In Brooklyn during the Depression, three kids are left on their own with only Birdy's Regina, a shy young woman with the heart of a lioness, to fight for them. Along the way, she finds the romance of her life.
DEMONS TO DOUGHNUTS joins two novellas as different as a cold December moon and strawberry pudding. THE TIPTOP JELLY DOUGHNUT, all warm sunshine and good eats, will delight dreamers and lovers of jelly doughnuts from eight to 108. It is set in a lovely land called the Kids' Republic where nobody over ten is allowed. Here the government is run (quite well) by babies. At the helm is President Baby Bumkey, seventeen months old and a born leader. For diplomatic reasons it is urgent that the baker of certain sublime jelly doughnuts be found so he can supply them for a vital state banquet. But the baker of these glorious doughnuts, having reached the age of ten, has been obliged to leave the comfort and safety of the Kids' Republic. Three children and a Six O'Clock Cat are chosen to make the perilous journey Somewhere Out There to find him. Will they succeed? In contrast, THE LUCIFER GYPSIES is a haunting chiller set in nineteenth-century New England. In this dark and fascinating tale a casket-maker inadvertently insults a band of gypsies who happen to be wards of the Devil. In their fury they inflict on the poor shopkeeper a fiendishly cunning curse which he must somehow overcome to survive.
The Tenement of Dreams, set in the New York City of 1915, is a novel with a mystery. Christopher Bole, a young and penniless musician, dreams of the day when his operas will make him famous. Until then, he plays piano in a nickelodeon theater or sits in his room in the yellow brick tenement downtown, composing arias and nursing a feverish passion - and hatred - for Rhoda Flanders, the tantalizingly beautiful deaf-mute who lives above him with her elderly husband. Linking the worlds of tenements and mansions, musicians and poets, is old and miserly Jessica Bantling, a withered rag doll of a woman who owns the seedy yellow tenement and personally collects the rents. Jessica's only love is the dollar bill, and her soul has a feast day when rents are due. The entire waltz of her life is money, and there can be no cutting in. Suddenly Jessica vanishes. To find her, a chain of events is set in place that changes the lives of the tenement-dwellers and brings tragedy to one other. Searching for her are an ex-policeman fanatical in his devotion to the business of proving guilt but devoid of imagination and charity, and a business retainer who catches sight of Rhoda Flanders and promptly forgets all about finding Jessica. He is as maddened by Rhoda's extraordinary beauty as her many other lovers, whom she changes as casually as she changes her gloves. Meanwhile, Jessica's blind brother Josiah, who despises his sister, huddles in his Gramercy Park mansion, fearing her disappearance is some deadly ruse. A servant must always be at his side to protect him in his blindness and to wind up his many music boxes and phonographs, and pump away at his player piano, music bringing the only semblance of cheer into the echoing rooms of the mansion. Reigning over the entire establishment is Lucas, Josiah's hugely obese and corrupt major-domo, who is secretly selling off the blind man's furnishings, piece by piece, and drinking up his wine cellar. "Mr. Meagher sees the absurdity at the heart of all tragedy," observed The Saturday Review, "and, like Father Time himself, abides his characters' failures and disappointments without laughter or scorn - using their own kindness and their own cruelty, rather than his own, to fill the book...Full of humor and a kind of glee in the face of life's absurdities, it tells of odd dwellings and still odder dwellers without itself becoming odd." No one interested in old New York will want to miss this book. Against a richly detailed background of trolleys and pony carts, the red "Buddha-like glow" of potbellied stoves and the "live blue loveliness" of gas jets in tenement hallways, the mystery of Jessica Bantling's disappearance deepens and the suspense grows ever tighter. As The New York Times Book Review summed it up, "The reader has no choice but to continue reading until the final snap of the fingers. This, when all is said and done, is true praise for entertainment."
Joseph William Meagher's Tippy Locklin is a magical and wildly funny re-creation of a Brooklyn boyhood in the 1920s. As Richard Sullivan in The New York Times Book Review observed, it is a novel "so loaded with warm, hearty people, so charged with honest, affectionate fun that in final effect it is a small celebration of the very goodness of being alive." For what Tippy's world instills in him is "a belief that all is intrinsically well and that the world is not a jungle of broken glass but a well-ordered place where things go wrong and people misbehave, but whose foundation is strong and indestructible." The characters in Tippy's world are memorable. Especially notable is his neighbor, Mr. Duffy the cabdriver, wondrously tattooed with a motto of his own composition: "For God, Country, Mother and Girl Friend." Mr. Duffy has an enormous wife ("Lousy cook, but the strongest woman you ever saw"), a lady addicted to sitting down. Early on she endears herself to the reader when she sits down on a crate, part of the parlor furniture, and just as she cozily establishes herself, there is a noise of splintering wood and above it a pleasant tinkling sound. "Fine " Mr. Duffy says. "Those were the Christmas tree ornaments." Reading Tippy Locklin is like opening a grab bag of delightful surprises - the laughter, warmth and love that fill the book remain vivid long after the last page has been turned. "I little thought," wrote Dorothy Parker at the close of her lengthy review in Esquire magazine, "that I should ever go on like this over a book about a small boy - especially one named Tippy. But here I am, and all naked of apologies."
