I wrote this little piece some years back for my grand daughter's tenth birthday. It's a story about a girl on the cusp of turning ten, her grandfather, an antique music box and some very special magic. It turned out a little longer than I’d intended, as it happened, but, you know, you get that. --Oh yes. And "She'll be jake" is dated Aussie slang for "It'll be okay", but I'm a bit dated meself.Naomi Boyd, on the run from the law, was shot and left for dead on the street by her good-for-nothing accomplice. Now, as she dies, she is forced to relive a fractured, insane version of her life. Color, her guardian angel, is just trying to make her a good person again. A hippy named Bobby brings forth her untainted desires to expand her mind via drug use. General Deed brings up ghosts from her past and forces her to face her inner demons. And Marry Lauper even makes an appearance and shows her the shortcomings of fast times and loose money. She has to face who she was, what she has become, and who she wants to be all before she dies. Otherwise, she'll be stuck in a hell for an imperfect version of herself forever.

Only time will tell who the traitors really are…Sixteen-year-old Lucinda is getting the home-coming from hell. England is in the grip of the War of the Roses and her tyrant father has promised her hand to a vile man three times her age. In need of aid, she seeks sanctuary with an old childhood friend only to find him accused of treachery and harboring a supernatural secret.Only time will tell who the traitors really are…Sixteen-year-old Lucinda is getting the home-coming from hell. England is in the grip of the War of the Roses and her tyrant father has promised her hand to a vile man three times her age. In need of aid, she seeks sanctuary with an old childhood friend only to find him accused of treachery and harboring a supernatural secret. All too soon Lucinda is caught in a fight that’s not her own but, to be with the man she loves, she’ll gladly take up arms. When you stand at Traitors’ Gate, keep the vampires close, and the zombies as far away as possible!

The Battle of Wakefield, from a Conisbrough perspective. Richard Duke of York makes a rash sally from Sandal Castle only to find that he is facing 20,000 Lancastrians.The White Rose and the Red is a narrative poem in blank verse which describes one of the key battles of the Wars of the Roses, The Battle of Wakefield, from a Conisbrough perspective. Richard, Duke of York, rushes north to prevent the Lancastrian domination of Yorkshire. He visits Conisbrough Castle and then Sandal where he stations his arm of 5,000 men. Unfortunately he is unaware that the Lancastrian army already numbers 15,000 and is growing rapidly.

Eliot Rosewater—drunk, volunteer fireman, and President of the fabulously rich Rosewater Foundation—is about to attempt a noble experiment with human nature... with a little help from writer Kilgore Trout. *God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater* is Kurt Vonnegut’s funniest satire, an etched-in-acid portrayal of the greed, hypocrisy, and follies of the flesh we are all heir to. *From the Trade Paperback edition.*

“Read, read, read. Read everything—trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it. Then write. If it is good, you’ll find out. If it’s not, throw it out the window.” —William Faulkner Absalom, Absalom! is Faulkner’s epic tale of Thomas Sutpen, an enigmatic stranger who comes to Jefferson, Mississippi, in the early 1830s to wrest his mansion out of the muddy bottoms of the north Mississippi wilderness. He was a man, Faulkner said, “who wanted sons and the sons destroyed him.” From the Trade Paperback edition.

What happens when the person who is your family is someone you aren't bound to by blood? What happens when the person you promise to love and to honor for the rest of your life is not your lover, but your best friend? In Truth & Beauty, her frank and startlingly intimate first work of nonfiction, Ann Patchett shines a fresh, revealing light on the world of women's friendships and shows us what it means to stand together. Ann Patchett and Lucy Grealy met in college in 1981, and, after enrolling in the Iowa Writers' Workshop, began a friendship that would be as defining to both of their lives as their work was. In her critically acclaimed and hugely successful memoir, Autobiography of a Face, Lucy Grealy wrote about losing part of her jaw to childhood cancer, the years of chemotherapy and radiation, and then the endless reconstructive surgeries. In Truth & Beauty, the story isn't Lucy's life or Ann's life, but the parts of their lives they shared. This is a portrait of unwavering commitment that spans twenty years, from the long, cold winters of the Midwest, to surgical wards, to book parties in New York. Through love, fame, drugs, and despair, this book shows us what it means to be part of two lives that are intertwined. This is a tender, brutal book about loving a person we cannot save. It is about loyalty, and about being lifted up by the sheer effervescence of someone who knew how to live life to the fullest.

Revisit the second memoir in Augusten's bestselling trilogy of Running with Scissors, Dry, and Lust & Wonder. You may not know it, but you've met Augusten Burroughs. You've seen him on the street, in bars, on the subway, at restaurants: a twenty-something guy, nice suit, works in advertising. Regular. Ordinary. But when the ordinary person had two drinks, Augusten was circling the drain by having twelve; when the ordinary person went home at midnight, Augusten never went home at all. Loud, distracting ties, automated wake-up calls, and cologne on the tongue could only hide so much for so long. At the request (well, it wasn't really a request) of his employers, Augusten landed in rehab, where his dreams of group therapy with Robert Downey, Jr., are immediately dashed by the grim reality of fluorescent lighting and paper hospital slippers. But when Augusten is forced to examine himself, something actually starts to click, and that's when he finds himself in the worst trouble of all. Because when his thirty days are up, he has to return to his same drunken Manhattan life and live it sober. What follows is a memoir that's as moving as it is funny, as heartbreaking as it is real. Dry is the story of love, loss, and Starbucks as a higher power.

