Sisters Andrea and Kathleen hope for a pleasant winter weekend in the Canaan Valley—until their hotelkeeper is murdered. The sheriff enlists the sisters’ help, since they discovered the body, and they’re staying in the hotel where the crime occurred. There are several suspects, and plenty of clues. Can Andrea and Kathleen solve the case before they become the next victims?Retirement is a time for knitting, gardening, and an occasional quiet lunch with friends, according to Kathleen Williamson. Her sister Andrea has an altogether different point of view. When the sisters go to the Canaan Valley to search for paintings mentioned in a document found in an old hotel once owned by their grandparents—paintings that might be Monets—Andrea immediately becomes involved in tracking down a murderer. Kathleen would much rather be looking for the paintings, but she goes along with Andrea, since the victim was their hotel-keeper, murdered just down the hall from their room. The question is: Does the murder have something to do with the elusive paintings?There are many clues and many suspects, including hotel staff, valley residents, and the mysterious foreigners who come from the Eastern Seaboard for skiing. There are also many types of danger—icy roads, sub-zero temperatures, and a killer who doesn’t care how many people die in the attempt to make sure the right ones do.

Photobombed is an after-school special in short story form about a girl named Alaya whose innocent selfie leads to the gravest of unintended consequences.Five short stories of friendship and love from the author of Since You've Been Gone.1. Emily finds comfort in the words of a wise old gentleman when her marriage hits the rocks.2. A modern adaption of John Keats 'The Eve of St Agnes'. Madeline and Porphyro, two star-crossed lovers from opposing families must find a way out of their lives so that they can be together.3. Alice discovers that Heaven isn't what she thought it was when she takes on the higher order of angels in an attempt to overthrow their ruling, in this amusing tale of heavenly disorder and a Divine Deity unlike any you've read about.4. Scarlett finds her job at the morgue gets a little too lively when Robbie turns up to haunt her into helping him solve the mystery of his death.5. Friends come together for a school reunion. Secrets, old loves and long-held jealousies come to the fore as the evening wears on.

Fourteen years after fleeing Kenya with her baby daughter, Corinne returned in the summer of 2004 to meet Lketinga and his family again in their village, Barsaloi.

It's time to go back to the fascinating 35th century world of Rome’s Revolution. Tales of the Vuduri: Year Three offers you 366 additional entries containing even more scientific tidbits, unrevealed secrets and back stories. Often amusing but always thought-provoking, these detailed articles should provide some entertaining insights into this brave new and amazing world.How would you like to visit the 35th century? Well, now you can. Tales of the Vuduri is a daily blog, to date over 1100 entries long, examining the amazing world of the 35th century first described in the novel Rome’s Revolution. The first two volumes of Tales of the Vuduri explored only a portion of the background and future history leading up to the Rome’s Revolution trilogy and its sequel, The Milk Run. Tales of the Vuduri: Year Three follows on the heels of those successful first two compilations with 366 brand new essays about our 21st century hero, Rei Bierak and his beautiful 35th century Vuduri wife, Rome and their children, Aason and Lupe. This volume focuses on detailed breakdowns of some of the more important scenes from those stories was well as highlighting today’s emerging breakthroughs in technology, physics, chemistry and genetics. Included in this collection are posts regarding computer simulations of our universe, dystopias, hybrid vigor and the immortal jellyfish. Also included are previews of the upcoming novel MASAL – The Robot War, how Hawaii strongly influenced these novels and a detailed description of how the Earth would look if global warming continues unabated. Like Tales of the Vuduri: Year One and Year Two, these essays should be amusing, thought-provoking and give you more insight into the fascinating world of Rome’s Revolution and The Milk Run. So come to the 35th century and be amazed at what you find there.

A tale of witches and werecats. Morgan is a wannabe witch with a fear of cats and a traumatic history that puts her straight into the path of trouble. When a large black cat races into her house to escape a dog attack, she considers it just another example of how bad her luck has become. But her life was about to be turned upside down by an ultra-sexy stranger that has a few dark secrets of hisA tale of witches and werecats. Morgan is a wannabe witch with a fear of cats and a traumatic history that puts her straight into the path of trouble. When a large black cat races into her house to escape a dog attack, she considers it just another example of how bad her luck has become. But this was no ordinary cat. Her life was about to be turned upside down by an ultra-sexy stranger that has a few dark secrets of his own.

I am not an object of desire because of who I am, but because there is something I know how to do better than anyone else. I show people their deepest desires, the ones they cannot get themselves to acknowledge.Hold my hand as we head to hell, I know that’s where you want to be. It will seem so natural to go down that path when you and I walk side by side. I am the Mediator.I am not an object of desire because of who I am, but because there is something I know how to do better than anyone else. I show people their deepest desires, the ones they cannot get themselves to acknowledge.Hold my hand as we head to hell, I know that’s where you want to be. It will seem so natural to go down that path when you and I walk side by side. My innocence is infinite.I am the Mediator.

