Siren City And Other Tales

Fear, grief, frustration and regret; love, relief, joy and hope; revenge, ambition, arrogance and delusion. These are the emotions and compulsions that drive the characters in the pages of Siren City and Other Tales. The eclectic collection of stories is set in locations as varied as London, New York, Venice, Montreux ? and a remote and alien planet. Stories feature a cop battling crime and climate change in a dystopian future; a pressured Presidential adviser who devises a pragmatic solution to his problems; an ambitious go-getter unwilling to wait for the top prize; a womaniser whose pursuit of the opposite sex leads him to a sticky end; and an over-worked businessman haunted by a twenty-five year-old mystery. And in Siren City it is the setting itself that is the central character.

A girl searches for a killer on an island where deadly sirens lurk just beneath the waves in this “twisty, atmospheric story that grips readers like a siren song” (Publishers Weekly, starred review). The sea holds many secrets. Moira Alexander has always been fascinated by the deadly sirens who lurk along the shores of her island town. Even though their haunting songs can lure anyone to a swift and watery grave, she gets as close to them as she can, playing her violin on the edge of the enchanted sea. When a young boy is found dead on the beach, the islanders assume that he’s one of the sirens’ victims. Moira isn’t so sure. Certain that someone has framed the boy’s death as a siren attack, Moira convinces her childhood friend, the lighthouse keeper Jude Osric, to help her find the real killer, rekindling their friendship in the process. With townspeople itching to hunt the sirens down, and their own secrets threatening to unravel their fragile new alliance, Moira and Jude must race against time to stop the killer before it’s too late—for humans and sirens alike.

A love worth fighting for Lexi River had only one job--keep Gareth Blaze out of trouble and on time for his appointments. For the most part, Lexi was able to keep Gareth's nose clean and his name out of the tabloids. Usually any mischief he found himself in was easily taken care of with a few phone calls; until Gareth fell head over heels for a mysterious girl named Genevieve. Genevieve was otherworldly and elegant. Lexi hated her from day one. There was something not quite right about her, but Lexi could never figure out what bothered her about Genevieve. Everyone chocked it up to jealousy, until Lexi's worse fears about Genevieve were realized when she causes Gareth to lose his fortune in a business deal gone bad. Penniless, both Gareth and Lexi are forced to return to their childhood hometown in Kentucky. It was a place neither one of them wanted to see again, but Lexi was determined to make the best of the situation. Things were finally looking up for the pair. That is until Gareth fell violently ill and Lexi was charged with his attempted murder. ​​​​​​​Fans of Laurell K. Hamilton and Patricia Biggs will not want to miss this new series. Scroll up and one click your copy today!

Hood's travel memoir is a lyrical journey to places of great natural beauty and biological importance. Her stories reveal the vulnerability of natural places and the consequences of unsustainable exploitation. This inspiring work will be valuable for those interested in nature or travel memoirs, ethnographic writing, and for all who are concerned with the survival of our broader sense of place in the global environment.

Ralph Maltese was born in 1946, a propitious time for experiencing postwar euphoria, Cold War angst, civil rights protests and progress, the Viet Nam war and anti-war activism, the rise of feminism, and of course, the Beatles. In short, Ralph’s life represents and reflects the turmoil of a critical time in history, and his writing makes that time come alive. He was born in the Bronx, where he lived until the age of 11. Ralph taught English for 38 years in the Abington School District. In 2002 he earned Pennsylvania Teacher of the Year status; trips to the White House as well as to Space Camp were highlights of his recognition, but the most significant benefit was the opportunity to meet dedicated teachers from around the country and the world and to spread the “gospel” of quality teaching. He is the author of two books about the art of teaching, A Class Act and Project Based Learning: 25 Projects for 21st Century Learning. A lifelong reader and writer, Ralph has distilled his childhood and adolescence into a memoir, with his dad Mahogany Jim at the core of many adventures and many lessons. These stories are not always happy-go-lucky, carefree tales…but they are true and meaningful and ultimately profound.

