Fiction Inspiration

“Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”

– Neil Gaiman

At the Library

The cover features an image of a man and a woman wearing historical clothing from the 1800s. The man is leaning over the shoulder of the woman.

Anne Elliott, the heroine of the novel, overcomes social obstacles and the selfishness of her father in order to win the love of and marry the man she desires, Captain Wentworth.

Movie tie-in cover featuring a person in a futuristic suit and helmet.

An expert at simulated war games, Andrew "Ender" Wiggin believes that he is engaged in one more computer war game when, in truth, he is commanding the last Earth fleet against an alien race seeking Earth's complete destruction.

Illustration of a blonde woman holding a pink envelope covered in lipstick kisses with the title typed across the envelope.

After seventeen-year-olds Chloe and Shara, Chloe's rival for valedictorian, kiss, Shara vanishes leaving Chloe and two boys, who are also enamored with Shara, to follow the trail of clues she left behind, but during the search, Chloe starts to suspect there might be more to Shara and her small Alabama town than she thought.

After her moms moved her from SoCal to Alabama for high school, Chloe Green has spent the past four years dodging gossipy classmates and a puritanical administration at Willowgrove Christian Academy. The thing that's kept her going: winning valedictorian. Her only rival: prom queen Shara Wheeler, the principal's perfect progeny. A month before graduation, Shara kisses Chloe and vanishes. And Chloe discovers she's not the only one Shara kissed. Theres also Smith, Shara's longtime quarterback sweetheart, and Rory, Shara's bad boy neighbor. Shara left annoyingly cryptic notes, and the three decide to untangle Shara's trail of clues and find her. Thrown into an unlikely alliance, Chloe starts to suspect there might be more to this small town than she thought.

Illustrated book cover featuring abstract tropical fauna, a snake, and a pink bird.

Tells the story of the Buendia family, set against the background of the evolution and eventual decadence of a small South American town.

Illustrated cover featuring a cityscape with neon accents.

Five New Yorkers must come together in order to save their city from destruction in the first book of a stunning new series by Hugo award-winning and NYT bestselling author N. K. Jemisin. Every great city has a soul. Some are ancient as myths, and others are as new and destructive as children. New York? She's got six. When a young man crosses the bridge into New York City, something changes. He doesn't remember who he is, where he's from, or even his own name. But he can feel the pulse of the city, can see its history, can access its magic. And he's not the only one. All across the boroughs, strange things are happening. Something is threatening to destroy the city and her six newborn avatars unless they can come together and stop it once and for all.

Illustrated cover featuring a bride, four older women flanking her, and a wedding cake in the background.

Crazy Rich Asians meets The Godfather in this delightful and hilarious sequel to Dial A for Aunties by Jesse Q. Sutanto. Meddy Chan has been to countless weddings, but she never imagined how her own would turn out. Now the day has arrived, and she can't wait to marry her college sweetheart, Nathan. Instead of having Ma and the aunts cater her wedding, Meddy wants them to enjoy the day as guests. As a compromise, they find the perfect wedding vendors: a Chinese-Indonesian family-run company just like theirs. Meddy is hesitant at first, but she hits it off right away with the wedding photographer, Staphanie, who reminds Meddy of herself, down to the unfortunately misspelled name. Meddy realizes that is where their similarities end, however, when she overhears Staphanie talking about taking out a target. It turns out Staphanie and her family are The Family -- actual mafia, and they're using Meddy's wedding as a chance to take out a target. Her aunties and mother won't let Meddy's wedding ceremony become a murder scene -- over their dead bodies -- and will do whatever it takes to save her special day, even if it means taking on the mafia

Read Online

Illustration of two men and one woman in front of a crowd of people. They are all in historical clothing and hats.

Writing at the very moment when the foundations of Western thought were being challenged and undermined, George Eliot fashions in "Middlemarch" (1871-2) the quintessential Victorian novel, a concept of life and society free from the dogma of the past yet able to confront the scepticism that was taking over the age. In a panoramic sweep of English life during the years leading up to the First Reform Bill of 1832, Eliot explores nearly every subject of concern to modern life: art, religion, science, politics, self, society, human relationships. Among her characters are some of the most remarkable portraits in English literature: Dorothea Brooke, the heroine, idealistic but naive; Rosamond Vincy, beautiful and egoistic; Edward Casaubon, the dry-as-dust scholar; Tertius Lydgate, the brilliant but morally flawed physician; the passionate artist Will Ladislaw; and Fred Vincey and Mary Garth, childhood sweethearts whose charming courtship is one of the many humorous elements in the novel's rich comic vein.

(Summary via Fantastic Fiction)

An image that is a mixture of a dragon and many swords acting as scales.

Summers span decades. Winter can last a lifetime. And the struggle for the Iron Throne has begun.

It will stretch from the south, where heat breeds plot, lust and intrigues; to the vast frozen north, where a 700-foot wall of ice protects the kingdom from the dark forces that lie beyond.

