The Domain of Small Mercies


Book Description

Louis Phillips is a prolific and versatile author who has published over 50 books, including novels, short story collections, plays, nonfiction, and poetry. He has been a New York City resident for forty years and teaches literature at the School of Visual Arts.




Small Mercies


Book Description

Mercy needs to stand up for herself. She also needs a miracle.Eleven-year-old Mercy lives with her eccentric foster aunts - two elderly sisters so poor they can afford only one lightbulb. A nasty housing developer is eyeing their house, which suddenly starts falling apart - just as Aunt Flora does, too. She's forgetting words, names and even how to behave in public. Mercy tries to keep her head down at school but when a classmate frames her for stealing the school's raffle money, Mercy's teachers decide to take a closer look at her home life. With the help of a neighbour, Mr Singh, who teaches Mercy about Gandhi and his principles of passive resistance, Mercy finds a tool that can help solve her problems. But first, like Gandhi, she needs to stand up for herself. She also needs a miracle. And to summon it she has to find her voice and tell the truth - and that truth is neither pure nor simple. A book that already feels like a classic, Small Mercies holds a strong message for children today. Full of heart, it will shine among the best children's literature for years to come.




A Mercy


Book Description

A powerful tragedy distilled into a small masterpiece by the Nobel Prize-winning author of Beloved and, almost like a prelude to that story, set two centuries earlier. Jacob is an Anglo-Dutch trader in 1680s United States, when the slave trade is still in its infancy. Reluctantly he takes a small slave girl in part payment from a plantation owner for a bad debt. Feeling rejected by her slave mother, 14-year-old Florens can read and write and might be useful on his farm. Florens looks for love, first from Lina, an older servant woman at her new master's house, but later from the handsome blacksmith, an African, never enslaved, who comes riding into their lives . . . At the novel's heart, like Beloved, it is the ambivalent, disturbing story of a mother and a daughter – a mother who casts off her daughter in order to save her, and a daughter who may never exorcise that abandonment.




Small Mercies


Book Description

A killer is sending a message. But who is it for? DI Annie Delamere and her colleague DS Zoe Everett are off duty and enjoying a walk on the Peak District’s vast moorlands when they stumble across a mutilated corpse. The victim is unclothed and his tattoos indicate an affinity with the occult. While Annie is put in charge of the case her long-term partner, MP Sheena Pearson, is confronted by a group of far right extremists. Rather than back down Sheena chooses to stand her ground – and almost pays for it with her life. As more bodies are found, Annie is under pressure to prove her worth. But with one eye on her personal affairs can she catch a murderer and still keep her loved ones safe? And are the killings the work of a deranged mind – or a cover for something even more chilling? Don’t miss this first novel in a compelling new detective series that fans of Stephen Booth and Ann Cleeves will love. Praise for Small Mercies ‘Accomplished storytelling and perfectly meshed plot strands combine in this intriguing new series from Alex Walters’ Margaret Kirk, author of Shadow Man ‘Small Mercies gets Alex Walters’ new series off to a cracking start with a blend of police procedural and conspiracy thriller set in the atmospheric landscape of Derbyshire.’ Martin Edwards, CWA Diamond Dagger winner 2020 'Evocative, well plotted, with interesting characters and three concurrent mysteries. A definite 5 star read.’ NetGalley review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘The storyline weaves all the seemingly unrelated threads together into a nail biting finale. I held my breath more than once, and couldn’t put the book down in case something terrible happened!’ NetGalley review ⭐⭐⭐⭐ ‘Three plots swirl around each other, intersect and dance away again until the very end of this thriller where everything moves quickly to a totally unanticipated, breath-taking conclusion. I’m looking forward to the next in the series!’ NetGalley review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐




Domain of the Netherworld


Book Description

In a vast Bulgarian cave system, the discovery of new prehistoric cave paintings leads museum conservator Bryden,his nephew Chaz and their guide, Iskra, to a most shocking and bloodthirsty quest. Their survival skills are tested to the limit when they find themselves in a primitive yet magical world.




The Collaborators


Book Description

A new play by Louis Phillips.




