Showing titles in City Life

Kingsley Lynch fell to her death from a seven-story, downtown rooftop garden. Was it an accident, suicide, or was she pushed? The two detectives assigned to the case decided she jumped. Her husband, an influential city councilor disagrees, and six weeks later Kate Gazzara is assigned to reinvestigate.

Greta Hansen has arrived in Manhattan to intern with the Vanderhaven Corporation, a company owned by distant and very wealthy relatives. But she soon realizes she’s actually been hired to keep watch on their capricious daughter, social media celebrity Cece. No last name required. Why bother? The entire Twitterverse already watches every fabulous move she makes. Including an unfortunate shoplifting mishap when Cece decides to go off script. It’s then that a handsome - and homeless - stranger comes to the rescue.

Stefan Zweig was born on the 28th November 1881 in Vienna, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and into a wealthy Jewish family with interests in banking and textiles. Zweig first published in 1900 and two decades later was a popular and highly regarded author in many parts of the world, although not in England. He was also the librettist with Richard Strauss of two operas and a keen collector of autographed musical manuscripts. His collection of over two hundred pieces was later donated to the British Library.

A mother and daughter travel from abroad to meet in Tokyo. They walk along the canals through the autumn evenings, escape the typhoon rains, share meals in small cafes and restaurants, and visit galleries to see some of the city’s most radical modern art. All the while, they talk: about the weather, horoscopes, clothes, and objects, about family, distance, and memory. But uncertainties abound. Who is really speaking here - is it only the daughter? And what is the real reason behind this elliptical, perhaps even spectral journey?

*Formerly: The Need To Have Him A scandalous game... A stranger in her apartment... An intruder with an agenda... A game gone wrong? Maybe! “Don’t move,” were the words that will forever echo in her mind. In one second, Joi’s world changed. He stood behind her, hands over her mouth. And her life would never be the same. Joi thought it was a game. But it wasn’t! After that night, Dominic tried to move on. He tried to get past the guilt he feels. A game played through a social media app, has him wondering about the woman at the root of it all. Her teasing and taunting of men, that ...

Da quattro anni Gabriele Bilancini non tornava a casa. Casa è il quartiere Tuscolano a Roma, dove è nato e vissuto insieme ai genitori, la sorella e una compagnia di amici inseparabili. Oggi Gabriele abita a Milano ed è tra i dieci designer emergenti più quotati al mondo. È uno che ce l'ha fatta: l'esempio perfetto di come si possa essere artefici della propria sorte. A credere in lui e a lanciarlo è stato Franco Zardi in persona, un guru del design mondiale, che ha riconosciuto in Gabriele la grazia del talento.

New Delhi, three a.m. A speeding Mercedes jumps the kerb, and in the blink of an eye five people are dead. It's a rich man's car, but when the dust settles there is no rich man at all, just a shell-shocked servant who cannot explain the strange series of events that led to this crime. Nor can he foresee the dark drama that is about to unfold.

Adrift in her early thirties, Mary sets out to change her life, one ill-advised decision at a time. First, she books a spontaneous flight to Ibiza where she meets Tom, a brilliant young chemist working on an experimental drug called Eudaxa that claims to cure the anxieties of modern life. As their connection deepens, Mary thinks she might finally be falling in love. Then Mary lands a job at Openr, an innovative dating app with no limits. Its founder, Mary’s ex girlfriend Lara, will do everything it takes to make it a global phenomenon.

My father's best friend just became my bodyguard...And he's smoking hot. Off-limits? Absolutely. But that only makes him more tempting. I can't face this trade conference alone after my breakup. Thankfully, my new bodyguard agreed to be my fake boyfriend One week in the Bahamas—what could go wrong? Tall, rugged, ex-Army - he's everything I shouldn't want. But one fake kiss turns into a real night of passion. The way he protects me, the way he makes me feel safe… It's more than just a charade. His strength, his passion—undeniable. But my father’s unexpected arrival ruined it all. ...

