Daniel Abraham

One morning, in the dead of winter, three German soldiers are dispatched into the frozen Polish countryside. They have been charged by their commanders to track down and bring back for execution 'one of them' — a Jew. Having flushed out the young man hiding in the woods, they decide to rest in an abandoned house before continuing their journey back to the camp. As they prepare food, they are joined by a passing Pole whose outspoken anti-Semitism adds tension to an already charged atmosphere. Before long, the group's sympathies have splintered as they consider the moral implications of their murderous mission and confront their own consciences to ask themselves: should the Jew be offered food? And, having shared their meal, should he be taken back, or set free?

Dale Stewart's life has become a shadow of what it once was. A respected college professor and successful novelist, he sabotaged his career and his marriage with an obsessive love affair that ended badly.With darkness closing in on him, Dale decides to return to his boyhood home in Illinois. Drawn by a recurring nightmare that has plagued him since his youth -- and a troubling certainty that something is waiting for him there -- he hopes to exorcise his demons.In the last hours of Halloween, he reaches the outskirts of the dying town of Elm Haven. There, he moves into the abandoned farmhouse that was once the home of his closest boyhood friend, the strange and brilliant Duane McBride, who lost his young life in a grisly "accident" back in the terrible summer of 1960. Hoping to find peace in isolation, he settles in for the long, harsh winter.But Dale is not alone. Soon after he arrives, cryptic messages begin appearing mysteriously on his computer screen while he struggles to work on his novel. He sees black dogs roaming the grounds. And an old enemy has reemerged, a bully who seems as determined to persecute Dale as he was in childhood.

In Hatchet, 13-year-old Brian Robeson learned to survive alone in the Canadian wilderness, armed only with his hatchet. Finally, as millions of readers know, he was rescued at the end of the summer. But what if Brian hadn't been rescued? What if he had been left to face his deadliest enemy-winter?

Gary Paulsen raises the stakes for survival in this riveting and inspiring story as one boy confronts the ultimate test and the ultimate adventure.

This is the story of a love-smitten Charles; his friend Sam, the Phi Beta Kappa and former coat salesman; and Charles' mother, who spends a lot of time in the bathtub feeling depressed.

A vicious psychopathic killer stalks the streets of the quiet tourist town of Loon Lake, Michigan, leaving a series of victims and mysteriously coded death cards in his wake, and Detective Louis Kincaid must make a terrifying journey through the town's dark secrets into the mind of madman.

Detective Mac Taylor is a dedicated and driven crime-scene investigator who believes that everything is connected and everyone has a story. He and his partner, Detective Stella Bonasera, lead a team of experts through the gritty and kinetic world of New York City. These skilled investigators, who see New York in a unique light, follow the evidence as they piece together clues and eliminate doubt to ultimately crack their cases.

The body of a middle-aged man is found in the elevator of a ritzy doorman building on the Upper East Side. Mac Taylor and Aiden Burn's initial investigation yields no bullets, no DNA evidence, and no motive. Could this be the perfect crime? Meanwhile, only a few blocks away, Stella Bonasera and Danny Messer investigate the murder of a witness being held in protective custody. The law enforcement officers on duty swear that the victim spent the night in a locked hotel room – only to be found dead in the morning. From the heart of midtown to the outer boroughs, the New York CSI team must piece together the evidence and solve two puzzling crimes in the city that never sleeps

The long-awaited sequel to Janni Lee Simner's breathtaking YA fantasy debut, Bones of Faerie.

Liza is a summoner. She can draw life to herself, even from beyond the grave. And because magic works both ways, she can drive life away. Months ago, she used her powers to banish her dangerous father and to rescue her mother, lost in dreams, from the ruined land of Faerie.

Born in the wake of the war between humanity and Faerie, Liza lived in a world where green things never slept, where trees sought to root in living flesh and bone. But now the forests have fallen silent. Even the evergreens' branches are bare. Winter crops won't grow, and the threat of starvation looms. And deep in the forest a dark, malevolent will is at work. To face it, Liza will have to find within herself something more powerful than magic alone.

Here at last is the sequel to Bones of Faerie, for all those fans of dark fantasy and dystopian adventure who thrilled to Janni Lee Simner's unique vision of a postapocalyptic world infused with magic.

The Nuclear Winter series continues the story of the five book Best Laid Plans series, with First Winter beginning soon after the end of the fifth book, Determination.

The people of Aspen Hill have managed to survive every challenge that’s come their way since the US ran out of fuel practically overnight. Having fled their home, they’re now struggling to rebuild their town in a new location and make the preparations they need before the onset of nuclear winter.

Trev Smith has assumed command of the town’s defenders, and is struggling to be a good leader while trying to help his friend Deb Rutledge get over her traumatic past as a prisoner of Gold Bloc soldiers. His cousin Lewis Halsson believes he has preparations for the winter well in hand, and is now looking to the future for ways to bring prosperity for his family and hopefully the whole town. And their friend Matt Larson has taken over as Mayor, facing the daunting task of leading the town just as it faces its greatest challenge. On top of that Matt also worries for his wife Sam, who’ll soon be giving birth to their first child without the aid of modern medical equipment or doctors trained in obstetrics.

None of them can truly predict how bad their first nuclear winter will be, but they know how bad last winter was even though it was relatively mild. For a town cut off from outside aid and forced to provide everything for itself, conditions had been brutal. This winter would be unimaginably worse, not only much colder and with more snowfall but also lasting far longer. They’d have to work every moment to prepare, rely on friends and loved ones for support, look for help wherever they could find it, and hope for good fortune.

