The Blood Rose Tales Box Set features three paranormal romances set in the world of the Blood Rose. Each stand-alone story is shorter than the Blood Rose "Embrace" Series books, perfect for a quick read. Enjoy all three together in one set.Blood Rose Tale #1 - TRAPPED: Mastyr Vampire Zephyr, a one-man fighting force,can't keep away from Alesia and feels obligated to keep her safe. They'd broken up, unable to reconcile painfully opposing views on what should be done to the evil Invictus pairs. But when several wraith-pairs attack her diner, he flies her to safety, taking her home where they're trapped together for the entire day. His chronic blood-starvation problem surfaces and it soon becomes apparent that she's the key to taking away decades of suffering. But if she offers to take care of his needs, will he be drawn in once more only to have her disapproval ruin their relationship yet again?Blood Rose Tale #2 - HUNGER: Detective Yolen of the Nine Realms police forcekeeps his...

In The Christmas Letters, three generations of women reveal their stories of love and marriage in the letters they write to family and friends during the holidays. It's a down-home Christmas story about tradition, family, and the shared experiences of women.Here, in a letter of her own, Lee Smith explains how she was inspired to write this celebrated epistolary novel:Dear Friends,Like me, you probably get Christmas letters every year. I read every word and save every letter. Because every Christmas letter is the story of a life, and what story can be more interesting than the story of our lives? Often, it is the story of an entire family. But you also have to read between the lines with Christmas letters. Sometimes, what is not said is even more important than what is on the page.In The Christmas Letters, I have used this familiar format to illumine the lives, hopes, dreams, and disappointments of three generations of American women. Much of the story of The...

THE CHRISTMAS BASKETMore than ten years ago, high-school sweethearts Noelle McDowell and Thomas Sutton planned to elope--but then he jilted her. This Christmas, Noelle is home to celebrate the holidays, and she and Thom discover they are still in love. Now only the decades-old rivalry between their mothers stands in the way of a second chance together.THE SNOW BRIDEIt's a month before Christmas and Jenna Campbell is flying to Alaska to marry a man she met on the Internet--until her seatmate takes it upon himself to change her plans. Which is how Jenna ends up stranded in tiny Snowbound, Alaska, alone with Reid Jamison (plus a bunch of eccentric old men and a few grizzly bears). And then there's a blizzard.... Maybe she'll be a Christmas bride after all!

Continuing in a festive annual tradition, #1 New York Times bestselling author Debbie Macomber returns with a new original holiday novel full of romance and cheer—and the magical prospect of finding love in even the most guarded hearts. Friendly and bubbly, Julia Padden likes nearly everyone, but her standoffish neighbor, Cain Maddox, presents a particular challenge. No matter how hard she's tried to be nice, Cain rudely rebuffs her at every turn, preferring to keep to himself. But when Julia catches Cain stealing her newspaper from the lobby of their apartment building, that's the last straw. She's going to break through Cain's Scrooge-like exterior the only way she knows how: by killing him with kindness. To track her progress, Julia starts a blog called The Twelve Days of Christmas. Her first attempts to humanize Cain are far from successful. Julia brings him homemade Christmas treats and the disagreeable grinch won't even accept them. Meanwhile,...

I woke up in a cold sweat, knowing for a definite fact that death was a teenage girl and that she had been standing silently by my bed during the night...' Jim Beaudry, or Biscuit as he's known, is a teenage boy trying to stay out of trouble. But trouble has a way of finding him. Especially after his cousin L.A. turns up on his doorstep. When one summer afternoon Biscuit and L.A. discover the body of a teenage girl in the Texas wilderness, an investigation begins that will put both of their lives in grave danger. What Dies in Summer is a chilling and unforgettable page-turner that introduces Tom Wright as a major new talent.

Four lives. Four stories. Four sets of letters. Four brave souls in need of guidance while facing life's greatest challenges. The anonymously published Dear Life program is designed to help them step outside of their comfort zones, face their obstacles, and relinquish their demons...and prove their existence. With their lives teetering between wanting more and losing it all, all four souls dive into the program as a New Year’s resolution, sending them on a crazy, life-altering journey. Dear Life, Please be kind. Yours truly, Hollyn, Jace, Daisy, and Carter.**

