As a young girl in a working-class neighborhood of Sydney, Australia, Geraldine Brooks longed to discover the places where history happens and culture comes from, so she enlisted pen pals who offered her a window on adolescence in the Middle East, Europe, and America. Twenty years later Brooks, an award-winning foreign correspondent, embarked on a human treasure hunt to find her pen friends. She found men and women whose lives had been shaped by war and hatred, by fame and notoriety, and by the ravages of mental illness. Intimate, moving, and often humorous, Foreign Correspondence speaks to the unquiet heart of every girl who has ever yearned to become a woman of the world. From the Trade Paperback edition.

Flannery O'Connor was working on Everything That Rises Must Converge at the time of her death. This collection is an exquisite legacy from a genius of the American short story, in which she scrutinizes territory familiar to her readers: race, faith, and morality. The stories encompass the comic and the tragic, the beautiful and the grotesque; each carries her highly individual stamp and could have been written by no one else.

The members of the Kent family’s most dynamic generation face internal clashes as the Civil War ignites In the hellish years of the Civil War, the Kent family faces its greatest trials yet. Louis, the devious son of the late Amanda Kent, is in control of the dynasty—and of its seemingly inevitable collapse. His cousin Jephtha Kent, meanwhile, backs the abolitionist cause, while his sons remain devoted Southerners. As the country fractures around the Kents, John Jakes introduces characters that include some of the most famous Americans of this defining era. Spanning the full breadth of the Civil War—from the brutal frontlines in the South to the political tangle in Washington—The Titans chronicles two struggles for identity: the country’s and the Kents’. This ebook features an illustrated biography of John Jakes including rare images from the author’s personal collection.

In her powerful new memoir, the #1 bestselling author of Infidel tells the stirring story of her search for a new life as she tries to reconcile her Islamic past with her passionate adherence to democracy and Western values. A unique blend of personal narrative and reportage, moving, engaging, wryly funny at times, Nomad gives us an inside view of her battle for equality in the face of considerable odds. Ayaan captured the world's attention with Infidel, the eye-opening memoir of her childhood in Africa and Saudi Arabia, and her escape to Holland en route to a forced marriage in Canada. Nomad is the story of what happened after the Dutch director with whom she made a documentary about the domestic abuse of Muslim women was murdered by a radical Islamist and death threats forced her into hiding; of her bid to start a new life in America; of her renewed contact with her family on her father's death; and of her attempts to live by her adopted principles. With deep understanding, and through vivid anecdotes, and observations of people, cultures, and the political debacles that are engulfing the world, she takes us with her on an illuminating, unforgettable journey. From the Hardcover edition.

Wendy Mann loves her job rescuing celebrities from public relations scrapes. She grew up with nothing, and now she’s drawn to glitz, glamour, and a lighthearted lifestyle. She speaks her mind, so she’s just the tough cookie to tell stars the truth about how other people see them, even when they don’t want to hear it. But after six years at the top of her game, Wendy crosses the line. A star she was sent to save rebels against her and nearly gets her fired. To salvage her job, she must rehabilitate the career of a singing starlet with a penchant for posting inappropriate photos of herself and arguing online with her famous ex. Problem is, the ex is represented by Wendy’s arch nemesis from college, the hot and haughty Daniel Blackstone. And both stars are scheduled for a collision course on national television, broadcast live from Las Vegas. Daniel’s uneasy when he hears Wendy Mann from his firm’s most hated competitor has been brought in to revive the career of his client’s ex-girlfriend. Daniel must win at any cost. And if he has to seduce Wendy to smooth the way to their partnership, he’s willing to sacrifice himself for the cause. But Daniel doesn’t count on the scorching heat between them—and when they get to Vegas, all bets are off.

“One of our most exquisite storytellers” (Esquire) gives us his first collection in over a decade: ten potent new stories that, along with twenty-one classics, display his mastery over a quarter century. Tobias Wolff’s first two books, In the Garden of the North American Martyrs and Back in the World, were a powerful demonstration of how the short story can “provoke our amazed appreciation,” as The New York Times Book Review wrote then. In the years since, he’s written a third collection, The Night in Question, as well as a pair of genre-defining memoirs (This Boy’s Life and In Pharaoh’s Army), the novella The Barracks Thief, and, most recently, a novel, Old School. Now he returns with fresh revelations—about biding one’s time, or experiencing first love, or burying one’s mother—that come to a variety of characters in circumstances at once everyday and extraordinary: a retired Marine enrolled in college while her son trains for Iraq, a lawyer taking a difficult deposition, an American in Rome indulging the Gypsy who’s picked his pocket. In these stories, as with his earlier, much-anthologized work, he once again proves himself, according to the Los Angeles Times, “a writer of the highest order: part storyteller, part philosopher, someone deeply engaged in asking hard questions that take a lifetime to resolve.”