The centuries-long winter of the Great Year on Helliconia is upon us, and the Oligarch is taking harsh measures to ensure the survival of the people of the bleak Northern continent of Sibornal. Behind the battle with which the novel opens lies an act of unparalleled treachery. But the plague is coming on the wings of winter and the Oligarch’s will is set against it—and against the phagors, humanity’s ancient enemies, who carry the plague with them.

Learning a whole new way of thinking, after a long life of an old one, is hard. But with a big enough nudge…

If your children were forced to testify against you, what terrible secrets would they reveal?

Moscow 1945. As Stalin and his courtiers celebrate victory over Hitler, shots ring out. On a nearby bridge, a teenage boy and girl lie dead.

But this is no ordinary tragedy and these are no ordinary teenagers, but the children of Russia’s most important leaders who attend the most exclusive school in Moscow.

Is it murder? A suicide pact? Or a conspiracy against the state?

Directed by Stalin himself, an investigation begins as children are arrested and forced to testify against their friends – and their parents. This terrifying witch-hunt soon unveils illicit love affairs and family secrets in a world where the smallest mistakes can be punished with death.

It is 1920, central Russia. The Red Terror tightens its hold. Kolya has deserted his Red Army unit and returns home to bury his brother and reunite with his wife and sons. But he finds the village silent and empty. The men have been massacred in the forest. The women and children have disappeared.

In this remote, rural Russian community the folk tales mothers tell their children by candlelight take on powerful significance and the terrifying legend of Koschei, The Deathless One, begins to feel very real. Kolya sets out on a journey through dense, haunting forests and across vast plains as bitter winter sets in, in the desperate hope he will find his wife and two boys, and find them alive. But there are very dark things in Kolya’s past. And, as he strives to find his family, there’s someone or something on his trail…

Dorthe Nors follows up her acclaimed story collection Karate Chop with a pair of novellas that playfully chart the aftermath of two very twenty-first-century romances. In "Days," a woman in her late thirties records her life in a series of lists, giving shape to the tumult of her days-one moment she is eating an apple, the next she is on the floor, howling like a dog. As the details accumulate, we experience with her the full range of emotions: anger, loneliness, regret, pain, and also joy, as the lists become a way to understand, connect to, and rebuild her life.

In "Minna Needs Rehearsal Space," a novella told in headlines, an avant-garde musician is dumped via text message. Fleeing the indignity of the breakup and friends who flaunt their achievements in life, career, and family, Minna unfriends people on Facebook, listens to Bach, and reads Ingmar Bergman, then decamps to an island near Sweden, "well suited to mental catharsis." A cheeky nod to the listicles and bulletins we scroll through on a daily basis, So Much for That Winter explores how we shape and understand experience, and the disconnection and dislocation that define our twenty-first-century lives, with Nors's unique wit and humor.

That winter David Conway was enjoying a quiet life with his friends, not especially looking for love, but finding it anyway. The artist Matt Sommers was due to stage an exhibition of Epiphany Stones from Acrab IV, a show which attracted the attention of one Darius Dortmund, the famous empathy. Dortmund could see into the minds of men ‘some said into their very souls’ and when he met David and his friends, and looked into their minds, what he found there would lead to murder…

Starship Winter, the third volume in the Starship Seasons sequence, continues the quiet adventures of Conway and his friends on the backwater colony world of Addenbrooke, Delta Pavonis IV.

Launched into existence by Mark Twain, Huck Finn and Jim have now been transported by Norman Lock through three vital, violent, and transformative centuries of American history. As time unfurls on the river’s banks, they witness decisive battles of the Civil War, the betrayal of Reconstruction’s promises to the freed slaves, the crushing of Native American nations, and the electrification of a continent. Huck, who finally comes of age when he’s washed up on shore during Hurricane Katrina, narrates the story as an older and wiser man in 2077, revealing our nation’s past, present, and future as Mark Twain could never have dreamed it.

The Boy in His Winter is a tour-de-force work of imagination, beauty, and courage that re-envisions a great American literary classic for our time.

The best fiction from across the Nordic region, selected and introduced by Sjon—Iceland’s internationally renowned writer.

This exquisite anthology collects together the very best fiction from across the Nordic region. Travelling from cosmopolitan Stockholm to the remote Faroe Islands, and from Denmark to Greenland, this unique and compelling volume displays the thrilling diversity of writing from these northern nations.

Selected and introduced by Sjon, The Dark Blue Winter Overcoat includes both notable authors and exciting new discoveries. As well as an essential selection of the best contemporary storytelling from the Nordic countries, it’s also a fascinating portrait of contemporary life across the region. The perfect book to curl up with on a cold winter’s evening.

Critically acclaimed début novel of bestselling author, Iain Rob Wright. #1 Bestseller in Horror Fiction and Apocalyptic Fiction with hundreds of 5 star reviews.

^____

It’s snowing…

Everywhere…

Over every inch of the Earth…

But that’s just the start…

^____

When grieving alcoholic Harry Jobson starts his latest beer, he expects to end the night face-down in vomit like he does every night—but that was before the strange snowstorm started. Instead, he finds himself trapped inside his local pub, The Trumpet, with an odd group of strangers. Recent news reports claim that the snow is falling in every country of the world. But that’s impossible…

Right?

The truth is too frightening to admit, but when the body of a mangled boy crashes through the window, Harry is forced to sober up and take charge. Something sinister lurks outside in the snow, and those inside are keeping terrible secrets.

Iain Rob Wright’s debut novel is a masterclass of fear and suspense, sure to please horror fans everywhere. If you love the dark, mysterious tales of Stephen King or the claustrophobic terror of Brian Keene, you will love The Final Winter.

