Laura is placed with adopters after her unmarried mother, Colette James, has been abandoned by Laura's father, Sean Brannigan. To her adopters, John and Jenny Masterson, Laura is their daughter and they love her dearly. Their world is turned upside down when they learn that Colette has changed her mind and wants Laura back.

Jimmy Gallivan is a glum fellow in jail, with three weeks to go on a seven-year term for attempted murder, when he's caught up in a massive jailbreak. He doesn't want to leave, but another con forces him to come along. Gallivan gradually realizes the whole jailbreak was meant to get him out, but he doesn't know why. Why him? Why couldn't they wait three weeks until he'd be released anyway?

Mandy has always refused to compete with her glamorous cousin Lissa, but the remarriage of Lissa's mother sets off a complex chain of events that catapult both girls into unexpected romantic relationships.

In William Herrick's Kill Memory, erasing the past is just what seventy-one-year-old Elizabeth cannot do. A woman who has had many lovers, a ruthless revolutionary, a courageous underground courier during World War II, and now a disengaged exile waiting out a solitary existence in Paris, Boishke (as Elizabeth has always been called) gives her primary attention the the rituals of living-- eating, dressing, walking, realistically facing up to old age, trying to sleep--and to her memories.

"Many and multiform are the pleasures this volume offers to Lovecraftians, including a hotly anticipated novelette set in Pugmire's trademark locality, Sesqua Valley; a lengthy prose poem sequence; decadent, dreamlike vignettes in the style of Oscar Wilde, and much other new material. The themes of the book, as the author explains it, are 'Lovecraftian dreams as thresholds to alien emotion, dimension, salvation, damnation.' Cross the threshold with one of the shining stars of Mythos fiction.'"--p. [4] of cover.

Prince Kaveh, the youngest son of the king of the City of Red Clay, is bisexual and completely besotted with Farzin, the engineer his father hired to oversee the improvements to the city's roads and bridges. However, the king doesn't share his positive feelings. After Farzin ends up at the head of the protest that ensues when the workers are only paid a third of their promised wages, he's thrown in prison and is scheduled to be executed. Queen Shulamit, who rules over the neighboring nation of Perach, is eager to assist the desperate prince. She, too, loves justice and has a same-sex partner. She's also hoping Kaveh, with his royal blood, is willing to give her and her sweetheart a legitimate heir in exchange. But can she find a peaceful solution that will pacify the king next door, get his workers fairly paid, and free Farzin? Or will she and her dragon-riding bodyguard Rivka have to go to war?

Timing is everything Adam Brooke and Diana Farrow were born into different worlds. He was a working stiff from the wrong side of the tracks, and she was the only child in a privileged home. But when they were alone together, they stopped caring about backgrounds. Unfortunately, the rest of the world wouldn't let them forget. And finally the differences forced the young lovers apart. Six years later, they meet again, their roles reversed. But one thing hasn't changed....

"I have long admired the things Dick Lupoff can do in the way of atmosphere and characterization in any sort of story-dark or light."-ROGER ZELAZNY "His books and stories, I can testify, having read a great many of them and published some myself, almost unfailingly display not only his intelligence and perceptivity, but also the grace and charm of his wit, the skill of his narrative technique, and the exemplary individuality of his ideas."-ROBERT SILVERBERG DREAMS marks the long-awaited completion of Richard A. Lupoff's epic trio of collections, following TERRORS and VISIONS. The stories range from Lovecraftian horror to Holmesian detection, from hard science fiction to whimsy, from semi-autobiographical recreations of past decades to images of the distant future, culminating in the stunning mini-trilogy of "Dreemz.biz," "Wyshes.com," and "Heaven.god." Whatever the genre or mood, these stories never cease to startle, delight, amaze, and-occasionally-terrify!

