You’re not supposed to want the one who torments you. When my stepbrother, Elec, came to live with us my senior year, I wasn’t prepared for how much of a jerk he’d be. I hated that he took it out on me because he didn’t want to be here. I hated that he brought girls from our high school back to his room. But what I hated the most was the unwanted way my body reacted to him. At first, I thought all he had going for him were his rock-hard tattooed abs and chiseled face. But things started changing between us, and it all came to a head one night. Then, just as quickly as he’d come into my life, he was gone back to California.
It had been years since I’d seen Elec. When tragedy struck our family, I’d have to face him again. And holy hell, the teenager who made me crazy was now a man that drove me insane. I had a feeling my heart was about to get broken again. Stepbrother Dearest is a standalone novel.
Marianne Daventry will do anything to escape the boredom of Bath and the amorous attentions of an unwanted suitor. So when an invitation arrives from her twin sister, Cecily, to join her at a sprawling country estate, she jumps at the chance. Thinking she'll be able to relax and enjoy her beloved English countryside while her sister snags the handsome heir of Edenbrooke, Marianne finds that even the best laid plans can go awry. From a terrifying run-in with a highwayman to a seemingly harmless flirtation, Marianne finds herself embroiled in an unexpected adventure filled with enough romance and intrigue to keep her mind racing. Will Marianne be able to rein in her traitorous heart, or will a mysterious stranger sweep her off her feet? Fate had something other than a relaxing summer in mind when it sent Marianne to Edenbrooke.
Six romances, one revolution, the story of the century.
At the start of the twentieth century, on the edge of the Russian Empire, a family prospers. It owes its success to a delicious chocolate recipe, passed down the generations with great solemnity and caution. A caution which is justified- this is a recipe for ecstasy that carries a very bitter aftertaste...
Stasia learns it from her Georgian father and takes it north, following her new husband, Simon, to his posting at the centre of the Russian Revolution in St Petersburg. Stasia's is only the first in a symphony of grand but all too often doomed romances that swirl from sweet to sour in this epic tale of the red century.
Tumbling down the years, and across vast expanses of longing and loss, generation after generation of this compelling family hears echoes and sees reflections. Great characters and greater relationships come and go and come again; the world shakes, and shakes some more, and the reader rejoices to have found at last one of those glorious old books in which you can live and learn, be lost and found, and make indelible new friends.
The city of Canluum lies close to the scarred and desolate wastes of the Blight, a walled haven from the dangers away to the north, and a refuge from the ill works of those who serve the Dark One. Or so it is said.
The city that greets Al’Lan Mandragoran, exiled king of Malkier and the finest swordsman of his generation, is instead one that is rife with rumour and the whisperings of Shadowspawn. Proof, should he have required it, that the Dark One grows powerful once more and that his minions are at work throughout the lands.
And yet it is within Canluum’s walls that Lan will meet a woman who will shape his destiny. Moiraine is a young and powerful Aes Sedai who has journeyed to the city in search of a bondsman. She requires aid in a desperate quest to prove the truth of a vague and largely discredited prophecy—one that speaks of a means to turn back the shadow, and of a child who may be the dragon reborn.
Willow Chance is a twelve-year-old genius, obsessed with nature and diagnosing medical conditions, who finds it comforting to count by 7s. It has never been easy for her to connect with anyone other than her adoptive parents, but that hasn’t kept her from leading a quietly happy life...until now.
Suddenly Willow’s world is tragically changed when her parents both die in a car crash, leaving her alone in a baffling world. The triumph of this book is that it is not a tragedy. This extraordinarily odd, but extraordinarily endearing, girl manages to push through her grief. Her journey to find a fascinatingly diverse and fully believable surrogate family is a joy and a revelation to read.
Miss Rook, I am not an occultist, Jackaby said. I have a gift that allows me to see truth where others see the illusion--and there are many illusions. All the world’s a stage, as they say, and I seem to have the only seat in the house with a view behind the curtain.
Newly arrived in New Fiddleham, New England, 1892, and in need of a job, Abigail Rook meets R. F. Jackaby, an investigator of the unexplained with a keen eye for the extraordinary--including the ability to see supernatural beings. Abigail has a gift for noticing ordinary but important details, which makes her perfect for the position of Jackaby’s assistant.
On her first day, Abigail finds herself in the midst of a thrilling case: A serial killer is on the loose. The police are convinced it’s an ordinary villain, but Jackaby is certain it’s a nonhuman creature, whose existence the police--with the exception of a handsome young detective named Charlie Cane--deny.
