Showing results by narrator "Alex Bloch" in All Categories

Jericho Bentley is disillusioned by life. He feels lost in a world of peace and restless in a time threatened by war. He has given up on love, forgotten how to trust others and decided a lifetime of bachelorhood is all that remains for him. Olivia Taylor was struggling to find her way in a human world. Now taken from the only life she's ever known and changed on a molecular level, she is more lost than ever.

Caleb Drake never got over his first love. Not when he got married. Not when she got married. When life suddenly comes full circle, Caleb must decide how far he is willing to go to get the aloof and alluring Olivia Kaspen back. But for every action in life there is a consequence, and soon Caleb finds out that sometimes love comes at an unbearably high price.

At St. Stephen's Academy, the students are on the verge of revolt. While the younger boys plot an insurrection, the older ones are preoccupied with sneaking out of bounds, thrashing each other, tearing each other's clothes off - or some combination of the three. Morgan Wilberforce, for one, can't take it any longer. Everything Wilberforce touches turns to disaster in his desperate attempts to fight off desire, boredom, and angst.

A young man lies dead in a Coldharbour alley. Before his death, he uncovered secrets that could threaten the mortal world above and the faerie world below. Now, to find the murderer and protect both realms, Sir Michael Deven will need the help of a man with reason to hate the fae of the Onyx Court -- the victim's own brother. A novella of the Onyx Court, set between Midnight Never Come and In Ashes Lie, in the years 1621-1625.

The stories in Black Vodka, by acclaimed author Deborah Levy, are perfectly formed worlds unto themselves, written in elegant yet economical prose. She is a master of the short story, exploring loneliness and belonging; violence and tenderness; the ephemeral and the solid; the grotesque and the beautiful; love and infidelity; and fluid identities national, cultural, and personal.

A beautiful, rich and sensuous historical novel, John Saturnall’s Feast tells the story of a young orphan who becomes a kitchen boy at a manor house, and rises through the ranks to become the greatest Cook of his generation. It is a story of food, star-crossed lovers, ancient myths and one boy’s rise from outcast to hero.

The stories in this collection were first published in Analog, a science fiction magazine, between 1990 and 2011. They feature the adventures of eccentric kilt-wearing anthropologist, archaeologist, and xenologist Rhys Llewellyn and his able assistants, Yoshi Umeki and Roderick Halfax. Given my fascination with archaeology, first contact…and all things Scottish, I suppose these stories were inevitable.

After a fire destroyed everything they owned, the couple decided to build their own classic sailing yacht and live aboard in the wilds of Scotland - up creeks, in rocky pools, in lovely desolate places whose descriptions would make any armchair traveler ache to go there. They started their new life by felling trees for the timber they needed to build their boat, the first unusual step in their unique story. With a wonderful turn of phrase, Justin's humorous narrative will engage those who dream of living a similar lifestyle.

Supplying a quarter of San Francisco’s coal, Nortonville of the 1860s-70s is a flourishing empire in small, seeming to promise unending prosperity and a better future. But beneath the vibrant work ethic of its Welch citizens lies an insidious network of superstitions.

"Kissing you is like new paint and old pain. It is like coffee and car alarms and a dim stairway and a stain and it's like smoke.' ('Placing a Call') How does love change us? And how do we change ourselves for love - or for lack of it? Ten stories by acclaimed author Deborah Levy explore these delicate, impossible questions. In Vienna, an icy woman seduces a broken man; in London gardens, birds sing in computer start-up sounds; in ad-land, a sleek copywriter becomes a kind of shaman.

After growing up in England's Foster Care System, Rupert is at last adopted. Then what should be the happiest moment of his life turns into the most terrifying day imaginable. His adopter, the same man whose bite turned Rupert into a vampire, is none other than the infamous Jack the Ripper. To make matters worse, Rupert is left to watch over Jack's mansion, under which is buried a portal that leads to the Source of all magic.

In the waning days of the German occupation of Norway, Karin and her husband move from Oslo to a tiny village in the south with their young son, the narrator. There they aim to live out their dream of caring for those who can't look after themselves. They have spent months building a modest house with rooms for patients, and it's soon filled with three adult men who are psychologically unstable - including Karin's uncle Josef - and five siblings whose parents have been declared unfit, and who are the subjects of much conversation in the village.

After Justin and Linda Tyers lost everything in a devastating house fire, they rebuilt their lives by building a classic wooden yacht from scratch - starting by felling the trees. This story was told in their first book, Phoenix from the Ashes. This sequel follows their voyage from the Scottish Islands across to Ireland, down the Irish Sea to Cornwall and thence to Brittany, meeting interesting, curious and larger-than-life characters along the way.