Showing results by publisher "Wildfire" in Literature & Fiction

Twelve-year-old Phoebe's world is falling apart. It's the summer of 1985 and she has just buried her parents, a fire at their family home claiming both in a freak accident. Her life is uprooted in an instant, and she takes little solace in the fact that her uncle Louis and aunt Maude have generously offered to take her in at their home in the Welsh woods. Under the summer sun, though, Phoebe falls into the rhythm of life with her eccentric guardians in their curious idyllic home, the hum of her aunt Maude's beehives filling the air.

1816. A massive volcanic eruption has caused the worst storms that Europe has seen in decades, yet Percy and Mary Shelley have chosen to visit the infamous Lord Byron at his villa on Lake Geneva. It wasn't their idea: Mary's eighteen-year-old step-sister, Claire Clairmont, insisted. But the reason for Claire's visit is more pressing than a summer escape with the most famous writers in the world. She's pregnant with Byron's child - a child Byron doesn't want, and scarcely believes is his own.

Every night, in the college's ancient cemetery, five people cross paths as they work the late shift: a bartender, a rideshare driver, a hotel receptionist, the steward of the derelict church that looms over them, and the editor-in-chief of the college paper, always in search of a story. One dark October evening in the defunct churchyard, they find a hole that wasn't there before. A fresh, open grave where no grave should be. But who dug it, and for whom?

Sayon Hughes, a young Black man from Bristol, dreams of a world far removed from the one in which he was raised. Far removed from the torn slips outside the bookie's, the burnt spoons and the crooked solutions his community embraces; most of all, removed from the Christianity of his uncaring parents and the prejudice of law-makers.

Gary Nelson has a routine for the commute to his rather dull job in the city. Each day, he watches as a woman on the train applies her make up in a ritual he now knows by heart. He's never dared to strike up a conversation...but maybe one day. Then one evening, on the late train to Gipsy Hill, the woman invites him to take the empty seat beside her. Fiddling with her mascara, she holds up her mirror and Gary reads the words 'HELP ME' scrawled in sticky black letters on the glass.

When a daughter is born to the King of Arcadia, she brings only disappointment. Left exposed on a mountainside, the defenceless infant Atalanta is left to the mercy of a passing mother bear and raised alongside the cubs under the protective eye of the goddess Artemis. Swearing that she will prove her worth alongside the famed heroes of Greece, Atalanta leaves her forest to join Jason's band of Argonauts. But can she carve out her own place in the legends in a world made for men?

In the throes of a high fever, a woman lies bedridden. Suddenly, she is struck with an urge to revisit a particular novel from her past. Inside the book is an inscription: a get-well-soon message from an ex-girlfriend. Pages from her past begin to flip, full of things she cannot forget and people who cannot be forgotten. Johanna, that same ex-girlfriend who introduced her to Paul Auster's The New York Trilogy, now a famous TV host in Sweden. Niki, the friend who disappeared all those years ago without a phone number or an address and has no online footprint.

It has been a year since Penny first walked through the doors of DallerGut Dream Department Store, and surviving a year at the store means one thing . . . She is now an official employee of the dream industry! She can finally take the express commuter train to the Company District, where all the dream production companies are located and discover how all raw dream materials and testing equipment are produced. But the Company District is not quite what she expected, it hides the darker underbelly of the magical industry that Penny thought she was a part of.

Meet Juliette. She's intelligent, driven, committed - and in love. Juliette loves Nate. She will follow him anywhere. She's even become a flight attendant for his airline, so she can keep a closer eye on him. They are meant to be. The fact that Nate broke up with her six months ago means nothing. Because Juliette has a plan to win him back. She is the perfect girlfriend. And she'll make sure no one stops her from getting exactly what she wants. True love hurts, but Juliette knows it's worth all the pain....

When a fire dragon attacks her village, the perfect opportunity presents itself - now she can take revenge on the creatures that killed her father. But the dragon she's determined to kill seems fascinated by Nara, something everyone slowly begins to notice. After this strange event, Nara is invited to join the Venators - a trained order of people who slay dangerous magical creatures - just like her father before her. This offer should be a dream come true. After all, who wouldn't jump at the chance to hunt down the cruel, destructive creatures that enslaved humans for thousands of years?

