Books with category Transformation Tales
Displaying 12 books

Shark Heart

2023

by Emily Habeck

Shark Heart tells the poignant tale of Lewis and Wren, whose first year of marriage is also destined to be their last. Just weeks after their wedding, Lewis is diagnosed with a rare condition: while he will retain his consciousness, memories, and intellect, his body will gradually transform into a great white shark.

As Lewis begins to exhibit the features and impulses of one of the ocean's most predatory creatures, his complex artist’s heart grapples with unfulfilled dreams. Can he find peace within this new reality?

Initially, Wren struggles internally with her husband’s fate. Is there a future for them after Lewis's transformation? Her journey is further complicated by the surfacing of long-repressed memories, which take her back to her childhood on a houseboat in Oklahoma, her college years with an ex-girlfriend, and her unique friendship with a woman expecting twin birds.

The Last White Man

2022

by Mohsin Hamid

From the New York Times bestselling author of Exit West, comes a story of love, loss, and rediscovery in a time of unsettling change.

One morning, a man wakes up to find himself transformed. Overnight, Anders’s skin has turned dark, and the reflection in the mirror seems a stranger to him. At first, he shares his secret only with Oona, an old friend turned new lover. Soon, reports of similar events begin to surface. Across the land, people are awakening in new incarnations, uncertain how their neighbors, friends, and family will greet them.

Some see the transformations as the long-dreaded overturning of the established order that must be resisted to a bitter end. In many, like Anders’s father and Oona’s mother, a sense of profound loss and unease wars with profound love. As the bond between Anders and Oona deepens, change takes on a different hue—an opportunity for a kind of rebirth, a chance to see ourselves anew.

In Mohsin Hamid’s lyrical and urgent prose, The Last White Man powerfully uplifts our capacity for empathy and the transcendence over bigotry, fear, and anger it can achieve.

Penelope Gilbert and the Children of Azure

When 13 year-old Penelope Gilbert accidentally transforms into a stapler during math class, she’s sure she's going crazy. But she’s not imagining the men in black suits now patrolling the halls at school, nor is she imagining the new substitute teacher who orders the class to take a special new test. A test that requires blood.

Hunted for her powers, and torn from the life she knows, Penny is swept up into a world in the clouds where magic meets machine and pirates rule the sky.

Aflame

Everyone wants to be me. Maybe it’s the sway of my skirt or the way I flip my hair, but I don’t care. Even though their attention is the last thing I crave, I just can’t stop. I dominate the track, the speed rattles my bones, and the wind and the crowd screams my name.

I’m her. The girl driver. The queen of the race. And I’m surviving—something he thought I’d never do. They all talk about him. Did you see Jared Trent on T.V? What did you think of his last race, Tate? When is he coming back to town, Tate?

But I refuse to care too much. Because when Jared does come home, I won’t be here. Tatum Brandt is gone. I’m someone new.

The Afternoon When She Died

2014

by Maria Johnsen

Immigrating to Norway is part of the grand scheme, a sacrifice Maya is more than willing to make for her parents. But she'll find that what should be a peaceful transition carries with it more baggage than she intends. The death of her parents in a tragic accident seems only to compound those struggles, but Maya is adamant on finding a way for herself.

Good graces bless her with the acquaintance of a young man, Tor, who refuses to allow her spirits to waver. In her spellbinding novella, Maria Johnsen weaves a tale of an unlikely union that spans across years of tumult. Between her reluctance to fully assimilate into foreign culture, long bouts of joblessness, and struggling to maintain a passionate relationship, Maya becomes susceptible to the supernatural.

As these malicious forces prey on her weakening soul, she must strive to make amends with the obstacles in life if she ever wants to find peace. Her supernatural romance tugs at the hearts of readers, pulling them along right until the smashing conclusion that transcends the boundaries between genres.

The Post-Office Girl

2011

by Stefan Zweig

The Post-Office Girl is a profound exploration of human emotions against the backdrop of a commodified world. Christine, a diligent worker in a provincial post office in post–World War I Austria, finds herself trapped in a country gripped by unemployment and despair.

Out of the blue, a telegram arrives from her affluent American aunt, inviting Christine to a luxurious resort in the Swiss Alps. Christine is swept into a world of unimaginable wealth and unleashed desires, feeling utterly transformed: nothing is impossible.

However, this dreamlike existence is abruptly shattered when her aunt cuts her off, sending Christine back to her mundane reality. Back at the post office, she meets Ferdinand, a bitter war veteran and disillusioned architect. Together, they are drawn into a relationship marked by deprivation, anger, and shame.

In a world where work, politics, love, and sex seem impossible, Christine and Ferdinand contemplate a desperate and decisive act to secretly remake their world from within.

This haunting novel, completed during the 1930s, captures the essence of a modern master's achievement, blending elements of Cinderella with Bonnie and Clyde in a narrative that is both hard-as-nails and deeply affecting.