They stand proudly gazing across the Hudson River at the cliffs of New Jersey. Their brows are marked by ornamental pediments. Greek columns stand as sentries by their entrances and stone medallions bedeck their chests. They are seven graceful relics of Beaux Arts New York, townhouses built more than 100 years ago for a new class of industrialists, actors and scientists -- many from abroad -- who made their fortunes in the United States and shaped the lives of Americans. This book brings to life the ghosts who inhabit that row of townhouses on Manhattan’s stately Riverside Drive for the first fifty years of the 20th Century, including a vicious crew of hoodlums who carried out what at the time was the largest armored car robbery in American history. It was a daring, minutely planned exploit that ended in blood, when one of the gangsters accidentally shot himself. He was taken to one of the townhouses -- then, in 1934, an underworld safehouse -- where he died and was stuffed in a steamer trunk (but his cohorts had to saw off one of his legs to fit him in it). From gangsters to industrialists, from future mayors to murderers, from movie stars to mafia dons, one block in a burgeoning city saw it all. The people who lived in each of the "Seven Sisters" reads like a mini Who's Who. Meet: * Percy Geary and John Oley, two Albany gangsters with a background in kidnapping and bootlegging; * Lucretia Davis, baking powder heiress whose parents were engaged in a bitter divorce that included allegations that her mother was trying get her father declared insane and take over his business; * Jokichi Takamine, the world's first biotech engineer and a rare Japanese scientist in the United States at the turn of the 19th century--He discovered diastase, an enzyme to ferment whisky and settle the stomach, and the adrenaline, a major scientific discovery; * Marion Davies, the mistress of William Randolph Hearst, who rose to movie stardom on the back of W.R.'s publicity machine while living on the block; * Julia Marlowe, American's greatest Shakespearean actress around 1900, just to name a few. If only the buildings could speak. * The Fabers of pencil fame * Billy Phelan's Greatest Game (Albany gang made famous by William Kennedy) * Duke Ellington, two mayors, and lurking in the background Legs Diamond.... If only the walls could talk? Dan Wakins makes it so in this unforgettable intimate glimpse into the history of New York City.

Regina Rheda is a contemporary award-winning Brazilian writer whose original voice and style have won her many admirers. First World Third Class and Other Tales of the Global Mix presents some of her finest and most representative work to an English-speaking readership. Stories from the Copan Building consists of eight tales set in a famous residential building in São Paulo. The stories, like the apartment complex, are a microcosm of modern-day urban Brazil. They are witty, consistently caustic, and never predictable. Also in this volume is the poignant and often hilarious novel First World Third Class. It depicts young middle-class professionals and artists who, as opportunities in Brazil diminished, opted to leave their country, even if it meant taking menial jobs abroad. At the center of the narrative is Rita, a thirty-year-old aspiring filmmaker who migrates to England, and then Italy. She looks for work and love in all the wrong places, moving from city to city and from bed to bed. The last three stories in this collection also happen to be among the author's most recent. "The Enchanted Princess" is an ironic title for a postfeminist tale of a South American woman being wooed to marry an old-world gentleman who promises to take care of her every need. "The Sanctuary" concerns the living conditions of immigrant workers and farm animals. Equally piquant in nature, "The Front" deals with ecology, labor environments, and gender politics.

Mona and Other Tales covers Reinaldo Arenas's entire career: his recently rediscovered debut (which got him a job at the Biblioteca Nacional in Havana), stories written in a political prison, and some of his last works, written in exile. Many of the stories have not previously appeared in English. Here is the tender story of a boy who recognizes evil for the first time and decides to ignore it; the tale of a writer struggling between the demands of creativity and of fame; common people dealing with changes brought about by revolution and exile; a romp with a famous, dangerous woman in the Metropolitan Museum; an outrageous fantasy that picks up where Garcia Lorca's famous play The House of Bernardo Alba ends. Told with Arenas's famous wit and humanity, Mona makes a perfect introduction to this important writer. Translated from the Spanish by Dolores Koch.