The dachsy hero in this story is Jasmine, but if you asked her, she would say her dad, Hans is the real hero. Hans immigrated from Norway, got an excellent education and landed a job with NASA on the team that put the first man on the moon. This fictional story in a historical setting will warm your heart.When we've chosen the wrongly decision and have fallen off the horse. We must pick ourselves up and get back on the horse not literally speaking.A.G.Douglas proudly presents to you a short story called, ‘The Parable of One Winged Butterfly.’ I have found the butterfly to be a fascinating insect which has inspired children around the world. The natural world will play a crucial part in lives of the butterflies. The natural world provides extraordinary beauty and resources at our doorsteps. The downside of the natural world is that it brings destruction and mayhem too. This parable of the one winged butterfly confronts the downside of the natural world in a courageous manner with the strength of the Lord.

London 1696. War. Treason. Espionage. Financial chaos. Speculation. Sarah Goodricke writes plays. It pays the rent. It keeps her in tobacco and laudanum. She has a play to finish. Then she gets caught up in a hanging procession to Tyburn. She agrees to perform a last service for one of the convicts. It goes wrong. It goes terribly wrong.Please note: This is an unrevised and unfinished fragment of a novel by Richard Blake.London 1696War. Treason. Espionage. Financial chaos. Speculation.Sarah Goodricke writes plays. It pays the rent. It keeps her in tobacco and laudanum. She has a play to finish.Then she gets caught up in a hanging procession to Tyburn. She agrees to perform a last service for one of the convicts.It goes wrong. It goes terribly wrong.Sarah runs. Sarah thinks she is safe. But can she hide in a city filled with plotters, all desperate to lay hands on the packet of letters she has carried away from Tyburn?This unfinished fragment of a novel by Richard Blake is offered free in e-book format as a sample of his finished works. Do not be disappointed if it leaves you in suspense.One day, someone may pay him to finish it....

The Neon Bible tells the story of David, a young boy growing up in a small Southern town in the 1940s. David's voice is perfectly calibrated, disarmingly funny, sad, shrewd, gathering force from page to page with an emotional directness that never lapses into sentimentality. Through it we share his awkward, painful, universally recognizable encounter with first love, we participate in boy evangelist Bobbie Lee Taylor's revival, we meet the pious, bigoted townspeople. From the opening lines of The Neon Bible, David is fully alive, naive yet sharply observant, drawing us into his world through the sure artistry of John Kennedy Toole. John Kennedy Toole, who won a posthumous Pulitzer Prize for his best-selling comic masterpiece A Confederacy of Dunces, wrote The Neon Bible for a literary contest at the age of sixteen. The manuscript languished in a drawer and became the subject of a legal battle among Toole's heirs. It was only in 1989, thirty-five years after it was written and twenty years after Toole's suicide at thirty-one, that this amazingly accomplished and evocative novel was freed for publication.

The Custom Culture guys, Nix, Clutch, Dray and Rett, are back for one final novel, and you're invited! Nix Pierce has been in love with Scotlyn James since long before he met her, and now he wants to spend the rest of his life with her. But is Scotlyn ready?

Published in the bicentenary year of Frederick Douglass’s birth and in a Black Lives Matter era, this edition of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass presents new research into his life as an activist and an author. A revolutionary reformer who traveled in Scotland, Ireland, England, and Wales as well as the US, Douglass published many foreign-language editions of his Narrative. While there have been many Douglasses over the decades and even centuries, the Frederick Douglass we need now is no iconic, mythic, or legendary self-made man but a fallible, mortal, and human individual: a husband, father, brother, and son. His rallying cry inspires today’s activism: “Agitate! Agitate! Agitate!” Recognizing that Douglass was bought and sold on the northern abolitionist podium no less than on the southern auction block, this edition introduces readers to Douglass’s multiple declarations of independence. The Narrative appears alongside his private correspondence as well as the early speeches and writings in which he did justice to the “grim horrors of slavery.” This volume also traces Douglass’s activism and authorship in the context of the reformist work of his wife, Anna Murray, and of his daughters and sons.

May all your chickens come home to roost. If they had only known what trouble lay ahead, maybe, just maybe the Morgan children and their friend Deeter wouldn’t have agreed to mind No-Name, the world’s ugliest chicken. Maybe they could have avoided camping out with it; confronting its archenemy, the fox; grappling with its abductors. But then again, maybe the whole madhouse caper was inevitable. Summer vacation has arrived. The kids can think of nothing but Starlight Park and its rides. The Screaming Cyclone, Red Devil, Mad Hornet. The fact that their parents won’t take them poses the greatest dilemma of their young lives. That is, until Cornelia makes a deal with Dad. In return for their help in keeping Mom’s one-of-a-kind birthday present hidden for a week, Dad will grant their wish. By the end of a week’s chicken duty, young readers will agree. The Morgans and Deeter have earned their trip to Starlight Park!

