Every woman needs her Cathy Kelly time – lose yourself with this warm and enjoyable short story perfect for a relaxing break.Elsie loves her regular letters from her sister Maisie in Chicago. Maisie emigrated to America forty-five years ago but the sisters keep in touch monthly. The letters cross the Atlantic, back and forth, filled with news about their families, their hopes, dreams and successes. Of course, it’s not quite as good as seeing each other in person, but they are happy enough with...
Every woman needs her Cathy Kelly time – lose yourself with this warm and enjoyable short story perfect for a relaxing break.Elsie loves her regular letters from her sister Maisie in Chicago. Maisie emigrated to America forty-five years ago but the sisters keep in touch monthly. The letters cross the Atlantic, back and forth, filled with news about their families, their hopes, dreams and successes. Of course, it’s not quite as good as seeing each other in person, but they are happy enough with...
Sam Peterson is your average high school student?until he falls through a portal in time and space and lands in the studio of Leonardo da Vinci. This is worse than algebra! Da Vinci was a futurist. He imagined the airplane, the helicopter, submarine, and more—long before anyone else. Who better to design a time machine to get Sam home? Our time-traveler gets hooked on art and science as he gets to know Leonardo. Meanwhile, da Vinci is fascinated by the common items of 21st century life. Yellow...
Walace Weiss, A once-famous fantasy novelist, now troubled by drug addiction, sets himself on a final two-fold quest: to finish his first novel in over a decade, and, like the immortal elves of his stories, to try and remember what, in his long life, he should not have forgotten. Part of the prestigious Open Door Series, originally designed for adult literacy in Ireland, these books confirm the truth that a story doesn't have to be big to change our world. The Sorrow of...
What do you do when something magical happens…in your own backyard? Linda and Earl are a happy couple. Although married for many years, they have never had children. Still, they are content being together, and watching reruns of “I Love Lucy” keeps them close. That, and a magical garden that never seems to grow what they plant. One day Earl finds a set of infant toes in the loam. He and Linda plant them and watch in amazement as the garden produces an enormous baby. Now Earl and Linda have to...
A woman discovers she has a rogue body part, one she’s never heard of. As she prepares herself for surgery to remove the offense, she travels to London and finds answers to her questions in unexpected places—a locked room in a museum where jars of Victorian body parts are stored, an early 19th century operating room in the attic of a church, and a diary by a woman whose husband dissected a rhinoceros in their flat. Along the way, she ponders the nature of disease, the unfortunate name given to...
Modern travelers on foot follow wisdom along the Ulster Way. Storytellers, said Walter Benjamin, are descended from one of two tribes: the mariners or the peasants. We revel in the stories of the sailors, with their lure of exotic places and the treasures a mariner brings home. We hearken to the stories of the peasants for a glimmer of the past, best revealed to natives and landed people. Brian Bouldrey, professional vagabond, and his very organized friend Garth, two unlikely mariners, hit dry...
Dr. Christopher Lemuel escapes England on a privateer after he has the misfortune of winning a duel. With his life in jeopardy, he signs on as ship's doctor only to face further dangers on the high seas. The good doctor is wounded in a sea battle, captured by pirates, and reluctantly becomes a buccaneer. Then matters become stranger still when Dr. Lemuel is marooned on an island populated by enormous beasts unknown in natural history.
When Mark Buehrle threw his perfect game against Tampa Bay, it was DeWayne Wise, the ninth inning White Sox defensive sub who made the leaping, back against the wall catch of a fly ball, robbing Gabe Kapler of a home run and preserving Buehrle’s achievement. Until that moment, Wise was virtually anonymous. Yet for that one moment in July, Wise moved into the spotlight and The Los Angeles Times called his one of the top ten moments in sports for 2009. But when the season ended, Wise was a free...
 Everyone has a prom story – the culmination of the vibrant and painful years of high school. Throw in the sexual revolution, a stuttering cousin for a date, and a parking valet dressed like Abraham Lincoln, and looking cool is an impossible dream. Edith, the fierce and vibrant narrator, tries to leave nuns snapping prom pictures and her painful past behind, and find a way to be both the free spirit her friends require and to be herself.
A middle-aged man living in Los Angeles takes a business trip to San Francisco, where he lived, briefly but intensely, when he was just out of high school. Over the course of a long afternoon and evening, he confronts the echoes of his history in the patterns of the streets he obsessively wanders. A strange interaction with a couple of old friends brings him face-to-face with his unfinished past.
BJ, a talented college basketball player, lives and breathes the game. For BJ, life means nothing without hoops. Her mother—an abstract painter—doesn’t get it. Or at least she pretends she doesn’t. Everything changes when BJ accidentally discovers her dad, a man who’s been a shadowy presence throughout her life. As if that’s not enough of a surprise, she begins to suspect that two of her teammates, and her best friends, may actually be her half-sisters. As BJ struggles to keep her eye on the...