William traces the ordeal of an American army veteran whose unusual abilities have attracted the interest of military authorities. We follow William as he flees a covert US Army experimental facility and, in a dangerous game of cat and mouse, is hunted by shadowy operatives. Along the way, as he fights off his pursuers and his own demons, he seeks solace in his martial arts practice, particularly Aikido, and falls into a reluctant friendship with a young woman.
Psychological horror meets cyber noir in this delicious one-sitting read--a haunted house story in which the haunting is by AI. Henry is a brilliant engineer who, after untold hours spent in his home lab, has achieved the breakthrough of his career--he's created an artificially intelligent consciousness. He calls the half-formed robot William. No one knows about William. Henry's agoraphobia keeps him inside the house, and his fixation on his project keeps him up in the attic, away from everyone, including his pregnant wife, Lily. When Lily's coworkers show up, wanting to finally meet Henry and see the new house--the smartest of smart homes--Henry decides to introduce them to William, and things go from strange to much worse. Soon Henry and Lily discover the security upgrades intended to keep danger out of the house are even better at locking it in.
Psychological horror meets cyber noir in this delicious one-sitting read--a haunted house story in which the haunting is by AI. Henry is a brilliant engineer who, after untold hours spent in his home lab, has achieved the breakthrough of his career--he's created an artificially intelligent consciousness. He calls the half-formed robot William. No one knows about William. Henry's agoraphobia keeps him inside the house, and his fixation on his project keeps him up in the attic, away from everyone, including his pregnant wife, Lily. When Lily's coworkers show up, wanting to finally meet Henry and see the new house--the smartest of smart homes--Henry decides to introduce them to William, and things go from strange to much worse. Soon Henry and Lily discover the security upgrades intended to keep danger out of the house are even better at locking it in.
1066 is the most famous date in English history. On 14 October, on Senlac Hill near Hastings, a battle was fought that would change the face of England forever. Over the next twenty years, Norman culture was imposed on England, and English politics and society were radically reshaped. But how much is really known about William 'the Conqueror', the Norman duke who led his men to victory on that autumn Saturday in what was to be the last successful invasion of England? Mark Hagger here takes a fresh look at William - his life and leadership. As king, he spent much of his reign threatened by rebellion and invasion. In response, he ordered castles and strongholds to be built across the land - a symbol of the force with which he defended his realm and which, along with Domesday Book, England's first public record, attest to a powerful legacy. This book provides a rounded portrait of one of England's greatest rulers.
*An AI twist on Frankenstein. Perfect for fans of Stephen King and Black Mirror*'Best thing I've read this year' Will Dean'Terrifying' Kiran Millwood Hargrave'A brilliantly plotted story' Guardian'Gripping . . . A twist on The Shining' New York Times'Its chilling final twist will have you turning directly back to the first page' Mail on Sunday Henry, a brilliant but reclusive engineer, has achieved the crowning discovery of his career: he's created an artificially intelligent consciousness. He names the half-formed robot William.But there's something strange about William.It's not that his skin feels like balloon rubber and is the colour of curdled milk, nor is it his thick gurgling laugh or the way his tongue curls towards his crooked top teeth. It is the way he looks at Henry's wife, Lily.Henry created William but he is starting to lose control of him. As William's fixation with Lily grows and threatens to bring harm to their house, Henry has no choice but to destroy William.But William isn't gone. Filled with jealousy for humanity, for its capacity to love and create life, William starts to haunt the house.He lurks behind each locked door. You can hear him muttering in the eaves of the attic. He is whispering in Henry's head. And he will be the one to take control . . .Readers are loving William:'Nothing prepared me for the final twist' ?????'A weird and wonderful book' ?????'Creepy, terrifying and has a killer twist that I did not see coming' ?????'Truly scary and unpredictable! What a brilliant book' ?????'An addictive read' ?????
