Other books that might interest you

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  Antarctica - Stories

  Claire Keegan

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  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.

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  Walking on Cowrie Shells - Stories

  Nana Nkweti

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  In her powerful, genre-bending debut story collection, Nana Nkweti's virtuosity is on full display as she mixes deft realism with clever inversions of genre. In the Caine Prize finalist story "It Takes a Village, Some Say," Nkweti skewers racial prejudice and the practice of international adoption, delivering a sly tale about a teenage girl who leverages her adoptive parents to fast-track her fortunes. In "The Devil Is a Liar," a pregnant pastor's wife struggles with the collision of western Christianity and her mother's traditional Cameroonian belief system as she worries about her unborn child. 
   
   
   
  In other stories, Nkweti vaults past realism, upending genre expectations in a satirical romp about a jaded PR professional trying to spin a zombie outbreak in West Africa, and in a mermaid tale about a Mami Wata who forgoes her power by remaining faithful to a fisherman she loves. In between these two ends of the spectrum there's everything from an aspiring graphic novelist at a comic con to a murder investigation driven by statistics to a story organized by the changing hairstyles of the main character. 
   
   
   
  A dazzling, inventive debut, Walking on Cowrie Shells announces the arrival of a superlative new voice.

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  Buried Frozen plus You Are the...

  A. J. Payler

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  What's buried beneath the frozen ground… will change his world forever 
  The only thing that made those seemingly unending days in prison bearable was knowing what was waiting for him on the outside, buried deep in the frozen ground where she'd sworn to leave his share of the loot. 
  And after years of isolation, all he has to do is dig it up, rejoin her, and get back to the life that's rightfully his.  
  But even the best laid plans oft go awry. And sure, they'd never claimed to be the best of the best, but still… he never could have imagined what he'd find waiting for him, cold and dark at the bottom of that hole. 
  From A. J. Payler, author of The Killing Song, Bank Error in Your Favor, and Terror Next Door comes Buried, Frozen—a story of the terror that lies at the heart of the human condition and the fear that creeps in the darkest, coldest hours of the night. 
    
  Also featuring bonus story, You Are the Protagonist (as seen in Flash in a Flash)! 
  As originally published in Dead of Winter: 13 Tales of Winter Terror (M Presents, January 31, 2024) and Flash in a Flash (May 13, 2024).

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  When Trying to Return Home -...

  Jennifer Maritza McCauley

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  Profoundly moving and powerful, the stories in this collection dig deeply into the question of belonging. A young woman is torn between overwhelming love for her mother and the need to break free from her damaging influence during a desperate and disastrous attempt to rescue her brother from foster care. A man, his wife, and his mistress each confront the borders separating love and hate, obligation and longing, on the eve of a flight to San Juan. A college student grapples with the space between chivalry and machismo in a tense encounter involving a nun. And in 1930s Louisiana, a woman attempting to find a place to call her own chances upon an old friend at a bar and must reckon with her troubled past. Forming a web of desires and consequences that span generations, Jennifer Maritza McCauley’s Black American and Afro–Puerto Rican characters remind us that these voices have always been here, occupying the very center of American life—even if we haven’t always been willing to listen.

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  Love Me Merrily - An Atheist...

  Alyssa Jarrett

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  They don’t believe in Christmas magic—until they make their own 
  Summer McKenzie hates the holidays. Maybe it’s because she’s an atheist who’s never had a reason for the season. Maybe it’s burnout from working at the second-best hotel in Yosemite National Park. Or maybe it’s because nothing has felt truly festive since she lost the love of her life in a climbing accident. 
  Still, even Scrooges have to do their jobs, and this year, Summer is determined to nab a promotion to sales director by throwing Granite Grove Lodge’s merriest masquerade yet. She’s not expecting anyone to get her out of her bah-humbug funk. She definitely isn’t expecting John Beecher. 
  With his punk-rock aesthetic and graphic designer’s eye, John’s talented at many tasks: creating seating charts, painting stunning landscapes, and helping out in a pinch. He’s also a fellow heathen who understands her grief in a way no one else has. As one party-planning catastrophe after another brings them closer, Summer starts to feel something she never thought she’d feel again: hope. 
  In the final days before Christmas, they fall for each other like a surprise Sierra Nevada snowstorm—hard, fast, and totally unplanned. Sweet, spicy, and full of heart, Love Me Merrily is a holiday novella for anyone who’s ever found joy in unexpected places and love on their own terms.

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  The Story of Room 03

  Katarina Ranković

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  Based on a true event, The Story of Room 03 tells of a fraught encounter between an artist and a haughty exhibition space in a former Georgian home in East London. With only 10 days to go until the scheduled art exhibition, artist and room cannot see eye to eye on creative matters and risk having nothing to show to the public. With the artist's reputation, the room's dignity, and the visitor's satisfaction at stake, unlikely intimacies develop between the three in this love letter to making room.

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