Showing results for "Fire" in Literature & Fiction

Morgan used to be a pretty normal guy. He went to college by day and played online games by night, leading his guild into new conquests - until he got hit by a car and a dude wearing a wet suit appeared in front of him. The man offered him a new chance at life in a world he had created, a world with similar rules to the games Morgan loved to play. There is the promise of great rewards and power, he says, if Morgan manages to complete the Tower of Power.

"If there’s a lesson to be learned, it’s that logic is the sworn enemy of grief," writes Halimah Marcus, co-editor of Electric Literature, in her introduction to “Firewood," a hilarious and devastating story by J. Robert Lennon. "When the narrator’s wife (expectedly) leaves him, too devastated to admit the obvious, he concocts an impossible explanation for her disappearance. All I’ll say is that it involves the woodpile. The invented story is more horrible than the truth, but somehow easier to manage."

J.W. Wells seemed to be a respectable establishment, but the company now paying Paul Carpenter's salary is in fact a deeply sinister organisation with a mighty peculiar management team. Paul thought he was getting the hang of it (particularly when he fell head over heels for his colleague Sophie), but death is never far away when you work at J.W. Wells, unlike the stapler - that's always going AWOL. Our love-struck hero is about to discover that custard is definitely in the eye of the beholder. And that it really stings.

Has she gone too far this time? It's all gone horribly wrong and the worst has happened.Alison is in deep, deep trouble and no amount of lies are helping. Forgetting the first rule of lying, she's protesting her innocence but no one will believe a word she says no matter how hard she lies. Mother's dark prophecy that she'd get what she deserves haunts her as she contemplates the best years of her life behind bars.

When Poppy’s boyfriend Harrison proposes the week before Christmas and gives her 12 days to decide, she doesn’t know what to do. With the festive season in full swing, it’s make or break time for the couple, and the clock is ticking.... Meanwhile, Poppy’s best friend Erin is desperate for the pair of them to fulfil their dream of setting up a dinner party catering company - and when an opportunity arises at a luxury log fire cabin, the girls take their chance to impress. But they hadn’t bargained on the owner of the cabin being quite so attractive....

When London editor Georgia Abbott comes to Sydney to work on Glow, a glossy woman's magazine, she has high hopes for a bright new start. Leaving behind a broken heart (her own) and a philandering ex-fiance, she's looking forward to immersing herself in the Tim Tam-eating sisterhood of woman's mags. Not to mention being whisked off into the dusty Australian sunset by a suntanned, Akubra-hatted fantasy man.

When her nest is destroyed and her forever mate slaughtered, Zephyr Ignitus, the last of an ancient breed of fire-breathing dragon, gathers together a team of saber-toothed panthers, woolly mammoths, and a crew of howler monkeys brandishing swords and weapons stolen from the ships of men, all to hunt down and scorch the evil beast-killing wizard that did her wrong.

A media billionaire’s daughter disappears following a massacre at a Belfast student party and nobody knows if she has been kidnapped or caught in the crossfire. A controversial new abortion clinic is firebombed, and a fire-and-brimstone church movement is blamed. Hired to both find the missing daughter, and prove the church’s guilt, Dan Starkey suddenly finds himself struggling to cope with two very different investigations...or could they possibly be connected?

Experiencing a story read out loud is one of the oldest forms of entertainment there is. Fireside Reading is a way to slow down, reconnect with the timeless wisdom of great books and rediscover the simple pleasure of being read to. Join Gildart Jackson in front of a cozy fire as he reads My Man Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse to you and your family from beginning to end.

Dismissed for misconduct from the Met’s Homicide Command after refusing to follow orders, unable to pay her bills (or hold down a relationship), Detective Inspector Robin Lyons has no choice but to take her teenage daughter Lennie and move back in with her parents in the city she thought she’d escaped forever at 18. In Birmingham, sharing a bunkbed with Lennie and navigating the stormy relationship with her mother, Robin works as a benefit-fraud investigator - to the delight of those wanting to see her cut down to size.

