Urban Historical

Nelson Mandela is well known throughout the world as a heroic leader who symbolizes freedom and moral authority. He is fixed in the public mind as the world’s elder statesman - the gray-haired man with a kindly smile who spent 27 years in prison before becoming the first Black president of South Africa. But Nelson Mandela was not always elderly or benign....

Hazel's parents saw the 1912 sinking of the Titanic as a portent of doom and locked their daughter away. Isolated and alone, each birthday she wishes to be free, whatever the risk. If only her childhood friend, Henry, would return and breach the high walls. On the front lines of the Great War, Henry kept a token of happier times - a worn photograph of a young girl with long blonde plaits. He returns from war damaged and vowing to do one brave thing to make up for his cowardice: release Hazel from her prison.

In this coming-of-age novel, I discover a life-changing point of view, BAGO. Frustrated by unanswered questions at a religious school in Southwest Philadelphia, that I was punished for asking, I set out to become a famous pirate by making a movie of my Huckleberry Finn river adventure, with extraordinarily surprising results.

Nur um Haaresbreite ist Athen 480 vor Christus einer Katastrophe entgangen – dank der todesmutigen Krieger aus Sparta, die den Pass bei den Thermophylen lange genug gehalten hatten, um die Stadt zu evakuieren.

Willkommen in Tumanbay, einst der Sitz eines mächtigen Sultans - jetzt liegt die Stadt in Ketten. Denn der Herrscher über Tumbay ist tot, sein gefürchtetes Heer wurde vernichtet. Nun regiert eine Frau die prächtigste Stadt der Welt, die geheimnisumwitterte Königin Maya. Doch wo ist die grausame Feldherrin, und warum zeigt sich Maya den Unterworfenen nicht? Während sich die mächtigsten Männer der Stadt vor dem fanatischen Maya-Kult in Sicherheit bringen, regt sich Widerstand. Denn der Thron von Tumanbay ist kein Machtsitz, er gleicht eher einem Todesurteil.

These stories provide you with an invitation to traverse the boundaries of the known and unknown, to question reality as you know it, and to confront your deepest fears and desires. With each tale, you are transported into a different world, a different time, a different reality. From historical mysteries steeped in the supernatural to thrilling tales of science fiction, the Anthology of Strange Stories is your passport to the unimaginable.

Judith Jonson has been a widow for five years. At first, she hoped Dan would return, but her dream turned to a nightmare as the war ended, and she had to accept her beloved husband was never coming home. Then one day she sees a picture in the paper - the aftermath of a dramatic robbery in London's West End - and Judith can't believe her eyes. It's Dan, she'd stake her life on it - or rather his life, the traitor. Betrayed and desperate for answers, Judith begins a hunt for the man she thought she married. And in amongst the lowlifes of the East End's gangland underworld she finds more than she bargained for.

Abigail Argent stands out. Some people notice that she always wears gloves and shudder when they know why. The ones who know her best notice her ability with metal. Abigail's particular talent lies in the coloring of alloys, for seeing the beauty in a plain piece of metal and being able to draw it out. Her study leads her to discover a connection between her own craft and that of her favorite childhood myth: changing lead into gold.

The man couldn't help himself. His captor was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Her powerful eyes held his attention and made him forget that she had him confined in a basement, his hands and feet bound with duct tape. She fed him when he was hungry and kept him alive for the telling of her horrific tale. After getting past the terror and discomfort, he reasoned that there was nothing to worry about for the moment.

When the high sovereign of the rapidly industrializing realm of Ghavarim is murdered by a mysterious assassin, the rulers of the five kingdoms of the Federation are plunged into a vicious power struggle. Jason Tern, a noble captain from the borderlands, must battle shadowy half-human assailants with limbs of brass and steel while untangling an ever-widening web of lies and intrigue to discover the true identity of the killer before mounting tensions spark a bloody civil war.

Vampires around the world are coming forth to remind humans they are not romantic fantasies to be sought, nor are they should that can be redeemed. These are the stories that they must tell. The first novella in a series of 12, Anne Fitzgerald gives the tale of her involvement in the Irish gangs in the 1930s and her transformation into the Wyandot's vampiric legend of the hooh-strah-dooh. Her tale is a hard one to tell, with love, loss, and abuse plaguing her past. But she must tell it so that humans know the truth. That the world of the vampire is one of suffering.

Parigi, 1940. La città è occupata dai nazisti. Il lussuoso Hotel Ritz, un tempo frequentato dall'alta società parigina, è adesso alla mercé di arroganti ufficiali tedeschi, con un ossequioso seguito di tirapiedi e accompagnatrici. Olivia Olsen è una delle cameriere dell'hotel. È americana, ma tiene nascosta la sua nazionalità, anche se questa bugia diventa ogni giorno più pericolosa. Quando un uomo molto vicino a Hitler mette gli occhi su di lei, Olivia non esita a cogliere l'opportunità per dare una mano ai partigiani.

Oliver Caradog saves a small boy from a white dragon. Unable to find his family and suspecting him to be not entirely human, he names him Jude and takes him home to be cared for by his wife in the realm of the tyrant King Vortigern. This is a fantasy fiction short story based on the real history of Wales, a beautiful and wild country where dragons have always lived.

Third grader Max is heading off on a road trip with Mom. With miles to travel, cousins to meet, and a tall roller coaster to ride (maybe), it will be an adventure! But Max always spends weekends with Dad; will Dad be okay if he's left behind? And will Max be brave enough for all the new explorations ahead of him?