Other books that might interest you

• 

  The Confessions - Companion to...

  Tiffany Reisz

  • 0
  • 1
  • 0

  Three Sinners. Three confessions. And all the dirty little secrets you could possibly desire…Father Stuart Ballard has been Marcus Stearns’ confessor since the young Jesuit was only eighteen years old. He thought he’d heard every sin the boy had to confess until Marcus uttered those three fateful words: “I met Eleanor.”So begins the 40-page “The Confession of Marcus Stearns,” a moving coda to the RITA® Award-winning Original Sinners series. Originally published as a limited-edition paperback for the 2014 RT Booklovers' Convention, and available worldwide for the first time.This collection also includes “The Confession of Eleanor Schreiber,” a companion 36-page story written exclusively for this book.And, finally, all secrets are revealed in “The Confession of Tiffany Reisz,” an exclusive, in-depth interview.

  Show book

• 

  Ripples

  Eva Seyler

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Alice Rothmann has been content with her quiet, ordinary life in Oxford with her quiet, ordinary husband. But when he dies suddenly, she finds herself adrift and lonely, and before she knows it she's deeply attracted to her neighbour, George Graham.  
  There's only one hitch: George is married to Alice's best friend... 
  [Note to readers: While this is a standalone companion novella to The War in Our Hearts, this work does contain a major spoiler for The War in Our Hearts.]

  Show book

• 

  Better Dead - From their pens to...

  J M Barrie

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, OM, was born in Kirriemuir, Angus on 9th May, 1860.  
  Barrie knew from an early age that he wished to be an author. His family wished otherwise. The compromise was that he would attend university to study literature at the University of Edinburgh. He graduated with an M.A. in April, 1882. 
  His first job was as a staff journalist for the Nottingham Journal. The London editor of the St. James's Gazette "liked that Scotch thing" in Barrie’s work and he wrote several stories for them and later several novels based on his mother’s early life.  
  Barrie though was increasingly drawn to working in the theatre.  His first plays achieved little attention but in 1901 and 1902, Barrie had back-to-back theatre successes with Quality Street and The Admirable Crichton. 
  The character of ‘Peter Pan’ first appeared in The Little White Bird in 1902. This most famous and enduring of his works; Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up had its first stage performance on December 27th, 1904.  
  Peter Pan would overshadow all his other works.  But his short stories cannot be overlooked.  Indeed, from today’s vantage point they are excellent gems of social manners, of class and the way characters, sometimes in the most mundane of circumstances, react in the most surprising of ways.

  Show book

• 

  His Wife's Deceased Sister -...

  Frank R Stockton

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Frank Richard Stockton was born in Philadelphia on 5th April 1834.  
  His father, a Methodist minister, discouraged Stockton’s literary career from an early age.  Feeling unable to go against those wishes it was for many years that Stockton’s income was maintained as a wood engraver.   
  His first work was published in 1867 and his first collection only appeared in 1870.  Despite this late arrival Stockton’s innovative and often far-fetched stories, with a gentle ‘poking fun’ humour were very popular.  Like his contemporary Mark Twain he avoided the scolding, hectoring and moral tones of many other authors and instead gently teased and cajoled his reader to open their eyes to the ills, the greed and the ambitions of the world around them.  His sci-fi stories in particular were far-seeing and inventive including a tale of negative gravity and a bloodless Anglo-US war won by technological feats.  
  Perhaps his most enduring tale though is ‘The Lady, or the Tiger?’ from 1882.  A condemned man is given a choice of being eaten alive or marrying his princess lover.  But he has to choose which door each is behind. 
  Frank R Stockton died in Washington, DC, on 20th April 1902, of a cerebral haemorrhage.  He is buried at The Woodlands in Philadelphia.

  Show book

• 

  Antarctica - Stories

  Claire Keegan

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  The compassionate, witty, and unsettling short stories collected here announced Claire Keegan as one of Ireland's most exciting and versatile new talents and earned comparison to the works of Joyce Carol Oates, Alison Lurie, Raymond Carver, and others. From the titular story about a married woman who takes a trip to the city with a single purpose in mind—to sleep with another man—Antarctica draws listeners into a world of obsession, betrayal, and fragile relationships. 
   
   
    
  In "Love in the Tall Grass," Cordelia wakes on the last day of the twentieth century and sets off along the coast road to keep a date, with her lover, that has been nine years in the waiting. In "Passport Soup," Frank Corso mourns the curious disappearance of his nine-year-old daughter and tries desperately to reach out to his shattered wife who has gone mad with grief. Throughout the collection, Keegan's characters inhabit a world where dreams, memory, and chance can have crippling consequences for those involved. 
   
   
    
  A Los Angeles Times Best Book of 2001, and recipient of the prestigious Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, the William Trevor Prize, Antarctica is a rare and arresting debut.

  Show book

• 

  Dies Irae - From their pens to...

  Kenneth Grahame

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  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.

  Show book