Showing results by author "Stephen May" in All Categories

Billy's mother is dead. He knows-because he reads about it in magazines-that people die every day in ways that are more random and tragic and stupid than hers, but for nineteen-year-old Billy and his little brother, Oscar, their mother's death in a bungled street robbery is the most random and tragic and stupid thing that could possibly have happened to them.

Revolutionary, poet, lover. Robber, murderer, spy. May 1907 and a young Stalin is in London for a conference of Russian communists. With Lenin, Trotsky and Rosa Luxemburg among others, he battles to keep the party radical, while dodging the attentions of the czar’s secret police. He also finds himself drawn to a fiery Finnish activist, Elli Vuokko, beginning a relationship that is as dangerous as it is complicated.

Mark Chadwick is cycling home from work, eager to get back to his pregnant wife, Katy, and two children, when he sees the police calling at his house. He knows exactly why they are there, and he knows that the world he has carefully constructed over 20 deliberately uneventful years is about to fall apart. He could lose everything.... A story of a toxic love gone wrong, with a setting that moves between present-day London and 1990s Cambridge, Stronger Than Skin is utterly compelling, combining a gripping narrative with a keen eye for the absurdities of the way we live now.

Two short story classics from Louisa May Alcott combined in one volume: Abbot's Ghost: Maurice Traherne is wrongly accused of fraud and gambling and must play a careful hand if he is to win his love, Octavia, from the grasp of other, less honorable men and retain the trust of those who had faith in him. The Baron's Gloves: Two rather young women, Amy and Helen, traveling with an older uncle, are doing the "tour" of Europe, and are supposedly soaking up education but secretly yearning for adventures and romance.

Nicky has always known Russell was rich, but he has no idea how astronomically rich Russell is until his friend drops dead, on his 50th birthday, in his San Francisco mansion, with Nicky as the only witness. For forty years the two men have kept up their friendship, with Russell's birthday offering him an annual opportunity to remind Nicky of how much more successful Russell is, and how much further he has come since their English suburban childhood.

In the American Civil War that began in 1861 the War was seemingly fought to end Slavery. A War for Good. The result a win for the good guys but a society that still bears fractures from this seminal period. The stories in this volume show the true scars that are endured as a riven Nations authors try to explain and reconcile.