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Extracts

Extract
Tom Clancy's Enemy Contact

He was a Scorpion. First Ensign Salvio was never more proud of that fact than now. He checked his watch.

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Ask Again, Yes

July 1973 Francis Gleeson, tall and thin in his powder blue policeman’s uniform, stepped out of the sun and into the shadow of the stocky stone building that was the station house of the Forty-First Precinct.

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The Porpoise

Maja is thirty-seven weeks pregnant.

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Frankissstein

Reality is water-soluble.

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Ellie and the Harpmaker

A woman came to the barn today. Her hair was the colour of walnut wood. Her eyes were the colour of bracken in October.

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The Girl Who Came Out Of The Woods

I stood behind the door and rattled its handle, even though I knew you needed a key to get in or out and I didn’t have one.

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The Guest Book

The fall had turned to winter and then back again without conviction, November’s chill taken up and dropped like a woman never wearing the right coat until finally December laughed and took hold.

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A Place of Stone and Darkness

Long ago, on a late summer’s day, strange creatures came over the mountain.

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Cari Mora

Two men talking in the middle of the night. They are 1,040 miles apart.

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Sixty Summers

Oblivious to the golden morning awakening around her, the chorus of birdsong and the heckling of kookaburras in the ghost gums, Maggie swam laps of the pool.

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Hush Hush

Someone tries to kill me at least once a day.

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The Parisian

There was one other Arab onboard the ship to Marseille. His name was Faruq al-Azmeh, and the day after leaving port in Alexandria he approached Midhat at breakfast, with a plate of toast in one hand and a string of amber prayer beads in the other.

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The Confessions of Frannie Langton

I never would have done what they say I’ve done, to Madame, because I loved her. Yet they say I must be put to death for it, and they want me to confess. But how can I confess what I don’t believe I’ve done?

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Machines Like Me

It was religious yearning granted hope, it was the holy grail of science. Our ambitions ran high and low – for a creation myth made real, for a monstrous act of self-love.

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The Aftermath

“We’ve found a house for you, sir.” 

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My Brother's Name is Jessica

There’s a story I’ve heard many times about how my brother Jason got the scar that runs above his left eye, almost parallel with his eyebrow.

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Lilac Girls

If I’d known I was about to meet the man who’d shatter me like bone china on terra-cotta, I would have slept in. Instead, I roused our florist, Mr. Sitwell, from his bed to make a boutonnière. My first consulate gala was no time to stand on ceremony.

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Lost Roses

I only put the centipede in Eliza’s slipper since I thought she was stealing my sister Sofya from me. I was eight years old and had just lost my mother. I couldn’t lose Sofya, too.

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Big Sky

And there’s the Ark Royal, keeping a good distance from the enemy...There were a couple of quiet explosions – pop-pop-pop.

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The Gulf Between

New Zealand, 1994: Sirens are wailing in the distance, a rarity in Queenstown, at any hour, day or night.

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How to Fix a Baking Blunder

What went wrong and how can I fix it?

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Run Away

Simon sat on a bench in Central Park—in Strawberry Fields, to be more precise—and felt his heart shatter.

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Out of Sight

I know within thirty-three seconds of entering the front door that my home is empty and my husband and daughter are missing.

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So What About Social?

It would be crazy — and probably impossible — to try to create a guide to anything in the digital marketing space in this day and age without touching on social media and the role that it plays.

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