Six notorious cousins, known to the ton as the Bar Cynster, have cut a swath through the ballrooms of London. Yet one by one, each has fallen in love and married the woman of his heart, until only one of them is left unclaimed...the most rakish of Stephanie Laurens' captivating clan...and he's not about to go easily.Alasdair Cynster - known to his intimates as Lucifer - decides to rusticate in the country before the matchmaking skills of London's mamas become firmly focused on him, the last unwed Cynster. But an escape to Devon leads him straight to his destiny in the irresistible form of Phyllida Tallent, a willful, independent beauty of means who brings all his masterful Cynster instincts rioting to the fore. Lucifer tries to deny the desire Phyllida evokes - acting on it will land him in a parson's mousetrap, one place he's sworn never to go. But destiny intervenes, leaving him to face the greatest Cynster challenge - wooing a reluctant bride. Phyllida has had a bevy of suitors - her charm and wit are well known throughout the countryside - but none of them has tempted her the way Lucifer does. His offer to teach her all about the ways of love is almost too tantalizing to resist. And though she's not yet completely surrendered, she knows only a fool stands against a Cynster...and Phyllida is no one's fool

When Gyles Rawlings, Earl of Chillingworth, was named an honorary Cynster (in All About Love), he was pleased at the recognition of his longtime friendship with the Cynsters but certain that the gesture would not affect his future in the slightest. Unlike the Cynsters, who are destined to wed for love, Gyles is determined that love will play no part in his marriage plans. That's why he's contracted to wed an heiress, sight unseen, to acquire an estate that had once been part of his family's land. He considers it a bonus that, while conducting the negotiations for his perfectly suitable bride, he's met an unforgettable beauty whose passionate nature is the perfect match for his own -- until he discovers that the brazen beauty he plans to make his mistress is, in fact, his promised bride, and she is determined her marriage will be a perfect fusion of passion and love

In fourteen sweeping and sublime stories, five of which have been published in The New Yorker, the bestselling and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Known World shows that his grasp of the human condition is firmer than ever. Returning to the city that inspired his first prizewinning book, Lost in the City, Jones has filled this new collection with people who call Washington, D.C., home. Yet it is not the city's power brokers that most concern him but rather its ordinary citizens. All Aunt Hagar's Children turns an unflinching eye to the men, women, and children caught between the old ways of the South and the temptations that await them further north, people who in Jones's masterful hands, emerge as fully human and morally complex, whether they are country folk used to getting up with the chickens or people with centuries of education behind them. In the title story, in which Jones employs the first-person rhythms of a classic detective story, a Korean War veteran investigates the death of a family friend whose sorry destiny seems inextricable from his mother's own violent Southern childhood. In "In the Blink of God's Eye" and "Tapestry" newly married couples leave behind the familiarity of rural life to pursue lives of urban promise only to be challenged and disappointed. With the legacy of slavery just a stone's throw away and the future uncertain, Jones's cornucopia of characters will haunt readers for years to come

"Blowtorch of a novel. . matchless and prescient." — Publishers Weekly "Spokesman for those who were angry and beat. . turbulent, temperamental, and tortured." — The New York Times "A self-taught writer with an uncanny gift for narrative and dialogue. . a born rebel and troublemaker of immense charm." — Roman Polanski In this novel of breathtaking tension and sweltering love, two desperate friends on the edge of the law — one of them tough and gutsy, the other small and scared — travel to the southern Israeli city of Eilat to find work. There, Dov Ben Dov, the handsome native Israeli with a reputation for causing trouble, and Israel, his sidekick, stay with Ben Dov's recently married younger brother, Little Dov, who has enough trouble of his own. Local toughs are encroaching on Little Dov's business, and he enlists his older brother to drive them away. It doesn't help that a beautiful German widow named Ursula is rooming next door. What follows is a story of passion, deception, violence, and betrayal, all conveyed in hardboiled prose reminiscent of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, with a cinematic style that would make Humphrey Bogart and Marlon Brando green with envy

Luke Samson survived the apocalypse, but when he found faith things really went to Hell. “Join or die.” That was Samson’s sermon and he delivered salvation from the business end of a sledgehammer. His army of God-fearing maniacs marches toward Los Angeles and a war that will bring the heathens to their knees. But every war has a secret, and when the truth behind this crusade gets out, Samson will wish he’d never been saved at all

