John Boyne

A humorous short story from the collection, BEYOND THE STARS, written by an internationally bestselling author Abigail Crumb works every day after school at the local vet's while she saves up for a present for her pet elephant. So when she loses – and then finds again – one of the puppies in her care, she knows she can't tell anyone without putting her job on the line. But how will she keep her secret? After several chance encounters with Henry...

An elderly London resident befriends the little boy who moves in downstairs, but his parents' fighting brings her back to her harrowing escape from Nazi Germany at age twelve and grim post-war years in France with her mother. Ninety-one-year-old Gretel Fernsby has lived in the same well-to-do mansion block in London for decades. She lives a quiet, comfortable life, despite her deeply disturbing, dark past. She doesn't talk about her escape from Nazi...

Russia 1915 - Aged 16, Georgy Jachmenov steps in front of an assassin's bullet intended for a senior member of the Russian Imperial family. He is proclaimed a hero and soon becomes bodyguard to Tsar Nicholas II's son. 65 years later, visiting his dying wife in hospital, memories of the life they had together flood his mind.

"This story starts with a family. For now, it is a father and a mother with two sons. One with his father's violence in his blood. One with his mother's artistry. One leaves. One stays. They will be joined by others whose deeds will determine their fate. It is a beginning. Their stories will intertwine and evolve over the course of two thousand years. They will meet again and again at different times and in different places. From Palestine at the...