Modern Fiction

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.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, unique tales inspired by traditional literary forms appeared frequently in socialist-leaning British periodicals, such as the Clarion, Labour Leader, and Social Democrat. Based on familiar genres, these stories were meant to entertain readers of all ages - and some challenged the conventional values promoted in children’s literature for the middle class. Acclaimed critic and author Michael Rosen brings together more than 40 of the best and most enduring examples of these stories in one beautiful volume.

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.

The Modern Outlaws are riders of a new century. We laugh like honest men at a rotary luncheon. We shake hands on our new business, understanding that it doesn’t mean shit, not one speck of it, because getting lost and becoming someone else begins with the utterance of your very name. We pulsate on a single idea, which is that of recapturing in the next 10 days what we’ve missed for the last 30 years. Where the early years were gilded with promise, the middle years assure these men that this is it, what it all comes down to, what happened to us.

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....

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.

Step into the mind of James Allen, a pioneer in personal development. The Complete James Allen Collection: A Modern Translation brings together all his works, adapted for today’s readers.

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.

In this eagerly anticipated, brand-new Nina Reilly thriller, Perri O'Shaughnessy takes listeners back to Nina's first murder investigation, to the case that ignites her passionate commitment to fighting for justice. Working as a paralegal and attending law school at night, Nina has her hands full. She's fighting for custody of her young son Bob and overseeing a medical malpractice lawsuit on behalf of her mother, Virigina Reilly, whose health is rapidly declining after she suffered complications from an acupuncture procedure.

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.