All of Dameon Miles’s dreams come true when he is selected to join the elite ranks of dragon riders, who preside over and unite the six factions of Elderana with their extraordinary abilities. But his joy is short lived.
Dameon faces a nation teetering on the edge of civil war. After bonding with his dragon, Dameon is thrown into a leadership role, tasked with quelling an insurgency led by a rider who was thought to have vanished. In her absence, Carma amassed a dark power rendering her capable of bending others to her will. As Dameon and his fireteam of fellow former trainees travel the nation to maintain stability, they begin to realize that Carma’s uprising has evolved into an all-out war—one that Dameon’s side is rapidly losing.
Unsure who to trust, Dameon must rely on those closest to him to survive and fight to free Elderana from Carma’s clutches before it’s too late.
Rachel Jackson’s idyllic life takes a dramatic turn when she discovers a woman’s scarf in her politician husband’s computer bag. But in an election year, seeking answers to questions of infidelity is not an option. When her mother gives her a family heirloom, a travel trunk owned by an ancestor, she finds a distraction. As she immerses herself in its contents, she discovers a woman whose life is vastly different from her own. Or is it? Determined to dispel the notion that her ancestor Marit was insane, Rachel sets out to unveil her unknown story. In the interwoven narratives of these two women, who are bound by blood and a shared struggle, The Blue Trunk is a poignant exploration of identity, love, and unwavering strength.
Author Josie Olsvig transports the reader to a tumultuous time in American history, the mid-1800s in Charleston, South Carolina, neighboring Beaufort, and the surrounding Sea Islands. As the story unfolds, White aristocratic planters, determined to protect their tremendous wealth and rights as slaveholders, seek to form a separate nation. Walk the halls of the Citadel Military Academy where the sons of secessionists prepare to defend their “way of life” from the invading forces of the North. Listen to the steamy rhetoric of local plantation owners and their spouses under the influence of segregationists John C. Calhoun and newspaper publisher Robert Barnwell Rhett. Climb aboard the Union armada sent to block the flow of military goods from Europe to the Confederacy. Witness the liberation of over ten thousand enslaved workers, who later become known as “contrabands of war,” and the Union Army’s struggle to protect and assist the now liberated enslaved workers. This riveting historical novel has a compendium of the key players in the war and is filled with previously unknown facts, illustrations, and photographs.
Candice Bartlett is determined to push the limits on her radio talk show, The AdjustableLives of Women. Against the instincts of Barbara Ann, her cautiously pessimistic producer, Candice allows her unscripted impulsivity to guide her listeners and callers through an exploration of happiness, sadness, and hope—because Candice knows that when the facts are fractured, life can be a bumpy road.
As menopause misery, shoe envy, and two rogue Southern belles collide in the office, callers tell their stories about PTSD, family challenges, prescription mental-health medication gone mad, and heart-wrenching grief, the death of a child. Candice gives herself the authority to speak—and to grieve, to sleep, and to shift her thinking in her own flawed life.
The Adjustable Lives of Women is packed with struggle and hope, applauding women and their lives.
Ava Winston likes her life of routine in Lexington, Kentucky. Each day, she goes to the place she’s worked for twenty years, then returns home. On Sundays, she has dinner with her daughter, Juniper. It’s a little boring, but as Ava nears fifty-five, she deserves a bit of ease.
Then a tornado blows it away. Ava is safe in the basement, but when she emerges, only one corner of her home stands. Rather than crumbling under the loss, she feels a load lifted. Maybe something beyond the familiar is calling to her.
Ava seizes the opportunity to find the owner of a suitcase that landed on her lawn during the storm. Meanwhile, Juniper urges her to rebuild, Ava’s employer doesn’t want her to quit, and her ex-husband invites her back into his life. Ava must be courageous if she’s to assist two friends suffering in the tornado’s aftermath and balance what’s best for herself and for the people she loves.
Rooted in Sunrise is a story of learning to change and discovering what is most important.
Seven Children. Five Mothers. One idyllic commune. What could go wrong?
Annabel Cooper wants to save the world. Her story begins in 1964 with her journey to Freedom Summer in Mississippi, where the disappearance of her first love ignites a lifelong fight for justice. Years later, she, her husband, and four other couples form a Boston political collective where they live together with their children in a rambling Boston house. As the era’s social upheaval intensifies, they move their children to a Vermont Eden, where they can remain safe from the world’s threats; their parents continue their political work, taking turns traveling to Vermont to care for the children.
But not all danger comes from the outside.
Annabel’s daughter, Ivy, yearns for normalcy, not the patchouli-soaked, natural-food-laden confines of Vermont. But mostly, she longs for Annabel’s attention—until a cataclysmic event alters the course of all their lives and she learns the limits of her many mothers and fathers.
The Many Mothers of Ivy Puddingstone delves into the intricate and nuanced dance of familial love and communal ties through the lens of sociopolitical upheaval from the 1960s to the present day, examining which sacrifices are worth the price.
