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Established early in the last century as a memorial to O. Henry, this annual collection has consistently offered a remarkable sampling of contemporary short stories. Each year stories are chosen from large and small literary magazines and a panel of distinguished writers is enlisted to award the top prizes. The result is a superb collection of inventive, full-bodied stories representing the very best in American and Canadian fiction.

Beginning in 1962 with a shocking loss, Shining Sea quickly pulls us into the lives of 43-year-old Michael Gannon's widow and offspring. Brilliantly described and utterly alive, the Gannon clan find themselves charting paths they never anticipated for decades to come.

The ninth novel in Anne Rice's best-selling Vampire Chronicles. Mystery and magic combine in this masterpiece from the mistress of the vampire genre. A terrifying drama of bloodlust and betrayal is unravelling within the Blackwood Farm family. Their grand Southern mansion, set among dark cypress swamps in Louisiana, harbours terrible, blood-stained secrets. Heir to them all is the young, rash and beautiful Quinn Blackwood.

The most popular college football team in the early 20th century belonged to an institution called the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. Its story begins with Lt. Col. Richard Henry Pratt, a fierce abolitionist who believed that Native Americans deserved a place in American society. In 1879, Pratt made a treacherous journey to the Dakota Territory to recruit Carlisle's first students. Years later, three students approached Pratt with the notion of forming a football team.

Cono 7Q is a startling young man of haunting heritage who has been gifted - or cursed - with an accelerated nervous system. An orphan and a loner, he acts as a freelance clandestine agent, happy to use his strange talents in the service of dubious organizations and governments-until, in Kazakhstan, on a personal mission to rescue a former lover, he is sucked into a deadly maelstrom of betrayal that forces him to question all notions of friendship and allegiance.

It's Halloween. The trees are ablaze in fiery reds. Excited children don colorful costumes. And there's mystery and fun around every corner! When Addy, Michael, and Karl finish trick-or-treating, their bags are brimming with treats. But the fun isn't over yet. Their good friend Stillwater the panda has one more special surprise in store for them. A mysterious visitor is about to tell them a spine-tingling story - one that will fill each and every listener with wonder.

Teddy Crutcher has won Teacher of the Year at the prestigious Belmont Academy. Everyone thinks he's brilliant. Only you know the truth. They all smile when he tells us his wife couldn't be more proud - though, if they stopped to think, they would realise no one has seen her in a while. They're impressed when he doesn't let anything distract him - even the tragic death of a school parent. Even when the whispers start, saying it was murder. You're sure Teddy is hiding something about what happened that day. You're sure you can prove it.

A bureaucratic glitch omits an entire building, along with its residents, from municipal records. So begins Reva's "darkly hilarious" (Anthony Doerr) intertwined narratives, nine stories that span the chaotic years leading up to and immediately following the fall of the Soviet Union. But even as the benighted denizens of 1933 Ivansk Street weather the official neglect of the increasingly powerless authorities, they devise ingenious ways to survive.

New York Times bestselling author Belva Plain beguiles us once again with a novel that explores the bonds that sustain families—and the lies that can shatter them forever. Sweeping through the pivotal events of twentieth-century America, The Sight of the Stars chronicles four generations of one remarkable family as they journey through years of love, loss, sacrifice, and unimaginable betrayal.

Christmas, Hawkins, 1984. All Chief Jim Hopper wants is to enjoy a quiet first Christmas with Eleven, but his adopted daughter has other plans. Over Hopper’s protests, she pulls a cardboard box marked 'New York' out of the basement - and the tough questions begin. Why did Hopper leave Hawkins all those years ago? What does 'Vietnam' mean? And why has he never talked about New York?

The 10th novel in Anne Rice's internationally best-selling Vampire Chronicles is an erotic tale of immortal love. The dazzling vampire Lestat was once the epitome of evil. But now he struggles with his immortality, yearning for a more saintly path. His chance comes when he rescues a witch from death by turning her into a vampire. But the repercussions are swift as the powerful Mayfair family rally to punish Lestat for creating a killer from one of their flock.

1956. A celebrated Russian author is writing a book, Doctor Zhivago, which could spark dissent in the Soviet Union. The Soviets, afraid of its subversive power, ban it. But in the rest of the world it’s fast becoming a sensation. The CIA plans to use the book to tip the Cold War in its favour. Their agents are not the usual spies, however. Two typists - the charming, experienced Sally and the talented novice Irina - are charged with the mission of a lifetime: to smuggle Doctor Zhivago back into Russia by any means necessary.

The modern-day Jonah at the center of Joshua Max Feldman's brilliantly conceived retelling of the book of Jonah is a young Manhattan lawyer named Jonah Jacobstein. He's a lucky man: healthy and handsome, with two beautiful women ready to spend the rest of their lives with him and an enormously successful career that gets more promising by the minute. He's celebrating a deal that will surely make him partner when a bizarre, unexpected biblical vision at a party changes everything. Hard as he tries to forget what he saw, this disturbing sign is only the first of many Jonah will witness, and before long his life is unrecognizable.

Eight-year-old Birendra suddenly loses his mother, but he refuses to believe he's an orphan. He's certain that his mother's twin sister, the troubled but winning Nayana, will come for him all the way from West London. But when the letter informing Nayana of her sister's death goes missing, numerous lives are forever altered, and Birendra is set adrift. Madeline, a Los Angeles native and interior designer to the stars, is floundering in her personal life. In the aftermath of a failed attempt to get pregnant, she flies to India where she finds herself face-to-face with Birendra.

Noah is four and wants to go home. The only trouble is he's already there. Janie's son is her world, and it breaks her heart that he has nightmares. That he's terrified of water. That he sometimes pushes her away and screams that he wants his real mother. That it's getting worse and worse, and no one seems to be able to help. In desperation, she turns to someone who might have an answer - but it may not be one she's ready to hear.

Across decades and generations, the Kennedys have been a family of charismatic adventurers, raised to take risks and excel. Their name is synonymous with American royalty. Their commitment to public service is legendary. But, for all the successes, the family has been blighted by assassinations, murder, fatal accidents, mental illness, drug and alcohol abuse and sex scandals.

Gil has been estranged from his sister ever since her obnoxious son tried to drown his daughter on a family holiday. That's Gil's interpretation; his sister thinks he was only playing around. Or did. When she and her husband perish in a car crash, Gil becomes his nephew's legal guardian. Matthew is now 17-year-old, raised in Manhattan's Upper East Side, a planet away from rural Vermont, where Gil lives with his wife and daughters. At first, Matthew seems like he has changed.

It's December 23, 1971, and the Hildebrandt family is at a crossroads. The patriarch, Russ, the associate pastor of a suburban Chicago church, is poised to break free of a marriage he finds joyless - unless his brilliant and unstable wife, Marion, breaks free of it first. Their eldest child, Clem, is coming home from college afire with moral absolutism, having taken an action that will shatter his father.