Secrets of Eden
Chris Bohjalian
From the bestselling author of The Double Bind, Midwives, and Skeletons at the Feast comes a novel of shattered faith, intimate secrets, and the delicate nature of sacrifice. "There," says Alice Hayward to Reverend Stephen Drew, just after her baptism, and just before going home to the husband who will kill her that evening and then shoot himself. Drew, tortured by the cryptic finality of that short utterance, feels his faith in God slipping away and is saved from despair only by a meeting with Heather Laurent, the author of wildly successful, inspirational books about . . . angels. Heather survived a childhood that culminated in her own parents' murder-suicide, so she identifies deeply with Alice’s daughter, Katie, offering herself as a mentor to the girl and a shoulder for Stephen – who flees the pulpit to be with Heather and see if there is anything to be salvaged from the spiritual wreckage around him. But then the State's Attorney begins to suspect that Alice's husband may not have killed himself. . .and finds out that Alice had secrets only her minister knew. Secrets of Eden is both a haunting literary thriller and a deeply evocative testament to the inner complexities that mark all of our lives. Once again Chris Bohjalian has given us a riveting page-turner in which nothing is precisely what it seems. As one character remarks, “Believe no one. Trust no one. Assume all of our stories are suspect.”
Hunger
Knut Hamsun
One of the most important and controversial writers of the 20th century, Knut Hamsun made literary history with the publication in 1890 of this powerful, autobiographical novel recounting the abject poverty, hunger and despair of a young writer struggling to achieve self-discovery and its ultimate artistic expression. The book brilliantly probes the psychodynamics of alienation, obsession, and self-destruction, painting an unforgettable portrait of a man driven by forces beyond his control to the edge of the abyss. Hamsun influenced many of the major 20th-century writers who followed him, including Kafka, Joyce and Henry Miller. Required reading in world literature courses, the highly influential, landmark novel will also find a wide audience among lovers of books that probe the "unexplored crannies in the human soul" (George Egerton).
The Comeback Season
Jennifer E. Smith
The last place Ryan Walsh should be this afternoon is on a train heading to Wrigley Field. She should be in class, enduring yet another miserable day of her first year of high school. But for once, Ryan isn't thinking about what she should be doing. She's not worried about her lack of friends, or her suffering math grade, or how it's been five whole years since the last time she was really and truly happy. Because she's finally returning to the place that her father loved, where the two of them spent so many afternoons cheering on their team. And on this -- the fifth anniversary of his death -- it feels like there's nowhere else in the world she should be. Ryan is once again filled with hope as she makes her way to the game. Good luck is often hard to come by at a place like Wrigley Field, but it's on this day that she meets Nick, the new kid from her school, who seems to love the Cubs nearly as much as she does. But Nick carries with him a secret that makes Ryan wonder if anyone can ever really escape their past, or believe in the promise of those reassuring words: "Wait till next year." Is it too much for Ryan to hope that this year, this season, might be her comeback season?
The Human Comedy: Selected Stories
Honoré de Balzac
An NYRB Classics Original Characters from every corner of society and all walks of life—lords and ladies, businessmen and military men, poor clerks, unforgiving moneylenders, aspiring politicians, artists, actresses, swindlers, misers, parasites, sexual adventurers, crackpots, and more—move through the pages of The Human Comedy, Balzac’s multivolume magnum opus, an interlinked chronicle of modernity in all its splendor and squalor. The Human Comedy includes the great roomy novels that have exercised such a sway over Balzac’s many literary inheritors, from Dostoyevsky and Henry James to Marcel Proust; it also contains an array of short fictions in which Balzac is at his most concentrated and forceful. Nine of these, all newly translated, appear in this volume, and together they provide an unequaled overview of a great writer’s obsessions and art. Here are “The Duchesse de Langeais,” “A Passion in the Desert,” and “Sarrasine”; tales of madness, illicit passion, ill-gotten gains, and crime. What unifies them, Peter Brooks points out in his introduction, is an incomparable storyteller’s fascination with the power of storytelling, while throughout we also detect what Proust so admired: the “mysterious circulation of blood and desire.”