Product description INCLUDES 23 STORIES WRITTEN BETWEEN 1954 AND 1984. HIGHLY AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL, THE STORIES ARE ALL ABOUT A MAN IN VARIOUS STAGES OF LIFE FROM BOYHOOD TO TH E RCAF IN WORLD WAR 2, RAISING A FAMILY OF DAUGHTERS IN ENGLAND, TO BECOMING A SUCCESSFUL WRITER. THE CHRONOLOGICAL ARRANGEMENT OF THE STORIES IS SUCH THAT THEY READ LIKE A NOVEL. From Publishers Weekly The son of Polish Jews who emigrated to Canada, Levine grew up in Ottawa, joined the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War II and thereafter lived in England for 31 years, where he wrote, married and raised a family. A good number of the 23 stories in this exceptional collection were written between 1958 and 1978 and are clearly autobiographical, centering on a Canadian writer living in England who relives his youth through trips back to Canada and visits from Canadian relatives. The narrator of Levine's stories recalls his past effortlesslyfamily relationships, lost loves, old friendships. And with pleasure the reader participates in these journeys, sharing Levine's experiences of fulfillment, disappointment and nostalgia. One doesn't easily leave Levine's tales behind, for as the narrator of the title story says in the volume's concluding line: "I would carry that sound with me long after I left." NovemberCopyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The story of a family divided by conflicting ambitions. Ann Lockly's realization that she no longer loves her husband, Silas, forces her to live her life in the way she feels is right for herself and best for her children.

"An all-access ticket to the celebrated and wholly original mind of Mark Leyner, "one of the smartest and funniest humans since Aristophanes" (Jay McInerney). Praised as "chaotic and vibrant" (Charles Yu), "visionary" (Sam Lipsyte), and "supremely original" (John Cusack), the work of Mark Leyner has inspired a generation of contemporary novelists and has long deserved its place of recognition among the literary superstars of the seismic postmodernism-influenced movement of the early 21st century. A Shimmering, Serrated Monster!: The Mark Leyner Reader samples the staggering highlights from Leyner's extraordinary career in all of its bizarre and infatuating glory, with excerpts spanning from his groundbreaking early novels My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist (1990) and Et Tu, Babe (1992) to his modern masterpieces The Sugar-Frosted Nutsack (2012) and The Last Orgy of the Divine Hermit (2021). Appreciations from modern masters introduce each novel and the book includes original pieces in Leyner's irrepressible voice, including a timeline ("The Story So Far") and a new Afterword ("The Highlighted Passages"). This comprehensive volume is the perfect entry point for readers attracted to mind-expanding prose, and a bouquet of delights for those who have loved any of his past works"--

A couple of years ago, on the very verge of the illness that subsequently overwhelmed me, I took a small furnished house in Pineland. I made no inspection of the place, but signed the agreement at the instance of the local house-agent, who proved little less inventive than the majority of his confreres. Three months of neuritis, only kept within bounds by drugs, had made me comparatively indifferent to my surroundings. It was necessary for me to move because I had become intolerant of the friends who exclaimed at my ill looks, and the acquaintances who failed to notice any alteration in me. One sister whom I really loved, and who really loved me, exasperated me by constant visits and ill-concealed anxiety. Another irritated me little less by making light of my ailment and speaking of neuritis in an easy familiar manner as one might of toothache or a corn. I had no natural sleep, and if I were not on the borderland of insanity, I was at least within sight of the home park of inconsequence. Reasoned behaviour was no longer possible, and I knew it was necessary for me to be alone. [...] This historic book is the reprint of the original novel published in 1916.

Armchair Fiction presents extra large editions of classic science fiction double novels. The first novel is by sci-fi/fantasy master Frank Belknap Long, "Woman From Another Planet." This is the unusual and sensual story of David Loring, an artist, and his beautiful fiancée, Janice Reece. David loved Janice but the Martian Empire had a plan to entice David away from his beloved. With their plan for world domination at stake the Martians selected these two lovers' for their first attack. Together, David and Janice became involved in a highly emotional and physical conflict that broke through the barriers of outer space itself. Join renowned horror and sci-fi author Frank Belknap Long for a 1960 sci-fi tale he wrote for Chariot Books, a book company famous for their sexually provocative paperback novels. Although this tale is fairly tame by today's standards, it's interesting to see how Long weaves the elements of sex and science fiction together. The second novel is "Homecalling," by Judith Merril. The ship had crash landed on an alien world, burning to death the two parents of two small children on board. Although thoroughly jostled and bruised, Dee and her little brother Petey had somehow survived. Comprehending their horrible situation wasn't easy for a child of eight! But, gathering up all the courage she could muster, she set off exploring the area near the ship. What she found, was a large garden, and a lot of very big, ugly, and overly curious, bugs! Veteran science fiction author Judith Merril has presented here a fascinating and convincing picture of the thought-processes of a different species on a far-off world. It's a tale filled with unusual adventure and thought-provoking situations.