SPECIAL EDITION BONUS CONTENT

Seven additional short stories set during the events of The Final Winter, plus one additional stand-alone tale: THE PEELING OF SAMUEL LLOYD COLLINS

PRAISE FOR THE AUTHOR

“Iain Rob Wright is sick and twisted.”

– David Moody, author of Autumn and the Hater series

“Iain Rob Wright scares the hell out of me.”

– J. A. Konrath, author of Origins and Afraid

“A Master of the genre.”

– Matt Shaw, author of the Black Cover books.

“Cuddle up to this novel and it might rip your throat out. A fun, thrilling read!”

– David T. Wilbanks - Co-author of Dead Earth: The Vengeance Road

“One of the BEST horror books I have read in YEARS!”

– Eric S. Brown, author of Last Stand in a Dead Land

“Iain Rob Wright brings true excitement to the horror genre, with wholly original stories and characters to route for.”

– Ryan C. Thomas, author of Hissers, Rating’s Game, and Origin of Pain

“Iain Rob Wright is a champion of the genre, an author who could build tension, atmosphere, and genuine dread out of a delicate snowflake.”

– Aaron Dries, award-winning author of House of Sighs

Categories for The Final Winter

• haunted houses and ghost novels

• apocalyptic fiction

• supernatural books

• survival horror

• snow horror

• spooky horror novels

About the Author

Published author, Iain Rob Wright, was born in 1984 and lives in Redditch, a small town in the United Kingdom. He is the author of several novels, including the highly acclaimed, The Final Winter, and the deeply disturbing thriller, ASBO.

You can find him on Facebook or visit his website at iainrobwright.com

What do you do when war tears your world apart?

For fans of The Kite Runner, Girl at War and The Cellist of Sarajevo, The Longest Winter is Kevin Sullivan’s inspiring and authentic debut novel about life in Sarajevo during the Bosnian War. Terry is a British doctor on a mission to rescue a sick child in urgent need of life-saving surgery. Brad is an American journalist desperately trying to save his reputation following the disasters of his last posting. Milena is a young woman from Eastern Bosnia who has fled from her home and her husband, seeking refuge from betrayal amid the devastation of besieged Sarajevo. In the aftermath of the assassination of a government minister, three life stories are intertwined in a dramatic quest for redemption.

Ingrid Winter is desperately trying to hold it all together. A neurotic Norwegian mother of three small children and an overworked literature professor with an overactive imagination, Ingrid feels like her life’s always on the brink of chaos.

Her overzealous attempt to secure her dream house has strained her marriage. She’s repeatedly reprimanded for eye rolling in faculty meetings. Petulant PTA parents want to drag her into a war over teaching children to tie their shoes. And an alarmingly persistent salesman keeps warning her of the potential dangers of home intrusion.

Clearly she needs to get away. But Russia? Forced to join an academic mission to Saint Petersburg to promote international cooperation, Ingrid finds herself at a crossroads while drinking too much cough syrup. Will this trip push her into a Siberian sinkhole of existential dread or finally give her life some balance and direction?

Carl Sagan, a modern-day Renaissance man of science, was born in 1934 in New York. After graduating with both a B.A. and a B.S. degree from the University of Chicago, Sagan completed his M.S. in physics and earned a Ph.D. in astronomy and astrophysics in 1960.

Sagan was nominated to join the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in 1962. At the same time, he also worked with the Nobel-prize winner Joshna Lederberg, investigating the origins of life on Earth, and taught genetics at Stanford. Sagan then taught astronomy at Harvard until 1968, when he became professor of astronomy and space sciences at Cornell University. He was then appointed director of the laboratory for Planetary Studies. Sagan was awarded the NASA medal for exceptional scientific achievement in 1972, after his hypotheses about Mars were validated by data obtained from the 1971 Mars Mariner expedition. Beginning in 1968, Sagan was editor of Icarus, the international journal of astronomy, and wrote many distinguished books. His works include The Cosmic Connection (1973), which received the Campbell Award for best science book; the Pulitzer-prize winning Dragons of Eden (1977); Broca’s Brain (1979), on developments in neurophysiology; and Cosmos (1980), which accompanied his widely-acclaimed television series. In “The Nuclear Winter” (1983), Sagan explored the unforeseen and devastating physical and chemical effects of even a small-scale nuclear war on the earth’s biosphere and life on earth.

For centuries, adventurers have sought the fabled Ring of Winter, rumored to possess the magical might to make the wearer immortal and bring a second Ice Age down upon the Realms. Artus Cimber knows where it is.

After discovering the ring is hidden in the jungles of Chult, he sets off to fulfill the quest that has devoured a decade of his life. Knowing that the artifact is hidden somewhere in the danger-filled jungles and recovering it are two entirely different matters, however—especially when a lost city, rampaging dinosaurs, and the villainous Cult of Frost all stand between Artus and his goal.

"Sadistic but mesmerizing…"

— The New York Times Book Review

Tracing a group of ruthless outlaws from its genesis during the American Civil War all the way to a final bloody stand in the Oklahoma territories, The Winter Family is a hyperkinetic Western noir that reads like a full-on assault to the senses.

Spanning the better part of three decades, The Winter Family traverses America's harsh, untamed terrain, both serving and opposing the fierce advance of civilization. Among its twisted specimens, the Winter Family includes the psychopathic killer Quentin Ross, the mean and moronic Empire brothers, the impassive ex-slave Fred Johnson, and the dangerous child prodigy Lukas Shakespeare But at the malevolent center of this ultraviolent storm is their cold, hardened leader, Augustus Winter — a man with an almost pathological resistance to the rules of society and a preternatural gift for butchery.