In a city graveyard, a resident unrolls a threadbare Persian carpet between two graves. On a concrete sidewalk, a baby appears quite suddenly, a little after midnight, in a crib of litter. In a snowy valley, a father writes to his five-year-old daughter about the number of people who attended her funeral. And in the Jannat Guest House, two people who've known each other all their lives sleep with their arms wrapped around one another as though they have only just met.

When she was nineteen, on a magical trip to New York City, Ashling created a list of her five life goals. There, she'd felt inspired to dream big, but now, ten years later, with four out of five goals having crumbled before her, she realises she has only one option left to live the life she's always dreamed of: move to New York City, before it's too late. Armed with a ninety-day visa, she's sure that a winter in the city that never sleeps will help her finally get her life on track.

Here is the preface to 12 magnificent stories, originally part of The John Cheever Audio Collection, in which John Cheever celebrates - with unequaled grace and tenderness - the deepest feelings we have.

On the precipice of Y2K, unpaid intern Lily Chen is attempting to live the American dream in New York City. But her scientist parents imagined so much more for her when they fled Mao's cultural revolution, hoping for a better life. Despite the glamour of her media job, Lily can barely make rent - until she falls into the arms of Matthew. This young financier can give her a fairy tale life of luxury, and for the first time her dreams appear within reach.

My plan was to marry the kind of man I write about in my sweet romance novels, not lose my v-card to the ultimate bad boy… my brother’s best friend… Women always line up to be with Travis Ray—a handsome, arrogant, alpha, playboy, rodeo star, and billionaire cattle rancher. I can’t stand Travis, but my brother convinces me to work as his assistant while I get my writing career off the ground. So I meet with Travis, and our banter turns into him challenging me. Then kissing me and taking control of my body in ways I’ve never felt before. But that can’t happen again. He’s now ...

As the economy collapses around her in 2008, recent art school graduate Binnie takes a job as a paralegal to pay the bills. As her art projects languish on the back burner, she begins to obsessively imagine her daily grind expressed in unsettling and sometimes violent dioramas. Somehow, someday, she’ll find the time to construct them. In the meantime, she’ll walk this unsatisfying tightrope between financial stability and the life of a working artist. But after a shocking and surreal death occurs at the law firm, Binnie wonders if her frustration is pushing her darkest imaginings into life.

The Helena is an Art Deco apartment building that has witnessed the changing face of South Miami Beach for seventy years, observing the lives housed within. Among those who have called apartment 2B home are a Cuban concert pianist who performs in a nursing home; the widow of an intelligence officer raising her young daughter alone; a man waiting on a green card marriage to run its course so that he can divorce his wife and marry his lover, all of whom live together; a Tajik building manager with a secret identity; and a troubled young refugee named Lenin.

A husband and wife hear a mysterious bump in the night. A father mourns the closeness he has lost with his son. A friendship with a married couple turns into a dangerous codependency. With gorgeous sensitivity, assurance, and a propulsive sense of menace, these stories center on disappearances both literal and figurative—lives and loves that are cut short, the vanishing of one's youthful self.

It is the mid-'80s, two decades into the kleptocratic, brutal rule of Ferdinand Marcos. The Philippine economy is in deep recession, and civil unrest is growing by the day. But Primi Peregrino has her own priorities: tracking down books and pursuing romantic connections with their authors.

An aspiring artist gets a seven-figure offer that could change her life forever in this provocative and surprising short story of a woman torn between saying yes and saying no. Alicia could do a lot with a million dollars. But what’s she willing to do for it? Her top client, a billionaire hedge fund manager, has made a very intimate business proposal. In the world of finance, it’s just another transaction, right? An efficient supply-demand exchange. At least that’s what Alicia tries to tell herself.

Sacrificing one night with a ruthless Mafia Don was meant to save my family. Until his brother, Vito, captured my heart and ignited a war. Vito Vitali is Sin City's ultimate catch. Rich, dangerously handsome, and a god among men. He's the forbidden temptation I can't resist, Dominating both the Vegas Strip and my every thought. One night with his devilish brother was not only to clear my family's debt, It was my chance to uncover the truth behind my father's murder. Instead, it threw me into the arms of Vito, Sparking a fierce battle for loyalty and love. As Vito and I drew closer, his ...