title: The Means of Escape
author:  Penelope Fitzgerald 
description: In her final book of fiction--published, alas, posthumously--Penelope Fitzgerald allows us a present of several very strange pasts, her narratives ranging from the 17th century to the late 20th. The title tale, set in New Zealand in 1852, seems to resemble a cautionary fable about a spinster and an escaped con. But in Fitzgerald's hands, it is infinitely more. When the prisoner ambushes the rector's daughter, disputation and attraction soon surmount fear, and yet with each bit of information he reveals, Alice Godley is on shakier ground. "I'm not innocent," he asserts, "but I was wrongly incriminated." He admits that he <i>had</i> meant to frighten her, "but that is no longer my aim at the moment." And, as a gesture of good faith, "He told her that the name he went by, which was not his given name, was Savage." Over the course of just 18 pages (which make it the longest in the book), Fitzgerald plucks comedy from terror, sadness from hilarity, and the surreal from the seemingly concrete. Here, as elsewhere, she gently but decisively upends her characters, and readers. And Savage is only the first of many uninvited or inopportune guests in <i>The Means of Escape</i>.
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  The Harpy’s Escape
  
  
  A Crimson Moon Hideaway Novella
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  By Renee Hewett
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  The Harpy’s Escape
  
  
  Renee Hewett
  
  
  A Crimson Moon Hideaway Novel
  
  
  Copyright ©2021
  
  
  Published by: Celtic Hearts Press, LLC
  
  
  Cover by: A Beautiful Mess Designs
  
  
  Formatting by: Celtic Hearts Press, LLC
  
  
  All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright
  Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
  or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording,
  or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in
  writing from the publisher.
  
  
  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either
  the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any
  resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or
  locales is entirely coincidental.
  
  
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  dist