Doctor Who meets Sherlock in William Ritter’s debut novel, which features a detective of the paranormal as seen through the eyes of his adventurous and intelligent assistant in a tale brimming with cheeky humor and a dose of the macabre.
To Whom it May Concern,
It was easy to call us forbidden and harder to call us soulmates. Yet I believed we were both. Forbidden soulmates.
When I arrived in Edgewood, Wisconsin, I didn’t plan to find him. I didn't plan to stumble into Joe's bar and have Daniel's music stir up my emotions. I had no clue that his voice would make my hurts forget their own sorrow. I had no idea that my happiness would remember its own bliss.
When I started senior year at my new school, I wasn’t prepared to call him Mr. Daniels, but sometimes life happens at the wrong time for all the right reasons.
Our love story wasn’t only about the physical connection. It was about family. It was about loss. It was about being alive. It was silly. It was painful. It was mourning. It was laughter. It was ours.
And for those reasons alone, I would never apologize for Loving Mr. Daniels.
-Ashlyn Jennings
Lullabies is a sequel to the hugely popular, best-selling Love & Misadventure. This collection continues to explore the intricacies of love and loss, set to a musical theme.
Love's poetic journey in this new, original collection begins with a Duet and travels through Interlude and Finale with an Encore popular piece from the best-selling Love & Misadventure.
Lang Leav's evocative poetry speaks to the soul of anyone who is on this journey. Her talent for translating complex emotions with astonishing simplicity has won her a cult following of devoted fans from all over the world.
Lang Leav is a poet and internationally exhibiting artist.
Ed Abbey called The Monkey Wrench Gang, his 1975 novel, a "comic extravaganza." Some readers have remarked that the book is more a comic book than a real novel, and it's true that reading this incendiary call to protect the American wilderness requires more than a little of the old willing suspension of disbelief.
The story centers on Vietnam veteran George Washington Hayduke III, who returns to the desert to find his beloved canyons and rivers threatened by industrial development. On a rafting trip down the Colorado River, Hayduke joins forces with feminist saboteur Bonnie Abbzug, wilderness guide Seldom Seen Smith, and billboard torcher Doc Sarvis, M.D., and together they wander off to wage war on the big yellow machines, on dam builders and road builders and strip miners. As they do, his characters voice Abbey's concerns about wilderness preservation ("Hell of a place to lose a cow," Smith thinks to himself while roaming through the canyonlands of southern Utah. "Hell of a place to lose your heart. Hell of a place... to lose. Period").
Moving from one improbable situation to the next, packing more adventure into the space of a few weeks than most real people do in a lifetime, the motley gang puts fear into the hearts of their enemies, laughing all the while. It's comic, yes, and required reading for anyone who has come to love the desert.
It is 1922, and London is tense. Ex-servicemen are disillusioned; the out-of-work and the hungry are demanding change. And in South London, in a genteel Camberwell villa—a large, silent house now bereft of brothers, husband, and even servants—life is about to be transformed as impoverished widow Mrs. Wray and her spinster daughter, Frances, are obliged to take in lodgers.
With the arrival of Lilian and Leonard Barber, a modern young couple of the “clerk class,” the routines of the house will be shaken up in unexpected ways. Little do the Wrays know just how profoundly their new tenants will alter the course of Frances’s life—or, as passions mount and frustration gathers, how far-reaching, and how devastating, the disturbances will be.
A love story, a tension-filled crime story, and a beautifully atmospheric portrait of a fascinating time and place, The Paying Guests is Sarah Waters’s finest achievement yet.
Geoffrey Firmin, a former British consul, has come to Quauhnahuac, Mexico. His debilitating malaise is drinking, an activity that has overshadowed his life. On the most fateful day of the consul's life—the Day of the Dead—his wife, Yvonne, arrives in Quauhnahuac, inspired by a vision of life together away from Mexico and the circumstances that have driven their relationship to the brink of collapse. She is determined to rescue Firmin and their failing marriage, but her mission is further complicated by the presence of Hugh, the consul's half brother, and Jacques, a childhood friend. The events of this one significant day unfold against an unforgettable backdrop of a Mexico at once magical and diabolical.
Under the Volcano remains one of literature's most powerful and lyrical statements on the human condition, and a brilliant portrayal of one man's constant struggle against the elemental forces that threaten to destroy him.