Sing Me to Sleep

2010

by Angela Morrison

The Transformation
Beth has always been "The Beast"—that's what everyone at school calls her because of her awkward height, facial scars, and thick glasses. Beth's only friend is geeky, golden-haired Scott. That is, until she's selected to be her choir's soprano soloist, and receives the makeover that will change her life forever.

The Love Affair
When Beth's choir travels to Switzerland, she meets Derek: pale, brooding, totally dreamy. Derek's untethered passion—for music, and for Beth—leaves her breathless. Because in Derek's eyes? She's not The Beast, she's The Beauty.

The Impossible Choice
When Beth comes home, Scott, her best friend in the world, makes a confession that leaves her completely torn. Should she stand by sweet, steady Scott or follow the dangerous, intense new feelings she has for Derek?

The Heartbreak
The closer Beth gets to Derek, the further away he seems. Then Beth discovers that Derek's been hiding a dark secret from her that could shatter everything.

Pack Challenge

What's an Alpha Male to do when he meets the Alpha Female of his dreams?

Step one, hide all sharp objects.

All Zach Sheridan ever wanted was to become Alpha Male of his Pack and be left alone. What he definitely didn't need in his life was some needy female demanding his attention. What he never saw coming was the vicious, scarred female who not only demanded his attention but knew exactly how to get it.

Sara Morrighan knew this was the best she could expect from her life. Good friends. A nice place to live. And a safe job. But when Zach rode into her small Texas town with his motorcycle club, Sara knew she wanted more. She knew she wanted him.

But after one sexy encounter with her dream biker, everything is starting to change. Her body. Her strength. That new thing she's doing with the snarling. Even her best friends are starting to wonder what's going on with her.

But this is only the beginning. Sara's about to find out her life was meant for so much more. And Zach's about to find true love with the one woman who makes him absolutely insane.

The Crystal World

2004

by J.G. Ballard

J. G. Ballard's fourth novel, which established his reputation as a writer of extraordinary talent and imaginative powers, tells the story of a physician specializing in the treatment of leprosy who is invited to a small outpost in the interior of Africa. Finding the roadways blocked, he takes to the river, and embarks on a frightening journey through a strange petrified forest whose area expands daily, affecting not only the physical environment but also its inhabitants.

Through a 'leaking' of time, the West African jungle starts to crystallize. Trees are metamorphosed into enormous jewels. Crocodiles encased in second glittering skins lurch down the river. Pythons with huge blind gemstone eyes rear in heraldic poses.

Fearing this transformation as a herald of the apocalypse, most flee the area in terror, afraid to face a catastrophe they cannot understand. But some, dazzled and strangely entranced, remain to drift through this dreamworld forest. Travelling through this gilded land, the doctor tries to resist its strange allure, while a tribe of lepers search for Paradise…

Troll: A Love Story

Everyone has their rough nights, but things take a surreal turn when Angel, a young photographer, finds a group of drunken teenagers taunting a young troll in the courtyard of his apartment building. In Scandinavian mythology, trolls are known as wild beasts, but this one is just a small, wounded creature.

Angel decides to offer it a safe haven for the night. In the morning, he thinks he dreamed it all, but he finds the troll alive, well, and drinking from his toilet. What does one do with a troll in the city?

Angel begins researching frantically, searching the Internet, folklore, nature journals, and newspaper clippings. However, his research doesn't reveal that trolls exude pheromones with a profound aphrodisiac effect on those around them. As Angel's life changes beyond recognition, it becomes clear that the troll is familiar with his most forbidden feelings, possibly taking him across lines he never thought he'd cross.

A novel of sparkling originality, Troll is a wry, peculiar, and beguiling story of nature and man's relationship to wild things, and of the dark power of the wildness within ourselves.

The Golden Ass

1998

by Apuleius

The Golden Ass is a unique, entertaining, and thoroughly readable Latin novel, the only work of fiction in Latin to have survived in its entirety. It tells the story of Lucius, whose curiosity and fascination for sex and magic result in his transformation into an ass.

After suffering a series of trials and humiliations, he is ultimately transformed back into human shape by the kindness of the Goddess Isis.

Blending romantic adventure, fable, and religious testament, The Golden Ass is one of the truly seminal books of European literature, of intrinsic interest as a novel in its own right, and one of the earliest examples of the picaresque.

This enchanting story has inspired generations of writers with its dazzling combination of allegory, satire, bawdiness, and sheer exuberance, remaining one of the most continuously and accessibly amusing books from Classical antiquity.

Dances with Wolves

1997

by Michael Blake

Ordered to hold an abandoned army post, John Dunbar found himself alone, beyond the edge of civilization.

Thievery and survival soon forced him into the Indian camp, where he began a dangerous adventure that changed his life forever.

Relive the adventure and beauty of the incredible movie, Dances with Wolves.

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