Showing results by narrator "Graham Halstead" in All Categories

Welcome to picturesque Provence, where the Lady of the Chateau, Séraphine Demargelasse, has opened its elegant doors to her granddaughter Darcy and three friends. Twenty years earlier, the four girlfriends studied abroad together in France and visited the old woman on the weekends, creating the group’s deep bond. But why this sudden invitation? Amid winery tours, market visits and fancy dinners overlooking olive groves and lavender fields, it becomes clear that each woman has a hidden reason for returning. Then, following a wild evening’s celebration, Séraphine is found brutally murdered.

A high school boy arranges for his Pontiac Sunfire to take over his life. McSweeney's is a literary journal based in San Francisco.

One evening in South Florida, an author is dozing beside a swimming pool when a stranger interrupts his peace. The newcomer, a self-professed fan and a literary agent of sorts, has a proposal for the author, one that may shape the course of literary history. With just a few thousand words, this charming short story from Ray Bradbury may change the way you look at classic literature forever.

A profoundly beautiful memoir about disability, difference, and living as a vulnerable body. Jan Grue had just become a father when he inherited a stack of his childhood medical records. Following a diagnosis of spinal muscular atrophy at the age of three, the raft of doctors' notes, clinical descriptions and case histories defined his body as defective and his future as bleak and limited. They conjured a childhood nothing like the one he remembered, that failed to anticipate the life he lived now. "I Live a Life Like Yours" is Grue's beautiful, groundbreaking search for a literary language that could better tell his story.

Following the 'three days of peace and music' at Woodstock, the 1969 gathering in Bethel, NY that would change the world forever, hippie paradises began to emerge all around the world. In the Dam Square in Amsterdam, long-haired young people wearing vibrant clothes and burning incense could be found meditating, playing music and discussing sexual liberation, the expansion of consciousness and the search for an inner truth. They were a generation refusing to live the robotic and unquestioning life that their parents had known.

Matthew and Hannah were just playing in the woods, a little way from home. But now he's tying Hannah to a tree. And she has never been so terrified. Patrick is there too, hidden, watching. He can't move. He can't take his eyes off Matthew's gun. Years later, in New York City, leading adult lives they never would have imagined, the three will meet again. With even more devastating consequences.

James Salley is turning 16, and it's not going well. His family's too busy to care, the local bully creates new tortures daily, someone appears to be following him, and he's just learned that he's the Antichrist. All James ever wanted out of life was for Dorian Delaney - the operatically trained and suicidal girl of his dreams - to fall as in love with him as he is with her. But once he's told of his bloody destiny, he finds himself fighting between who he thought he was and who he's supposed to be.

America, 2049: Summer temperatures are intolerably high, the fossil fuel industry has shut down, and humans are implanted with a 'Flick' at birth, which allows them to remain perpetually online. The wealthy live in the newly created Floating City off the coast, while people on the mainland struggle to get by. For Rose, a job as a hostess in the city's elite club, feels like her best hope for a better future.

Eran Sharon knows nothing of his father except that he left when Eran was a baby. Now a senior in high school and living with his protective but tight-lipped mother, Eran is a passionate young man deeply interested in social justice and equality. When he learns that the Houston police have launched a program to increase traffic stops, Eran organizes a peaceful protest. But a heated moment at the protest goes viral, and a reporter connects the Sharon family to a tragedy fifteen years earlier - and asks if Eran is anything like his father, a supposed terrorist.

It's the summer of 1965, and the streets of Queens, New York, shimmer in a heat wave. One July morning, Ruth Malone wakes to find a bedroom window wide open and her two young children missing. After a desperate search, the police make a horrifying discovery. Noting Ruth's perfectly made-up face and provocative clothing, the empty liquor bottles and love letters that litter her apartment, the detectives leap to convenient conclusions, fuelled by neighbourhood gossip and speculation.

A novelette about a nihilistic young man from New York City, Going Down South depicts an isolated and apathetic way of navigating life and romance in a way that will resonate with most Millennials. When Jared Steinfarb decides that his life in Brooklyn has grown too dissolute, he moves in with an old friend from college who is studying to be a minister in Nashville, Tennessee. There, he meets Sylvia, an earnest Christian girl from the Midwest — she becomes an opportunity for his depravity to reach new depths, as Jared finds that his lecherous nature has followed him down south.

Dr. Simon Nealy never expected to return to his quiet Pennsylvania hometown, let alone the Hawthorne Museum of Natural History. He was just a boy when his six-year-old sister, Morgan, was abducted from the museum under his watch. The guilt has haunted Simon ever since. But after the loss of the aunt who raised him, Simon feels drawn back to the place where Morgan vanished without a trace. But from the moment he arrives, things aren't what he expected. The Hawthorne is a crumbling ruin and plummeting toward financial catastrophe. Worse, Simon begins seeing and hearing things he can't explain.

America is at a crossroads. We are alienated from civic engagement, and our democracy is in doubt. Yet there is a new energy in the air. Young people are again taking up the role they've often held: as leaders of change, demanding a better future, wielding their votes to uphold democracy and lead the country forward. Enter Generation Citizen, an organization dedicated to empowering youth through revitalizing civics education across America.

In a world where one online retail giant dominates all others, a husband and wife infiltrate the inner workings of the store and discover motives that are more sinister than they could possibly imagine.

Boone Sinclair is a hallmark Diana Palmer hero: tall, strong and handsome. A businessman and a rancher, Boone had it all — except for Keely Welsh. The first time he spotted her on his property, he was determined not to let her get away from him. The lovely beauty would be his...

Suffering from the complications of syphilis toward the end of his life, Édouard Manet begins to jot down his daily impressions, reflections, and memories in a notebook. He travels for healing respites in the French countryside and finds inspiration in nature-a cloud of dragonflies, peonies blanketed by the morning dew. Back in Paris, the artist holds court in his studio and meets a mysterious muse, Suzon. Entranced by Suzon's cool blue eyes, he decides to paint his final masterpiece, "A Bar at the Folies-Bergere", life-sized - and wagers his health to complete it.

Paul Strom has spent years building his perfect life: glittering career, beautiful wife, two healthy boys and a big house in the suburbs. But he also has his secrets. That's why Paul has promised his wife a romantic weekend getaway. He proclaims this day, a warm Friday in May, will be the best day ever. Paul loves his wife, really, he does. But he also wants to get rid of her. And with every hour that passes, Paul ticks off another stage in his elaborately laid plan....

A man convicted of murdering his wife finds an unlikely champion in this short story by the best-selling author of The Dante Club. Our narrator is a man convicted of first-degree murder with only one person on his side: Ginnifer. After seeing him on TV and becoming obsessed with the case, Ginnifer devotes herself to overturning his sentence. Eventually Ginnifer's friendship turns into something more - but the closer they become, the more the relationship turns into a prison of its own.

Lundi matin. Je me réveille de mon somme et regarde l'heure de la voiture : 2 h 30. Veste en daim noire. Une fois émergé, je réalise que j'attends 2 amies comme si j'étais leur chauffeur. C'est à ce moment précis que je décide alors de rentrer chez moi. Je laisse Angela et ma veste préférée alors qu'elle a oublié son paquet de cigarettes dans ma voiture. Quid pro quo. Je me demande quand je vais pouvoir récupérer ma veste.

Linden has always felt like an outsider and spending the summer at his best friend's vacation house, surrounded by money and privilege is doing nothing to lessen his imposter syndrome. But he soon has bigger concerns than fitting in - there's a body in the pool and everyone's a suspect - including him.