A novel about survival, self-reliance, and art, by Peter Stamm, finalist for the 2013 Man Booker International Prize. All Days Are Night is the story of Gillian, a successful and beautiful TV host, content with her marriage to Matthias, even if she feels restless at times. One night following an argument, the couple has a terrible car accident: Matthias, who is drunk, hits a deer on the wet road and dies in the crash. Gillian wakes up in the hospital completely disfigured. Only slowly, after many twists and turns, does she put her life back together, and reconnects with a love interest of the past who becomes a possible future — or so it seems. In Stamm’s unadorned and haunting style, this new novel forcefully tells the story of a woman who loses her life but must stay alive all the same. How she works everything out in the end is at once surprising and incredibly rewarding

Oonya Kempadoo's moving third novel, All Decent Animals, looks at the personal and aesthetic choices of a multifaceted cast of characters on the Caribbean island of Trinidad — a country still developing economically but rich culturally, aiming at "world-class" status amid its poor island cousins. It is a novel about relationships, examined through the distinct rhythms of the city of Port of Spain. Loyalties, love, conflicting cultures, and creativity come into play as Ata, a young woman working in carnival design but curious about writing, and her European boyfriend, Pierre, negotiate the care of their friend Fraser, a closeted gay man dying from AIDS. The contradictory Trinidadian setting becomes a parallel character to Fraser's Cambridge-derived artistic sensibility and an antagonist to Ata's creative journey. All Decent Animals is a forthright inquiry into the complexity of character, social issues, and island society, with all the island's humor, mysticism, and tragedy

"Rodrigo de Souza Leão is an exceptional author and has had a major impact on contemporary Brazilian literature." — Paulo Scott All Dogs are Blue is a scurrilously funny tale of life in a Rio insane asylum. Its raw style and comic inventiveness signal a major voice in Brazilian literature. Sadly the author died, aged forty-three, soon after it was published in 2008. Due to his mental fragility, Rodrigo de Souza Leão rarely left his house and yet, through social media, blogging, and e-mail, he became close to many Brazilian writers and poets and remains highly regarded today

Allison Weiss has a great job...a handsome husband...an adorable daughter...and a secret. Allison Weiss is a typical working mother, trying to balance a business, aging parents, a demanding daughter, and a marriage. But when the website she develops takes off, she finds herself challenged to the point of being completely overwhelmed. Her husband’s becoming distant, her daughter’s acting spoiled, her father is dealing with early Alzheimer’s, and her mother’s barely dealing at all. As she struggles to hold her home and work life together, and meet all of the needs of the people around her, Allison finds that the painkillers she was prescribed for a back injury help her deal with more than just physical discomfort—they help her feel calm and get her through her increasingly hectic days. Sure, she worries a bit that the bottles seem to empty a bit faster each week, but it’s not like she’s some Hollywood starlet partying all night, or a homeless person who’s lost everything. It’s not as if she has an actual problem. However, when Allison’s use gets to the point that she can no longer control—or hide—it, she ends up in a world she never thought she’d experience outside of a movie theater: rehab. Amid the teenage heroin addicts, the alcoholic grandmothers, the barely-trained “recovery coaches,” and the counselors who seem to believe that one mode of recovery fits all, Allison struggles to get her life back on track, even as she’s convincing herself that she’s not as bad off as the women around her. With a sparkling comedic touch and tender, true-to-life characterizations, All Fall Down is a tale of empowerment and redemption and Jennifer Weiner’s richest, most absorbing and timely story yet

Desire can heal the coldest heart—or burn it to ashes. Alrik Gunn knows from bitter experience that change isn’t always for the better. From the woman who annihilated his Viking clan to the goddess who tricked him into centuries of slavery, betrayal has dogged his existence. The Goddess of Love is going to let him avenge his family, but for a price. As a Phoenix—a merchant of change—he must grant a human woman three chances to change her life. When former Irish dancer Calleigh McCarthy tosses a carved-bird statue that belonged to her ex into a roaring bonfire, she unwittingly summons an honest-to-god Phoenix. A sexy, irresistible Viking who offers her an unbelievable bonus—three get-out-of-her-crappy-life-free cards. She’ll take it, even if it means guarding her cautious heart against the dark pain behind Alrik’s eyes. Alrik has vowed never to let love sway him again, but Calleigh’s innocence and kindness throw him off balance. Yet even as his need for revenge fades and his love for her grows, he is bound to let her make her choices without interfering. One wrongly chosen word, and any chance for happiness—for either of them—will go up in flames

