Literary Fiction

To Do the Deal, A Novel in Stories

To Do the Deal, A Novel in Stories
Title: To Do the Deal, A Novel in Stories
ASIN: B00NUAOTPY
Illustrator: GB Tran
Published: September 22, 2014
Author:
This humorous career and family drama will captivate anyone who has ever held a job, lived in a family, or been on either side of a sales transaction. To Do the Deal, A Novel in Stories is about the quotidian — the challenges, minute dramas, and endearing moments that make up the every day. Set in a suburb of Washington, DC, To Do the Deal sets its focus not on the power brokers that dominate the nation’s capital but rather, on one family that is muddling along. Through ten stories, one each set in the years 1991 through 2000, we follow Kenneth Bodine on his quest to make a decent living in commission sales. We also follow his wife, Jodi, who tries hard as wife, worker, and mother and who often gets it right but just as often overthinks. To Do the Deal will appeal to readers who like witty stories, well told; who appreciate carefully plotted narratives; and who want to be entertained by an ensemble cast of deftly drawn characters. The language is literary yet light: readers who put check marks in the margins next to lines that resonate will mark a lot of pages. Beyond the appeal of its writing, To Do the Deal will captivate anyone who has ever held a job, lived in a family, or been on either side of a sales transaction.

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The Sicilian Defence

The Sicilian Defence
Title: The Sicilian Defence
ASIN: B00LDEM686
Publisher:
Published: June 28, 2014
Stories reflecting Sicily’s power to encompass ideas of Good and Bad, Heaven and Hell, to enmesh them so tightly that, at times, it remains impossible to distinguish the two concepts.   A talented schoolboy struggles with unseen forces that rip his family apart; a hand-written note hidden in a hotel magazine has dire consequences for a relationship; a private detective hired to track a cheating fiancé is faced with a life and death decision… These short stories provide a window on contemporary Sicilian life seen through the lens of the island’s literary history. They reflect Sicily’s power to encompass perfectly the ideas of Good and Bad, Heaven and Hell, to enmesh them so tightly that, at times, it remains impossible to distinguish the two concepts.

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Cold Angel Days

Cold Angel Days
Title: Cold Angel Days
ASIN: B00D3I1CFS
Series:
Publisher:
Published: January 18, 2014
Author's Twitter: @Clive_SJohnson
Prescinda's dilemma: to weigh her sister's lover against the fate of the realm An ages-old poem gives rise to the Cold Angel and a threat to the realm's future. Can Prescinda save it when doing so threatens her sister’s only love? The ancient engers knew it as a theoretical entity, one so remotely implausible that the idea only survived in an obscure verse. How could an ages-old poem give rise to the reality of the days of the Cold Angel, days that threaten the realm’s very future? And why does a woman’s determination to do right by her sister put her at the heart of a mystery, one that threatens to destroy the only love that sister has ever known? Someone’s lost memories lead her to a strange meeting with a man in an even stranger tower, one that pricked star holes in the sky until but a few days before. What of it now, though, and its keeper’s determination to put things right at all costs? How is she to deal with the painful dilemma he draws her towards – when she’s asked to weigh the love of her sister against a duty to save the realm?

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[rcno-book-list taxonomy=”author” header=<b>”More from this author”</b>

Checkpoint Kalandia

Checkpoint Kalandia
Title: Checkpoint Kalandia
ASIN: B00ONF0EU4
Publisher:
Published: October 17, 2014
Author's Twitter: @dhallaj
Life in a Palestinian refugee camp is filled with poverty, and hopeless frustration at the best of times—and 2001 is far from the best of times. Muhammad, already scarred by violence and tragedy, is plunged into depression when the frequent curfews make it impossible for him to find work. He can no longer face the thought of crossing the military checkpoint, but all available jobs are on the other side. His inability to provide for his family drives him to despair. He decides to spend the only coin remaining to him—his life. CHECKPOINT KALANDIA is the story of one man’s journey to the depths of human despondency.

