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The War of the Snakes
by Julian Cheek“Dreams can’t be real, can they?” Such is the gnawing question reverberating through Sam’s head as he battles with a dilemma, which refuses to be ignored. In his dreams, he is always confronted by one simple point: Muanga-Atua exists! And for some un-asked for and un-wanted reason, he - Sam - is expected to save this place from the calamity that engulfs the people of the Turangai. Not only that, but he is also supposed to have some sort of incredible power by which he is expected to destroy both the Bjarke and their leader, Lord Elim, the Turangai’s oppressors.“But that is ridiculous! Right?” Determined to ignore all that occurs in this so-called ‘dream world’, he does nothing. That is until one cold, grey, autumn morning a TV news flash captures a shocking series of events, which leads to one undeniable truth; what he has tried to ignore all along in Muanga-Atua has somehow incredibly exploded into his world and it is searching. Searching for him. His do-nothing approach is just not good enough. Not now. He will have to go back to Muanga-Atua to seek out this power he was supposed to have obtained. Find the power, accept what it can do through him, and go out into that awful place to do battle with someone, or something that makes his very blood run cold.
Zein: The Reckoning
by Graham J WoodThe nightmare continues. Returning to Earth, Kabel and Tyson are fighting different battles. Kabel angry and struggling to restrain his feelings for Gemma, and Tyson fighting an internal battle with the methir still coursing through his body; the magics are growing stronger. On Earth, the Cabal are tightening their grip on the control of the zinithium and the fearful population. Their ruthlessness is supported by Zylar aggressively pushing his domination plan forward, and his desire for revenge on the Blackstone brothers is all consuming. The odds seem high, almost unimaginable. Into this despair stride the conflicted brothers with the support of their companions. Despair, defeat and death will face them. Now is the time to fight back, to face the ultimate battle of good versus evil, for the sake of the Earth, the universe and their own internal peace.
The Russian Lieutenant
by Peter MarshallIt all began with an online date, which led Marina Peters into the ruthless world of international espionage.
A Casino For Gods
by David E DresnerIt was a glorious time for the two teens, Glenda and Traveler! At home in their magical sanctuary, hidden in downtown Chicago, they immersed themselves in the city's festive winter holiday season. Sadly, their holiday celebrations are cut short. Theo, the sanctuary's protective god, tells them of an approaching great threat. The demigod jinn host is preparing to enter our world. They seek to defeat Theo.The malevolent fire creatures will arrive in the isolated Carpathian Mountains of Transylvania. They chose the fifth century, a chaotic, brutal time. Rampaging Hun armies battle Germanic tribes for control of the vast region. The host uses this turbulence to mask its presence as it plots the ambush of Theo. The teens arrive feeling like unarmed gladiators entering the high-walled arena of the Transylvanian Mountains. Death surrounds them. Armed only with their invisibility skill and their trust in each other, they proceed into the Carpathian abyss.
How to Survive Everything
by Ewan Morrison'One of the most provocative, intelligent and original novelists working in Britain today.' Irvine WelshMy dad taught us to be prepared for whatever was coming. He said we should know the facts about how long we could survive without food, water or fresh air, and to remember that we couldn't live at all without hope. It was better, he said, to be ahead of the game. Better to be ten years too early than one minute too late.That’s why he did what he did, on that morning …Inspired by her father’s advance planning and her own ingenuity and courage, this is one teenage girl’s survival guide for navigating life under a new, even more deadly pandemic from the confines of a prepper compound. Will she ride out the collapse of everything she knows, and how can she save her family – and sanity?
