Sasha, a closeted British celebrity, seeks out the help of a detective named Kiran who is known for discretion in order to find his missing ex-boyfriend, Oliver. Sasha is forced to share very personal information that reveals more about himself than he would have ever admitted to under any other circumstance, and despite rocky introductions, Sasha and Kiran become friends. Fortunately, Kiran is not only understanding of Sasha’s sexual preferences but encourages him to keep doing what he loves ... perhaps with Kiran himself. The complicated nature of their relationship prevents them from being together until Kiran is able to complete the job he was hired for, but their patience wears thin and they grow close as the search for Oliver continues. The police get involved when Oliver is found, upending a secret that might ruin Kiran and Sasha’s new-found relationship. Will they stay together in spite of their formidable circumstances?
Sixteen year-old Michael Beatrice Evans of Normal, Idaho has a problem. He's reckless. He's arrogant. And he's too smart for his own good. He's also $20,000 in the hole after betting on Super Bowl XLIX. But Michael's got a scheme to fix all that. With the help of his brother and four friends, he quietly starts counterfeiting Dilly Bar coupons - selling the "purchased" ice cream for profit. Everything's going according to plan. And then all hell breaks loose. This is a story of friends and enemies, crime and punishment, love and loss. This is a dark satire, an ultra-violent thriller, an apocalyptic legend . . . this is The Seven Acts.
The Jewel of Seven Stars (1903) is a novel by Irish author Bram Stoker. Written during a period of increased interest in Egyptology across Europe, The Jewel of Seven Stars helped to establish the Irish master of Gothic horror’s reputation as a leading writer of the early-twentieth century. In the middle of the night, a young lawyer is roused from sleep by Margaret Trelawny. At her urgent request, he accompanies her to the house of her father, Abel Trelawny, a world-renowned Egyptologist. There, Ross discovers the archaeologist unconscious and in a trance-like state on the floor of his bedroom, surrounded by strange and horrifying artifacts. After reading a note left by Trelawny instructing them not to wake him, the group takes turns watching over the injured man. Several nights later, a man arrives who reveals himself to be Eugene Corbeck, a colleague of Trelawny’s who has only recently returned from Egypt. He shares with them the story of their discovery years before of Queen Tera’s tomb. By taking the sarcophagus, the pair unlocked an ancient curse, and have since been struggling to fulfill the prophesy recorded on the wall of the tomb—the resurrection of the Queen. The Jewel of Seven Stars demonstrates not only Stoker’s detailed research of contemporary Egyptology, but an undeniable mastery of horror. Blending nineteenth-century Gothic themes with twentieth-century concerns regarding the legacy of British imperialism, Stoker’s novel is an artifact itself, and a highly entertaining one at that. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Bram Stoker’s The Jewel of Seven Stars is a classic of Irish literature reimagined for modern readers.
Early modern books were not stable or settled outputs of the press but dynamic shape-changers, subject to reworking, re-presentation, revision, and reinterpretation. Their history is often the history of multiple, sometimes competing, agencies as their texts were re-packaged, redirected, and transformed in ways that their original authors might hardly recognize. Processes of editing, revision, redaction, selection, abridgement, glossing, disputation, translation, and posthumous publication resulted in a textual elasticity and mobility that could dissolve distinctions between text and paratexts, textuality and intertextuality, manuscript and print, author and reader or editor, such that title and author's name are no longer sufficient pointers to a book's identity or contents. This collection brings together original essays by an international team of eminent scholars in the field of book history that explore these various kinds of textual inconstancy and variability. The essays are alive to the impact of commercial and technological aspects of book production and distribution (discussing, for example, the career of the pre-eminent bookseller John Nourse, the market appeal of abridgements, and the financial incentives to posthumous publication), but their interest is also in the many additional forms of agency that shaped texts and their meanings as books were repurposed to articulate, and respond to, a variety of cultural and individual needs. They engage with early modern religious, political, philosophical, and scholarly trends and debates as they discuss a wide range of genres and kinds of publication including fictional and non-fictional prose, verse miscellanies, abridgements, sermons, religious controversy, and of authors including Lucy Hutchinson, Richard Baxter, John Dryden, Thomas Burnet, John Tillotson, Henry Maundrell, Jonathan Swift, Samuel Richardson, John Wesley, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The result is a richly diverse collection that demonstrates the embeddedness of the book trade in the cultural dynamics of early modernity.
A youth born with a blocked meridian actually obtained a miraculous skill that could only be practiced by those with a broken meridian. He used it to rise to the top when his family was in danger, cutting through all obstacles in a world where the strong ruled. He gradually walked towards the path of becoming a peak expert. Close]
