Nerve is a classic novel from Dick Francis, one of the greatest thriller writers of all time.Rob Finn's winning streak made him one of the most sought-after steeplechase jockeys. But his subsequent collapse in form surprised no one more than himself.As word spreads that Finn has lost his nerve, he discovers a well-managed campaign to discredit certain jockeys; in his own case, a plan assisted by horse doping.But to find the culprits behind it, Finn will have to use all his cunning and racing know-how . . .Packed with intrigue and hair-raising suspense, Nerve is just one of the many blockbuster thrillers from legendary crime writer Dick Francis. Other novels include the huge bestsellers Dead Heat, Under Orders and Silks. The Dick Francis legacy continues through his son Felix Francis: Refusal is his latest novel, following Bloodline and...

It's an acquired taste…he just has to acquire it Elise knows what she wants in the bedroom, and she makes sure she gets it. Her thirst for domination has long been quenched by a stable of men only too happy to bow down before her.But sexual satisfaction isn't the same as love, and she's been burned in the past by giving her heart too freely.Niall is handsome, smart, successful and sweet—sweet as vanilla. When they meet, their romantic connection is electric, even though he's way on the opposite end of the kink spectrum. Despite how she fights it, Elise falls for him—but how can a relationship work when both lovers want to be on top?

The Adventures of Henri and Charlie. A short story for young children. In which animals can talk to each other. by Terry AspinallThis short story tells of how two pet birds, a Peach Face Parrot and a Yellow Canary escape from their cages and owners, and go on a wild journey to discover what awaits them in the wild.

The Resurrection of Sylvia Plath, poetic excerpts by Marc Goldfinger.Born the daughter of a gentleman but now an innkeeper's niece, Lily loses hope that her true love, an officer in His Majesty's Navy, will return to claim her as his bride. When his ship returns home, she must choose between risking shame and ridicule by running to him, or waiting like a lady for him to come to her...if he still wants her.

What's a car-mad dog to do? The cats have challenged Horace to a race - but he's been banned from driving the family car! So he decides that he'll just have to build his own. What could possibly go wrong? This sequel to PETROL PAWS is full of fun for ages 7 and over.What's a car-mad dog to do?When Horace the dog learnt to drive, all the dogs in town copied him. He's their hero - but now the dogs are banned from driving, and the cats have challenged them to a race! Since Horace has no car, he decides to build his own. A lawnmower and a few bricks should do it...With a little help from his friends the stunt hamsters, Tickety and Boo, and the snooty snake Kimi, Horace gets his car on the road. But will it be fast enough to beat the cats?This sequel to PETROL PAWS is the second in the WHEElers series, but can also be read as a stand-alone book, packed with fun and four-wheeled action for ages 7 and over.

The angel had promised her that her son would become ruler in Judea . . . but instead he became a traveling preacher. Now she feared that she was losing his love. This is a portrayal of the most famous mother and son relationship in history in a new but all too familiar light.An implacable family of criminals. A detective at the bottom of his career. An investigation that will lead him to unpredictable consequences. Silvana, the mistress of the mafia’s big boss, went to Vico pleading for help, but now she is dead. The most evident explanation is suicide, but detective Vico is not convinced. In the course of the investigation, Vico will end up in the grip of the Italian mafia, in a war against Chinese drug smugglers for the control of the power in the city. In a corrupted and violent world, where Vico can trust no one, will he be able to solve Silvana’s death? Will he survive in this fight against ruthless criminal organizations?