A dragon. A scholar. A very short story about death

Winter, January 1945. It is cold and dark, and the German army is retreating from the Russian advance. Germans are fleeing the occupied territories in their thousands, in cars and carts and on foot. But in a rural East Prussian manor house, the wealthy von Globig family tries to seal itself off from the world. Peter von Globig is twelve, and feigns a cough to get out of his Hitler Youth duties, preferring to sledge behind the house and look at snowflakes through his microscope. His father Eberhard is stationed in Italy — a desk job safe from the front — and his bookish and musical mother Katharina has withdrawn into herself. Instead the house is run by a conservative, frugal aunt, helped by two Ukrainian maids and an energetic Pole. Protected by their privileged lifestyle from the deprivation and chaos around them, and caught in the grip of indecision, they make no preparations to leave, until Katharina's decision to harbour a stranger for the night begins their undoing. Brilliantly evocative and atmospheric of the period, sympathetic yet painfully honest about the motivations of its characters, All for Nothing is a devastating portrait of the self-delusions, complicities and denials of the German people as the Third Reich comes to an end. Like deer caught in headlights, they stare into a gaping maw they sense will soon close over them

A collection of eighteen short stories by a “very skillful storyteller (whose) grasp of the life of ordinary American city dwellers is such that he can shape it dramatically to meet the demands of his far from ordinary imagination.”

It all started with Milton Carling Calhoun, a wealthy young tycoon, who hired Bertha Cool and Donald Lam to find a writer named Colburn Hale. The reason? Calhoun just wanted to talk to Hale. The search begins in the novelist’s pad and leads to a beautiful woman named Nanncie, who in turn leads to Mexico, marijuana and murder. As the plot thickens and twists, it forms a rope that nearly lands around Calhoun’s neck

In the latest and most surprising novel in the bestselling Leonid McGill series, Leonid finds himself caught between his sins of the past and an all-too-vivid present. Seven years ago, Zella Grisham came home to find her man, Harry Tangelo, in bed with her friend. The weekend before, $6.8 million had been stolen from Rutgers Assurance Corp., whose offices are across the street from where Zella worked. Zella didn't remember shooting Harry, but she didn't deny it either. The district attorney was inclined to call it temporary insanity-until the police found $80,000 from the Rutgers heist hidden in her storage space. For reasons of his own, Leonid McGill is convinced of Zella's innocence. But as he begins his investigation, his life begins to unravel. His wife is drinking more than she should. His oldest son has dropped out of college and moved in with an exprostitute. His youngest son is working for him and trying to stay within the law. And his father, whom he thought was long dead, has turned up under an alias. A gripping story of murder, greed, and retribution, All I Did Was Shoot My Man is also the poignant tale of one man's attempt to stay connected to his family

Perfectionist Erin usually loves Christmas, but this year things aren't going exactly as planned. Lost gifts, too much work to do and organizing the office Christmas party are stressing her out. When Dex Mitchell, the gorgeous Director of Finance, who she's had a crush on forever comes by, she turns into a stammering klutz. What more could go wrong this Christmas? How about too much to drink at the Christmas party, a sexy encounter in the ladies' room and an embarrassed hangover the next day? Can anything turn this around so Erin gets what she really wants for Christmas

Vampire Ian MacPhie has a new face and a new mission — now that he looks twenty-seven instead of fifteen, he's on the lookout for true love. He claims that all he wants is another vampire…until Toni Duncan comes along. Toni's best-friend is locked up in a psycho ward, deemed insane when she confesses that vampires attacked her. The only way to get her out is for Toni to prove that vampires exist. So Toni comes up with a plan: make Ian lose control, and beg him to transform her. He's reluctant — for he's deeply in love with Toni, and doesn't want to act too fast — and a passionate chase ensues

Manuel Rivas delivers a literary masterpiece about three young friends growing up in a community which is bound by a conspiracy of silence. Fins and Brinco are best friends, and they both adore the wild and beautiful Leda. The three young friends spend their days exploring the dunes and picking through the treasures that the sea washes on to the shores of Galicia. One day, as they are playing in the abandoned school on the edge of the village, they come across treasure of another kind: a huge cache of whisky hidden under a sheet. But before they can exploit their discovery a shot rings out, and a man wearing an impeccable white suit and panama hat enters the room. That day they learn the most important lesson of all, that the mouth is for keeping quiet

