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  The Sphinx Without a Secret -...

  Oscar Wilde

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  Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was born on the 16th October 1854 in Dublin, Ireland.  The son of Dublin intellectuals Oscar proved himself an outstanding classicist at Trinity College and then at Oxford. 
  Wilde then moved to London and its fashionable cultural and social circles.  With his biting wit, flamboyant dress, and glittering conversation, Wilde became one of the most well-known personalities of his day. 
  His only novel, ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ was published in 1890 and he then moved on to writing for the stage with ‘Salome’ in 1891.  His society comedies were enormous hits and turned him into one of the most successful writers of late Victorian London. 
  Whilst his masterpiece, ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’, was on stage in London, Wilde had the Marquess of Queensberry, the father of his lover, Lord Alfred Douglas, prosecuted for libel.  The trial unearthed evidence that caused Wilde to drop his charges and led to his own arrest and trial for gross indecency. He was convicted and imprisoned for two years hard labour. It was to break him. 
  On release he left for France. There he wrote his last work, ‘The Ballad of Reading Gaol’ in 1898.  He died destitute in Paris at the age of forty-six sipping champagne a friend had brought with the line ‘Alas I am dying beyond my means’.

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  The Murder in Saltashe Woods -...

  Baroness Orczy

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  Emma Magdolna Rozália Mária Jozefa Borbála Orczy de Orci, or more familiarly, Baroness Emmuska Orczy, was born on the 23rd September 1865, in Tarnaörs, Heves County, Hungary. 
  The family lived in their ancestral home; a great, rambling farmhouse on the river Tarna.  Orczy’s memories of the time were of sophisticated parties, sparkling conversation, joyful dancing and gypsy music.  But fear of a peasant uprising meant moving to Budapest and then many years of semi-nomadic travels across Europe. 
  Arriving in London in 1880 Orczy, aged 15, studied painting and, a few years later, had some pictures exhibited at the Royal Academy. 
  London, she now felt, was home, her spiritual birthplace.  
  Art school also provided a husband; the young illustrator, Montague Barstow, the son of an English clergyman.  
  Determined to prove herself as a writer she plunged headlong into a writing career shortly after her son’s birth.  In a mere five weeks she wrote the adventure classic ‘The Scarlet Pimpernel’.  Originally rejected, she re-worked it as a successful play.  It was then published as a best-selling book in 1905 and later a very successful movie.   
  Politically Orczy was a conservative with an unwavering belief in the superiority of the aristocracy and of the British Empire.  During World War I, she formed the Women of England's Active Service League, tasked with recruiting female volunteers "to persuade every man I know to offer his service to his country".   
  In the coming years the family lived on an estate in Kent, in a tasteful London home and an extravagant villa in Monte Carlo.  All the while Orczy’s pen wrote novels, short stories, plays, translations and, eventually, her autobiography.  
  Baroness Orczy died on the 12th November 1947 at Henley-on-Thames in South Oxfordshire.  She was 82.

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  Animal Behaviour

  Amanda McLeod

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  ***Highly Commended in the Ellipsis Zine Flash Collection Contest*** 
  A mother watches her son grow from a sweet child into a troubled adult... 
  A jilted lover finds hope one magical evening... 
  A cobbler breathes life back into a pair of lucky shoes... 
  Animal Behaviour titles each of its short stories with animal facts, but the experiences they describe are very much human. The cast of characters is diverse but the world they inhabit is universal: one in which all of us will recognise fragments of our own lives in some form, an echo of our shared humanity. 
  This second edition contains six new stories, unpublished anywhere else. 
  “Bold in voice, rich in metaphor, daring in approach, Animal Behaviour is a startling debut. In these very short tales, Amanda McLeod demonstrates an uncanny understanding of life and the living. By turns strange, beautiful, aching and transcendent, these stories and the humans how inhabit them will leave their mark on your mind and heart long past the final page. Highly recommended.” 
  —Kathy Fish, author of Wild Life: Collected Works from 2003-2018

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  Duets

  Anna Wood, Leila Aboulela, Nell...

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  A collection of stories written in duet.
  Eight highly original stories, each woven from the joint inspiration of two amazing writers.
  Sixteen celebrated authors respond, play, twist and develop their story in turn. Without the certainty of being in full control, Duets brings a new dimension to the drama of reading and writing.

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  Lady Susan

  Jane Austen

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  Beautiful, flirtatious, and recently widowed, Lady Susan Vernon seeks an advantageous second marriage for herself, while attempting to push her daughter into a dismal match. A magnificently crafted novel of Regency manners and mores that will delight Austen enthusiasts with its wit and elegant expression.

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  5 Years Next Sunday

  Idza Luhumyo

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  Pili’s locs are dark, fluffy, and soon hitting the five-year mark. Her family treats her like an outcast until Seth, a white man, comes into their lives. He leaves Zubeda, his ex-girlfriend, for Pili and opens a shop for her parents. He gives Neema, her mother, and Baba all the money they need to fulfil their dreams. 
  But it hasn’t rained for the past four years, and the drought is unfathomable. Her parents convince Pili and themselves that there is no need for rain for as long as they have Seth. 
  It’s only a couple of weeks to the five-year mark. Honey, a strange white woman who is also Seth’s friend, draws unusually close to Pili. She investigates what makes Pili’s hair special. She is set to find out why Seth loves Pili instead of her. 
  Pili is naïve enough to reveal to Honey that she has the rain in her hair. The slim white woman convinces her to cut it. When she does, the unexpected happens, and Pili is severely punished. Just like her Sangazimis, her father’s sisters before were!

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