The Unfortunates

A sports journalist, sent to a Midlands town on a weekly assignment, finds himself confronted by ghosts from the past when he disembarks at the railway station. Memories of one of his best, most trusted friends, a tragically young victim of cancer, begin to flood through his mind as he attempts to go about the routine business of reporting a football match. B S Johnson’s famous ‘book in a box’, in which the chapters are presented unbound, to be read in any order the reader chooses, is one of the key works of a novelist now undergoing an enormous revival of interest. The Unfortunates is a book of passionate honesty and dark, courageous humour: a meditation on death and a celebration of friendship which also offers a remarkably frank self-portrait of its author.

Kim Liggett's The Unfortunates, a haunting tale of privilege, guilt, and redemption from the author of the Bram Stoker Award winner, The Last Harvest When seventeen-year-old senator's son Grant Tavish is involved in a fatal accident, all he wants to do is face the consequences of what he's done. But those consequences never come, even if headlines of "affluenza" do. The truth soon becomes clear: due to his father's connections, Grant is going to get away with murder. As a family tradition approaches, a cave excursion on the Appalachian Trail, Grant seizes the opportunity to take justice into his own hands by staging an accident and never coming back. But before he has a chance to enact his plans, the cave system collapses, trapping him miles beneath the surface with four other teens from much less fortunate circumstances. As they struggle to survive, they share their innermost secrets and fears, and just when it seems they might be on track to finding a way out, they realize... There's something else down there. And it's hunting them. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

An edgy, bitingly funny debut about a queer, half-Nigerian college sophomore who, enraged and exhausted by the racism at her elite college, is determined to reveal the truth about The Unfortunates—the unlucky subset of Black undergrads who Just. Keep. Disappearing. Sahara is Not Okay. Entering her sophomore year, she already feels like a failure: her body is too much, her love life is nonexistent, she’s not Nigerian enough for her family, her grades are subpar, and, well, the few Black classmates she has are vanishing—or dying. Sahara herself is close to giving up: depression has been her longtime “Life Partner." She believes that this narrative—taking the form of an irreverent, no-holds-barred “thesis” addressed to the powerful University Committee that will judge her—may be her last chance to document the Unfortunates' experience before she joins their ranks...But maybe, just maybe, she and her complex community of BIPOC women aren't ready to go out without a fight.

CeCe Somner, an eccentric heiress once known for her cruel wit as much as for her tremendous generosity, now faces opulent decline. Afflicted with a rare disease and touched by mortality for the first time, her gilded, bygone values collide with an unforgiving present. As her troubled, spoiled son George and his outsider wife Iris struggle to resolve mounting financial and familiar troubles, Cece must face the Somner dynasty’s dark legacy. But when George’s secrets culminate in an unexpected crime, no riches can put things right for the unfortunate Somners. What will become of all three, who must learn what life will be like beyond the long, shimmering shadow cast by the family’s past?

Nine. She isn't known by a name, only by the number she was branded with at birth. Nine is now eighteen and as an Unfortunate, she'll be forced to serve under The Fortunates for as long as she lives. All her life, she's been force fed rules and regulations on how to serve those above her, but nothing prepares her for Master Kade...the Fortunate she is assigned to. His dark and protective nature compels her, creating thoughts in her mind that she'd be murdered for having if anyone ever found out. Her option? To fight. Fight hard against her forbidden thoughts and desires. It's the only way for her to survive in a world that doesn't want her. He wants his father dead. He wants power. He wants control... ....And he'll use me to get it. Kade Sario was supposed to vicious and cruel. He was supposed to be a monster, to hurt and chastise me for the smallest things... but he didn't. I didn't understand it... until I found out what he really wanted from me. He wants to use me. He wants to hold me high above the lion's den and wait for the strongest lion to offer him something he can use... He won't hurt me and he won't take from me, but he keeps me close... So close I can smell him on my skin even when I'm alone. Growing up it was ingrained in me that I do whatever I can to please my Fortunate. It was ingrained in me that I be loyal and faithful, and that I love my Fortunate more than I love myself. I expected that I'd want to please him. I expected that I would be loyal and faithful, just like I was taught... But I didn't expect to fall in love with him. Time is running out. Things are changing, the balance of power is shifting and if I'm going to survive in this world, I need Master Kade on my side...

Albert Angelo is by vocation an architect and only by economic necessity working as a substitute teacher. He had thought he was, if not dedicated, at least competent. But now, on temporary assignments in schools located in the tough neighborhoods of London, Albert feels ineffectual. He is failing as a teacher and failing to fulfill himself as an architect. And then, too, he is pained by the memory of a failed love affair.

A wild, experimental, polyphonic novel, recounting a typical day of diminishing returns at a nursing home House Mother Normal, subtitled “A Geriatric Comedy,” is the English writer B. S. Johnson’s fifth novel. Unusual in both its subject and structure, this novel is a remarkable study of old age, stripped of sentimentality and spiked with bizarre language and perceptions. Made up of eight monologues describing a single day at a nursing home, House Mother Normal explores the failing minds of the elderly with precision, humor, and unflagging compassion, and Johnson achieves, with inventiveness and escalating absurdity, a vivid multidimensional effect.

Challenges are a common occurrence, but everything happens for a reason. Orphans Talia, Maya, Marine and Chia want to escape the prison they call home, but it's easier said than done. Though, even if they do, what awaits them outside? Juggling jobs, attacks, and pets, this story is one heck of a ride.