Fiction Realism

Once dubbed "The Deadliest Man Alive", Jarrod Torrealday is a former Olympic saber hopeful and medieval-weapons expert banned from competition for killing another fencer in a duel. Despondent, volatile, alcoholic, yet still one of the greatest swordsmen alive, he now works for third-rate fantasy films as a technical consultant and stuntman. When Jarrod accepts the gig of a lifetime from a sorcerer looking for a hero, he finds himself facing an invading army in a world inhabited by creatures from Earth's mythical past.

In 1995 Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, on a rare family vacation, seven-year-old Nainoa Flores falls overboard a cruise ship into the Pacific Ocean. When a shiver of sharks appears in the water, everyone fears for the worst. But instead, Noa is gingerly delivered to his mother in the jaws of a shark, marking his story as the stuff of legends. Nainoa’s family, struggling amidst the collapse of the sugarcane industry, hails his rescue as a sign of favor from ancient Hawaiian gods - a belief that appears validated after he exhibits puzzling new abilities.

Magic most definitely resides in the Maine summerhouse where the mysterious Madame Zoya has granted the innermost wishes of its visitors. Now, three women have come to this special place with one thing in common: a painful past they would each like to rewrite. Amy, who hides a heartbreaking loss behind her seemingly perfect marriage and family...Faith, a widow in her 30s whose deepest grief is for a man from years ago...and Zoe, an artist shunned by her hometown for reasons she doesn’t know after a traumatic night erased her memory.

Machado de Assis’ classic novel, the precursor of Latin American fiction, is finally rendered as a stunningly relevant work for 21st-century audiences. In eloquent, contemporary prose, Costa and Patterson breathe new life into the dynamic character of Brás Cubas and reveal the vivid, tempestuous Rio de Janeiro of his time. The recently deceased Cubas narrates his life story, admitting glibly: “I am not so much a writer who has died, as a dead man who has decided to write.”

Rosemary Bell has begun a new life in Mosswood, Georgia. But when the town's annual Easter Fair is ruined by a spell gone wrong, the townsfolk are hopping mad, and it could have grave consequences for her daughter, Maggie. With her daughter's spellcasting shenanigans all over national news, Rosie finds herself on the wrong side of the worldwide Council of Witches. When Maggie's magical ability tests off the charts, the Council decides it's only a matter of time before she winds up in the news again, putting herself and others at risk.

“From exactly midnight until daybreak, the Namiya General Store advice box will be reopening for one night only.” When three delinquents hole up in an abandoned general store after their most recent robbery, to their great surprise, a letter drops through the mail slot in the store’s shutter. This seemingly simple request for advice sets the trio on a journey of discovery as, over the course of a single night, they step into the role of the kindhearted former shopkeeper who devoted his waning years to offering thoughtful counsel to his correspondents.

Powers are determined by geographic birth locations, and only the rich and powerful are permitted access to prized sites. SC is the first person born in space. The punishment for unauthorized births is death. Out of fear, SC keeps his strange abilities as his darkest secret. But when his mother is kidnapped by an unknown organization, SC has no choice but to act.

Surtout n'arrêtez jamais de danser... À la suite d'une série de rêves, un journaliste free-lance désabusé part à la recherche d'une ex-petite amie, pourvue des oreilles les plus parfaites que la terre a jamais portées, mystérieusement disparue. Sa quête le mène à l'hôtel du Dauphin de Sapporo, où il va devenir le chaperon d'une adolescente paumée, et recevoir des instructions cryptiques de la part d'un homme-mouton, caché dans une chambre miteuse d'un étage fantôme, dont la principale est de : " continuer à danser ".

Welcome to Darkblood - oops, I mean Darkhen Academy. There are three rules to survive the elite supernatural school: Do not talk or even look at The Seven, the uber-powerful supes that rule the academy. Never go into the Fae forest on a full moon...or else. And most definitely do not fall for one of the extremely hot and unattainable instructors. Too bad I’ve never really been a rule follower...If word gets out that humans are no longer safe from the supes, our worlds will once again be closed off. It’s up to us to stop that from happening.

