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  A Rash Experiment

  W. W. Jacobs

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  "When the skipper of HMS Foam agrees to vacate his stateroom when his Mate's wife wants to take a short vacation onboard for a 10-day voyage, he has no idea that his own wife is also planning a surprise holiday on the ship. When the two women arrive, there is an immediate misunderstanding as to the arrangements... and the situation goes from bad to worse as the voyage progresses.The only solution seems to be the mate's cunning plan of faking an outbreak of smallpox onboard, with the aim of persuading the ladies to leave at the next port and take a train home. But this strategy leads to a set of circumstances that the unhappy sailors could not have predicted...."

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  Partridge in Pear Tree A: Twelve...

  Stuart MacBride

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  First story in a collection of interlinked tales of crime and retribution laced with dark humour, set around the festive season 
  Billy Partridge wasn’t really cut out to be a cat burglar, but it was ‘do the job, or come up with thirteen grand by Thursday, or have both legs shattered’. 
  ‘Do the job’ seemed the least worst option. But he’s about to find out just how bad the least worst option can be… 
  Stuart MacBride, the Sunday Times bestselling author, weaves a web of mystery and black humour in this top-rated collection. The hard-boiled fiction stories, filled with thrillers and detective elements, are a testament to MacBride's prowess as a bestselling author. 
  For fans of Ian Rankin (Standing in Another Man's Grave), Mark Billingham (Cry Baby), and Michael Connelly (The Law of Innocence).

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  For the Blood is the Life - A...

  F. Marion Crawford

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  Francis Marion Crawford was born on August 2nd, 1854 at Bagni di Lucca, Italy. An only son and a nephew to Julia Ward Howe, the American poet and writer of ‘The Battle Hymn of the Republic’.  
   
  His education began at St Paul's School, Concord, New Hampshire, then to Cambridge University; University of Heidelberg; and the University of Rome.  
   
  In 1879 Crawford went to India, to study Sanskrit and then edited The Indian Herald. In 1881 he returned to America to continue his Sanskrit studies at Harvard University. 
   
  At this time in Boston he lived at his Aunt Julia house and in the company of his Uncle, Sam Ward. His family was concerned about his employment prospects.  After a singing career as a baritone was ruled out, he was encouraged to write.  
   
  In December 1882 his first novel, ‘Mr Isaacs’, was an immediate hit which was amplified by ‘Dr Claudius’ in 1883.  
   
  In October 1884 he married Elizabeth Berdan. They went on to have two sons and two daughters. 
   
  Encouraged by his excellent start to a literary career he returned to Italy with Elizabeth to make a permanent home, principally in Sant' Agnello, where he bought the Villa Renzi that then became Villa Crawford.  
   
  In the late 1890s, he began to write his historical works: ‘Ave Roma Immortalis’ (1898), ‘Rulers of the South’ (1900) and ‘Gleanings from Venetian History’ (1905). The Saracinesca series is perhaps his best work. ‘Saracinesca’ was followed by ‘Sant’ Ilario’ in 1889, ‘Don Orsino’ in 1892 and ‘Corleone’ in 1897, that being the first major treatment of the Mafia in literature.  
   
  Francis Marion Crawford died at Sorrento on Good Friday 1909 at Villa Crawford of a heart attack.  
   
  Set in Italy, ‘For Blood is the Life’ draws us into a world usually beyond our senses.  With Crawford’s pen the uneasy, horrific world of vampires is now upon us.

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  Classic Short Stories - Volume...

  Sapper, Jerome K. Jerome

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  Stories are one of mankind’s greatest artistic achievements.  Whether written down or spoken they have an ability to capture our imagination and thoughts, and take us on incredible journeys in the space of a phrase and the turn of a page. 
   
  Within a few words of text or speech, new worlds and characters form, propelling a narrative to a conclusion with intricate ease. Finely crafted, perfectly formed these Miniature Masterpieces, at first thought, seem remarkably easy to conjure up. But ask any writer and they will tell you that distilling the essence of narrative and characters into a short story is one of the hardest acts of their literary craft.  Many attempt, but few achieve.

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  The Peddler

  Channing Whitaker

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  When Andrew bought a carved figure from The Peddler, he thought he was doing the old man a favor. When three violent criminals came to give his shop a shakedown, he realized it was the other way around. 
  In this fantasy, horror novelette, a luscious, green park stands as a beacon of thriving life in the midst of a fledgling city where criminals run rampant. The police are either helpless, ignorant, or criminals themselves. 
  Between the park and the city sits The Peddler, a blind hermit who whittles remarkably lifelike figurines of history's bravest warriors—miniature statues that seem to find their way to the victims of the city's injustices. Does fate favor the innocent? Or is there more to The Peddler and his carvings… 
  The Peddler is the third in an anthology series of stand-alone short works of spec-fiction called Black Band Shorts.

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  Hikayat - Short Stories by...

  Roseanne Saad Khalaf

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  From Lebanon's golden age, through years of civil conflict and its aftermath, these women offer a captivating portrait of a country in flux. Well-known authors such as Emily Nasarallah, Hanan al-Shaykh and Alawiya Sobh, alongside newer voices, share he desire to push boundaries, tackling subjects from the crippling effects of war in past decades, through longing for romantic adventures in a conservative society, to the functioning of families across the divides of emigration and generational conflict. The characters in these stories are on the brink of something - whether it be religious or social divides, or sexual awakening. The language reflects the great tension, and the great beauty in their transformation. And the collection as a whole reveals the rich diversity of the complex multi-cultural society out of which these stories have emerged. 'In turn lyrical, sensuous, comic and ironic ... rare and fascinating ...' Independent 'Some truly insightful, engaging work ...' New Statesman

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