As Warden of the North, Lord Eddard Stark counts it a curse when King Robert bestows on him the office of the Hand. His honour weighs him down at court where a true man does what he will, not what he must...and a dead enemy is a thing of beauty.

The old gods have no power in the south, Stark's family is split and there is treachery at court. Worse, a vengeance-mad boy has grown to maturity in exile in the Free Cities beyond the sea. Heir of the mad Dragon King deposed by Robert, he claims the Iron Throne.

In the game of thrones, you win or you die.

(Summary via Fantastic Fiction)

A side profile of a deer with antlers against a dark background.

Ricky, Gabe, Lewis and Cassidy are men bound to their heritage, bound by society, and trapped in the endless expanses of the landscape. Now, ten years after a fateful elk hunt, which remains a closely guarded secret between them, these men – and their children – must face a ferocious spirit that is coming for them, one at a time. A spirit which wears the faces of the ones they love, tearing a path into their homes, their families and their most sacred moments of faith.


Ten years after that fateful hunt, these men are being stalked themselves. Soaked with a powerful gothic atmosphere, the endless expanses of the landscape press down on these men – and their children – as the ferocious spirit comes for them one at a time.


The Only Good Indians, charts Nature’s revenge on a lost generation that maybe never had a chance. Cleaved to their heritage, these parents, husbands, sons and Indians, men live on the fringes of a society that has rejected them, refusing to challenge their exile to limbo.

(Summary via Fantastic Fiction)

Ripped black paper revealing a red background with the title. A hand is reaching with a pencil toward the title as though writing it.

Holly Golightly knows that nothing bad can ever happen to you at Tiffany's. In this seductive, wistful masterpiece, Capote created a woman whose name has entered the American idiom and whose style is a part of the literary landscape—her poignancy, wit, and naïveté continue to charm.This volume also includes three of Capote's best-known stories, “House of Flowers,” “A Diamond Guitar,” and “A Christmas Memory,” which the Saturday Review called “one of the most moving stories in our language.” It is a tale of two innocents—a small boy and the old woman who is his best friend—whose sweetness contains a hard, sharp kernel of truth.

Somber orange face wearing a headdress of leaves all on a black background.

In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe is a strange child--not powerful, like her father, nor viciously alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she discovers that she does possess power--the power of witchcraft, which can transform rivals into monsters and menace the gods themselves. Threatened, Zeus banishes her to a deserted island, where she hones her occult craft, tames wild beasts and crosses paths with many of the most famous figures in all of mythology, including the Minotaur, Daedalus and his doomed son Icarus, the murderous Medea, and, of course, wily Odysseus. But there is danger, too, for a woman who stands alone, and Circe unwittingly draws the wrath of both men and gods, ultimately finding herself pitted against one of the most terrifying and vengeful of the Olympians. To protect what she loves most, Circe must summon all her strength and choose, once and for all, whether she belongs with the gods she is born from, or the mortals she has come to love. With unforgettably vivid characters, mesmerizing language and page-turning suspense, Circe is a triumph of storytelling, an intoxicating epic of family rivalry, palace intrigue, love and loss, as well as a celebration of indomitable female strength in a man's world.

Yellow pattern on a lighter yellow background simulating wallpaper.

A groundbreaking feminist masterpiece and one of the most exquisite horror stories in American literature Diagnosed by her physician husband with a "temporary nervous depression--a slight hysterical tendency" after the birth of her child, a woman is urged to rest for the summer in an old colonial mansion. Forbidden from doing work of any kind, she spends her days in the house's former nursery, with its barred windows, scratched floor, and peeling yellow wallpaper. In a private journal, the woman records her growing obsession with the "horrid" wallpaper. Its strange pattern mutates in the moonlight, revealing what appears to be a human figure in the design. With nothing else to occupy her mind, the woman resolves to unlock the mystery of the wallpaper. Her quest, however, leads not to the truth, but into the darkest depths of madness. A masterly use of the unreliable narrator and a scathing indictment of patriarchal medical practices, The Yellow Wallpaper is a true American classic. This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.

Streaming

Close up image of Chloë Grace Moretz's face

Based on the celebrated novel by Emily M. Danforth, The Miseducation of Cameron Post follows the titular character (Chloë Grace Moretz) as she is sent to a gay conversion therapy center after getting caught with another girl in the back seat of a car on prom night.

A grid with six close ups of different characters' faces.

A young writer heads across country with a free-spirited couple. Kristen Stewart stars in this sexy adventure based on the iconic novel.

Close up on the face of Frankenstein a man with green skin lit from below.

A scientist uses corpses to create a monster, who later incurs the wrath of the local villagers when he impulsively kills a little girl. Subsequently seeking out his creator, the creature flees with him to a nearby windmill.

A Clockwork Orange Movie Poster

In a futuristic welfare state, Alex (Malcolm McDowell), a vicious young hoodlum, sleeps all day and spends his nights roaming the city with his droogs (friends), assaulting innocent people in the streets and in their homes. Finally captured by the police, Alex undergoes rehabilitation in the form of aversion therapy as brutal and horrifying as any of his offenses. Based on the novel by Anthony Burgess.

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