Early Fiction

Protozoa is a word from biology via the Greek, meaning "first animals". These short stories were indeed among the first life spontaneously generated in Lois McMaster Bujold's nascent writing career. Along with an introduction by the author, this collection features the short stories "Barter", "Garage Sale", "The Hole Truth", "Dreamweaver's Dilemma", and "Aftermaths".

José era un granjero feliz y Pedro era su vecino, Sembraban pepinos y tomates en la montaña de encino. Ambos granjeros trabajaban muy duro; difícil era su vida, Pero tenían comida para sus familias; recompensa merecida Aunque a veces en casa después de un día de trabajo cansado Soñaban con tener una vida mejor de lo que habían pensado.

For new girl Darrell Rivers, there are friends to be made, pranks to be played and fun to be had at Malory Towers in Enid Blyton's best-loved boarding school series. In audiobook nine, Susan's in charge of the winter concert, but new teacher Miss Tallant won't let her make any decisions. When Miss interferes in a midnight feast, the girls realise that there's a spy in their midst. Expect more drama at Malory Towers!

There is a persistent and incorrect idea, reinforced by countless film misrepresentations, that Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson were always staid and dull British chaps of middle years (or older), with Holmes a spry, cranky, and impatient eccentric, and Watson a white-haired and portly Boobus Brittanicus, a la Nigel Bruce. Students of the true and Canonical Sherlock Holmes know this to be a falsehood. When we first meet them on January 1, 1881, Holmes is still 26 years old (although he will turn 27 in just a few days), and Watson, already a wounded war veteran, is only 28.

Mystery in Selden Squareby Harper Stanwick, Sr. is a gripping mystery novel set in early 20th century New York City. When Kevin, a man with a mysterious past, returns to New York, he finds himself entangled in a web of intrigue, danger, and romance that centers around a veiled heiress and a hidden fortune. After discovering the lifeless body of a beautiful, unidentified girl, Kevin is drawn into a high-stakes adventure that takes him from the bustling streets of Broadway to the shadowy corners of Selden Square. Along the way, he encounters a series of enigmatic characters, including the ...

What if mankind's "missing link", the apelike Homo erectus, had survived to dominate a North American continent where woolly mammoths and saber-toothed tigers still prowled while the more advanced Homo sapiens built their civilizations elsewhere? Now imagine that the Europeans arriving in the New World had chanced on these primitive creatures and seized the opportunity to establish a hierarchy in which the sapiens were masters and the "sims" were their slaves.

In the real world, England and France allowed Adolf Hitler to gobble up the Sudetenland in 1938. Once Hitler finished dismembering Czechoslovakia, he was ready to go to war over Poland a year later. But Hitler had always been eager to seize Czechoslovakia, no matter the consequences. So what if England and France had stood up to the Nazis from the start, and not 11 months later? That is the question behind the War That Came Early series.

There’s no police training stronger than a cop’s instinct. Faith Mitchell’s mother isn’t answering her phone. Her front door is open. There’s a bloodstain above the knob. Her infant daughter is hidden in a shed behind the house. All that the Georgia Bureau of Investigations taught Faith Mitchell goes out the window when she charges into her mother’s house, gun drawn. She sees a man dead in the laundry room. She sees a hostage situation in the bedroom. What she doesn’t see is her mother....

As Peyton returns from her family leave, following the death of her father, she wants nothing more than to get back to solving crimes. However, her first case, the double homicide of a prominent wine-growing couple, has brought back all of the despair she felt upon losing her father. Can Peyton put aside her own loss in order to bring justice to the Saint-Pierres?

Vril, the Power of the Coming Race (1870) by Edward Bulwer-Lytton is an early science fiction novel. The setting is a strange subterranean world inhabited by beautiful entities that resemble the angels described in scripture. The advanced beings known as Vril-ya live underground - using the mysterious "Vril" as an energy source - but intend to reclaim the surface of the earth as their own. The narrator ends up deep inside the Earth via a natural chasm in a mine shaft.

