Visionary Fiction

There are just 77 days before a deadly asteroid collides with Earth, and Detective Palace is out of a job. With the Concord police force operating under the auspices of the U.S. Justice Department, Hank's days of solving crimes are over...until a woman from his past begs for help finding her missing husband.

In infancy, Junior Thibodeaux is encoded with a prophesy: A comet will obliterate life on Earth in 36 years. Alone in this knowledge, he comes of age in rural Maine grappling with the question: Does anything I do matter? While the voice that has accompanied him since conception appraises his choices, Junior's loved ones emerge with parallel stories - his anxious mother.

At the Madrid café where she stops for breakfast each day before work, María Dolz finds herself drawn to a couple who is also there every morning. Though she can hardly explain it, observing what she imagines to be their "unblemished" life lifts her out of the doldrums of her own existence. But what begins as mere observation turns into an increasingly complicated entanglement when the man is fatally stabbed in the street.

Christopher Martin, the sole survivor of a torpedoed destroyer, is stranded upon a rock in the middle of the Atlantic. Pitted against him are the sea, the sun, the brutal cold and the aching terror of his isolation. To drink, there is a pool of rainwater; to eat, seaweed and anemones, preyed upon by feathered reptiles. As he descends into the abyss of his consciousness, weathering lightning strikes of memory, Martin must try to assemble the truth of his fate - piece by terrible piece.

Beginning in the Garden of Eden and soaring through to the present, A Time for Everything reimagines pivotal encounters between humans and angels: the glow of the cherubim watching over Eden; the profound love between Cain and Abel despite their differences; Lot's shame in Sodom; Noah's isolation before the flood; Ezekiel tied to his bed, prophesying ferociously; the death of Christ; and the emergence of sensual, mischievous cherubs in the 17th century.

“Congratulations, you’ve won the lottery!” shouts the angel Prapura to a formless soul. The soul hasn’t been kicked out of the cycle of rebirth just yet - he’s been given a second chance. He must recall the biggest mistake of his past life while on "homestay" in the body of 14-year-old Makoto Kobayashi. It looks like Makoto doesn’t have a single friend, and his family don’t seem to care about him at all. But as the soul begins to live Makoto’s life on his own terms, he grows closer to the family and the people around him and sees their true colors more clearly.

Myla Alvarez, novice, walks into the Sonoran desert near Tucson, Arizona, and begins telling stories about the Old Mermaids who were washed ashore onto the New Desert when the Old Sea dried up. In this mystical new world, they lived, created, and walked in beauty. Myla finds sustenance and meaning in their lives and stories. But she worries that Homeland Security may discover the illegal immigrants she harbors at the Old Mermaid Sanctuary.

Greta Wells embarks on a radical psychiatric treatment to alleviate her suffocating depression. But the treatment has unexpected effects, and Greta finds herself transported to the lives she might have had if she'd been born in different eras. During the course of her treatment, Greta cycles between her own time and alternate lives in 1918, where she is a bohemian adulteress, and 1941, which transforms her into a devoted mother and wife. As her final treatment looms, questions arise: What will happen once each Greta learns how to remain in one of the other worlds?

John William Barry has inherited the pedigree - and wealth - of two of Seattle's elite families; Neil Countryman is blue-collar Irish. Nevertheless, when the two boys meet in 1972 at age 16, they're brought together by what they have in common: a fierce intensity and a love of the outdoors that takes them together into Washington's remote backcountry.

Sophie Jones is a physics prodigy on track to unlock the secrets of the universe. When she meets Jake Kristopher during their first week at Yale they instantly feel a deep connection, as if they’ve known each other before. Slowly, their love lures Sophie away from school.

Je voulais dire à mon grand-père que je l'aimais, mais je n'y suis pas parvenu. J'ai si souvent été en retard sur les mots que j'aurais voulu dire. Je ne pourrai jamais faire marche arrière vers cette tendresse. Sauf peut-être avec l'écrit, maintenant. Je peux le lui dire, là.

Following the tragic death of his sister, 1-year-old Dill's life changes forever. In an attempt to escape their grief, Dill and his parents move to his grandmother's remote cottage in the countryside. Isolated from his family, who are struggling to come to terms with their loss, Dill spends his time exploring the wild landscape with his trusty spaniel, Bramble. He soon learns that life in his new home, the Dip-n-Dells, is anything but lonely.

Set in Rome in 2012, the story follows Sarah Adamson, a beautiful young Catholic graduate student from Boston studying at the Vatican Library for her thesis on the first Christian heretic, Marcion of Pontus. She is being courted by two utterly different men: Simon Appel, a descendent of the kabbalist Isaac Luria who covers Vatican affairs for the New York Times, and Armando Pierleoni, the scion of an ancient Italian aristocratic family with strong ties to the Vatican.

They knew us before we began to walk upright. Shamans called them guardians, mythmakers called them tricksters, pagans called them gods, churchmen called them demons, folklorists called them shape-shifters. They've obligingly taken any role we've assigned them, and, while needing nothing from us, have accepted whatever we thought was their due?

Durante buena parte de esta novela Gonzalo es un poetastro que quiere ser poeta y un padrastro que se comporta como si fuera el padre biológico de Vicente, un niño adicto a la comida para gatos que años más tarde se niega a estudiar en la universidad porque su sueño principal es convertirse -también- en poeta, a pesar de los consejos de Carla, su orgullosamente solitaria madre, y de León, un padre mediocre dedicado a coleccionar autitos de juguete.

Rescued from unscrupulous breeders who plan to destroy him because of his floppy ear, when the Queen’s littlest corgi arrives at Windsor Castle, he finds himself in a world of red carpets, gilded chambers - and not a pile of dirty laundry to be seen. Charming his way into the affections of the royal household, Nelson offers a dog’s-eye view of life with the Queen. He eavesdrops on her encounters with celebrities, philanthropists and advisers, catching rare insights into the secrets of a purposeful life.

In this compendium of delightful short stories, David Michie draws us into the extraordinary experiences of everyday people as they encounter those tell-tale cracks exposing reality as not quite what it seems. Through intriguing story-lines and revelations, Michie offers life-enhancing insights. How better to gently unwind at the end of the day - and to prepare for the infinite possibilities we may encounter in the realms of our dreams?

This autumn, life is catching up with Thomas Quinn. Five years ago, his sometime friend Andrew Black wrote a mystery novel that sold a million copies and then disappeared. Now could it be that Quinn is being stalked by the hero of Black’s book? His wife, Imogen, usually has the answers but she’s working on the other side of the world and talking to her on webcam just isn’t the same. Quinn finds himself in a world that might well be coming apart at the seams. If he can find Black, he might start finding answers.

Troubled by an inability to find any meaning in his life, the 25-year-old narrator of this deceptively simple novel quits university and eventually arrives at his brother's New York apartment. In a bid to discover what life is all about, he writes lists. He becomes obsessed by time and whether it actually matters. He faxes his meteorologist friend. He endlessly bounces a ball against the wall. He befriends a small boy who lives next door. He yearns to get to the bottom of life and how best to live it.

Hundreds of thousands of people have totally lost the ability to sleep. Run by the wealthy and enigmatic Storch brothers, the Slumber Corps is at the forefront of the fight against this deadly new disease. But when Trish is confronted by "Baby A", the first universal sleep donor, and the mysterious "Donor Y", whose horrific, infectious nightmares are threatening to sweep through the precious sleep supply, her faith in the organization and in her own motives begins to falter.