Literature & Fiction

Retired schoolteachers Pat, Liz and Thelma don’t know what to think. The death of Neville Hilton is not a crime. Just your standard, if tragic, heart attack. At least that’s what the autopsy shows. But his ex-wife isn’t convinced. She’s sure his current wife was involved – maybe she wasn’t at some horse event, as she told police. And so the three friends step away from the Melmbury slice to investigate.

It was supposed to be the trip of a lifetime… In reality it was a business trip, prettied up as a romantic mini break, but the man behind the wheel was meant to be Candice Hart’s boss and (married but separated, I swear!) lover. Not Danny the new guy! Not only is Candice faced with a new driver, but the office’s far too handsome hipster expects her to share the cramped space inside his “fully” restored VW Beetle, aka The Love Bug, and put up with his constant opinions about her life…

Dan has accidentally "Noclipped" into the Backrooms—a bizarro, extra-dimensional Alice-in-Wonderland world, overrun with horrific nightmare creatures known as the Dwellers. No one ever gets out. Hell, forget about leaving, if Dan wants to survive the week, he's going to need to harness the strange game-like magic of the Backrooms, make some very sketchy allies, and carve out a little safe haven to call his own.

I’ve woken up in the Big Apple with the world's worst hangover, an empty bank account, and the sinking feeling that my life just nosedived. Last night's escapade is a blur, but one thing is clear: I’ve been swindled and I’m not happy about it.​ The culprit? Harry – a total dreamboat and my worst nightmare. He’s got charm, secrets, and a smile that screams trouble. Little did I know, Harry's not just a pretty face – he's a liar, conman and he’s turned my life upside down.​ ​When I discover I’m not the only victim, I decide it’s only right I take my revenge.

Sophia is determined to grow old disgracefully and refuses to be invisible. She craves fiery passion and steamy romance, not targeted ads for funeral plans. After a heart-shattering breakup, she ditches love to date a new man each week for a year. As she flirts, fumbles and sips fizz through an array of encounters, from an opera buff in a cape to an orgasm whisperer, she discovers it's never too late to rewrite your own love story, even if it's not the one you expected…

All Lady Alice Walpole wants is to be swept off her feet, but she keeps finding herself on one bad date after another. And when she’s caught partying too hard with her latest royal beau, her father banishes her to Balmoral to clean up her act. Fraser Bell just wants to do his job as Piper to the Sovereign at Balmoral. He prefers tartan to tuxedos, and spends his days with horses rather than dealing with people, so when he’s assigned to wake Alice up to the sound of bagpipes every morning, he’s less than pleased.

When the surprise holiday Dee thinks her husband has booked for her sixtieth birthday weekend turns out to be yet another solo golfing break – it’s the last straw. Meanwhile her best friend Babs’s other half has decided to move to Spain and is acting like he doesn’t need to consult anyone. Not even Babs! Well, if their husbands think they can do what they want, so can their wives. So, with that thought, the two best friends leap into Dee’s trusty car and head for the seaside, and an adventure they’ll never forget.

Buitengewoon briljante wezens bevat een van de leukste personages die in lange tijd is bedacht: Marcellus de octopus. Tova Sullivan werkt in de nachtploeg van het Sowell Bay Aquarium, waar ze de prullenbakken leegt en de vloeren dweilt. Haar man is een paar jaar geleden overleden en ruim dertig jaar eerder is hun zoon Erik op mysterieuze wijze verdwenen op een boot. Bezig blijven heeft haar altijd geholpen om met dat verlies om te gaan. Op een avond maakt Tova kennis met Marcellus, een gigantische octopus die in het aquarium leeft. Hij is ongelofelijk slim en erg schuw.

Bud Stanley is an obituary writer who is afraid to live. Yes, his wife recently left him for a “far more interesting” man. Yes, he goes on a particularly awful blind date with a woman who brings her ex. And yes, he has too many glasses of Scotch one night and proceeds to pen and publish his own obituary. The newspaper wants to fire him. But now the company’s system has him listed as dead. And the company can’t fire a dead person. The ensuing fallout forces him to realize that life may be actually worth living.

When romcom author Allie Edwards crosses paths with bestselling crime novelist – aka publishing dinosaur – Martin Clark at a party, they discover they both have crippling writer’s block, overdue manuscripts and precisely zero words to show to their respective editors. With deadlines looming, Allie and Martin decide to switch plots and tell each other’s stories. In the writing process, Allie not only gains a father-figure in Martin, but also meets gorgeous events caterer Will, the answer to the leading man-shaped hole in her life and her lack of spicy material.

Thomas Mann's vivid, dramatic, and thought-provoking The Magic Mountain is firmly established as one of the classic epic novels of the twentieth century. Part surreal comedy, part grim tragedy, Mann's story depicts a decaying European society on the eve of the First World War.

We arrived at a villa on the Amalfi Coast, ready to enjoy a sun-soaked weekend with our oldest friends - and one new face. By the end of the weekend, my husband is found dead. But how can I mourn him, when on the day of his funeral I discover he was having an affair? The only suspects are the women we went on holiday with. My oldest, closest friends. Do I really want to dig into my husband's secret? Do I really want to know who betrayed me?

