Publisher: Booklassic
Three months after the events in Africa Lee Bentley and Ellen Estabrook are back in New York--and so is Professor Barter, who is not dead, but is very much alive and equipped with heat and disintegrator rays, a far viewer, and brain implants that permit long-distance hypnotic control.
This collection of fantasy short stories are from the three winners of Remastered Words 2019 audio anthology, including a tale from Jonathan Green with ‘Who Walks with Death’ which was first published in “Legend”, an anthology released in 2013 in honour of David Gemmell. Once again a theme has developed when there were none prescribed and each story follows a significant journey in the life of its protagonist. Whatever the direction though and wherever the roads may lead, you’ll be glad of a warm fire and comfy chair whilst the fabled journey plays out.Show book
From the acclaimed author of ‘A Father’s Story’: A boy looks to the Catholic Church for understanding as his family weathers two failed marriages.Voices from the Moon opens amidst the fallout of Stowe family patriarch Greg’s divorce from his wife, Joan; and shortly after, that of their eldest son, Larry, from his wife, Brenda. On the verge of adolescence, young Richie Stowe grapples to make sense of these events and their consequences, and seeks solace in the church. As the family attempts to mend itself and move forward, its members are forced to reconcile their feelings of betrayal with their enduring love for one another. Masterfully related from the alternating perspectives of its six main characters, Dubus’s richly drawn novella recounts a family’s failure to abide by those laws divined and decreed, and its path to redemption via understanding and forgiveness. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Andre Dubus including rare photos and never-before-seen documents from the author’s estate.Show book
William Pett Ridge was born at Chartham, near Canterbury, Kent, on 22nd April 1859. His family’s resources were certainly limited. His father was a railway porter, and the young Pett Ridge, after schooling in Marden, Kent became a clerk in a railway clearing-house. The hours were long and arduous, but self-improvement was Pett Ridge’s goal. After working from nine until seven o’clock he would attend evening classes at Birkbeck Literary and Scientific Institute and then to follow his passion; the ambition to write. He was heavily influenced by Dickens and several critics thought he had the capability to be his successor. From 1891 many of his humorous sketches were published in the St James's Gazette, the Idler, Windsor Magazine and other literary periodicals of the day. Pett Ridge published his first novel in 1895, A Clever Wife. By the advent of his fifth novel, Mord Em'ly, a mere three years later in 1898, his success was obvious. His writing was written from the perspective of those born with no privilege and relied on his great talent to find humor and sympathy in his portrayal of working class life. Today Pett Ridge and other East End novelists including Arthur Nevinson, Arthur Morrison, and Edwin Pugh are being grouped together as the Cockney Novelists. In 1924, Pugh set out his recollections of Pett Ridge from the 1890s: “I see him most clearly, as he was in those days, through a blue haze of tobacco smoke. We used sometimes to travel together from Waterloo to Worcester Park on our way to spend a Saturday afternoon and evening with H. G. Wells. Pett Ridge does not know it, but it was through watching him fill his pipe, as he sat opposite me in a stuffy little railway compartment, that I completed my own education as a smoker”. With his success, on the back of his prolific output and commercial success, Pett Ridge gave generously of both time and money to charity. In 1907 he founded the Babies Home at Hoxton. This was one of several organizations that he supported that had the welfare of children as their mission. His circle considered Pett Ridge to be one of life's natural bachelors. In 1909 they were rather surprised therefore when he married Olga Hentschel. As the 1920s arrived Pett Ridge added to his popularity with the movies. Four of his books were adapted into films. Pett Ridge now found the peak of his fame had passed. Although he still managed to produce a book a year he was falling out of fashion and favor with the reading public and his popularity declined rapidly. His canon runs to over sixty novels and short-story collections as well as many pieces for magazines and periodicals. William Pett Ridge died, on 29th September 1930, at his home, Ampthill, Willow Grove, Chislehurst, at the age of 71. He was cremated at West Norwood on 2nd October 1930.Show book
He is dead. Life is just about to begin. Torn, bleeding and dying, from the battlefields of France, Calin Sheridan finds himself back in London. But while the city remains familiar, war has changed him in ways he couldn't imagine. This working class lad turned soldier, finds himself in the lap of luxury, but do the palatial trappings hide a more sinister and deadly world. Can he control his new primal urges and find a way back, or is his old life and love lost to him forever? An exciting standalone origin story from the Dark Creatures saga.Show book
Traumatised by dreams and visions about the unassuming chest under the window in her bedroom, Catherine Lestrange demands it be opened; but what is found inside has the power to change her future as well as her reveal her past.Catherine’s Quest is taken from the second volume of the Victorian Anthologies “Horror” series, featuring short stories by classic writers of the spooky, the scary and the supernatural. Guaranteed to give you the shivers, each collection includes familiar and loved creepy tales as well as those less well-known. With music by Benedict Edwards.Show book
Mary Rackham was born in Norwich on 14th August 1848 to a merchant family. Little is known of her early life and her biography only re-appears in September 1871 with marriage to Fairman Joseph Mann, a farmer with 800 acres. Mary moved to Shropham, Norfolk and became involved with the workhouse, visiting the sick and other unfortunates of the parish, her observations and experiences a valuable source for her later stories. She took up writing, partly to offset the dreary village life of her surroundings, in the 1880s and published her first novel, ‘The Parish of Hilby’ (1883) at her own expense. It was well received by the critics. Thus began a career that spanning three decades provided thirty-three novels, hundreds of short stories, and fourteen plays. Her work was largely focused on rural life in Norfolk and centered on the fictional town of Dulditch, with grim but authentic accounts of poverty and deprivation. Her marriage produced one boy and three girls. With her husband's death in 1913, she moved to Sheringham. She is regarded as a major contributor to East Anglian literature with particular praise given to her short stories. Mary E Mann died on 19th May 1929. She was 80. Her grave-marker is a carved open book with the epitaph ‘We bring our years to an end, as if it were a tale that is told’. Life in ‘Ben Pitcher's Elly’ is degrading, awful and unvarnished. The chances of this young girl having a happy life are remote but her story must be heard.Show book
