Showing results for "Forest" in Literature & Fiction

This freewheeling black comedy features a bizarre cast of characters, including a Japanese man with a ball floating six inches in front of his head, an American CEO with three arms, and a Brazilian peasant who discovers the art of healing by tickling one’s earlobe with a feather. By the end of this hilarious tale, they each have risen to the heights of wealth and fame, before arriving at disasters—both personal and ecological— that destroy the rain forest and all birds of Brazil.

PTA President Jackie Martin is the envy of the mothers. She has a loyal and handsome husband, she hosts elaborate parties, and her eldest daughter, Hayley, is the most popular child in the fifth grade. Her life appears flawless, but is life ever what it seems to be? After receiving a painful blow, when Hayley was in kindergarten, Jackie clawed her way into PTA power. She lived her life by the adage "Proper planning prevents poor performance". Her attention to detail (okay, fine - her control-freak nature) served her well until she experiences the ultimate betrayal.

Executive, wife, and mother of an outgoing first-grader, Sydney Clayton crushes her day-to-day obligations at work but flounders in the cutthroat world of parental politics. She manages to avoid the local drama until she’s faced with an ultimatum: join the Forest River PTA or risk her daughter becoming a social outcast. Sydney reluctantly becomes treasurer and takes the recently vacated position of the president’s sidekick. If that isn’t complicated enough, Sydney and her husband receive an unexpected offer for their house they don’t think they can refuse.

The meddling moms of Forest River live for a good scandal. Speculation surrounding Claire Conroy’s sex life has fueled the rumor mill for years. Now, when Claire returns home from a trip to Italy separated from her husband of 13 years, the imaginations of the Lululemon-clad ladies’ who lunch spin into overdrive. As the gossipmongers create their own scandalous backstory for the separation, blaming Claire’s infidelity, she learns the hard way just how mean mommies can be.

It's no secret - to survive in a superficial town like Forest River, New York, where perfection is a requirement - a mom must follow the rules. For the past five years, Donna has worked hard to exceed social expectations. She held the prestigious role of PTA treasurer, and her best friend, Jackie, is the most powerful woman at the elementary school.

The Alehouse at the End of the World is an epic comedy set in the 16th century, where bawdy Shakespearean love triangles play out with shapeshifting avian demigods and a fertility goddess, drunken revelry, bio-dynamic gardening, and a narcissistic, bullying crow, who may have colluded with a foreign power.

Meet Reginald "Habst" Habstermeister: burnout, urban explorer, and loveable loser. Leeching off his oversexed and underage girlfriend, and living the life of luxury in her wealthy mother's mansion, he doesn't have a care in the world. But when Habst unwittingly becomes the prime suspect in the sabotage of Walt Disney World's most hated attractions, he has no choice but to enter a seedy web of Darknet intrigue in order to clear his name.

Man-child Blaine McKinnon is brilliant, wealthy, and completely alone. After an emotional breakdown, Blaine starts a new life at the only place he was ever truly happy: Walt Disney World. But he soon finds that just below the surface of his childhood paradise lies a kingdom corrupted by drugs, violence, and deceit. For the first time, Kinsey brings his fresh writing style to the world of fiction, with astounding results. Our Kingdom of Dust deftly combines and insightful and riveting tale with the humor and irreverence.

First published in The Saturday Evening Post, "The Ransom of Red Chief" is a humorous short story written in 1910 by O. Henry. A pair of con men kidnap and attempt to ransom a prominent Alabama citizen’s son. Immediately they find themselves at the mercy of a particularly spoiled and clever boy who begins driving them mad. The ironic ending remains the story’s most enduring feature.

The Morgan and Herrington series revolves around a cynical, sarcastic female bounty hunter named Alex Morgan and Hope Harrington, a downtrodden, mousy secretary, who meet when Alex mistakes Hope for the "jumper" she's in hot pursuit of and slaps the cuffs on. After this zany encounter, the two collude, with the result being one of the most tongue-in-cheek and hilarious mysteries written.

According to an LA Times, May 14, 2014 article, the following entry came from a notebook of a gold-seeking prospector, Samuel Clemens, in 1864. "Coleman with his jumping frog - bet stranger $50... - stranger had no frog & C got him one - in the meantime stranger filled C's frog full of shot and he couldn't jump - the stranger's frog won." Little did Clemens know that this would be the source for his short story that would launch his career as one of America's greatest authors.