Old Comedy Classics

Age has done everything except mellow the characters in Kingsley Amis’s The Old Devils, which turns its humane and ironic gaze on a group of Welsh married couples who have been spending their golden years—when “all of a sudden the evening starts starting after breakfast”—nattering, complaining, reminiscing, and, above all, drinking. This more or less orderly social world is thrown off-kilter, however, when two old friends unexpectedly return from England: Alun Weaver, now a celebrated man of Welsh letters, and his entrancing wife, Rhiannon.

It takes only one halfling bomb, and Offi Numminen’s world is turned upside-down - or downside-up, really, since he lives in a hole in the ground. His goth cardigans and aggressive melancholy set him apart from the other gnomes, as does his decision to fight back against their halfling oppressors. Suddenly Offi is the leader of a band of lovable misfits and outcasts - from a gryphon who would literally kill for omelets to a young dwarf herbalist who is better with bees than with his cudgel to an assertive and cheerful teen witch with a beard as long as her book of curses.

In the town of Night Vale, there’s a faceless old woman who secretly lives in everyone’s home, but no one knows how she got there or where she came from...until now. Told in a series of eerie flashbacks, the story of The Faceless Old Woman goes back centuries to reveal an initially blissful and then tragic childhood on a Mediterranean Estate in the early 19th century, her rise in the criminal underworld of Europe, a nautical adventure with a mysterious organization of smugglers, her plot for revenge on the ones who betrayed her, and ultimately her death and its aftermath.

A masked man. A night of passion. An unexpected revelation… After months of social distancing Christy has pandemic fatigue. She needs to socialize. She needs to talk to someone who is not on Zoom. She needs…to scratch an itch. A year of isolation is a long time to be alone with nothing but her battery-operated boyfriend to keep her company. When her friend suggests they get together in real life and attend an underground masquerade party downtown, Christy decides it’s worth the risk. She shares an incredible night with a total stranger, but when the masks come off and she realizes ...

Edgewood Rectory may be set in an ancient landscape, but the Grantly family are very much of their time. Caught up in the uncertain world that has emerged since the outbreak of peace, the Rector and Mrs Grantly are bewildered by the challenges facing their eldest children: Eleanor, longing for more excitement than can be found in the Red Cross Library; and Tom, struggling to readjust to student life at Oxford after his military service.

They’re destined to love each other from afar, until their worlds collide… Barista Camille has a secret: she’s got a crush. An all-encompassing crush on the glamorous older woman who comes into her coffee shop every single day at precisely seven thirty a.m. It’s crazy. Madison doesn’t even know she’s alive, but that doesn’t keep Camille from dreaming about her every night. Billionaire Madison has the weight of the world on her shoulders. The CEO of one of Seattle’s largest software firms doesn’t have time for dating, fun, or any type of a personal life. Too many people are...

A supernatural tale with a blithe spirit and a humorous twist. The year is 1920, and it's Twelfth Night by the old reckoning. Festivities are about to commence at Hinton St Cuthbert Manor when something sinister stirs from its protracted dormancy, awakened, it would seem, by the arrival of two young guests. The old ways, they find, should not be treated lightly. Also available in the Kindle collection A Ghost Story Omnibus: Collected Ghost Stories 2016-2018, and in the Amazon paperback Anthology: Wry Out West.

A Humorous Twenties Ghost Story. George Simpkins is in a state, and it’s not just because of the gin. His wife remains missing, his son a curious and callous enigma, and, most worryingly of all, his spouse’s erstwhile schoolmate, the witheringly waspish Cynthia, has plans afoot for his future. Welcome to the world of Hinton St Cuthbert, where London society collides with half-cracked Somerset locals steeped in cider and superstition, as well as a far from welcoming spirit. A follow-up story to Old Crotchet that opened the West Country Tales series, this dark-humoured ghost story will ...

The Mischievous Adventures of Fearless Phil of Old Bedford Road tells the story of the fall and rise of young Philip Stobonovich, a bright and adventurous boy who cannot help but get himself mixed up in all kinds of shenanigans on a near daily basis. One fateful assembly and a foot in his big mouth sees Phil demoted to the lowest stream in the school, the Didiots! And in the weeks that follow, him and his band of chums get themselves mixed up in all kinds of plots and schemes as they try to win the school competition and uncover strange goings on that are happening at Old Bedford Road ...

The moment I saw Stella at the gym, I knew I had to claim her. An instant forbidden attraction too hot to deny. Her curvy backside and seductive smile weren’t just amazing—they were a challenge I couldn’t resist. Our flirty banter quickly turned into the most erotic night of passion, revealing desires for power, control, and surrender we never knew we craved. Stella, a high-powered CEO twelve years my senior, has given up on love and relationships. A commanding presence in the boardroom, but secretly seeking surrender behind closed doors. And as a Navy man on the brink of deployment, ...

Il romanzo venne pubblicato nel 1840 su un settimanale , e come volume nel 1842. Si compone di una carrellata di personaggi e di descrizioni dettagliate dei luoghi attraversati dalla piccola Nell e da suo nonno, nella loro fuga da Londra. Il libro alterna momenti di caratterizzazione comica dei personaggi (vi si intravedono le radici di altri successivi umoristi di lingua inglese, come Jerome e Wodehouse) a passaggi drammatici, che, tuttavia, come in tutta l’opera di Dickens, non mancano di morale.