In today’s workplace, managers’ time is tight, and transactional imperatives abound. A relational mindset seems impossible. Enter What If You Tried This at Work?, which presents a new kind of “how” for managers seeking to expand and enhance their interpersonal management capabilities.
Professor Mark Haskins provides thirty-six short, compelling stories and sound wisdom based on forty years of experience to help managers imagine and pursue a personal blueprint for flexibility, personalization, and exploration. Each vignette focuses on a relational management concept followed by a series of questions to prompt and guide personalized focus for action based on the reader’s different priorities, interests, and schedules.
Relational management becomes a habit when managers are encouraged to be open to the possibilities resident in asking the question “What if I tried this at work?” And so, the transformation begins.
Saucon Valley High School, a small school in Pennsylvania’s LeHigh Valley, wasn’t historically known as a football powerhouse. Having to rely on homegrown talent, they’d often lose out to bigger schools with larger recruiting bases.
But 2015 would prove to be different.
Digging deep and pounding out their final year as Saucon Valley Panthers, cocaptains Zach Thatcher, Evan Culver, Mike Kane, Christian Carvis, and their teammates embarked on a quest for a Pennsylvania state football championship that would defy the odds. Fielding the school’s best team in decades, Head Coach Matt Evancho brought a group ofdetermined young men together for a journey none of them will ever forget.
With local roots but universal appeal, The Best Year of Our Lives uses recent interviews, personal stories, and media accounts from the time to paint the picture of everything theplayers, coaches, and local community experienced that storied year–the unity, thedisappointments, and the triumphs.
A hidden treasure. A dangerous journey. An epic quest begins.
Buckle up for The Treasure of Tundavala Gap, a breathtaking, globe-trotting thrill ride that will leave you gasping until the final, explosive secret is revealed. When brilliant PhD student Mateus and his best friend team up with a captivating Angolan guide to hunt for a legendary fortune, the trio find themselves in a harrowing game of cat and mouse with ruthless killers who want the treasure for themselves.
From chaotic battlegrounds of the Angolan Civil War to untamed West African border towns, this cinematic page-turner transports you to a world of exotic locales, jaw-dropping action sequences, smoldering romance, and remarkable bravery in the face of escalating danger. In the spirit of Indiana Jones and The Da Vinci Code, with unexpected cameos by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, this gripping adventure will leave you breathless as you race to the stunning conclusion.
East LA to Encino is a gripping exploration of the profound impact of family trauma, offering an unfiltered glimpse into one woman’s journey toward redemption and healing. Elizabeth Dillon, the indomitable survivor, bares her soul in a roller coaster of raw, unvarnished emotions, from a childhood of neglect to an adulthood spent rising beyond the fears of the past. Join Elizabeth in discovering the ability of the human spirit to triumph over adversity.
An old shoebox sat near a pile of photos on the kitchen table. Inside, beneath a layer ofdust, lay hundreds of letters lovingly tied up in bundles. Robert Forster and his siblings, tasked with cleaning our their parents’ home after their passing, immediately knew these must be the letters their dad, Lieutenant Louis “Jack” Forster, had sent to their mom, Gloria, while deployed to the China–Burma–India Theater in World War II.
These letters detail a soldier’s journey to the far reaches of the globe where few Americans had fought. They convey his suffering, sacrifice, and dedication in the face ofdanger, when all he wanted was to return home to marry his sweetheart. His journey was unique, as were his contributions to history in this forgotten theater of World War II.
Letters from the CBI not only tells a love story between a soldier in the throes of danger far from home and his future wife, it also reveals a son who discovers a new, intimate side ofhis father. A heartfelt and honest tribute to a soldier’s struggle to maintain connection and closeness with the world he leaves behind for war, its hopeful message will withstand thetest of time.
“Not everything is meant to know, Ilana. Some things need their mystery to survive.”
Ilana has an enviable job at the opera house, a committed relationship, and a cozy Greenwich Village apartment, but the questions inside of her are growing insistent. Is it due to her scientist boyfriend’s research on how people make their decisions, or is she suffering suppressed grief from the death of her adoptive mother? She becomes curious about who she would be if she’d grown up in her birth home. Is she truly who she thinks she is? Has she ever freely chosen anything at all? When Ilana learns that her birth mom owns a pub upstate, well, what harm could there be in furtively dropping by for a drink? To see, just to see. What begins as curiosity about her choices evolves into a traumatic shift in her world. She loses control of her life. And then, chaos.
Lost in Thought is a novel about unconscious decision-making and the illusion of free will.
Celeste Harp knows what they say about her and her free-spirited hippie mother. She also knows no one on Mackinac Island can forage field and forest better than she can, creating meals that are talked about for months. But after two years, she’s still relegated to mundane duties in the kitchen of the prestigious hotel where she works. All that could change when she receives an invitation to a yearlong cooking competition hosted by theenigmatic Forager Chefs Club. But after arriving at the Club and meeting her four competitors, Celeste realizes that her biggest competition may be her own self-doubt, even as she builds new relationships and discovers the underlying motivations—and secrets—the others are trying to hide.
