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  The Date - A short crime fiction...

  Rachel Amphlett

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  Lucy and Michael keep a regular lunch date, but their rendezvous hides a twisted secret that neither wants to share… 
   
  The Date forms part of the Case Files series of short crime stories from USA Today bestselling author Rachel Amphlett. 
   
  Listen to the Case Files: short crime fiction stories podcast on all major streaming services. Find out more at shortcrimestories.com.

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  A Rich Woman - From their pens...

  Katharine Tynan

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  Katharine Tynan was born on 23rd January 1859 into a large family in Clondalkin, County Dublin. 
  The family business was cattle rearing and the farmhouse, set with the mountains for a backdrop, was a wonderful world for a young mind to learn and imagine. 
  She was educated at the convent school, St Catherine of Sienna, in Drogheda.  A stubborn streak inhibited her ability to learn as easily as the school wished. However she did learn on her own terms and soon began to take her ‘forbidden literature’, hidden in her clothing, to her loft in a stable hideaway.  
  Until she turned seventeen nothing appeared to point to a literary career.  But some verse printed in a Dublin newspaper changed everything. It led to a sonnet being printed in the Spectator.  Thereafter the Graphic published several others and even paid a half guinea for the privilege.   
  In 1884 Katharine dispatched herself to London and made an abiding friendship in Alice Meynell.  Alice was an established poet and helped, with her husband Wilfred, to publish many poets. The following year it was arranged for the publication of her first poetry volume, ‘Louise de la Vallière’.  
  She formed valuable friendships with the poets Gerard Manley Hopkins, William Butler Yeats and later Francis Ledwidge.  
  As she gathered friends and contacts into her life her literary output began to gather pace. Katharine had begun to write prose for the Speaker and for the Scots and National Observer.  
  In 1892 she married Henry Albert Hinkson, a fellow writer and a barrister.  They moved to England and had five children although two were to tragically die in infancy.   
  By now her output was prolific and ranged from poetry to novels to short stories.  It would later include a biography and further extend to editing and reviewing.   
  In 1912 the family returned to Claremorris, County Mayo, when her husband was appointed magistrate, a post he held until his early death in 1919.     
  Tynan is sometimes grouped amongst the War Poets of the First World War. Her experience was not direct but as a Mother with one son serving in France and another in Palestine, the emotions, fears and doubts are expressed in a beautiful and heart-felt way.  
  Involved in the Irish Literary Revival, Tynan expressed concern for feminist causes, the poor, and the effects of World War I in her work. She also meditated on her Catholic faith. 
  She is said to have written over 100 novels, 12 collections of short stories, plays and many volumes of enduring poetry as well as five volumes of autobiography. 
  Katharine Tynan Hinkson died at age 72 on 2nd April 1931 in London and is buried in Kensal Green Cemetery.

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  The Short Stories of Kenneth...

  Kenneth Grahame

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  Kenneth Grahame was born on 8th March 1859 in Edinburgh. 
   
  At age 5 his mother succumbed to puerperal fever.  His father, who had a drinking problem, now sent his 4 children to live with their grandmother at her large house in Cookham, Berkshire. Here the children lived in large open grounds next to the river.  These early experiences would in later years, be retold in his writing through a myriad of characters. 
   
  Grahame loved being a pupil at St Edward's School, Oxford and wanted to enroll at the university there but his guardian demurred on account of the cost. 
   
  Instead, a banking career was chosen for him, starting in 1879 at the Bank of England, where he rose steadily to the rank of its Secretary until retiring, with a pension, in 1908 due to ill health. 
   
  Alongside his commercial career Grahame had written and published various stories and essays in several periodicals. Some were anthologized as ‘Pagan Papers’ in 1893, and two years later ‘The Golden Age’ and later still ‘Dream Days’ and its masterpiece ‘The Reluctant Dragon’ became part of many home libraries.  His ability to view life through the lens of a young and curious child was superb, enabling the reader to easily identify with the character.   
   
  Grahame married Elspeth Thomson in 1899 and they had one child; Alastair, born semi-blind and plagued by health problems.  In a heart-rending tragedy he would later take his own life whilst attending Oxford University in 1920.   
   
  In 1908 Grahame reworked many of the bedtime stories he had fashioned for his son into the enduring favourite; ‘The Wind in the Willows’, describing the heart-warming adventures of Mr Toad and his friends.   
   
  Kenneth Grahame died in Pangbourne, Berkshire, on 6th July 1932. 
  01 - Kenneth Grahame - A Short Story Collection - An Introduction 
  02 - A Saga of the Seas by Kenneth Grahame 
  03 - Dies Irae by Kenneth Grahame 
  04 - The Magic Ring by Kenneth Grahame 
  05 - Mutabile Semper by Kenneth Grahame 
  06 - The Inquity of Oblivion by Kenneth Grahame

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  Hot Milk - Suffragette author...

  V F Friedlaender

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  The bookshelves of European literature are incredible collections that have gathered together centuries of very talented authors.  From this continent their fame spread and whilst among their number many are now forgotten or neglected their talents endure.  Among them is Grazia Deledda.

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  Son of a Vampire - A Dark...

  Ella Stone

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  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.

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  Top 10 Short Stories The - The...

  Mikhail Bulgakov, Franz Kafka, D...

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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. 
   
  In this decade Europe is recovering from the Great War yet already the poisonous seeds for the next, even greater calamity, are taking root.  Our literary leviathans bring tales of pain and heartache, sorrow and humanity into every narrative.  Genius has many names. 
   
  1 - The Top 10 - The 1920's - The Europeans - An Introduction 
  2 - Morphine by Mikhail Bulgakov 
  3 - A Hunger Artist by Franz Kafka 
  4 - The Horse Dealer's Daughter by D H Lawrence 
  5 - Twilight Alley by Stefan Zweig 
  6 - The Tale Of The Stairs by Hristo Smirenski 
  7 - The Imbecile by Luigi Pirandello 
  8 - My First Goose by Isaac Babel 
  9 - The Loathly Opposite by John Buchan 
  10 - Vampire's Prey by Hanns Heinz Ewers 
  11 - Rhapsody by Dorothy Edwards

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