On the surface, James Sawday's life couldn't be any better. Writing investigative pieces for a glossy men's magazine, he gets to travel the world. And when he gets home, there's Lucy: smart, funny, seems to love him. She could even be the one. But when James's editor sends him to the seaside town of Grancombe, to cover a murder - the third attack by a serial killer who specialises in chopping off his victims' hands - James finds himself sucked back down into a world he's tried all his adult life to forget. Ten years before, during a hazy, drug-fuelled summer, James was one of a group of teenagers who stumbled on the mutilated corpse of local artist Jack Dawes. And then the second killing happened - the one that still gives James nightmares. Now James has got to dig up everything he's worked so hard to bury. And what he's going to find out could cost him his sanity. And even his life.
The cult thriller novel is back in this all new edition which features the original text as it was meant to be published! Dubbed one of "The Most Intense Horror Novels" ever written by many horror review sites, The Summer I Died is the first book in the Roger Huntington saga and soon to be a major motion picture. When Roger Huntington comes home from college for the summer and is met by his best friend, Tooth, he knows they're going to have a good time. A summer full of beer, comic books, movies, laughs, and maybe even girls. The sun is high and the sky is clear as Roger and Tooth set out to shoot beer cans at Bobcat Mountain. Just two friends catching up on lost time, two friends thinking about their futures . . . two friends suddenly thrust into the middle of a nightmare. Forced to fight for their lives against a sadistic killer with an arsenal of razor sharp blades and a hungry dog by his side. If they are to survive, they must decide: are heroes born, or are they made? Or is something more powerful happening to them? And more importantly, how do you survive when all roads lead to death? "A tense, bloody ride!" - Brian Keene, author of The Rising "If you want to freak yourself out on your next camping trip, you can't really do any better than The Summer I Died." - BloodyDisgusting.com
Three classic novellas from “one of our master chroniclers of human hungers, flaws, and frustrations.” (The Kansas City Star). Jim Harrison’s vivid, tender, and deeply felt fictions have won him acclaim as an American master of the novella. His highly acclaimed volume of novellas, The Summer He Didn’t Die, is a sparkling and exuberant collection about love, the senses, and family, no matter how untraditional. In the title novella, Brown Dog, a hapless Michigan Indian, is trying to parent his two stepchildren and take care of his family’s health on meager resources. (It helps a bit that his charms are irresistible to the new dentist in town.) Republican Wives is a wicked satire on the sexual neuroses of the right, the emptiness of a life lived for the status quo, and the irrational power of love that, when thwarted, can turn so easily into an urge to murder. And Tracking is a meditation on Harrison’s fascination with place, telling his own familiar mythology through the places his life has seen and the intellectual loves he has known. With wit as sharp and prose as lush as any Harrison has yet written, The Summer He Didn’t Die is a resonant, warm, and joyful ode to our journey on this earth. “Harrison has proved to be one of our finest storytellers. These novellas are urgent and contemporary, displaying his marvelous gifts for compression and idiosyncratic language.” —Los Angeles Times
Look for Robyn’s new book, The Best of Us, a story about family, second chances and choosing to live your best life—order your copy today! Mothers and daughters, sisters and cousins, they lived for summers at the lake house until a tragic accident changed everything. The Summer That Made Us is an unforgettable story about a family learning to accept the past, to forgive and to love each other again. That was then… For the Hempsteads, two sisters who married two brothers and had three daughters each, summers were idyllic. The women would escape the city the moment school was out to gather at the family house on Lake Waseka. The lake was a magical place, a haven where they were happy and carefree. All of their problems drifted away as the days passed in sun-dappled contentment. Until the summer that changed everything. This is now… After an accidental drowning turned the lake house into a site of tragedy and grief, it was closed up. For good. Torn apart, none of the Hempstead women speak of what happened that summer, and relationships between them are uneasy at best to hurtful at worst. But in the face of new challenges, one woman is determined to draw her family together again, and the only way that can happen is to return to the lake and face the truth. Robyn Carr has crafted a beautifully woven story about the complexities of family dynamics and the value of strong female relationships.
