Compared by Time Out magazine to a contemporary Catcher in the Rye, Alexander Stuart's The War Zone was chosen as Best Novel of the Year for Britain's prestigious Whitbread Prize when it was first published, but was instantly stripped of the award amid controversy among the judges, due to the novel's stark and uncompromising portrayal of incest and adolescent fury, when its teenage narrator, Tom, stumbles upon a complex and intensely abusive relationship between his older sister, Jessie, and their father. The novel has been published in eight languages and was turned into a searingly emotional film directed by Oscar-nominated actor/director, Tim Roth, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and went on to win international critical acclaim and many awards. This newly revised 20th Anniversary Edition includes an Afterword by Tim Roth, explaining what drew him to this controversial and painful subject matter for his directorial debut, together with both the original British and American opening chapters of the book, and Alexander Stuart's diary of the making of the film.From Publishers WeeklyA photo of children in bomb-torn Beirut hangs in the bedroom of Tom, the adolescent narrator of this taut, gripping novel by a young British writer. The war zone of the title, however, is the seemingly tranquil village in Devon where Tom and his family have moved from London. Bored and restless, Tom at first seems a contemporary Holden Caulfield, possessed of an urge to do mischief to establish his identity. But as he relates the circumstances that transform his lifehis discovery of the incestuous relationship between his father and his older sister Jessiethe novel reveals its sinister, shocking theme. Because he and Jessie have always been close, the situation feels like a double betrayal to Tom, who also realizes that to reveal the bizarre secret to his mother, preoccupied with a new baby, will destroy them all. In electrically tense prose, Stuart succeeds in enveloping the reader in the surcharged atmosphere of sexual perversion. Although Tom's painful emotional limbo is effectively conveyed, however, Stuart's portrayal of Jessie is less successful. The young woman's cool, nervy manipulation of her father and Tom, her determination to engage in every form of sexual experience, is meant to mirror the "corrupt, repressive" society of Thatcher's England, but Jessie loses her credibility as she leads Tom into a maelstrom of depravity and violence. The denouement, containing the rationale for Jessie's behavior, is unconvincing, but until that point the reader is caught up in a riveting tale. Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library JournalThis exciting but distasteful novel is narrated by rebellious, adolescent Tom, scion of a middle-class English family who discovers that his elder sister Jessica is having sexual relations with their father. Simmering with frightening psychological tensions and perverse violence, the novel effectively captures the raw emotions of adolescence in uninhibited language. It finally fails primarily because one cannot believe in the witchlike cunning and amorality of Jessica, on which the plot hinges. And the conclusion, in which Tom ends up having sex with his sister (just like Dad) is too perverse to be satisfying. The fascination the book undoubtedly exerts is due mostly to morbid curiosity about how far the author's odd imagination will take him, and one is left wishing he had put his undoubted talents to more worthwhile use.- Bryan Aubrey, Fairfield, Ia.Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Denied her voice, even the freedom to ask questions, al Muqri's ill-fated heroine remains nameless. As a female she is simply a 'Hurma' – literally 'sanctity', an entity to be protected from violation. Growing up in the stifling and oppressive atmosphere of her childhood home in the Yemeni capital of Sana'a, Hurma's story intersects with those of her elder siblings, Lula and Abd al-Raqeeb. Lula's overt sexuality is a foil to Hurma's staunch conservatism. For Lula sex offers a form of resistance and empowerment, although one that will ultimately result in her destruction. In contrast, their brother, Abd al-Raqeeb undergoes an overnight transformation from an avowed socialist, contemptuous of his father's piety, to a religious extremist; a conversion triggered by sexual jealously over his new wife. Hurma's passionless marriage to a man whose impotency is a cruel reflection of her inability to shape her reality, is the first in a catalogue of farcical disappointments. She...

When Ellie opens her door on her birthday, she finds a naked man on her doorstep. Peter is an angel, on a mission to find out how sex can be so powerful that new arrivals in heaven grieve for eons over its loss.Ellie has been selected to teach him. The lessons work both ways though, and soon Ellie is the one learning things about herself. Together Peter and Ellie explore their desires, overcome her fears and set her free to discover her true sensual nature.Her angel is the best present Ellie ever received. Who knew how much fun grown-ups could have with toys?

