James Langton

The fascinating characters that roam across the pages of Emma Donoghue's stories have all gone astray: they are emigrants, runaways, drifters, lovers old and new. They are gold miners and counterfeiters, attorneys and slaves. They cross other borders too: those of race, law, sex, and sanity. They travel for love or money, incognito or under duress. With rich historical detail, the celebrated author of Room takes us from puritan Massachusetts to...

Phaedra Patrick's debut novel, The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper, was hailed as "poignant" and "utterly endearing." Now she returns with Rise and Shine, Benedict Stone, a gem of a novel about family, forgiveness and one man's second chance at happiness. Moonstone for empathy. Azurite for memories. Lapis lazuli for truth… In the quiet village of Noon Sun, Benedict Stone has settled into a complacent and predictable routine. Business at his jewelry...

Convicted of thievery and transported from England to America, Oliver Cromwell Pitts, shackled to his fellow prisoners, endures inedible food, filthy conditions, and deadly storms on his voyage across the Atlantic. But the hazardous shipboard journey is nothing compared to the peril that waits for him on the colonial shores.   In Annapolis, Oliver's indentured servitude is purchased by the foul, miserly Fitzhugh, who may have murdered another...

First published in 1881, "How 7 Went Mad" is a short story by legendary horror writer Bram Stoker. The tale follows Tineboy, a young boy who is having difficulty learning his multiplication tables and those related to the number seven in particular. One day he falls asleep during class and begins to dream of a story his teacher told him about how the number seven went mad. What ensues is a Tineboy's experiences of a world without the number seven...

"The Burial of the Rats" is a 1914 short story by master story-teller Bram Stoker. Abraham "Bram" Stoker (1847 – 1912) was an Irish author most famous for his 1897 Gothic novel "Dracula", a seminal book that continues to influence the vampire genre in print and film to this day. This short, shiver-inducing story is perfect for lovers of the macabre and is not to be missed by fans and collectors of Bram Stoker's bone-chilling horror fiction. Other...

When I was apprenticed to theatrical carpentering my master was John Haliday, who was Master Machinist - we called men in his post 'Master Carpenter' in those days - of the old Victoria Theatre, Hulme. It wasn't called Hulme, but that name will do. It would only stir up painful memories if I were to give the real name. I daresay some of you - not the Ladies (this with a gallant bow all round) - will remember the case of a Harlequin as was killed in...

An old poet finds himself separated by many miles from his dying wife and is reflecting over their life together in his sadness and misery. Theirs was a story of two people from different stations of life - he, poor and she, rich. He worked hard to make a name for himself and, having done so, he returns to her to find out that she had loved him all these years and was waiting for him, as well. The poet is so distraught that with it having taken so...

The Seer, a short story, is actually the first two chapters of Stoker's seventh novel, The Mystery of the Sea. The tale is set in Cruden Bay, a locale Stoker used in other works, as well. The narrator encounters a strange woman during his stay at the Kilmarnock Arms, a small hotel that was actually located in the town of Cruden Bay and that Stoker himself frequented. The strange woman educates the narrator about the Second Sight, giving the listener...

A Yellow Duster follows the story of a couple that has recently come into a large amount of money. They spend a year traveling with an old friend of the husband, who notices that the husband is never without a certain collection of curios. The friend is fascinated by the curios, and decides that he needs to talk to the husband about the collection. When he asks about a specific piece, a yellow duster, the husband recounts the tale of how he discovered...

When a young couple moves into their new home, they are taken aback by the strange behavior of their new landlord. While at first he bid them to do all of the fixing-up the home needed on their own, he quickly changed his tune and was persistent in his attempts to help them tackle some of the rooms himself. The source of his desire to help lies in the fact that the old tenant may have hidden a fortune within the walls; a fortune that winds up belonging...