Based on a true story, Arthur Japin’s new novel is a tale of consuming love and artistic creation that reimagines the last romance of the legendary filmmaker Federico Fellini.In Director’s Cut we enter the mind of Snaporaz, the lion of Italian cinema, as he slips into a coma in his final days. Having always drawn inspiration from the world of his dreams, he welcomes the chance to take account of his life and, in particular, his most recent love affair, with a beautiful but tempestuous young actress called Gala. Here is the story as Snaporaz tells it.Lured by the glamour of Rome, Gala and her boyfriend, Maxim, an actor as well, are hoping to be discovered when they manage the impossible: entrée to the studio of the great master. Despite an age difference of four decades, Gala soon becomes Snaporaz’s mistress, leaving Maxim, guardian of her secrets and her fragile health, to be an anxious and helpless observer of her physical and spiritual decline. As Gala becomes increasingly dependent on Snaporaz’s attentions, her desperation never to disappoint him leads her down a reckless path to anorexia and prostitution before the one true bond in her life is restored.Snaporaz’s intoxicatingly baroque—Felliniesque—account of the affair slyly challenges us again and again to ask what is dream and what is reality, and to conclude that the difference is irrelevant when such a genius immerses himself in his most natural element: the imagination. A dazzling tale from one of Europe’s most celebrated writers.From the Hardcover edition.From Publishers WeeklyThis story of romance between a young Dutch actress and a slightly fictionalized Federico Fellini flounders on poor plotting and overwrought prose. After being reared by a demanding father, Gala and an ambiguous male companion named Maxim travel to Rome in the 1970s to find their fortune as movie stars. There, the beautiful and epileptic Gala eventually attracts the ardor of Fellini stand-in Snaporaz. Told partially in the third-person and partially as Snaporaz's elegiac reminiscences, this potentially interesting story is hampered by clumsy prose; Snaporaz's frequent pronouncements often come off as banal or pretentious (I gather strange butterflies. My white is made up of so many colors). Plot momentum might have made such stylistic lapses easier to overlook, but Japin chooses to let his aspiring actors simmer in Italy with little to do for so long that Snaporaz's and Gala's eventual romance feels anticlimactic and belated. Though Japin, author of the widely praised In Lucia's Eyes, brings together a number of promising elements, this book comes up short. (Feb.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From BooklistA Dutch actor and actress travel to 1970s Rome in hopes of finding their big break in this latest offering from Dutch novelist Japin (In Lucia’s Eyes, 2007). Gala and Maxim have been companions for years; each is overjoyed when the other finds work. But when Gala comes under the spell of the celebrated Italian director Snaporaz (a thinly disguised Fellini), Maxim is besieged by worry. Beautiful Gala is an epileptic, and her seizures seem to occur with greater frequency in times of emotional distress. Gala pins all her hopes on a role in Snaporaz’s latest movie, but the waiting game she must play after their initial meeting nearly drives her mad. Meanwhile, she earns money as a female escort, while Maxim lands a solid film role. Snaporaz’s lust for Gala is undeniable, and the fling between them is both inevitable—and anticlimactic. Based on a true story, Japin’s novel is overlong, and the characters are lackluster. Still, there are some vivid depictions of life in Rome, and the Fellini connection may interest cinema buffs. --Allison Block

The second book in the Secrets of the Pied Piper trilogy finds Max, Carter, and their allies on Summer Isle battling new foes, relying on new friends, and fighting for stakes higher than ever, in a series New York Times bestselling author Adam Gidwitz called "a wild fantasy adventure." On the Summer Isle, siblings Max and Carter discovered the magical land where the villainous Pied Piper led the children of Hamelin centuries ago. But only Max made it back. Now she is determined to rescue her brother. To do so, she will have to find the one and only key to the Summer Isle. That key is controlled by Vodnik, a dastardly magician and soul stealer who will stop at nothing to get what he wants. Meanwhile, Carter must overcome his own troubles back on the Summer Isle. He's been separated from his friends and left with a very untrustworthy companion: the Pied Piper himself. Struggling desperately to find each other, Max and Carter...

A classic work of experimental poetry by a titan of modernist literatureTender Buttons, Stein's first published work of poetry, debuted in 1914 as a volume of powerful avant-garde expression. This meditation on ordinary living is presented in three compelling sections—"Objects," "Food," and "Rooms"—through which Stein delights in experiments with language. Emphasizing rhythm and sonority over traditional grammar, Stein's wordplay has garnered praise from readers and critics alike. In "A Piece of Coffee," for example, Stein plays with conventional language and cubist imagery to produce a stunningly original literary effect:A single image is not splendor. Dirty is yellow. A sign of more is not mentioned. A piece of coffee is not a detainer. The resemblance to yellow is dirtier and distincter. The clean mixture is whiter and not coal color, never more coal color than altogether. This ebook has been professionally proofread...