Martin Rawlinson is a stranger in a strange land, an Englishman in Trinidad, and he is relishing it. He has asked for his temporary consultancy position with the Trinidad police to be made permanent, and is hoping to start a new life with the beautiful Safiya, and perhaps grow to understand this intoxicating, troubled country. His only problem is breaking the news to his wife, Miriam, and daughter, Georgia.While Martin has found a new life in the Caribbean, Miriam counts down the months to his return, aware of, but not understanding, the growing distance between them. She and Georgia escape the English winter to visit Martin, and - Miriam hopes - to reclaim him. The week that follows will change everything, but not in the way any of them planned: they will learn how close paradise is to hell.A mesmerising, claustrophobic novel that illustrates how fragile the ties that bind can be, Amanda Smyth immerses us in a moral dilemma with no answer - how can you forgive yourself...

Men will want you like they want a glass of rum...One man will love you. But you won't love him. You will destroy his life. The one you love will break your heart in two.So says the soothsayer, when predicting young Celia's future. Raised in the tropics of Tobago by an aunt she loves and an uncle she fears, Celia has never felt that she belonged. When her uncle--a man the neighbors call Allah because he thinks himself mightier than God--does something unforgivable, Celia escapes to the bustling capital city.There she quickly embraces her burgeoning independence, but her search for a place to call home is soon complicated by an affectionate friendship with William, a thoughtful gardener, and a strong sexual tension with her employer. All too quickly, Celia finds herself fulfilling the soothsayer's predictions and living a life of tangled desperation--trapped between the man who offers her passion and the one who offers his heart.From the Trade...

Land of No Rain takes place in Hamiya, a fictional Arab country run by military commanders who treat power as a personal possession to be handed down from one generation to the next. The main character was forced into exile from Hamiya twenty years earlier for taking part in a failed assassination attempt on the military ruler known as the Grandson. On his return to his homeland, he encounters family, childhood friends, former comrades and his first love, but most importantly he grapples with his own self, the person he left behind. Land of No Rain is a complex and mysterious story of the hardship of exile and the difficulty of return.

A young woman comes to in the Paris restaurant in which she apparently works – she has survived some kind of trauma, but her memories haven't. Something tells her there has been a reprieve. Yet when she crosses paths with a mysterious man called Eagleback, she becomes convinced that he holds the key to her identity. Over the course of a hot, sticky summer, she covertly pursues Eagleback while re-learning how to live. Then she must decide if she is ready to solve the emotional puzzle of her life so far.One Star Awake is a stunningly inventive novel, a thrilling work of art – by turns heartbreaking and hilarious, witty and urgently poetic. This is a fractured fairy tale – a funny and touching testament to the highs and lows of self-discovery and love found in unlikely places.

Ruth and her cousin Naomi live in rural Wisconsin, part of an isolated religious community. The girls' lives are ruled by the rhythms of nature — the harsh winters, the hunting seasons, the harvesting of crops — and by their families' beliefs. Beneath the surface of this closed, frozen world, hidden dangers lurk.Then Ruth learns that Naomi harbours a terrible secret. She searches for solace in the mysteries of the natural world: broken fawns, migrating birds, and the strange fish deep beneath the ice. Can the girls' prayers for deliverance be answered?Sufficient Grace is a story of lost innocence and the unfailing bond between two young women. It is at once devastating and beautiful, and ultimately transcendent.

A Sudanese writer begins to suspect that one of his most idiosyncratic characters from a recent novel resembles—in an uncanny, terrifying way—a real person he has never met. Since he condemned this character to an untimely death in the novel, should he attempt to save this real man from a similar fate?Set in both sides of Khartoum—the bustling capital city and the neglected, poverty-stricken underbelly—this is a novel of unreliable narrators, of insane asylums and of the (dubious?) relationship between imagination and reality.

