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Welcome to the Japan of tomorrow. Here, the practice of radical sympathy toward criminals has become normalized. The incarcerated are considered victims influenced by their environments to commit crime and are labeled accordingly as Homo miserabilis. A grand, yet controversial, skyscraper in the heart of Tokyo is planned to house lawbreakers in compassionate comfort—Sympathy Tower Tokyo. Acclaimed architect Sara Machina has been tasked with designing the city’s new centerpiece but is filled with doubt.

When Nora landed an editorial assistant role at Parsons Press she thought it would be The Dream Job. But after five years of admin and taking lunch orders, Nora has come to the conclusion: Dream Jobs do not exist. With her life spiralling and unable to afford her rent, Nora does the only thing she can think of and starts freelancing for a rival publisher. But when Andrew Santos, a bestselling author (who also happens to be quite attractive), is thrown into Nora’s life, she must decide where her loyalties lie, and whether she’s ready to choose herself and her future over her job.

The regulars at the magical Cafe Funiculi Funicula are well acquainted with its famous legend and extraordinary, secret menu time travel offering. Many patrons have reunited with old flames, made amends with estranged family, and visited loved ones. But the journey is not without risks and there are rules to follow. Travellers must have visited the cafe previously and most importantly, must return to the present in the time it takes for their coffee to go cold.

Situated in a rapidly gentrifying district of Seoul, Yeonnam-Dong's Smiley Laundromat is a place where the extraordinary stories of ordinary residents unfold. Furnished with a coffee machine, a full bookshelf, and warm lighting, it is a haven from the world for many locals. And when a notebook is left behind there, it becomes a place that brings people together. One by one, customers start jotting down candid diary entries, opening their hearts and inviting acts of kindness from neighbours who were once just faces in the crowd. But there is a darker story behind the notebook...

In the fifth book in the sensational Before the Coffee Gets Cold series translated from Japanese, the mysterious café where customers arrive hoping to travel back in time welcomes four new guests. They must follow the café's strict rules, however, and come back to the present before their coffee goes cold. Another moving and heartwarming tale from Toshikazu Kawaguchi, in Before we forget kindness our new visitors wish to go back into their past to move on their present, finding closure and comfort so they can embark on a beautiful future.

In a busy maternity ward, first-time father Dan meets Jada, a dad welcoming his fifth — no, sixth? — child into the world. Dan and Jada come from very different places: both called Glasgow. Dan is a successful TV writer with a townhouse in the West End and a shiny Tesla ready to drive his wife and baby home. Jada is a hustling, small-time criminal who is already planning how to separate Dan from some of the luxuries Jada has never been able to enjoy in his tiny flat in a Brutalist sixties council block. Both men find that the birth of their sons has fired their ambitions.

Lucy and her eight-month-old son live in a Winnipeg housing project filled with single mothers on the dole. Still dealing with her own mother’s sudden death, and new to the ever-multiplying complications of life on welfare, Lucy strikes up a friendship with her neighbour, Lish. On the whole, they’re pretty happy… But Lucy wants to make sure they stay happy. And she has a plan.

After years behind bars, Alex is finally free and determined to go straight. No more trouble, no more deals—just a clean slate for him and his family and a legit life running his old pub. But the streets don’t forget, and neither do old enemies. Coming home isn’t the reunion he hoped for. With his daughter Deana missing, Alex discovers the kids have dragged the wrong kind of trouble to his doorstep. A turf war is brewing and for the first time in his life, Alex is on the losing side.

Mistake #1: One scorching night with Jacob Walker, Chicago Blade's notorious playboy and my brother's best friend. Mistake #2: Agreeing to be his fake fiancé to save his career. Mistake #3: Falling for the man who doesn't know he's about to become our baby's daddy. Jacob has a body forged in steel and a smile that can melt the ice… he's every woman's fantasy. I'm the team's new strait-laced PR executive tasked with cleaning up his image... while hiding my growing secret. Whenever he holds me close for the cameras, it feels less like pretend.

