When confronted by raging fires or deadly accidents, volunteer fireman Taylor McAden feels compelled to take terrifying risks to save lives. But there is one leap of faith Taylor can't bring himself to make: he can't fall in love. For all his adult years, Taylor has sought out women who need to be rescued, women he leaves as soon as their crisis is over and the relationship starts to become truly intimate. When a raging storm hits his small Southern town, single mother Denise Holton’s car skids off the road. The young mom is with her four-year-old son Kyle, a boy with severe learning disabilities and for whom she has sacrificed everything. Taylor McAden finds her unconscious and bleeding, but does not find Kyle. When Denise wakes, the chilling truth becomes clear to both of them: Kyle is gone. During the search for Kyle, the connection between Taylor and Denise takes root. Taylor doesn't know that this rescue will be different from all the others, demanding far more than raw physical courage. It will lead him to the possibility of his own rescue from a life lived without love and will require him to open doors to his past that were slammed shut by pain. This rescue will dare him to live life to the fullest by daring to love. *Did You Know?--- The Rescue was the first novel by Nicholas Sparks to debut at # 1 on the New York Times bestseller List? In the process of writing this novel, Nicholas struggled with severe writer's block? The main character was named for the producer of the film versions of Message in a Bottle and A Walk to Remember?*

With U.S. intelligence agencies wracked by internal power struggles and paralyzed by bureaucracy, the President was forced to establish his own clandestine group - Covert-One. It is only activated as a last resort, when the threat is on a global scale and time is running out. When Christian Dresner of Dresner Industries unveils a device that will revolutionize the world - the Merge, a personal computer that communicates directly with your brain - army microbiologist Colonel Jon Smith is assigned to assess its military potential. In addition to giving you the ability to control all your applications using only your mind, the Merge also gives you perfect eyesight, infrared vision, and incredibly accurate aim with a gun. Meanwhile, in the wilds of Afghanistan, Randi Russell encounters an entire village of murdered Afghans - who all have Merge studs in their skulls. As Smith and Russell begin to delve into the circumstances surrounding the Afghans' deaths - and the bizarre fact that they all have Merges weeks before the official on-sale date - they're quickly blocked by someone at the highest level of the military. Is the Merge really as innocuous as Dresner claims? And what secrets is the military hiding about its development? Smith and Russell are determined to learn the truth. But they may pay for it with their lives...

The first time she spoke to him was at midnight. Seven-year-old Autumn Backman needed a hero. When she saw Special Agent Dillon Savich on TV after he?d brought down bank robbers in a Georgetown bank, she knew she?d found him. She called Savich, but she didn't use the phone. They were burying dead people in my daddy's grave . . . they?re coming after us. Please help me. Who's they? Blessed, he's coming. Ethan Merriweather, sheriff of Titusville, Virginia, a small mountain town near the Titus Hitch Wilderness, goes looking for a missing little girl. Soon after he finds her, Ethan realizes that Autumn has brought him a huge problem ? a relentless madman who has the ability to control others simply by looking at them. And the madman is after her and her mom. It's Uncle Blessed, and he wants Autumn. When Savich answers Autumn's call, she tells him Blessed is from Bricker's Bowl, Georgia. Savich and Sherlock go to Blessed's home, learn about his brother, Grace, and meet their mother, Shepherd. Savich soon realizes the only way to stop Blessed is to ?cut off the snake's head.? Back in Titusville, Ethan, Autumn, and her mother, Joanna, are forced to hide from Blessed and Grace in the wilderness. Ethan knows the brothers will never give up their insane pursuit for Autumn. It's a race to stop the madness, or the madness will destroy them all.

Dusklands (1974) is the first novel by J. M. Coetzee, winner of the 2003 Nobel Prize in Literature. It is a presentation and critique of the violence inherent in the colonialist and imperialist mentality of the Western world. The novel actually consists of two separate stories. The first one, "The Vietnam Project", relates the gradual descent into insanity of its protagonist Eugene Dawn. Eugene works for a U.S. government agency responsible for the psychological warfare in the Vietnam War. The second story, "The Narrative of Jacobus Coetzee", which takes place in the 18th century, is an account of a hunting expedition into the then "unexplored" interior of South Africa. After crossing the Orange River, Jacobus meets with a Namaqua tribe to trade, but suddenly falls ill. He is attended to by the tribe and gradually recovers, only to get into a fight for which he is expelled from the village.

Lara Jean is having the best senior year. And there’s still so much to look forward to: a class trip to New York City, prom with her boyfriend Peter, Beach Week after graduation, and her dad’s wedding to Ms. Rothschild. Then she’ll be off to college with Peter, at a school close enough for her to come home and bake chocolate chip cookies on the weekends. Life couldn’t be more perfect! At least, that’s what Lara Jean thinks . . . until she gets some unexpected news. Now the girl who dreads change must rethink all her plans—but when your heart and your head are saying two different things, which one should you listen to?