Death In Summer - a beautiful and haunting novel by acclaimed writer William Trevor 'Possibly the most perfect of Trevor's novels . . . Astonishing' Los Angeles Times Book Review There were three deaths that summer. The first was Letitia's, sudden and quite unexpected, leaving her husband, Thaddeus, haunted by the details of her last afternoon. The next death came some weeks later, after Thaddeus's mother-in-law helped him to interview for a nanny to bring up their baby. None of the applicants were suitable - least of all the last one, with her small, sharp features, her shabby clothes that reeked of cigarettes, her badly typed references - so Letitia's mother moved in herself. But then, just as the household was beginning to settle down, the last of the nannies surprisingly returned, her unwelcome arrival heralding the third of the summer tragedies. 'William Trevor is an extraordinarily mellifluous writer, seemingly incapable of composing an ungraceful sentence . . . His skill is very real, and equals his great compassion' New York Times Book Review Readers of The Story of Lucy Gault and Love and Summer will adore Death In Summer. It will also be cherished by readers of Colm Toibin and William Boyd. William Trevor was born in Mitchelstown, County Cork. He has written eighteen novels and novellas, and hundreds of short stories, for which he has won a number of prizes including the Hawthornden Prize, the Yorkshire Post Book of the Year Award, the Whitbread Book of the Year Award and the David Cohen Literature Prize in recognition of a lifetime's literary achievement. In 2002 he was knighted for his services to literature. His books in Penguin are: After Rain; A Bit on the Side; Bodily Secrets; Cheating at Canasta; The Children of Dynmouth; The Collected Stories (Volumes One and Two); Death in Summer; Felicia's Journey; Fools of Fortune; The Hill Bachelors; Love and Summer; The Mark-2 Wife; Selected Stories; The Story of Lucy Gault and Two Lives.
This masterfully crafted horror classic, featuring a brand-new introduction by Dan Simmons, will bring you to the edge of your seat, hair standing on end and blood freezing in your veins It's the summer of 1960 and in the small town of Elm Haven, Illinois, five twelve-year-old boys are forging the powerful bonds that a lifetime of change will not break. From sunset bike rides to shaded hiding places in the woods, the boys' days are marked by all of the secrets and silences of an idyllic middle-childhood. But amid the sundrenched cornfields their loyalty will be pitilessly tested. When a long-silent bell peals in the middle of the night, the townsfolk know it marks the end of their carefree days. From the depths of the Old Central School, a hulking fortress tinged with the mahogany scent of coffins, an invisible evil is rising. Strange and horrifying events begin to overtake everyday life, spreading terror through the once idyllic town. Determined to exorcize this ancient plague, Mike, Duane, Dale, Harlen, and Kevin must wage a war of blood—against an arcane abomination who owns the night...
From the New York Times-bestselling author of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants Ann Brashares comes her first adult novel In the town of Waterby on Fire Island, the rhythms and rituals of summer are sacrosanct: the ceremonial arrivals and departures by ferry; yacht club dinners with terrible food and breathtaking views; the virtual decree against shoes; and the generational parade of sandy, sun-bleached kids, running, swimming, squealing, and coming of age on the beach. Set against this vivid backdrop, The Last Summer (of You and Me) is the enchanting, heartrending story of a beach-community friendship triangle and summertime romance among three young adults for whom summer and this place have meant everything. Sisters Riley and Alice, now in their twenties, have been returning to their parents’ modest beach house every summer for their entire lives. Petite, tenacious Riley is a tomboy and a lifeguard, always ready for a midnight swim, a gale-force sail, or a barefoot sprint down the beach. Beautiful Alice is lithe, gentle, a reader and a thinker, and worshipful of her older sister. And every summer growing up, in the big house that overshadowed their humble one, there was Paul, a friend as important to both girls as the place itself, who has now finally returned to the island after three years away. But his return marks a season of tremendous change, and when a simmering attraction, a serious illness, and a deep secret all collide, the three friends are launched into an unfamiliar adult world, a world from which their summer haven can no longer protect them. Ann Brashares has won millions of fans with her blockbuster series, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, in which she so powerfully captured the emotional complexities of female friendship and young love. With The Last Summer (of You and Me), she moves on to introduce a new set of characters and adult relationships just as true, endearing, and unforgettable. With warmth, humor, and wisdom, Brashares makes us feel the excruciating joys and pangs of love—both platonic and romantic. She reminds us of the strength and sting of friendship, the great ache of loss, and the complicated weight of family loyalty. Thoughtful, lyrical, and tremendously moving, The Last Summer (of You and Me is a deeply felt celebration of summer and nostalgia for youth.
"Daisy Shoemaker can't sleep. With a thriving cooking business, full schedule of volunteer work, and a beautiful home in the Philadelphia suburbs, she should be content. But her teenage daughter can be a handful, her husband can be distant, her work can feel trivial, and she has lots of acquaintances, but no real friends. Still, Daisy knows she's got it good. So why is she up all night? While Daisy tries to identify the root of her dissatisfaction, she's also receiving misdirected emails meant for a woman named Diana Starling, whose email address is just one punctuation mark away from her own. While Daisy's driving carpools, Diana is chairing meetings. While Daisy's making dinner, Diana's making plans to reorganize corporations. Diana's glamorous, sophisticated, single-lady life is miles away from Daisy's simpler existence. When an apology leads to an invitation, the two women meet and become friends. But, as they get closer, we learn that their connection was not completely accidental. Who IS this other woman, and what does she want with Daisy?"--Publisher.