From their service as political thugs in a brutal Chicago election to their work as bounty hunters in the deserts of Arizona, there's a hypnotic logic to Winter's grim borderland morality that plays out, time and again, in ruthless carnage.

With its haunting, hard-edged style, The Winter Family is a feverishly paced meditation on human nature and the dark contradictions of progress.

March 1928. The Great War has been over for ten years, but Freddie still hasn't recovered from the loss of his brother. Even now, on holiday in south-west France, he cannot escape his grief. When his car crashes, Freddie stumbles down from the hills to a village nearby. There he meets Marie, a beautiful young woman who is also mourning a lost generation. Her story of the fate of her family moves him deeply. But it will also lead Freddie to the caves above the village – and to the heart of a shocking secret. By turns thrilling, poignant and haunting, this is a story of two lives touched by war and transformed by courage. The Cave is the gripping new adventure from the number-one bestselling author of Labyrinth and Sepulchre.

Times are hard for a struggling family circus in the long, cold winter of 1925. With their sons off in America and the last of their big cats long gone, Pa and Ma Cooke are more than happy to accept the offer of free winter standing on the remote Blackcraig estate in Perthshire in return for a few shows to the Wilson family around Christmastime. Wealthy but brash Albert Wilson is cock-a-hoop to find himself the centre of a circle of bright young things from around the county, agog for the circus and ready to endure his company to get at it. With the threat of revolution blowing in from the east on the icy gales, Hugh Gilver is less pleased to see the troupe Prebrezhensky ensconced in the valley but the Gilver boys, especially, cannot get enough of Tiny Truman the midget, Andrew Merryman the giant, not to mention the mysterious and beautiful Anastasia, bare-back rider and troublemaker combined. When Ma Cooke asks for Dandy's help to get to the bottom of a string of spiteful tricks at the winter ground, Hugh gives his approval, one eye on the bank balance as always.But the fun runs out when the silly tricks take a darker turn, leaving one of the performers dead and the Cooke, Wilson and Gilver families fractured amid whispers of murder.

These are the tales of the last days before the great darkness descended. These are the tales of the Lost Lands, the country that was once ours but which our enemies now call England. These are the tales of Arthur, the Warlord'; the King that Never Was, the Enemy of God and, may the living Christ forgive me, the best man I ever knew. How I have wept for Arthur…

Fifth century Britain lies on the edge of darkness. Memories of Roman civilization are fading; the pagan Gods are retreating before the spread of Christianity; the Saxons are snapping and snarling at the borders. Only fragile bonds unite the unruly kingdoms of Britain against the invaders, bonds cemented by the vigour of the High King, Uther Pendragon. But the Pendragon is failing, and his heir is no strong leader but a child, born on a bitter winter night.

Only one man could keep Uther's throne safe,only he could hold the warring kingdoms together to face their true enemy, the Saxons. That man is Arthur: soldier, statesman, Merlin's protege, Uther's illegitimate son. But he has been banished, exiled by his own father to Brittany. Derfel, one of his spearmen, narrates the story of Arthur's return and of his quest for peace: embattled, bloody and, finally, triumphant.

The Winter King is a magnificent tale of the Dark Ages and the reality of war and political strife in a land where religion vied with magic for the souls of the people. It portrays Arthur the man rather than the legend, a military genius who, with a small band of warriors bound to him by loyalty and love, struggled to keep alive a flicker of civilization.

Toby thought she understood her own past; she thought she knew the score.

She was wrong.

It's time to learn the truth.

Steinbeck’s last great novel focuses on the theme of success and what motivates men towards it. Reflecting back on his New England family’s past fortune, and his father’s loss of the family wealth, the hero, Ethan Allen Hawley, characterizes success in every era and in all its forms as robbery, murder, even a kind of combat, operating under “the laws of controlled savagery”.

By the international bestselling author of The Piano Tuner, a sweeping and unforgettable love story of a young doctor and nurse at a remote field hospital in the First World War.

Vienna, 1914. Lucius is a twenty-two-year-old medical student when World War I explodes across Europe. Enraptured by romantic tales of battlefield surgery, he enlists, expecting a position at a well-organized field hospital. But when he arrives, at a commandeered church tucked away high in a remote valley of the Carpathian Mountains, he finds a freezing outpost ravaged by typhus. The other doctors have fled, and only a single, mysterious nurse named Sister Margarete remains.

But Lucius has never lifted a surgeon’s scalpel. And as the war rages across the winter landscape, he finds himself falling in love with the woman from whom he must learn a brutal, makeshift medicine. Then one day, an unconscious soldier is brought in from the snow, his uniform stuffed with strange drawings. He seems beyond rescue until Lucius makes a fateful decision that will change the lives of doctor, patient, and nurse forever.

From the gilded ballrooms of Imperial Vienna to the frozen forests of the Eastern Front; from hardscrabble operating rooms to battlefields thundering with Cossack cavalry, The Winter Soldier is the story of war and medicine, of family, of finding love in the sweeping tides of history, and finally, of the mistakes we make, and the precious opportunities to atone.

An aristocratic Russian doctor races to contain a deadly plague in an outpost city in Manchuria—before it spreads to the rest of the world.

1910: people are mysteriously dying at an alarming rate in the Russian-ruled city of Kharbin, a major railway outpost in Northern China. Strangely, some of the dead bodies vanish before they can be identified.

