Sir Griffin Barry leapt out of the bedchamber window at age seventeen after a very disappointing wedding night, drank a bit too much at the pub and woke to find that he'd joined the crew of a pirate ship! Years later, he has become one of the most feared pirates on the high seas, piloting the Flying Poppy, a ship he named after the wife whom he fondly (if vaguely) remembers. What happens when a pirate decides to come home to his wife — if she is his wife — given that the marriage was never consummated? And what happens when that pirate strolls through his front door and is met by... well, that's a surprise!

A short story about a vivacious young physicist and mathematician named Kristine, who has devoted her life to science. Hallucinations cause her to seek help from a social worker named Paul and she's terrified when she hears a questionable diagnosis of schizophrenia. Her path leads her to a place where perspective is all that's real, and sanity is nothing more than the limit of what we believe.A short story about a vivacious young physicist and mathematician named Kristine, who has devoted her life to science. Her newly found love for meditation and yoga bring hallucinations that frighten her enough to seek the help of a social worker named Paul Ghent. She fears the worst when she is handed a possible diagnosis of schizophrenia, but the diagnosis as with all things in life, is uncertain. Kristine's scientific mind drives her personal need to find a definite answer that ends in what seems to be the impossible. Taking her therapist on her journey into what could only be her delusion, they both find out the truth about her. It's the lesson that perspective is all that's real, and sanity is nothing more than the limit of what we believe.

Her dancing days are over. Her leg destroyed in the car crash. THE DREAM IS GONE!!! Wait… she’s a Christian. Shouldn’t things be going better? Didn’t she pray her way from kids dance classes through Juilliard? Were all those years of training a waste of time?! She was so sure she had God’s Blessing. What happened?! Now what?! Can the entrepreneur or the wood sculptor help her create a new dream?Her dancing days are over. Her leg was destroyed in the car crash. It was all his fault! Or, at least as far as she's concerned. Kind of "guilty by association."She'd been classically trained in ballet. It was her life! Her life and her dream! And now...the dream is gone. The dream is gone!! THE DREAM IS GONE!!!Wait… she’s a Christian. Shouldn’t things be going a lot better? After all, didn’t she pray her way through the pursuing of this “ballet-dancing thing?” Were all those years of training a waste of time?! She was so sure she had God’s Blessing. What in the world happened?! Had God been toying with her?! Had He set her up just so He could break her down for some... "great spiritual lesson?!"Now what?! The only thing she knew was ballet. That was all she had in her "asset bank!"Can either the entrepreneur or the wood sculptor help her create a new dream? And, bring her a lifetime love?

"Deux Semaines" is the story of Jay, a middle aged man who decides to seek the advice of a therapist after losing the love of his life. The terror of falling into a mid-life psychosis compels him to reveal his story in it's most intimate detail. The passion that burns within the memories of his concealed pain will take him back to her, and to his friends as if he traveled back in time.The Ruling Elite and Other Stories is a collection of short fantasy from Xina Marie Uhl and Janet Loftis. Here you'll find a slave-mercenary struggling to save the life of his mistress, a palace guard defending his city against the destroyer of prophecy, a wanderer who brings more than just past grief into the lives of four sisters, two men who go on a dangerous hunt to kill the witches destroying their village, an outcast trying to outwit the village oracle and get justice for her murdered mother, and a captain who discovers how high the cost is to return the dead to their rightful homes. Come read stories which fuse fantasy with history and anthropology by two of XC Publishing's most talented writers.

After a fierce wind storm passes through a small town. The local café is swept up into the eye of the storm. Inside the haunted Connection Café, a love triangle develops. Maggie longs for Jeff and Gabby pines for Simon. Who knew?This is a short story (2000 words) about a boy from the Edo group of Benin (now Nigeria) who enters the British Army in the 1930s. He gets promoted to the rank of sergeant and celebrates by having his statue made. But for the following generations, working for the British is not cool anymore: all the discourse is about independence. Soldiers like that young boy are forgotten, both in Britain and in their own country. Their statues get melted by the thousands.Nobody cares, and even the Edo language slowly disappears.

Warning: Dream So Dark is book 2 in this series and darker than book 1. Child trafficking is mentioned though not graphic. No explicit explanations but themes of sexual violence and healing after are explored. Thank you for considering my book for your next read. He was created to be a messenger and guider of dreams. He has traveled the earth for centuries upon centuries fulfilling his purpose. Until her. Serenity crept into his existence as seamlessly as the dreams he wove and just as effortlessly, she stole his heart. Their future is still unclear, but Dair knows he doesn't want to spend even another hour without her. Meanwhile Emma Whitmore, a brilliant young girl whose overcome so much at her tender young age was dropped in both their laps, but for what purpose neither is certain. Taken from the people she's grown to love and put in a home with a man who has no love to give, she fights to survive. She just has to hang on until she can be returned to the adoptive family who has already claimed her. Three lives, unsure of what is to come, fighting the darkness that is closing in all around them. If they are to have any future together, then evil cannot prevail. But at what cost to them?

