Author: James Anderson
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 1101906901
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 306
Book Description
A singularly compelling debut novel, about a desert where people go to escape their past, and a truck driver who finds himself at risk when he falls in love with a mysterious woman. Ben Jones lives a quiet, hardscrabble life, working as a trucker on Route 117, a little-travelled road in a remote region of the Utah desert which serves as a haven for fugitives and others looking to hide from the world. For many of the desert’s inhabitants, Ben's visits are their only contact with the outside world, and the only landmark worth noting is a once-famous roadside diner that hasn’t opened in years. Ben’s routine is turned upside down when he stumbles across a beautiful woman named Claire playing a cello in an abandoned housing development. He can tell that she’s fleeing something in her past—a dark secret that pushed her to the end of the earth—but despite his better judgment he is inexorably drawn to her. As Ben and Claire fall in love, specters from her past begin to resurface, with serious and life-threatening consequences not only for them both, but for others who have made this desert their sanctuary. Dangerous men come looking for her, and as they turn Route 117 upside down in their search, the long-buried secrets of those who’ve laid claim to this desert come to light, bringing Ben and the other locals into deadly conflict with Claire’s pursuers. Ultimately, the answers they all seek are connected to the desert’s greatest mystery—what really happened all those years ago at the never-open desert diner? In this unforgettable story of love and loss, Ben learns the enduring truth that some violent crimes renew themselves across generations. At turns funny, heartbreaking and thrilling, The Never-Open Desert Diner powerfully evokes an unforgettable setting and introduces readers to a cast of characters who will linger long after the last page.
The Never-Open Desert Diner
Author: James Anderson
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 1101906901
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 306
Book Description
A singularly compelling debut novel, about a desert where people go to escape their past, and a truck driver who finds himself at risk when he falls in love with a mysterious woman. Ben Jones lives a quiet, hardscrabble life, working as a trucker on Route 117, a little-travelled road in a remote region of the Utah desert which serves as a haven for fugitives and others looking to hide from the world. For many of the desert’s inhabitants, Ben's visits are their only contact with the outside world, and the only landmark worth noting is a once-famous roadside diner that hasn’t opened in years. Ben’s routine is turned upside down when he stumbles across a beautiful woman named Claire playing a cello in an abandoned housing development. He can tell that she’s fleeing something in her past—a dark secret that pushed her to the end of the earth—but despite his better judgment he is inexorably drawn to her. As Ben and Claire fall in love, specters from her past begin to resurface, with serious and life-threatening consequences not only for them both, but for others who have made this desert their sanctuary. Dangerous men come looking for her, and as they turn Route 117 upside down in their search, the long-buried secrets of those who’ve laid claim to this desert come to light, bringing Ben and the other locals into deadly conflict with Claire’s pursuers. Ultimately, the answers they all seek are connected to the desert’s greatest mystery—what really happened all those years ago at the never-open desert diner? In this unforgettable story of love and loss, Ben learns the enduring truth that some violent crimes renew themselves across generations. At turns funny, heartbreaking and thrilling, The Never-Open Desert Diner powerfully evokes an unforgettable setting and introduces readers to a cast of characters who will linger long after the last page.
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 1101906901
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 306
Book Description
A singularly compelling debut novel, about a desert where people go to escape their past, and a truck driver who finds himself at risk when he falls in love with a mysterious woman. Ben Jones lives a quiet, hardscrabble life, working as a trucker on Route 117, a little-travelled road in a remote region of the Utah desert which serves as a haven for fugitives and others looking to hide from the world. For many of the desert’s inhabitants, Ben's visits are their only contact with the outside world, and the only landmark worth noting is a once-famous roadside diner that hasn’t opened in years. Ben’s routine is turned upside down when he stumbles across a beautiful woman named Claire playing a cello in an abandoned housing development. He can tell that she’s fleeing something in her past—a dark secret that pushed her to the end of the earth—but despite his better judgment he is inexorably drawn to her. As Ben and Claire fall in love, specters from her past begin to resurface, with serious and life-threatening consequences not only for them both, but for others who have made this desert their sanctuary. Dangerous men come looking for her, and as they turn Route 117 upside down in their search, the long-buried secrets of those who’ve laid claim to this desert come to light, bringing Ben and the other locals into deadly conflict with Claire’s pursuers. Ultimately, the answers they all seek are connected to the desert’s greatest mystery—what really happened all those years ago at the never-open desert diner? In this unforgettable story of love and loss, Ben learns the enduring truth that some violent crimes renew themselves across generations. At turns funny, heartbreaking and thrilling, The Never-Open Desert Diner powerfully evokes an unforgettable setting and introduces readers to a cast of characters who will linger long after the last page.
