Finding Unauthorized Faith in Harry Potter, by Nicole L. Rivera addresses each of the seven books of Harry’s story as guides to exploring life’s deepest truths. Discover wisdom about friendship, courage, loyalty, and love from the Boy-Who-Lived and his magical friends.The Parable of Harry Potter & The Philosopher's Stone is the first in a series of seven, one for each of the Harry Potter books.Finding Unauthorized Faith in Harry Potter approaches the remarkable series as a storybook guide to life’s deepest truths, offering inspiration about faith, friendship, courage, loyalty, love, and other wisdom of the Bible. Nicole L Rivera advises us to live like Christ and Harry Potter heroes.

America teems with history and culture. Volume II of the five book series follows the same theme of ten short stories, taking place in the eastern seaboard. The tales, both historic and current, reflect the American way of life.The second issue of the five book series, ’50 Stories in 50 States: Tales inspired by a Motorcycle Ride Across the USA’ continues with ten short stories written by Kevin Parsons during his adventure. Written in similar fashion to book one, this volume covers the eastern seaboard. The stories look at the American culture in every state. From a teenager in Kentucky working up his courage to ask a girl for a date by eating bourbon laced candy to a traffic cop in Delaware that takes the law into his own hands, the tales give the reader a plethora of adventures. Some stories take place in historical settings, with the Revolutionary and Civil Wars a backdrop, both a huge impact to each state’s culture. The reader also gets a peek at the Gilded Age. Enjoy a look at the American culture, but also the lifestyles of each state, along with the myriad views of geography and landscapes.

It’s Christmas Eve and college student Jamison Riley has chosen to spend the holiday alone, in Sigma Mu Pi’s just-off-campus frat house. Of course the fact he’s arranged a blind date for tonight had something to do with turning down several relatives' offers. The date is after all, the first such opportunity - of any "acuity" - he’s had all semester.When Jamison’s date bails he’s sure he knows why, and it has nothing to do with Fate. He’s certain it’s got frat-brothers’ fingerprints all over it. The last laugh will be on them, though. Their housemother has just made the 21-year-old an eleventh hour offer he wouldn’t dream of refusing. On this night, of all nights, book learning will take a back seat to the timeless fundamentals of Hope, Life, Innocence, and Faith...all wrapped up in new beginnings.

A Grantaburgh Short ~ A Melancholy Tale. A duel bourn of class divide results in a man waking alone in The Wilderness. A bullet in his temple and prostrate atop the corpses of The Ferryman’s Pit, he recalls the fate that dragged him there.A collection of five short science fiction stories.The Exchange - a strange gang of buyers prove to be much more than meets the eyeRaging Star - a genocidal killer is interrogated, revealing a hopeless fight for mankind's survivalEden - the daily fight for survival in the first extrasolar human colony, EdenThe Suit - a ground-breaking experiment goes as planned, even though no-one knows its real purpose until the very endYar's Plume - a man uniquely gifted to communicate with an alien entity across vast distances in real-time, retells his personal tale

From #1 NYT Bestselling Author Rachel Van Dyken, comes the third and final book in the bestselling Bet Series... Boring Beth Lynn has always lived up to her nickname… until she wakes up in a hotel bed next to a sexy as sin state senator she re-connected with at a wedding the previous night. The biggest problem? She can't seem to remember anything about the night before except for crying into a box of cookies, and she’s pretty sure Grandma Nadine slipped something in her drink. And what should have been a one night stand turns into a six day adventure when Grandma whisks them off to Hawaii to save them from the ensuing media firestorm. Jace isn't looking for commitment — he believes he made that clear when he left the wedding with Beth. Then again, he can't remember much of anything other than the way her skin felt beneath his hands. Now he's stuck with her at some lame couple’s retreat and trying his hardest to fight the attraction only a woman like Beth could invoke. He doesn’t think it can get any worse. But one spider attack… A donkey ride from hell… And an unfortunate episode with Viagra tea — and there’s one thing Jace knows for sure: He should never have agreed to Grandma Nadine’s suggestion in the first place. Because if this isn’t paradise, and it isn’t a vacation — that only leaves one option. Survival. But to make it through alive… they might lose their hearts in the process.

