La joven Alicia no podía imaginar aquella noche de tormenta que el parto malogrado de una condesa y la necesidad imperiosa de asegurar la descendencia del condado de Movellán desencadenaría una serie de acontecimientos que cambiaria su vida para siempre. La fuerza que otorga la maternidad le impulsara a luchar contra el destino. Alicia murio para el mundo, se reinvento, accedio al conocimiento, descubrio la existencia de una organizacion secreta y tejio una solida tela de araña capaz de proteger su mayor tesoro. Chan, un joven soñador, viaja a la ciudad con un firme objetivo: despejar la neblina de misterio que nubla su pasado, conocer sus origenes. Descendera a los infiernos de la depravacion, librara oscuras batallas, tocara fondo. Solo entonces sentira la fuerza y el valor del amor y la amistad, porque, en verdad, nunca estuvo solo.

Stories traversing identity, sexuality, and human connection across the industrial towns and satellite villages of Northern England. Opening with the Commonwealth Prize-winning "Lech, Prince, and the Nice Things," the collection weaves through teenage sexual awakening, family secrets, and post-pandemic isolation. Characters grapple with class divisions, discrimination, and desires they barely understand themselves. Unflinching and deeply human, these stories capture pivotal moments when lives quietly but irrevocably change course.

In these two novellas and three short stories for adult readers, Hans Christian Andersen displays the imagination and descriptive brilliance familiar from his fairy tales, but turns his eye to subtler social themes: class mobility in a changing Europe; the unfairness with which talents and opportunities are meted out in this world; the struggle between natures claims on humanity and civilizations.The title novella, The Ice Virgin, unites all these ideas in a piece of beautifully structured storytelling considered by some to be Andersens masterpiece. Rudy is orphaned young, rescued as an infant from a glacial crevasse where his mother fell and died. He lives, but the stunning yet unforgiving mountain landscape of Switzerland may yet claim him. His love for the rich millers daughter Babette brings out all his bravery and ingenuity - but also his stubbornness and resistance to change. In a masterfully ambivalent climax Andersen makes us wonder what happiness and fulfilment truly mean.Elsewhere in the collection Andersen turns his gaze to the hostile shores and wooded heights of Denmarks Jutland, where in his time submissive poverty was giving way to feverish social transformation. We meet a shipwrecked youngster struggling to fit into his adopted community, a couple whose wise humility echoes down the wealthy generations that follow with comically unexpected effects, and a steadfast friend whose saintly patience is ill rewarded by the object of her loyalty. Full of irony, enchanting imagery and bravura prose, these stories showcase Andersens perceptiveness, empathy, and deep engagement with the world around him.

On holiday at a fashionable German spa, young civil engineer Herr von Gordon meets Colonel von St Arnaud and his younger wife, the beautiful Cécile. Gordon is drawn to this elegant and melancholy woman, who seems to hold herself at a distance from her husband. As he and the married pair tour local attractions and enjoy the scenery of the Harz Mountains, he finds himself ever more fascinated by Cecile - and by the mystery surrounding her past.As Gordon and Cecile grow closer, her husbands jealousy, the gossip of polite society, and the secrets of the past converge. When they meet again in Berlin society, the attraction between the two young people will have tragic consequences for all.A challenge to societal conventions, a portrait of a complex woman and a biting send-up of early tourist culture, Fontanes novel is an elegant, ironic and moving classic of 19th-century realist fiction.

An account of the poet authors love affair with Dutch art, and the consolations and ecstasies of the objects we gather on our way through life. We begin standing in the Met in front of a painting by Jan Davidsz de Heem: Still Life with Oysters and Lemon. Looking almost more closely than we can bear at this image from the 17th century, Doty attempts to tell us everything it holds, from pigments to forms, and above all, meaning.This confrontation with beauty is one of many that shapes his life, from the pinwheel peppermints that emerge from his grandmas purse in his Tennessee childhood to the cracked china platter that graces the mantelpiece in the home he shares with his dying husband. But it is Dutch still-life painting that seems to have the most to tell him. This book is his record of years spent looking closely at bunched asparagus, translucent wine glasses, curling lemon peel and the bloom on grapes.In a brief, lucid, powerfully concentrated narrative, which tells the story of a life of self-discovery and an avid gaze, Mark Doty writes with poetic specificity and painterly clarity. In his loving description of reality, we begin to see that simply looking can be the most tender reverence.