When Rolling Stone journalist Kayla McCray is assigned a cover story on pop icon Lexi Mayhem, Kayla stumbles across a startling new angle to the exposé. Years ago, another rising star from Lexi’s past mysteriously leaped to her death. Some things are better off forgotten, Lexi says. Kayla disagrees. It’s 2005 and Ava Petrova moves to New York with a notebook full of songs and a dream. Then she meets Lexi, an up-and-coming singer who brands Ava with an enigmatic new stage name and introduces her to an intoxicating city alive with possibilities.

No one solves cases like San Francisco detectives, Peyton Brooks and her partner, Marco D’Angelo, but when a young Mexican folk singer, Ynes Linares, is found strangled with her own pearls, compiling a list of suspects that wanted to harm her is easier than figuring out who didn’t. Everyone wanted a piece of the Velvet Sapphire, but someone wanted everything.

"Escaping the Incas" delivers an unforgettable historical adventure set in the contrasting locales of Peru and New York during the tumultuous period of the early 20th century. The tale begins in the vibrant city of New York, following our protagonist, John, as he navigates the struggles of city life only to set off on an exciting, perilous journey to the distant lands of South America. The Setting This deeply immersive narrative effortlessly transports you from the dazzling streets of 1900s New York, marked by rapid growth and cultural dynamism, to the majestic, treacherous landscapes of ...

Death in Central Park by Harper Stanwick, Sr. is a gripping mystery novel set in New York City during the early 20th century. When a young woman is found dead on a park bench, two high society individuals, Stephanie Orton and Carlos Collins, find themselves entangled in a complex web of intrigue and secrets. Stephanie Orton, a practical and independent heiress, refuses to marry the charming yet idle Steve Collins until he proves himself capable of achieving something meaningful. Their lives take an unexpected turn when they discover the lifeless body of a beautiful, unidentified girl in ...

Jane easily falls in love with Duncan: he's charming, good-natured and handsome. He has also slept with nearly every woman in Boyne City, Michigan. Jane sees Duncan's old girlfriends everywhere - at restaurants, at the grocery store, even three towns away. While she may be able to come to terms with dating the world's most prolific seducer of women, she wishes she didn't have to share him quite so widely.

In a small village in Italy at the turn of the 20th century, Jane chafes at stifling routine and tradition. So when an opportunity presents itself to immigrate to America, her hunger for escape compels her to leave everything behind. Far away, in Henry Ford's factories in Michigan, a new kind of life is taking shape, and it offers gleaming promise for Jane and her young husband.

The Boarderby Harper Stanwick, Sr. is a historical fiction novel set in a small American town during the early 20th century. This compelling story weaves together the lives of ordinary people, exploring themes of love, ambition, and the pursuit of independence. Leah Page's life is confined to her modest home, where she lives with her mother and Aunt Abagail. The arrival of K. Montross, a mysterious boarder seeking solitude, disrupts the quiet rhythm of their lives. Leah, caught between her responsibilities at home and her blossoming relationship with Isaiah Ewing, dreams of a future filled ...

Dave Brandstetter's afternoon does not begin well: His ex-boyfriend picks him up at the airport, and the ride home - in bumper-to-bumper Los Angeles traffic - is one long argument between them. The insurance investigator's day gets worse when he finds a man - bloody, rain-soaked, and ice cold - lying on his porch, killed by a stab wound while Dave was out of town. There is a serial killer loose in Los Angeles, and this man is his sixth victim. Like the others, he had already been marked for death - by the unforgiving plague known as AIDS.

This remarkable, newly revised collection of Ayn Rand's early fiction ranges from beginner's exercises to excerpts from early versions of We the Living and The Fountainhead. Arranged chronologically, from 1926 through 1940, these works allow readers to follow the extraordinary trajectory of Rand's literary and intellectual growth, from a 21-year-old Russian immigrant struggling to master English to the brilliant prose stylist and sophisticated philosopher she was to become in her mature work.

In the winter of 1846, the Donner Party was stranded by heavy snows in the Sierra Nevada mountains. The pioneers endured bitter hardships and many of them died. But some survived, including eight-year-old Patty Reed, a girl filled with dignity and determination in the face of mortal danger. This is her story, as told by Dolly, the wooden doll she kept hidden in her dress.