Bitterness/Seven Stories

Romance

Orsini, David

Collections & Anthologies

NAP/SCARITH

In Bitterness / Seven Stories, David Orsini explores the lives of characters that are tested as well as transformed or defeated by the loss of a spouse or by the loss of children and other relatives during a world war. Some of the characters are tested by the aftermath of a fatal air crash, by terminal illness, and by unrequited love. The troubled human beings who activate their journeys within these pages include war-haunted veterans, a young protagonist who has inadvertently caused the death of his best friend, and a world-weary engineer who enters an unorthodox sexual triangle. These stories often portray characters who make unwise and sometimes perverse choices and who struggle to move forward to a new cycle. Bitterness  /  Seven Stories marks the debut of an extraordinary writer. His stories guide the reader into memorable encounters with human beings who stand at the cusp of new self-awareness.

In Bitterness / Seven Stories, David Orsini explores the lives of characters that are tested as well as transformed or defeated by the loss of a spouse or by the loss of children and other relatives during a world war. Some of the characters are tested by the aftermath of a fatal air crash, by terminal illness, and by unrequited love. The troubled human beings who activate their journeys within these pages include war-haunted veterans, a young protagonist who has inadvertently caused the death of his best friend, and a world-weary engineer who enters an unorthodox sexual triangle. These stories often portray characters who make unwise and sometimes perverse choices and who struggle to move forward to a new cycle.   Bitterness / Seven Stories marked the debut of an extraordinary writer. His stories guide the reader into memorable encounters with human beings who stand at the cusp of new self-awareness.

Bitterness / Seven Stories

Literature & Fiction

Literary

Createspace Independent Pub

In the summer of 1942, Marc Roussillon, a heroic French pilot flying with the RAF, draws his wife Simone into a plot to save his best friend Jean-Claude, who has been captured by the Germans. Aware of her influence upon Gerhard Hauptmann, a German officer, Marc urges Simone to persuade Gerhard to help her set Jean-Claude free. But, unknown to Marc, Gerhard agrees to help her only if she will sleep with him. Just before Jean-Claude is freed, Simone joins Gerhard for ten days in Switzerland. Falling in love with Gerhard confuses Simone and makes her feel guilty. She still loves Marc, but she also needs Gerhard. Their new, complicated relationship alters both Marc’s and Simone’s perception of themselves and of each other. Yet, in spite of their emerging self-knowledge, their obsessions drive them into darker territories. When he discovers that Simone has fallen in love with Gerhard, Marc tells Simone that they can save their marriage if she joins him in his plan to kill Gerhard. Lying, he convinces her that Gerhard is responsible for the deaths of many innocent people. Now Simone consents to Marc’s plan. She will meet Gerhard at a Swiss ski resort. There, Marc plans to kill Gerhard. But Marc’s plan unfolds in ways that he does not anticipate. Simone discovers that Marc lied about Gerhard. Now she hurries to save Gerhard from Marc’s revenge. In violent episodes that occur in Switzerland and in England, Marc, Simone, and Gerhard play out the turbulent resolution of their triangle.

The Woman Who Loved Too Well (1)

Quaternity Books

In Bitterness / Seven Stories, David Orsini explores the lives of characters that are tested as well as transformed or defeated by the loss of a spouse or by the loss of children and other relatives during a world war. Some of the characters are tested by the aftermath of a fatal air crash, by terminal illness, and by unrequited love. The troubled human beings who activate their journeys within these pages include war-haunted veterans, a young protagonist who has inadvertently caused the death of his best friend, and a world-weary engineer who enters an unorthodox sexual triangle. These stories often portray characters who make unwise and sometimes perverse choices and who struggle to move forward to a new cycle.

In David Orsini’s novella The Subtleties of Seduction, a boat race on Newport, Rhode Island waters during the summer of 1920 initiates a scenario of scandal, malice, and duplicity. Linda Maguire, a young woman who has always subdued her wilder impulses, becomes infatuated with Ryan Turner, a reckless nineteen-year-old youth. Linda’s engagement to Steven Bradford, a war hero and a promising lawyer, complicates her feelings for the two men. One afternoon, because she wants to be in the company of both men at the same time, she urges her fiancé to accept Ryan’s challenge to a sailboat race. But she is dismayed when Tracy, her younger sister, joins Ryan in the boat which he will be navigating. Instantly, she understands that Ryan and Tracy are lovers and that Ryan was merely playing a game with her when he roused her need for him. Ryan and Tracy have, in fact, devised the scenario of the boat race so that they can be alone together. What finally happens to Ryan and Tracy takes the rebellious couple as well as Linda by surprise.