Eustace and Emily were just settling down for a quiet night of watching an old movie and eating pizza. However, an uninvited visitor had other ideas.Book 1 - Brotherhood of the Throne -When Duke Thorold murders her mother,indentured servant Brenna Trewen flees to Kingsreach. Forced to live in the shadows, she’s caught stealing from the Church of the One-God and comes to the attention of Kane Rowse. But Kane is more than the Captain of the Kingsguard, he’s also a senior member of the Brotherhood of the Throne, a secret society that follows the old gods and was formed generations ago to safeguard the bloodline of the first king.And with the childless king dying, the Brotherhood is convinced that Brenna is the one prophesied – the one they have waited two millennia for. Despite her new-found magical abilities, Brenna doesn’t believe in the Brotherhood’s prophecy. But when the Church of the One-God tries to kill her, she’s forced to accept their offer of a safe haven. After stealing her mother’s knife from Duke Thorold, Brenna realizes that it is made of the same old steel as the ancient weapons of the Brotherhood. Is she really the one prophesied? And can the Brotherhood keep her safe from both Duke Thorold and the Church of the One-God?

Dwarg is reunited with his host Aggie. Aggie has grown and has found a lover. Trouble with mysterious disappearances of some of her people in Algeria takes the reader on a rollercoaster ride of intrigue and spiritualism where Native American Shaman meets Australian Aboriginal Ngangkari and the puzzle is finally solved in a little township in Southeast Queensland called Goomeri...or was it?Aunt Edna becomes Shaman for the Northern Nations and is presented with several quests including a convoluted call for assistance from the spirit of a Australian Ngangkari. Professor Lien, working in the Sahara Desert, has disappeared, so did a rescuer looking for him. Prof Lien turns up in the outback of Australia - Aggie and Dwarg try desperately to find out exactly what happened. Aunt Edna's spiritualism and mystic insights also become involved in these mysterious events and she resolves to travel to Australia to sort it all out - she does...yet there is still something not quite finalized in Aggie's scientific mind. This is a sequel to Dwarg in the Seventh Dimension and one will meet new and delightful characters.

The winding and weaving tale of the most powerful magician in all the lands, from his final days to his first steps into magic and back again.In this book you'll find three different stories. The first one called Rhythmic Bond. This story relates the first trip of a person. This trip is coming to the world. The second story is called Our Date where a young girl is struggling the loss of her love one. The third one is called Děkuji, where a guy wakes up every morning with the same call telling him "I know what you did" and he has no clue what it is about.

Tragedy befalls a jolly December day when a Christmas elf falls from the top floor of a department store to the icy pavement below. But why was he up there and not on his shift? And could it be related to a string of thefts from the store? In this short story, Alma Easter, the cake-loving old-lady detective, thinks she knows the answer.At a time when Ardalia was still young, the krongos, people of the rock, and accomplished builders, ruled the world. Their cities were legendary, unforgettable. But soon, a split occurred between the Northerners and the Westerners. Valshhyk the Immolated, god of fire and destruction, took the opportunity to expand his territories and destroy almost everything. A mage, Ekelran, had to resort to the greatest sacrifice in order to give the world a chance to carry on. This mythological, not to say cosmogonic, story describes in a few pages the genesis of the four great civilizations of Ardalia and the most significant events preceding the Ardalia trilogy. For those who have read The Breath of Aoles, Turquoise Water and The Flames of the Immolated, it offers an interesting shift of perspective. For others, it permits an easy introduction to the details of the universe while furnishing a complete synoptic history from a different viewpoint.As a bonus: the five first chapters of The Breath of Aoles are also included.

This is a first hand account of how the election in Hillbrow was fought in 1987, paying for the privilege with a criminal record.Politics, prostitutes, and the pleasures of challenges; my buddies and I were not into politics, but when the politicians decided to have a contest for our votes, we decided to join in the fun! Damn, you can meet some interesting people, and pretty girls, while canvassing for votes! We turned the General Election in Hillbrow in 1987 into a circus, despite of what the ‘educated’ people across the world wrote in their thesis on this happening, they got it wrong! The National Party hated us for canvassing the homosexual voters, even though the learned people called it a NP strategy years later, it was us, the non-politicians that wanted to prove a point; you can win an election by breaking the rules. Was it worth the criminal records that followed? It was fun!