From the New York Times bestselling author of "Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?" comes an enchanting collection of stories for the holiday season. For years Jeanette Winterson has loved writing a new story at Christmas time and here she brings together twelve of her brilliantly imaginative, funny and bold tales. For the Twelve Days of Christmas—a time of celebration, sharing, and giving—she offers these twelve plus one: a personal story of her own Christmas memories. These tales give the reader a portal into the spirit of the season, where time slows down and magic starts to happen. From trees with mysterious powers to a tinsel baby that talks, philosophical fairies to flying dogs, a haunted house and a disappearing train, Winterson's innovative stories encompass the childlike and spooky wonder of Christmas. Perfect for reading by the fire with loved ones, or while traveling home for the holidays. Enjoy the season of peace and goodwill, mystery, and a little bit of magic courtesy of one of our most fearless and accomplished writers.

One man infiltrates the dark web to stop a sadistic game: *A Booklist 101 Best Crime Novels of the Past Decade, from the New York Times*–bestselling author. Adrian Thomas is a psychology professor whose career was spent delving into damaged minds. Diagnosed with a fatal degenerative disease that is causing hallucinations and stripping him of his memories, Adrian wants to end his life—until he sees a girl snatched off the street and dragged screaming into the back of a van. Dismissed as an unreliable witness, Adrian must act alone. He knows what he saw, but he has no idea how dark it’s going to get. Out of the basement of their Massachusetts farmhouse, a sadistic husband and wife run a website called What Comes Next. A global audience of subscribers is tuning in to watch an ongoing nightmare inflicted in real time—and to cast their votes on the fate of the kidnappers’ latest catch. For Victim Number Four, time is running out. “An experience akin to riding the scariest roller coaster,” What Comes Next is a bold and timely thriller about what lurks within the depths of society’s most depraved minds (New York Journal of Books). “Powerful . . . fiendish . . . This is an exceptional novel—and a most troubling one.” —The Washington Post “Draw[s] you deeper and deeper into a chilling atmosphere of evil, darkness, and shadows.” —The Miami Herald “[A] re-imagining of The Pit and the Pendulum for the digital age.” —Kirkus Reviews

Kacey Cleary’s whole life imploded four years ago in a drunk-driving accident. Now she’s working hard to bury the pieces left behind—all but one. Her little sister, Livie. Kacey can swallow the constant disapproval from her born-again aunt Darla over her self-destructive lifestyle; she can stop herself from going kick-boxer crazy on Uncle Raymond when he loses the girls’ college funds at a blackjack table. She just needs to keep it together until Livie is no longer a minor, and then they can get the hell out of Grand Rapids, Michigan. But when Uncle Raymond slides into bed next to Livie one night, Kacey decides it’s time to run. Armed with two bus tickets and dreams of living near the coast, Kacey and Livie start their new lives in a Miami apartment complex, complete with a grumpy landlord, a pervert upstairs, and a neighbor with a stage name perfectly matched to her chosen “profession.” But Kacey’s not worried. She can handle all of them. What she can’t handle is Trent Emerson in apartment 1D. Kacey doesn’t want to feel. She doesn’t. It’s safer that way. For everyone. But sexy Trent finds a way into her numb heart, reigniting her ability to love again. She starts to believe that maybe she can leave the past where it belongs and start over. Maybe she’s not beyond repair. But Kacey isn’t the only one who’s broken. Seemingly perfect Trent has an unforgiveable past of his own; one that, when discovered, will shatter Kacey’s newly constructed life and send her back into suffocating darkness.

Winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction   A harvest and not a winnowing, this volume collects 103 stories, almost all of the short fiction that John Updike wrote between 1953 and 1975. “How rarely it can be said of any of our great American writers that they have been equally gifted in both long and short forms,” reads the citation composed for John Updike upon his winning the 2006 Rea Award for the Short Story. “Contemplating John Updike’s monumental achievement in the short story, one is moved to think of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry James, Ernest Hemingway, and perhaps William Faulkner—writers whose reputations would be as considerable, or nearly, if short stories had been all that they had written. From [his] remarkable early short story collections . . . through his beautifully nuanced stories of family life [and] the bittersweet humors of middle age and beyond . . . John Updike has created a body of work in the notoriously difficult form of the short story to set beside those of these distinguished American predecessors. Congratulations and heartfelt thanks are due to John Updike for having brought such pleasure and such illumination to so many readers for so many years.”