The Subtleties of Seduction

In the autumn of 1944, Marc Roussillon, a heroic French pilot and Resistance agent, has recovered from the wounds that he sustained when a German officer, Gerhard Hauptmann, shot him. On assignment in Paris for MI5, the British Secret Intelligence Service, he becomes entangled in several violent episodes as he searches for the double agent within the Resistance who has been the catalyst in the deaths of thousands of Allied soldiers and pilots. Gradually, Marc becomes convinced that Hans Mueller is the double agent. Hans is a former Nazi pilot who, having left Germany, has joined the RAF and MI5. At first, Marc plans to urge Hans’s girlfriend, Valérie Moreau, to help him expose Hans as the spy and to kill him. Though he has never met Valérie, he is aware that she is a Resistance agent who has fought bravely for the Allies. He wonders whether her love for Hans has blinded her to Hans’s treachery.
 In his first meeting with her, Marc discovers that Valerie Moreau is actually his estranged wife, Simone. A year earlier, Marc destroyed his marriage to Simone when he forced her to kill Gerhard Hauptmann, the German officer with whom she had fallen in love after he helped her rescue a French pilot from the Nazis. Still working for the Resistance, Simone has disguised herself as the daughter of a Nazi sympathizer whom Resistance agents have assassinated. Determined to separate herself from her father’s infamy, the real Valérie had been working courageously as a Resistance agent until she was killed during a bombing of Paris. MI5 then assigned Simone to impersonate Valérie and to discover the identity of the double agent. In her relationship with Hans, she has become Valérie’s ghost made visible. Marc’s first meeting with Simone does not go well. She refuses to enter his scheme to trap Hans Mueller. Even after Marc and other Resistance people apprehend and kill the double agent and his cohorts, Marc insists that Hans Mueller is also guilty. But Simone believes in Hans’s innocence. She also suspects Marc of wanting to find a reason to kill Hans because she loves the German who has joined the Allies. He accuses her of falling in love not with Hans, but with Hans as Gerhard’s ghost.
 In England, Marc tries to draw his parents into his plot to trap Hans Mueller. He is surprised when they tell him that Hans may be innocent. Brave Resistance fighters, his parents caution him to search his real motive for wanting to prove that Hans is a double agent. Like Simone, they believe that Marc wants to kill Hans because he is a rival for Simone’s love. They convince Marc to join them at their Derbyshire home for a week. Simone and Hans will be there. At that time, Marc and they can further test Hans’s loyalty.
 During the brief holiday from the war, Marc meets Deirdre Sullivan, a lovely Irish girl who has left her home in Galway to become a nurse in war-torn England. Though they are attracted to each other, their trouble-haunted pasts prevent them from rescuing one another. Deirdre cannot let go of the ghost of her husband, who has been killed in the war. Marc refuses to let go of his obsession for Simone and of his memory of their lost happiness, which hovers—ghostly and insistent—about him. Becoming acquainted with Hans, he learns of the tragedies that the German has endured, and he accords him a grudging respect. But he is determined to win back Simone’s love. He is also determined to kill Hans Mueller.
 In a series of tense and sometimes violent episodes that occur in a Lincolnshire pub, in a Derbyshire forest, and in a park within the Monceau district of Paris, Marc, Simone, and Hans play out the bitter resolution of their triangle.

The Ghost Lovers (Marc & Simone)

The Woman Who Loved Too Well (Marc & Simone)

Eleven students and two teachers want to relive the year before the school shooting that killed them and try to change what happened. Right after they die, they arrive in Sojourn, a natural satellite located in a transitional space between their homes in Green Hills, Maine, and the First Heaven. If they stay in Sojourn, their bodies will vanish gradually, but they will reclaim them for special Earth-bound missions. While they are in Sojourn, five embodied Spirits conduct a tense courtroom trial in which they challenge the conflicting testimonies of the students about the events that precipitated the school shooting. This trial generates the background stories of the leading characters, as well as the abrasive exchanges between each of the Five Spirits and the students who are fighting to regain their lives on Earth. These stories include a student's wrongfully accusing a friend of causing a car accident that nearly killed six people; a jealous girl's murderous plot against her rival for the love of a daring athlete; a popular group's spreading scandalous lies about a sometimes-rebellious youth and driving him into madness and murder; a Neo-Nazi's plot to shoot a hundred students; a high school gang's rape and murder of an innocent girl; and a devious girl's attempt to thwart the school-shooting plan that she had devised. After the trial reveals the merits and wrongdoings of the group, the students and their teachers await the verdict that will decide their fates. If they are allowed to return to Earth, they must confront three violent encounters that will determine whether they can alter their wrongdoing, prevent the tragedy that killed them, and win back the lives that they have lost.VANISHING BY DEGREES is a Young Adult/Adult Fiction Crossover. Teens from ages 13-19 and Adults from ages 20 through 95 will be drawn to the novel.

Vanishing by Degrees

Teen & Young Adult

Eleven students and two teachers want to relive the year before the tragedy that killed them and try to change what happened. Right after they die, they arrive in Sojourn, a natural satellite located in a transitional space between their homes in Green Hills, Maine, and the First Heaven. If they stay in Sojourn, their bodies will vanish gradually, but they will reclaim them for special Earth-bound missions. While they are in Sojourn, five embodied Spirits conduct a tense courtroom trial in which they challenge the conflicting testimonies of the students about the events that precipitated the tragedy. This trial generates the background stories of the leading characters, as well as the abrasive exchanges between each of the Five Spirits and the students who are fighting to regain their lives on Earth. These stories include a student's wrongfully accusing a friend of causing a car accident that nearly killed six people; a jealous girl's dangerous plot against her rival for the love of a daring athlete; a popular group's spreading scandalous lies about a sometimes-rebellious youth and driving him into madness and crime; a Neo-Nazi's plot against a hundred students; a high school gang's attack upon an innocent girl; and a devious girl's attempt to thwart the school tragedy that she had devised. After the trial reveals the merits and wrongdoings of the group, the students and their teachers await the verdict that will decide their fates. If they are allowed to return to Earth, they must confront three perilous encounters that will determine whether they can alter their wrongdoing, prevent the tragedy that killed them, and win back the lives that they have lost.VANISHING BY DEGREES is a Young Adult/Adult Fiction Crossover. Teens from ages 13-19 and Adults from ages 20 through 95 will be drawn to the novel.

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Thrillers & Suspense

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Books by Orsini, David

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Orsini, David. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Bitterness/Seven Stories

Bitterness/Seven Stories

Bitterness / Seven Stories

The Woman Who Loved Too Well (1)

Bitterness / Seven Stories

The Subtleties of Seduction

The Ghost Lovers (Marc & Simone)

The Woman Who Loved Too Well (Marc & Simone)

Vanishing by Degrees

Vanishing by Degrees