Parrot and Olivier in America
Peter Carey
SUMMARY:From the two-time Booker Prizewinning author comes an irrepressibly funny new novel set in early nineteenth-century America. Olivieran improvisation on the life of Alexis de Tocquevilleis the traumatized child of aristocratic survivors of the French Revolution. Parrot is the motherless son of an itinerant English printer. They are born on different sides of history, but their lives will be connected by an enigmatic one-armed marquis. When Olivier sets sail for the nascent United Statesostensibly to make a study of the penal system, but more precisely to save his neck from one more revolutionParrot will be there, too: as spy for the marquis, and as protector, foe, and foil for Olivier. As the narrative shifts between the perspectives of Parrot and Olivier, between their picaresque adventures apart and togetherin love and politics, prisons and finance, homelands and brave new landsa most unlikely friendship begins to take hold. And with their story, Peter Carey explores the experiment of American democracy with dazzling inventiveness and with all the richness and surprise of characterization, imagery, and language that we have come to expect from this superlative writer.SUMMARY:From the two-time Booker Prizewinning author comes an irrepressibly funny new novel set in early nineteenth-century America. Olivieran improvisation on the life of Alexis de Tocquevilleis the traumatized child of aristocratic survivors of the French Revolution. Parrot is the motherless son of an itinerant English printer. They are born on different sides of history, but their lives will be connected by an enigmatic one-armed marquis. When Olivier sets sail for the nascent United Statesostensibly to make a study of the penal system, but more precisely to save his neck from one more revolutionParrot will be there, too: as spy for the marquis, and as protector, foe, and foil for Olivier. As the narrative shifts between the perspectives of Parrot and Olivier, between their picaresque adventures apart and togetherin love and politics, prisons and finance, homelands and brave new landsa most unlikely friendship begins to take hold. And with their story, Peter Carey explores the experiment of American democracy with dazzling inventiveness and with all the richness and surprise of characterization, imagery, and language that we have come to expect from this superlative writer.
Knight Takes Queen
C. C. Gibbs
Prolong the pleasure . . . the breathtaking final installment of the Knight trilogy has finally arrived Katherine Hart has come a long way from the day she accepted a position as codebreaker for Knight Enterprises, glittering domain of playboy CEO Dominic Knight. With his wicked reputation, nobody could have imagined Dominic Knight sated by just one woman . . . until green-eyed Katherine captured his sole fascination, and stirred his fiercest desire. Now, newly pregnant with his child, Kate has never been so pampered, nor so very, very satisfied. But when tragedy strikes and Dominic and Kate are forced to reassess, the lovers must ask themselves if such pleasure is ultimately worth the pain. CC Gibbs has joined the ranks of Sylvia Day and E L James as part of the new wave of enthusiasm for contemporary romance.****
Fiend (An Erotic BDSM Romance Novel) (Cravings Book 2)
Rachael Orman
Should not be read as a standalone Discovering who my dom was turned out to be life-changing. John wasn't just someone I knew, but someone I'd fantasized about. His sharply tailored suits, his delicious muscles, his hands on me. Finding out he'd actually been the one doing such naughty things to me when I'd been blindfolded was almost too much for me to handle, but he refused to let me run. Forced me to see that everything I could ever want was right in front of me. Letting Alix go was out of the question. She was mine and I would make her see it. If I had to tie her down and spank it into her, I would happily do so. There were too many things I still wanted to do with her to let her escape my clutches, my playroom. Everything seemed to be going fine until a woman from my past entered the picture. Stories are twisted, lies are told, hearts are broken. Who is telling the truth? Is what they have worth saving? For 18+ due to explicit language and sex scenes. Reader beware there is bondage, whips, consensual forced sex anal and even a MM scene**
Ceres
L. Neil Smith
Nominee for the 2010 Prometheus AwardIn the 22nd century people have spread into the Solar System. Born and raised in a twentieth of Earth's gravity on the asteroid Pallas, young skater Llyra Ngu is grimly determined to compete and win on mankind's homeworld—an ambition that many say will cripple or kill her. Her older brother Wilson is equally set on quitting his job as a surveyor's apprentice to become an asteroid hunter, a calling fraught with the promise of fabulous riches and the danger of sudden death. He will find a full share of romance and disappointment, love and loss, and pursue the asteroid hunter's holy grail, the legendary Diamond Rogue. Llyra's training will require years, and a journey that will take her to Ceres, at one tenth Earth's gravity, where her father bosses the Ceres Terraformation Project, to the one-sixth gravity of the Moon, to Mars and one third gravity, and finally to Earth. Along the way, she will survive jealous rivals, a hostile press, terrorist attacks, and the hijacking of a spaceliner in order to achieve her goal. In the end, Llyra and Wilson will hear the call of the stars, themselves
Product
Jason Wallace Poetry
The numbing of the nothing that you’ve becomeIs something for someone, but only for youIf you can’t try trusting,Then you’re of no useBecause they have to fill you with their filthAnd fit you with their noose.best described for all true lovers it teach you on how to kiss your special someone.
