Download or read book The Revenge of the Radioactive Lady written by Elizabeth Stuckey-French and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2012-01-10 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Chicago Tribune Best Book of the Year Marylou Ahearn is going to kill Dr. Wilson Spriggs. In 1953, the good doctor gave her a radioactive cocktail without her consent, and Marylou has been plotting her revenge ever since. When she discovers his whereabouts in Florida, she hightails it to Tallahassee, moves in down the block from where he resides with his daughter, Caroline, and begins the tricky work of insinuating herself into his life. But she has no idea what a nest of yellow jackets she’s stumbled into. Spriggs is senile, his daughter’s on the verge of collapse, and his grandchildren are a mess of oddballs, leaving Marylou wondering whether she’s really meant to ruin their lives … or fix them.

Download or read book Mermaids on the Moon written by Elizabeth Stuckey-French and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2003-07-08 with total page 203 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When thirty-five-year-old France’s father calls to say that her mother, Grendy, has run off, France suspects foul play and heads south to investigate. Recently reunited with fellow former “mermaids” from Mermaid Springs, FL—one of the Sunshine State’s premier, pre-Disney attractions—Grendy had successfully revived her career in kitschy underwater pageants. But if she doesn’t find herself or let herself be found soon, she’ll miss the big Labor Day show. While the other fin-toting “merhags” regale France with stories of old—particularly the night Elvis came to town—they’re suspiciously tight-lipped about Grendy’s disappearance. Increasingly convinced that Grendy is in trouble—and that a psychic cat might hold the clue—she makes a series of unexpected, extraordinary discoveries about Mermaid Springs, her mother, and, in turn, herself.

Download or read book Women of Florida Fiction written by Tammy Powley and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2014-12-03 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Florida as symbol and myth is the subject of this collection of new critical essays exploring fiction written by female Floridian authors. In the words of author Karen Russell, the Sunshine State is "virtually past-less, seasons are out of the question, and it's built on a primordial park full of monsters." Discussing the state as setting, the essayists--also Floridians--suggest that it is a creation of the stories told about it. Each of the book's 12 chapters covers one author, including a brief biography followed by one (and twice, two) essays on some of the author's works. The book's final section includes interviews with authors Lynne Barrett, Jeannine Capo Cruz, Vicki Hendricks and Angela Hunt.

Download or read book American Revenge Narratives written by Kyle Wiggins and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-07-21 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: American Revenge Narratives critically examines the nation’s vengeful storytelling tradition. With essays on late twentieth and twenty-first century fiction, film, and television, it maps the coordinates of the revenge genre’s contemporary reinvention across American culture. By surveying American revenge narratives, this book measures how contemporary payback plots appraise the nation’s political, social, and economic inequities. The volume’s essays collectively make the case that retribution is a defining theme of post-war American culture and an artistic vehicle for critique. In another sense, this book presents a scholarly coming to terms with the nation’s love for vengeance. By investigating recent iterations of an ancient genre, contributors explore how the revenge narrative evolves and thrives within American literary and filmic imagination. Taken together, the book’s diverse chapters attempt to understand American culture’s seemingly inexhaustible production of vengeful tales.

Download or read book The First Paper Girl in Red Oak Iowa written by Elizabeth Stuckey-French and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2007-12-18 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With the stories in her first collection, Elizabeth Stuckey-French establishes herself as a smart new voice in American fiction and stakes her claim to a territory somewhere on the edge of stability, where normal is not just boring but nearly impossible, and where standing out in a crowd may just cause isolation. Her characters, mostly Midwesterners, are bizarre but endearing. A reform school graduate is placed in the care of her psychic aunt and in the servitude of a lucrative dog retrieval scheme. A mother who has accepted her son’s modest employment selling blue jeans bemoans the above-board lifestyle she discovers him leading as a wanted criminal. A rehab counselor lives vicariously through her already pregnant stepdaughter’s love affair with a drunk who spends his days in recovery and his nights in the bar. Full of wry wit, tender sympathy, and heartland attitude, The First Paper Girl in Red Oak, Iowa is as strange, funny, and poignant as the real world it resembles.

Download or read book Diary of a Mad Fat Girl written by Stephanie McAfee and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2012-02-07 with total page 447 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Graciela "Ace" Jones is mad-mad at her best friend Lilly who cancels their annual trip to Panama City for mysterious reasons; at her boss Catherine for "riding her ass like a fat lady on a Rascal scooter;" at her friend Chloe's abusive husband; and especially at Mason McKenzie, the love of her life, who has shown up with a marriage proposal one year too late. Ace is never mad, though, at her near-constant companion, an adorable chiweenie dog named Buster Loo. Ace's anger begins to dissipate as she takes matters into her own hands to take down Chloe's philandering husband-and to get to the bottom of a multitude of other scandals plaguing Bugtussle, Mississippi. Then, she starts to realize that maybe Mason deserves a second chance after all. With a sharp and distinctive voice, Stephanie McAfee delivers a hilarious and fast-paced tale about Ace Jones and her two best friends-thick as thieves and tough as nails-navigating Southern small-town politics and prejudices, finding love, and standing up for each other all the way.