The Call of the Cormorant
by Donald S MurrayFrom the author of the prize-winning As the Women Lay Dreaming comes a remarkable ‘unreliable biography’ of Karl Kjerúlf Einarsson: an artist and an adventurer, a charlatan and a swindler, forever in search of Atlantis. As a child in the windswept, fog-bound Faroe Islands in the late nineteenth century, Karl Einarsson believes he is special, destined for a life of art and adventure. As soon as he can, he sets out for Copenhagen and beyond, styling himself as the Count of St. Kilda. He’s an observer and citizen of nowhere, a serial swindler of aristocrats and Nazis, fishermen and fops. But when his adventures find him in 1930s Berlin, he is forced for the first time to reckon with something much bigger than himself. As the Nazis rise to power around him, his wilful ignorance becomes unwitting complicity, even betrayal. Based on a true story, this is a fantastical tale of island life, of those who leave and those who stay behind, and the many dangers of delusions and false identities.
Pity the Beast
by Robin McLean'I haven't read a book this dark and frank and sublimely written in a while. Maybe since Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men.' Alden JonesFollowing in the footsteps of such chroniclers of American lunacy as Cormac McCarthy; Joy Williams; and Charles Portis; Robin McLean’s Pity the Beast is a mind-melting feminist Western that pins a tale of sexual violence and vengeance to a canvas stretching back to prehistory.With detours through time; space; and myth; not to mention into the minds of a pack of philosophical mules Pity the Beast heralds the arrival of a major force in American letters. It is a novel that turns our assumptions about the West; masculinity; good and evil; and the very nature of storytelling onto their heads; with an eye to the cosmic as well as the comic. It urges us to write our stories anew—if we want to avoid becoming beasts ourselves.
Go Back at Once
by Robert AickmanCompleted by Robert Aickman in 1975; but never before published in the USA; Go Back at Once is a delicious; delirious comic fantasy about the joys and terrors experienced by two young women seeking to escape the degradations of our technological and conformist age by fleeing to a chaotic; poet-ruled utopia.
Mister N
by Najwa BarakatModern-day Beirut is seen through the eyes of a failed writer, the eponymous Mister N. He has left his comfortable apartment and checked himself into a hotel – he thinks. Certainly, they take good care of him there. Meanwhile, on the streets below, a grim pageant: poverty, violence and fear.How is anyone supposed to write deathless prose in such circumstances? Let alone an old man like Mister N., whose life and memories have become scattered, whose family regards him as an embarrassment, and whose next-door neighbours torment him with their noise, dinner invitations, and inconvenient suicides. Comical and tragic by turns, his misadventures climax in the arrival in what Mister N. had supposed to be his ‘real life’ of a character from one of his early novels – a vicious militiaman. Now, does the old writer need to arm himself . . . or just seek psychiatric help?
Invasion of the Spirit People
by Juan Pablo VillalobosJuan Pablo Villalobos’s fifth novel adopts a gentle, fable-like tone, approaching the problem of racism from the perspective that any position as idiotic as xenophobia can only be fought with sheer absurdity.In an unnamed city, colonised by an unnamed world power, an immigrant named Gastón makes his living selling exotic vegetables to eateries around the city. He has a dog called Kitten, who’s been diagnosed with terminal cancer, and a good friend called Max, who’s in a deep depression after being forced to close his restaurant. Meanwhile, Max’s son, Pol, a scientist away on a scientific expedition into the Arctic, can offer little support.Faced with these dispiriting problems, Gastón begins a quest, or rather three: he must search for someone to put his dog to sleep humanely; he must find a space in which to open a new restaurant with Max; and he must look into the truth behind the news being sent back by Pol: that human life may be the by-product of an ancient alien attempt at colonisation . . . and those aliens might intend to make a return visit.
Tripticks (G - Reference,information And Interdisciplinary Subjects Ser.)
by Ann QuinFirst published in 1972, Ann Quin’s fourth and final novel was a radical break from the introspective style she had developed in Three and Passages: a declaration of independence from all expectations. Brashly experimental, ribald, and hilarious, Tripticks maps new territories for the novel – aspiring to a form of pop art via the drawings of the artist Carol Annand and anticipating the genre-busting work of Kathy Acker through collage and gory satire. Splattering its pages with the story of a man being chased across a nightmarish America by his ‘first X-wife’ and her ‘schoolboy gigolo’, Tripticks was ground zero for the collision of punk energy with high style.
