Publisher: Krill Press
William Murray Graydon (1864-1946) was extremely prolific American writer for the juvenile market, Graydon moved to England around 1898, where he continued to write for the British story papers.
A tragicomic novel of a father and son coping with China’s Cultural Revolution, from “a true literary talent” (Anchee Min, author of Empress Orchid). Winner of the Man Asian Literary Prize In a peaceful village, it has been officially proven that Ku is not, as was once believed, the son of a revolutionary martyr, but the issue of a river pirate and a prostitute. Mocked by his neighbors, Ku leaves the shore for a new life among the boat people. But refusing to renounce his high status, he—along with his teenage son—keeps his distance from the gossipy lowlifes who surround him. Then one day a feral girl, Huixian, arrives looking for her mother. The boat people, and especially Ku’s son, take her into their hearts. But Huixian sows conflict wherever she goes, and soon the boy is in the grip of an obsession. Raw, emotional, and unerringly funny, this is a story of a people caught in the stranglehold not only of their own desires and needs, but also of a Party that sees everything and forgives nothing.Show book
It's 1949 when Netta's father Max is released from a Siberian POW camp and returns to his home in occupied Germany. But he is not the man the little girl is expecting – the brave, handsome doctor her mother Erika told her stories of. Erika too struggles to reconcile this withdrawn, volatile figure with the husband she knew and loved before, and, as she strives to break through the wall Max has built around himself, Netta is both frightened and jealous of this interloper in the previously cosy household she shared with her mother and doting grandparents. Now, if family life isn't tough enough, it is about to get even tougher, when a murder sparks a police investigation, which begins to unearth dark secrets they all hoped had been forgotten.Show book
There aren't many options for an 18-year-old girl in the Old West. Especially an orphan like Tennessee Smith. She can either sell her body in a seedy saloon or take her chances as a mail-order bride. Tennie chooses the latter.Joining a wagonload of women across Indian territory, she arrives in the God-forsaken town of Ring Bit, Texas. Her husband-to-be is surprisingly decent. But after tying the knot in a quickie ceremony, he pops even more surprises on her. First, he introduces Tennie to his three young sons. Then he drops dead on their wedding night....Some women would hightail it out of there. Not Tennie. She'll do whatever it takes to save the ranch and raise those boys. Rusty is 13, Lucas is 10, and Badger is six. They need a mother. Tennie needs a job. And the town needs a marshal. Sure, the local gamblers, outlaws, and thieves have no use for the law. Then again, they never met a lawman, or woman, like Tennessee Smith....Show book
A collection of Wallace Stevens poems written before 1923.These poems originally appeared in a variety of magazines (Others, Rogue, The Soil, The Modern School, Broom, Contact, The New Republic, The Measure, The Little Review, The Dial, and particularly in Poetry: A Magazine of Verse.) Nearly 70 of the 101 published poems were later collected in Stevens' first published collection of poems, Harmonium. (Summary by Alan Davis Drake & Ruth Golding)Proof-listening by Winston Tharp, Hanna1990 and Ruth Golding.Volume 1 of this collection may be found at http://librivox.org/the-complete-public-domain-poems-of-wallace-stevens-volume-1-of-2/.Show book
Longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel PrizeFifteen-year-old Mattie Lee Watson dreams of men, not boys. So when James T. Cullowee, the Kudzu King, arrives in Cooper County, North Carolina, in 1941 to spread the gospel of kudzu—claiming that it will improve the soil, feed cattle at almost no cost, even cure headaches—Mattie is ready. Mr. Cullowee is determined to sell the entire county on the future of kudzu, and organizes a kudzu festival, complete with a beauty pageant. Mattie is determined to be crowned Kudzu Queen and capture the attentions of the Kudzu King. As she learns more about Cullowee, however, she discovers that he, like the kudzu he promotes, has a dark and predatory side. When she finds she is not the only one threatened, she devises a plan to bring him down. Based on historical facts, The Kudzu Queen unravels a tangle of sexuality, power, race, and kudzu through the voice of an irresistibly delightful (and mostly honest) narrator.Show book
Powerful, prosperous, and expanding ever farther into the untamed world, the Roman Empire has reached its zenith under the rule of the beloved Emperor Trajan. But neither Trajan nor his reign can last forever...Brash and headstrong, Vix is a celebrated ex-gladiator returned to Rome to make his fortune. The sinuous, elusive Sabina is a senator's daughter who craves adventure. Sometimes lovers, sometimes enemies, Vix and Sabina are united by their devotion to Trajan. Trajan's ambitious Empress has her own plans for Sabina. And the aristocratic Hadrian-the Empress's ruthless protégé and Vix's mortal enemy-has ambitions he confesses to no one, ambitions rooted in a secret prophecy.When Trajan falls, the hardened soldier, the enigmatic empress, the adventurous girl, and the scheming politician will all be caught in a deadly whirlwind of desire and death that may seal their fates, and that of the entire Roman Empire...Show book
