A game of Scrabble has serious consequences.

A semi-barbaric king devises a semi-barabaric (but entirely fair) method of criminal trial involving two doors, a beautiful lady and a very hungry tiger.

I need air... I need to breathe, or I'll die... Helena coughed uncontrollably, her chest felt like it was on fire, and she kept throwing up salty water.

“What is it?” Ernest asked. It looked like a mad professor’s salad bar. “It’s my latest and greatest invention!” cried Mr. Oberon. “Watch.”

Oscar watched his housemate Philippa’s fingers move in staccato beats over the keys, each note prodded from the piano like a confession. All the same, he sang along.

My first great love was Seraina Gadient, the flower girl, as we called her then. I had just turned fifteen when I realized with horror that I had a massive crush on her.

A comedy about an unlikely correspondence.

Growing old is cruel. I don't recommend it to anyone. It's like snow in summer. Unseemly and ridiculous.

Albert peered out across the way. Snow stretched for miles. The earth remained silent. Albert was alone. As he had been for the past decade.

Helen was born wrong. Her daddy wanted a son who'd grow up to take over the family manufacturing business. Helen didn't qualify. Mommy wanted a dainty little girl. Helen wasn't dainty.

Most people would see that shoe and assume a drunken partygoer had forgotten it somehow, or that perhaps even a car had driven past and it had possibly fallen from the window unknowingly. But Jenny knew better.

Kevin's dad is convinced that there's one weed spawning all the others in his garden and he just needs to find it.

The whole exospecimen idea started the night Moses Garcia was bitten by an echidna shrew in his sleep.

Five years and Nolan had always been there. Five years and Dane always appeared nervous, as if it were a first date.

In the future, food is boring. Or, perhaps not.

I have a special reason for wanting to find someone with knowledge of French, and my intuition – which I always trust – told me I would find that person here in Zenpukuji Park.

It was impossible to miss. A blood-red diamond was flying in the sky, dipping and swerving with the wind. It was far outside The Hideaway walls, gliding high behind the tall, heavy gate, wind-beaten and soaring.

When he lost his eye, half of Eric Jessop's field of vision became a black sadness that seeped into everything from football to faces. Only skating was strong enough to resist the stain.

For Arabella, Christmas gifts were not judged on how expensive they were. They were an insight into how well I really knew and understood her.

“It’s always the same to begin with,” I said. “I’m on the beach. The sand is hot, the sun is bearing down. It makes the sand look white, like snow.”