Joseph Roth paints a vivid portrait of Emperor Napoleon's last grab at glory, the hundred days spanning his escape from Elba to his final defeat at Waterloo. This particularly poignant work, set in the first half of 1815 and largely in Paris, is told from two perspectives, that of Napoleon himself and that of the lowly, devoted palace laundress Angelica--an unlucky creature who deeply loves him. In The Hundred Days, Roth refracts the deep sorrow of their intertwined fates. Roth's signature lyrical elegance and haunting atmospheric details sing in The Hundred Days. "There may be," as James Wood has stated, "no modern writer more able to combine the novelistic and the poetic, to blend lusty, undamaged realism with sparkling powers of metaphor and simile."

Excerpt from The Master: A Novel Despite its long stretch of winter, in which May might wed December in no incompatible union, 'twas a happy soil, this Acadia, a country of good air and great spaces; two-thirds of the size of Scotland, with a population that could be packed away in a corner of Glasgow; a land of green forests and rosy cheeks; a land of milk and molasses; a land of little hills and great harbors, of rich valleys and lovely lakes, of overflowing rivers and oversurging tides that, with all their menace, did but fertilize the meadows with red silt and alluvial mud; a land over which France and England might well bicker when first they met oversea; a land which, if it never reached the restless energy of the States, never retained the Old World atmosphere that long lingered over New England villages; save here and there in some rare Acadian settlement that dreamed out its life in peace and prayer among its willow-trees and in the shadows of its orchards. At Minudie, at Clare in Annapolis County, where the goodly apples grew, lay such fragments of old France, simple communities shutting out the world and time, marrying their own, tilling their good dyke land, and picking up the shad that the retreating tide left on the exposed flats; listening to the Angelus, and baring their heads as some Church procession passed through the drowsy streets. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Book jacket/back: In this beloved novel of immigrant life in Brooklyn, David Fuchs speaks to us in a distinctive, affecting voice. He evokes the special, marvelous qualities of the Jewish-American experience by creating characters and conflicts whose idiom and flavor he catches with uncanny precision. This is an exceptional novel about ordinary people. Each of the central characters lives in the same tenemant building in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. This single building is a miniature of the teeming, dynamic community of which it is a part. It is inhabited by solitary souls and families. These people are students, idlers, shopkeepers, mothers, hustlers, lovers and husbands. Fuch's vivid, sharply observed prose folds these separate lives into a full-blooded human comedy. The story he tells reveals people living their lives with all the twists and dodges, the puzzles, the contradictions, the idiocies and the wonderful moments. In short, the busines of living, the banquet of life.

Opening with a fight between the Azrael, the Angel of Death, and Beelzebub, Lord of the Flies, for the soul of the great writer August Strindberg. Beelzebub wins and Strindberg, dead in 1912 is brought back to life in 1961 to become the lover of Mrs Nilson, his housekeeper.

Florrie makes her stern father angry by building a fire in her toy stove, but by the end of the day she finds out Papa really loves her after all.

Ada Esther Leverson, the British writer known for her close friendship with Oscar Wilde who called her Sphinx. She was a wit, and a friend of Max Beerbohm; her writing has been compared to Beerbohm's, and the stories of Saki. In the final instalment of the 'Little Ottleys' trilogy, three years have passed since Bruce and Edith's marriage was in danger of collapse. Thanks to Edith's forgiving and patient ways they have put their difficulties behind them, and their lives seem on an even keel despite the advent of the First World War. But change is in the air: Bruce and Edith have a house guest - the intriguing Madame Frabelle charms everyone she meets and seems to show no signs of leaving. And then Edith's old flame, the charismatic and bewitching Aylmer Ross, comes home injured from the front, and Edith's carefully constructed life is thrown into confusion once again.