On Canaan's Side

      Sebastian Barry
     On Canaan's Side

From the Man Booker short-listed author of The Secret Scripture comes a magnificent new novel that is the story of twentieth-century America. Sebastian Barry returns with the extraordinary story of Lilly Bere, the youngest daughter of the Dunne family. Forced to flee Ireland with her fiancé as a teenager under threat of death from the IRA, Lilly discovers herself in America. Her rich and tragic life takes her from Chicago, where her fiancé is brutally murdered, to Cleveland where she marries and finds happiness even as she survives the Great Depression and World War II. Joyfully pregnant at forty-three, Lilly moves to Washington, D.C., her husband mysteriously disappears, and she finds work as a cook for one of the most prominent families in the country. Lilly follows the family to Bridgehampton, New York, and there she brings up her son, Ed, who at eighteen is called up to Vietnam and vanishes on his return to America. Mr. Nolan, a close friend, is dispatched to find him and returns from the Smoky Mountain wilderness not with Ed but with Ed's young son, Bill, whom Lilly will raise and adore until tragedy strikes. Told in the first person as a narrative of her life over seventeen days, On Canaan's Side is the heartbreaking story of a woman whose capacity to love is enormous and whose compassion, even for those who have wronged her, is extraordinary.

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    Spider Kiss

      Harlan Ellison
     Spider Kiss

He claims he's not a fan of rock-and-roll, but somehow Harlan Ellison's seminal novel based on the career of Jerry Lee Lewis ended up in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. One of the first -- and still one of the best -- dissections of the wildly destructive rock-and-roll lifestyle, Spider Kiss isn't about giant cockroaches that attack Detroit or space invaders that smell like chicken soup. Instead, it's the story of Luther Sellers, a poor kid from Louisville with a voice like an angel who's renamed Stag Preston by a ruthless promoter. Preston's meteoric rise on the music scene is matched only by the rise in his enormous appetites -- and not just for home cooking -- and soon the invisible monkey named Success is riding him straight to hell. This raucous early novel reinforces Ellison's reputation as one of America's most dynamic writers.

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    The Orphan Queen

      Jodi Meadows
     The Orphan Queen

Adventure, intrigue, and romance combine in a new fantasy duology from Incarnate series author Jodi Meadows.When Princess Wilhelmina was a child, the Indigo Kingdom invaded her homeland. Ten years later, Wil and the other noble children who escaped are ready to fight back and reclaim Wil's throne. To do so, Wil and her best friend, Melanie, infiltrate the Indigo Kingdom palace with hopes of gathering information that will help them succeed.But Wil has a secret—one that could change everything. Although magic has been illegal for a century, she knows her ability could help her save her kingdom. But magic creates wraith, and the deadly stuff is moving closer and destroying the land. And if the vigilante Black Knife catches her using magic, she may disappear like all the others. . . .The Orphan Queen delivers epic fantasy, perfect for fans of Graceling by Kristin Cashore, Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson, and Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo.

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    Hard Contact

      Karen Traviss
     Hard Contact

As the Clone Wars rage, victory or defeat lies in the hands of elite squads that take on the toughest assignments in the galaxy--stone-cold soldiers who go where no one else would, to do what no one else could. . . .On a mission to sabotage a chemical weapon research facility on a Separatist-held planet, four clone troopers operate under the very noses of their enemies. The commandos are outnumbered and outgunned, deep behind enemy lines with no backup--and working with strangers instead of trusted teammates. Matters don't improve when Darman, the squad's demolitions expert, gets separated from the others during planetfall. Even Darman's apparent good luck in meeting an inexperienced Padawan vanishes once Etain admits to her woeful inexperience.For the separated clone commandos and stranded Jedi, a long, dangerous journey lies ahead, through hostile territory brimming with Trandoshan slavers, Separatists, and suspicious natives. A single misstep...

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    [Relentless 01.0] Relentless

      Karen Lynch
     [Relentless 01.0] Relentless

Relentless by Karen Lynch Sara Grey's world shattered ten years ago when her father was brutally murdered. Now at seventeen, she is still haunted by memories of that day and driven by the need to understand why it happened. She lives a life full of secrets and her family and friends have no idea of the supernatural world she is immersed in or of Sara's own very powerful gift. In her quest for answers about her father's death, Sara takes risks that expose her and her friends to danger and puts herself into the sights of a sadistic vampire. On the same fateful night she meets Nikolas, a warrior who turns Sara's world upside down and is determined to protect her even if it's the last thing she wants. Sara's life starts to spin out of control as she is hunted by an obsessed vampire, learns that her friends have secrets of their own and reels from the truth about her own ancestry. Sara has always been fiercely independent but in order to survive now she must open herself to others, to reveal her deepest secrets. And she must learn to trust the one person capable of breaking down the walls around her.

