Meet Me Under The Clock

As the pressures of rationing, bombing raids and sleepless nights grow, two sisters must decide what they really want from life – and if they're brave enough to fight for it. Meet Me Under the Clock is a beautiful wartime story from Annie Murray. Growing up in Birmingham, Sylvia and Audrey Whitehouse have always been like chalk and cheese. When the Second World War breaks out, Sylvia is still dreaming of her forthcoming marriage to fiancé Ian – while Audrey jumps at the career opportunities the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) throws her way. Audrey joins the ranks at RAF Cardington but soon finds that her new freedom also brings temptation. When she goes too far, the consequences ripple through the Whitehouse family. Meanwhile, Sylvia is doing her bit as a railway porter, much to her fiancé’s dismay. He thinks the job is unfeminine - unlike Sylvia's new friend Kitty, who is as sweet and pretty as can be. But Kitty's innocent nature hides a dark secret . . . A heartbreaking yet inspiring wartime set novel, perfect for fans of Katie Flynn.

The American urban scene, and in particular New York's, has given us a rich cultural legacy of slang words and phrases, a bonanza of popular speech. Hot dog, rush hour, butter-and-egg man, gold digger, shyster, buttinsky, smart aleck, sidewalk superintendent, yellow journalism, breadline, straphanger, tar beach, the Tenderloin, the Great White Way, to do a Brodie--these are just a few of the hundreds of popular words and phrases that were born or took on new meaning in the streets of New York. In The City in Slang, Irving Lewis Allen traces this flowering of popular expressions that accompanied the emergence of the New York metropolis from the early nineteenth century down to the present. This unique account of the cultural and social history of America's greatest city provides in effect a lexicon of popular speech about city life. With many stories Allen shows how this vocabulary arose from city streets, often interplaying with vaudeville, radio, movies, comics, and the popular songs of Tin Pan Alley. Some terms of great pertinence to city people today have unexpectedly old pedigrees. Rush hour was coined by 1890, for instance, and rubberneck dates to the late 1890s and became popular in New York to describe the busloads of tourists who craned their necks to see the tall buildings and the sights of the Bowery and Chinatown. The Big Apple itself (since 1971 the official nickname of New York) appeared in the 1920s, though first in reference to the city's top racetracks and to Broadway bookings as pinnacles of professional endeavor. Allen also tells fascinating stories behind once-popular slang that is no longer in use. Spielers, for example, were the little girls in tenement districts who danced ecstatically on the sidewalks to the music of the hurdy-gurdy men and, when they were old enough, frequented the dance halls of the Lower East Side. Following the trail of these words and phrases into the city's East Side, West Side, and all around the town, from Harlem to Wall Street, and into the haunts of its high and low life, The City in Slang is a fascinating look at the rich cultural heritage of language about city life.

International Bestseller! Soon to be a major motion picture starring Gal Gadot! “Inventive, bold and surprising . . . Builds in suspense and emotion, revealing itself page by page, layer by layer. Cleverly constructed and highly entertaining.” — CHARLES YU Recommended by Popsugar • Bustle • Goodreads • Tor • Mashable • BookBub • io9 Gizmodo • Lambda Literary • BookRiot • CrimeReads • The Nerd Daily • and many more! For fans of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue and Life After Life, a poignant genre-bending debut novel about a man and woman who must discover why they continue to meet in different versions of their lives—a thrilling and imaginative exploration of the infinite forms of love and how our choices can change everything. Thora and Santi have met before. Two strangers in a foreign city, Thora and Santi meet in a chance encounter. At once, they recognize in each other a kindred spirit—someone who is longing for more in life than the cards they’ve been dealt. Before their friendship can blossom, though, a tragic accident cuts their story short. They will meet again. But this is only one of the many connections they share. Like satellites trapped in orbit around each other, Thora and Santi will find each other again: as husband and wife; teacher and student; caretaker and patient; cynic and believer. In recurring lifetimes they become friends, partners, lovers, and enemies. Only they can make sure it’s not for the last time. As strange patterns and blurred memories compound, Thora and Santi come to a shocking revelation. They must work together to discover the true reason behind their repeating realities . . . before their many lives come to one, final end.