If you want to build a better future, you must believe in secrets. The great secret of our time is that there are still uncharted frontiers to explore and new inventions to create. In Zero to One, legendary entrepreneur and investor Peter Thiel shows how we can find singular ways to create those new things.
Thiel begins with the contrarian premise that we live in an age of technological stagnation, even if we’re too distracted by shiny mobile devices to notice. Information technology has improved rapidly, but there is no reason why progress should be limited to computers or Silicon Valley. Progress can be achieved in any industry or area of business.
It comes from the most important skill that every leader must master: learning to think for yourself. Doing what someone else already knows how to do takes the world from 1 to n, adding more of something familiar. But when you do something new, you go from 0 to 1.
The next Bill Gates will not build an operating system. The next Larry Page or Sergey Brin won’t make a search engine. Tomorrow’s champions will not win by competing ruthlessly in today’s marketplace. They will escape competition altogether, because their businesses will be unique.
Zero to One presents at once an optimistic view of the future of progress in America and a new way of thinking about innovation: it starts by learning to ask the questions that lead you to find value in unexpected places.
Want your kids to be familiar with exotic locations?
Want them to meet cultures and animals, and widen their horizons?
This is a wonderful book about a girl named Abigail. Abigail found a magical bicycle in her grandparents' old house, and this bicycle takes her to the magnificent Amazon jungle. Who will she meet there? What will she discover?
This beginner reader’s eBook will inspire your kids to be open to new cultures, and be more curious and enthusiastic about exploring various places.
Your kids will enjoy full-color illustrations of Abigail and the Jungle life. Your kids will be inspired to be:
Abigail and the Jungle Adventure is a sweet children's book written especially for you and your ages 2-8 children. With simple text and 13 colorful illustrations, the story is suitable as a read-aloud book for preschoolers or a self-read book for beginner readers.
A Contemporary Romance from New York Times Bestselling Author Mimi Jean Pamfiloff
My name is Lily Snow. I am twenty-five years old, and despite being born with an unattractive face, I have never doubted who I am: smart, driven, and beautiful on the inside. Until I met Maxwell Cole.
He’s handsome, excessively wealthy, and the owner of Cole Cosmetics. It’s been my dream to work for this man for as long as I can remember. The good news is he wants to hire me. The bad news is he wants me for all the wrong reasons. Ugly reasons. In exchange, he’s offered me my dreams on a silver platter. The job. The title. A beautiful future. But this man is as messed up and ugly as they come on the inside. I’m not sure anyone can help him, and he just might take my heart down with him.
(STAND ALONE NOVEL)
Our personal data has been used to spy on us, hire and fire us, and sell us stuff we don't need. In Dataclysm, Christian Rudder uses it to show us who we truly are.
For centuries, we've relied on polling or small-scale lab experiments to study human behavior. Today, a new approach is possible. As we live more of our lives online, researchers can finally observe us directly, in vast numbers, and without filters. Data scientists have become the new demographers.
In this daring and original book, Rudder explains how Facebook "likes" can predict, with surprising accuracy, a person's sexual orientation and even intelligence; how attractive women receive exponentially more interview requests; and why you must have haters to be hot. He charts the rise and fall of America's most reviled word through Google Search and examines the new dynamics of collaborative rage on Twitter.
He shows how people express themselves, both privately and publicly. What is the least Asian thing you can say? Do people bathe more in Vermont or New Jersey?
Rudder also traces human migration over time, showing how groups of people move from certain small towns to the same big cities across the globe. And he grapples with the challenge of maintaining privacy in a world where these explorations are possible.
Visually arresting and full of wit and insight, Dataclysm is a new way of seeing ourselves—a brilliant alchemy, in which math is made human and numbers become the narrative of our time.
One hundred very short chapters, told in an utterly original first-person voice, propel readers through a narrative that is by turns gripping and darkly humorous, bleak and chilling, tender and transporting.
What if the football hadn't gone over the wall? On the other side of the wall, there is a dark secret. And the devil. And the Moon Man. And the Motherland doesn't want anyone to know.
But Standish Treadwell—who has different-colored eyes, who can't read, can't write, Standish Treadwell isn't bright—sees things differently than the rest of the "train-track thinkers." So when Standish and his only friend and neighbor, Hector, make their way to the other side of the wall, they see what the Motherland has been hiding. And it's big...
Station Eleven, an audacious, darkly glittering novel about art, fame, and ambition, is set in the eerie days of civilization's collapse. Day One: The Georgia Flu explodes over the surface of the earth like a neutron bomb. News reports put the mortality rate at over 99%. Week Two: Civilization has crumbled.
