Seventeen-year-old, reluctant A level student, Stephen, loses his domineering father, Ronnie, to cancer. He discovers Ronnie concealed an Indian childhood, his mixed-race ethnicity and his brother Lenny. Stephen uses his new freedom to explore a social life with his British Asian friend, Jay, and Mimi, a left-wing revolutionary, with whom Stephen becomes obsessed. He also, with Lenny’s help, discovers more family secrets, including a gold watch that was taken from Yasmin, a refugee of the Indian Partition violence. In trying to retrieve and return the watch, Stephen has to learn to confront challenges and make his own choices about where his life should go.
Genre: Fantasy / Paranormal Romance/ Adventure / Steamy-sexy
Publisher : City Owl Press
BACK OF THE BOOK
There ain’t no rest for the wicked.
Jinx McGee and her team of demon hunters managed to neutralize the Master Demon of Sloth, relying more on luck than skill. But with six more powerful rogue demons on the loose, she’ll need to bring her A-game to the hunt for their next target. The Master of Gluttony and Excess is elusive, clever, and has a knack for anticipating the team’s every move. There’s likely a mole in their organization, and everyone’s a suspect.
As if that weren’t enough, her unreliable celestial ally has a lead on her missing deadbeat dad that Jinx can’t pass up. He holds the key to the whole demonic endgame, and Jinx has a score to settle.
Daddy issues and demon hunting? It will take cunning, strategy, skill, and a boatload of tequila to get Jinx out of this jam.
Elite Sauna tells the story of Mark’s first day working at a “Men Only” Sauna in his local area. Previously he had only the one sexual experience with another man but his new job would soon change that. Mark meets a regular client who awakens desires within himself and the stranger soon has him submitting to his needs, Warning: This ebook contains very explicit descriptions of sexual activity and includes gay sex, submission, darkroom sex, anonymous sex, oral sex, anal sex, rough sex, group sex, MMM sex, and more.
Most people call me Ludi or Lud, even though my name is Ludik. Or they do call me Ludik, but I can’t catch the k on their lips. No, it doesn’t bother me—being deaf, that is. Still, if given the choice, I would’ve gone with ugly.
There are many misconceptions about deafness, but the oddest to me is that we are void of sound, which is simply not true. And it’s with a sound that my story begins.
With the earth-shattering thunder of a runaway mountain.
The mountain took everything I’ve ever known. My village, my friends, my family. All gone. I don’t care why it ran. I’ll make sure it never moves again.
‘A well-written and exciting new take on epic fantasy mixed with alternate realities. Great characterization, plotting, and action mixed with interesting worldbuilding makes this a winner.’ – Bryan Thomas Schmidt, #1 bestselling author of Shortcut and Hugo-nominated editor
Love and death intertwine as the fates that are written for Jorinda draw her ever deeper into their embrace.
Jorinda and Deineike may have escaped the clutches of the clandestine killers who seek them, but before long they are drawn back into a dangerous world where the only way to stay alive is to kill those who threaten you. When a stranger’s life is endangered, an unlikely ally requests Jorinda’s help, and her intervention leads to more revelations about the schemes of Styrrach, the man who longs to place her under his blade. Jorinda sets out to bring Styrrach down, determined to expose the corruption he has fostered in Dur’s corridors of power and extract her own vengeance on him.
Characterised by meticulous world-building and visceral, detailed action scenes, The Vermilion Cross is a gripping story of power, corruption, deceit, and revenge. With every person Jorinda kills, her mental anguish deepens, and when allies become complications, Jorinda is compelled to make difficult decisions. Living with those decisions may be the hardest thing of all.
Following immediately on from the events of The Vermilion Ribbon, The Vermilion Cross is the second book of The Vermilion Saga, a secondary-world sapphic low fantasy series with sprinklings of other genres such as romance, mystery and adventure that add to its complexity.
Felicity Brooks hates Christmas. But when she meets a man dressed as a giant penguin on Christmas Eve, could it spell a change of heart in this laugh-out-loud festive romance.
