Showing results for "the-escape" in Literary Fiction

Tehran, Iran 1979: Simmering religious tensions explode and the Shah is forced to flee Iran. A British helicopter company—secretly owned by the Noble House of Hong Kong—with a fleet of helicopters registered in Iran faces bankruptcy if their copters are claimed or destroyed by the uprising. The pilots need to escape, but they’ve built lives in Iran, some even have families. Finnish pilot Erikki Yokkonen has married Azadeh, an Iranian woman of noble birth, whose family is caught up in the political situation exploding around them.

The Escape is a short story by Katherine Mansfield. It was published in Bliss and Other Stories. It was his fault, wholly and solely his fault, that they had missed the train. What if the idiotic hotel people had refused to produce the bill? Wasn’t that simply because he hadn’t impressed upon the waiter at lunch that they must have it by two o’clock? Any other man would have sat there and refused to move until they handed it over.

The more I knew of Haffner, writes Adam Thirlwell in The Escape, the more real he became, this was true. And, simultaneously, Haffner disappeared. In a forgotten spa town snug in the Alps, at the end of the twentieth century, Haffner is seeking a cure, more women, and a villa that belonged to his late wife. But really he is trying to escape: from his family, his lovers, his history, his entire Haffnerian condition. For Haffner is 78. Haffner, in other words, is too old to be grown up.

Sara has lost her zest for life. Trapped sharing a house with her soon-to-be-ex-husband, with grown-up children who still need her but take her for granted, working in a job where her boss bullies her, the final straw is the heartbreak of losing her beloved best friend Lainey. But Lainey’s death could be the beginning of Sara’s new life … as the last gift Lainey gives to her friend is a sum of money and a request – that Sara travels to Italy, the scene of the pair’s youthful adventures, and scatters Lainey’s ashes on the beach at Portofino. For once, Sara decides to be brave.

Running from a hazy past, mother and daughter tread lightly, checking in and out of hotel rooms, leaving all luggage and collected mementos behind when the mother knows they must run again. They make friends with no one and enemies with some. They are singular — a “Moon Unit”. Hotel workers place bets on whether the strange chain-smoking lady stole that beautiful girl away from her real mother, but to the Moon Unit the hotel people don’t matter.

Mary Davies finds safety in her ordered and productive life. Working as an engineer, she genuinely enjoys her job and her colleagues—particularly a certain adorable and intelligent consultant. But something is missing. When Mary’s estranged childhood friend, Isabel Dwyer, offers her a two-week stay in a gorgeous manor house in England, she reluctantly agrees in hopes that the holiday will shake up her quiet life in just the right ways.

Inside the beleaguered city of Rome in 1944, the Contessa Giovanna Landini is a member of the band of Escape Line activists known as ‘The Choir’. Their mission is to smuggle refugees to safety and help Allied soldiers, all under the nose of Gestapo boss Paul Hauptmann. During a ferocious morning air raid a mysterious parachutist lands in Rome and disappears into the backstreets. Is he an ally or an imposter? His fate will come to put the whole Escape Line at risk.

Joseph Levy leads a quiet life in rural Wheaton, Arizona. Retired from a long career in psychiatric research and practice, he reads, writes, and wanders through the mountains and hills near the Native reservation. His quiet life ends, however, when a dental crown replacement goes poorly just before meeting an internet date in California. Thus begins a year of back-to-back nightmare infections, a drug overdose, and two failed relationships.

Penny is settling in on Magnolia Island. As the new owner of Magnolia Daily, she's determined to make the most of her new investment. Nothing is going to get in her way. That is, until her rental floods and she's forced to find another place. Wanting to allow her daughter her own autonomy, Penny discovers there is a room for rent. Everything seems perfect until she realizes that it's in the home of Spencer - the quiet, brooding mechanic at Clementine's hardware store.

Stella Benson sets off for Hilltop, a tiny Sussex village housing a family that is somewhat larger than life. Her hopes for the Maddens may be high, but her station among them, as au pair to their irascible son, Martin - is undeniably low. What could possibly have driven her to leave her home, job and life in London for such rural ignominy? Why has she severed all contact with her parents? Why is she so reluctant to talk about her past?

Niko Kiriakos, tentative heir to the ailing Calypso Shipping fleet, always suspected he was cursed. Following his sudden disappearance, his wife, Anna, and daughter, Zoe, are left adrift. Unmoored, they begin to test the boundaries of their lives, struggling with issues of loyalty, identity and what it means to be a family. Spanning years and tracing a route from Niagara Falls to Greece, Escape Plans is an unblinking look at the ties that bind us together and the things that pull us apart.

A space-obsessed child conjures up a vortex in his mother's airing cupboard. A musician finds her friendship with a flock of birds opens up unexpected possibilities. A rat catcher, summoned to a decaying royal palace, is plunged into a battle for the throne of a ruined kingdom. Two newlyweds find themselves inhibited by the arrival in their lives of an outsized and watchful stuffed bear.

Born into slavery, Dahlia never knew her mother - or what happened to her. When Dahlia’s father, the owner of Vesterville plantation, takes her to work in his home as a servant, she’s desperately lonely. Forced to leave behind her best friend, Bo, she lives in a world between black and white, belonging to neither. Ten years later, Dahlia meets Timothy Ross, an Englishman in need of a wife. Reinventing herself as Lily Dove, Dahlia allows Timothy to believe she’s white, with no family to speak of, and agrees to marry him.

Navy SEAL Jack Thibideaux thinks as he stands over the shepherd girl he has just accidentally shot high atop a snow capped peak in Afghanistan. Thus starts Jack’s perilous journey to save the girl, and himself. With the Taliban close behind, Jack fights his way down the mountain to rescue the girl and find his own redemption.

Hauntingly beautiful, Sophia is a survivor. After a tragic accident that changes the course of her life, she is struggling to find her way. When Sophia stumbles across a picture of a Caribbean beach in a magazine, she convinces herself that this is the answer to all of her problems.... Secret desires, personal devastation, and obsession torment her dreams. She runs away to heal her weary soul on a topical island.

High school wrestler Jake Persson is living on vitamins and diet Mountain Dew as he fights to make weight at the height of championship season. In the small mining town in northern Minnesota's Iron Range where Jake lives, this is the most exciting thing that has happened in years. During his last meet, Jake confronts his future and the unnerving sense that his own body and desires are starting to betray him. Chelsey Johnson writes a gripping story about hunger, control, and wrestling down desire.

Dive into the captivating narrative that transcends captivity, weaving a tale of resilience, artistry, and redemption. 'Diary of a Braider' unfolds the extraordinary journey of Annagrace, a braider whose skill becomes a lifeline in the face of adversity.

What do Sherlock Holmes, Star Wars, A Christmas Carol, and Charlotte's Web have in common? Seven identical and profound themes. Actually we use only these four stories as examples of seven inescapable themes, found in whole or in part in every story in every medium from books to movies. I believe these themes are inescapable, not because our culture imposes them upon creators but because they reflect our deepest longings.

La rutina de Marcos, aplicado estudiante de Bellas Artes, asocial, retraído y enfermo de teoría, se ve interrumpida por la llegada a su pequeña ciudad de provincias del célebre Jacobo Montes, el gran artista social del presente, cuya controvertida y transgresora obra pretende denunciar los lugares oscuros del capitalismo contemporáneo.

We all do it. It's part of what makes us human. There are names for it - jealousy, envy, and sometimes even greed. We daydream about what someone else has. We convince ourselves that things would be better if we were someone else altogether: The grass is always greener, we believe. Or is it?