Sarah Vida has given up everything for love. From a legendary family of vampire-hunting witches, Sarah was raised to never trust a vampire, to never let her guard down, and to avoid all tricky attachments of the heart. But now Sarah IS a vampire—changed by the boy she thought she loved. Her family has forsaken her, and Sarah herself is disgusted by her appetite for blood. Aida Vida is Sarah's older sister, the good, reliable sibling who always does her family proud. But when Aida's mother insists that Sarah be found and killed, Aida is given the one assignment that she may not be able to carry out. Taking place over just twenty-four hours, ALL JUST GLASS tells the story of a game-changing battle that will forever change the world of the Den of Shadows. And at its center is the story of two sisters who must choose between love and duty. Dark, fully-imagined, and hard to put down, ALL JUST GLASS will thrill Amelia's fans—old and new

New York Timesand USA Today bestselling author Cora Carmack follows up her trio of hits—Losing It, Faking It, and Finding It—with this thrilling first novel in an explosive series bursting with the Texas flavor, edge, and steamy romance of Friday Night Lights. In Texas, two things are cherished above all else—football and gossip. My life has always been ruled by both. Dallas Cole loathes football. That's what happens when you spend your whole childhood coming in second to a sport. College is her time to step out of the bleachers, and put the playing field (and the players) in her past. But life doesn't always go as planned. As if going to the same college as her football star ex wasn’t bad enough, her father, a Texas high school coaching phenom, has decided to make the jump to college ball… as the new head coach at Rusk University. Dallas finds herself in the shadows of her father and football all over again. Carson McClain is determined to go from second-string quarterback to the starting line-up. He needs the scholarship and the future that football provides. But when a beautiful redhead literally falls into his life, his focus is more than tested. It's obliterated. Dallas doesn't know Carson is on the team. Carson doesn't know that Dallas is his new coach's daughter. And neither of them know how to walk away from the attraction they feel

One horrible murder. Two people destined for love or tragedy. Emotions explode in the novel Julia Spencer-Fleming's readers have been clamoring for. Police Chief Russ Van Alstyne's first encounter with Clare Fergusson was in the hospital emergency room on a freezing December night. A newborn infant had been abandoned on the town's Episcopal church steps. If Russ had known that the church had a new priest, he certainly would never have guessed that it would be a woman. Not a woman like Clare. That night in the hospital was the beginning of an attraction so fierce, so forbidden, that the only thing that could keep them safe from compromising their every belief was distance--but in a small town like Millers Kill, distance is hard to find. Russ Van Alstyne figures his wife kicking him out of their house is nobody's business but his own. Until a neighbor pays a friendly visit to Linda Van Alstyne and finds the woman's body, gruesomely butchered, on the kitchen floor. To the state police, it's an open-and-shut case of a disaffected husband, silencing first his wife, then the murder investigation he controls. To the townspeople, it's proof that the whispered gossip about the police chief and the priest was true. To the powers-that-be in the church hierarchy, it's a chance to control their wayward cleric once and for all. Obsession. Lies. Nothing is as it seems in Millers Kill, where betrayal twists old friendships and evil waits inside quaint white clapboard farmhouses

A moody and beautiful reflection on relationships, and how our idea of the world too often fails to match reality, All My Friends delivers five stories that probe the boundaries between individuals to mediate on how well we really know anybody, including ourselves. Written in hypnotic prose with characters both fully fleshed and unfathomable, All My Friends opens with the fraught love story of a man who has fallen for his housekeeper, his student of many years ago. Losing his grip as he feels his own family turning against him, he plots romance between the housekeeper and an old friend, whom he thinks is perfect for her. Later NDiaye gives us the harsh tale of a young boy longing to escape his life of poverty by becoming a sex slave — just like the beautiful young man that lived next door. And when a woman takes her mentally challenged son on a bus ride to the city, they both know that she’ll return, but he won’t. Chilling, provocative, and touching, this is an unflinching look at the personal horrors we fight every day to suppress — but in All My Friends they’re allowed to roam free

SHORTLISTED 2014 — Scotiabank Giller Prize. Miriam Toews is beloved for her irresistible voice, for mingling laughter and heartwrenching poignancy like no other writer. In her most passionate novel yet, she brings us the riveting story of two sisters, and a love that illuminates life. You won’t forget Elf and Yoli, two smart and loving sisters. Elfrieda, a world-renowned pianist, glamorous, wealthy, happily married: she wants to die. Yolandi, divorced, broke, sleeping with the wrong men as she tries to find true love: she desperately wants to keep her older sister alive. Yoli is a beguiling mess, wickedly funny even as she stumbles through life struggling to keep her teenage kids and mother happy, her exes from hating her, her sister from killing herself and her own heart from breaking. But Elf’s latest suicide attempt is a shock: she is three weeks away from the opening of her highly anticipated international tour. Her long-time agent has been calling and neither Yoli nor Elf’s loving husband knows what to tell him. Can she be nursed back to “health” in time? Does it matter? As the situation becomes ever more complicated, Yoli faces the most terrifying decision of her life. All My Puny Sorrows, at once tender and unquiet, offers a profound reflection on the limits of love, and the sometimes unimaginable challenges we experience when childhood becomes a new country of adult commitments and responsibilities. In her beautifully rendered new novel, Miriam Toews gives us a startling demonstration of how to carry on with hope and love and the business of living even when grief loads the heart