'I want to find my own patch of dirt, put down my own deep roots and cling to that spot until I die. And then I want my ashes scattered there.' When Anne, a divorced author suffering from writer's block, and her new partner, Ian, a widower and fellow Scottish romantic, decide to take their deepening relationship to the next level and move in together, it isn't as simple as it sounds. There are their respective adult children's feelings to consider, plus Anne and Ian want to make a new start away from the scrutiny of the tiny township where they've both lived for many years. Their search takes them to the historic Queensland town of Maryborough, where the brief glimpse of a derelict house not even for sale is the start of a whole new life together. This is Anne's story of how she lovingly brought Baddow House - known locally as 'the Ghost House' - back to life, and in doing so both rediscovered her passion for writing and cemented her relationship with Ian. But it's not...

Against the Country is a gift for fans of Southern Gothic and metafiction alike. Set in the Virginia pines, and overrun with failed parents, racist sex offenders, cast-off priests, and suicidal chickens, this novel challenges literary convention even as it attacks our national myth--that the rural naturally engenders good, while the urban breeds an inevitable sin. In a voice that evokes the old-timer's winding yarn, Metcalf's narrator leads the reader through Goochland County--a land of stubborn soil, voracious insects, and lackluster farms and forests--until it becomes clear that Goochland is not the setting. It is the living, breathing menace that warps each and every character's existence. Equal parts fiery criticism and icy farce, Against the Country is the most hilarious sermon one is likely to hear on the subject of our native soil, and the starkest celebration of the language our land produced. The result is a literary tour de force that...

He’s a former NFL quarterback from Florida with an injury that has put an end to his career. She’s a penny pinching innkeeper from Washington, just trying to make enough money to care for her grandmother. Needing to escape the media and the constant pressure to make a decision about his future, Jett Hudson escapes to a B&B in the small town of Riversong, Washington. A month of R&R in the middle of nowhere ought to do him some good. But when he arrives and has to wake the owner, who is sound asleep at her desk, he starts having second thoughts about his choice of lodging—even if her messy bun reminds him of a halo, and her soft gaze has a way of making him forget to breathe. After a long night, and even longer day, of taking care of her grandmother, Salem Finn jolts awake to find her new guest—and financial hope—eyeing the door like he wants to make a run for it. All her exhaustion comes to the fore. How is she supposed to be a twenty-four seven caretaker and still run a prosperous business? Sometimes the river of life takes unexpected turns. And sometimes those turns lead to angel kisses…and Riversong. This contemporary, sweet, clean romance will take you to small-town America, where the neighbors all know each other's business, and the police chief's biggest worry is where to find his next fishing hole.

Ghosts on the range -- fearsome figures in gleaming armor, spirits of the conquistadores --striking terror into the herdsmen of Texas' Matagorda Bay country.... But maybe, Slade told himself, they're not ghosts -- just smart owlhoots wrapped in tin plate.... So the Ranger ace went "ghost"-hunting -- with hot lead and fighting fury! But Slade didn't know how close he himself would come to being made a ghost.... **

Ghosts range — fearsome figures in gleaming armor, spirits of the conquistadores — are striking terror into the herdsmen of Texas' Matagorda Bay country.... But maybe, a skeptical Slade told himself, they're not ghosts — just smart owlhoots wrapped in tin plate.... So the Ranger ace went "ghost"-hunting — with hot lead and fighting fury!But Slade didn't know how close he himself would come to being made a ghost....

In Fall we see the tentative beginnings of an unlikely romance - between schoolteacher Amy and drifting former graduate, Charles. In Winter we hear how her colleague Howard learns, seventeen years too late, that he has a daughter following a brief fling with collegemate Annie. Spring and Summer tell the story of his daughter's friend Rachel's relationships with her literature teacher, Stuart, and her dying father Reuben.Executed with exquisite sympathy, tenderness and emotional nuance, Either Side of Winter is a moving and elegiac picture of people whose lives are inextricably linked by circumstance, community - and a need to be loved.