Lullaby Road
Author: James Anderson
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group (NY)
ISBN: 1101906545
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 322
Book Description
Winter has come to Route 117, a remote road through the high desert of Utah trafficked only by eccentrics, fugitives, and those looking to escape the world. Local truck driver Ben Jones, still in mourning over a heartbreaking loss, finds a mute Hispanic child who has been abandoned at a seedy truck stop along his route, far from civilization and bearing a note that simply reads "Please Ben. Watch my son. His name is Juan." At the bottom: "Bad Trouble. Tell no one." Ben takes the child with him in his truck and sets out into an environment that is as dangerous as it is beautiful and silent.
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group (NY)
ISBN: 1101906545
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 322
Book Description
Winter has come to Route 117, a remote road through the high desert of Utah trafficked only by eccentrics, fugitives, and those looking to escape the world. Local truck driver Ben Jones, still in mourning over a heartbreaking loss, finds a mute Hispanic child who has been abandoned at a seedy truck stop along his route, far from civilization and bearing a note that simply reads "Please Ben. Watch my son. His name is Juan." At the bottom: "Bad Trouble. Tell no one." Ben takes the child with him in his truck and sets out into an environment that is as dangerous as it is beautiful and silent.
Callander Square
Author: Anne Perry
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1453219072
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 399
Book Description
Someone on posh Callander Square will kill to keep a secret in this “superior” mystery from the New York Times–bestselling author of Twenty-One Days (The San Diego Union-Tribune). When two dead infants are dug up in the Callander Square gardens, the upper-class residents dismiss the burials as the desperate act of a low-born girl and resent the intrusion of Inspector Thomas Pitt into their well-ordered lives. Pitt is not convinced that the case should be so easily dropped. Also intrigued by the mystery, Pitt’s well-born wife, Charlotte, pursues her own investigation into places Thomas would never have access—the parlors and inner chambers of the mansions on the fashionable square. With her sister Emily, Lady Ashworth, who lives on Callander Square, she delves into the lives and secrets of the residents. Thomas and Charlotte, now expecting their first child, form the perfect sleuthing couple. Elegant closets soon spill their skeletons exposing long-hidden secrets—secrets that could lead even the most upright aristocrat to kill. But will Pitt’s keen investigative skills and Charlotte’s insights into the workings of high-class society solve the mystery in time to save the innocent residents of Callander Square from the murderer among them? Callander Square is the 2nd book in the Charlotte and Thomas Pitt Novels, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order. /DIV
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1453219072
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 399
Book Description
Someone on posh Callander Square will kill to keep a secret in this “superior” mystery from the New York Times–bestselling author of Twenty-One Days (The San Diego Union-Tribune). When two dead infants are dug up in the Callander Square gardens, the upper-class residents dismiss the burials as the desperate act of a low-born girl and resent the intrusion of Inspector Thomas Pitt into their well-ordered lives. Pitt is not convinced that the case should be so easily dropped. Also intrigued by the mystery, Pitt’s well-born wife, Charlotte, pursues her own investigation into places Thomas would never have access—the parlors and inner chambers of the mansions on the fashionable square. With her sister Emily, Lady Ashworth, who lives on Callander Square, she delves into the lives and secrets of the residents. Thomas and Charlotte, now expecting their first child, form the perfect sleuthing couple. Elegant closets soon spill their skeletons exposing long-hidden secrets—secrets that could lead even the most upright aristocrat to kill. But will Pitt’s keen investigative skills and Charlotte’s insights into the workings of high-class society solve the mystery in time to save the innocent residents of Callander Square from the murderer among them? Callander Square is the 2nd book in the Charlotte and Thomas Pitt Novels, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order. /DIV
Desert Oracle
Author: Ken Layne
Publisher: MCD
ISBN: 0374722382
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 193
Book Description
The cult-y pocket-size field guide to the strange and intriguing secrets of the Mojave—its myths and legends, outcasts and oddballs, flora, fauna, and UFOs—becomes the definitive, oracular book of the desert For the past five years, Desert Oracle has existed as a quasi-mythical, quarterly periodical available to the very determined only by subscription or at the odd desert-town gas station or the occasional hipster boutique, its canary-yellow-covered, forty-four-page issues handed from one curious desert zealot to the next, word spreading faster than the printers could keep up with. It became a radio show, a podcast, a live performance. Now, for the first time—and including both classic and new, never-before-seen revelations—Desert Oracle has been bound between two hard covers and is available to you. Straight out of Joshua Tree, California, Desert Oracle is “The Voice of the Desert”: a field guide to the strange tales, singing sand dunes, sagebrush trails, artists and aliens, authors and oddballs, ghost towns and modern legends, musicians and mystics, scorpions and saguaros, out there in the sand. Desert Oracle is your companion at a roadside diner, around a campfire, in your tent or cabin (or high-rise apartment or suburban living room) as the wind and the coyotes howl outside at night. From journal entries of long-deceased adventurers to stray railroad ad copy, and musings on everything from desert flora, rumored cryptid sightings, and other paranormal phenomena, Ken Layne's Desert Oracle collects the weird and the wonderful of the American Southwest into a single, essential volume.
