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  Top 10 Short Stories The - The...

  Katharine Tynan, Somerville and...

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  Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart.  A few pages can lift our lives into locations, people and experiences with a sweep of landscape, narration, feelings and emotions that is difficult to achieve elsewhere. 
   
  In this series we try to offer up tried and trusted ‘Top Tens’ across many different themes and authors. But any anthology will immediately throw up the questions – Why that story? Why that author?  
   
  The theme itself will form the boundaries for our stories which range from well-known classics, newly told, to stories that modern times have overlooked but perfectly exemplify the theme.  Throughout the volume our authors whether of instant recognition or new to you are all leviathans of literature. 
   
  Some you may disagree with but they will get you thinking; about our choices and about those you would have made.  If this volume takes you on a path to discover more of these miniature masterpieces then we have all gained something. 
   
  The Emerald Isle is home to literary talent on a grand scale.  And amongst their ranks are women of quite extraordinary ability who refuse to take second place to the men.  Their voice is strong, their words beguiling, entrancing but often with a will of iron as they create works of character, of narrative and of quite sumptuous literature.  Genius has many names. 
   
  1 - The Top 10 - The Irish Women - An Introduction 
  2 - A Rich Woman by Katharine Tynan 
  3 - An Irish Problem by Somerville and Ross 
  4 - Extradited by Isabella Valancy Crawford 
  5 - All Souls Eve by Dora Sigerson Shorter 
  6 -  The Ghost at the Wrath by Rosa Mulholland 
  7 - An Outcast of the People by Bithia Mary Croker 
  8 - The Knitted Collar by Mary Anne Hoare 
  9 - The Last of Squire Ennismore by Charlotte Riddell 
  10 - The White Pigeon by Maria Edgeworth 
  11 - Cuchulain of Muirthemne. The Only Son of Aoife by Lady Augusta Gregory

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  The Royal Griffin - The...

  Juliet Dymoke

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  As the younger sister of Henry III, Eleanor's duty is to her brother, her king, her country. 
  Her marriage is in her brother's gift to give, but in Simon de Montfort she meets a man of passion and charisma; a man for whom she is willing to defy convention; a man who harbors great ambition. 
  When de Montfort rallies an army of peasants and barons who object to the king's absolute power, Eleanor finds herself torn between love and loyalty . . . 
  The Royal Griffin is the second in Juliet Dymoke's remarkable Plantagenet series: an epic chronicle of love, heroism, and loyalty which brings to life one of the richest periods in English history: a time of power struggles, revolts, and betrayals.

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  Children and Fire - A Novel

  Ursula Hegi

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  Though more than fifteen years have passed since Ursula Hegi's Stones from the River captivated critics and readers alike, it retains its popularity, is on academic reading lists, and continues to be adopted by book groups.Also set in Burgdorf, Germany, Hegi's Children and Fire tells the story of a single day that will forever transform the lives of the townspeople. At the core of this remarkable novel is the question of how one teacher-gifted and joyful, passionate and inventive-can become seduced by propaganda during the early months of Hitler's regime and encourage her ten-year-old students to join the "Hitler-Jugend" with its hikes and songs and bonfires. Membership, she believes, will be a step toward better schools, better apprenticeships.How can a woman we admire choose a direction we don't admire? So much has changed for the teacher, Thekla Jansen, and the people of Burgdorf in the year since the parliament building burned. Thekla's lover, Emil Hesping, is sure the Nazis did it to frame the communists. But Thekla believes what she hears on the radio, that the communists set the fire, and she's willing to relinquish some of her freedoms to keep her teaching position. She has always taken her moral courage for granted, but when each silent agreement chips away at that courage, she knows she must reclaim it.Hegi funnels pivotal moments in history through the experiences of individual characters: Thekla's mother, who works as a housekeeper for a Jewish family; her employers, Michel and Ilse Abramowitz; Thekla's mentally ill father; Trudi Montag and her father, Leo Montag; Fräulein Siderova, midwife to the dying; and the students who adore their young teacher. As Hegi writes along that edge where sorrow and bliss meet, she shows us how one society-educated, cultural, compassionate-can slip into a reality that's fabricated by propaganda and controlled by fear, how a surge of national unity can be manipulated into the dehumanization of a perceived enemy and the justification of torture and murder.Gorgeously rendered and emotionally taut, Children and Fire confirms Ursula Hegi's position as one of the most distinguished writers of her generation.

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  The White Lion of Norfolk

  Lynda M. Andrews

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  From “an outstanding storyteller,” a historical novel about the duke of Norfolk, who courted the favor of King Henry VIII in his quest for power (Woman’s Weekly).The White Lion of Norfolk is the story of Thomas Howard, Third Duke of Norfolk: a ruthless, unscrupulous man willing even to use his two nieces, Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, as pawns to curry political favour.Amidst the pomp and pageantry of the Royal Court, Howard climbs the greasy pole of ambition, remaining totally subservient to his master, King Henry VIII. His devotion places him at odds with his wife, the daughter of the Duke of Buckingham, who was put to death by the King. It pits him as rival and ally to such men as Cardinal Wolsey, Thomas More and Thomas Cromwell, and leads him perilously close to the unsavoury death many feel his savage cruelty deserves.But will he live to see his great niece, Elizabeth Tudor, become Queen?

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  Now's the Time - A Novel

  Larry Strauss

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  Part mystery, part adventure, completely heart-felt, “Now’s the Time” follows jazz trumpeter Didi Heron as she searches for the lost tape of her father’s last gig before his tragic death. A celebration of family ties and musical legacies, “Now’s the Time” is a meditation on jazz and jazz players. Drawing inspiration from the lives of musical giants, Strauss has created a fictional work rooted in historical fact, jazz rhythms and harmonies and emotional reality.

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  A Bad Place to Die

  Easy Jackson

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  There aren't many options for an 18-year-old girl in the Old West. Especially an orphan like Tennessee Smith. She can either sell her body in a seedy saloon or take her chances as a mail-order bride. Tennie chooses the latter.Joining a wagonload of women across Indian territory, she arrives in the God-forsaken town of Ring Bit, Texas. Her husband-to-be is surprisingly decent. But after tying the knot in a quickie ceremony, he pops even more surprises on her. First, he introduces Tennie to his three young sons. Then he drops dead on their wedding night....Some women would hightail it out of there. Not Tennie. She'll do whatever it takes to save the ranch and raise those boys. Rusty is 13, Lucas is 10, and Badger is six. They need a mother. Tennie needs a job. And the town needs a marshal. Sure, the local gamblers, outlaws, and thieves have no use for the law. Then again, they never met a lawman, or woman, like Tennessee Smith....

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