Publisher: Charles River Editors
Chios Classics brings literature's greatest works back to life for new generations. All our books contain a linked table of contents. Flatland is a satirical novella written by Edwin A. Abbott. The book is famous for equating a two-dimensional world to Victorian culture.
There might be gold in them thar hills, but curmudgeonly San Francisco business tycoon Caden Caldwell treks to Alaska in a fit of rage looking for his free-spirited son, Colt, who has struck out for the Klondike Gold Rush. What Caden finds is something else altogether. Orphaned children. Wayward women. Quirky prospectors. Tlingit Indians. Isolated with this motley crew when early winter weather hits, he has no choice but to re-evaluate his life in ways that terrify yet intrigue him. Will he ever be the same? Does he want to be? There is hope that Caden Caldwell might strike it rich in ways he never imagined.Show book
Finalist for the National Book Award: “A family saga in the manner of Gabriel García Márquez,” set in Puerto Rico, from an extraordinary storyteller (The New York Times Book Review). This riveting, multigenerational epic tells the story of two families and the history of Puerto Rico through the eyes of Isabel Monfort and her husband, Quintín Mendizabal. Isabel attempts to immortalize their now-united families—and, by extension, their homeland—in a book. The tale that unfolds in her writing has layers upon layers, exploring the nature of love, marriage, family, and Puerto Rico itself. Weaving the intimate with the expansive on a teeming stage, Ferré crafts a revealing self-portrait of a man and a woman, two fiercely independent people searching for meaning and identity. As Isabel declares: “Nothing is true, nothing is false, everything is the color of the glass you’re looking through.” A book about freeing oneself from societal and cultural constraints, The House on the Lagoon also grapples with bigger issues of life, death, poverty, and racism. Mythological in its breadth and scope, this is a masterwork from an extraordinary storyteller.Show book
The Stantons and the Nortons were families in the truest, oldest sense: extended networks of kin stretching across the mountains, everyone within hiking distance. They'd come from the British Isles and settled in the Appalachians of North Carolina during the 1700s, bringing with them their dearly loved songs and their clannish ways, their ties to the land ultimately becoming as strong as their ties to one another." "So when Larkin Stanton is left parentless at birth in the 1840s, he is taken in by his cousin Arty Norton and, true to the family way, starts singing before he starts talking. As Larkin grows up, he hungrily learns every song he can, as well as the subtleties of ballad singing: how the songs are about the joys and the horrors of life, and how the best singers can produce a song that will summon tears. Going head-to-head with Arty's brother, Hackley, the cousins' competitions to produce the finest song soon spill over into the wooing of the finest girl in the community, Mary." When Hackley wins Mary and then leaves to fight in the Civil War, Larkin, still too young to enlist, finds himself uncontrollably drawn to the woman who's held his heart for years. What he does about that love defies all he has learned about family and loyalty - and reminds us that these mournful ballads didn't come just from the imagination, but from imperfections of the heart.Show book
August 1939. Roger Miller and Jack O’Brien have been close since childhood. By the time they realize there’s more between them than friendship, Jack is leaving their sleepy Iowa town for college. But they console themselves knowing he’ll be home for Christmas. Right?It is Christmas before they see each other again, but that Christmas comes six years and a world war later. Aged, beaten, and shaken by combat, they’re not the boys they were back then, but their feelings for each other are stronger than ever.Neither know the words to say everything they’ve carried since that peacetime summer kiss, though. Even as they stand in the same room, there’s a thousand miles between them.But maybe that’s some distance the little angel in Roger’s rucksack can cross.This novella is part of the multi-author Christmas Angel series and can be listened to as a stand-alone.Show book
Lynn Taylor and his kid brother Frank have landed on the wrong side of a corrupt lawman. Frank's been framed for murder, and it's up to Lynn to make sure his brother doesn't end up guest of dishonor at a hanging party. Lynn's got a plan, but it means going outlaw himself, and if he's caught, it'll be his neck on the line. Catch the snap of a whip and the crack of a Colt .45 as the audio version of Death Waits at Sundown delivers non-stop Wild West action.Show book
From the author of the bestselling Seven Sisters series, Lucinda Riley's The Light Behind the Window crosses from World War Two to present day on a breathtaking and intense story of love, war and, above all, forgiveness.Read by Miranda Raison (Lessons in Chemistry)The present: Emilie de la Martiniéres has always fought against her aristocratic background but, after the death of her glamorous, distant mother, she finds herself alone in the world – and sole inheritor of her grand childhood home in the south of France. An old notebook of poems leads her in search of the mysterious and beautiful Sophia, whose tragic love affair changed the course of her family history. As Emilie unravels the story, she too embarks on her own journey of discovery, realizing that the château may provide clues to her own difficult past and finally unlock her future.The past: London 1943. A young office clerk, Constance Carruthers, is drafted into a special operations team, arriving in occupied Paris during the climax of the conflict. Separated from her contact in her very first hours in France, she stumbles into the heart of a wealthy family who are caught up in a deadly game of secrets and lies. Forced to surrender her identity and all ties to her homeland and her beloved husband, Constance finds herself drawn into a complex web of deception, the repercussions of which will affect generations to come . . .'A fast-paced, suspenseful story flitting between the present day and World War II . . . Brilliant escapism' – RedThis title has been published outside the UK under the title The Lavender Garden.Show book