"Thomas Keneally recounts history with the uncanny skill of a great novelist whose only interest is to lay bare the human heart in all its hope and pain. As he was able to do in Schindler's List, he shows us in The Great Shame a people despised and rejected to the point of death, who in the face of all their sorrows manage to keep their souls. This story of oppression, famine, and emigration--a principal chapter in the story of man's inhumanity to man--becomes in Keneally's hands an act of resurrection; Irishmen and Irishwomen of a century and a half ago live once more within the pages of this book." --Thomas Cahill, author of How the Irish Saved Civilization In the nineteenth century, Ireland lost half of its population to famine, emigration to the United States and Canada, and the forced transportation of convicts to Australia. The forebears of Thomas Keneally, author of Schindler's List, were victims of that tragedy, and in The Great Shame Keneally has written an astonishing, monumental work that tells the full story of the Irish diaspora with the narrative grip and flair of a great novel. Based on unique research among little-known sources, this masterly book surveys eighty years of Irish history through the eyes of political prisoners--including Keneally's ancestors--who left Ireland in chains and eventually found glory, in one form or another, in Australia and America. We meet William Smith O'Brien, leader of an uprising at the height of the Irish Famine, who rose from solitary confinement in Australia to become the Mandela of his age; Thomas Francis Meagher, whose escape from Australian captivity led to a glittering American career as an orator, a Union general, and governor of Montana; John Mitchel, who became a Confederate newspaper reporter, gave two of his sons to the Southern cause, was imprisoned with Jefferson Davis--and returned to Ireland to become mayor of Tipperary; and John Boyle O'Reilly, who fled a life sentence in Australia to become one of nineteenth-century America's leading literary lights. Through the lives of many such men and women--famous and obscure, some heroes and some fools (most a little of both), all of them stubborn, acutely sensitive, and devastatingly charming--we become immersed in the Irish experience and its astonishing history. From Ireland to Canada and the United States to the bush towns of Australia, we are plunged into stories of tragedy, survival, and triumph. All are vividly portrayed in Keneally's spellbinding prose, as he reveals the enormous influence the exiled Irish have had on the English-speaking world. "A terrible and personal saga, history delivered with a scholar's density of detail but with the individualizing power of a multi-talented novelist." --William Kennedy

The new novel in the Jesus Chronicles, the bestselling series from the authors of the Left Behind novels. Levi was studying to be a priest, but when an unspeakable tragedy befalls his family, he turns his back on his faith and decides to pursue riches and luxury instead. He becomes a tax collector, disappointing his family and reviled by Jews and Romans alike. And although he is a success, his chosen trade does not bring him contentment. When he hears about Jesus, the man who some are saying is the prophesied Messiah, he begins a quest that leads him to question his very existence. As he follows Jesus and records His words and deeds, Levi is shaken to the core and transformed. Renamed "Matthew" by Jesus—literally "gift from God"-he is called to give up his work and his worldly possessions and claims Jesus as his Lord. Matthew's Story is a novel that brings to life the most unlikely of apostles—a sinner-turned-saint-and his time with the Lord. Thrilling and uplifting, Matthew's Story shows how the true Messiah changed the life of one man, and forever altered the course of history.

Sick of running into her cheery ex-husband and his new wife, Leslie Petruso accepts a job at the Virgin River branch of Haggerty Construction and takes the high road right out of town. Now she's got Paul Haggerty's business running like a well-oiled machine. In fact, things are so busy Paul jumps at the chance to hire an extra set of hands. Just like Leslie, Conner Danson has been burned by love. But if Leslie was disappointed by her relationship going bad, Conner was decimated. He's got no time for women... although he spends an awful lot of time pretending not to notice Leslie. And she's pretty busy "ignoring" the chemistry between them. According to Conner and Leslie, they have only one thing in common—they're done with love. But everyone in Virgin River can see that things are heating up at Haggerty Construction. And as far as Paul Haggerty can tell, the best thing he can do is hang on to his hard hat and watch the sparks fly!