Gabriel Reece should be starting university, but new super powers and dark family mysteries stand in the way of higher education. Hes taking a gap year to keep his spooky boyfriend from killing his super-powerful brother, watch out for his unpowered best friend, and hunt down the puppet masters who wont leave any of them alone.

Radio is becoming the deadliest gig in town when the bodies pile up at CGNU Saskatoon. P.I. Ben Ames isnt looking for an out-of-province adventure, but his musician boyfriend has connections that put them both on the trail of a killer at the Gnu.Ben Ames is a western Canadian PI who investigates murder and major crimes with a little help from his friendswhether he wants it or not. Having a boyfriend whos a rock musician has made him an occasional detective to the stars, but his office door is always open to an interesting case or a client who needs him.

With gorgeous sprayed edges in the first edition In this #1-Spiegel-bestselling seasonal romcom fake dating was the plancatching real feelings wasnt.Becca and Nils are best friends who end up in bed together every New Years Eve. On the 10th anniversary of their annual one-night stand, kindergarten teacher Becca scrapes together her savings, planning to finally confess her love to Nils at a romantic Alpine chalet. But things dont go as planned. When Nils shows up with his new fiancee, Becca asks Raphael, the obnoxiously snooty uncle of one of her students, to play the role of her fake boyfriend. The two had always clashed but, when sparks fly, the fire between them is anything but fakeEnglish Edition by ForeverGerman edition also available

Two women hunting the same killer. One seeks justice. One seeks fame. Both have something to hide.In a remote Scottish town where everyone knows everyone, the disappearance of local girl Poppy McCarthy should be impossible to hide. But as Detective Sarah Morton discovers, some secrets run deeper than blood.When internet sensation Casey Jones arrives to investigate, her viral YouTube videos about the case spark a media frenzy. The town divides: some worship Casey as a crusader for justice, others see her as a dangerous provocateur. For Sarah, shes a threat not just to the investigation, but to the fragile peace of a community already fracturing under pressure.As Caseys revelations start destroying lives, Sarah realizes shes dealing with something far more sinister than a fame-hungry influencer. Because Casey knows things about Poppy she shouldnt. And Sarah is beginning to suspect that the real predator isnt hiding in the shadowy hills of Galloway, but broadcasting to millions from plain sight...

The Guest arrives at the empty Vaim Hotel, owned by the commanding and blunt Brita. She seems to recognise him, though he has no memory of her. He checks in with his two suitcases and leather shoulder bag; he hasnt yet decided how long to stay and cant remember exactly what hes brought with him. The next day The Guest explores Vaim, meeting a shopkeeper and a sailor. He dines at the local restaurant, also owned by Brita, and begins to realise his possessions are going missing. Over the course of his stay his belongings, and sense of self, are repeatedly displaced, until eventually he finds himself bound to the town and unable to escape, caught in a loop of debt and servitude to Brita. The second instalment in Jon Fosses Vaim Trilogy is a discomfiting and propulsive mystery, marking a new departure from the 2023 Nobel Prize in Literature-laureate.

A reclusive young woman moves into what seems like the perfect apartment and is obsessively drawn to her reclusive neighbour, who keeps a lush garden and is hiding a deadly secret Eat the Ones You Love meets Wilder Girls in this sensual, sapphic, botanical horror novella from the New York Times-bestselling author of Bloom and House of Idyll.When Lucy McClintock moves into a dreamy Victorian in downtown Savannah after years of suffering under the rule of her overbearing grandfather, she feels like shes won the lotterywell, outside of the creepy landlord. She soon notices a glorious green haven in the backyard and meets her downstairs neighbor, Saskia, a weightlifter who lives in a magical apartment overflowing with plant life and beautiful artwork. Naive and lonely Lucy is drawn to strong and secretive Saskia, and as the two women grow closer, they discover they share more than just an apartment buildingA seductive, heady, sinister read: breathless romance and bone-chilling suspense collide in this sweet and deadly tale.