A collection of student poems from the 2017 Poetry ContestVoyage to the 1950s:A Sci-Fi novelette (21,419 words, 10 Chapters) An UNUSUAL UFO time travel story as Brad finally gets to meet his obsession, Amanda, and that's not easy since he's in the 21st century and she's in the 20th century.As an experiment to observe human behavior, the gray alien commander of UFO offers his craft's time travel capabilities to propel Brad Anderson back to the 1950s to meet his obsession--a girl in a picture on his grandmother's wall that is over 50 years old. It's an offer that Brad just can't refuse.Excerpt:These beings I pondered, had powers far beyond ours. They could move objects around. They could move around in time. They could make people forget events. They could alter documents. I had no doubt that they could place thoughts in people’s minds if they so desired. Could they even bring Amanda forward and change events to make her fit in unnoticed? That was extreme but the thought crossed my mind. What power they had if they chose to use it. They are around us I acknowledged to myself and we didn’t know it. Those who suspected such were dismissed as dreamers or idiots. I recalled that writers had even written novels contemplating their existence in ancient times. Ghost Informant:A Sci-Fi novelette (12965 words 10 Chapters) Description:In this UNUSUAL story, a policeman discovers a strange informant and sets out to solve a murder that hasn't even been reported. The paranormal world and a by-the-book policeman come together as a recently murdered girl's apparition reaches out to him in a plea to find her body. "Find me," she whispered out of thin air from the back seat of his car--but she wasn't really there when he turned around.Excerpt:I knew I had seen and heard the image of a young woman in the back of my cruiser. But why me? Why did she appear to me and who was she? I knew I couldn’t let it rest.After I got to sleep I had a restless night, tossing and turning. Finally I fell into a peaceful deep sleep until I started dreaming. …………..My gaze moved toward the front of the class where the teacher dressed in a red dress and gold belt had her back turned and was writing something on a blackboard. It looked like gibberish.She finished writing several senses of gibberish, turned around slowly to face the class and I saw it was the girl who had appeared in the back of my car……..As soon as her gaze caught mine she crossed her arms and immediately I could see the piece oMaybe it ran in the family. I knew I had seen and heard the image of a young woman in the back of my cruiser. But why me? Why did she appear to me and who was she? I knew I couldn’t let it rest.After I got to sleep I had a restless night, tossing and turning. Finally I fell into a peaceful deep sleep until I started dreaming. …………..My gaze moved toward the front of the class where the teacher dressed in a red dress and gold belt had her back turned and was writing something on a blackboard. It looked like gibberish.She finished writing several senses of gibberish, turned around slowly to face the class and I saw it was the girl who had appeared in the back of my car……..As soon as her gaze caught mine she crossed her arms and immediately I could see the piece of chalk she had been writing with, extending out from the grasp of the fingers on her right hand……........… Blood was dripping from the very end of it slowly down her hand and onto the floor. I heard the sound as the drops hit the floor—almost like the sound of a ticking clock. Then I woke up.I couldn’t get over the feeling I had in my dream that I had somewhere to go, but I didn’t know where. There are some tasks that you know you have to start even though they hadn’t been in your scheme of things and even though you may not even know exactly what they are. Winston Churchill once said something about being figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered the chance to do a special thing. I guess I had been figuratively tapped on the shoulder.

A timeless romance from "New York Times "bestseller Julie Garwood, a tale for mothers to share with their daughters, and for women to remember what it feels like to fall in love for the very first time. Summer never meant to lie. She just wanted to keep the most perfect guy she ever met interested in her. She had been surprised when David began hanging out with her every day... and dizzy with happiness when he kissed her. David seemed to like her uniconventional Irish family, even her eccentric Grandpa. Everything was going great - until Ann entered the picture. She collected boys like trophies. How could Summer compete with someone like that? Before she knew it, Summer was boasting to David about her passion for long-distance running. She never dreamed he'd enter them in a six-mile race. Summer dreaded the moment when he would discover the truth: she couldn't run six blocks. And the flirtatious Ann was already working on David. Then Summer's Grandpa came up with a plan that was just crazy enough to save the day....

The internationally renowned novel about the life and death of Jesus Christ. Hailed as a masterpiece by critics worldwide, The Last Temptation of Christ is a monumental reinterpretation of the Gospels that brilliantly fleshes out Christ’s Passion. This literary rendering of the life of Jesus Christ has courted controversy since its publication by depicting a Christ far more human than the one seen in the Bible. He is a figure who is gloriously divine but earthy and human, a man like any other—subject to fear, doubt, and pain. In elegant, thoughtful prose Nikos Kazantzakis, one of the greats of modern literature, follows this Jesus as he struggles to live out God’s will for him, powerfully suggesting that it was Christ’s ultimate triumph over his flawed humanity, when he gave up the temptation to run from the cross and willingly laid down his life for mankind, that truly made him the venerable redeemer of men. “Spiritual dynamite.” —San Francisco Chronicle “A searing, soaring, shocking novel.” —*Time *

This stunningly personal document and extraordinary history of the turbulent sixties and early seventies displays James Baldwin's fury and despair more deeply than any of his other works.  In vivid detail he remembers the Harlem childhood that shaped his early conciousness, the later events that scored his heart with pain--the murders of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, his sojourns in Europe and in Hollywood, and his retum to the American South to confront a violent America face-to-face.