Best-selling author Carlos Ruiz Zafón conceived of this collection of stories as an appreciation to the countless admirers who joined him on the extraordinary journey that began with The Shadow of the Wind. Comprising 11 stories, most of them never before published in English, The City of Mist offers the listener compelling characters, unique situations, and a gothic atmosphere reminiscent of his beloved Cemetery of Forgotten Books quartet.

Japan, after suffering from a massive irreparable disaster, cuts itself off from the world. Children are so weak they can barely stand or walk: the only people with any get-go are the elderly. Mumei lives with his grandfather Yoshiro, who worries about him constantly. They carry on a day-to-day routine in what could be viewed as a post-Fukushima time, with all the children born ancient - frail and gray-haired, yet incredibly compassionate and wise. Mumei may be enfeebled and feverish, but he is a beacon of hope, full of wit and free of self-pity and pessimism.

A 300-year-old mystery, four magical sisters and a cat. The Blackmoore sisters discover their paranormal powers as they find themselves scrambling to find a real killer while they battle a crooked Sheriff, planted evidence, and a long list of suspects that all had a reason to kill. This is a box-set of the first five books in the Blackmoore Sisters Cozy Mystery series.

On the corner of American Street and Joy Road, Fabiola Toussaint thought she would finally find une belle vie - a good life. But after they leave Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Fabiola's mother is detained by US immigration, leaving Fabiola to navigate her loud American cousins - Chantal, Donna, and Princess - the grittiness of Detroit's West Side, a new school, and a surprising romance all on her own.

When Harlow Estrada is abruptly fired from her dream job and her boyfriend proves to be a jerk, her world turns upside down. She flees New York City to the one place she can always call home—the enchanted Hacienda Estrada. The Estrada family farm in Mexico houses an abundance of charmed flowers cultivated by Harlow’s mother, sisters, aunt, and cousins. By harnessing the magic in these flowers, they can heal hearts, erase memories, interpret dreams—but not Harlow.

1820: Sophia Ashmore-Percy reluctantly accompanies her husband James to a remote Greek island, where he searches for rare biological specimens. Once there, however, she sets on her own voyage of discovery—stumbling across the very creature he is looking for, making an unexpected connection with a local woman, and ultimately reconsidering her marriage, life, and own desires. Decades later, audiologist Henry Latimer is sent to the home of industrialist Sir Edward Ashmore-Percy and tasked with curing the man’s young daughter, Philomel, of her deafness.

One of the great masterpieces of modern Latin American fiction, Terra Nostra is concerned with nothing less than the history of Spain and of South America, with the Indian Gods and with Christianity, with the birth, the passion, and the death of civilizations. Fuentes skillfully blends a wide range of literary forms, stories within stories, Mexican and Spanish myth, and famous literary characters in this novel that is both a historical epic and an apocalyptic vision of modern times. Terra Nostra is that most ambitious and rare of creations - a total work of art.

The series takes place in a world similar to our own, but one where vampires, witches, werewolves, and shape-shifters live among humans without their knowledge. These supernatural races make up a secret society known as the Night World, which enforces two fundamental laws to prevent discovery: (1) Never allow humans to gain knowledge of the Night World's existence, and (2) Never fall in love with one of them.

When a pediatric oncology nurse receives a devastating prognosis—she has just weeks left to live—she finds unexpected comfort from a patient. Her young friend shares a life- and death-changing secret: it is possible to live the same day over and over again until she’s experienced a truly full life. Thus begins a heartbreaking and joyful journey of love, friendship, and self-discovery, as the brave nurse only truly learns how to live in the face of death.

Sitting alone beside the languorous blue waters of the lagoon, Ana Magdalena Bach contemplates the men at the hotel bar. She has been happily married for twenty-seven years and has no reason to escape the life she has made with her husband and children. And yet, every August, she travels by ferry here to the island where her mother is buried, and for one night takes a new lover.

Catalina de Cerrato is being raised by her widowed father, Don Alonso, in 1551 Guatemala, scarcely thirty years since the Spanish invasion. A ruling member of the oppressive Spanish hierarchy, Don Alonso holds sway over the newly relegated lower class of Indigenous communities. Fiercely independent, Catalina struggles to honor her father and her late mother, a Maya noblewoman to whom Catalina made a vow that only she can keep: preserve the lost sacred text of the Popol Vuh, the treasured and now forbidden history of the K’iche’ people.