The Talent Diary
Chris McFarland
Sixth grader Samantha Branson is a normal, everyday girl, playing with her friends, and having a great time building the “clubhouse” in the bamboo covering her backyard. Once twelve, changes come fast for Samantha as she discovers a family secret even her parents know nothing about. The talent brings lies and dangers and she is pursued by ominous strangers who will harm her just for her gift.Sixth grader Samantha Branson is a normal, everyday girl, playing with her friends, and having a great time building the “clubhouse” in the bamboo covering her backyard. And her twelfth birthday is almost here. She is planning a fantastic party with her friends. But her grandfather is also coming, with a gift she may not want but will not be able to refuse. Changes come fast for Samantha as she discovers a family secret even her parents know nothing about. The talent brings lies and dangers and she is pursued by ominous strangers who will harm her just for her new-found gift. She is aided in unexpected places by others who share her mysterious talent. At the same time, she's arguing with her best friends and the next door neighbor boy Mark goes missing.When Samantha's friends don't want to help Mark, Samantha decides to go alone and when she does she knows nothing will ever be the same.
Shadows On The Wall
Mia Moscato
Leah just lost everything that she had planned the last three years of her life around.Richard Ross, joiner, part-time local football referee, ordinary man, is about to get a shock.It’s time to meet the relatives. But guess what? They’re all dead. Even worse, they are his past lives and all share the same soul - his!With help from his Strange Relations, an angel named Joe, and Roberta (Australopithecus Robustus), Richard has to learn the last lesson of life so all will be allowed to journey towards the Light. Richard is the last of a very long line and everyone’s last chance.One small problem though; Richard is in a coma and time is fast running out.
Jael Learns the Ten Commandments
Melissa Brown
Book Two in The Littlest Missionary Series, Jael now must learn a few things from the Bible before she can go to Australia. In this adventure, she learns all about God's ten commandments.Monsters haunt her dreams, but humans are her worst nightmare...Just as Emma Kincaid came into some disturbing empathic powers, she lost her mother in a car crash. She is also pretty certain she's being followed, maybe even hunted. But, is it the shadowy creatures that haunt her nightmares or the mysterious guy, shrouded in darkness, who just enrolled at Jefferson High?
Bloodlines
Robert Hill
During the time of the Pharoahs of Egypt, the goddess Bastet is sent by Ra to prevent the murder of the expectant mother of the next Pharoah, but the future is clouded as to the identity of the killer. Bastet must discover who is to be the murderer, and thereby thwart the chaos certain to ensue should the future heir be kept from being born. But time is running out and disaster appears imminent.During the time of the Pharoahs of Egypt, the goddess Bastet is sent by Ra to prevent the murder of the expectant mother of the next Pharoah. Ra has foresee the death of the Great Royal Wife, but the future is clouded as to the identity of the killer. Bastet must discover who will commit the murder, prevent it, and thereby thwart a period of chaos certain to ensue should the future heir be kept from being born. Treachery and deceit lurk around every corner as the goddess of fertility sets about to prevent disaster and death not just of the unborn Pharoah and his mother, but of an entire civilization.