Year Twenty: A band of actors and musicians, known as the Travelling Symphony, move through the territories of a changed world, performing concerts and Shakespeare at the settlements that have formed. Twenty years after the pandemic, life feels relatively safe. But now a new danger looms, and it threatens the world every hopeful survivor has tried to rebuild.
Moving backward and forward in time, from the glittering years just before the collapse to the strange and altered world that exists twenty years after, Station Eleven charts the unexpected twists of fate that connect six people: celebrated actor Arthur Leander; Jeevan, a bystander warned about the flu just in time; Arthur's first wife, Miranda; Arthur's oldest friend, Clark; Kirsten, an actress with the Travelling Symphony; and the mysterious and self-proclaimed "prophet."
Sometimes terrifying, sometimes tender, Station Eleven tells a story about the fragility of life, the relationships that sustain us, and the beauty of the world as we know it.
Enter the exotic world of the South Pacific, and meet the men and women caught up in the drama of a big war.
The young Marine who falls madly in love with a beautiful Tonkinese girl. Nurse Nellie and her French planter, Emile De Becque. The soldiers, sailors, and nurses playing at war and waiting for love in a tropic paradise.
All his life, Call has been warned by his father to stay away from magic. To succeed at the Iron Trial and be admitted into the vaunted Magisterium school would bring bad things. But he fails at failing. Only hard work, loyal friends, danger, and a puppy await.
Join Callum, Aaron, Tamara, and all the others, who are trying to pass the Iron Trial, even though it is forbidden? Filled with Magic, Secrets, Power, and Fear, this book will captivate you.
Treating Self-Destructive Behaviors in Trauma Survivors, 2nd ed, is a comprehensive guide for clinicians dedicated to assisting trauma survivors. Throughout treatment, therapists may encounter clients disclosing self-destructive behaviors, including self-mutilation and other means of deliberately "hurting the body" such as bingeing, purging, starving, substance abuse, and other addictive behaviors.
Renowned clinician Lisa Ferentz introduces viable treatment alternatives, assessment tools, and new ways of understanding self-destructive behavior through a strengths-based approach. This method differentiates between the "experimental" non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) that some teenagers engage in occasionally and the repetitive and chronic self-destructive behaviors.
In this edition, numerous treatment strategies are cross-referenced to a practical workbook, offering therapists and clients concrete methods to integrate theory into practice. Ferentz emphasizes the significance of assessing and enhancing clients' self-compassion, explaining how nurturing this concept cognitively, emotionally, and somatically can become a catalyst for motivation and change.
The book also explores a cycle of behavior that clinicians can personalize and use as a template for treatment. The final sections focus on counter-transferential responses and various ways therapists can work with self-destructive behaviors while avoiding vicarious traumatization by adopting tools and strategies for self-care.
Face of Our Father is a captivating novel that is too literary to be a thriller, yet too thrilling to put down. It is a unique blend of action and intimacy – a thriller with a soul.
Stuart and Angela Pierce, like many disillusioned careerists, are busy reinventing their lives. Stu reduces his airline flying schedule to train for triathlons, while Angie escapes the daily horrors of a prosecutor's job to pursue pro bono work. But death threats soon prove that the only thing Angie escaped was the protective arm of the District Attorney's office.
With a graphic photo of a ritual stoning as his only tangible clue, Stu sets out to protect a wife who refuses to protect herself. Obsessed with catching a murdering rapist, Angie plunges them both into a web of global intrigue. But who, indeed what, is the real enemy? Honor. Love. Life. All are at stake as the Pierces struggle to uncover the truth, both the enemy's, and their own.
Sometimes the biggest enemy can be the one right next to you... How often does fiction change how we define integrity, prejudice, and evil? To get at all that, a novel needs a rollercoaster of a plot coupled with an acute understanding of identity, love, and where these intersect. Test your beliefs. Read it.
Sapiens. De animales a dioses: Una breve historia de la humanidad es una exploración fascinante de cómo la biología y la historia han definido a la humanidad. Yuval Noah Harari, uno de los historiadores más interesantes de nuestros tiempos, nos lleva en un viaje desde que los primeros humanos caminaron sobre la Tierra hasta los avances de las tres grandes revoluciones que nuestra especie ha protagonizado: la cognitiva, la agrícola y la científica.
Utilizando hallazgos de disciplinas tan diversas como la biología, la antropología, la paleontología o la economía, Harari examina cómo las corrientes de la historia han moldeado nuestra sociedad, la fauna y la flora que nos rodean, e incluso nuestras personalidades.