"A first-rate example of a literary historical novel."—Regan Upshaw, San Francisco ChronicleIn his "Byron trilogy," Benjamin Markovits lovingly reinvents the nineteenth-century novel, true to its perfect prose, penetrating insight, and simmering passions. Inspired by the actual biography of Lord Byron—the greatest literary figure and most notorious sex symbol of his age—Markovits re¬imagines Byron's marriage to the capable, intellectual, and tormented Annabella and the scandal that broke open their lives and riveted the world around them: Byron's incestuous relationship with his impetuous half-sister, Gus. Their very different understandings of love and one's obligations to society lead them all—and the reader—headlong to a devastating conclusion.

The last piece of a literary puzzle falls into place in the final novel of Benjamin Markovits's Byron trilogy.When his former colleague Peter Sullivan dies, Ben Markovits inherits unpublished manuscripts about the life of Lord Byron—including the novels Imposture and A Quiet Adjustment. Ben's own literary career is in the doldrums, and he tries to revive it by publishing and writing about his dead friend, whose reimagining of Byron's lost memoirs—titled Childish Loves—may provide a key to Sullivan's own life and tarnished reputation.Acting as a literary sleuth, Ben sorts through boxes of Sullivan's writing; reads between the lines of his scandalous, Byron- inspired stories; meets with the Society for the Publication of the Dead; and tracks down people from Peter's past in an effort to untangle rumor from reality. In the process, he crafts a masterful story-within-a-story that turns on uncomfortable questions about childhood and...

RetailMichael Chabon once said, “I scan the tables of contents of magazines, looking for Antonya Nelson's name, hoping that she has decided to bless us again.” And now she has blessed us again, with a bounty of the stories for which she is so beloved. Her stories are clear-eyed, hard-edged, beautifully formed. In the title story, “Funny Once,” a couple held together by bad behavior fall into a lie with their more responsible friends. In “The Village,” a woman visits her father at a nursing home, recalling his equanimity at her teenage misdeeds and gaining a new understanding of his own past indiscretions. In another, when a troubled girl in the neighborhood goes missing, a mother worries increasingly about her teenage son’s relationship with a bad-news girlfriend. In the novella “Three Wishes,” siblings muddle through in the aftermath of their elder brother’s too-early departure from the world. The landscape of this book is the wide open spaces of Kansas, Texas, New Mexico, and Colorado. Throughout, there is the pervasive desire to drink to forget, to have sex with the wrong people, to hit the road and figure out later where to stop for the night. These characters are aging, regretting actions both taken and not, inhabiting their extended adolescences as best they can. And in Funny Once, their flawed humanity is made beautiful, perfectly observed by one of America’s best short story writers.**From BooklistStarred Review Nelson’s run as one of the finest contemporary short story writers takes an exhilarating leap forward with her outrageously superb seventh collection. Her particular wizardry in the short form (Nelson is also the author of four novels) is found in her exceptional melding of pristine prose with a rampaging imagination and a comic’s perfect timing. Nelson is scandalously funny, her characters are royally screwed up and wildly inept, and their dire predicaments bust down the doors on the most painful of life’s cruel jokes, from betrayal to divorce, addiction, and old age. Nelson excels at multigenerational chaos, portraying with equal verve surprising children and ornery adults as well as neurotic dogs and places rife with hidden angst, namely Wichita, Telluride, and Houston. She traces the odd geometry of divorce that leads to one woman living with and caring for her ex-husband’s stepmother. Forced to bring their enraged, dementia-addled father, lashed with duct tape to his recliner, to a nursing home, the dysfunctional motherless siblings in “Three Wishes” continue to grieve over their older brother’s death long ago. Each of Nelson’s magnetizing stories generates atomic vibrancy and achieves the psychic mass of a novel. And who can resist lines like this—“Life is a series of lessons you don’t want to learn”? --Donna Seaman Review"Antonya Nelson’s gloriously debauched new collection, Funny Once, finds that conventions are made for flouting, from an eminent professor who sleeps with his young wife’s best friend to former college competitors who embark on a lost weekend." —Vogue  "[Nelson shows] great talent in constructing each story in its own unique world . . . [She] makes sure that we see the silliness alongside the strife, and the heart within the hardships." —Time Out New York, four stars "In her rewarding new collection, Funny Once, Antonya Nelson expertly dissects the lives of her troubled Midwestern and mountain-time characters—frantic teens, finicky fathers, abandoned wives, know-it-all neighbors, sorrowful siblings, festering friendships—dosing their domestic dramas and existential hurts with splendid shots of unexpected whimsy, familiar pleasures, and incurable love." —Elle  "Nelson’s run as one of the finest contemporary short story writers takes an exhilarating leap forward with her outrageously superb seventh collection. Her particular wizardry in the short form (Nelson is also the author of four novels) is found in her exceptional melding of pristine prose with a rampaging imagination and a comic’s perfect timing. Nelson is scandalously funny, her characters are royally screwed up and wildly inept, and their dire predicaments bust down the doors on the most painful of life’s cruel jokes, from betrayal to divorce, addiction, and old age. Nelson excels at multigenerational chaos, portraying with equal verve surprising children and ornery adults as well as neurotic dogs and places rife with hidden angst, namely Wichita, Telluride, and Houston . . . Each of Nelson’s magnetizing stories generates atomic vibrancy and achieves the psychic mass of a novel." —Booklist, starred review  "[Nelson is] at the peak of her game." —Publishers Weekly  "Graced with credible characters whose friendships, marriages, progeny, and divorces feel familiar and lived in, Nelson's supple stories have appeared in prestigious magazines and prize anthologies for two decades. This seventh short story collection (her tenth book of fiction) will delight longtime fans while likely propelling new readers to explore her earlier work. . . . The narratives are driven by characters whose crises and moments of insight take the reader by surprise, but Nelson herself is completely in control of her complex tales, in which infidelities are exposed or never quite happen and old friends surprise one another with new revelations that take 20 pages to unfold. . . . Nelson is one of the leading practitioners of the contemporary short story." —Library Journal, starred review