This text discusses 20 mysteries which challenge our accepted view of history. Topics covered include: were there ancient contacts between Europe and America?; could Atlantis have existed?; the true age of the great pyramid; was there a worldwide catastrophe around 10,000 BC?

e-book 268 pagesPRINT RELEASE INFO:978-1-5153-9114-2In the fevered mind of Samuel Lambent, a storm brews. At its dark heart is a need unlike any other, the kind that ravishes the soul and lays waste to both kindness and sanity. And that storm is mirrored in the skies over Chicago. The Culmination is approaching. For Samuel Lambent is actually Samael – the Fallen One. He’s been dreaming of her, craving her, side-lined by an intense obsession that has all but consumed him. And now that he has actually seen Angel, the long lost fifth and final archess, he will stop short of absolutely nothing to obtain her, going so far as to break fundamental covenants… and make the ultimate sacrifice. Angel watches the skies above with an anxious eye. She knows what the tempest means. The Fallen One has found her. His impossible influence and power stretch across vast miles, and his eyes call to her. Within their tumultuous gray is something her heart understands, no matter how it may not wish to. There is a promise in Samael’s gaze. And it is that promise that keeps her running. For if he claims her. If she gives in… the Culmination will ensue. Life on Earth as she knows it will come to an end. Angel will have surrendered everything. All for the fierce and unforgivable love of the Fallen One. Samael is the nail-biting, gut-clenching, heart-wrenching, long-awaited fifth and final installment in the highly acclaimed The Lost Angels series, by NYT and USA Today bestselling paranormal romance author, Heather Killough-Walden. 

Rachel O'Malley works disasters for a living. Her specialty? Helping children through trauma. When a school shooting rips through her community, she finds herself dealing with more than just grief among the children she is trying to help. One of them saw the shooting, and the gun is still missing.Introducing the O'Malleys, an inspirational group of seven, all abandoned or orphaned as teens, who have made the choice to become a loyal and committed family. They have chosen their own surname, O'Malley, and have stood by each other through moments of joy and heartache. Their stories are told in CBA best-selling, inspirational romantic suspense novels that rock your heart and restore strength and hope to your spirit.

The troubling message from Serena Charters's late grandmother appears in a package containing four pages of a centuries-old illuminated manuscript -- a strange inheritance that hides many secrets...and has already cost many lives. Seeking answers, Serena turns to Erik North of Rarities Unlimited, a reclusive manuscript appraiser with a passion for the past. Without warning, they are thrust together into the center of a lethal firestorm that rages between two worlds -- one long dead, yet living on in an ancient text, the other chillingly alive and fraught with peril. In the blink of an eye, Serena and Erik have become targets of an unseen and determined stalker as they get closer to shocking revelations about Serena's legacy, the cold murder of an eccentric old woman in the heat of the Mojave Desert...and just how far a remorseless killer is willing to go. And now their only slim hope of survival is to keep moving.

A school teacher attempts to locate the biblical Garden of Eden and thereby prove creation following a student and teacher disagreement over a creation verses evolution debate.After the death of a student at an Auckland school over a creation verses evolution disagreement a teacher at the school enters into a wager with another teacher that she can prove creation. The story follows her efforts to locate the biblical Garden of Eden and thereby prove creation rather than evolution.

What if … UKIP were given a lectern in the debates in 2010?They weren’t, of course. Not in our world. But in a world very similar to our own, where the tiniest of changes happened, they were. And things turned out rather differently …Read "The Fourth Lectern" to see just how different it would have been.Note: This book is a novella – a short novel (unlike its sequel, which is full-sized)What if … UKIP were given a lectern in the debates in 2010?They weren’t, of course. Not in our world. But in a world very similar to our own, where the tiniest of changes happened, they were. And things turned out rather differently …Today, in 2014, the UKIP surge is big news. What if it had happened earlier, in the dying days of a Labour Government? What if four-party politics had taken hold in the last election, in the last moments before the campaign began? What if the BBC, in attempting to close down arguments over whether the SNP and Plaid Cymru should be in the debates without excluding the Liberal Democrats, accidentally opened the door to UKIP?The campaign would have been rather different. Election night more so. And the aftermath?Read "The Fourth Lectern" to see just how different it would have been.Note: This book is a novella – a short novel (unlike its sequel, which is full-sized)

Sam of Wilds emerges from the Dark Woods to find the dark wizard Myrin has overthrown the kingdom. But a brave knight, a defiant prince, a pissed-off unicorn, and a half-giant have formed a resistance in Sam's name.