Faber Stories, a landmark series of individual volumes, presents masters of the short story form at work in a range of genres and styles. The evening is fine. In the sky a few early stars are shining of their own accord. She watches the dog licking the bowl clean. This dog will break her daughter's heart, she's sure of it.Claire Keegan's mesmeric story takes us into the heart of the Wicklow countryside, and of the farming family of Victor Deegan, with his 'three teenagers, the milking and the mortgage'.When Deegan finds a gun dog and gives it as a present to his only daughter, his wife is filled with foreboding at this seeming act of kindness. As the seasons pass, long-buried family secrets threaten to emerge.
Claire Keegan’s brilliant debut collection, Antarctica, was a Los Angeles Times Book of the Year, and earned her resounding accolades on both sides of the Atlantic. Now she has delivered her next, much-anticipated book, Walk the Blue Fields, an unforgettable array of quietly wrenching stories about despair and desire in the timeless world of modern-day Ireland. In the never-before-published story “The Long and Painful Death,” a writer awarded a stay to work in Heinrich Böll’s old cottage has her peace interrupted by an unwelcome intruder, whose ulterior motives only emerge as the night progresses. In the title story, a priest waits at the altar to perform a marriage and, during the ceremony and the festivities that follow, battles his memories of a love affair with the bride that led him to question all to which he has dedicated his life; later that night, he finds an unlikely answer in the magical healing powers of a seer. A masterful portrait of a country wrestling with its past and of individuals eking out their futures, Walk the Blue Fields is a breathtaking collection from one of Ireland’s greatest talents, and a resounding articulation of all the yearnings of the human heart.
In The Girl Who Fell Out of the Sky--the conclusion to the fantasy adventure series that began with the New York Times bestseller The Girl Who Could Fly--Victoria Forester shows readers that life is always exceptional, and "abilities" come in many forms. What happens when the girl who could fly can't fly anymore? Piper McCloud's ability to fly has disappeared, perhaps the result of some dark spell put on her, or perhaps because her ability has simply vanished forever. There is a worldwide calamity that Piper, Conrad, and their exceptional friends must tackle to save the planet, but Piper is left behind. If she can't fly, then what use is she? Piper learns she can't do a lot of things—cook, clean, and help Ma around the house, among them. She feels more helpless than ever. What is she good at? How will she ever believe in herself again?
Firethorn, the first volume in an epic trilogy, is a stunning debut. Sarah Micklem has introduced an unforgettable heroine into the fantasy pantheon. Loving, reckless, and indomitable, Firethorn travels through an imaginary world as real as history and as marvelous as legend. Firethorn flees a life of drudgery to live alone in the forest, relying on her knowledge of herb lore to survive. She returns transformed, indebted to the god who saved her life, and blessed -- or cursed -- with uncanny abilities and a nagging sense of destiny. After a few nights of dalliance with Sire Galan, a high-caste warrior on his way to join the king's army, Firethorn seizes the chance to go with him, only to find she has exchanged one form of servitude for another. The army readies for war in the vast encampment of the Marchfield, where men prey on each other and women dare go nowhere alone. Among the lowborn harlots and the highborn dames of the camp, Firethorn learns to use her gifts as a healer, venturing into realms of dream and shadow. Desire drew Firethorn and Sire Galan together, but love binds them -- a love that has no place in the arrangement between a warrior and his sheath. When Galan makes a wager with disastrous consequences, Firethorn uses her gifts to intervene in his fate and learns just how hard it can be to tell honor from dishonor, justice from vengeance. Sarah Micklem has written an extraordinary tale -- at once magical and earthbound, beautiful and violent. She immerses readers in a remarkably imagined world where gods are meddlesome, the highborn uphold their privileges with casual brutality, and a woman's only recourse may be the strength she finds within.
Old-time New England foresters coined the term “wolf tree” for trees they saw as having the ability to “eat” the sun and nutrients and prevent the growth of other trees. Today, however, we understand how wolf trees benefit wildlife. Join Aurora and Orion as they search for a wolf tree in the 3500-acre forest managed by Harvard University near Petersham, Massachusetts, looking for such clues as a large trunk, low branches, wildlife activity, and nearby smaller trees.
Compassionate, witty, and unsettling, Antarctica is the debut collection of one of Ireland's most exciting and versatile new talents. Claire Keegan, winner of several prestigious awards including the William Trevor Prize, writes stories that have a razor-sharp narrative style and unembellished tone, and move from the cruel, hard life of rural Ireland to the hot landscape of the southern United States. From the title story about a married woman who takes a trip to the city with a single purpose in mind—to sleep with another man—Antarctica draws you into a world of obsession, betrayal, and fragile relationships. In "Love in the Tall Grass," Cordelia wakes on the last day of the twentieth century and sets off along the coast road to keep a date, with her lover, that has been nine years in the waiting. In "Passport Soup," Frank Corso mourns the curious disappearance of his nine-year-old daughter and tries desperately to reach out to his shattered wife who has gone mad with grief. Keegan's characters inhabit a world where dreams, memory, and chance can have crippling consequences for those involved. Moving in its quiet intensity, the award-winning Antarctica is a rare and arresting debut.
