The House Of The Book Novels & Stories

It was such a small thing but it made this great big house feel just a little bit more like home. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t what we saw. The library was huge. Absolutely out of this world insanely large. Every wall was covered floor to ceiling with shelves that were packed solid with books. A spiral staircase led up to a mezzanine floor with yet more shelves and the far wall housed a huge window. Several tables and chairs were positioned throughout the room for people to sit at. It was insane, and it felt like heaven, knowing that I would be able to read at any time, without the need for secrecy.

- I told him. He nodded and pulled several books out from one of the stacks and set them in front of me. I opened the top book and ran my fingers over the runes in the title. It was beautifully written as if each word was drawn with love and attention to detail. Now that I looked at it, it reminded me of a combination of Norse and Old English. Nerrian pulled his chair closer and pointed to the first word, speaking it in my mind than out loud in Draygonian. With his help, I repeated the word over and over again until I perfected it.

"Finally home!" Cela said to herself as soon as she stepped inside her apartment. It's still bare but already messy. Papers are everywhere and trash cans are full of empty soda bottles, instant noodle bowls, and take out containers. The evidence of working almost non-stop prior to the release of the second book are still inside the house. She couldn't even find time to take them out.

She couldn’t even remember the last time they’d been to The House. The House was a place where people could indulge in any hedonistic fantasy. No judgment. No condemnation. Damon Roche, a very wealthy businessman, owned The House and he was very discerning when it came to membership. Hell, for all Karla knew their membership had expired or they’d been taken off the guest list since they hadn’t been in two years.

I muttered and shuffled toward the library in search of the tan leather-bound book. Atticus’s library was enormous and the shelves of books also housed different magical artifacts on display. I was warned to not mess with them until I understood their properties. Searching everywhere I was growing frustrated. Heading down the last book case I growled. Not having any luck locating the book I gritted my teeth, closed my eyes, and raised my arms “Room of my family's bloodline please allow me to enter by showing me the book for your entrance!” Opening my eyes and tilting my head I heard movement down the row of shelving. Going toward the sound I see a tan book sticking out on the bottom shelf.

I noticed something while searching for the Library door. Apart from the main entrance to the mansion and the main hall, all the doors in the Avereza Mansion are of the same size. I said before that the door is actually a book but it's really a door designed in such a way that it looks like a book. It's made to look like an open book and there are 6 rectangular spaces placed in triangles on the door. Three on one side of the door, 3 on the other side of the door. Another rectangular space was found not on the door but on an anvil-like stone block in front of the door. I am pretty sure this book I have right now goes there.

"They were the ones who changed. I'm the one who continues." --- The book was published in the fall. The House of Stories, it was called. A collection of fragments — memories, letters, imagined conversations — all of them about the women who had lived and loved in this house by the sea. The reviews were kind. Not universal — but kind. People recognized the honesty, the vulnerability, the refusal to let the past disappear. This is not a sequel, one critic wrote. It's a meditation. On love, on loss, on the small acts of staying that make a life.

Every dollar they had, including the worn-down little house they lived in, had been swallowed by that bottomless pit. That was why he'd contacted Chloe and filled her head with stories about buying a house and cutting ties with me. He'd intended to use the money from the house to pay his gambling debts. In my previous life, I hadn't known what happened after my death. Perhaps his plan had succeeded. I was considering what evidence I could use to report him when I pushed open the hospital-room door. Chloe lay on the bed with her eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling, or perhaps at somewhere beyond it.

I rolled my eyes and muttered, “You're unbelievable.” “Come on,” he took my hand and pulled me deeper into the house. “There’s more to see.” The foyer branched off into several areas, including a large kitchen, a back porch overlooking the lake, and a corridor leading to other rooms. Built-in shelves filled with books ran along one wall, and despite their perfect arrangement, they didn’t have the boring feel of decoration pieces. They looked real, like someone had read them or at least intended to read them. “Do you keep this place this spotless yourself, or do you have an army of housekeepers hiding somewhere?” I asked, running a finger along the edge of a nearby shelf.