Publisher: MCD
ISBN: 0374722382
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 193
Book Description
The cult-y pocket-size field guide to the strange and intriguing secrets of the Mojave—its myths and legends, outcasts and oddballs, flora, fauna, and UFOs—becomes the definitive, oracular book of the desert For the past five years, Desert Oracle has existed as a quasi-mythical, quarterly periodical available to the very determined only by subscription or at the odd desert-town gas station or the occasional hipster boutique, its canary-yellow-covered, forty-four-page issues handed from one curious desert zealot to the next, word spreading faster than the printers could keep up with. It became a radio show, a podcast, a live performance. Now, for the first time—and including both classic and new, never-before-seen revelations—Desert Oracle has been bound between two hard covers and is available to you. Straight out of Joshua Tree, California, Desert Oracle is “The Voice of the Desert”: a field guide to the strange tales, singing sand dunes, sagebrush trails, artists and aliens, authors and oddballs, ghost towns and modern legends, musicians and mystics, scorpions and saguaros, out there in the sand. Desert Oracle is your companion at a roadside diner, around a campfire, in your tent or cabin (or high-rise apartment or suburban living room) as the wind and the coyotes howl outside at night. From journal entries of long-deceased adventurers to stray railroad ad copy, and musings on everything from desert flora, rumored cryptid sightings, and other paranormal phenomena, Ken Layne's Desert Oracle collects the weird and the wonderful of the American Southwest into a single, essential volume.
Ghosts of the Desert
Author: Ryan Ireland
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1780748213
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 312
Book Description
To escape his troubled past, Norman heads to the desert to lose himself in his work. He has just received a research grant to study the ghost towns and abandoned mines that litter the landscape. But when he comes across a group of desert-dwelling outcasts and is taken captive by their charismatic leader Jacoby, he is introduced to an alternative way of life: one that both repulses and mesmerizes. As he struggles to make sense of this strange new world – with its perverse and unorthodox practices – Norman begins to realize he must either yield to the ever-watchful Jacoby, or take his chances and run. Ireland’s refined and sparse style cuts through to the dark heart of the American dream in this chilling novel about the thin lines that separate the civilized from the primitive, and the living from the dead.
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1780748213
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 312
Book Description
To escape his troubled past, Norman heads to the desert to lose himself in his work. He has just received a research grant to study the ghost towns and abandoned mines that litter the landscape. But when he comes across a group of desert-dwelling outcasts and is taken captive by their charismatic leader Jacoby, he is introduced to an alternative way of life: one that both repulses and mesmerizes. As he struggles to make sense of this strange new world – with its perverse and unorthodox practices – Norman begins to realize he must either yield to the ever-watchful Jacoby, or take his chances and run. Ireland’s refined and sparse style cuts through to the dark heart of the American dream in this chilling novel about the thin lines that separate the civilized from the primitive, and the living from the dead.
An Unfinished Story
Author: Boo Walker
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
ISBN: 9781542019446
Category : Authors
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
As part of an online project on short stories, East of the Web presents the full text of "An Unfinished Story." This short story was written by the American author William Sydney Porter (1862-1910), whose pseudonym was O. Henry.
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
ISBN: 9781542019446
Category : Authors
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
As part of an online project on short stories, East of the Web presents the full text of "An Unfinished Story." This short story was written by the American author William Sydney Porter (1862-1910), whose pseudonym was O. Henry.
The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint
Author: Brady Udall
Publisher: Vintage Books
ISBN: 0375719180
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 432
Book Description
Half Apache and orphaned, Edgar's trials begin on an Arizona reservation at the age of seven when he is run over by the mailman's jeep, after which he is taken from the hospital to a school for delinquents to a Mormon foster family, and eventually to an unexpected home on a quest for the mailman. Reader's Guide available. Reprint. 75,000 first printing.
