Investigative journalist Frank would do anything for the next big scoop, and a chance to break the news to the world that vampires really exist is too good to pass up. But his fact-finding mission to an undead hangout takes a terrifying turn when he’s locked in a cellar with a starving -- if sexy -- bloodsucker and no escape in sight. Forlorn vampire Viktor hasn’t had a bite in months, ever since falling foul of über-vamp The Mistress and being imprisoned for his sins. Delivered to his cell like Meals on Wheels, Frank’s the tastiest morsel he’s seen in a long time. Viktor can’t wait to get his fangs into him -- and there’s something about Frank that makes Viktor lust for more than just his blood. To escape the mysterious Mistress’s prison, predator and prey will have to work together -- if, that is, they can manage to rein in their baser appetites for long enough! Note: this short story was previously published under the title Becoming the Spoils.
How do you know if you’re one of the damned? As a child, Don wanted to become a priest. Now a grown man mostly at ease with being gay, he’s left the Catholic Church and has chosen instead to help people through his work as a parole officer. His strong faith is shaken when his latest assignment turns out to be Michael, a young man Don hasn’t seen since he took Michael to church as a child -- and saw his parish priest cast Michael out of the church as a demon. Meeting him as an adult re-ignites the obsession Don had with the boy he couldn’t save. But can Michael be saved at all? Or is the strangely compelling demon with a taste for risky sex as damned as he believes himself to be?
Only half the man he used to be -- but maybe that’s enough The Taliban may have taken both Chris’s legs, but he came back from Afghanistan with his sense of humour and his lust for life firmly intact. The one thing that can shake his confidence is meeting Josh, the one-night stand from before his tour of duty he hasn’t been able to forget. It turns out Josh hasn’t forgotten Chris, either. He spent the time they were apart fearing the worst every time a soldier was reported killed in action -- and wishing Chris would use the number Josh gave him, and call. Josh’s delight on seeing Chris again quickly turns to shock on seeing his injuries. With Chris such a changed man, can they still have a future?
A Roman saga, taking in the excesses of Tiberius, Caligula and Nero and an irreverent account of the early days of Christianity. Sadoc, a dying shipping clerk, sets down for future generations a tale of epic proportions: he is charged with recounting no less an event than the birth of Christianity.
When Susan Price leaves Mansfield Park to accompany her aunt, Lady Bertram, to take the waters in Bath, she little expects to meet an old “friend” of the family. Initially scandalised, Susan finds herself drawn to the former Mary Crawford, now a widow, Mrs Lynd. Mary has lost none of her playful spirit in the ten years since her family’s acquaintance with the Bertrams ended amid elopement and scandal. Her interest, first piqued by Susan’s resemblance to her older sister Fanny, only grows on discovering Susan’s very different character. But Lady Bertram will surely never countenance Susan’s intimacy with the woman whose brother caused her daughter’s disgrace -- and Mary’s true identity cannot be kept a secret forever.
The year is 1969. The start of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. For Jim McDowell, a rookie reporter, it was the beginning of a life at the heart of one of world's most notorious and bitter conflicts. His gripping memoir reveals what it was like to live under constant fear of attack and delves into Northern Ireland's criminal underworld, including Jim's tense encounters with infamous terrorist drug dealers and killer gang godfathers like Johnny 'Mad Dog' Adair and Billy 'King Rat' Wright. McDowell's career spanned 45 years as he rose to become northern editor of Ireland's Sunday World, facing down threats, beatings and the murder of one of his reporters, Martin O'Hagan, to expose the stories that needed to be told. Always fighting the good fight. 'Those stories – even the ones that put my life in danger – had to be told. That was my job. That was what I did. It is what I do. And this, now, is my story.' 45 years. 21 death threats. Over 2,000 front pages. This is Jim's story.
The year's darkest tales of terror Here is the latest edition of the world's premier annual showcase of horror and dark fantasy fiction. It features some of the very best short stories and novellas by today's masters of the macabre - including Neil Gaiman, Brian Keene, Elizabeth Massie, Glen Hirshberg, Peter Atkins and Tanith Lee. The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror also features the most comprehensive yearly overview of horror around the world, lists of useful contact addresses and a fascinating necrology. It is the one book that is required reading for every fan of macabre fiction.
The field of communication offers the study of whiteness a focus on discourse which directs its attention to the everyday experiences of whiteness through regimes of truth, embodied acts, and the deconstruction of mediated texts. This book takes an intersectional approach to whiteness studies, researching whiteness through rhetorical analysis, qualitative research, performance studies, and interpretive research. More specifically the chapters deconstruct the communicative power of whiteness in the context of the United States, but with discussion of the implications of this power internationally, by taking on relevant and current topics such as terrorism, post-colonial challenges, white fragility at the national level, the emergence of colorblind discourse as a pro-white discursive strategy, the relationship of people of color with and through whiteness, as well as multifaceted identities that intersect with whiteness, including religion, masculinity and femininity, social class, ability, and sexuality.
Joe Shelby -- a brilliant and daring combat reporter for a big magazine he refers to as "the comic" -- is an Englishman who is at home only in the world's trouble spots -- Chechnya, Rwanda, Gaza -- where he is face-to-face with murder, starvation, war crimes and the sound of bullets whistling past his ears. Now, after a life of triumphs, he must confront challenges he never imagined: lost love, incurable illness and failure both in his work and on his beloved high mountains. His partner is glamorous French photographer and former fashion model Faria Duclos: beautiful, cool, sexy and wildly intoxicated by taking incredible risks as she puts her life in jeopardy to capture with her battered Leica camera both war's killers and their victims -- a woman high on danger who, in her own way, loves Joe. Eva Kimberly is a privileged white Kenyan about to marry her childhood sweetheart, Jeremy Davenport, when Joe and Faria explode into her life at a fancy lawn party given by her wealthy father. At once the story of a complex love triangle and a novel about risk taking and politics, Alan Cowell's A Walking Guide uses an ostensibly simple mountain climbing expedition to explore the more complex inner struggles of its main character, Joe Shelby. On one level it is the story of a fit young war correspondent, fresh from the conflicts of the Middle East and Africa, coming to terms with a diagnosis of terminal disease that could cripple and kill him even as he walks high in the mountains. And as he walks, he is challenged to draw on reserves of courage far greater than those required by combat reporting. Confronted with hard trails and worsening weather in the rugged hills of the English Lake District, he must decide whether to pursue his goal -- England's highest peak -- or abandon the attempt. He presses on, with perilous consequences. A Walking Guide is also the story of tangled emotions involving two women whose relationships with Joe Shelby offer competing definitions of love as passion and trusting companionship. Shelby veers between photographer Duclos and "white African" entrepreneur Eva Kimberly, finding ultimately that his illness makes crucial choices for him. Finally, A Walking Guide is the story of a man adrift from his roots, seeking to find identity after a life bridging the Atlantic and living in the danger spots of the world. This novel brings Cowell into the rarefied company of such writers as Graham Greene and John le Carr#&233;, in a book that brilliantly dissects the convergence of love, risk and danger.
