California Gothic explores the California dream and its dark inversion as a nightmare, as illustrated in fiction, poetry, and film. California began as a literary invention, a magic island, in a Spanish romance before conquistadors first visited the land. From early days to the present, the California dream of happiness in a land of new beginnings has been maintained by suppression of disturbing realities: above all, the destruction of native peoples; and by events and facts such as the tragedy of the Donner Party, the persistence of poverty and crime in the golden land, disturbing crimes such as the Black Dahlia; and pandemics and ecological disaster. This book explores a rich Gothic tradition that exposes the repressed past and imagines the fates awaiting a failed California.
The summer after senior year was supposed to be the best summer of my life.It was supposed to be full of adventure and self-discovery and making love under the stars.It was supposed to be about losing myself and finding my way.Only, it wasn't supposed to start like this.I wasn't supposed to go to that party.He wasn't supposed to notice me.The hot jock with the trust fund and chip on his shoulder.My ex-boyfriend's half-brother.Noah Tedesco is so far out of my league he might as well be playing a different game.Noah wasn't supposed to look twice at a girl like me, but he did.Now that I'm on his radar, my life will never be the same.
Heroes? In these bodies? You've got to be kidding! All Brady Owen wants from this highly experimental research program is a chance at normalcy, away from the crushing migraines that dominate his life. So when he wakes in the lab with the ability to hear distant sounds, see through walls, and sense microscopic particles with his fingers, his fractured world tips on its axis. Brady's temporary enhancements land him among a ragtag band of young chronic illness warriors for whom the treatments have had similar effects. But how can a guy be a hero when some days he can't even lift his head from the pillow? And why would God give him a gift that's not even his to control? This collection contains all five episodes from season one: On the Brink, Uncommon Sense, Team Up, Car Alarm, and Savior Complex.
Nothing like jumping in at the deep end... Just weeks after his first encounter with the treatment's unusual side-effects, it's Brady's turn under the needle again. Rachelle seems confident he can use his new powers for good, but Brady isn't so sure. How do you stop crime with super senses anyway, especially when the world doesn't know your secret? With the team at his back, Brady makes his first foray onto the streets, but nothing is as easy as it seems. Oh, and did he mention it didn't seem that easy in the first place? Will Brady find a reason to stick with the project, or is this all a dead end?
Tom Iremonger, self-proclaimed Greatest Resource of Ireland, returns home for Christmas after blowing his grandfather's legacy abroad, only to find himself fighting for his spot atop Dublin's trendy new elite, and trying to win back the beautiful daughter of a supermarket magnate.
“The Gilded Edge is a compelling read from start to finish. Gripping, suspenseful, cinematic. This is narrative nonfiction at its best.”—Lindsey Fitzharris, bestselling author of The Butchering Art Astonishingly well written, painstakingly researched, and set in the evocative locations of earthquake-ravaged San Francisco and the Monterey Peninsula, the true story of two women—a wife and a poet—who learn the high price of sexual and artistic freedom in a vivid depiction of the debauchery of the late Gilded Age Nora May French and Carrie Sterling arrive at Carmel-by-the-Sea at the turn of the twentieth century with dramatically different ambitions. Nora, a stunning, brilliant, impulsive writer in her early twenties, seeks artistic recognition and Bohemian refuge among the most celebrated counterculturalists of the era. Carrie, long-suffering wife of real estate developer George Sterling, wants the opposite: a semblance of the stability she thought her advantageous marriage would offer, threatened now that her philandering husband has taken to writing poetry. After her second abortion, Nora finds herself in a desperate situation but is rescued by an invitation to stay with the Sterlings. To Carrie's dismay, George and the arrestingly beautiful poetess fall instantly into an affair. The ensuing love triangle, which ultimately ends with the deaths of all three, is more than just a wild love story and a fascinating forgotten chapter. It questions why Nora May—in her day a revered poet whose nationally reported suicide gruesomely inspired youths across the country to take their own lives, with her verses in their pockets no less—has been rendered obscure by literary history. It depicts America at a turning point, as the Gilded Age groans in its death throes and young people, particularly women, look toward a brighter, more egalitarian future. In an unfortunately familiar development, this vision proves to be a mirage. But women's rage at the scam redefines American progressivism forever. For readers of Nathalia Holt, Denise Kiernan, and Sonia Purnell, this shocking history with a feminist bite is not to be missed.