A Little Life


Book Description

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A stunning “portrait of the enduring grace of friendship” (NPR) about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. A masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century. NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • MAN BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST • WINNER OF THE KIRKUS PRIZE A Little Life follows four college classmates—broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition—as they move to New York in search of fame and fortune. While their relationships, which are tinged by addiction, success, and pride, deepen over the decades, the men are held together by their devotion to the brilliant, enigmatic Jude, a man scarred by an unspeakable childhood trauma. A hymn to brotherly bonds and a masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century, Hanya Yanagihara’s stunning novel is about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. Look for Hanya Yanagihara’s latest bestselling novel, To Paradise.




A Boy Named Queen


Book Description

Who will be brave enough to make friends with the boy named Queen? Sara Cassidy’s acclaimed novel, A Boy Named Queen, is now available in paperback! Evelyn is both aghast and fascinated when a new boy comes to grade five and tells everyone his name is Queen. Queen wears shiny gym shorts and wants to organize a chess/environment club. His father plays weird loud music and has tattoos. How will the class react? How will Evelyn? Evelyn is an only child with a strict routine and an even stricter mother. And yet in her quiet way she notices things. She notices the way bullies don’t seem to faze Queen. The way he seems to live by his own rules. When it turns out that they take the same route home from school, Evelyn and Queen become friends, even if she finds Queen irritating at times. Why doesn’t he just shut up and stop attracting so much attention to himself. Yet Queen is the most interesting person she has ever met. So when she receives a last-minute invitation to his birthday party, she knows she must somehow persuade her mother to let her go, even if Queen’s world upends everything her mother considers appropriate. Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.4.3 Describe in depth a character, setting, or event in a story or drama, drawing on specific details in the text (e.g., a character's thoughts, words, or actions).




The Pleasure of his Company


Book Description

Louis Phillips, a widely published poet, playwright, and short story writer, has written some 50 books for children and adults. Among his published works are: six collections of short stories – A Dream of Countries Where No One Dare Live (SMU Press), The Bus to the Moon (Fort Schuyler Press), The Woman Who Wrote King Lear and Other Stories (Pleasure Boat Studio), Must I Weep for The Dancing Bear (Pleasure Boat Studio), Galahad in the City of Tigers, and Sheathed Bayonets (World Audience). Hot Corner, a collection of his baseball writings, and R.I.P. (a sequence of poems about Rip Van Winkle) from Livingston Press; The Envoi Messages, The Ballroom in St. Patrick’s Cathedral and The Last of The Marx Brothers' Writers, full-length plays, (Broadway Play Publishers). Fireworks in Some Particulars (Fort Schuyler Press) is a collection of poetry, short stores, and humor pieces. That book also contains his play – God Have Mercy on the June-Bug. Pleasure Boat Studio has published The Domain of Silence/The Domain of Absence: New & Selected Poems, and The Domain Of Small Mercies: New & Selected Poems (2).




American Elegies


Book Description

Louis Phillips, a widely published poet, playwright, and short story writer, has written some 50 books for children and adults. Among his published works are: six collections of short stories – A Dream of Countries Where No One Dare Live (SMU Press), The Bus to the Moon (Fort Schuyler Press), The Woman Who Wrote King Lear and Other Stories (Pleasure Boat Studio), Must I Weep for The Dancing Bear (Pleasure Boat Studio), Galahad in the City of Tigers, and Sheathed Bayonets (World Audience). Hot Corner, a collection of his baseball writings, and R.I.P. (a sequence of poems about Rip Van Winkle) from Livingston Press; The Envoi Messages, The Ballroom in St. Patrick’s Cathedral and The Last of The Marx Brothers' Writers, full-length plays, (Broadway Play Publishers). Fireworks in Some Particulars (Fort Schuyler Press) is a collection of poetry, short stores, and humor pieces. That book also contains his play – God Have Mercy on the June-Bug. Pleasure Boat Studio has published The Domain of Silence/The Domain of Absence: New & Selected Poems, and The Domain Of Small Mercies: New & Selected Poems (2).