Publisher: Next Chapter
Nim is a master swimmer floating on waves of wet hope. His penance is to swim and carry, but his heart is held onboard a grieving ship in the aquamarine prison of her eyes. She is his sentence and he is hers. Will a mysterious humanoid jellyfish reunite the star-crossed lovers? This book contains graphic sex and violence, and is not suitable for readers under the age of 18.
This story, by the famous author of Dracula, is about vampires and evil incarnate. The story opens showing a young man finding a young woman he knows behind bars, having been imprisoned and raped. He swears to get her out and the scene cuts to six months earlier. The young man is Bram Stoker and he has a relationship with Admiral Murray's daughter, Elizabeth in Victorian England. He works in a real estate company and has just given his career a boost by finding a home for the firm's new client, Count Dracula. The Admiral is not impressed with Bram and insists he and Elizabeth observe a year's separation to test their love before he'll give his blessing to their marriage. Bram accepts and leaves to begin his year but Elizabeth is rebellious and runs off, presumably to find Bram in Scotland. She gets waylaid by the Count at the train station where he abducts her to his home in Transylvania. Bram's friend Malcolm rushes to find Bram and tell him about the abduction but is caught and killed by Dracula at Stoker's apartment. He had told his business to Mrs. Withen the landlady, before he died so Bram was able to get the information he needed and rushed off to her rescue. He is accosted twice on the road to the Slovak region, once in France and the second time in Germany on Walpurgisnacht. Meanwhile, the Admiral is also on his way to rescue his daughter. We come again to the scene where Bram finds Elizabeth imprisoned in her underground chamber and he then begins a death-defying climb up the side of the mountain to where he can enter the castle. He challenges the Count to a fight in which he is clearly outmatched and when the Count abandons him the Admiral catches up to Bram in the mausoleum. He sends the young man on to find his daughter, while he searches for Dracula. The two older men meet up in front of the dungeon grating shortly after Bram finds Elizabeth and fight. The Admiral wins in spite of taunting by the Count and the scene fades out.Show book
"The Cask of Amontillado" (sometimes spelled "The Casque of Amontillado") is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, first published in the November 1846 issue of Godey's Lady's Book. The story, set in an unnamed Italian city at carnival time in an unspecified year, is about a man taking fatal revenge on a friend who, he believes, has insulted him. Like several of Poe's stories, and in keeping with the 19th-century fascination with the subject, the narrative revolves around a person being buried alive – in this case, by immurement. As in "The Black Cat" and "The Tell-Tale Heart", Poe conveys the story from the murderer's perspective.Show book
Vampires: murderous creatures in the shape of humans, they stalk the night feeding on the blood of innocents. Seemingly immortal, they can be destroyed only by the use of a stake through the heart, severing of their heads, or exposure to sunlight. By the year 12,090 AD. vampires have ruled the Earth for almost three hundred years, and it is only these weaknesses that have kept these foul monsters from totally overrunning the world. But what happens when those rules no longer apply? The village of Tsepesh sits in the eternal shadow of an abandoned castle, a onetime stronghold of the Nobility, the vampire lords who rule the devastated wasteland of the future. Ten years ago four children disappeared while playing near the castle, only to mysteriously reappear a month later. Now vampires have begun to hunt in the daylight. Are the two events connected? The villagers turn to the vampire hunter known only as D, but as he follows the children, now adults, the answers he finds may be more terrifying than anything he could ever imagine.Show book
In the murky depths of familial ties, Craven's world shatters as his parents welcome Leo, an enigmatic 8-year-old wrapped in shadows that whisper of ancient terrors. Leo's unsettling obsession with death and the chilling accidents that shadow his steps plunge Craven into a nightmare of dread, his every instinct screaming of impending doom. As secrets coil like serpents around his family, Craven faces a chilling truth: can humanity withstand the dark legacy that pulses through Leo's very being? Prepare for a bone-chilling descent into the abyss of terror, where every heartbeat echoes with the whispers of malevolence.Show book
2023 First Novel Prize - Winner "What a beautiful, haunting and hued narrative of American living. I’m in love with this story and the way Tyriek White breathes life into these characters." —Jacqueline Woodson, MacArthur Fellow and author of Another Brooklyn A poignant debut for readers of Jesmyn Ward and Jamel Brinkley, We Are a Haunting follows three generations of a working class family and their inherited ghosts: a story of hope and transformation. In 1980’s Brooklyn, Key is enchanted with her world, glowing with her dreams. A charming and tender doula serving the Black women of her East New York neighborhood, she lives, like her mother, among the departed and learns to speak to and for them. Her untimely death leaves behind her mother Audrey, who is on the verge of losing the public housing apartment they once shared. Colly, Key’s grieving son, soon learns that he too has inherited this sacred gift and begins to slip into the liminal space between the living and the dead on his journey to self-realization. In the present, an expulsion from school forces Colly across town where, feeling increasingly detached and disenchanted with the condition of his community, he begins to realize that he must, ultimately, be accountable to the place he is from. After college, having forged an understanding of friendship, kinship, community, and how to foster love in places where it seems impossible, Colly returns to East New York to work toward addressing structural neglect and the crumbling blocks of New York City public housing he was born to; discovering a collective path forward from the wreckages of the past. A supernatural family saga, a searing social critique, and a lyrical and potent account of displaced lives, We Are a Haunting unravels the threads connecting the past, present, and future, and depicts the palpable, breathing essence of the neglected corridors of a pulsing city with pathos and poise.Show book
This is an abridged audiobook of The Picture of Dorian Gray in English. It is intended for intermediate English-language students (CEFR: level B1/B2). This audiobook is a simplified version of the classic story by nineteenth-century playwright and novelist Oscar Wilde (1854-1900). It is abridged and narrated by Gerhard Symons, a native English speaker with a neutral English accent. The audiobook run time is five hours and fifty minutes (350 minutes). The audiobook is enhanced with appropriate sound effects throughout. -- WHAT WOULD YOU DO FOR ETERNAL YOUTH? Victorian London. One afternoon, a beautiful young man is sitting in an artist’s studio. His name is Dorian Gray. He is discussing life in the company of friends. One of his friends convinces him that youth and beauty are the most important things in life. Dorian Gray fears growing old and ugly. He accepts this idea without question, and decides to make a terrible deal with the devil… Every sin that Dorian commits has a cost. Every picture must be seen. Every pleasure that Dorian enjoys has a price. And Dorian will pay a terrible price for eternal youth… © 2023 Three ThrushesShow book