They say revenge is a dish best served cold, but some like it hot. Double-crossed and with her reputation as a master criminal compromised, Violet Winters means to fight fire with fire. She doesn't play by other people’s rules, or any rules, so hell's fury is about to rain down. Furious, fearless and fighting mad she is ready to risk her life to save her name.

After being attacked by a serial killer, being saved by Loki - so-called god of mischief, lies, and chaos - being dragged to Alfheim, losing every cent in her bank account, and caring for her grandmother, Amy Lewis has lost her scholarship to veterinary school. But it's all right. She has a plan. If she manages to keep her day job as a receptionist and her night job as a vet tech, she may be able to get her scholarship reinstated and save enough money for the dreaded "miscellaneous fees". Too bad her day boss is unbearable....

If you're a fan of Roald Dahl or Gillian Flynn you'll love these unsettling stories with a twist in the tale. Are you ready to stay up all night with USA Today best-selling author JT Lawrence? Click now to start listening.

Loki vowed that Asgard would burn. Bohdi Patel, latest incarnation of Chaos, wants nothing to do with Loki's psychotic oath. Stranded on the icy world of Jotunheim with Amy Lewis, his friend Steve Rogers, and an unlikely band of civilians, magical beings, and elite military, Bohdi just wants to keep himself and his friends alive - but when you're Chaos incarnate, even the simplest goals are complicated. If Jotunheim doesn't kill them, Odin will. And if Odin doesn't, the secrets they harbor might.

Ben Riggs says he loves me. He says he hasn't stopped thinking about me since he broke my heart and chased me out of town all those years ago. I say, liar liar pants on fire. And boy, do those bright yellow, flame-resistant fireman pants look good on him. I'm aching to feel those big, rough hands clenching on my hips and to collect on the illicit promises burning in his dark blue eyes. Self-control goes up in flames every time he flashes that arrogant smile. So I give in - because a woman has needs. (Am I right, ladies?) He can have my body, but my heart is off-limits.

Sam and Daisy have been best friends since university. Back then Daisy was a wild, Fleetwood Mac-obsessed girl descended from the Yorkshire Moors, while Sam’s youth was misspent traipsing around Liverpool on shopping trips and nights out. But as they lean against each other on a wooden bench in the tired garden of their beloved local pub, gazing out at Sam’s wedding, they have no idea that their paths are about to truly diverge for the first time.

Helen Clapp is a physics professor. She doesn't believe in pseudoscience or time travel and especially not in ghosts. So when she gets a missed call from Charlie, her closest friend from university with whom she hasn't spoken in over a year, Helen thinks there must be some mistake. Because Charlie died two days ago. Then when her young son, Jack, claims to have seen Charlie in their house just the other day, Helen begins to have doubts.

Race Harleson is up against it big time: The world is stripping naked, and it seems to be some form of viral madness. He ends up shot into space with a couple of sharp veteran astronauts...and a new sidekick, Dark Matter. Physics super-prodigy Crayten "Cray-Cray" Hobbs has juiced himself up so much that he can alter the essence of matter to his rather freewheeling will, so Race is understandably both awed and annoyed by the hyper young man, and he's stuck keeping his fingers crossed that the people who sent them up there knew what they're doing.

What if you had all kinds of superhero powers, but they only worked if you were stark naked? That's the world these days for Race Harleson, reluctant savior of humanity. One of Race's most unpleasant (and dangerous) nemeses, the shameless Space Invader, is at it again. But this time, the supervillain with the personal privacy issues has put everyone in an awkward position, for his terrifying misdeeds have awakened something deep beneath the ground - something so mighty and monstrous that even the arrogant baddie is in fear for his life.

A sentient cloud whose arrogance leads to its own demise. A rich uncle who discovers a possible solution to climate change, but is not who he appears to be. A phantom killer who uses other people (and their cars) to commit murder. Balloons that predict the future. Paranormal investigators at the beach. Wolfmen who hunt bears for sport. A Cinderella story at a retirement home. Celebrities forced to make movies for eternity in a simulated world. A girlfriend who believes we reside in the mind of God.