El libro plantea preguntas profundas: ¿Hemos ganado en felicidad a medida que ha avanzado la historia? ¿Seremos capaces de liberar nuestra conducta de la herencia del pasado? ¿Podemos hacer algo para influir en los siglos futuros? Audaz y provocador, Sapiens cuestiona todo lo que creíamos saber sobre el ser humano: nuestros orígenes, ideas, acciones, poder... y nuestro futuro.
De helaasheid der dingen keert de schrijver terug naar zijn geboortegrond in Reetveerdegem. We maken kennis met zijn vader, Pierre, die zijn paar uur oude zoontje in een postzak op zijn fiets langs alle kroegen van het dorp rijdt om hem aan zijn vrienden te tonen.
Zijn grootmoeder, wier nachtrust al te vaak verstoord wordt door de politie als die weer eens een van haar dronken zonen thuis komt afleveren, speelt ook een centrale rol. En niet te vergeten de werkloze nonkels Potrel, Witten en Zwaren, voor wie een wereldkampioenschap zuipen het hoogst haalbare is en die leven volgens het adagium 'God schiep de dag en wij slepen ons erdoorheen'.
De helaasheid der dingen is zowel een gevoelig ode aan als een hilarische afrekening met het dorp van een jeugd.
In this thrilling second book of The Arcana Chronicles by #1 New York Times bestselling author Kresley Cole, Evie struggles to accept her place in a prophecy that will either save the world—or destroy it.
Evie has fully come into her powers as the tarot Empress, and Jack was there to see it all. As one of twenty-two teens given powers following the apocalypse, she now knows a war is brewing, and it’s kill or be killed.
When Evie meets Death, the gorgeous and dangerous Endless Knight, things get even more complicated. Though falling for Jack, she’s drawn to Death as well. Somehow the Empress and Death share a romantic history, one that Evie can’t remember—but Death can’t forget…
Parks and Recreation actor and Making It co-host Nick Offerman shares his humorous fulminations on life, manliness, meat, and much more in this New York Times bestseller.
Growing a perfect moustache, grilling red meat, wooing a woman—who better to deliver this tutelage than the always charming, always manly Nick Offerman, best known as Parks and Recreation’s Ron Swanson? Combining his trademark comic voice and very real expertise in woodworking—he runs his own woodshop—Paddle Your Own Canoe features tales from Offerman’s childhood in small-town Minooka, Illinois—“I grew up literally in the middle of a cornfield”—to his theater days in Chicago, beginnings as a carpenter/actor and the hilarious and magnificent seduction of his now-wife Megan Mullally.
It also offers hard-bitten battle strategies in the arenas of manliness, love, style, religion, woodworking, and outdoor recreation, among many other savory entrees.
A mix of amusing anecdotes, opinionated lessons and rants, sprinkled with offbeat gaiety, Paddle Your Own Canoe will not only tickle readers pink but may also rouse them to put down their smart phones, study a few sycamore leaves, and maybe even hand craft (and paddle) their own canoes.
While flying an Allied fighter plane from Paris to England, American ATA pilot and amateur poet, Rose Justice, is captured by the Nazis and sent to Ravensbrück, the notorious women's concentration camp. Trapped in horrific circumstances, Rose finds hope in the impossible through the loyalty, bravery, and friendship of her fellow prisoners. But will that be enough to endure the fate that's in store for her?
Elizabeth Wein, author of the critically-acclaimed and best-selling Code Name Verity, delivers another stunning WWII thriller. The unforgettable story of Rose Justice is forged from heart-wrenching courage, resolve, and the slim, bright chance of survival.
Following a scalding row with her mother, fifteen-year-old Holly Sykes slams the door on her old life. But Holly is no typical teenage runaway: a sensitive child once contacted by voices she knew only as "the radio people," Holly is a lightning rod for psychic phenomena. Now, as she wanders deeper into the English countryside, visions and coincidences reorder her reality until they assume the aura of a nightmare brought to life.
For Holly has caught the attention of a cabal of dangerous mystics—and their enemies. But her lost weekend is merely the prelude to a shocking disappearance that leaves her family irrevocably scarred. This unsolved mystery will echo through every decade of Holly’s life, affecting all the people Holly loves—even the ones who are not yet born.
