Showing results for "The Only Life" in Literature & Fiction

Fed up with an outlaw existence, Calico Jack Rackam swears off the pirate life, but he hasn’t reckoned with Anne Bonny, a woman who would as soon stab a man as give him a good tumble—that is, unless he’s a pirate. Soon Jack finds himself out on the high seas again, with Anne by his side and his men spoiling for action. And when they capture a Dutch merchant ship, they pick up an unlikely crewmate as well, an expert sword fighter and topmast seaman who has a secret: he just happens to be a woman named Mary. Together they cut a bold swath through the West Indies.

Saul doesn’t get why he’s misunderstood. At his high-tech day job, he hides in the bathroom writing a novel about his dead grandfather and wonders why his boss wants to fire him. He tells his almost ex-wife about a blind date and wonders why she slams the door in his face. He aches with worry for his seven-year-old son, who seems happier living with his mom and her new man. When the blind date becomes a complicated relationship, and Saul’s blunders at work threaten the survival of the company, Saul has to wake up and confront his fears.

Florida, 1982. A nine-year-old watches as his dead father's possessions are hauled away: his clothes and tools, his faux-leather recliner. His sensei says it's a perfect time to turn his weaknesses into weapons. His PE teacher says he runs like a pregnant ostrich. His mother takes out a personal ad. Everyone is trying to teach him a lesson but he is, it seems, a slow learner. Meanwhile, with each passing day, his father recedes, growing less and less plausible, almost a myth.

For elderly churchwarden Arthur Calderbank, there's no place like home. His home just so happens to be a graveyard. He keeps himself to himself, gets on with his job, and visits his wife everyday for a chat. When one day he finds someone else has been to see his wife - and has left flowers on her grave - he is determined to solve the mystery of who and why.

'We looked like the perfect young family, something out of a magazine, in shades of marshmallow pink....' A photograph. The father smiling beside his new car, the mother pregnant and radiant, the little girl placing cuddly toys in the cot for her new baby brother. All we see is the happiness. 'We don't see my mother. We don't see the lies.' But behind every picture there is a story. And behind that story, there are others. Every family has its secrets.

Villain for Hire is a hilarious adventure through the world of heroes, superpowers, love, and villainy. With mad schemes, hammy bad guys, psychically compelling yandere villainesses, and mad AI, this men's adventure is sure to delight.

Annie Taft’s wedding is four days away, and it will be one of the grandest anyone can remember in her small South Carolina town. Preparations are in order. Friends and family are gathering in anticipation. Everything is going according to plan. Except that Annie herself has vanished. Did she have second thoughts? Or has something much worse happened to the bride-to-be?

Dozing in the backseat of her father's car, Mary Ann Hubbard is the happiest eight-year-old in the country. It's 1935, and she and her parents are going to spend Fourth of July weekend with her headmistress and the Zimmerns, whose daughter, Lolly, is Mary Ann's best friend from school. While the two little girls frolic in the attic, endowing the rambling old house with wonder, creativity, and imagination, their parents are downstairs, mired in all the pleasure, pain, and occasional childishness of adulthood.

One of Nylon's "50 Books We Can't Wait To Read In 2017" One of Chicago Reader's "Books We Can't Wait To Read In 2017" A father searches for his addict son while grappling with his own choices as a parent (and as a user of sorts) In Lindsay Hunter’s achingly funny, fiercely honest second novel...