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    Uncle Sagamore and His Girls

      Charles Williams
     Uncle Sagamore and His Girls

It's election season in Blossom County, and that means it's time for moonshineEducated at the racetrack, Billy has never had a firm grip on his ABCs, but he sure knows how to read a racing form. When a family court judge threatens to put the seven-year-old in a foster home, Billy and his father go to live in the countryside, at the wholesome little farm owned by Billy's Uncle Sagamore, where the air is pure, the grass is green, and the liquor from his hidden distillery is clear as water—and about 120 proof. But pressure from the law has kept Sagamore's still silent, and the stash of white lightning is starting to dwindle. To get his home-brewing operation back underway, Sagamore needs a distraction—and there's none better than local politics. When Uncle Sagamore throws his weight into the Blossom County elections, democracy will never be the same.

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    Best Day Ever

      Kaira Rouda
     Best Day Ever

"I glance at my wife as she climbs into the passenger seat, and I am bursting with confidence. Today will be everything I've promised her...and more."Paul Strom has the perfect life: a glittering career as an advertising executive, a beautiful wife, two healthy boys and a big house in a wealthy suburb. And he's the perfect husband: breadwinner, protector, provider. That's why he's planned a romantic weekend for his wife, Mia, at their lake house, just the two of them. And he's promised today will be the best day ever.But as Paul and Mia drive out of the city and towards the countryside, a spike of tension begins to wedge itself between them and doubts start to arise. How perfect is their marriage, or any marriage, really? How much do they trust each other? Is Paul the person he seems to be? And what are his secret plans for their weekend at the cottage?Forcing us to ask ourselves just how well we know those closest to us, Best Day Ever...

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    City Mouse

      Aleksandr Voinov
     City Mouse

A magical weekend, a breathless declaration, a happy ever after . . . Right?Wrong.When Malcolm Kavanagh took his first step toward emotional maturity by declaring his love to Owen Watson, that was just the first chapter in their story. Anyone who’s ever been in love knows that happy endings take a lot more work than that.One problem: Malcolm has never been in love. He doesn’t know the rules of a relationship and isn’t confident enough to trust that his is real. He learns the ropes by sharing his life and his flat with Owen, but relationship boot camp proves a challenge. Everything is a struggle, from accepting Owen’s low-status job to putting his boyfriend above his personal trainer.Luckily, Owen knows a little more about relationships and labors patiently to survive the first six weeks of their life together. From the art galleries of Cambridge to the tawdry majesty of the Dominion theatre, Owen adapts to England while...

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    Challenging Love (Drekinn Book Five)

      Jana Leigh
     Challenging Love (Drekinn Book Five)

   Warning: For Mature Adult Audiences.  Contains language and actions some may deem offensive.  Ménage – MFM.    In book five of the Drekinn:  Pilar has known her mate for decades, but the man seems to have a will made out of steel.  She finds herself at wits end and on the verge of telling him to put up or shut up.    Brooks feels the mating pull with no option but to ride it out.  So much counts on him keeping it together.  One wrong move and the outcome could affect everyone involved.  Now all he has to do is figure out how to get his dragon princess to understand they have to wait without receiving burn marks.    Clues start to surface for the Drekinn Pack but still leave them with so many more unanswered.  Old friends start to pop up, bringing confusion to what happened long ago to drive the shifter world into hiding.    Join the Drekinn Pack as they start to put pieces together and follow the moms as they hash out plans to get what they want from their daughters.  Watch as the past, present, and future start to intertwine. 

