Janette Turner Hospital

Fifteen short stories of lives precariously balanced between the past and the present, between the real and the imagined.

Distinguished by allusive prose, telling characterization, and an unerring sense of place, 'Dislocations' is a remarkably accomplished collection of stories.

In an alternate version of present-day Manhattan, magic is dying, and Esta, a Mageus with a talent for manipulating time, travels back to 1901 to stop the destruction of a book that can possibly restore magic, but in Old New York, Esta must navigate gangs, secret societies, and her feelings for another magician in order to save the future of magic.

"In these stories Janette Turner Hospital explores the infinite incarnations of loss - lovers meeting again in midlife reexperience, through the memory of photographs, both real and imagined, the passion that both frightened and thrilled them; a young dental hygienist adrift, living in a hostel in northern Australia, receives a heart-wrenching visit from her drug-dependent brother; a mother and adolescent daughter move into a new house and their sense of safety is shaken when the previous owner reappears, desperate to reclaim what he has lost. Hospital's characters oscillate between estrangement and intense connectedness, between a permanent sense of dislocation and a yearning to belong."--BOOK JACKET.

Janette Turner Hospital weaves stories of heartbreaking poignancy, shocking power and steadfast resolve, all honouring a universal question: how can we maintain equilibrium in a turbulent and uncertain world?

Outer Maroo, a small opal mining town in the Australian outback, is stewing in heat, drought, and guilty anxiety. Some ghastly cataclysm has occurred on the opal fields, but this is a taboo subject. When, from time to time, strangers arrive looking for missing children, they mysteriously disappear. Until the day two strangers, on the trail of a missing son and a daughter, refuse to succumb to accidents. The repressed secrets begin to dislodge themselves. Once the walls against the past begin to come down, nothing can stop the avalanche. And at the heart of this mystery is the cult Messiah, Oyster, dressed in white, sexually compelling, and preaching the end of time.

Laura Fairchild enters a charmed world when eccentric patriarch Owen Salinger takes her in as his protege and confidante. In the patrician circles of Boston's Beacon Hill, she acquires grace, culture - and a passionate lover in Owen's nephew, Paul. But Owen's death shatters her dreams. Favored in his will, she now faces the wrath of his family, who close ranks against her. Disinherited, Laura vows to recapture all that has been ruthlessly taken away. With brilliance and flair she builds a hotel empire. Yet beneath her successful facade lives the outcast girl, longing for the home and family she has lost. as long-buried secrets rise like threatening clouds, Laura has to fight to regain her love, her family, and to claim her true inheritance!

The truth is closing in.Life's not easy for Sami Sabiri since his dad stuck him at a private school where he's the only Muslim kid. But it's about to get a lot worse.When Sami catches his father in a lie, he gets suspicious. . . . He's not the only one. In a whirlwind, the FBI descends on his home, and Sami's family becomes the center of an international terrorist investigation. Now Sami must fight to keep his world from unraveling.An explosive thriller ripped from today's headlines, borderline is the story of a funny, gutsy Muslim-American teen determined to save his father, his family, and his life.