Other books that might interest you

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  Partridge in Pear Tree A: Twelve...

  Stuart MacBride

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  First story in a collection of interlinked tales of crime and retribution laced with dark humour, set around the festive season 
  Billy Partridge wasn’t really cut out to be a cat burglar, but it was ‘do the job, or come up with thirteen grand by Thursday, or have both legs shattered’. 
  ‘Do the job’ seemed the least worst option. But he’s about to find out just how bad the least worst option can be… 
  Stuart MacBride, the Sunday Times bestselling author, weaves a web of mystery and black humour in this top-rated collection. The hard-boiled fiction stories, filled with thrillers and detective elements, are a testament to MacBride's prowess as a bestselling author. 
  For fans of Ian Rankin (Standing in Another Man's Grave), Mark Billingham (Cry Baby), and Michael Connelly (The Law of Innocence).

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  A Story of the Wedding Tour

  Margaret Oliphant

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  Margaret Oliphant Wilson was born on 4th April 1828 in East Lothian in Scotland but spent her childhood in Midlothian, Glasgow and Liverpool.   
   
  She wrote from a young age and in 1849 had her first novel about the Scottish Free Church movement, a cause her parents sympathized with, published.  Her next, ‘Caleb Field’, a couple of years later, led to a lifelong association with Blackwood Magazine to which she contributed more than a 100 articles and reviews. 
   
  In May 1852, she married her cousin, Frank Wilson Oliphant, an artist working in stained glass, and settled in Camden, London. Together they had six children but tragically three died in infancy.   
   
  Unfortunately, Frank developed tuberculosis and so they moved in January 1859 to Florence, and then south to Rome, where he died. Margaret was devastated and was left with the burden of supporting herself and their three children.  
   
  She returned to England and with her prolific literary work increased her commercial reputation and the size of her reading audience.  Margaret worked tirelessly to sustain her popularity with her supernatural tales and historical fiction. 
   
  Unfortunately, her family life continued to be fraught with tragedies due to the further death of her one remaining daughter, financial ruin for her alcoholic brother and unfulfilled ambitions for her two sons followed by their deaths in 1890 and 1894.  She had settled in Windsor near Eton where her sons had been educated in 1866 and was buried there following her death on 25th June, 1897. 
   
  Despite the short time she lived in Scotland, much of her writing displays strong connections in terms of settings, themes and its oral tradition.   
   
  Margaret was admired for her range of supernatural tales, which resonated with her fascination for the afterlife and given her own experience, provided a sense of comfort to those grieving.   
   
  She also wrote about the injustice faced by women and evidenced here by her strong tale:- ‘A Story of a Wedding Tour’ describing a young bride deserting her husband for a life that would give her a chance to express her own desires.

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  The Self-Sacrificing Rabbit

  Nicolai Schedrin

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  Nicolai Schedrin was the nom de plume of Michail Saltickov (1826-1889), who was one of the greatest Russian storytellers who dealt with the theme of social ideals and struggles. He was a satirist of great force and remarkable invention. He uses allegories and great wit to lash out at complacency, self-indulgence and the cruelty of administrative powers. In "The Self-Sacrificing Rabbit" Schedrin creates a masterful tale full of barbed sarcasm for those who are too weak to oppose evil.

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  Queer Life Queer Love

  Matt Bates, Golnoosh Nour

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  The anthology comprises 43 stories, non-fiction pieces, flash fiction and poetry, the winning entries from an international competition to capture the best of Queer writing today. This is writing that explores characters, stories and experiences beyond the mainstream. Celebrating the fascinating, the forbidden, the subversive, and even the mundane, but in essence, the view from outside.  The book will be dedicated to the memory of Lucy Reynolds, the trans daughter of Sarah Beal, Publisher at Muswell Press, and niece of co-Publisher Kate Beal. A student, musician and strong advocate of LGBTQI rights, she died in March 2020 at the age of 20.

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  Monkeys on a Fast

  Kaushik Viswanath

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  "Chakku the monkey chieftain decides that the only way for his tribe of monkeys to lose
  weight is by fasting. But can the hungry monkeys really stop eating? Read and listen to
  this story to find out what happens one Ekadasi when Chakku's monkeys decide to fast.
  This wacky tale is adapted from an old Buddhist legend of human nature."

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  Farewell Navigator - Stories

  Leni Zumas

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  “A powerful, irresistible collection” of short stories about outsiders by the bestselling author of Red Clocks (Publishers Weekly).   A teenage boy discovers his blind mother making a pass at his new best friend. A woman works in a factory by day and tends to a menagerie of sick animals by night. An aspiring witch is disillusioned by her spiritual shortcomings. A girl from a town so small it doesn’t exist on any map runs away with a rock band—all the while attempting to chart her way back home.   The odds stacked against them, the lovingly rendered outsiders in these stories find connectedness and redemption in the unlikeliest of circumstances. Even the most surreal and ethereal moments take on a surprising familiarity, and the darkest experiences are imbued with unexpected hope. To become engrossed in Zumas’s world is a strange and beautiful delight.   “Zumas gives socially awkward, mysteriously gifted and self-destructive outcasts spellbinding, unflinching voice in her debut collection. The heroes in this collection are trapped; some are resigned to years of caregiving, many are institutionalized and nearly all haunt the fringes of normalcy (or disregard the normal altogether).” —Publishers Weekly   “Attention unrequited lovers, sisters of suicidal brothers, children of the legally blind: you are not alone. Leni Zumas understands your quiet agony.” —Miranda July, author of No One Belongs Here More Than You

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