"Elevate! In the name of the state of Texas!Then answer was a wild yell and the gleam of gun barrels in the moonlight. The Ranger's hands flashed up and down. His first shot boomed before the outlaws could open fire. Then there was an explosion of noise and flame and smoke. The Ranger heard a choking grunt, a cry of pain and saw two men fall. His big Colts bucked in his hands and a third saddle was emptied. Now there was only one outlaw to be reckoned with—and Ranger Walt Slade knew he was finally face to face with the killer who left alive no man who stood in his way.

Rosie and her mother coexist in the same house as near strangers. Since Rosie's father abandoned them years ago, her mother has accomplished her own disappearing act, spending more time with her boss than with Rosie. Now faced with losing her grandfather too, Rosie begins to visit him every day, traveling across town to his house, where she helps him place the things that matter most to him "In Trust." As Rosie learns her grandfather's story, she discovers the role music and motion have played in it. But like colors, memories fade. When Rosie stumbles into the House of Dance, she finally finds a way to restore the source of her grandfather's greatest joy.Eloquently told, National Book Award finalist Beth Kephart's House of Dance is a powerful celebration of life and the people we love who make it worthwhile.

It is February 1983, and Berlin is a divided city with a miles-long barricade separating east from west. But the city isn't the only thing that is divided. Ada lives among the rebels, punkers, and immigrants of Kreuzberg in West Berlin. Stefan lives in East Berlin, in a faceless apartment bunker of Friedrichshain. Bound by love and separated by circumstance, their only chance for a life together lies in a high-risk escape. But will Stefan find the courage to leap? Or will forces beyond his control stand in his way? National Book Award finalist Beth Kephart presents a story of daring and sacrifice, and love that will not wait.

"Trouble in El Paso—clear it up!"That was Slade's job—to find the man behind the rustling, the killings, the destruction that had both sides of the Rio Grande ready to explode.Slade opened the game by shooting two rustlers out of the saddles—and knew that from then on he was marked for death!

Michael Chabon once said, "I scan the tables of contents of magazines, looking for Antonya Nelson's name, hoping that she has decided to bless us again." And now she has blessed us again, with a bounty of the stories for which she is so beloved. Her stories are clear-eyed, hard-edged, beautifully formed. In the title story, "Funny Once," a couple held together by bad behavior fall into a lie with their more responsible friends. In "The Village," a woman visits her father at a nursing home, recalling his equanimity at her teenage misdeeds and gaining a new understanding of his own past indiscretions. In another, when a troubled girl in the neighborhood goes missing, a mother worries increasingly about her teenage son's relationship with a bad-news girlfriend. In the novella "Three Wishes," siblings muddle through in the aftermath of their elder brother's too-early departure from the world.The landscape of this book is the wide open spaces of Kansas, Texas, New Mexico, and...

