The night was dark and stormy… And when Niall Maguire stepped out of the mist—his raincoat flapping in the wind—it was all Kate could do not to flee. But she’d come to the village of Cragg’s Head, Ireland, to uncover the truth about her friend’s death. And that meant questioning Niall, the woman’s dark, mysterious husband. The man everyone believed had pushed his wife over the cliff. Niall took Kate to his home, a deserted castle high on the rugged coastline. As the ocean crashed wildly below, Kate longed for her light-filled California home. But Niall’s story—and the secret he was determined to keep—fascinated her. The question now was, could she trust him? The cynic within—and the townsfolk—told her no. But her heart told her yes….
On holiday with friends, the Hardy boys check out the local haunted house. Deterred by screams and the dilapidated house, the group turn towards home. However, a nearly-fatal motor boat chase in the nearby bay causes the Hardy boys to wonder: is the house really haunted, or is there foul play afoot? This is the second book of the Hardy boys series, first published in 1927. It was rewritten in 1959; this Standard Ebook contains the original 1927 text. This book is part of the Standard Ebooks project, which produces free public domain ebooks.
Life is full of surprises, but family is forever… After their mother’s death, Daisy and Beatriz Davenport found a home with their aunt Stella in the beautiful town of Cape Sanctuary. They never knew what Stella sacrificed to ensure they had everything. Now, with Daisy and Bea grown, it’s time for Stella to reveal a secret that will change their family forever. Bea thought she was done with impulsiveness after her roller-coaster marriage to a rock star ended — especially since it gave her her wonderful eleven-year-old daughter, Marisol. But just as she’s beginning to pursue a new love with an old friend, Bea’s ex-husband resurfaces and turns their lives upside down. Then there’s Daisy — sensible, rational, prudent Daisy. She’s never taken a risk in her life — until she meets a man who makes her question everything she thought she knew about love, life and taking chances. In this heartwarming story, Stella, Bea and Daisy will discover that the path to true happiness is filled with twists and turns, but love always leads them back home.
Five years ago, Don Snyder was teaching English at Colgate University. He was forty years old and had a wife, three children, a new baby on the way, and what seemed like a secure middle-class future. But then Snyder lost his chance at tenure -- and, all of a sudden, he was out of a job. The Cliff Walk is a moving, clear-eyed account of Snyder's agonizing loss and what it feels like to fall, rung by rung, down the socio-economic ladder. Snyder chronicles the denial and disbelief he went through as his hopes of finding another teaching job faded after being rejected for ninety positions. He explains how each painful change -- selling his house, buying groceries with food stamps -- reminded him how much he and his family had taken for granted in their previous life. And he describes how he finally found new hope in a job on a home construction crew in Maine. Working outside for ten hours a day through a vicious winter taught Snyder about his own cowardice and the lies he had come to believe about what a professional life of hard work entitled him to. Written with precision and elegance, The Cliff Walk captures the depth of one family's love and speaks to anyone who has ever wondered what it would be like to be out of a job and out in the cold.
A startlingly original collection of short stories that was winner of the 2011 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book. A son worries he is becoming too perfect a copy of his father. The co-owner of a weight-loss camp for teens finds himself running the black market in chocolate bars. A man starts melting and nothing can stop it, not even poetry. This terrific collection of stories by an exciting new talent moves from the serious and realistic to the humorous and outlandish, each story copying an element from the previous piece in a kind of evolutionary chain. Amid pigeons with a taste for cigarette ash, a rash of moa sightings, and the identity crisis of an imaginary friend, the characters in these eighteen entertaining stories look for ways to reconnect with people and the world around them, even if that means befriending a robber wielding an iguana.
Cliff Fyman's Taxi Night is a splendid and powerful book-length poem in four parts. The real-life patter and ambience of his fares reach the hackie, Fyman, as he transports a rainbow cast of denizens around the boroughs from 5 p.m. until 5 a.m. The first two sections are transcribed from overheard cellphone combat, or a jiving fare who tries to play Fyman verbally, or more than a few nutcases. But Fyman's show is the farthest thing from a freak show. Each appearance at the mike, so to speak, is brief. Fyman presents the words he captures in precisely sculpted form, ingenious line breaks, one word lines - from-the-gut poems which retain a credible verbatim and are rigorously artful. Eloquence in their realism. The last two sections increasingly are transcribed from Fyman's own silent, deeply inner verbatim. These pieces are equally Swiss-movement poems. Vibrant slices of anonymous lives rendered with a dramedy of depth and compassion. A moving celebration of whatever we become when we buy a ride and take to the backseat stage. -JOHN GODFREYTaxi Night is strong and clear like an ink drawing with bold lines that are few and stark but tell the whole story, the place and time, the people, how they think and speak, the music of it, a documentation of the undocumented, simultaneously very close and very far, which is how people are. -TANIA SUSSKINDThere's no better place to view the human condition than the driver's seat of a New York City cab. Just ask poet Cliff Fyman, who has transformed his stint behind the wheel into Taxi Night, a touching, sometimes mind-blowing work. Through lovingly handled "found" material; curious diction; and acute, sometimes deadpan observation, Fyman gives the reader all the drama, humor and pathos that comes from a steady stream of humanity in the backseat. He has an excellent ear for everyday speech and the sharp editing skills of a top-notch documentarian. Read Taxi Night slowly or breathlessly. Read it all the way through or read it in bits. Either way, you're in for a great ride. -PETER BUSHYEAGER Dude, they are pure gold! They capture the upper class in unguarded moments. Yr bits are the highlight of my day! -RON KOLM