Download or read book The Sweetheart written by Angelina Mirabella and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2015 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "It's 1953 and seventeen-year-old Leonie Putzkammer is cartoonishly tall and curvaceous, destined to spend the rest of her life waiting tables and living with her widowed father Franz in their Philadelphia row house. Until the day legendary wrestling promoter Salvatore Costantini walks into the local diner and offers her the chance of a lifetime. Leonie sets off for Florida to train at Joe Pospisil's School for Lady Grappling. There, she transforms into Gorgeous Gwen Davies, tag-team partner of legendary Screaming Mimi Hollander, and begins a romance with the soon-to-be Junior Heavyweight Champion Spider McGee."--

Download or read book What Girls Learn written by Karin Cook and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2011-02-16 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: radiant debut novel, What Girls Learn takes readers on an intimate and haunting journey into the landscape of girlhood and the complex terrain of the family. Wise, bittersweet, and above all intensely human, this astonishingly powerful novel enchants readers with its humor and insight even as it breaks their hearts.

Download or read book The Encyclopedia of Fantastic Film written by R. G. Young and published by Hal Leonard Corporation. This book was released on 2000 with total page 1028 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thirty-five years in the making, and destined to be the last word in fanta-film references! This incredible 1,017-page resource provides vital credits on over 9,000 films (1896-1999) of horror, fantasy, mystery, science fiction, heavy melodrama, and film noir. Comprehensive cast lists include: directors, writers, cinematographers, and composers. Also includes plot synopses, critiques, re-title/translation information, running times, photographs, and several cross-referenced indexes (by artist, year, song, etc.). Paperback.

Download or read book Acid West written by Joshua Wheeler and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2018-04-17 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A rollicking debut book of essays that takes readers on a trip through the muck of American myths that have settled in the desert of our country’s underbelly Early on July 16, 1945, Joshua Wheeler’s great grandfather awoke to a flash, and then a long rumble: the world’s first atomic blast filled the horizon north of his ranch in Alamogordo, New Mexico. Out on the range, the cattle had been bleached white by the fallout. Acid West, Wheeler’s stunning debut collection of essays, is full of these mutated cows: vestiges of the Old West that have been transformed, suddenly and irrevocably, by innovation. Traversing the New Mexico landscape his family has called home for seven generations, Wheeler excavates and reexamines these oddities, assembling a cabinet of narrative curiosities: a man who steps from the stratosphere and free-falls to the desert; a treasure hunt for buried Atari video games; a village plagued by the legacy of atomic testing; a showdown between Billy the Kid and the author of Ben-Hur; a UFO festival during the paranoid Summer of Snowden. The radical evolution of American identity, from cowboys to drone warriors to space explorers, is a story rooted in southern New Mexico. Acid West illuminates this history, clawing at the bounds of genre to reveal a place that is, for better or worse, home. By turns intimate, absurd, and frightening, Acid West is an enlightening deep-dive into a prophetic desert at the bottom of America.

Download or read book Only Love Can Break Your Heart written by Ed Tarkington and published by Algonquin Books. This book was released on 2016-01-05 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Welcome to Spencerville, Virginia, 1977. A time when teenagers roamed wild and free. When sons worshipped God, loved their mothers, and feared their fathers. And when eight-year-old Rocky still worshipped his older brother, Paul--sixteen and full of rebel cool--who was happy to have his younger brother as his sidekick, until one day things went terribly wrong and Paul disappeared. Seven years later, Rocky, now a teenager himself, must reckon with the past after a mysterious double murder brings terror and suspicion to their small town, and to their broken family.

Download or read book Captain Underpants and the Invasion of the Incredibly Naughty Cafeteria Ladies from Outer Space written by Dav Pilkey and published by Scholastic UK. This book was released on 2013-12-05 with total page 134 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Harold and George's crazy creation is back — in an adventure that's WEDGIER than ever! He defeated Dr Nappy. He terminated the talking toilets. But is Captain Underpants ready for three massive, tentacled space aliens (in disguise)? Has he met his match in the Giant Man-Eating Dandelion of Doom...?

Download or read book The Girl in the Torch written by Robert Sharenow and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2015-05-26 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Invention of Hugo Cabret meets True Grit in this heartfelt novel of resilience, hope, and discovering a family where you least expect it, from award-winning author Robert Sharenow. At the dawn of the twentieth century, thousands of immigrants are arriving in the promised land of New York City. Twelve-year-old Sarah has always dreamed of America, a land of freedom and possibility. In her small village she stares at a postcard of the Statue of Liberty and imagines the Lady beckoning to her. When Sarah and her mother finally journey across the Atlantic, though, tragedy strikes—and Sarah finds herself being sent back before she even sets foot in the country. Yet just as Sarah is ushered onto the boat that will send her away from the land of her dreams, she makes a life-or-death decision. She daringly jumps off the back of the boat and swims as hard as she can toward the Lady's island and a new life. Her leap of faith leads her to an unbelievable hiding place: the Statue of Liberty itself. Now Sarah must find a way to Manhattan while avoiding the night watchman and scavenging enough food to survive. When a surprising ally helps bring her to the city, Sarah finds herself facing new dangers and a life on her own. Will she ever find a true home in America?