A novel set in Dublin in the mid-1980s — a city in the grip of recession and a heroin epidemic. Narrated by Declan, the only boy of a tight-knit writing group at Trinity College, it tells of their fascination with the formidably talented but troubled writer Glynn, and the darkly exhilarating journey this leads them on

“It is impossible to stop our ears against the excruciating power of what Breytenbach has to say.”—Nadine Gordimer “Obviously the greatest Afrikaner poet of this generation. . No one elevated the Boer language to such pure beauty and no one wielded it so devastatingly against the apartheid regime as its exiled poet Breyten Breytenbach.”—The New Yorker All One Horse is a moving and haunting journey through Breyten Breytenbach’s kaleidoscopic imagination. His surreal and psychically charged paintings converse with his philosophical and lyrical prose pieces. The title is a nod to Chuang Tzu, and the writings are infused with glimmers of Eastern thought (as well as glimmers of the other worlds Breytenbach has inhabited). An outspoken human rights activist, Breyten Breytenbach is a poet, novelist, memoirist, essayist, and painter (his paintings and drawings have been exhibited around the world). After years of exile in France, in 1975 he was apprehended during a clandestine trip to South Africa, accused of terrorism for his anti-apartheid activities, and spent seven years in prison. He received the Alan Paton Non-Fiction Award for Return to Paradise in 1994 and the Hertzog Prize for poetry in 1999 and 2007

All or Nothin’ is a novella featuring short stories from past Soldiers of Wrath MC characters. In this exclusive novella, readers will get a “Where Are They Now” look into the lives of Demon and Deanna, Joker and Amy, Steel and Eloise, and Shakes and Daniella. Because these are stories about past characters, this is not a standalone, and all previous books in The Soldiers of Wrath series should be read first

From acclaimed author Dinaw Mengestu, a recipient of the National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35 award, The New Yorker’s 20 Under 40 award, and a 2012 MacArthur Foundation genius grant, comes an unforgettable love story about a searing affair between an American woman and an African man in 1970s America and an unflinching novel about the fragmentation of lives that straddle countries and histories. All Our Names is the story of two young men who come of age during an African revolution, drawn from the safe confines of the university campus into the intensifying clamor of the streets outside. But as the line between idealism and violence becomes increasingly blurred, the friends are driven apart — one into the deepest peril, as the movement gathers inexorable force, and the other into the safety of exile in the American Midwest. There, pretending to be an exchange student, he falls in love with a social worker and settles into small-town life. Yet this idyll is inescapably darkened by the secrets of his past: the acts he committed and the work he left unfinished. Most of all, he is haunted by the beloved friend he left behind, the charismatic leader who first guided him to revolution and then sacrificed everything to ensure his freedom. Elegiac, blazing with insights about the physical and emotional geographies that circumscribe our lives, All Our Names is a marvel of vision and tonal command. Writing within the grand tradition of Naipul, Greene, and Achebe, Mengestu gives us a political novel that is also a transfixing portrait of love and grace, of self-determination and the names we are given and the names we earn

Set against the lush, magical backdrop of the Pacific Northwest, two inseparable best friends who have grown up like sisters—the charismatic, mercurial, and beautiful Aurora and the devoted, soulful, watchful narrator—find their bond challenged for the first time ever when a mysterious and gifted musician named Jack comes between them. Suddenly, each girl must decide what matters most: friendship, or love. What both girls don’t know is that the stakes are even higher than either of them could have imagined. They’re not the only ones who have noticed Jack’s gift; his music has awakened an ancient evil—and a world both above and below which may not be mythical at all. The real and the mystical; the romantic and the heartbreaking all begin to swirl together, carrying the two on journey that is both enthralling and terrifying. And it’s up to the narrator to protect the people she loves—if she can

