Modern Fiction

In a sea of college freshmen, Elizabeth Bennet feels more like a den mother than a returning student. She’d rather be playing Exploding Kittens than dodge-the-gropers at a frat party, but no way was she letting her innocent, doe-eyed roommate go alone. Everything about Meryton College screams old money - something she and Jane definitely are not - but Elizabeth resolves to enjoy herself.

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.

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.

For her I risked it all, but was it worth her paying the price? She knows my secret. Now, what will she do to protect it and the crown? What will I be willing to do to protect her? That answer is easy . . . everything.

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

In the summer of 1816, Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley - the two great poets of their age - and a lovely 17-year-old named Mary Shelley were partying and reading ghost stories on the shores of Lake Geneva. They dared each other to come up with the scariest story. Young Mary was the only one to rise to the challenge, and she gave birth to the entire horror and science fiction genres by crafting a brilliant and chilling account of what it means to be human, what responsibilities we have to each other, and how far we can go in tampering with nature.

American McKenna Manning is thrilled to start her new job as a nanny to an aristocratic family in London. Not only will she get to explore a new country, but she hopes to find a missing piece of herself while on English soil. What she never expected was to get a crush on her employer's brother, the dashing Viscount Brookstone. Of course, when one is rescued by a gorgeous man with a deep voice and British accent, McKenna knows she doesn't stand a chance. As she unpeels the layers behind the serious and scowling viscount, she begins to find her herself - and feelings for Phillip, too.

Beat the game. Get the girls. Stop the bad guy. My name's Ethan Riley. Just your typical dude with a bartending gig and an outdated Subaru, and if that wasn't boring enough...I'm from Ohio. Or at least I was boring...until I died. No, seriously. I died. But thanks to the magic of unethical medical practices, I was kitted out with a microchip in my head and some hush money in my pocket. Now, I’m suddenly seeing everything like a dating simulator, including some of the hottest gamer girls in the industry.

After her troublemaker mother’s mysterious death, Kira fled her wealthy Texas town and never looked back. Now, decades later, Kira is invited to an old frenemy’s vow renewal celebration Though she is reluctant to go, there are things pulling her home. . . like chilled wine and days spent by the pool . . . like sexy Jack, her childhood crush. But more important are the urgent texts from her grandmother, who says she has something for Kira. Something related to her mother’s death, something that makes it look an awful lot like murder.

An exploited child worker in the silver mines of Bolivia finds an ally – but at what cost? A young woman's affair has terrifying repercussions when her lover's wife dies. A sailor's wife takes her communion with Nature a little too far…From a hungry young woman who is not what she seems, to a boy who has taken his mother's advice a little too seriously; from disfigured girls willing to pay any price to fit in, to an immigrant who cannot escape his tormentor; from a new home with a sinister secret, this collection plumbs the depths of the psyche and dredges up some very modern horrors.

Discover World War 2's hidden heroes and villains. Spies, Code Breakers, and Secret Agents explores the intriguing world of spycraft and shows you what goes on behind the scenes in war. From spy schools and ciphers to sneaky tools and secret armies, this guide takes you on a declassified tour of the undercover operations that helped decide the outcome of World War 2. There's also more than a dozen short spy-ographies that cover some of the most famous (and infamous!) agents that were active during the war.

The New Atlantis (1627) is a utopian novel by Sir Francis Bacon in which he describes a vision of the future of human discovery, expressing his aspirations and ideals for humanity. The novel portrays a utopian world where "generosity and enlightenment, dignity and splendour, piety and public spirit" are the dominant qualities of the inhabitants.

The Life and Death of Mr. Badman by John Bunyan can be a bit challenging, even for the best of listeners. Not so with this new, easy-to-understand version that translates the original archaic language into simple conversational English, allowing listeners of all ages to easily navigate this popular Christian story considered by many to be the third part of The Pilgrim’s Progress series. This story depicts the stages of life—from cradle to grave—of a very wicked man in an evil age and the miserable consequences that undoubtedly follow such wretched living.

Old Gods never die…or so Athena thought. But then the feathers started sprouting beneath her skin, invading her lungs like a strange cancer, and Hermes showed up with a fever eating away his flesh. So much for living a quiet eternity in perpetual health.

Billy Phelan, small-time bookie, pool hustler, and poker player, becomes an unlikely go-between in the 1938 kidnapping of an Albany, New York, political boss' son.

Based in part on Cheever's adolescence in New England, the novel follows the destinies of the impecunious and wildly eccentric Wapshots of St. Botolphs, a quintessential Massachusetts fishing village. Here are the stories of Captain Leander Wapshot, venerable sea dog and would-be suicide; of his licentious older son, Moses; and of Moses' adoring and errant younger brother, Coverly.

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.

Based on the remarkable true story of G. H. Hardy and Srinivasa Ramanujan, and populated with such luminaries such as D. H. Lawrence, Bertrand Russell, and Ludwig Wittgenstein, The Indian Clerk takes this extraordinary slice of history and transforms it into an emotional and spellbinding story about the fragility of human connection and our need to find order in the world.

On August 19, 2019, a rogue Chinese military cabal launches an opportunistic EMP attack against the United States, triggering a cataclysmic chain of events - with the potential to change world forever. With the United States crippled, belligerent powers rise to fill the void overseas, catapulting already volatile regions into chaos and war - hastening a worldwide collapse.

I've wasted years waiting to get my life back, and I finally have an opportunity. It's a simple undercover job-but with a catch. A thirteen month-old, crying, diaper-wearing catch. Because I'm not going undercover as a cook, or a driver. I'm the new manny. If it will get me back in the royal family's good graces, I'll grin and bear it. Even on the worst days, I know this will be worth it. I'll keep my head down and do my job. But it's getting harder and harder to ignore my forbidden attraction to the baby's mother.