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I Stopped Time

I Stopped Time
Title: I Stopped Time
ASIN: B00ARWFPTW
Published: January 15, 2014
Author:
Author's Twitter: @janedavisauthor
Edwardian Brighton. A wide-eyed girl enters Mr Parker’s photographic studio and receives her first lesson about the rising medium that is to shape her life: “Can you think of a really good memory? Perhaps you can see it when you close your eyes. Now think how much better it would be if you could take it out and look at whenever you wanted to!”

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Losing it All

Losing it All
Title: Losing it All
ASIN: B00BRKN25M
Published: March 8, 2013
Author's Twitter: @marshacornelius
Frank Barnes is content living on the streets of Atlanta. A soup kitchen and a makeshift shanty sure beat his days as a POW in Vietnam. But Chloe Roberts can’t handle the eviction that sends her into the hell of homelessness. With no family or friends to turn to, Chloe and her children are sucked into the traumatic world of night shelters, and dangerous predators. When they bump into each other at the soup kitchen, Frank offers Chloe a glimmer of hope that she can pull her life back together. She rekindles his lost sense of self-worth by taking his mind off his own problems. But they will not meet again until Frank is riding high as a working man, and Chloe has hit rock bottom. By helping Chloe rebuild her broken life, Frank banishes the demons from his own past. Unfortunately, the past comes strolling back into their lives, threatening to destroy the happiness they have finally found.

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Short & Happy, (or not)

Short & Happy, (or not)
Title: Short & Happy, (or not)
ASIN: B00OQZSWGY
Published: October 21, 2014
Author's Twitter: @dhallaj @RichardBunning
SHORT & HAPPY (or not) brings together authors from English speaking countries around the globe and a sprinkling of ex-pats who enjoy life in non-English speaking countries as well. Their stories cover just as wide a spectrum of subjects. Humor (or humour), light romance, science fiction, fantasy, memoir, satire, reflection, exotic locales … it's all here in bite-sized pieces.

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Lives Interrupted

Lives Interrupted
Title: Lives Interrupted
ASIN: B0062WC95E
Published: November 2, 2011
Author's Twitter: @shaunabickley
One moment can destroy your life. It’s an ordinary summer day in London until explosions rip through the underground. Matthew has been fired and Rosa is struggling to cope as their debts spiral out of control, but she has a plan. A plan she can’t share with Matthew. Meanwhile, his choices will wreck their lives in a way they can’t begin to imagine. Life is tough, but how much worse could it be? A bombing on the underground answers that question. Death and injury affect them as they struggle to survive, but those first few hours are only the beginning. They will never be the same, but can they learn to live with this new life they never chose? One moment can change your life. One moment that takes everything. That leaves nothing as it was. People you will never know. Their decisions take what was, and leave you with now.

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Delirium – The Rimbaud Delusion

Delirium – The Rimbaud Delusion
Title: Delirium – The Rimbaud Delusion
ASIN: B00FKJ1OCE
Published: July 30, 2014
Author's Twitter: @BSE_Writer
How many times had I dreamt of coming across the yellowing manuscript of La Chasse Spirituelle? Inside an old book on a stall in Paris, perhaps. Or in the attic of some befriended ancient. How many daydreams had I enjoyed over the possibility that one day…? I shook myself. It couldn’t possibly be true. 1872: The explosive love affair between flamboyant French poets Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine rocks French society. They flee to London, abandoning the manuscript of La Chasse Spirituelle to Verlaine’s scorned young wife. When a lawyer’s clerk salvages it from a dusty deed box, the manuscript begins its journey down the decades, revealing the secrets and betrayals of its various keepers. 2004: Andrea Mann, disenchanted with life and love, travels to France. Driven by her obsession with Rimbaud, she’s chasing her dream – the missing manuscript. Beside the poet’s grave at Charleville-Mézières, she meets a beautiful young man who shows her a single page – from La Chasse Spirituelle. Andrea embarks on a desperate quest. Drawn into a manipulative relationship with the youth and his Svengali-like mentor, the mysterious Albert, she faces unwelcome truths. The closer she gets to the manuscript, the further she veers from reality. But is Albert’s copy genuine? And can La Chasse Spirituelle fill the void in Andrea’s soul?

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