to stitch together a contemporary scenario wherein a woman notices a young male emerging from a public toilet in a park and notes that he looks ill or ill at ease. The woman is somehow moved to feel concern for his welfare. An older man who is known to the woman exits the toilet block immediately after the young male. This sets off a spark of curious imaginings by the woman as to what might have occurred, if anything, between the two men. Plagued by doubt and speculation, the woman begins to observe the older man at his place of work and she questions his character and possible motives.

Haylee and Kaylee Fitzgerald are twin sisters who have been forced to be identical in every way by their domineering mother. She insists they wear the same clothes, eat the same food, get the same grades, and have all the same friends. But both are growing weary of her obsession with their similarities, so when they finally attend high school, they find little ways to highlight their independence. The transition isn't as easy as expected, however, and soon both sisters are thrust into a world that their mother never prepared them for—a world with far more dangerous consequences than just upsetting Mother.

A British Lady Lady Emma Wells-Finch, the oh-so-proper headmistressof England's St. Gertrude's School for Girls, is a woman on a mission—she has two weeks to lose her reputation. Arriving in Texas with skirts flying, umbrella pointing, and beautiful mouth issuing orders, she knows only one thing will save her from losing everything she holds dear: complete and utter disgrace! A Texas Rascal World-famous playboy-athlete Kenny Traveler has kickedup his boot heels one too many times, and now he's suspended from the sport he loves. Only one thing will restore his career:complete and utter respectability! Unfortunately, he's been blackmailed into chauffeuring bossy, single-minded Lady Emma, and she's hell-bent on visiting honkytonks,chasing down tattoo parlors, and worse.. lots worse. Love, All-American Style When a gorgeous man who can't afford another scandal meets a hardheaded woman who's determined to cause one, anything can happen. But love? Oh, dear. That's impossible.That's outrageous. That's... inevitable!

Jorge Luis Borges declared The Invention of Morel a masterpiece of plotting, comparable to The Turn of the Screw and Journey to the Center of the Earth. Set on a mysterious island, Bioy's novella is a story of suspense and exploration, as well as a wonderfully unlikely romance, in which every detail is at once crystal clear and deeply mysterious.  Inspired by Bioy Casares's fascination with the movie star Louise Brooks, The Invention of Morel has gone on to live a secret life of its own. Greatly admired by Julio Cortázar, Gabriel García Márquez, and Octavio Paz, the novella helped to usher in Latin American fiction's now famous postwar boom. As the model for Alain Resnais and Alain Robbe-Grillet's Last Year in Marienbad, it also changed the history of film.

Daniel Pecan Cambridge, 30, 35, 38, or 27, depending on how he feels that day, is a young man whose life is rich and full, provided he never leaves his Santa Monica apartment. After all, outside there are 8-inch-high curbs and there's always the horrible chance he might see a gas station attendant wearing a blue hat. So, except for the occasional trip to the Rite Aid to admire the California girl Zandy and to buy earplugs because they're on sale, he stays home a lot. And a good thing too, or he would have never been falsely implicated in a murder, never almost seduced Philipa, never done the impossible task of jogging around the block with Brian, never ironed his pillows, and he might never have won the Most Average American essay contest. The Pleasure of My Company is the chronicle of a modern-day neurotic yearning to break free.

The Conquest of Happiness is Bertrand Russell's recipe for good living. First published in 1930, it pre-dates the current obsession with self-help by decades. Leading the reader step by step through the causes of unhappiness and the personal choices, compromises and sacrifices that (may) lead to the final, affirmative conclusion of 'The Happy Man', this is popular philosophy, or even self-help, as it should be written.

A fight he must win... Piper Oliver knows she can't trust him. They warned her that the tall, dark, and sexy black-ops soldier Jory Dean would try to win her over with his steel-gray eyes and deadly charm, but she won't be conned by this man they call a traitor. All she has to do is figure out the science necessary to save his life, and she's done. Something isn't adding up, though, and she won't rest until she uncovers the truth-even if it's buried in his deep, dangerous kiss. A passion she can't resist... Jory will do anything to reunite with and save his brothers—even kidnap the gorgeous woman who's working to deactivate the deadly chip in their spines. But the forces determined to destroy his family won't let them go so easily. Keeping Piper alive is more than he bargained for—and so is his burning desire for her. But with every second bringing him closer to certain death, can he afford to lose himself in her hot and willing embrace?

The ultimate pleasure lies in sweet surrender...Brash. Brilliant. Devastatingly handsome. Billionaire playboy Rafe Contini can have any woman he wants-no strings, no commitments, no promises. But when American graduate student Nicole Parrish crashes his private party in Monte Carlo, he wants more than a casual one-night stand. He wants to possess this beautiful stranger-body, mind, and soul.Nicole isn't interested in being possessed by any man-especially one as powerful as Rafe. But with a seductive smile and enigmatic charm, he lures her into his private world of erotic discovery and pushes her to the brink of ecstasy. In the summer days-and nights-that follow, they explore every forbidden fantasy, every willful desire, every wild, dizzying sensation. And come dangerously close to crossing the line-between love and lust, pleasure and pain, power and possession...

Enter at your own Risk: The first ever Goosebumps.Now with creepy bonus features!11-year-old Josh and 12-year-old Amanda just moved into the oldest and weirdest house on the block—the two siblings think it might even be haunted! But of course, their parents don't believe them. You'll get used to it, they say. Go out and make some new friends.But the creepy kids are not like anyone Josh and Amanda have ever met before. And when they take a shortcut through the cemetery one night, Josh and Amanda learn why.

"It was I who removed de P- this morning." With these chilling words Victor Haldin shatters the solitary, industrious existence of Razumov, his fellow student at St Petersburg University. Razumov aims to overcome the denial of his noble birth by a brilliant career in the tsarist bureaucracy created by Peter the Great. But in pre-revolutionary Russia Peter's legacy is autocracy tempered by assassination; and Razumov is soon caught in a tragic web with Haldin's trustful sister Natalia in spy-haunted Geneva. Their fateful story is told by an elderly Englishman who loves Natalia but plays his part of a "dense Westerner" to the end.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.