From the internationally acclaimed, bestselling novelist -- his first ever non-fiction book: a poignant, illuminating journey through a century of modern Ireland as told through the eyes of his parents. Ita Doyle: “In all my life I have lived in two houses, had two jobs, and one husband. I’m a very interesting person.” Rory and Ita tells -- largely in their own words -- the story of Roddy Doyle’s parents’ lives from their first memories to the present. Born in 1923 and 1925 respectively, they met at a New Year’s Eve dance in 1947 and married in 1951. Marvellous talkers, with excellent memories, they draw upon their own family experiences (Ita’s mother died when she was three -- “the only memory I have is of her hands, doing things”; Rory was the oldest of nine children, five of them girls); and recall every detail of their Dublin childhoods -- the people (aunts, cousins, shopkeepers, friends, teachers), the politics (both came from Republican families), Ita’s idyllic times in the Wexford countryside, and Rory’s apprenticeship as a printer. When Roddy’s parents put down a deposit of two hundred pounds for a house in rural Kilbarrack, on the edge of Dublin, Rory was working as a compositor at the Irish Independent. By the time the first of their four children was born, he had become a teacher at the School of Printing in Dublin. Then, their home began to change (“Kilbarrack wasn’t a rural place any more”) along with the rest of the country, as the intensely Catholic society of their youth was transformed into the vibrant, complex Ireland of today. Rory and Ita’s captivating accounts of the last century, combined with Roddy Doyle’s legendary skill in illuminating ordinary experience, make a story of tremendous warmth and humanity. This magnificent book is not only a biography of, but also a love letter to Roddy’s parents, Rory and Ita. From the Trade Paperback edition.

Successful restaurateur Lucien Black’s blue-green eyes and unattainable attitude drive women wild. But his abandonment issues and criminal past have left him emotionally closed off. When a familiar face shows up for a job interview at his nightclub, the ache he has tried to forget tears at his heart—it’s the girl who once healed him… and then abandoned him. Darcy MacBride still remembers Lucien’s delicate touch when they were both wildly in love teenagers. His gorgeous eyes had soothed her hurt after she’d been dumped off at the orphanage where Lucien lived. Darcy felt his jagged edges fit perfectly into her own, and she’d planned to spend the rest of her life with him—until a mysterious man warned her away. Now, fourteen years later, she’s ready to endure the torture of Lucien’s indifference and having him as her boss…just to be near him. But when it seems that they might finally take up where they left off, a devastating secret buried in their past threatens to tear them apart again. L.A. Fiore’s story of smoldering love recaptures the tormented romance of Beautifully Damaged.

Michelle doesn’t believe in fairy tales. She’s a hard-headed businesswoman, making a fresh start in a new town. And when she decides to take over a neglected book shop, she knows the perfect manager. For book-loving Anna, it’s a dream come true—and not just because it gives her an escape from her three demanding step-children and their adorable but hyperactive Dalmatian. Although she’s been thinking that her own fairytale ending hasn’t really turned out the way she hoped, Anna’s passion for the classics is transforming the shop. The customers, and even Michelle, are falling under the spell of the magical stories of romance, adventure, and lost dogs. But when secrets from her past threaten Michelle’s new beginnings, and trouble strikes at the heart of Anna’s household, can the wisdom and courage of the stories in the bookshop help the two friends—and those they love—find their happy ever after?

With college tuitions rising and student loans taking longer to pay off, a billionaire steps in and creates a contest. The prize for the 100 winners: student loans paid in full plus a trip around the world. Join us on this educational journey as we follow 10 of these winners. They have one final exam to take. They will learn that not all lessons in life can be taught from a book.With college tuitions rising and student loans taking longer to pay off, a billionaire steps in and creates a contest. The prize for the 100 winners: student loans paid in full plus a trip around the world. Join us on this educational journey as we follow 10 of these winners. They have one final exam to take. They will learn that not all lessons in life can be taught from a book.It also includes "Unforgettable", a short story written by one of the characters.

When a peculiar couple moves into the derelict house across the street, Marty White, the only kid resident of the Dullest Place in the Universe, is certain they have something to hide.What Marty is about to discover is something not only out of this world, but in a different world entirely.Every family has a secret. When a peculiar couple moves into the derelict house across the street, Marty White, the only kid resident of the Dullest Place in the Universe, is certain they have something to hide. What he discovers is something not only out of this world, but in a different world entirely.Marty's new neighbours, the Beatniks, have uncovered a connection to Over There—a world just like Marty's one, but backwards—in their bathroom mirror. Over There is filled with reflections: malevolent doppelgängers his world was never meant to see. No sooner does Marty discover this place when he finds himself standing in it. At first this seems like nothing more than his neighbours' cruel attempt at getting rid of him, but he soon realises there's much more to it than that.Marty has his own secret. A big one. He just doesn't know it yet.