Modern Fiction

Jagua Nana, no longer young but still irresistible, lives a life of hedonism in Lagos: men, parties, fights, wild nights in the Tropicana with her handsome young boyfriend, Freddie. Rushing from one experience to the next in search of something she can't quite grasp, Jagua finds herself embroiled in shady politics, caught up in village feuds and the source of drama wherever she goes. In this vivid depiction of 1960s Nigeria, everyone is hustling and everyone is on the make - and a woman like Jagua must find her own unconventional path to fulfilment.

When Kate Quaile meets Max Rippon in the first week of university, so begins a life-changing friendship. Over the next four years, the two become inseparable. For him, she breaks her solitude; for her, he leaves his busy circles behind. But knowing Max means knowing his family: the wealthy Rippons, all generosity, social ease, and quiet repression. Theirs is a very different world from Kate’s own upbringing, and yet she finds herself quickly drawn into their gilded lives, and the secrets that lie beneath.

A series of engrossing sketches reveals an India that may be surprising to many Westerners. Instead of a single country, the listener will discover, India is a nation of several civilizations in different states of development. The author covers the country from its ancient cultures to her encounters with the film directors and poets and the complicated machination of the world's largest democracy.

Rachel runs Rapunzel's, a high-end salon on the lower level of a downtown Chicago high rise and lives happily in self-imposed exile in an apartment at the top of the tower - that is until Jake Malden walks in with his teen daughter, Emma, and presents Rachel with a dilemma. Young Emma is determined to defy her mother's wishes and get her long, beautiful, untouched hair cut off so she can donate it to charity to honor a friend with cancer.

Colin and Click are headed back from the Hellpocalypse timeline when things go sideways, and they end up somewhere they were never supposed to be. Soon Colin is recruited by none other than The Fat Man himself and tasked with saving Christmas in a small Texas town that's plagued by allies of Krampus. Is Santa really just a jolly old fat man? How much trouble can a few gankerl be? Do lederhosen make Colin's butt look fat? Can Colin save Christmas? Get answers to these questions and more in this wacky Christmas fantasy fiction installment in the Junkyard Druid Novellas series.

Colin McCool here, everyone’s favorite druid master and trouble magnet extraordinaire. Everyone except the gods, that is, who seem to enjoy messing with me just a little too much. Which is how I ended up in an alternate timeline, trying to save humanity from a vampire apocalypse. After getting my tail kicked by the top leech in Dallas, I decided it was time to level up before round two. That’s why I’m headed to Underhill to bond with a druid oak in this timeline so I can win this war. To do that, I’ll need to recruit the help of the Dagda, leader of the Celtic pantheon....

An excellent collection of creepy ghost stories from some of the most notable names of early horror fiction, including: “The Willows” by Algernon Blackwood, “The Shadows On The Wall” by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, “The Messenger” by Robert W.Chambers, “Lazarus” by Leonid Andreyev, “The Beast With Five Fingers” by W.F. Harvey, “The Mass Of Shadows” by Anatole France, “What Was It” by Fitz-James O’brien, “The Middle Toe Of The Right Foot” by Ambrose Bierce, “The Shell Of Sense” by Olivia Howard Dunbar, and more!

Since their forbidden beginning, Erin and Blake's relationship has been marked by deep sensuality and intense emotion. The couple is tested at every turn. They’re running out of time. Blake and Erin will have to trust each other to forge their own sexy ending.

Even in the months before his death, Peter Drucker was thinking in innovative ways about management - in a world transforming before his eyes. He requested a series of meetings with Elizabeth Haas Edersheim to explain his ideas, and this insightful, practical work is the result. The Definitive Drucker provides visions, concepts, and advice that will help you steer your company or nonprofit through the turmoil and unpredictability of business today.

Contains books one and two of the Modern Paladin, a LitRPG adventure series: Modern Paladin and Allies....