She thinks he's an arrogant playboy. He thinks she's an uptight prude. But he's about to make her an offer she can't refuse. Nicola Price used to have it all – a great career, the perfect boyfriend, an excessive shoe collection and an apartment in one of San Francisco’s best neighborhoods. But when she gets knocked up and her asshat boyfriend leaves her high and dry, Nicola’s perfectly crafted world comes tumbling down. And stays that way. Now, Nicola is the proud single mom to a five-year old daughter and living a giant lie. She can barely afford their ghetto apartment and all the men she dates run when they hear she comes with a child. She’s struggling and scared – and nowhere near where she thought she’d be at age thirty-one. Her saving grace comes in the form of a tall, handsome and wealthy Scotsman Bram McGregor, the older brother of her friend Linden. Bram understands a thing or two about pride, so when tragic circumstances place Nicola at rock bottom, he offers them a place to live in the apartment complex he owns. It’s pretty much the perfect deal, so as long as she doesn’t mind living beside Bram, a man that, despite his generosity, seems to antagonize her at every turn. But nothing in life is free and as Nicola gets her feet back on the ground, she discovers that the enigmatic playboy may end up costing her more than she thought. She might just lose her heart. Those McGregor brothers are nothing but trouble...

In the second book of Caroline B. Cooney’s bestselling Night to Remember series, five high school juniors get ready for the most important night of their lives—a dance that will bring happiness . . . or heartbreak For Kip, Anne, Beth Rose, Emily, and Molly, it’s the perfect end to their junior year. The night they’ve been waiting for—a night to wish upon a star. Kip just got the ultimate kiss-off: Her boyfriend, Mike, suddenly wants to be “just friends.” At the start of junior year, Anne and Conrad were Westerly High’s most popular couple. Now everything’s different, and Anne wonders if the whole school knows her secret. Beth Rose was a perennial wallflower before she met Gary. She’s crazy about him, but he’s never once said the L-word. Emily’s life just fell apart, and all she wants is for Matt to make the pain go away. Molly’s furious that Con is taking Anne to the dance when she knows he really loves her. She’s about to plot the perfect revenge . . . For five very different girls, it’s a dance they’ll always remember. Will it be a night of love—or loneliness? An ending—or a new beginning?

New York Times bestselling author Jim Harrison was one of this country’s most beloved writers, a muscular, brilliantly economic stylist with a salty wisdom. He also wrote some of the best essays on food around, earning praise as “the poet laureate of appetite” (Dallas Morning News). A Really Big Lunch, to be published on the one-year anniversary of Harrison’s death, collects many of his food pieces for the first time—and taps into his larger-than-life appetite with wit and verve. Jim Harrison’s legendary gourmandise is on full display in A Really Big Lunch.

Lochlan MacAllister was born to lead. Ruthlessly groomed to take control of his clan, he has given his life to his people. But when he learns that the brother he thought was dead might still be alive, he embarks on a quest to find the truth.Catarina wants a life of freedom. But now Catarina's royal father wants to use her as a pawn to ensure a treaty between conflicting lands. So much so that he's willing to kidnap his daughter to force the issue. But when she escapes, fate throws her into the path of a man she loathes.Lochlan is stunned to find the shrewish Cat being hauled away by unknown men. Unwilling to see even her suffer, he frees her only to learn that she has her own demons to fight. When their fates intertwine, two people who know nothing of trust must rely on each other, and two enemies who have vowed their eternal hatred must find common ground, or see their very lives shattered.

As the acknowledged 'Queen of Crime' P.D. James was frequently commissioned by newspapers and magazines to write a special short story for Christmas. Four of the very best of these have been rescued from the archives and are published together for the first time. P.D. James's sparkling prose illuminates each of these perfectly formed stories, making them ideal reading for the darkest days of the year. While she delights in the secrets that lurk beneath the surface at enforced family gatherings, her Christmas stories also provide enjoyable puzzles to keep the reader guessing. From the title story about a strained country house gathering on Christmas Eve, another about an illicit affair that ends in murder, and two cases for James's poet-detective Adam Dalgliesh -- each treats the reader to James's masterfully atmospheric story-telling, always with the lure of a mystery to be solved.

Charlie's Uncle Paton has dashed off to try to stop the Yewbeam aunts' latest plan, but when Grandma Bone greets the arrival of Belle with delight, could this be what Paton left hoping to prevent? At Bloor's, Emma finds art teacher Mr Boldova is the brother of the mysterious Ollie Sparks, made invisible by the blue boa. Belle joins the more nastily endowed, and Charlie realises she is Yolanda, an evil shapeshifter who brought up Charlie's nasty aunts. She wipes Mr Boldova's mind, leaving only his rat, Rembrandt, to tell Billy Raven what's happened. Soon Charlie will have to face the terrible sorcerer Skarpo again to free his friend. When Julia Ingeldew is threatened, Paton furiously springs into action.About the AuthorJenny Nimmo lives in a converted watermill in Wales. Her husband, David, is a painter and print-maker, and all three of her children speak Welsh fluently. She finds Wales, a land of legends, a very inspiring place to live. For as long as she can remember, Jenny has loved books. She feels passionately that every child should have access to as many books as they want. Jenny enjoys writing about magic because it is inexplicable and unpredictable, and anything can happen. In 1986 her book, The Snow Spider, won the Smarties Grand Prix, and in 1987 it was awarded the Tir na n-Og by the Welsh Arts Council. The Rinaldi Ring, was chosen as Guardian Book of the Week and was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal and received a commendation.

An old man begs for death throughout the final day of his life.An old man is tired of living. During his final day of life, he eats his usual breakfast of scrambled eggs, kicks the dog, greets the mailman in his own special way, watches back-to-back episodes of Twilight Zone, visits his son and grand kids, and asks the Lord several times to let him die.