A love affair based on a case of mistaken identity, set in an impeccable re-creation of nineteenth-century London.Lord Byron was the greatest writer and most notorious, scandalous lover of his age—an irresistible attraction for a sheltered, bookish, and passionate young woman like Eliza Esmond. Eliza believes she's met Byron on the doorstep of his publisher, and that her dreams have come true when he arranges to meet her in secret. But what if the man she believes to be Byron is someone else—a look-alike named John Polidori, who once toured Europe as Byron's doctor? And if Polidori is the true author of a wildly successful book everyone believes to have been written by Byron, who is the real imposter?Stylish, subtle, and seductive, Imposture is about ambition, fantasy, the power of artistic greatness, and the consequences of celebrity—by a gifted novelist of true talent. Reading group guide available.

"What do you want?" they asked, the first time they shot at Walt Slade."Fork your bronc, or die!" they warned, the second time they fired.The third time they said nothing. What do you say when you blast a Texas Ranger in the back.Outgunned and outnumbered, Slade tries to save a friend, a town, and himself, in a desperate duel with a dozen hired killers.

Ever since her mother passed away, Katie's been alone in her too-big house with her genius dad, who restores old paintings for a living. Katie takes a summer job at a garden estate, where, with the help of two brothers and a glamorous librarian, she soon becomes embroiled in decoding a mystery. There are secrets and shadows at the heart of Nothing but Ghosts: symbols hidden in a time-darkened painting, and surprises behind a locked bedroom door. But most of all, this is a love story—the story of a girl who learns about love while also learning to live with her own ghosts.This is a heartfelt, lyrical tale from the National Book Award-nominated author of Undercover and House of Dance.

Something is not right with Nadia Cara. While spending a year in Florence, Italy, she's become a thief. She has secrets. And when she tries to speak, the words seem far away. Nadia finds herself trapped by her own obsessions and following the trail of an elusive Italian boy whom only she has seen. Can Nadia be rescued or will she simply lose herself altogether? Set against the backdrop of a glimmering city, One Thing Stolen is an exploration of obsession, art, and a rare neurological disorder. It is a celebration of language, beauty, imagination, and the salvation of love.

"Excellent." —The Times (London)Growing up in Texas, Ben experienced basketball as a mostly solitary pursuit, one he gave up after riding the bench in high school. But as his college classmates prepare for the real world, Ben is seized by an idea. All he needs is a video camera, an empty court, and his mother's German citizenship.Improbably, he lands a roster spot on a lower division pro team in Landshut, forty-five minutes outside Munich. It's Ben's first taste of competition in years, not to mention his first job. And like most jobs, it's defined by repetition, boredom, and gossip. There's Charlie, the trash-talking mercenary from Chicago; the coach, Herr Henkel, a recently retired player anxious to justify his paycheck; and Karl (based on the author's real life encounters with Dirk Nowitzki), a gangly teenage prodigy flashing the raw talent that will make him an NBA star. As a group of men learn how to navigate one another, Ben falls in love with the...

Two men meet briefly in a hospital, where both are visiting their dying fathers. They speak again just a few months later, when one of them impulsively calls the other, a psychologist, and a friendship of sorts starts to form. After the psychologist leaves his wife a few weeks later, she begins to fall in love with his friend, creating a triangle that threatens to destroy all three and their families. The wife must decide between two very different men, whom she loves in very different ways. As the focus of the novel turns toward the woman in the middle, it becomes increasingly clear that whomever she chooses, the effect on the lives of everyone involved will be immeasurable. Regret, fear, grief, anger, anxiety, wistfulness, and yearning - these people's lives hang tenuously in the balance of their own conflicting emotions. With remarkable grace and acuity, Antonya Nelson examines two families in the midst of uncertainty and self-doubt, in a moving, resonant novel that displays...