Download or read book Captain Underpants and the Wrath of the Wicked Wedgie Woman Color Edition Captain Underpants 5 written by Dav Pilkey and published by Scholastic Inc.. This book was released on 2020-07-07 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: George and Harold accidentally create a monster in the fifth book in this #1 New York Times bestselling series by Dav Pilkey, the author and illustrator of Dog Man! George and Harold are always good at using their imaginations, and that drives their mean homeroom teacher, Ms. Ribble, crazy! But this time, they've come up with much more than a silly prank... With her horrendous hairdo and two rabid robots, Wedgie Woman is well on her way to world domination, and only the Waistband Warrior can stop her!

Download or read book This Must Be the Place written by Susan Jackson Rodgers and published by Northern Illinois University Press. This book was released on 2017-08-22 with total page 187 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It's the summer of 1983. Ronald Reagan is in the White House, Princess Leia is on magazine covers, and Thea Knox is on the road. Fresh out of college, Thea is driving solo from California to New York. Her plan is to house-sit for her parents for the summer, but they sell her childhood home on a whim, leaving Thea (once again) to her own devices. She takes a detour to visit her Aunt Wendy in Merdale, a college town nestled in the Kansas prairie. Unlike Dorothy, Thea's adventure begins when she arrives in Kansas. Thea is immediately surrounded by her aunt's group of friends, including Julie, a bookstore owner; Nick, Julie's carpenter boyfriend; Bob, a stoner wildlife rehabilitator; and Amira, a lawyer who works with runaway girls. When she finds herself in love at first sight with Jimmy Ward, a local with a hazy past, Thea decides to extend her stay. Not everyone welcomes her into the fold, however, and Thea's own past--including her distant best friend and erstwhile boyfriends on either coast--is nipping at her heels. When she discovers a terrible secret that could upend Jimmy's world, the spell of happiness she has woven in this unlikely place threatens to break. This compelling coming-of-age novel explores the search for identity, love, friendship, and home, and celebrates the magic and mystery that exist in even the most ordinary places.

Download or read book Novel Short Story Writer s Market 2016 written by Rachel Randall and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2015-08-11 with total page 1123 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE BEST RESOURCE FOR GETTING YOUR FICTION PUBLISHED Novel & Short Story Writer's Market 2016 is the only resource you need to get your short stories, novellas, and novels published. As with past editions, Novel & Short Story Writer's Market offers hundreds of listings for book publishers, literary agents, fiction publications, contests, and more. Each listing includes contact information, submission guidelines, and other essential tips. This edition includes articles and interviews on all aspects of the writing life: • Learn how to unlock character motivations to drive your story forward. • Imbue your fiction with a distinct, memorable voice. • Revise and polish your novels and short stories for successful submission. • Gain insight from best-selling authors Chris Bohjalian, John Sandford, Lisa Scottoline, and more. You'll also gain access to a one-year subscription to WritersMarket.com's searchable online database of fiction publishers,* as well as a free digital download of Writer's Yearbook, featuring the 100 Best Markets: WritersDigest.com/WritersDigest-Yearbook-15. + Includes exclusive access to the webinar "The Three Missing Pieces of Stunning Story Structure" by writing instructor and best-selling author K.M. Weiland *Please note: The e-book version of this title does not include a one-year subscription to WritersMarket.com. "After you've written 50,000 words, there seem to be 50,000 different things you need to know to publish your novel. Novel and Short Story Writer's Market helps clarify options so you can find the best publishing home for your work." --Grant Faulkner, executive director of National Novel Writing Month "I've published more than 200 short stories, and Novel & Short Story Writer's Market has been an essential tool in my success. It's a literary bible for anyone seriously interested in marketing fiction." --Jacob M. Appel, winner of the Dundee International Book Award and the Hudson Prize

Download or read book Twenty One Truths About Love written by Matthew Dicks and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2019-11-19 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the beloved author of Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend comes a wonderful new novel about a struggling man, written entirely in lists. Daniel Mayrock's life is at a crossroads. He knows the following to be true: 1. He loves his wife Jill... more than anything. 2. He only regrets quitting his job and opening a bookshop a little (maybe more than a little) 3. Jill is ready to have a baby. 4. The bookshop isn’t doing well. Financial crisis is imminent. Dan doesn't know how to fix it. 5. Dan hasn’t told Jill about their financial trouble. 6. Then Jill gets pregnant. This heartfelt story is about the lengths one man will go to and the risks he will take to save his family. But Dan doesn’t just want to save his failing bookstore and his family’s finances: 1. Dan wants to do something special. 2. He’s a man who is tired of feeling ordinary. 3. He’s sick of feeling like a failure. 4. He doesn't want to live in the shadow of his wife’s deceased first husband. Dan is also an obsessive list maker; his story unfolds entirely in his lists, which are brimming with Dan’s hilarious sense of humor, unique world-view, and deeply personal thoughts. When read in full, his lists paint a picture of a man struggling to be a man, a man who has reached a point where he’s willing to do anything for the love (and soon-to-be new love) of his life.