The ridiculous music. The excessive presents. The stupid Christmas jumpers. Felicity wants nothing more than to escape it all, and pounces on the chance to work shifts over the festive period, at an animal rescue centre. After all, it’s the only place that brings her true happiness.
But her evening is disturbed by a stranger, James, dressed as a penguin cradling a weak kitten. As Felicity and James work together to nurse the sick feline back to health, it gives them the perfect excuse to bond over their mutual dislike of all things festive. And soon sparks fly.
But their attraction is interrupted when Felicity’s ex-boyfriend, Adam, returns to declare his undying love.
And when Felicity is let down by both men she decides to return to her childhood home for some peace. While there, she uncovers an array of family secrets and even more about herself, which may just encourage her to make a choice between Adam and James.
Can the ex outwit the penguin and win Felicity’s heart this Christmas?
When Lara Rose’s surging Hollywood career begins to stall, her manager arranges a tour to entertain the troops during the Thanksgiving holiday. By chance of fate, unassuming Captain Edward Madin is named as her escort. As her visit ends, Lara believes she is growing fond of the young captain and, for both a publicity stunt and her own interest, she begins sending him letters while he is on assignment in the Middle East.
Upon his return their relationship blossoms into romance, and Edward begins to struggle with Lara’s celebrity status. Will a secret uncovered by the tabloids and paparazzi drive these two apart, or can love truly conquer all?
New Town is a small American town overtaken by evil. Brady Stauffer, a moderately successful writer who has returned to New Town to write a novel about his lost best friend. He also hopes to exorcise the nightmares that have haunted him since that one night. But as soon as he arrives, animals are found brutally killed, and then two people are found dead. He soon realizes that there is something very wrong with this place, and only with the help of others can the town be saved.
Or at least Miriam should, now that she suddenly gets the opportunity to do just that. But Miriam is in a rush after a rough encounter with a dragon which left both dead and missing persons. She wishes to get to the bottom of the treason and expose the culprits before it is too late, which leads her out into the blue.
Literally.
With a lot of oceanic ice, Miriam and her ragtag band is hurled against new opponents: some lurking in the shadows, others charging them head on. There is even one who wants Miriam’s wishes to come true.
But Miriam never wished for a dragon. Not intentionally anyway.
Everybody makes a story about themselves. Here is my take:
I started out
1) as a kid telling myself stories using my imagination, then
2) growing up to tell stories to others as a gamemaster (which I still do), then
3) getting sucked most unwilling into occult stuff (the flip side of quantum physics?), escaping that to
4) hesitantly get an education in programming, then
5) surviving dull years surrounded by the machines that go ping and keeping the weekends occupied by reading and being artful and conjuring exhaustion for the work week, then
6) saying enough is enough and submitting myself to another long streak of education, this time in art, where I started out painting (and still do) but graduated in spontaneous storytelling (or bearing witness to my imaginary worlds if you want a fancy way of saying it) then
7) start writing down these stories instead of telling them to an audience, ending up like
1) the kid I began as, telling myself stories using my imagination…
…which is the nation I prefer to be in (after doing my stint of travelling abroad) and where I go by the name of Astor Y Teller.
The rest of me can be gleaned from the books and if not, it’s not worth telling.
A woman in need of change; a reclusive, broken rock star and the city that never sleeps.
What could possibly go wrong?
Sandy wants adventure. Bored waiting for her husband to give up work so they can travel the world, she jets off to New York with best friend, Isobel, chasing a slice of their youthful dreams at a reunion concert for The Brig – the pop group they fangirled over long past the age they should’ve known better.
But her meticulous sightseeing plans unravel when Isobel’s virtual boyfriend makes a surprise appearance and Sandy is saddled with an inebriated passenger who had made her transatlantic flight a misery. So much for smart suits and first-class upgrades.
Stuck with this stranger – who turns out to be not such a stranger after all – Sandy embarks on a whirlwind weekend zigzagging across New York. As inhibitions fade and heartbreaks surface, the initial animosity between two lost souls gives way to a surprising connection from long ago. Now, Sandy must decide if this unexpected adventure is the one she’s been searching for.
Dunfermline Reads 