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  Mary Elizabeth Braddon - A Short...

  Mary Elizabeth Braddon

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  Mary Elizabeth Braddon – A Short Story Collection – An Introduction 
   
  Mary Elizabeth Braddon was born in London on the 4th October 1835. 
   
  At age 5 her parents separated but her ambition to succeed was not daunted.  After being privately educated she took to acting, and the minor roles she obtained where enough to support both her and her mother.  This potential career waned as soon as she began writing and secured an income from it. 
   
  In 1860, she met John Maxwell, a publisher of periodicals, and moved in with him the following year.  At the time Maxwell was already married with five children but his wife was confined to an Irish mental asylum.  On her death they married and she had six children by him. 
   
  Braddon was prolific and wrote over 80 novels, perhaps the most famous is ‘Lady Audley's Secret’ (1862), which won her both sales and a fortune as a bestseller.  She also wrote a number of historical fiction novels which again increased her reputation. 
   
  She was equally prolific as a short story writer, primarily supernatural and ghost stories, all of which continue to be anthologized to this day, such is the high regard they are kept in. 
   
  Braddon founded Belgravia magazine in 1866, its fare being serialised sensation novels, poems, travel narratives and biographies, along with essays on fashion, history and science, all lavishly illustrated.  She also edited Temple Bar magazine. 
   
  Mary Elizabeth Braddon died on 4th February 1915 and is buried in Richmond Cemetery. 
   
  1 - Mary Elizabeth Braddon - A Short Story Collection - An Introduction 
  2 - Colonel Benyon's Entanglement by Mary Elizabeth Braddon 
  3 - The Cold Embrace by Mary Elizabeth Braddon 
  4 - The Face in the Glass by Mary Elizabeth Braddon 
  5 - Eveline's Visitant by Mary Elizabeth Braddon 
  6 - The Higher Life by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

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  A Torture By Hope - From their...

  Villiers de I'Isle-Adam

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  The bookshelves of European literature are incredible collections that have gathered together centuries of very talented authors.  From this continent their fame spread and whilst among their number many are now forgotten or neglected their talents endure.  Among them is Villiers de I'Isle-Adam.

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  Fallen Angel - A Jesse McDermitt...

  Wayne Stinnett

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  A rushed rescue mission doesn't go as planned for retired Marine Jesse McDermitt and the crew of Gaspar's Revenge. The two kidnap victims are rescued, but they'd rather be taken back to the Jamaican drug runners who were hired to kill them than return home to laid-back Beaufort, South Carolina, and give the man who wants them dead the chance to hire someone more competent. 
  Crisscrossing hundreds of miles of open Atlantic Ocean, with a weather eye on a powerful hurricane, Jesse and his crew come up with a plan to lure out the man behind the double murder plot. A high speed run from the Out Islands to the South Carolina coast is fraught with peril. However, Jesse knows that the real danger lies in the sleepy little coastal town not far from where he was once stationed. 
  When southern politics, power, and money collide, double crosses are the name of the game. Guns blaze and big diesel engines roar, in the spooky marshes of the Lowcountry, as an innocent child's life hangs in the balance.

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  Rambles and Daydreams - Short...

  Billy DeCarlo

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  Rambles and Daydreams is a short book of short fiction, a collection of short stories and flash fiction by author Billy DeCarlo, with two bonus poems. The works range from under 1,000 to over 5,000 words, and center around the quirky thoughts and behavior of everyday people, similar to the stories of Raymond Carver. 
  The centerpiece of this collection is Key West, a Hemingway-esque love story. 
  If you loved Raymond Carver's Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?, you'll love Rambles & Daydreams!

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  Twenty-Six Men and a Girl - From...

  Maxim Gorky

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  Alexei Maximovich Peshkov was born on 28th March 1868, in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia. 
  Better known as Maxim Gorky he was orphaned at 11 and ran away from home at 12.  At 19 he had already attempted suicide and thereafter travelled, by foot, across the Russian Empire for 5 years. 
  His first book ‘Essays & Stories’ in 1898 was a sensation and so began a long career as an author of short stories, novels and plays.  Gorky saw writing as a moral and political act that would help to change the unjust world around him.  He was an ardent early advocate of the emerging Marxist movement and publicly opposed the Tsarist regime leading several times to his arrest.  
  In 1904 he began his own theatre but the censor banned every play and Gorky was forced to abandon the project. 
  But Gorky was a financially successful author, editor, and playwright and gave monies to political parties as well as for civil rights and social reform.  The brutal shooting of workers, which set in motion the Revolution of 1905, pushed Gorky more decisively toward radical solutions.  
  In 1906 he went to the United States to raise funds for the Bolsheviks. Those experiences including a scandal over travelling with his lover and not his wife deepened his contempt for the ‘bourgeois soul.’ 
  Gorky now moved to Capri in Italy, both for health reasons and to escape the increasingly repressive times in Russia.  
  An amnesty for the 300th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty saw him return to Russia in 1914. His politics remained close to the Bolshevik cause.  But soon, after the 1918 revolution, his essays referred to Lenin as a tyrant for his senseless arrests and repression.  He was soon appealing to the outside world for food aid after the catastrophic crop failure. 
  In October 1921 Gorky returned to Italy, now in Fascist hands, and settled in Sorrento until 1932.  His health worsened with the onset of tuberculosis. 
  He wrote several successful books there but now decided to find an understanding with the communist regime. Stalin invited him home and his return was hailed as a major propaganda victory.  He was decorated with the Order of Lenin, and a province, a park, and various streets re-named in his honour. 
  But he had his faults too.  In 1933, Gorky co-edited a book on the White Sea-Baltic Canal and denied even a single prisoner died during its construction, but thousands had. As well, knowing that some Nazis were homosexual, a phrase was attributed to him that said ‘exterminate all homosexuals and fascism will vanish’.  Although he was himself was quoting another he was decidedly homophobic. 
  With the increase of Stalinist repression in 1935 Gorky was placed under unannounced house arrest. 
  Maxim Gorky died on the 18th June 1936 from pneumonia.  He was 68. 
  Stalin and Molotov were among those who carried Gorky's urn of ashes at his funeral.

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  Rising Thunder - A Jesse...

  Wayne Stinnett

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  Paradise isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be. Few people know this as well as Jesse McDermitt, retired Marine and former government operative.  
  In the aftermath of an intense mission in coastal Mexico, Jesse wants nothing more than to get back to his boat; to just sail away and forget all about the firefight and his warrior past.  
  The Caribbean sun is warm, the azure water inviting, he has the woman of his dreams at his side, and everything seems to be smooth sailing.  
  Until a severed leg is found tangled in a line securing Jesse’s dinghy to his 61-foot sailing yacht, Salty Dog. The former owner of the appendage turns out to be the eighth victim of a lunatic who kills for money and a former Russian smuggler who won’t pass up a chance for one more big score.  
  Jesse is forced to don the warrior’s mask once again. This time to catch a ghoulish killer who is stalking the villages and jungles outside Belize City.

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