Jack was never “right,” but that’s a lot of what made him magnetic to other people. When he was younger, he was that guy that girls wanted to be around. People were drawn in by him, even later on when there wasn’t much of him left. I never understood that. He never really put a lot of energy into grooming and maintaining relationships with people. I guess when you see someone that is content spending their time alone, it creates a vacuum and people flood in like water choking a storm drain. Even as his deterioration became apparent, people threw him lifelines.

Jihye is an ordinary woman who has never been extraordinary. In her administrative job at the Academy, she silently tolerates office politics and the absurdities of Korean bureaucracy. Forever only one misplaced email away from career catastrophe, she effectively becomes a master of the silent eye-roll and the tactical coffee run. But all her efforts to endure her superiors and the semi-hostile work environment they create are upended when a new intern, Gyuok Lee, arrives.

Du temps pour soi, ou presque... Tout le monde vante les mérites de la retraite spirituelle. Enfin, toutes les influenceuses que suit Lily, 40 ans,...

Forbidden from pursuing her calling, Shadow Holmes, the great-granddaughter of Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock’s older—and smarter—brother, works for her father selling real estate in Miami. To compound matters, Shadow has no idea her father is the director of The Bee, a clandestine British spy agency, until she and her parents are poisoned by the bewitching—and decidedly evil— Professor Jane Moriarty.

How a Muzhik Fed Two Officials is not just a fable—it is a mirror, polished to a biting shine, reflecting the grotesque logic of power and servitude. In this brief yet mercilessly precise tale, Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin strips hierarchy down to its raw absurdity: those who consume and those who are consumed. Two officials, stranded in a land without luxury, discover an ingenious solution to their predicament—one that requires neither effort nor skill on their part. Their savior? A humble muzhik, a man shaped by centuries of unquestioning toil.

When the nouveau-riche Peterkins invite an artistic couple to live and work in a disused wing of their country home, they unknowingly craft a cocktail of conflict, tension, and deceit. This delightful social comedy is told from the perspective of Lancaster, the household's rigidly inhibited butler, who is torn between his principles of professional detachment and his love for the Peterkins.

Die falschen Excellenzen. Humoreske von Karl May ist eine frühe Erzählung Karl Mays. Die Humoreske wurde erstmals im Februar und März 1878 im 2. Jahrgang der von Peter Rosegger herausgegebenen Monatsschrift Heimgarten veröffentlicht. Dies war die einzige Veröffentlichung zu Mays Lebzeiten. Entstanden ist der Text vermutlich 1877. Inhalt: Die früheren Freunde Werner in Ebersbach und Franke in Limberg befinden sich im Rechtsstreit. Beide sind Gasthofbesitzer und das Gasthaus "Zu den drei Schwanen", das jetzt Franke gehört, war einst im Besitz von Werner.

Manya Miriam Mittelman has an uneasy relationship with her flesh, of which there is a bit too much by the standards of Columbia University circa 1992.

Ein heiterer Roman – über einen heiteren Roman. Die ehemalige Stadträtin Jutta Hirschmann veröffentlicht einen bissig-ironischen Roman, in dem sie den amtierenden Bürgermeister aufs Korn nimmt und hofft, dass der stadtbekannte Buchhändler Günther Brühl ihr Buch in das Sortiment seiner Buchläden aufnimmt. Doch Brühl ist nicht nur in vierter Generation Buchhändler, er ist auch Germanist und denkt grundsätzlich nicht daran, das Werk einer Selfpublisherin zu vertreiben.

Plongez dans Candide ou l'Optimisme, le roman satirique le plus célèbre de Voltaire, où l’innocence se heurte à la cruauté du monde. Suivez Candide, un jeune homme bercé par l’optimisme de son maître Pangloss, dans une aventure effrénée à travers l’Europe, l’Amérique et l’Orient. Guerres, tremblements de terre, trahisons et rencontres improbables jalonnent son parcours, l’obligeant à remettre en question sa vision naïve du monde.

May Night, or the Drowned Maiden, 1831 is the third tale in the collection Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka by Nikolai Gogol. It was made into the opera May Night by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov in 1878–79 and also a Ukrainian setting by Mykola Lysenko. This story comes from the unnamed story-teller (who was previously responsible for "The Fair at Sorochyntsi"). In this tale, a young Cossack named Levko, the son of the mayor, is in love with Hanna. He comes to her house to talk about marriage and mentions that his father is not pleased with the idea, though he doesn't say anything directly and merely ignores him.

Es gibt doch nichts Schöneres als Familie ... oder? Im heiteren Familienroman "Die Zweisteins - Familie formt den Charakter" von Bestseller-Autorin Regine Kölpin zieht Juna Zweistein mit ihrer eigenwilligen Familie in einen verschlafenen Küstenort an der Nordsee, um ihr Erbe, ein ziemlich marodes Hotel, anzutreten. Da sind Turbulenzen vorprogrammiert ... Juna Zweistein ist Feuer und Flamme, als sie das alte Hotel ihrer Tante erbt, das im beschaulichen Tulpenboom an der Nordsee gleich neben dem Leuchtturm steht.

Cassie Black works at a funeral home. She's used to all manner of dead bodies. What she's not used to is them waking up. Which they seem to be doing on a disturbingly regular basis lately. Just when Cassie believes she has the problem under control, the recently-deceased Busby Tenpenny insists he's been murdered and claims Cassie might be responsible thanks to a wicked brand of magic she's been exposed to. The only way for Cassie to get her life back to normal is to tame her magic and uncover Mr. Tenpenny's true killer.