Ten Planets
by Yuri HerreraThe characters that populate Yuri Herrera’s first collection of stories inhabit imagined futures that reveal the strangeness and instability of the present. Drawing on science fiction, noir, and the philosophical parables of Borges’s Fictions and Calvino’s Cosmicomics, these very short stories signal a new dimension in the work of this significant writer. In Ten Planets, objects can be sentient and might rebel against the unhappy human family to which they are attached. A detective of sorts finds clues to buried secrets by studying the noses of his clients, which he insists are covert maps. A meagre bacterium in a human intestine gains consciousness when a psychotropic drug is ingested. Monsters and aliens abound, but in the fiction of Herrera, knowing who is the monster and who the alien is a tricky proposition. This collection of stories, with a breadth that ranges from philosophical flights of fancy to the gritty detective story, leaves us with a sense of awe at our world and the worlds beyond our ken, while Herrera continues to develop his exploration of the mutability of borders, the wounds and legacy of colonial violence, and a deep love of storytelling in all its forms.
You, Bleeding Childhood (G - Reference,information And Interdisciplinary Subjects Ser.)
by Michele MariLong before the latest vogue for autofiction, Michele Mari, one of Italy’s most beloved authors, cast his mind back to the days of his own childhood, and found it crawling with monsters.Raised on comic books and science fiction, the young Mari constructed an alternate universe for himself untouched by uncomprehending grownups or sadistic peers. Compared to the horrors of real life, Long John Silver and Cthulhu made for positively cuddly company; but little boys raised by beasts may well grow up beastly – or never grow up at all. Waking or sleeping, the obsessions of Mari’s youth seem to colour his every adult thought. You, Bleeding Childhood stands as his first attempt to catalogue this cabinet of wonders. Cult classics since their first publication, these loosely connected stories stand as the ideal introduction to an encyclopedic fantasist on a par with Kafka, Poe, and Borges.
Omen Amen
by Jenny AcklandWill Climate Change stimulate global action? The novel concentrates, initially, on the years around 4000. A totally different society has evolved from past ecological and environmental mistakes. It is a time of strict expectations following the devastation. Time Capsules are found, from two millennia past, illustrating peoples' habits and lifestyles. Were lessons learnt? Time moves to the years around 6000 with a rigidly controlled society, led by Summiters, Emotions are forbidden. Discs are found which install instant historical information into the 'brainstores' of the surviving Summiters. One character possesses a unique ability to create a barrier permitting emotional reactions freely without sanction. Her name is Opal. She revels in the wonderful visions of millennia past. Dance, drama, art, music, sport and literature are received by Opal into her personal 'brainstore'. She manages to activate her emotional barrier to avoid detection. Her enthusiasm for past creativity might make her careless.
The Second Plan
by Andrew WilliamMankind’s question all along has been about our existence. Where did we come from? Who created us? Or are we a product of evolution? Here is the story that takes us to where it all started... and where it will end.
The Bogeyman
by Steve DoverAs dusk and dark come earlier when time approaches Autumn and Winter brings calm cold mists to the streets, the lights throw shadows and shapes that awaken imagination and fear. Are they all fleeting shadows or is there one that is something else. The Bogey Man. His abnormality has made him a figure of rejection. Something other than the accepted normal. But he is afraid and he longs only for acceptance and inclusion. The Bogey Man is a metaphor for the less advantaged and those rejected by our prejudices.
The Discovered Sanctuary
by David E DresnerCertain doors open to grand adventures. Edward opens the first door while traveling on an overnight train to Chicago. Upon entering a private car, he encounters the mysterious Egyptian "M" and Theo, his sphinx-like companion. Both are much more than meets the eye. Edward's second door, hidden away in a Chicago alley, leads into a magical sanctuary. Greeting Edward warmly are M and Theo. A frosty greeting comes from Glenda, a tall, challenging Nordic girl. Theo discloses his true self to Edward and offers him a challenge to join M and Glenda as his allies against an ancient foe. Edward accepts and months of intense study follow as Edward and Glenda develop special abilities. Their abilities are tested in a Chicago museum as a keystone is being lowered into an ancient arch. Reading the arch's hieroglyphs, Glenda declares that the portal is cursed. Could an ancient curse come alive in modern-day Chicago?