Filled with heart and sprinkled throughout with foraging and cooking tips, The ForagerChefs Club shows that where food comes from matters, and what comes out of the kitchen can feed more than just the body.
When Lily heads to college 1,500 miles away from home, she has no idea of the earth-shattering changes that lie ahead.
First, there’s the matter of Kai, a mysterious Adirondack native and park ranger who seems to be hiding something even as he and Lily fall deeply in love. Then there are thehumanoid creatures she sees lurking in the forest—and which apparently only appear to her. Finally, there’s the new-age store in town, the Salty Swan, and its prescient proprietor, who seems to know a lot more than she lets on.
When all three factors converge and Kai’s secret is revealed, Lily’s world turns upside down, and she is faced with the biggest choice of her life: fight or flight—fear or love.
We read the stories of the “Three Little Pigs” and “Little Red Riding Hood” without believing wolves talk. Or Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey
Jan Wojcik devoted himself to God at a young age, eventually becoming a Jesuit seminarian. But as he progressed through his education, he began to view the Bible differently than his peers—he began to see it as a work of art. And he began to see organized religion as wanting to suppress that art for the purposes of lucrative thought control.
Jan spent a third of his lifetime getting under and then throwing off the heavy cloak of religious control by reading the Bible as literature. While living to be eighty—and counting—under gospel guidance, he has found the beauty and joy of loving women and working the earth, stargazing, and fishing as Jesus instructed his disciples to do. He learned to lead a godly life that goes beyond belief.
If someone you love was assaulted, abused, or was a victim of a crime-you are a secondary victim.
If the perpetrator is also someone you love, there are no words.
Madeline and Summer are more than best friends. They might as well be sisters; they’ve claimed the title, anyway-and sisters tell each other everything. But Summer has a secret she’s been hiding for years. Someone’s been hurting her, someone close, and when it comes out, it destroys everything around her with the force of dying stars.
Six years after the trial, Madeline is a haunted young woman trying to build a new life in Boston, but the guilt of her betrayal brings her to the brink of suicide. To let go of the past, Madeline must confront her father, mother, and all those involved with the trial that split her family apart-or continue her descent, finishing what she started to escape it.
Did Chaim Lerner, acclaimed Israeli author and Holocaust survivor, kill himself in 1983, thirty-eight years after surviving Auschwitz? If so, was it traumatic memories finally catching up to him? Or despair over Holocaust denialism? Or ordinary, difficult health issues—an aching hip, a damaged knee? Or simply a deadly episode of depression?
Or was it murder?
In 2005, Judah Loeb, Lerner’s former student and now a struggling American journalist and single father, travels to Jerusalem to investigate Lerner’s death. He drags along his fifteen-year-old daughter, Hannah, and they team up with Charlie, Judah’s former Hebrew University roommate, now a Jerusalem homicide detective. Their investigation takes them through the darker corners of the Israeli psyche, where they uncover secrets that threaten to destroy Lerner’s reputation and alter Jewish history. While probing the mysteries of Israel’s past, they encounter personal betrayal, heartbreak, and the fragile possibilities of forgiveness and redemption.
Is it possible to really know your spouse?
Nick Faulkner is about to find out . . . if he can stay alive. Nick—a former FBI star whose career mysteriously tanked, returns home one day to find that his wife Lexi has walked out on him and simply vanished. Then, he discovers she’s part of a cult-like church. He doesn’t believe for a second she’s suddenly found religion but is convinced she’s been kidnapped. Nick recruits a band of similarly disgraced ex-agents to help him spring her from the cult’s heavily armed compound.
He doesn’t know that powerful forces high in the US government and intelligence services are working to make sure that doesn’t happen. And that they’ll stop at nothing to prevent him from exposing the secrets lurking beyond the church gates.
Including murder.
As Nick works his way through the shadows of Lexi’s life and tries to sort out the hidden truth behind her disappearance, he tumbles into a sprawling web of deceit and lies thick with betrayal and shifting loyalties, where nothing is as it seems.
His quest will bring him face-to-face with enemies foreign and domestic, including traitors, social media “truth tellers,” Russian spies, and well-armed mercenaries. And he’ll have to survive a vast conspiracy determined to keep him from learning the stunning truth about who Lexi really is.
Or, perhaps even more shocking, who she isn’t.
Imagine life is like a sitcom starring your eccentric, single father who can never get enough attention. His physical appearance turns people’s heads. He wears an obvious toupee and walks around the house naked. He has a handlebar mustache and sideburns dyed jet black, and he shows off his tanned, muscular physique by leaving his shirt unbuttoned down to his navel wherever he goes. His appearance and his off-colored jokes draw attention, but his van is the real embarrassment.
This van is unlike anything you’ve ever seen. It’s covered in brass ornaments and silver dollars, and it shines like gold, attracting stares and even media coverage. Even Vegas casinos covet having it parked at their entrances for patrons to ogle.
Tracy shares what it was like being raised by her ostentatious but loving father. Left unsupervised to fend for herself in a series of life-threatening situations, Tracy finds herself on a wild ride down a road you would never expect.
