Modern Fiction

Set in the 1980s against the backdrop of a swiftly gentrifying Manhattan, The Lost Language of Cranes tells the story of 25-year-old Philip, who realizes he must come out to his parents after falling in love for the first time with a man. Philip's parents are facing their own crisis: pressure from developers and the loss of their longtime home.

Vor langer Zeit ritt Prinzessin Sonja mit ihren Vater, den König, auf die Jagd. Um ihn vom Töten abzuhalten, rettet sie einem Hasen sein Leben..! Zum Dank erhält Sonja von den Waldbewohnern ein göttliches Geschenk, welches sie selbst vor ihrem Vater geheim halten muss..!

What links a café in Antarctica, a factory for producing electronic tracking tags, and personal spacecraft? They're among the multiple venues where award-winning writer Tania Hershman sets her unique tales in this spellbinding debut collection. This audiobook, adbridged from the original collection, is read by the author, Tania Hershman.

Sensitive, aspiring photographer Nick Fairfax wants nothing to do with his family's corporate business, or their vicious, cold-blooded lifestyle. Intending to give up his inheritance and pursue his art, he arrives at his father's office, only to find that Fairfax Industries has fallen to a scarred man in a hooded cloak. The man is the reclusive billionaire Lord Bane Dunsaney, and he is bent on destroying the Fairfaxes. But when he sees Nick, *everything* changes.

Maria likes to be alone with her thoughts. She talks to animals and objects, and generally prefers them to people. But whilst on holiday she begins to hear things that aren’t there—a swing creaking, a dog barking—and when she sees a Victorian embroidered picture, Maria feels a strange connection with the 10-year-old Harriet, who stitched it.

Gripping and compassionate, Land of Big Numbers traces the journeys of the diverse and legion Chinese people, their history, their government, and how all of that has tumbled—messily, violently, but still beautifully—into the present. Cutting between clear-eyed realism and tongue-in-cheek magical realism, Chen’s stories coalesce into a portrait of a people striving for openings where mobility is limited.

Teen influencer Naema Bradshaw has it all: she’s famous, stylish, gorgeous - and she’s an Eloko, a charismatic person gifted with a melody that people adore. Everyone loves her - until she's cast as the villain who exposed a Siren to the whole world. Dragged by the media, and canceled by her fans, no one understands her side: not her boyfriend, not her friends, not even her fellow Eloko.

This is a story from the Canterbury Tales III: Modern Verse Translation collection.

Lucian is a Dragon Prince of the House of Smoke...and he's dying. He has to spawn a dragonling to uphold the treaty that keeps the mortal world safe from the immortal Dark Fae, but a dragon's mate rarely survives the birth of a young dragon, and he can't face the horror of another woman's death on his hands. When he rescues a beautiful woman from a demon roaming the streets of Seattle, he has to seduce her without losing his heart...and before he turns into a feral dragon and breaks the treaty forever.

Marine biologist Cassie Boulton has no patience when a modern-day Mr. Darcy appears in her lab on Cape Cod. Proud, aloof Calder Westing III is the scion of a famous political family, while Cassie's success is hard-won in spite of a shameful family history. When their budding romance is brutally thwarted, both by his family and by hers, Calder tries to set things right by rewriting the two of them in the roles of Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet from Pride and Prejudice...but will Cassie be willing to supply the happy ending?

Colin McCool here, everyone’s favorite smart-aleck druid and all-around trouble magnet. Something supernaturally weird is going on in my town. I leave for six months to another timeline, and the place is on fire when I get back. As in, literally…on…fire. Now my girlfriend is missing, the vampire and werewolf factions are at war, the local fae queen has become a lock-in, and a strange cult has popped up that’s somehow connected to this whole mess.

Meet Mercy Blain, whose house has just burnt down. Unfortunately for Mercy, this goes beyond the disaster it would be for most people: she hasn't been outside that house for two years. Flung out into the world she's been studiously ignoring, Mercy goes to the only place she can: her not-quite-ex-husband Eugene's house. But it turns out she can't stay there either.

After the devastating battle at the East Homestead, Sean’s family regroups and makes some new alliances; however, with those growing bonds, new risks arise. Colonel Harris struggles to feed the 31st Regiment while attempting to offer assistance to the locals and contemplates risking his own life for the future of his country. A stranger arrives in Tionesta with unknown aspirations, and an ominous looting force the size of a small army entrenches nearby. Despite the emerging prospects for a new beginning, a shadow looms over the fresh buds of optimism.

When the retreat where Sean and Maria reside suddenly grows exponentially, they must make tough decisions on splitting up and dividing their resources. Unknowingly, this leaves them vulnerable to a new, much larger threat that looms nearby. The devastation of America is also revealed through the eyes of a new character, Lt. Col. Bruce Harris, Commander, 31st Infantry Regiment, 10th Mountain Division.

After an idyllic girlhood in Avonlea, Long Island, Anne has packed up her trunk, said goodbye to her foster parents, Marilla and Matthew, and moved to the isle of Manhattan for grad school. Together with her best friend, Diana Barry, she’s ready to take on the world and find her voice as a writer. When her long-time archrival Gilbert Blythe shows up at Redmond College for their final year, Anne gets the shock of her life. Gil has been in California for the last five years - since he kissed her during a beach bonfire, and she ghosted him.

One druid against the apocalypse. Hell on earth doesn’t stand a chance. Now that I’ve dealt with Badb and proven to the Celtic gods that I’m a force to be reckoned with, it’s time to address some unfinished business....

Canadian Jordan Haines is on vacation in the Caribbean. After the summer he's had, a couple months of fun in the sun is just what the doctor ordered. What he didn't count on was meeting a beautiful woman on a private beach - or falling hard. Crown Princess Astrid of San Majoria seems to lead a charmed life. Just like everyone, there's tragedy in her past, but she lives in a palace, has aides to do everything - and paparazzi hounding her private moments. Her sanctuary on her family's beach is broken one day when a tired windsurfer takes refuge in her cove - and works his way into her heart.

It's August in the Barsetshire village of Worsted, and Richard Tebben, just down from Oxford, is contemplating the gloomy prospect of a long summer in the parental home. But the numerous and impossibly glamorous Dean family - exquisite Rachel, her capable husband and six of their nine brilliant children - have come for the holidays, and their hostess, Mrs. Palmer, plans to rope everyone into performing in her disastrous annual play.

Beauty expert and influencer Jia Ahmed has her eye on the prize: conquering the internet today, the entire makeup industry tomorrow, and finally, finally proving herself to her big, opinionated family. She has little time for love, and even less time for the men in her private messages — until the day a certain international superstar slides into her DMs, and she falls hard and fast.

Four more delightful tales from one of the most entertaining storytellers of all time. Though writing in the thirteenth century, Chaucer’s wit and observation comes down undiminished through the ages, especially in this accessible modern verse translation. The stories vary considerably from the uproarious Wife of Bath’s Tale, promoting the power of women to the sober account of patient Griselda in the Clerk’s Tale.