They won't forgive. They won't forget. 1950. At the crumbling Idlewild Hall school for unwanted girls, four roommates begin to bond over dark secrets and whispered fears - until one of them mysteriously disappears.... 2014. Journalist Fiona Sheridan can't get over the murder of her sister 20 years ago, near the ruins of Idlewild. And when another body is found during renovations of the school, she'll begin to uncover secrets that were meant to remain hidden in the past - and a voice that won't be silenced....

When the immortal goddess Hera helps her brother Zeus to overthrow their tyrannical father, the ancient Titan Cronos, she dreams of ruling the world at his side. But as they establish their reign on Mount Olympus, Hera begins to see another side to Zeus, a side just as ruthless and cruel as Cronos was. She was clearly born to rule, but does that mean perpetuating a cycle of violence and cruelty that has existed since the dawn of time? Will assuming her power mean that Hera loses herself or can she find a way to forge a better world?

The House of Atreus is cursed. A bloodline tainted by a generational cycle of violence and vengeance. This is the story of three women, their fates inextricably tied to this curse, and the fickle nature of men and gods.

It's the turn of the millennium and, landing in London with nothing but her CD collection and demo tape, Orla Quinn moves into a squalid Kilburn house with her best mate and a band called Shiva. Orla wants to make music, but juggling two jobs and partying every night isn't helping. Back in Ireland her parents' marriage has crumbled, she's not speaking to her father, and her mother and sister are drinking too much.

It is 1938 in China, and the Japanese are advancing. A young mother, Meilin, is forced to flee her burning city with her four-year-old son, Renshu, and embark on an epic journey across China. For comfort, they turn to their most treasured possession - a beautifully illustrated hand scroll. Its ancient fables offer solace and wisdom as they travel through their ravaged country, seeking refuge. Years later, Renshu has settled in America as Henry Dao. His daughter is desperate to understand her heritage, but he refuses to talk about his childhood.

Alison has it all. A doting husband, adorable daughter, and a career on the rise - she's just been given her first murder case to defend. But all is never as it seems. Just one more night. Then I'll end it. Alison drinks too much. She's neglecting her family. And she's having an affair with a colleague whose taste for pushing boundaries may be more than she can handle.

Treasure and her mother lost everything when Treasure's daddy died. Haggling for scraps in the market, Treasure meets a spirit who promises to bring her father back—but she has to do something for him first. Ozoemena has an itch in the middle of her back that can't be scratched. An itch that speaks to her patrilineal destiny, to defend her people by becoming a leopard. But as the two girls reckon with their burgeoning wildness and the legacy of their fathers' decisions, Ozoemena's fellow students at her new boarding school start to vanish.

Finally free from his nightmare of a marriage, Toby Fleishman is ready for a life of Tinder dating and weekend-only parental duties. But as he optimistically looks to a future of few responsibilities, his life turns upside down as his ex-wife Rachel suddenly disappears. While Toby tries to find out what happened - juggling work, his kids and his new, app-assisted sexual popularity - his tidy narrative of a spurned husband is his sole consolation.

When Yojin moves with her husband and daughter into the Dream Future Pilot Communal Apartments, she's ready for a fresh start. Located on the outskirts of Seoul, the experimental community is a government initiative designed to boost the national birth rate. Like her neighbours, Yojin has agreed to have at least two more children over the next ten years.

Bristol, 1980. In the tight-knit neighbourhood of St. Pauls, 14-year-old Jabari is proud of his position as the only son of revered community leader Ras Levi. Raised in a world of sus laws and council neglect, Jabari finds hope in his Rastafari faith, which offers the comforting vision that one day he and his fellow believers will repatriate to the motherland, where they will at last be free from oppression and prejudice. But in St Pauls a local firebrand activist has been arrested, and violence soon overflows, pulling both father and son into its maelstrom.