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    Arethusa

      F. Marion Crawford
     Arethusa

Carlo Zeno, gentleman of Venice, ex-clerk, ex-gambler, ex-soldier of fortune, ex-lay prebendary of Patras, ex-duellist, and ex-Greek general, being about twenty-nine years of age, and having in his tough body the scars of half-a-dozen wounds that would have killed an ordinary man, had resolved to turn over a new leaf, had become a merchant, and was established in Constantinople in the year 1376. He had bought a house in the city itself because the merchants of Genoa all dwelt in the town of Pera, on the other side of the Golden Horn. A Venetian could not have lived in the same place with Genoese, for the air would have poisoned him, to a certainty; and besides, the sight of a Genoese face, the sound of the Genoese dialect, the smell of Genoese cookery, were all equally sickening to any one brought up in the lagoons. Genoa was not fit to be mentioned within hearing of polite Venetian ears, its very name was unspeakable by decent Venetian lips; and even to pronounce the syllables for purposes of business was horribly unlucky. Therefore Carlo Zeno and his friends had taken up their abode in the old city, amongst the Greeks and the Bokharians, the Jews and the Circassians, and they left the Genoese to themselves in Pera, pretending that they did not even exist. It was not always easy to keep up the pretence, it is true, for Zeno had extremely good eyes and could not help seeing those abominations of mankind on the other side of the Golden Horn when he sat in his balcony on spring evenings; and his only consolation was to dream of destroying them wholesale, of hewing them in pieces by the hundred and the thousand, and of piling up pyramids of their ugly grinning heads. Why were they Genoese? Carlo Zeno would rather have taken a box on the ear from Sultan Amurad, the Turk, over there in Asia Minor, than a civil word from the least objectionable of those utterly unspeakable monsters of Genoese. 'Behold,' said Tertullian one day in scorn, 'how these Christians love one another.' Matters had not improved in eleven hundred years, since that learned Doctor of the Church had departed this life, presumably for a more charitable world; but Carlo Zeno would have answered that the Genoese were no more Christians than mules, and much less so than the pigs, which are all under the special protection of the blessed Saint Anthony. At the very time, too, when my story begins, those obnoxious villains of Genoa were on the successful side of a revolution; for they had helped Emperor Andronicus to imprison his father, Emperor John, in the tall Amena tower on the north side of the city, by the Golden Horn, and to lock up his two younger brothers in a separate dungeon. It was true that Emperor John had ordered Andronicus and his little son of five to be blinded with boiling vinegar, but Genoese money had miraculously converted the vinegar into bland white wine, and had reduced the temperature from the boiling point to that of a healthful lotion, so that neither the boy nor the man were any the worse after the application than before; but Andronicus had resented the mere intention on the part of his father, and had avenged himself by taking the Empire, such as it was, for the present, while reserving the delight of murdering his parent and his brothers at a convenient season in the future. All this was very well, no doubt, and Andronicus was undisputed Emperor for the time being, because the Genoese and Sultan Amurad were willing that he should be; but Amurad had not always been his friend, and the Genoese had not always had the upper hand of the Venetians; the wind might change in a moment and a tempest might whirl him away from the throne even more quickly than the fair breeze had wafted him towards it. Zeno thought so too, and wondered whether it would please fate to make him the spirit of the storm.

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    Chippinge Borough

      Stanley John Weyman
     Chippinge Borough

It was April 22, 1831, and a young man was walking down Whitehall in the direction of Parliament Street. He wore shepherd's plaid trousers and the swallow-tail coat of the day, with a figured muslin cravat wound about his wide-spread collar. He halted opposite the Privy Gardens, and, with his face turned skywards, listened until the sound of the Tower guns smote again on the ear and dispelled his doubts. To the experienced, his outward man, neat and modestly prosperous, denoted a young barrister of promise or a Treasury clerk. His figure was good, he was above the middle height, and he carried himself with an easy independence. He seemed to be one who both held a fair opinion of himself and knew how to impress that opinion on his fellows; yet was not incapable of deference where deference was plainly due.

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    Sandwich Shop Miracle- Inspirational Stories of Faith Book 1

      H.B. Barstrum
     Sandwich Shop Miracle- Inspirational Stories of Faith Book 1

Imagine being on the brink of losing everything near and dear to you…Would you be able to handle the possibility of having nothing left? What would you do?Loretta is at her breaking point, dealing with mounting debt and the tragic death of her husband Jack. With her Christian faith tested by the events that have unfolded in her life, will she be able to keep the one thing that she has left?Imagine being on the brink of losing everything near and dear to you…Would you be able to handle the possibility of having nothing left? What would you do?There are times when it is incredibly hard to keep your faith in tact when everything you love is slipping away. This is exactly what Loretta Jenkins is going through in this powerful and inspiring Christian fiction tale in of the Inspirational Stories of Faith short story trilogy.Loretta is at her breaking point, dealing with mounting debt and the tragic death of her husband Jack. With her Christian faith tested by the events that have unfolded in her life and the internal struggle to keep her hope alive, the big question is: will she find the secret to hold on to the one thing that she has left?This magical inspirational religious fiction story explores the proven and simple solution to conquering the negative forces that challenge to destroy faith at its very core. Sandwich Shop Miracle is a must read for readers of inspirational books and faith-based books alike.

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