The well-known in the West term Zen was empty right from the start -- miss even one of its three letters and the whole notion goes wrong. Looking inward yourself or outward, all the same, you see there is no fixed Self -- the centripetal emotion turns into the centrifugal and conversely. So, break into the purgatory of your soul through the front gate if you want to take your proper place in Hell.Today, more and more people want to know what Zen is. The problem is that it is not an easy task to describe it, as Zen is beyond wording. It is something that cannot be talked about nor expressed in written form. The moment language is used we are no longer dealing with the spirit of Zen. However, Zen cannot be left unexpressed. In order to introduce the reader to the world of Zen, there is no alternative but to resort to the use of language; and that language is poetry. That's why there are so many poems written by the numerous adepts of Zen.On the other hand, if Zen could be presented to another, men would all present it to their superiors; if it could be served up to others, men would all serve it up to their parents; if it could be told to others, men would all tell it to their brothers; if it could be given to others, men would all give it to their sons and grandsons. The reason why it cannot be transmitted is no other but this: that 'if,' within, there be not the presiding principle, it will not remain there, and if, outwardly, there be not the correct obedience, it will not be carried out. When that which is given out from the mind in possession of it is not received by the mind without, the sagely minded man will not give it out; and when, entering in from without, there is no power in the receiving mind to entertain it, the sagely minded man will not permit it to lie hidden there. The point here is that the ordinary intellect is unable to function on this frequency of interpretation, and in its unenlightened or unevolved state, views the Buddha’s logic as gibberish, or ‘mystical’ inspired nonsense, when in fact, the Buddha’s logic has more in common with higher science (i.e. quantum theory), than it does with theistic religion or the imaginations of superstitious based thinking. Therefore, better known in the West as Zen, it is a Western art-based movement that serves as the antithesis to established norms and conventions. It is a vague sense of performing a function, skill or art in the secular form that is devoid of strenuous effort, or somehow new or unexpected. In fact, Zen is not the experience, nor the realm, less still any heretical forms of Buddhist practice that ignores Buddhist conventions. Zen is just Zen, and that's it.

From the depths of a cave in the Vermilion Sea, Ramon Salazar has wrested a black pearl so lustrous and captivating that his father, an expert pearl dealer, is certain Ramon has found the legendary Pearl of Heaven. Such a treasure is sure to bring great joy to the villagers of their tiny coastal town, and even greater renown to the Salazar name. No diver, not even the swaggering Gaspar Ruiz, has ever found a pearl like this!But is there a price to pay for a prize so great? When a terrible tragedy strikes the village, old Luzon's warning about El Diablo returns to haunt Ramon. If El Diablo actually exists, it will take all Ramon's courage to face the winged creature waiting for him offshore.

Amarylis Coltraine may have recently transferred to the New York City police force from Atlanta, but she's been a cop long enough to know how to defend herself against an assailant. When she's taken down just steps away from her apartment, killed with her own weapon, for Eve the victim isn't just 'one of us.' Dallas's friend Chief Medical Examiner Morris and Coltraine had started a serious relationship, and from all accounts the two were headed for a happy future together. But someone has put an end to all that. After breaking the news to Morris, Eve starts questioning everyone from Coltraine's squad, informants, and neighbors, while Eve's husband, Roarke, digs into computer data on Coltraine's life back in Atlanta. To their shock, they discover a connection between this case and their own painful, shadowy pasts. The truth will need to be uncovered one layer at a time, starting with the box that arrives at Cop Central addressed to Eve containing Coltraine's guns, badge, and a note from her killer: 'You can have them back. Maybe someday soon, I'll be sending yours to somebody else.' But Eve Dallas doesn't take too kindly to personal threats, and she is going to break this case, whatever it takes. And that's a promise.

Internationally bestselling novelist and American icon Tom Robbins's long-awaited tale of his wild life and times, both at home and around the globe Tom Robbins's warm, wise, and wonderfully weird novels–including Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, Another Roadside Attraction, and Jitterbug Perfume–provide an entryway into the frontier of his singular imagination. Madcap but sincere, pulsating with strong social and philosophical undercurrents, his irreverent classics have introduced countless readers to hitchhiking cowgirls, born-again monkeys, a philosophizing can of beans, exiled royalty, and problematic redheads. In Tibetan Peach Pie, Robbins turns that unparalleled literary sensibility inward, weaving together stories of his unconventional life–from his Appalachian childhood to his globe-trotting adventures–told in his unique voice, which combines the sweet and sly, the spiritual and earthy. The grandchild of Baptist preachers, Robbins would become, over the course of half a century, a poet interruptus, a soldier, a meteorologist, a radio DJ, an art-critic-turned-psychedelic-journeyman, a world-famous novelist, and a counterculture hero, leading a life as unlikely, magical, and bizarre as those of his quixotic characters. Robbins offers intimate snapshots of Appalachia during the Great Depression, the West Coast during the sixties' psychedelic revolution, international roving before Homeland Security monitored our travels, and New York publishing when it still relied on trees. Written with the big-hearted comedy and mesmerizing linguistic invention for which Robbins is known, Tibetan Peach Pie is an invitation into the private world of a literary legend.