A Cambridge scholarship boy grooming himself for wealth and influence, a conflicted father who feels alive only while reporting from occupied Iraq, a middle-aged writer mourning his exile from the bestseller list—all have a part to play in this surreal, invisible war on the margins of our world. From the medieval Swiss Alps to the nineteenth-century Australian bush, from a hotel in Shanghai to a Manhattan townhouse in the near future, their stories come together in moments of everyday grace and extraordinary wonder.
Today is my last day as Violet Lasting. Tomorrow I become Lot 197.
The Jewel is a shocking and compelling new YA series from debut author, Amy Ewing. Sold for six million diamantes, Violet is now the Surrogate of the House of the Lake in the center of the Lone City, the Jewel. Her sole purpose is to produce a healthy heir for the Duchess – a woman Violet fears and despises.
Violet is trapped in a living death, her name and body no longer her own. She fights to hold on to her own identity and sanity, uncertain of the fate of her friends, isolated and at the mercy of the Duchess.
The Handmaid's Tale meets The Other Boleyn Girl in a world where beauty and brutality collide.
In this third Neapolitan novel, Elena and Lila, the two girls whom readers first met in My Brilliant Friend, have become women. Lila married at sixteen and has a young son; she has left her abusive husband and now works as a common laborer.
Elena has left the neighborhood, earned her college degree, and published a successful novel, all of which have opened the doors to a world of learned interlocutors and richly furnished salons. Both women have pushed against the walls of a prison that would have seen them living a life of misery, ignorance, and submission.
They are afloat on the great sea of opportunities that opened up during the nineteen-seventies. Yet they are still very much bound to each other by a strong, unbreakable bond.
The all-time Classic schoolroom drama - as relevant as today's headlines.
He shamed them, wrestled with them, enlightened them, and - ultimately - learned to love them. Mr. Braithwaite, the new teacher, had first to fight the class bully. Then he taught defiant, hard-bitten delinquents to call him "Sir," and to address the girls who had grown up beside them in the gutter as "Miss".
He taught them to wash their faces and to read Shakespeare. When he took all forty-six to museums and to the opera, riots were predicted. But instead of a catastrophe, a miracle happened. A dedicated teacher had turned hate into love, teenage rebelliousness into self-respect, contempt into consideration for others.
A man's own integrity - his concern and love for others - had won through. This is the story of a man's integrity winning through against the odds in a tough London school where he slowly and painfully breaks down the barriers of racial prejudice.
Edge of Eternity is the sweeping, passionate conclusion to Ken Follett’s extraordinary historical epic, The Century Trilogy.
Throughout these books, Follett has followed the fortunes of five intertwined families – American, German, Russian, English, and Welsh – as they navigate the tumultuous twentieth century. The story reaches one of the most tumultuous eras of all: the 1960s through the 1980s, a time of enormous social, political, and economic upheaval.
From civil rights, assassinations, and mass political movements, to Vietnam, the Berlin Wall, the Cuban Missile Crisis, presidential impeachment, revolution, and rock and roll, the novel captures it all.
East German teacher Rebecca Hoffman discovers she’s been spied on by the Stasi for years and commits an impulsive act that will affect her family for the rest of their lives.
George Jakes, the child of a mixed-race couple, chooses to join Robert F. Kennedy’s Justice Department, finding himself at the center of both the civil rights battle and a much more personal struggle.
Cameron Dewar, the grandson of a senator, seizes the chance to engage in espionage, only to find the world more dangerous than he imagined.
Dimka Dvorkin, a young aide to Nikita Khrushchev, becomes a key figure as the United States and the Soviet Union race to the brink of nuclear war, while his twin sister, Tania, embarks on a journey from Moscow to Cuba to Prague to Warsaw, leaving her mark on history.
With Follett's masterful storytelling, the historical backdrop is brilliantly researched and vividly rendered, bringing us into a world we thought we knew but will see anew.
Alba loves her life just as it is. She loves living behind the bakery, and waking up in a cloud of sugar and cinnamon. She loves drawing comics and watching bad TV with her friends. The only problem is she's overlooked a few teeny details:
Like, the guy she thought long gone has unexpectedly reappeared.
And the boy who has been her best friend since forever has suddenly gone off the rails.
And even her latest comic-book creation is misbehaving.
Also, the world might be ending – which is proving to be awkward. As Doomsday enthusiasts flock to idyllic Eden Valley, Alba's life is thrown into chaos. Whatever happens next, it's the end of the world as she knows it. But when it comes to figuring out her heart, Armageddon might turn out to be the least of her problems.
Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars. Now, he's sure he'll be the first person to die there.