From debut fiction writer Carla Crujido comes a delicately intertwined, fairytale-inspired collection of short stories. Part vivid historical drama, part melancholy fever dream, The Strange Beautiful centers on Mount Vernon Apartments in Spokane, Washington, offering a glimpse into the lives of ten tenants over a period of one hundred years. In the opening story, "The Songbird," we meet the building's caretaker, a WWI veteran trying to rebuild his life amidst the Spanish flu pandemic. In "The Telephone," a 21st-century poet's longing for a bygone era nurtures a friendship that transcends time. A 1930s department store mannequin navigates the challenges of womanhood in the surreal, darkly humorous tale, "The Mannequin." And in "The Suitcase," an exhausted woman scrambles to tidy up her boyfriend's unprocessed emotions, which have materialized inside boxes all over the apartment. As we witness the quiet but fraught moments of the tenants' everyday lives, these uncanny narratives create a world that is at once familiar and fantastic. A striking portrait of a city not often depicted in literature, The Strange Beautiful leads us through the streets of Spokane and the similarly evolving internal landscapes of these ten characters. Crujido's masterful storytelling shows us how a single place can hold a myriad of histories, how our lives are interconnected with strangers, and how our collective tales are forever repeating.

Childhood friends Laurie and Rachel used to be inseparable--but their lives have taken very different paths since they picked up their A-level results together. Now thirty-five, they have all but fallen out of touch; glamorous single girl Laurie is based in London and dedicated to her career in fashion; Rachel seemingly living the family idyll in Yorkshire. But when Rachel's mother-in-law needs urgent treatment in London, and disasters at work and in her love life mean Laurie needs to flee, a house swap falls into place. Soon gentle Rachel is far from the village bake sales, braving the city's mean streets while trying to keep her marriage and family together; while Laurie attempts to work an Aga, befriend the wary village locals--and forget the man who seems intent on breaking her heart. Will their relationships survive this test? And will they make it home for Christmas?

An Emerald Green Rosebud is a collection of stories and observations that illustrate Jessica Allin's remarkable life. The book radiates Jessica's warm humanity and her perceptions of the beauty of the world about her. Jessica Allin, a young woman living and working in London, has a chance encounter that takes her on the journey of a lifetime to East and Central Africa, the Sudan and on to Spain. An Emerald Green Rosebud is in part the sequel to Jessica’s previous book, A Breath of Africa, and is a delightful collage of stories and reflections about people in far away places, raising a family in Africa, and unique occurrences that Jessica has experienced. Much later, there is another encounter, one that magically weaves a golden thread reconnecting her to the homeland she left so many years ago. Inspired by readers asking for a sequel to A Breath of Africa, Jessica Allin’s personal memoirs are a fascinating read for anyone who enjoys biographies and stories of experiences in far away places.

“A weekend’s engaging pursuit.” Five Stars—David Lloyd Sutton, San Francisco Book Review Educated and inquisitive, Pandita Ramabai was born in 1858 near Gangamul in the Western Ghat mountains of southern India. The daughter of a Sanskrit scholar, she rose to become a respected scholar herself, in a time when women rarely held such positions. But having lost nearly everyone she loved to famine or cholera, Rama spent most of her life in search of a community she could call home. A widow and single mother, she became a social activist and reformer, relentlessly advocating for the education of women and the care of India’s many poor, widowed child-brides. Rama’s journey takes readers across British India to England and America as this strong, determined woman battles prejudice, tradition and a male-dominated society to find justice for those with no voice or opportunity. The Pandita Ramabai Mukti Mission, which she founded during a severe famine, became home to thousands of outcast children, child widows, orphans, and other destitute women. It is still active today. As one of the world’s great, unsung heroines, Pandita Ramabai has been called one of India’s “greatest daughters.”

Maya Lin, the daughter of Chinese immigrants, was born in small-town America. Lin broke onto the American scene as a college senior, when she won a national competition to design the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC. This is the portrait of the artist, whose use of her cultural heritage brings drama and emotional impact to her work.