Once upon a time, three young sisters survived a catastrophic house fire Years later, one of them disappears and then another and it is left to the eldest sister to find out whether something else survived A dark, twisty, page-turning modern gothic horror from the multi award-winning author of The Cold House.When sisters Chloe, Zoe and Dido were children, their father died and their mother could no longer care for them, so they were sent to live with the local doctors family: mother, father and three sons. Soon after, however, Ashwood Farm burned to the ground, and only the three young girls survived.Years later, the sisters live very separate lives, each dealing with their painful past in different ways. But when first Chloe, and then Zoe disappears, its left to Dido to rake through their history and find out if her sisters are still in the world or paying the price for what happened that long ago summer night.

This collection of fifteen stories from the cult author of Ice examines war and mental illness from her signature surreal point of view. Inspired by Kavans own experiences nursing traumatized Second World War soldiers and as a patient in various asylums, these pieces communicate the claustrophobia and isolation of life amidst conflict or caught in the gears of an institutional machine - but also the stunning beauty of physical experience, as her cast of outsiders find themselves pulled back into the world despite its hostility.In the title story, a young man living in an asylum must navigate the often unreadable reality around him, taking cues from malevolent flowers and inhumanly brisk nurses, as we are left to wonder whether the cure harms more than the disease. Outside the asylum grounds, institutions still exert terrifying power, as an unnamed refugee tries to navigate a Kafkan bureaucracy to escape a war-ravaged metropolis in Our City, and is distracted from the hopelessness of the task by the beauty of silvery barrage balloons and young women at their windows. Humanity goes to war with nature, too, in The Gannets, a brief, disturbing story that predates Daphne du Mauriers The Birds, featuring a band of impoverished children engaged in a horrific game with unnaturally predatory seabirds.At times cleanly modernist, at others ornately strange and dream-like, Kavans writing is always propulsive, powered by the tension between the menace closing in around her characters, and the incomparable loveliness of the strange world they inhabit.

This collection of three uncanny tales highlights the best of a 19th-century German author who is seen by many as the father of modern sci-fi and fantasy. In The Sandman, young Nathanael grows up terrified of a legendary figure who will steal his eyes if hes caught out of bed at night - but its only when Nathanael has grown to adulthood, seemingly settled and happy, that the full, terrifying truth unfolds. A living doll, a series of doppelgangers, and the seeds of madness combine in this classic story of self-destruction.The Cremona Violin also deals with obsession and thwarted desire, this time between an overbearing father and a musically talented daughter who may die of heart failure if she unleashes the full power of her extraordinary voice. Suppressed passion and possessive control prove a fatal mix in this powerful and claustrophobic story. The Golden Pot, meanwhile, is a novella-length tale which Hoffmann believed was his masterpiece. Disturbing, exciting and dream-like, it introduces us to the bumbling Anselmus, whose romantic tribulations are complicated by a witchs curse and the fact that hes in love with a girl who also happens to be a snake.Influential in the worlds of both literature and music during his lifetime, Hoffmanns doppelgangers, unattainable love objects and sinister puppet masters have lived on, becoming key figures in the modern imagination.

In a city torn apart by civil war, a teenage sniper has only one goal: to fire the perfect shot. He sublimates himself into his weapon, practices controlling his breath, staying calm, listening to his body and the beat of his heart. Consumed for too long by violence and turned agent of pure destruction and despair, he lies in wait on rooftops, killing civilians while his mentally ill mother cowers in their flat. His routine is disrupted by the arrival of Myrna, a fifteen-year-old girl hired to care for her, and towards whom he develops a disturbing obsession in which she finds herself trapped. Now published in English for the first time, Mathias Enards debut novel is an unrelenting work whose harrowing immediacy belies its lyricism, exposing how extreme violence corrodes the soul and leaves no part of life unscathed.