I'm not a good Catholic girl. A good Catholic girl would never use church on Sunday to lust over the Father's son. A good Catholic girl would never pulse between her thighs and lose her breath over the boy who recites the closing prayer - even if his voice is low and sinful enough to make her toes curl in her shoes. A good Catholic girl would never allow herself to be led into temptation by dirty, blond hair and dark eyes... And a good Catholic girl would never use Bible study as an excuse to be used and abused. But, like I said, I'm not a good Catholic girl... And he's FAR from a good Catholic boy. Caleb Andrews is everything I don't need, but he's everything I want... God help me.

International award winner David Almond draws on memories of his early years in Tyneside, England, for a moving coming-of-age novel, masterfully told. A gentle visionary coming of age in the shadow of the shipyards of northern England, Dominic Hall is torn between extremes. On the one hand, he craves the freedom he feels when he steals away with the eccentric girl artist next door, Holly Stroud—his first and abiding love—to balance above the earth on a makeshift tightrope. With Holly, Dom dreams of a life different in every way from his shipbuilder dad’s, a life fashioned of words and images and story. On the other hand, he finds himself irresistibly drawn to the brutal charms of Vincent McAlinden, a complex bully who awakens something wild and reckless and killing in Dom. In a raw and beautifully crafted bildungsroman, David Almond reveals the rich inner world of a boy teetering on the edge of manhood, a boy so curious and open to impulse that we fear for him and question his balance—and ultimately exult in his triumphs.

*A sweet and steamy New Adult Romance from Amazon bestselling author of the Ruthless People series, J.J. McAvoy… * After an erotic one-week fling with a musician she meets in a bar, Thea Cunning never expects to see Levi Black again. Then Monday morning comes around, and she discovers that her former lover is not only her professor, but he’s also one of the top criminal lawyers in the state of Massachusetts. With everyone in class vying to be one of the twelve disciples—a group of twelve students that Professor Black takes under his wing—tensions run high. Thea considers dropping his class, given their passionate week together and their undeniable chemistry. After all, there are other (less infuriatingly sexy) law professors on campus. But to accomplish her goal and get her father out of prison, Thea knows she needs to learn under the best of the best—and that’s Levi Black. But can she learn under the best, without being under the best?

In this hilarious, heartrending novel, New York Times bestselling author Aimee Friedman reminds us of the importance of sisters. . . and of not wearing stilettos in the mud. When Katie and Michaela Wilder are uprooted from NYC and planted in rural Fir Lake, Katie is horrified by their new surroundings: the too-friendly neighbors, the local uniform of sandals paired with socks, the very idea of milking a cow. But while Katie suffers through shopping withdrawal, Michaela transforms into a small-town social firefly, flirting with the hot quarterback and soaking up nature with her new hick-town friends. As in, people who think camping is fun. Does Katie even know her sister anymore? And after Michaela hides a jaw-dropping secret from her, does Katie even want to?

A young girl thirsts for love and freedom, but at what cost? Ruby dreams of escaping the Congregation. Escape from slaver Darwin West and his cruel Overseers. Escape from the backbreaking work of gathering Water. Escape from living as if it is still 1812, the year they were all enslaved. When Ruby meets Ford—an irresistible, kind, forbidden new Overseer—she longs to run away with him to the modern world where she could live a normal teenage life. Escape with Ford would be so simple. But if Ruby leaves, her community is condemned to certain death. She, alone, possesses the secret ingredient that makes the Water so special—her blood—and it’s the one thing that the Congregation cannot live without. Drought is the haunting story of one community’s thirst for life, and the dangerous struggle of the only girl who can grant it.

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Mark Twain once famously said "there was but one solitary thing about the past worth remembering, and that was the fact that it is past and can't be restored."Ê Well, over recent years, The British Library, working with Microsoft has embarked on an ambitious programme to digitise its collection of 19th century books.There are now 65,000Ê titles availableÊ (that's an incredible 25 million pages) of material ranging from works by famous names such asÊ Dickens, Trollope and Hardy as well as many forgotten literary gems , all of which can now be printed on demand and purchased right here on Amazon.Further information on The British Library and its digitisation programme can be found on The British Library website.

If finding out she'd been bitten by a werewolf wasn't enough to turn Phoebe's world upside down, learning that she had a past life as a vampire certainly did! Blasts from her past, vampire Marcus and werewolf Damen, rival for Phoebe's affection. She must learn to accept the monster that now claims part of her soul, and that her one true love would be the undoing of her mortality.If finding out she'd been bitten by a werewolf wasn't enough to turn Phoebe's world upside down, learning that she had a past life as a vampire certainly did! Marcus, a vampire and the former lover of Phoebe's past life, still hungers for her. While Damen, a werewolf once responsible for the "other" Phoebe's death is fiercely obsessed with her, and rivaling Marcus's passion.Phoebe comes to realize that the horrific dreams from her subconscious are truly glimpses from her past life. She must now learn to accept the monster that now claims part of her soul, and that her one true love would be the undoing of her mortality.Set in modern day Northern England, Immortal Wounds captures the essence of a time where chivalry and honor reign supreme. It is a romance about timeless love, forbidden passion, and the overwhelming desire to have what cannot be yours. It's a story of one woman's quest to recapture a love from a lifetime ago and to find the courage within her to defend it.