Publisher: Vintage Books
ISBN: 0375719180
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 432
Book Description
Half Apache and orphaned, Edgar's trials begin on an Arizona reservation at the age of seven when he is run over by the mailman's jeep, after which he is taken from the hospital to a school for delinquents to a Mormon foster family, and eventually to an unexpected home on a quest for the mailman. Reader's Guide available. Reprint. 75,000 first printing.
The Kindest Lie
Author: Nancy Johnson
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0063005654
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 371
Book Description
Recommended by O Magazine * GMA * Elle * Marie Claire * Good Housekeeping * NBC News * Shondaland * Chicago Tribune * Woman's Day * Refinery 29 * Bustle * The Millions * New York Post * Parade * Hello! Magazine * PopSugar * and more! “The Kindest Lie is a deep dive into how we define family, what it means to be a mother, and what it means to grow up Black...beautifully crafted.” —JODI PICOULT "A fantastic story...well-written, timely, and oh-so-memorable."—Good Morning America “The Kindest Lie is a layered, complex exploration of race and class." —The Washington Post Every family has its secrets... It’s 2008, and the inauguration of President Barack Obama ushers in a new kind of hope. In Chicago, Ruth Tuttle, an Ivy-League educated Black engineer, is married to a kind and successful man. He’s eager to start a family, but Ruth is uncertain. She has never gotten over the baby she gave birth to—and was forced to leave behind—when she was a teenager. She had promised her family she’d never look back, but Ruth knows that to move forward, she must make peace with the past. Returning home, Ruth discovers the Indiana factory town of her youth is plagued by unemployment, racism, and despair. As she begins digging into the past, she unexpectedly befriends Midnight, a young white boy who is also adrift and looking for connection. Just as Ruth is about to uncover a burning secret her family desperately wants to keep hidden, a heart-stopping incident strains the town’s already searing racial tensions, sending Ruth and Midnight on a collision course that could upend both their lives. Powerful and unforgettable, The Kindest Lie is the story of an American family and reveals the secrets we keep and the promises we make to protect one another.
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0063005654
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 371
Book Description
Recommended by O Magazine * GMA * Elle * Marie Claire * Good Housekeeping * NBC News * Shondaland * Chicago Tribune * Woman's Day * Refinery 29 * Bustle * The Millions * New York Post * Parade * Hello! Magazine * PopSugar * and more! “The Kindest Lie is a deep dive into how we define family, what it means to be a mother, and what it means to grow up Black...beautifully crafted.” —JODI PICOULT "A fantastic story...well-written, timely, and oh-so-memorable."—Good Morning America “The Kindest Lie is a layered, complex exploration of race and class." —The Washington Post Every family has its secrets... It’s 2008, and the inauguration of President Barack Obama ushers in a new kind of hope. In Chicago, Ruth Tuttle, an Ivy-League educated Black engineer, is married to a kind and successful man. He’s eager to start a family, but Ruth is uncertain. She has never gotten over the baby she gave birth to—and was forced to leave behind—when she was a teenager. She had promised her family she’d never look back, but Ruth knows that to move forward, she must make peace with the past. Returning home, Ruth discovers the Indiana factory town of her youth is plagued by unemployment, racism, and despair. As she begins digging into the past, she unexpectedly befriends Midnight, a young white boy who is also adrift and looking for connection. Just as Ruth is about to uncover a burning secret her family desperately wants to keep hidden, a heart-stopping incident strains the town’s already searing racial tensions, sending Ruth and Midnight on a collision course that could upend both their lives. Powerful and unforgettable, The Kindest Lie is the story of an American family and reveals the secrets we keep and the promises we make to protect one another.