A summer with his family in Utah is all Jon Scott needs to pull himself together. It's time to focus on his mom's sobriety and the continuing education of his two younger brothers, Will and Max. For once, things seem to be on track with that part of his life. For the first time, he sees real hope for his family.This family time is a much-needed distraction from the relationship he walked away from in Manhattan. Livvy Holland, the girl he's loved since they were children, has let him down for the last time. He doesn't want to waste his time dwelling on the fight they had, or the shocking incident that happened the next day, after her graduation. It's something he'll never forget, or forgive.Things never go as Jon plans, though. Despite her actions and a distance of two thousand miles, Livvy has every intention of keeping Jon's attention throughout the summer with a series of 30 letters: three a week for every week he's gone. He doesn't have to read them; there are times when he simply doesn't want to. He has plenty of things keeping him busy: a job that requires long hours, family friends that come over for parties, brothers that ask too many questions, and a girl that's very unlike anyone Jon's dated before.But there's something about Livvy Holland that keeps drawing him back to her. Reading the letters will either break the ties, or eventually reunite them. His brain wants one thing; his heart wants another.By the end of the summer, Jon will return to Manhattan. He's come to terms with his past. He has a bright future. Back at Columbia, though, he must accept choices Livvy has made without him that will change his present plans. Review"Block is one of the best!" -- Washington Post (_Washington Post, DC_ ) Product DescriptionA New York Times Bestselling AuthorNew York City private investigator Ed London has a problem - or rather, the problem is his brother-in-law's. Jack Enright's mistress, a woman with secrets of her own, has been shot to death in the apartment that he pays for. But when the body, moved by London to Central Park, is finally identified, London knows he must act quickly to find her killer - before the killer and the police find him. 'Witty, wise and wonderful . . . Such fun!' Miranda Hart.Delightful and candid, this uproarious tale will have you in tearsWhen thirteen-year-old Tabitha's parents split up, she's forced to move down to London with her mum and brother. Sounds cool right? Well there's just one teeny tiny hitch. They're moving in with Gran . . . Mental, very much NOT cool Gran, who talks to (AND FOR) her knitwear-adorned dog Basil like he's the son she never had. Worse still, her mum has decided to start writing an embarrassing blog (much of it about her teenage daughter) and her younger brother Luke's favourite pastime seems to be 'annoy Tab as much as humanly possible'.All this embarrassment is particularly bad news as Tabitha has given herself a mission for her new school: to be the coolest, most popular girl there! Despite her family's best efforts, things get off to a good start as Tab quickly makes friends with A'isha and Emz (and manages to avoid total losers like... GFFs Rochelle, Robecca, and Venus begin to settle in at Monster High and are having a fangtastic time getting involved in the student body. Rochelle is tutoring the trolls, Robecca is blasting onto the Skulltimate Roller Maze team, and Venus is starting a compost pile with Lagoona Blue! The ghoulfriends are even recruited to help Toralei and Cleo plan the Hex Factor Talent Show. But during Mr. Mummy's Catacombing class, the ghouls find hints of a new threat to the school. And when white cats start showing up around the Creepateria-a bad omen for monsters!-the GFFs begin to wonder if their fun is over. Is Toralei playing pranks? Or is something more sinister haunting the halls of Monster High? There is an alternate story of the life of Jesus. One the early Church fathers found so menacing they outlawed the books that documented it, ordered them burned, and threatened anyone found copying them with death. International bestselling authors and award-winning archaeologists Kathleen O'Neal Gear and W. Michael Gear put more than thirty years of exhaustive research into this fascinating novel.In A.D. 325, Brother Barnabas is a student of the ancient holy texts. These books paint a portrait of Jesus that is radical, heretical, and irresistible. In the writings of Mary Magdalene, Phillip, and James, Barnabas finds clues to a secret he must protect at all costs. But the Ecumenical Council of Bishops has just declared his cherished books "a hotbed of manifold perversity." Emperor Constantine has decreed that the documents must be burned and that anyone found copying them will be executed as a heretic.Barnabas's monastery is attacked. Brother Barnabas flees... Julian Hawthorne was practically born to write; after all, his father, Nathaniel, was and remains considered one of America's greatest novelists. While Julian would obviously never reach the same heights or popularity enjoyed by his father, he also wrote a bunch of works, including this one. The residents of a small town in New Hampshire are a very upstanding lot. There is only one man they shun - the rather scruffy town drunk named Copernicus Droop. But Copernicus has suddenly stopped drinking. He has a secret. An amazing secret. He has come into possession of a time machine - an airplane-like invention called a Panchronicon. And he wants to use this machine to make himself rich. But he needs the help of his two cousins, Rebecca and Phoebe Wise. Plans are made. Time travel is attempted. Problems abound. The first part of the book - the part which involves the time machine and the journey, are clever and entertaining - in a 1904 sort of way. This is where the book sticks to it's sci-fi roots. About half-way through the story, though, the plot bears away from the Panchronicon and spins into many different diverse plots - all of which are made more difficult to read because of the stilted, antiquated dialogues used. Joe Matson, or "Baseball Joe," as he was better known throughout the country, sprang to his feet and held out a New York paper with headlines which took up a third of the page.There were three other occupants of the room in the cozy home at Riverside, where Joe had come to rest up after his glorious victory in the last game of the World's Series, and they looked up in surprise and some alarm."Land's sakes!" exclaimed his mother, pausing just as she was about to bite off a thread. "You gave me such a start, Joe! What on earth has happened?" --This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition. --This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.