During a dangerously cold winter in a city gripped by fear, the Baron, a wealthy Russian aristocrat and the city’s medical commissioner, is determined to stop this mysterious plague. Battling local customs, an occupying army, and a brutal epidemic with no name, the Baron is torn between duty and compassion, between Western medical science and respect for Chinese tradition. His allies include a French doctor, a black marketeer, and a charismatic Chinese dwarf. His greatest refuge is the intimacy he shares with his young Chinese wife—but she has secrets of her own.

Based on a true story that has been lost to history, set during the last days of imperial Russia, THE WINTER STATION is a richly textured and brilliant novel about mortality, fear and love.

On November 30, 1939, the Soviet Union's Red Army invaded the young nation-state of Finland, in the full expectation of routing the small, ill-equipped Finnish army and annexing the former Russian territory by the end of the year. But Finland held out for 105 bitterly cold, fiercely combative days, until March 15, 1940, when a peace agreement ended the short, savage Winter War.

At the stirring center of the story lie the resourcefulness and resolve of the Finnish people, who against all military odds-in want of ammunition, food, sleep, and troops-fought a blundering, ineptly commanded Red Army to a standstill. On March 15, they ceded to the Soviet 11 percent of their territory and 30 percent of their economic assets, but none of their national pride.

The Russians meanwhile had markedly damaged their international standing and effectively ruined their military reputation-to such an extent, as this probing chapter in World War II history demonstrates, that Germany, with proud-blooded Finland as an ally, dared to launch its 1940 invasion of Russia. At the same time, though, the fiasco of the Winter War forced Stalin to acknowledge the shortcomings of the Red Army and to reform it: Germany would fall at Stalingrad in 1941.

With authority, this skillfully narrated military history unfolds its story of the four-month Soviet-Finnish war and explores its consequences from London to Moscow, from Helsinki to Paris, to Washington, DC.

Robert Edwards is a regular contributor to the Daily Telegraph in London, where he lives.

The prophecy was clear. Upon the death of three kings the world will be plunged into chaos, and all the cast-out demons of history will return to bring blood and horror to the world. Two of the kings are dead. The third, about to be born, is hunted by the Demon Riders of the Krayakin, Lords of the Undead. All the terrifying forces of evil range against a pregnant queen at bay in a haunted forest. But she is not alone. Three warriors stand with her, the last remnants of the once proud Drenai army. Three old men, ancient heroes, discarded by the king; Nogusta the Swordsman, Kebra the Bowman, and the hulking fighter, Bison. The fate of empires rests on their fading skills as they journey through a tormented world on a perilous quest to save the unborn king.

Deep in Pennsylvania’s Blue Ridge Mountains, a woman befriends a mysterious newcomer from Uzbekistan, setting in motion this suspenseful, atmospheric, politically charged debut.

After surviving a car crash that left her widowed at twenty-two, Kathleen has retreated to a remote corner of a state park, where she works flipping burgers for deer hunters and hikers—happy, she insists, to be left alone.

But when a stranger appears in the dead of winter—seemingly out of nowhere, kicking snow from his flimsy dress shoes—Kathleen is intrigued, despite herself. He says he’s a student visiting from Uzbekistan, and his worldliness fills her with curiosity about life beyond the valley. After a cautious friendship settles between them, the stranger confesses to a terrible crime in his home country, and Kathleen finds herself in the grip of a manhunt—and face-to-face with secrets of her own.

Steeped in the rugged beauty of the Blue Ridge Mountains, with America’s war on terror raging in the background, Sarah St.Vincent’s Ways to Hide in Winter is a powerful story about violence and redemption, betrayal and empathy… and how we reconcile the unforgivable in those we love.

"The most startling, discomforting, complicated, ungovernable, hilarious, and heartrending of memoirs" (The Telegraph, london) — the story of a celebrated writer's sudden descent into blindness, and the redemptive journey into the past that her loss of sight sets in motion.

In 2006 the acclaimed novelist Candia McWilliam began losing her sight, a gradual onset of blindness that seemed like an assault cruelly tailored for someone whose life consisted of reading and writing. Propelled to look inward and into the past, McWilliam embarked on a painful personal voyage through a waste of snows punctuated by shards of ice as she attempted to write her life back. What followed was a flow of memory: her childhood in Edinburgh, her devastating alcoholism, finding and losing her bearings in Cambridge and London, her marriages, her children, and, overshadowing it all, her mother's suicide.

A personal story of love and loss, addiction and reclamation, her piercing memoir is also a celebration of friendship, reading, children, and the consolations of landscape. In What to Look for in Winter, McWilliam riffles through her many incarnations to find her true self and discover how she may come to see once more.

There comes a time when setting your differences aside isn’t just necessary, it’s a means of survival. After losing over half of their dens to a group rogue shifters, the wolves and leopards merged as one Pack, but living together is much more of a challenge then they expected.

Danica Welsh was born to be the leopard pack healer. An accident involving a drug induced youth left her badly burned and scared—emotionally and physically. Without the ability to heal by touch, she secludes herself to the edge of town, away from Ashwood Falls’ overly concerned citizens. All hope of mating and family become a distant dream. When she finally starts to accepts the long, lonely existence ahead of her, a stranger crashes into her life, and her heart.

After Nevan Mathews’ fiancé died three ago, he submerged himself into his work, cutting off all reminders of a life he dreamed of with the woman he loved. He lets his step-mother talk him into taking the first vacation in five years to visit for the holidays. But an accident delays his travel plans, sending him to Danica’s doorstep and raises a need he thought he would never feel again.

Can they tear down the walls around their hearts and submit to the passion before another claims Dani for his own?

Warning: Contains a shifter who's scars run deeper than skin, a human who has the heart of a shifter, and a snow storm that's sure to have them both reaching for warmth.

First appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, August 1997. Nominated for Best Short Story.

When a known serial killer is found with shears sticking out of his chest and an ice pick in his hand, Kathy Mallory and her NYPD Special Crimes partner Detective Sgt. Riker are called in to investigate. One of the occupants of Winter House, the scene of the crime, is 70-year-old Nedda Winter, who immediately confesses to the killing, claiming; it was self-defence.

Murder solved, case closed. It s even poetic justice.

However Nedda Winter is in fact the most famous lost child in NYPD historv, missing for almost sixty years, thought to he kidnapped following the massacre of her family… with an ice pick.

As Mallory and her official and unofficial partners, Riker and Charles Butler, delve into the familys history, a remarkable story begins to emerge – one of murderous greed and family horror, abandonment and loss, revenge and twisted love – a ghost story peopled by all-too-real flesh and blood. But Winter House doesn’t give up its dead so easily, and Mallory will have to reopen the original investigation in order to try and stop the murderer from finishing what they started.

Intricate plotting, resonant characters and incisive prose make Winter House O’Connell’s most powerful and most astonishing novel to date.

A new ice age threatens Earth. Facing extinction, the dinosaurs must employ their mastery of biology to swiftly reconquer human territory. Desperately, Kerrick launches an arduous quest to rally a final defense for humankind. With his beloved wife and young son, he heads north to the land of the whale hunters, east into the enemy’s stronghold, and south to a fateful reckoning with destiny.

A compelling thriller and love story set in post-civil War Spain

Fans of Carlos Ruiz Zafon's The Shadow of the Wind and Sebastian Faulks's Birdsong will fall in love with Winter in Madrid, the arresting new novel from C. J. Sansom. In September 1940, the Spanish Civil War is over and Madrid lies in ruins while the Germans continue their march through Europe. Britain stands alone as General Franco considers whether to abandon neutrality and enter the war.

Into this uncertain world comes Harry Brett, a privileged young man who was recently traumatized by his experience in Dunkirk and is now a reluctant spy for the British Secret Service. Sent to gain the confidence of Sandy Forsyth, an old school friend turned shadowy Madrid businessman, Brett finds himself involved in a dangerous game—and surrounded by memories.

Meanwhile, Sandy's girlfriend, ex-Red Cross nurse Barbara Clare, is engaged in a secret mission of her own—to find her former lover Bernie Piper, whose passion for the Communist cause led him into the International Brigades and who vanished on the bloody battlefields of the Jarama.

In a vivid and haunting depiction of wartime Spain, Winter in Madrid is an intimate and riveting tale that offers a remarkable sense of history unfolding and the profound impact of impossible choices.

With this highly original collection of short stories, Catalonian writer Jaume Cabré takes his place among the masters of the form. In Winter Journey, the reader encounters disparate and often desperate characters — pianist, cuckold, whore, organ builder, rabbi, priest, scholar, thief, hitman, madman, Holocaust survivor, oligarch, failed artist — who challenge notions about will, morality, and “the riddle of existence.” This is not a selection of individual stories, but a singularly brilliant and enigmatic narrative, novelistic in its approach, with mysterious connections linking characters, objects, and ideas across time and place. The text takes the form of a Schubertian musical progression in prose, a philosophical mystery moving freely through a labyrinth of centuries and cities, historical and contemporary.

Richly allusive with its themes and motifs of music and art, Winter Journey will continue to provoke questions long after the reader has closed the book. This edition represents the first translation of Cabré’s work into English and an invitation to many more readers to come along for the ride.

Mercedes Lackey

"She'll keep you up long past your bedtime." —New York Times bestselling author Stephen King

In an isolated land where the lure of the "Moontide" leads to shipwrecks, a woman is torn between obeying her father or her king. When she chooses to follow a Fool, she discovers magic she'd never expected . . . at a price that might be too high . . .

Tanith Lee

"Few writers today can match the sheer beauty and inventiveness of Tanith Lee's writing." —Millennium Science Fiction and Fantasy

Struggling under the curse of a dead comrade, Clirando, a warrior priestess unready to face the powers trapped within her, must face "The Heart of the Moon" to reveal what has been hidden . . .

C.E. Murphy

"A swift pace, a good mystery, a likeable protagonist, magic, danger — Urban Shaman has them in spades." —Jim Butcher, author of the bestselling series The Dresden Files

In "Banshee Cries," ritual murders under a full moon lead Jo Walker to confront a Harbinger of Death. Maybe this "gift" she has is one she shouldn't ignore — because the next life she has to save might be her own!

During World War II, a legendary German sniper is sent to assassinate General Eisenhower when Ike makes a top-secret trip to Washington as planning begins for the D-Day invasion.

Instant National Bestseller

Gather under the mistletoe for one last round of caroling with the Quinn family in this heartwarming conclusion to Elin Hilderbrand's bestselling Winter Street Trilogy.

Some of the stormy weather of the past few seasons seems to have finally lifted for the Quinns. After a year apart, and an ill-fated affair with the Winter Street Inn's old Santa Claus, Mitzi has returned to rule the roost; Patrick is about to be released from prison; Kevin has a successful new business and is finally ready to tie the knot with Isabelle; and best of all, there's hopeful news about Bart, who has been captured by enemy forces in Afghanistan.