Blind Date is a spectacular and erotically charged psychological novel that shows Jerzy Kosinski, author of Being There and The Painted Bird, at the height of his power. George Levanter is an idea man, a small investor, an international playboy, and a ruthless deal-maker whose life is delivered in a series of scorching encounters, each more incredible than the last. From Moscow to Paris, from a Manhattan skyscraper to a California mass murder, Blind Date is a dizzying vision of life among the beautiful people and the thrill-seekers.

From this “master of the genre,” Christina Dodd, comes three suspenseful short stories of this “remarkable, mesmerizing series”(Library Journal starred review) set in the quaint—and deadly—coastal town of Virtue Falls… THE LISTENER: Misfit and computer security expert Cornelia Markum hacks into a text conversation between unidentified Virtue Falls residents … and realizes she’s stumbled into a murder plot. THE RELATIVES: When relatives invite themselves to visit a wealthy couple’s Virtue Falls home, events take an unexpectedly dark—and fatal—turn. LOVE NEVER DIES: A murder committed. A love lost. A ghost haunted by his past. Only one woman can right all the wrongs… If she can survive the night… A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT includes previously unpublished extras from the full-length suspense VIRTUE FALLS, the alternate conclusion of acclaimed action-filled adventure OBSESSION FALLS and an excerpt of the newest Virtue Falls thriller, BECAUSE I’M WATCHING. These previously published Virtue Falls short stories are also available for purchase as singles.

It is 1974 and the country is still struggling to come to terms with the Vietnam War. In the small town of Conners, Georgia, Darcy has just started high school, her older sister Adel goes to weekend dances at the local Army base, and their mother tends her beautiful garden–the biggest and best in town. But Darcy’s world is soon changed forever when her mother goes to Atlanta for tests. The diagnosis is not good–breast cancer. There is so much Darcy wants to talk to her mother about: the war and what happened to the soldiers who were there; the feelings she is having for the new (and troubled) boy in school. But she can’t. So she finds solace in her mother’s garden. There she can help the flowers her mother planted bloom. From the Hardcover edition.

One night. One big mistake. One boy that changes everything. Britte Nichols has a plan. And it’s a good one. College. Med School. Illustrious career. Then maybe a husband. Possibly children, but she doesn’t want to get ahead of herself. Britte decided at a young age that she wasn’t going to let love get in the way of her future. She has things to do. Places to go and all that. Until the night she has one too many drinks and lets lust override logic. Beckett Harris is gorgeous, talented and completely bad for her. But she wasn’t the only one feeling fireworks that night. Now Beckett wants to explore their chemistry and his timing couldn’t be more inconvenient. Her heart wants what her head knows she can’t have. But a girl has needs. So when Beckett bets her a few weeks of harmless fun, she wants to say yes. She’ll just have to bet that Beckett doesn’t fall for her too.

THE LEGEND OF THE HIGHLAND GUARD CONTINUES. . . . Handpicked by Robert the Bruce to help him in his quest to free Scotland from English rule, the elite warriors of the Highland Guard face their darkest days. When Bruce is forced to flee, his bid for freedom rests on the shoulders of one extraordinary warrior.Erik MacSorley is a brilliant seafarer who has never encountered a wind he could not harness or a woman he could not win—until he drags a wet, half-naked “nursemaid” out of the waters off the Irish coast. Ellie’s ordinary appearance belies the truth: She is in fact Lady Elyne de Burgh, the spirited daughter of the most powerful noble in Ireland. Worse, this irresistible woman is determined to prove herself immune to Erik’s charms—a challenge he cannot resist. Her captor may look every inch a rugged warrior, but Ellie vows that it will take more than a wickedly suggestive caress to impress her. Yet Erik will sweep away Ellie’s resistance with a desire that resonates deep within her heart. Still, he is a man driven by loyalty, and she is a woman with secrets that could jeopardize Bruce’s chance to reclaim his throne. As the battle for king and country sounds across the shores, will Ellie’s love be enough to finally tame the legend known as the Hawk?Surrender to the pleasure of this novel from the Highland Guard seriesAbout the AuthorMonica McCarty is the bestselling author of The Chief, the first book in the Highland Guard series, the Highlander trilogy (Highlander Untamed, Highlander Unmasked, and Highlander Unchained), and the Campbell trilogy (Highland Warrior, Highland Outlaw, and Highland Scoundrel). Her interest in the Scottish clan system began in the most unlikely of places: a comparative legal history course at Stanford Law School. After a short but enjoyable stint as an attorney, she realized that her career as a lawyer set against her husband’s transitory life as a professional baseball player was not exactly a match made in heaven. So she traded in her legal briefs for Scottish historical romances with sexy alpha heroes. Monica McCarty lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and their two children.

From a bold and captivating voice comes a collection of stories that probes women's darkest passions and pushes the boundaries of erotic fiction. Sometimes romantic, sometimes raw, Zane appeals to men and women alike with these tales of intoxicating sensuality. THE Sex CHRONICLESSHATTERING THE MYTH Anyone who thinks that men are by nature more sexual than women or that African-American women are especially inhibited hasn't read Zane. Here, she presents an erotic read in three parts: Wild, Wilder, and Off Da Damn Hook. With a unique ability to tell it like it is -- and also to tell it like it could be in your wildest dreams -- Zane crafts stories about everyone from the sensual housewife who wants her husband to experiment more to a secret underground sorority of women that organizes some rather unconventional social events. By turns tender and outrageous, The Sex Chronicles is a pleasure from beginning to end.