First published in 1963, James A. Michener’s gripping chronicle of the social and political landscape of Afghanistan is more relevant now than ever. Combining fact with riveting adventure and intrigue, Michener follows a military man tasked, in the years after World War II, with a dangerous assignment: finding and returning a young American woman living in Afghanistan to her distraught family after she suddenly and mysteriously disappears. A timeless tale of love and emotional drama set against the backdrop of one of the most important countries in the world today, Caravans captures the tension of the postwar period, the sweep of Afghanistan’s remarkable history, and the inescapable allure of the past. Praise for Caravans “Brilliant . . . an extraordinary novel . . . The old nomadic trails across the mountains spring into existence.”—The New York Times “Romantic and adventurous . . . [Michener] has a wonderful empathy for the wild and free and an understanding of the reasons behind the kind of cruelty that goes with it.”—Newsday  * “Michener has done for Afghanistan what . . . his first [book] did for the South Pacific.”—*The New York Herald Tribune

Born a wealthy French heiress but betrayed into bondage, Brigitte de Louroux swears she will never be any man's slave. Rugged and powerful Rowland of Montville sees only a beautiful enchantress in peasant's rags--a wench to serve his every need. Defenseless against his unbridled passions, Brigitte is forced to yield her innocence to the desires the warrior lord arouses in her heart. But her surrender will vanquish the handsome knight--awakening within him a love as mighty and relentless as his conquering sword.

Nancy goes behind the scenes at the circus and finds big trouble under the big top. Nancy's in Sarasota, Florida, winter site of the Grand Royal Circus, to help trapeze artist Natalia Petronov look into her heritage. Adopted as an infant, Natalia is now determined to find her real father. But as Nancy searches for clues in a shadowy past, one thing becomes instantly clear in the present: Natalia's life is at risk! Natalia flies through the air with the greatest of ease -- until someone messes with her trapeze. And whoever's playing tricks is definitely "not" clowning around. The circus of danger is about to begin, and in the center ring lies a deadly secret. The search for the truth could lead Natalia -- or Nancy -- to take a hard fall . . . without a net!

Set during the waning days of the Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic in 1960, this extraordinary novel tells the story of the Mirabal sisters, three young wives and mothers who are assassinated after visiting their jailed husbands. From the author of How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents comes this tale of courage and sisterhood set in the Dominican Republic during the rise of the Trujillo dictatorship. A skillful blend of fact and fiction, In the Time of the Butterflies is inspired by the true story of the three Mirabal sisters who, in 1960, were murdered for their part in an underground plot to overthrow the government. Alvarez breathes life into these historical figures--known as "las mariposas," or "the butterflies," in the underground--as she imagines their teenage years, their gradual involvement with the revolution, and their terror as their dissentience is uncovered. Alvarez's controlled writing perfectly captures the mounting tension as "the butterflies" near their horrific end. The novel begins with the recollections of Dede, the fourth and surviving sister, who fears abandoning her routines and her husband to join the movement. Alvarez also offers the perspectives of the other sisters: brave and outspoken Minerva, the family's political ringleader; pious Patria, who forsakes her faith to join her sisters after witnessing the atrocities of the tyranny; and the baby sister, sensitive Maria Teresa, who, in a series of diaries, chronicles her allegiance to Minerva and the physical and spiritual anguish of prison life. In the Time of the Butterflies is an American Library Association Notable Book and a 1995 National Book Critics Circle Award nominee.

The Alden children knew there was a mystery at Eton Place, but they had no idea there would be a ghost there, too! A family friend believes there is a valuable piece of jewelry hidden on her property, but she only has one clue to help them find it. Will they find the treasure, or will the ghost of the Chattering Bones scare them away first?

He is the deadliest American sniper ever, called "the devil" by the enemies he hunted and "the legend" by his Navy SEAL brothers . . . From 1999 to 2009, U.S. Navy SEAL Chris Kyle recorded the most career sniper kills in United States military history. The Pentagon has officially confirmed more than 150 of Kyle's kills (the previous American record was 109), but it has declined to verify the astonishing total number for this book. Iraqi insurgents feared him so much they placed a bounty on his head. Kyle earned legendary status among his fellow U.S. warriors, whom he protected with deadly accuracy from rooftops and stealth positions. Gripping and unforgettable, Kyle's masterful account of his extraordinary battlefield experiences ranks as one of the great war memoirs of all time.