All Our Yesterdays opens amid the violence and tumult of 1920s Ireland with Conn Sheridan, a reckless young IRA captain. Conn’s forbidden affair with Hadley Winslow, a Boston tycoon’s wife, initiates a dangerous entanglement of desire and blackmail between two families that will span three generations. When a shattering betrayal forces Conn to flee Ireland, he begins a new life in America as a Boston cop. There the violence and obsessions of Conn’s past continue to haunt him as he marries and has a son, Gus. Gus Sheridan will follow his father into the police force, rising to head the city’s homicide division. He will also inherit his father’s daredevil toughness, dangerous obsessions — and a cool reserve softened only by his unspoken love for his own son, Chris. And it is Chris Sheridan, a young special prosecutor, who will close the circle of treachery and betrayal that began with his grandfather in Ireland. For Chris Sheridan will uncover, piece by piece, the shocking truth about his family’s past and even about Grace, the beautiful, sophisticated Boston woman he wants to marry. Grand in scope, All Our Yesterdays creates a living, breathing portrait of an era... and of two families who must come to terms with their heritage, and with the violence, the obsessions, and the deceit that both define and haunt them

As the wet Lakeland fells grow misty and the holiday season draws to a close; as the tourists trickle away from the campsite, along with the sunshine, and the hot water, and the last of the good beer — a man accidentally spills a tin of green paint, and thereby condemns himself to death

Эрих Мария Ремарк – один из самых известных немецких писателей ХХ века. Роман «На Западном фронте без перемен» рассказывает о поколении, которое погубила война, о тех, кто стал ее жертвой, даже если спасся от пуль. Это отчет о реальных событиях Первой мировой войны, рассказ о солдатском товариществе. Книга предназначена для широкого круга читателей, владеющих английским языком, для студентов языковых вузов, а также может быть рекомендована всем, кто самостоятельно изучает английский язык

Joan is a smart and independent woman working as a journalist in London. She has grand plans for her future, dreaming of the day when she publishes her novel. However, when the war comes, she decides to go for the adventure of it. When she's there, she realizes that war is not all the romantics say it is

An award-winning debut novel about a quirky immigrant’s journey through a multicultural, post-nationalist landscape Set in Frankfurt, All Russians Love Birch Trees follows a young immigrant named Masha. Fluent in five languages and able to get by in several others, Masha lives with her boyfriend, Elias. Her best friends are Muslims struggling to obtain residence permits, and her parents rarely leave the house except to compare gas prices. Masha has nearly completed her studies to become an interpreter, when suddenly Elias is hospitalized after a serious soccer injury and dies, forcing her to question a past that has haunted her for years. Olga Grjasnowa has a unique gift for seeing the funny side of even the most tragic situations. With cool irony, her debut novel tells the story of a headstrong young woman for whom the issue of origin and nationality is immaterial—her Jewish background has taught her she can survive anywhere. Yet Masha isn’t equipped to deal with grief, and this all-too-normal shortcoming gives a particularly bittersweet quality to her adventures. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTqTHwiNPmc

Superintendent Duncan Kincaid digs deep into a friend's past – all the way back to her childhood in India – to find a clue to her murder

In 1997, at the distinguished Siddons School on Manhattan's Upper East Side, the school year opens with distressing news: Astra Dell is suffering from a rare disease. Astra's friends try to reconcile the sick girl's suffering with their own fierce longings and impetuous attachments. Car writes unsparing letters, which the dirty Marlene, in her devotion, then steals. Other classmates carry on: The silly team of Suki and Alex pursue Will Bliss while the subversive Lisa Van de Ven makes dates with Miss Wilkes. The world of private schools and privilege in New York City is funny, poignant, cruel, and at its heart is a sick girl, Astra Dell, "that pale girl from the senior class, the dancer with all the hair, the red hair, knotted or braided or let to fall to her waist, a fever and she consumed." National Book Award Finalist Christine Schutt has created a wickedly original tale of innocence, daring and illness

My name is Raine Benares—and it sucks to be me. The Saghred, a soul-stealing stone that has given me unlimited power, has been stolen by a goblin prince, and with it went my magic. The Saghred is in the goblin capital of Regor, in the hands of Sarad Nukpana, who's on the verge of becoming the most powerful mage ever... just as soon as I'm dead. Because Sarad can't use the stone while I'm alive. Incentive enough to plan a little trip to Regor with a small band of good friends, not-so-good friends, and outright enemies. All we need to do is destroy the Saghred, kill Sarad, and put a renegade prince on the throne. Did I mention I'll be doing this without magic?

Рассказ вошёл в сборники: A Medicine For Melancholy (Лекарство от меланхолии) The Stories of Ray Bradbury (И грянул гром: 100 рассказов)