In her debut novel, Torch, bestselling author Cheryl Strayed weaves a searing and luminous tale of a family's grief after unexpected loss. "Work hard. Do good. Be incredible!" is the advice Teresa Rae Wood shares with the listeners of her local radio show, Modern Pioneers, and the advice she strives to live by every day. She has fled a bad marriage and rebuilta life with her children, Claire and Joshua, and their caring stepfather, Bruce. Their love for each other binds them as a family through the daily struggles of making ends meet. But when they received unexpected news that Teresa, only 38, is dying of cancer, their lives all begin to unravel and drift apart. Strayed's intimate portraits of these fully human characters in a time of crisis show the varying truths of grief, forgiveness, and the beautiful terrors of learning how to keep living. From the Trade Paperback edition.

Some people wait decades to meet their soul mate. Courtney Kaufman suspects she met hers in high school only to lose him at seventeen. Since then, Courtney's social life has been a series of meaningless encounters, though she's made a few close friends along the way. Especially her roommate Max Cooper, who oozes damaged bad-boy vibes from every pore. Max knows about feeling lost and trying to move beyond the pain he's been on his own since he was sixteen. Now it's time to find out if he can ever go home again, and Courtney's the only one he trusts to go with him. But the trip to Providence could change everything because the more time he spends with Courtney, the harder it is to reconcile what he wants and what he thinks he deserves. It started out so simple. One misfit helping another. Now Max will do anything to show Courtney that for every heart that's ever been broken, there's another that can make it complete.

A platoon of young men and one woman soldier leaves Italy for one of the most dangerous places on earth. Forward Operating Base (FOB) in the Gulistan district of Afghanistan is nothing but an exposed sandpit—scorched by inescapable sunlight and deadly mortar fire. Each member in the platoon manages the toxic mix of boredom and fear that is life at the FOB in his own way. Brash Cederna shamelessly picks on the virgin Ietri. Giulia Zampieri seemingly navigates this male-dominated world with ease—until two male comrades start vying for her attention. And for medical officer Alessandro Egitto, the FOB serves as an escape from a real life even more dangerous than one fought with guns. At night, lying on their beds, they feel the beat of their own hearts, the ceaseless activity of the human body. But when a much-debated mission goes devastatingly awry, the soldiers find their lives changed in an instant.

Life meets death. The end meets the beginning. Eighteen-year-old Isis Blake hasn’t fallen in love in three years, forty-three weeks, and two days. Or so she thinks. The boy she maybe-sort-of-definitely loved has dropped off the face of the planet after his girlfriend's death, leaving a Jack-shaped hole. Determined to be happy, Isis fills it in with lies and puts on a brave smile for her new life at Ohio State University. But how long can that smile last with all of her friends gone? How long can it last with the guilt of Sophia's death crushing her? And how long can it really last when Will Cavanaugh attends the same school, taunting her? Isis is good at pretending everything is okay. But not that good. The cracks begin to show. Isis Blake is good at putting herself back together. But Jack Hunter is better. **This book contains language and sexual scenes, some of which may be unsuitable for younger readers. **This is the third and final book in the LOVELY VICIOUS series.

Can’t get enough Magic Mike? Let bestselling author Claire Kent introduce you to Matt Stokes, the sexy-as-sin male stripper and club owner who knows what it really means to bare everything.Preschool teacher Elizabeth Marks isn’t exactly thrilled to be attending a college friend’s bachelorette party at a male strip joint. The sights—screaming women, half-naked hunks—are just as sleazy as she expected, with one exception: the man standing at the back, radiating sensual heat despite being fully clothed. When Elizabeth takes refuge outside, he chases her down and dares her to stay. It turns out that her mystery man is the owner—and, as tonight’s headliner, the one guy Elizabeth wouldn’t mind seeing naked.Matt Stokes lives his life one day, one dance at a time. But as he challenges Elizabeth to get in touch with the passionate, impulsive woman behind her prim façade, she brings out another side of him as well. This girl isn’t just another pretty face—or paying customer—and Matt can’t help wanting more. Onstage, he’s used to exposing his body. Now Matt will have to expose his heart. Because when it comes to real love, that’s the one striptease that matters.Includes a special message from the editor, as well as an excerpt from another Loveswept title.**