Merry

Eight-year-old orphan Beth Harmon is quiet, sullen, and by all appearances unremarkable. That is, until she plays her first game of chess. Her senses grow sharper, her thinking clearer, and for the first time in her life she feels herself fully in control. By the age of 16, she's competing for the US Open championship. But as Beth hones her skills on the professional circuit, the stakes get higher, her isolation grows more frightening, and the thought of escape becomes all the more tempting.

Seven superb stories, from the world's no. one storyteller. Meet the boy who can talk to animals and the man who can see with his eyes closed. And find out about the treasure buried deep underground. A cleaver mix of fact and fiction, this collection also includes how master storyteller Roald Dahl became a writer. With Roald Dahl, you can never be sure where reality ends and fantasy begins.

Roald Dahl had an abiding love for and interest in nature. He kept notes about the habits of moles and foxes, the colour and song of birds and the different flowers, plants and berries that blossomed in the countryside around his home, Gipsy House, throughout the year. In the last year of his life he worked on a diary. But what was originally intended to be a few lines turned into a memorable account of the passing year.

The Kaiser murdered Theodosia's mother, the Fire Queen, when Theo was only six. He took Theo's country and kept her prisoner, crowning her Ash Princess—a pet to toy with and humiliate for 10 long years. That era has ended. The Kaiser thought his prisoner weak and defenseless. He didn't realize that a sharp mind is the deadliest weapon. Theo no longer wears a crown of ashes. She has taken back her rightful title, and a hostage—Prinz Soren. But her people remain enslaved under the Kaiser's rule, and now she is thousands of miles away from them and her throne.

Evie: I met him in a snowstorm.... We spent 48 hours trapped in the back of his pickup truck. We fought. We touched. We fell. Hard. Storm: She literally crashed into my life.... The last thing I wanted was a relationship. Especially with a quirky chick who drove me insane. But something about her got under my skin, and into my heart. And I had to have her. All of her. Now. Falling in love in the back of a truck, just the two of us, was easy. Dealing with psycho fans, jealous exes, and demons from the past...not so easy.

She takes my breath away; she is so beautifully damaged. Yes, I had broken her, ravished her life, and destroyed her happiness. I brought her to the ultimate despair. I was responsible for all the pain and suffering that now brought her to her knees in front of me. Broken. Hopeless. Reckless in her agony. She is a mirror of my own tortured soul. But what I took away I can give back, in ways she cannot even begin to imagine. She is everything right in all my wrongs.

Sophie Scaife almost ran away once, trading her ticket to college for a ticket to Tokyo. But a delayed flight and a hot one-night stand with a stranger changed her mind, putting her firmly on track to a coveted position at a New York fashion magazine. When the irresistible stranger from that one incredible night turns out to be her new boss - billionaire and publishing magnate Neil Elwood - Sophie can't resist the chance to rekindle the spark between them.

She was my sin and my temple. I both worshipped and defiled there. Gloried and desecrated. Revered and debased.