It's all a grand adventure when English Christy Mansel unexpectedly runs into her cousin Charles in Damascus. And being young, rich, impetuous, and used to doing whatever they please, they decide to barge in uninvited on their eccentric Great-Aunt Harriet—despite a long-standing family rule strictly forbidding unannounced visits. Because when the Gabriel hounds run howling over the crumbling palace of Der Ibrahim in the Lebanon, someone will shortly die. A strange new world awaits Charles and Christy beyond the gates of Dar Ibrahim—"Lady Harriet's" ancient, crumbling palace in High Lebanon—where a physician is always in residence and a handful of Arab servants attends to the odd old woman's every need. But there is a very good—very sinister—reason why guests are not welcome at Dar Ibrahim. And the young cousins are about to discover that, as difficult as it is to break into the dark, imposing edifice, it may prove even harder still to escape.

From the prizewinning author of Half of a Yellow Sun (“A gorgeous, pitiless account of love, violence, and betrayal”—Time; “Instantly enthralling”—The New York Times) twelve dazzling stories—her most intimate work to date—in which she turns her penetrating eye on the ties that bind men and women, parents and children, Nigeria and the United States. In “A Private Experience,” a medical student hides from a violent riot with a poor Muslim woman whose dignity and faith force her to confront the realities and fears she’s been pushing away. In “Tomorrow Is Too Far,” a woman unlocks the devastating secret that surrounds her brother’s death. The young mother at the center of “Imitation” finds her comfortable life in Philadelphia threatened when she learns that her husband has moved his mistress into their Lagos home. And the title story depicts the choking loneliness of a Nigerian girl who moves to an America that turns out to be nothing like the country she expected; though falling in love brings her desires nearly within reach, a death in her homeland forces her to reexamine them. Searing and profound, suffused with beauty, sorrow, and longing, this collection is a resounding confirmation of Adichie’s prodigious literary powers.

Lieutenant Alexander Colton and February Owens were high school sweethearts. Everyone in their small town knew from the moment they met they were meant for each other. But something happened and Feb broke Colt’s heart then she turned wild and tragedy struck. Colt meted out revenge against the man who brought Feb low but even though Colt risked it all for her, Feb turned her back on him and left town. Fifteen years later, Feb comes back to help run the family bar. But there’s so much water under the bridge separating her and Colt everyone knows they’ll never get back together. Until someone starts hacking up people in Feb’s life. Colt is still Colt and Feb is still Feb so the town watches as Colt goes all out to find the murderer while trying to keep Feb safe. As the bodies pile up, The Feds move in and a twisting, turning story unravels exposing a very sick man who has claimed numerous victims along the way, Feb and Colt battle their enduring attraction and the beautiful but lost history that weaves them together.

Amy Hempel's compassion, intensity, and illuminating observations have made her one of the most distinctive and admired modern writers. In three stunning books of stories, she has established a voice as unique and recognizable as the photographs of Cindy Sherman or the brushstrokes of Robert Motherwell. The Dog of the Marriage, Hempel's fourth collection, is about sexual obsession, relationships gone awry, and the unsatisfied longings of everyday life. In "Offertory," a modern-day Scheherazade entertains and manipulates her lover with stories of her sexual encounters with a married couple as a very young woman. In "Reference # 388475848-5," a letter contesting a parking ticket becomes a beautiful and unnerving statement of faith. In "Jesus Is Waiting," a woman driving to New York sends a series of cryptically honest postcards to an old lover. And the title story is a heartbreaking tale about the objects and animals and unmired desires that are left behind after death or divorce. These nine stories teem with wisdom, emotion, and surprising wit. Hempel explores the intricate psychology of people falling in and out of love, trying to locate something or someone elusive or lost. Her sentences are as lean, original, and startling as any in contemporary fiction.

Gabriel Fairchild's valor during battle earns him the reputation of hero, but costs him both his sight and his hope for the future. Abandoned by the fiancée he adored, the man who once walked like a prince among London's elite secludes himself in his family's mansion, cursing his way through dark days and darker nights.Prim nurse Samantha Wickersham arrives at Fairchild Park to find her new charge behaving more like a beast than a man. Determined to do her duty, she engages the arrogant earl in a battle of both wit and wills. Although he claims she doesn't possess an ounce of womanly softness, she can feel his heart racing at her slightest touch. As Samantha begins to let the light back into Gabriel's life and his heart, they both discover that some secrets -- and some pleasures -- are best explored in the dark ...