After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he's alive—and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive. Chances are, though, he won't have time to starve to death. The damaged machinery, unforgiving environment, or plain-old human error are much more likely to kill him first.
But Mark isn't ready to give up yet. Drawing on his ingenuity, his engineering skills—and a relentless, dogged refusal to quit—he steadfastly confronts one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after the next. Will his resourcefulness be enough to overcome the impossible odds against him?
A young witch. Her loyal guardian. And an evil that has driven all the witches into hiding...
The hunters capture witches and bring them to their mistress, the dark witch. She steals their nature magic, twisting it to bring about wicked storms, choking droughts, and drowning fog that has brought the world to its knees.
When those hunters penetrate Brusenna's protected forest, she realizes an impossible truth: she is the last witch.
But Brusenna is not completely without friends. Her handsome guardian, Joshen, will stop at nothing to keep her safe and prove his love.
With the witch hunters closing in, Brusenna and Joshen set out on an epic, dangerous journey to free the other witches and defeat the dark witch. If they fail, there won’t be anything left to save.
Can Brusenna save her fellow witches and defeat the dark magic? Will she and her guardian find their happily ever after?
Want to Help Your Kids Win Friends?
Terry Treetop is a wonderful book about a boy named Terry, who is fondly known as Terry Treetop because of his love for climbing trees. Feeling alone, Terry embarks on an adventure to find new friends to invite to his newly built tree house. Just when he's about to give up, a new opportunity presents itself. Will Terry seize this chance to make new friends?
This beginner readers' eBook series is designed to motivate and inspire your kids to be active in pursuing their goals and to never give up on their quest for love and happiness. Your children will delight in the full-color illustrations of Terry and the farm animals he encounters.
Inspiration for Kids:
Terry Treetop Finds New Friends is a sweet children's book perfect for ages 2-6, with simple text and 16 colorful illustrations. It's ideal as a read-aloud book for preschoolers or a self-read book for beginner readers.
Three weeks. Two sisters. One car. A True Story.
Raina can’t wait to be a big sister. But once Amara is born, things aren’t quite how she expected them to be. Amara is cute, but she’s also a cranky, grouchy baby, and mostly prefers to play by herself.
Their relationship doesn’t improve much over the years, but when a baby brother enters the picture and later, when something doesn’t seem right between their parents, they realize they must figure out how to get along. They are sisters, after all.
Raina uses her signature humor and charm in both present-day narrative and perfectly placed flashbacks to tell the story of her relationship with her sister, which unfolds during the course of a road trip from their home in San Francisco to a family reunion in Colorado.
You have to teach your heart and mind how to sing together... then you'll hear the sound of your soul.
Mia Kelly thinks she has it all figured out. She's an Ivy League graduate, a classically trained pianist, and the beloved daughter of a sensible mother and offbeat father. Yet, Mia has been stalling since graduation, torn between putting her business degree to use and exploring music, her true love.
When her father unexpectedly dies, she decides to pick up the threads of his life while she figures out her own. Uprooting herself from Ann Arbor to New York City, Mia takes over her father's cafe, a treasured neighborhood institution that plays host to undiscovered musicians and artists.
She's denied herself the thrilling and unpredictable life of a musician, but a chance encounter with Will, a sweet, gorgeous, and charming guitarist, offers her a glimpse of what could be. When Will becomes her friend and then her roommate, she does everything in her power to suppress her passions—for him, for music—but her father's legacy slowly opens her heart to the possibility of something more.
Sweet Thing explores the intensity and complexities of first love and self-discovery.
Set in seventeenth century Amsterdam—a city ruled by glittering wealth and oppressive religion—this masterful debut is steeped in atmosphere and shimmering with mystery.
On a brisk autumn day in 1686, eighteen-year-old Nella Oortman arrives in Amsterdam to begin a new life as the wife of illustrious merchant trader Johannes Brandt. But her new home, while splendorous, is not welcoming. Johannes is kind yet distant, always locked in his study or at his warehouse office—leaving Nella alone with his sister, the sharp-tongued and forbidding Marin.
But Nella's world changes when Johannes presents her with an extraordinary wedding gift: a cabinet-sized replica of their home. To furnish her gift, Nella engages the services of a miniaturist—an elusive and enigmatic artist whose tiny creations mirror their real-life counterparts in eerie and unexpected ways.
Johannes' gift helps Nella to pierce the closed world of the Brandt household. But as she uncovers its unusual secrets, she begins to understand—and fear—the escalating dangers that await them all. In this repressively pious society where gold is worshipped second only to God, to be different is a threat to the moral fabric of society, and not even a man as rich as Johannes is safe.
