Twenty-three stories created by a group of poets, novelists, and playwrights who answered an ad that promised them three months of free food and lodging in which to write their masterpiece. The retreat turns out to be more of a distraction than the "real life" they left behind.

In a story inspired by historical events, Emma Wagner searches for influence and respect in the town of Bethel, Missouri, in the 1850s, but getting what she wants has unexpected consequences.

A sixteen-year-old misfit, denied everything by her fanatical mother and abused by her classmates, unleashes her terrifying telekinetic powers on an entire town.

Catherine House is a school of higher learning like no other. Hidden deep in the woods of rural Pennsylvania, this crucible of reformist liberal arts study with its experimental curriculum, wildly selective admissions policy, and formidable endowment, has produced some of the world's best minds: prize-winning authors, artists, inventors, Supreme Court justices, presidents. For those lucky few selected, tuition, room, and board are free. But acceptance...

Presents an assessment of the existential crisis in modern America that explores how increasing social isolation and the collapse of traditional community connections lead to tension and pessimism, arguing that the solution is a rediscovery of human connections.

"Speak up for yourself - we want to know what you have to say." From the first moment of her freshman year at Merryweather High, Melinda knows that this is a big fat lie, part of the nonsense of high school. She is friendless, outcast, because she busted an end-of-summer party by calling the cops, so now nobody will talk to her, let alone listen to her. As time passes, she becomes increasingly isolated and practically stops talking altogether. Only...

"Meredith Maggs hasn't left her house in 1,214 days. But she insists she isn't alone... She has her cat Fred. Her friend Sadie visits when she can. There's her online support group, StrengthInNumbers. She has her jigsaws, favorite recipes, her beloved Emily Dickinson, the internet, the Tesco delivery man and her treacherous memories for company. But something's about to change. Whether Meredith likes it or not, the world is coming to her door... Does...

"At fifty-one years old, twins Jeanie and Julius still live with their mother, Dot, in rural isolation in the English countryside. The cottage they have shared their entire lives is their only protection against the modernizing world around them. Inside its walls, they make music, and in its garden, they grow everything they need to survive. To an outsider, it looks like poverty; to them, it is home. But when Dot dies unexpectedly, the world they've...

"From one of China's most acclaimed and decorated writers comes a powerful first-person account of life in Wuhan during the COVID-19 outbreak. On January 25, 2020, after the central government imposed a lockdown in Wuhan, acclaimed Chinese writer Fang Fang began publishing an online diary. In the days and weeks that followed, Fang Fang's nightly postings gave voice to the fears, frustrations, anger, and hope of millions of her fellow citizens, reflecting...

Flowers in the Attic, based on the iconic bestseller, tells the Gothic horror story of four siblings who are forced by their evil grandmother and weak mother to live in an attic, creating a surreal surrogate family with the two older siblings forming a forbidden bond with one another. Petals on the Wind, based on the second book in V.C. Andrews best-selling Flowers in the Attic series, continues to follow the twisted plight of the Dollanganger family...