The Children of Moonstone Beach
by F V MillerDo you have a moonstone tucked away at the back of a drawer? If you do, then dig it out, hold it close and read this heartfelt adventure, because you are invited to dive wholeheartedly into the magical world of Moontide, where almost anything can happen with a moonstone in your hand. Join four unlikely friends as they are thrown together on a beach far away from their homes in London amidst the chaos of the Covid pandemic as it hits the UK. Troubled, lost, sad and with hearts searching for more, they unknowingly kickstart a chain of events which sees them swept up into a new and spellbinding world; one that has been waiting patiently for their arrival for a very long time. With royal dragons, howling wolves, evil magic-maker pirates, a sea nymph, a bog monster, flying cats and a war to wage, the children must find out who they really are before they can embrace the magic they hold within.
Black Cat and the Japanese Umbrella
by Lowri LarsenBlack cat was magical and like no other mother. What she gave us we will never forget; the most beautiful, magical mother ever. The narrator of Black Cat and the Japanese Umbrella is a young girl processing her childhood to find enchantment and healing in place of damaged lives, and mundane home and school life. Nobody should come of age at age ten. Lowri Larsen’s novella is a charmed yet sad story, bringing to life the transforming power of magic in all its forms.
Albertine
by Laurence KlavanWhen life is no longer short, what will we long for? In the near-future, those who can afford it will be genetically engineered to age slower and live longer, to have many lives within one life. Now the privileged and galvanic Albertine is at yet another crossroads in her seemingly endless time on Earth, having met one more person with whom she has fallen passionately and heedlessly in love. Albertine's friend is her medician, "half-doctor, half-magician,” who administers her longevity treatments and narrates the story. Albertine will beg him to stop the pain of loving so many. Meanwhile, the government decides to take drastic measures to pare the vast amounts of rich people who keep existing, gobbling resources. Albertine is a story about how technology might alter how we live and die, have sex, kill, earn, achieve, parent, and grow up. It’s also a timeless novella about the transitions all lovers make and—if they’re lucky—survive.
The Hardest Winter
by Carole HamiltonThe Hardest Winter by Carole Hamilton is a beautifully and realistically drawn novella, showing the hardships of farming life in Scotland today. Fiona and Drew live and work on a Scottish cattle farm. Beauty contrasts with the never ending chores and muck. Fiona is suffocated by the monotony of the endless tasks both in the farmhouse and outside. The continual preparation of meals, cleaning, feeding calves and helping with farm chores leaves her exhausted. At other times she is exhilarated by the magic of the changing seasons and landscape. Often she feels trapped in the repetitive, isolated environment that doesn’t offer much scope for interaction with others. When she gets the chance to escape the mundane, her melancholy lifts. Birth and death infiltrate her life till the harshest of winters with painful circumstances arrive. With this adversity there is always hope of a new future just as winter will always turn to spring. The ritual of the farming year, ploughing, planting and harvesting are linked to love, loss and new life. Fiona’s life is caught in this exquisite and intricate web.
Bluebird
by Sonia Hadj SaidBluebird starts on a morning that the protagonist believes to be the end of her life.An immigrant from Eastern Europe, the narrator has spent the last ten years thriving to be a writer or a journalist in London and failing on every front.In a bid to try and save herself, she takes a month off from her catering job and takes us down memory lane of experiences of being a young immigrant woman as well as a struggling artist. Minimum-wage jobs, unpaid internships, school certificates, rented rooms in dangerous-feeling areas, nightlife, rejections, family expectations: these are all entwined in her inner monologue as she fights for her own life before time runs out.Without sentimentality, Sonia Hadj Said's captivating novella records the casual cruelties of life and its fleeting moments of human connection and tenderness as an immigrant woman attempts to reconcile herself to the world around her.