Verity Lockwood despises life at Far View House, where her father and mill owner, Jebediah Lockwood, drowns his fortune—and his wits—in drink. With debts mounting, whispers spread—how much longer can Lockwood’s Mill survive? The dark and dirty mills of Yorkshire are no place for a gently bred young woman, but when Verity learns that her father’s ruin threatens not only her home but the livelihoods of the workers who depend on it, she refuses to stand idly by.

My fiancé was found dead. I was on a hunt for the beast who murdered him. I didn't mean to fall into the devil's sculpted arms. Lorenzo Duretti's touch became my obsession—his darkness, my desire. Now, I'm torn between revenge and protection. I need both. Because the baby in my womb will be bound to his father's deadly empire. Lorenzo swears he'll keep us safe, but how can I trust a ruthless killer?

When seemingly fragile Miss Ivy Cavendale takes the headmistress position in an orphanage, it is her chance to stay anonymous in society. But not all is what it seems with Miss Ivy. When an intruder breaks in one night, she’s quick to draw her weapon, and while fear—her constant companion—has mysteriously disappeared, one thing is very clear: she and her charges are the next target of The Devil’s Sons.

Jack was never “right,” but that’s a lot of what made him magnetic to other people. When he was younger, he was that guy that girls wanted to be around. People were drawn in by him, even later on when there wasn’t much of him left. I never understood that. He never really put a lot of energy into grooming and maintaining relationships with people. I guess when you see someone that is content spending their time alone, it creates a vacuum and people flood in like water choking a storm drain. Even as his deterioration became apparent, people threw him lifelines.

Get your crimper out, your mohawk ready and your best punk pout on—the Queens of Noise have arrived! Set in 1980s London, this modern music drama charts the rise of a girl punk band. Packed with classic hits as well as the girls very own songs, this is a drama with punk power for any music lover. Writers and music industry veterans Louise Wener (ex-singer of Sleeper) and Roy Boulter (drummer with The Farm) bring their wealth of experience to this story of a young band chasing their dream and getting their big break.

When Bunny Linden abandons her three children with her older sister, Jayne, in 1972, she knows Jayne will be the perfect mother. The mother Bunny, a teen runaway, could never be. As months turn into years without word, Jayne and her husband, Rodger, a rising journalism star, strive to give the children the opportunity to flourish and feel loved. When Jayne and Rodger finally have a child of their own, a seemingly stable home is built. But then, after nearly a decade, Bunny resurfaces and sets a chain of events in motion that detonates all their lives.

Panicked by his own mortality, despondent over his many failings as a writer and a man, Dunne leaves his wife and their three-year old child for the solitude of a crummy apartment off the Vegas Strip. There he plans to write an account of the city as he finds it; the book he ends up writing is "a fiction which recalls time both real and imagined."

In this series we listen to short stories that are NOT by perhaps the most well-known author of this type. But the many other rich talents in the volume may have treated the subject matter a little differently, or were perhaps just overlooked in the stampede to applaud the winner, but these authors are of equal merit.

One wealth-obsessed man – who is also dead. One status-obsessed woman – who is the perfect accessory. Their four inheritance-obsessed children – each with a killer instinct. And a murder-obsessed outsider looking to expose them all. But there’s one thing money can’t buy… and that’s the truth.

London has ground Daniel down. Grasping for an escape from the urban drudgery of his life, he is enticed by a free trip and the promise of ten thousand dollars, all for the simple delivery of a package for an acquaintance. Finding himself quickly ensnared in the murky netherworld of drug smuggling, Daniel’s life descends into a montage of casinos and grungy hotels, stuck in New Zealand when he wins and loses a fortune in one night. Grit and tenacity will be his only redemption in this illicit pressure-cooker of a world.

Fleeing Tucson and her rotten (ex) girlfriend, Michelle lands in the Mission District, where queers from all over the country are arriving in search of themselves and each other. An aspiring poet, she hurls herself into the city’s riotous underbelly, stumbling through nightlife and open mics, drug adventures, and a string of hookups, breakups, and makeups. As butches and besties spin in and out of Michelle’s orbit, she ponders the powerful force and casual cruelty of their desires, and of her own—all in a singular, biting, deadpan voice shot through with humor and heartbreak.