Claire Ventura is nothing like the poised and perfect heroines she reads about in her favorite romance novels. She’s a quirky, people-pleasing bookworm with a degree in women’s studies and an internet cookie decorator all rolled into a five-foot-two package fueled by chamomile tea. And most of all, Claire loves her grandmother, Lola. Claire was always her favorite grandchild, and they shared a special bond. So when Lola inches into her 90s and Alzheimer’s starts chipping away at the vital and independent woman she used to be, the whole family dynamic starts shifting.

Scratch Sullivan just wanted to survive the apocalypse in peace...but when the undead bring their war right to his doorstep, it's time to ranger up and rain hell down on his enemies! It's been eight years since the bombs fell and the dead rose, and the world has become a very dangerous place. But unlike most folks, former Army Ranger Scratch Sullivan is getting by just fine. Sure, it's hell on earth, but Scratch seems to fit in. He makes his living by hunting the dead, vampires and zombies alike, with the odd revenant thrown in for good measure.

After the loss of her mother, a woman returns to the San Fernando Valley only to uncover a haunting secret about her childhood friend. A visiting professor at a charming but strange California liberal arts college must face her past in order to protect her son. A sister, lost in the woods, confronts the dangerous truth about her brother, her stepmother, and herself. Rose's dog Wolfie has died, and three seductive women offer to help return him to her. But only if she will pay the price.

When Sam meets Leah in a bar one night, he's tongue-tied and leaves her with the mistaken impression that he's not interested because she's not thin enough. But when he finds himself helping Leah deliver a wedding cake to her ex-boyfriend's wedding, he comes to her rescue after a pushy woman insults Leah about her dating prospects and her weight - by proclaiming he's her fiancé. Leah is furious. Because that pushy woman is her mom, and now her family can't wait for the wedding.

1960. The border between East and West Germany has closed. For Elisabeth - a young painter - the GDR is her generation's chance to build a glorious, egalitarian socialist future. For her brother Uli, it is a place of stricture and oppression. Separating them is the ever-wider chasm of the party line; over them loom the twin spectres of opportunity and fear, and the shadow of their defector brother Konrad. In prose as bold as a scarlet paint stroke, Brigitte Reimann battles with the clash of idealism and suppression, familial loyalty and desire.

Jon, who is losing his wife to another man, is trying to understand what happened to his Great Love, by working, painfully, to see the story from her perspective. It begins as he asks her: "Can you tell me about us?" As he looks to his past and within himself, he begins to question the conventions of masculinity and femininity, understanding himself uncommonly as a man who challenges the male role - he's deeply embedded in family life and identifies as sensitive, vulnerable, and nurturing.

This is a story from the Canterbury Tales I: Modern Verse Translation collection. Chaucer's greatest work, written towards the end of the fourteenth century, paints a brilliant picture of medieval life, society and values. The stories range from the romantic, courtly idealism of "The Knight's Tale" to the joyous bawdy of the Miller's; all are told with a freshness and vigor in this modern verse translation that make them a delight to hear.

Intimidated by her father, the rector of Knype Hill, Dorothy performs her submissive roles of dutiful daughter and bullied housekeeper. Her thoughts are taken up with the costumes she is making for the church school play, by the hopelessness of preaching to the poor and by debts she cannot pay in 1930s Depression England. Suddenly her routine shatters and Dorothy finds herself down and out in London. She is wearing silk stockings, has money in her pocket and cannot remember her name.

Fun, bright, and playful, power pop is a sometimes adored, sometimes maligned, often misunderstood genre of music. From its heyday in the '70s and '80s to its resurgence in the '90s and '00s, power pop has meant many things to many people. In Go All the Way, today's best and brightest writers go deep on what certain power pop bands and songs mean and have meant to them. Whether they love or hate it, Go All the Way is a dive into the Beatles-inspired pop rock of the last five decades.

Jenny is unloved, unemployable and emotionally unfiltered. Her long-suffering friends seem sick of her, and whilst her social media portrays her life as a bed of roses, it is more of a dying succulent. Adults is what you want it to be. A misadventure of maturity, a satire on our age of self-promotion, a tender look at the impossibility of womanhood, a love story, a riot. And Emma Jane Unsworth is the only voice to hear it from. Adults is excruciating, a gut punch of hilarity and an audiobook laden with truth that you will listen to again and again.