Caradog the Friendly Welsh Dragon
by David Holman-Hill WatersCroeso i Gymru, Welcome to Wales. Croeso i Ddreigiau Cymru, Welcome to Welsh Dragons. But don't worry, you don't need to speak Welsh to enjoy this heartwarming tale of a friendly Welsh Dragon who, with the help of his shepherd friend, tries to dispel the idea that dragons are fierce and frightening. Along the way he encounters a valiant but timorous knight, a bold blacksmith and the even bolder women folk of a small Welsh village. A really fun read for children of all ages, follow Caradog's adventures from hatchling dragon to fame and celebrity throughout the land.
The Rescuists
by Geoffrey FitchettWhen three princes and a princess meet at a wedding in Vienna, their topic of conversation is a fourth, absent princess. She is Princess Petra of Prague, reputedly beautiful beyond compare and daughter of Bad King Wenceslas, he being the son of the late Good King Wenceslas, but where is she and why didn't she show up? Convinced some dastardly deed has prevented her attendance, they take the bold step of going in search of her. None could have known what trials awaited them, because it is an adventure that will dramatically change all their lives. It is a laugh out loud happy story of friendships, romances, a victory for common-sense over politics, for uncommon nonsense over conformity and for love over bigotry. A fairy tale for adults in the modern era.
Off-Target
by Eve SmithWhen a one-night stand leads to a long-desired pregnancy, Susan will do anything to ensure her husband won’t find out … including the unthinkable. But when something horrendous is unleashed around the globe, her secret isn’t the only thing that is no longer safe…––––––––––––––––––––––––A longed-for babyAn unthinkable decisionA deadly mistakeIn an all-too-possible near future, when genetic engineering has become the norm for humans, not just crops, parents are prepared to take incalculable risks to ensure that their babies are perfect … altering genes that may cause illness, and more…Susan has been trying for a baby for years, and when an impulsive one-night stand makes her dream come true, she’ll do anything to keep her daughter and ensure her husband doesn’t find out … including the unthinkable. She believes her secret is safe. For now.But as governments embark on a perilous genetic arms race and children around the globe start experiencing a host of distressing symptoms – even taking their own lives – something truly horrendous is unleashed. Because those children have only one thing in common, and people are starting to ask questions…Bestselling author of The Waiting Rooms, Eve Smith returns with an authentic, startlingly thought-provoking, disturbing blockbuster of a thriller that provides a chilling glimpse of a future that’s just one modification away…Praise for The Waiting Rooms‘Combines the excitement of a medical thriller à la Michael Crichton with sensitive characterisation and social insight in a timely debut novel all the more remarkable for being conceived and written before the current pandemic’ Guardian‘STUNNING and terrifying … The Waiting Rooms wrenches your heart in every way possible, but written with such humanity and emotion’ Miranda Dickinson‘Chillingly close to reality, this gripping thriller brims with authenticity … a captivating, accomplished and timely debut from an author to watch’ Adam Hamdy‘Engrossing and eye-opening, with heart-stopping plot twists … a stunning medical thriller set in a terrifying possible future’ Foreword Reviews‘A touching, gut-wrenching story of family mystery and tragedy … a thriller that punches on two fronts – heart AND mind’ The Sun‘Gripping and disturbing … the medical research is convincing, the scenarios plausible, and the story is emotionally engaging. This is an incredible debut!’ Gill Paul‘If the themes are dark and topical, the writing is exquisite. Breath held, I got to the finale with my heart in my mouth. Eve Smith weaves a complex and clever tale, merging countries and timelines; the result is a superb and satisfying novel’ Louise Beech‘Margaret Atwood is one of my all-time writing heroes and The Handmaid's Tale is probably the best book I’ve ever read. Eve Smith and The Waiting Rooms really do challenge that long-held crown…’ Random Things through My Letterbox‘Thoroughly engaging … an eye-opening read’ Crime Fiction Lover‘A novel of our times’ Trip Fiction‘Haunting, honest and horrifying in its reality … An epic and thrilling read’ Book Literati