The author of such towering novels as The Handmaid’s Tale, The Blind Assassin, and Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood proves her imaginative prowess dazzles just as vividly in her short fiction. “Stone Mattress,�� from her collection of the same name is witty, grotesque, and utterly hilarious—an exemplar of Atwood’s tremendous capacity for capturing our darkest impulses on the page.

Verna, aging widow, boards a cruise ship bound for the Arctic in search of her next husband. The last four had suffered regrettable tragedies and left Verna wickedly wealthy in their wake. But, instead of finding another wealthy suitor, Verna finds unwitting Bob, the first man to have ever wronged her. Single, reasonably near his grave, ordinary, and attracted to her like all the others—Bob is all-too-easy prey for Verna’s merciless revenge.

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An ebook short.��

Undset's ability to present a meticulously accurate historical portrait without sacrificing the poetry and narrative drive of masterful storytelling was particularly significant in her homeland. Granted independence in 1905 after five hundred years of foreign domination, Norway was eager to reclaim its national history and culture. Kristin Lavransdatter became a touchstone for Undset's contemporaries, and continues to be widely read by Norwegians today. In the more than 75 years since it was first published, it has also become a favorite throughout the world.

Following his success in foiling the ‘Incendium�� plot against the queen, Dr Christopher Radcliff’s standing within court is high. However, he has no time to reap any rewards. Counterfeit coins are circulating on London’s streets, bearing the likeness of his master, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. This in itself is a treasonous offence, but slogans have also begun to appear. Daubed on walls and doorways, they suggest that someone close to the queen harbours treacherous intent �� none other than Leicester himself . . .

So Radcliff and his team of informants and amateur spies are sent out into the city’s markets, drinking dens and brothels to track down who might be behind such outrageous and subversive acts. The investigation will lead them down a murderous path to face an elusive foe with an extraordinary agenda. And time is running out: for when rumour and fear catch fire, then surely violent insurrection and bloody chaos will follow.

Tatjana Soli paints a searing portrait of an American woman’s struggle and triumph in Vietnam, a stirring canvas contrasting the wrenching horror of war and the treacherous narcotic of obsession with the redemptive power of love. Readers will be transfixed by this stunning novel of passion, duty and ambition among the ruins of war.

Father Laforgue is about to enter a world of pagan power and sexual license, awesome courage and terrible cruelty, that will test him to the breaking point as both a man and a priest, and alter him in ways he cannot dream.

In weaving a tautly suspenseful tale of physical and spiritual adventure in a wilderness frontier on the cusp of change, Brian Moore has written a novel that rivals Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness in its exploration of the confrontation between Western ideology and native peoples, and its meditation upon Good and Evil in the human heart.