That doesn't mean there aren't a few dark clouds on the horizon. Kelley has recently survived a health scare; Jennifer can't quite shake her addiction to the drugs she used as a crutch while Patrick was in jail; and Ava still can't decide between the two lovers that she's been juggling with limited success. However, if there's one holiday that brings the Quinn family together to give thanks for the good times, it's Christmas. And this year promises to be a celebration unlike any other as the Quinns prepare to host Kevin and Isabelle's wedding at the inn. But as the special day approaches, a historic once-in-a-century blizzard bears down on Nantucket, threatening to keep the Quinns away from the place-and the people-they love most. Before the snow clears, the Quinns will have to survive enough upheavals to send anyone running for the spiked eggnog, in this touching novel that proves that when the holidays roll around, you can always go home again.

In bestselling author Elin Hilderbrand's first winter novel, a family gathers on Nantucket for a holiday filled with surprises.

Kelley Quinn is the owner of Nantucket's Winter Street Inn and the proud father of four grown children: Patrick, a hedge fund manager; Kevin, a bartender; Ava, a schoolteacher; and Bart, who has recently shocked everyone by joining the Marines. As Christmas approaches, Kelley looks forward to spending time with his family at the inn. But when he walks in on his wife Mitzi kissing another man, chaos descends, and things only get more interesting when Kelley's ex-wife, news anchor Margaret Quinn, arrives on the scene. Before the mulled cider is gone, the delightfully dysfunctional Quinn family will survive a love triangle, a small house fire, and endless rounds of Christmas caroling in this heart-warming novel about coming home for the holidays.

A warm and enchanting festive novel from New York Times bestselling author Elin Hilderbrand. Christmas on Nantucket finds Winter Street Inn owner Kelley Quinn and his family busily preparing for the holiday season. Though the year has brought tragedy, the Quinns have much to celebrate: Kelley has reunited with his first wife Margaret, Kevin and Isabelle have a new baby; and Ava is finally dating a nice guy. But when Kelley's wife Mitzi shows up on the island, along with Kevin's devious ex-wife Nora and a dangerously irresistible old fling of Ava's, the Inn is suddenly overrun with romantic feuds, not to mention guests. With jealousy, passion, and eggnog consumption at an all-time high, it's going to take a whole lot more than a Christmas miracle to get the Quinns – and the Inn – through the holidays intact.

In bestseller Barr’s chilling 14th mystery thriller to feature National Park Service ranger Anna Pigeon (after 2005’s Hard Truth), Anna joins the team of Winter Study, a research project intended to study the wolves and moose of Michigan’s Isle Royale National Park, the setting for 1994’s A Superior Death. Complicating the study is Bob Menechinn, an untrustworthy Homeland Security officer assigned to shadow the research. Crowded into inhospitable lodgings and persecuted by unrelenting cold, Anna is far from her comfort zone as nature turns awry with a series of bizarre events. The team stumbles upon the tracks – and the mutilated victim – of a preternaturally large, unidentified beast, and local packs of wolves descend on human-populated areas, a behavior out of step with their species. The campfire legends of youth metastasize into adult fears as Anna must piece together a connection between these anomalies while guarding herself from the strangers around her. Barr’s visceral descriptions of the winter cold nicely complement the paranoia that follows the appearance of the mythic monsters at play.

Een Engelse studente in de middeleeuwse geschiedenis maakt in 2054 een tijdreis naar het Engeland van 1320. Ze heeft zich terdege voorbereid, maar als ze eenmaal in het 14e eeuwse Oxfordshire is gearriveerd, blijken diverse zaken niet te kloppen. Ze vermoedt dat haar tijdscoordinaten fout zijn en dat ze, gezien het uitbreken van de pest, in 1348 is terechtgekomen. Een bevriende professor maakt zich grote zorgen en weet haar ten slotte weer naar de 21e eeuw terug te halen. Een boeiende roman — een mix van sciencefiction en historie — levendig geschreven, vol kleurrijke figuren. Goede tekening van de historische achtergrond. Een meeslepend verhaal dat men ademloos uitleest. Vrij kleine druk.

В книгу известной французской писательницы Жорж Санд (1804–1876) входят два романа: «Грех господина Антуана», отражающий поиски утопических решений социального переустройства общества, и «Пьер Перекати-поле» («Красавец Лоранс»), повествующий о жизни артистической богемы, необычных судьбах странствующих актеров.

О них, о братьях наших меньших. Собачий детектив. Рассказ опубликован в киевском журнале "Детектив+" (№ 1-2006)

Рассказывая о преуспеянии бесталанного рисовальщика Пьера Грассу, Бальзак подчеркивает его бездарность, осмеивает буржуазное искусство с его пошлостью и ненавистью к подлинному таланту.

Именно такой художник — делец и ремесленник — близок и понятен буржуа. У буржуа, иронически замечает Бальзак, был веский довод, побуждавший их заказывать свои фамильные портреты именно Грассу: «Что ни говори, но он ежегодно вносит двадцать тысяч франков своему нотариусу».

Небольшая прозаическая зарисовка "Пьер Дюмон" (1894) – всего несколько страниц, но как пронзительно, как шемяще звучит в них первый трагический опыт бытия юного поэта! Хрупкий, мечтательный подросток не может смириться с атмосферой муштры и опасного духовного равнодушия.

Эти биографические очерки были изданы около ста лет назад в серии «Жизнь замечательных людей», осуществленной Ф.Ф.Павленковым (1839–1900). Написанные в новом для того времени жанре поэтической хроники и историко-культурного исследования, эти тексты сохраняют ценность и по сей день. Писавшиеся «для простых людей», для российской провинции, сегодня они могут быть рекомендованы отнюдь не только библиофилам, но самой широкой читательской аудитории: и тем, кто совсем не искушен в истории и психологии великих людей, и тем, для кого эти предметы – профессия.