Gil's All Fright Diner
Author: A. Lee Martinez
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 1429913622
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 292
Book Description
Bloodier than Fried Green Tomatoes! Funnier than The Texas Chainsaw Massacre! Welcome to Gil's All Night Diner, where zombie attacks are a regular occurrence and you never know what might be lurking in the freezer . . . Duke and Earl are just passing through Rockwood county in their pick-up truck when they stop at the Diner for a quick bite to eat. They aren't planning to stick around-until Loretta, the eatery's owner, offers them $100 to take care of her zombie problem. Given that Duke is a werewolf and Earl's a vampire, this looks right up their alley. But the shambling dead are just the tip of a particularly spiky iceberg. Seems someone's out to drive Loretta from the Diner, and more than willing to raise a little Hell on Earth if that's what it takes. Before Duke and Earl get to the bottom of the Diner's troubles, they'll run into such otherworldly complications as undead cattle, an amorous ghost, a jailbait sorceress, and the terrifying occult power of pig-latin. And maybe--just maybe--the End of the World, too. Gory, sexy, and flat-out hilarious, Gil's All Fright Diner will tickle your funnybone--before ripping it out of its socket! At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 1429913622
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 292
Book Description
Bloodier than Fried Green Tomatoes! Funnier than The Texas Chainsaw Massacre! Welcome to Gil's All Night Diner, where zombie attacks are a regular occurrence and you never know what might be lurking in the freezer . . . Duke and Earl are just passing through Rockwood county in their pick-up truck when they stop at the Diner for a quick bite to eat. They aren't planning to stick around-until Loretta, the eatery's owner, offers them $100 to take care of her zombie problem. Given that Duke is a werewolf and Earl's a vampire, this looks right up their alley. But the shambling dead are just the tip of a particularly spiky iceberg. Seems someone's out to drive Loretta from the Diner, and more than willing to raise a little Hell on Earth if that's what it takes. Before Duke and Earl get to the bottom of the Diner's troubles, they'll run into such otherworldly complications as undead cattle, an amorous ghost, a jailbait sorceress, and the terrifying occult power of pig-latin. And maybe--just maybe--the End of the World, too. Gory, sexy, and flat-out hilarious, Gil's All Fright Diner will tickle your funnybone--before ripping it out of its socket! At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Forty Rooms
Author: Olga Grushin
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101983094
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 354
Book Description
The internationally acclaimed author of The Dream Life of Sukhanov now returns to gift us with Forty Rooms, which outshines even that prizewinning novel. Totally original in conception and magnificently executed, Forty Rooms is mysterious, withholding, and ultimately emotionally devastating. Olga Grushin is dealing with issues of women’s identity, of women’s choices, that no modern novel has explored so deeply. “Forty rooms” is a conceit: it proposes that a modern woman will inhabit forty rooms in her lifetime. They form her biography, from childhood to death. For our protagonist, the much-loved child of a late marriage, the first rooms she is aware of as she nears the age of five are those that make up her family’s Moscow apartment. We follow this child as she reaches adolescence, leaves home to study in America, and slowly discovers sexual happiness and love. But her hunger for adventure and her longing to be a great poet conspire to kill the affair. She seems to have made her choice. But one day she runs into a college classmate. He is sure of his path through life, and he is protective of her. (He is also a great cook.) They drift into an affair and marriage. What follows are the decades of births and deaths, the celebrations, material accumulations, and home comforts—until one day, her children grown and gone, her husband absent, she finds herself alone except for the ghosts of her youth, who have come back to haunt and even taunt her. Compelling and complex, Forty Rooms is also profoundly affecting, its ending shattering but true. We know that Mrs. Caldwell (for that is the only name by which we know her) has died. Was it a life well lived? Quite likely. Was it a life complete? Does such a life ever really exist? Life is, after all, full of trade-offs and choices. Who is to say her path was not well taken? It is this ambiguity that is at the heart of this provocative novel.
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101983094
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 354
Book Description
The internationally acclaimed author of The Dream Life of Sukhanov now returns to gift us with Forty Rooms, which outshines even that prizewinning novel. Totally original in conception and magnificently executed, Forty Rooms is mysterious, withholding, and ultimately emotionally devastating. Olga Grushin is dealing with issues of women’s identity, of women’s choices, that no modern novel has explored so deeply. “Forty rooms” is a conceit: it proposes that a modern woman will inhabit forty rooms in her lifetime. They form her biography, from childhood to death. For our protagonist, the much-loved child of a late marriage, the first rooms she is aware of as she nears the age of five are those that make up her family’s Moscow apartment. We follow this child as she reaches adolescence, leaves home to study in America, and slowly discovers sexual happiness and love. But her hunger for adventure and her longing to be a great poet conspire to kill the affair. She seems to have made her choice. But one day she runs into a college classmate. He is sure of his path through life, and he is protective of her. (He is also a great cook.) They drift into an affair and marriage. What follows are the decades of births and deaths, the celebrations, material accumulations, and home comforts—until one day, her children grown and gone, her husband absent, she finds herself alone except for the ghosts of her youth, who have come back to haunt and even taunt her. Compelling and complex, Forty Rooms is also profoundly affecting, its ending shattering but true. We know that Mrs. Caldwell (for that is the only name by which we know her) has died. Was it a life well lived? Quite likely. Was it a life complete? Does such a life ever really exist? Life is, after all, full of trade-offs and choices. Who is to say her path was not well taken? It is this ambiguity that is at the heart of this provocative novel.