Boston PI Sunny Randall investigates a popular book critic on a mean streak... only for her to wind up dead, in the latest thriller in Robert B. Parkers bestselling series.World famous author Melanie Joan Hart asks for Sunnys help in tracking down Book Babe, the screen-name of an enormously popular book reviewer, who has trolled her with a deeply insulting one-star review. This usually wouldnt matter except that Book Babe has thousands of followers, and her unwarranted blast has Melanies publisher threatening to pull all her books.But Sunnys investigation reveals that the reviewer and Melanie have a rich history in fact, she may even have good reason to hate the torn-up author. And when Book Babe suddenly turns up dead, casting Melanie as a possible suspect, Sunny finds herself in a complicated web, which, if she cant untangle fast enough, might just put a target on her back.

15 brand-new short stories inspired by and in honour of legendary writer Ursula K. Le Guin. Featuring Ann Leckie, Karen Joy Fowler, Charlie Jane Anders, Kelly Link, Ai Jiang and many others.Revolution in the Heart is a collection of 15 brand new stories by a group of celebrated authors, all inspired by one of the iconic figures in all of science fiction and fantasy: the legendary and award-winning Ursula K. Le Guin.From the appearance of her first work of short fiction in 1962 to the publication of the last in 2016, Ursula K. Le Guin was a master storyteller, winning innumerable awards, and achieving both commercial and literary success. She created the beloved stories of Earthsea alongside the urgent and essential stories of the Hain, pushing forward the form and concepts of science fiction and fantasy - reshaping them into forward-thinking genres.This collection honours her legacy with stories from authors she inspired:Ann Leckie Molly Gloss Kelly Link Charlie Jane Anders Sarah Pinsker Chana Porter Ai Jiang Alaya Dawn Johnson S. Qiouyi Lu E. Lily Yu Vandana Singh Aliya Whiteley Premee Mohamed Darice Little Badger Karen Joy Fowler

For the denizens of mythical Primeval, its fields and forests bounded by two rivers, the world beyond is nothing more than a dream. Yet their stories or Times are a microcosm of the tumultuous recent history of the world. The fortunes of the family of Michal the miller, whom conscription carries away in 1914, punctuate nearly a century of war and occupation. The outcast Cornspike raises her daughter among the creatures and spirits of the forest. The squire Popielski loses his faith and becomes obsessed with a game where progress is attained only by dreaming the right kind of dream. Non-human beings trees and mushrooms and archangels have their Times too, as do inanimate objects, which may be more important for the world than people. Alongside bloodshed and betrayal, the dramas of Primevals daily life mark the birth, life, and decline of its little world and Time, making us consider afresh the stories that help us comprehend and navigate our own. Rich with the capaciousness and innovation that have brought Olga Tokarczuk to sustained international fame, Primeval and Other Times is yet another treasure for confirmed fans and new converts alike.

When Laura Cameron, a philosophy professor at a London university, is found dead in a bizarre echo of the Reeva Steenkamp case, the questions are myriad. Her friend and colleague, Esther Luck, is as shocked as everyone else.But Esther knows more than shes letting on. After two years battling ovarian cancer, her notions of what makes life worth living, of what her future holds, have changed utterly. Held in a tense web of intrigue between Lauras widower Jack, her ex Michel, and her conventional family, Esther is given the chance of new life on borrowed time as the mystery of Lauras death deepens.What follows is an exploration of guilt, mortality, freedom, time and the brilliant and beautiful puzzle of being alive.

"NOT ALL OF THIS IS TRUE. But some surely is. Most of it, I hope." When five wealthy trophy hunters descend upon a remote African forest, they overlook the passionate young researcher, Angel Restorick, who has learned to communicate with the chimpanzees she studies. As the hunters close in, Angel must use her unique bond with the chimps to outwit the human predators. From the Cornish village of St Piran to the jungles of Tanzania and back, this gripping tale weaves themes of conservation, connection, and courage against exploitation.