Толчком к написанию повести послужило событие, происшедшее 29 марта 1918 года. Немецкая авиабомба попала в церковь Сен-Жерве, и под обрушившимися сводами собора оказались погребенными 165 человек, из которых 75 были убиты. На осуществление замысла повести «Пьер и Люс» Роллану потребовалось всего четыре месяца. В августе 1918 года повесть была закончена, в 1920 году опубликована. Первый русский перевод появился в 1924 году.

А. Пузиков

Герман Мелвилл, прежде всего, известен шедевром «Моби Дик», неоднократно переиздававшимся и экранизированным. Но не многие знают, что у писателя было и второе великое произведение. В настоящее издание вошел самый обсуждаемый, непредсказуемый и таинственный роман «Пьер, или Двусмысленности», публикуемый на русском языке впервые.

В Америке, в богатом родовом поместье Седельные Луга, семья Глендиннингов ведет роскошное и беспечное существование – миссис Глендиннинг вращается в высших кругах местного общества; ее сын, Пьер, спортсмен и талантливый молодой писатель, обретший первую известность, собирается жениться на прелестной Люси, в которую он, кажется, без памяти влюблен. Но нечаянная встреча с таинственной красавицей Изабелл грозит разрушить всю счастливую жизнь Пьера, так как приоткрывает завесу мрачной семейной тайны…

В увлекательных рассказах популярнейших латиноамериканских писателей фантастика чудесным образом сплелась с реальностью: магия индейских верований влияет на судьбы людей, а люди идут исхоженными путями по лабиринтам жизни.

Роман известной французской писательницы Ж. Санд (1804–1876) «Пьер Перекати-поле» («Красавец Лоранс»), повествует о жизни артистической богемы, необычных судьбах странствующих актеров.

16 августа 2009 года любимому французскому актеру исполнилось 75 лет. Он часто прячет свое истинное грустное лицо за маской шута. Жерар Депардье в своей книге «Украденные письма» называет его трагиком и сравнивает с князем Мышкиным Достоевского. Да и сам он, отдав столько сил процветанию французской комедии, никогда не считал себя клоуном, понимая комедию как высокий и благородный жанр, возвышающий человека и приносящий ему одну из самых великих радостей – смех. Книга рассказывает о жизни и творческом пути Пьера Ришара, в нее включены воспоминания самого актера «Маленький блондин в большом парке» и его интервью разных лет.

Эти биографические очерки были изданы около ста лет назад отдельной книгой в серии «Жизнь замечательных людей», осуществленной Ф. Ф. Павленковым (1839—1900). Написанные в новом для того времени жанре поэтической хроники и историко-культурного исследования, эти тексты сохраняют по сей день информационную и энергетико-психологическую ценность. Писавшиеся «для простых людей», для российской провинции, сегодня они могут быть рекомендованы отнюдь не только библиофилам, но самой широкой читательской аудитории: и тем, кто совсем не искушен в истории и психологии великих людей, и тем, для кого эти предметы – профессия.

Данная статья входит в большой цикл статей о всемирно известных пресс-секретарях, внесших значительный вклад в мировую историю. Рассказывая о жизни каждой выдающейся личности, авторы обратятся к интересным материалам их профессиональной деятельности, упомянут основные труды и награды, приведут малоизвестные факты из их личной биографии, творчества.

Каждая статья подробно раскроет всю значимость описанных исторических фигур в жизни и работе известных политиков, бизнесменов и людей искусства.

В настоящем томе любители поэзии найдут избранные песни Беранже, знакомые каждому русскому читателю со школьной скамьи; они смогут составить себе более полное представление о поэзии Барбье, менее у нас известного, и о творчестве Дюпона, песни которого много лет не издавались во Франции и впервые представлены в столь значительном объеме на русском языке.

Составление, вступительная статья и примечания С. Брахмана.

В настоящем томе любители поэзии найдут избранные песни Беранже, знакомые каждому русскому читателю со школьной скамьи; они смогут составить себе более полное представление о поэзии Барбье, менее у нас известного, и о творчестве Дюпона, песни которого много лет не издавались во Франции и впервые представлены в столь значительном объеме на русском языке.

Составление, вступительная статья и примечания С. Брахман

Дюма А. Собрание сочинений. Том 1. Изабелла Баварская. Роман. Приключения Лидерика. Пипин Короткий. Карл Великий. Пьер де Жиак. Повести. Перевод с французского. — М.: АРТ-БИЗНЕС-ЦЕНТР, 1992. — 480 с., илл.

У Холли Уокер было все, о чем она когда-либо мечтала: счастливый брак и красивая кареглазая дочь Эмма. До тех пор, пока несчастный случай полтора года назад не разрушил ее мир. Теперь она — вдова и мать-одиночка шустрой маленькой семилетней девочки — ищет новую жизнь. Готовая сделать следующий шаг, Холли находит работу метрдотеля в «Тейбл Уан», некогда известном ресторане в самом центре Сиднея. Но один очень наглый француз не собирается облегчать ей жизнь и не дает спокойно работать...

Двадцать лет назад Пьер Леру переехал в Австралию после встречи с потрясающей австралийской девушкой, в которую он влюбился, и на которой в последствии женился. Они с женой отложили свою личную жизнь на время, потому что твердо настроенный Пьер решил покорить кулинарное общество Сиднея. Когда его звезда ярко засветила на пьедестале, трагедия забрала женщину, в которую он был безумно влюблен. Он был известен как шеф-повар, но после смерти жены его стали именовать Повар-Монстр.

Смогут ли два сломленных человека построить свою жизнь заново и обрести счастье снова?