Only one person seems to see the fate that awaits them. Is the miniaturist the key to their salvation...or the architect of their destruction?
Enchanting, beautiful, and exquisitely suspenseful, The Miniaturist is a magnificent story of love and obsession, betrayal and retribution, appearance and truth.
The Garde have suffered an unbearable loss. Number Five has betrayed them. Eight is gone forever. Ella has been kidnapped. The others are now scattered.
In Chicago, John makes the unlikeliest of allies: Adam, a Mogadorian who turned his back on his people. He has invaluable information about Mog technology, battle strategies, and weaknesses. Most important, he knows where to hit them: their command base near Washington, DC. During the assault, however, John and Adam learn the unimaginable truth: it is too late. The Mogadorians have commenced their ultimate invasion plans.
With a front-row seat to the impending invasion, Ella finds herself in the hands of the enemy. For some reason she's more valuable to them alive, and they'll stop at nothing to turn her.
Meanwhile, Six, Nine, and Marina make their way through the Florida Everglades, hot on the trail of the traitorous Five. With the development of a new Legacy, Marina finally has the power to fight back—if her thirst for revenge doesn't consume her first.
From the USA Today Best Selling Sweet Home Series, comes Sweet Fall; a tale of heartache, beating the odds, and finding strength in the most unlikely of places.
We all have secrets. Secrets well buried. Until we find the one soul who makes the burden of such secrets just that little bit easier to bear.
Lexington "Lexi" Hart is a senior at the University of Alabama. Surrounded by her best friends, her loving family, and having fulfilled her life-long dream of making the Crimson Tide cheer squad, everything is going exactly as she always dreamed it would. But beneath her happy exterior, demons lurk, threatening to jeopardize everything Lexi has worked to achieve. When events in her life become too much to cope with, Lexi finds herself spiraling down into the realm of her biggest fear. Lexi falls hard, victim once again to the only thing that can destroy her and, on the way, finds herself falling straight into the dangerous tattooed arms of a guy from the wrong side of the tracks.
Austin Carillo, starting Wide Receiver for the Alabama Crimson Tide, must get picked in this year's NFL draft. He needs it. His brothers need it. Most importantly, his mother desperately needs it. Brought up in a world where the poor are forgotten, the sick are left to fend for themselves, and no hero miraculously appears to pull you out of hell, Austin had no other choice but to make a living on the wrong side of the law—until football offered Austin the break to get his life back on track. But when a family tragedy drags him back into the clutches of the gang he believed he had left far behind, Austin finds himself falling. Falling back into criminal ways and falling deep into a suffocating darkness. Until a troubled yet kindred spirit stumbles across his path, where Austin quickly finds he is falling for a young woman, a young woman who might just have the power to save him from his worst enemy: himself.
Can two troubled souls find a lasting peace together? Or will they finally succumb to the demons threatening to destroy them?
Back when not being able to stand each other also meant not being able to keep their hands off each other, neither Bennett nor Chloe could have seen this day coming.
An exasperated bride who just wants to elope. A determined groom whose only focus is getting to the wedding night. And—of course—a whole lot of name calling.
The Beautiful Bastard series continues in this new novella—back when not being able to stand each other also meant not being able to keep their hands of each other, neither Bennett nor Chloe could have seen this day coming. One beautiful bastard of a groom. The most beautiful bitch of a bride. A panty-ripping office hook-up turned true love everlasting. Wedding bells can’t chime soon enough for Chloe Mills and Bennett Ryan. Chloe, exasperated and stressed by all the last-minute to-dos, is on the verge of saying “I do” to eloping. For his part, Bennett’s so worried about being distracted by Chloe’s body that he makes a no-sex-until-the-wedding-night rule that only seems to be making things worse by continually backfiring on him. As their crazy families descend for the big day- only a few of them actually trying to be helpful- the fiery lovers are about to test whether the couple that argues together can keep it together long enough to exchange rings, and not just heated words.
Nikolai Leokov never thought he'd fall in love with the only girl he's ever befriended. Valentina Tomic has issues with commitment after the ultimate betrayal. When Tina decides to make broody Nik's day better, she never thought she would end up friends with the hard man.
Nik has never had a woman be so affectionate to him without expecting something in return. Nik and Tina cordially invite you to read Friend-zoned. A story of friendship, humour and love.
Hope and Heather have been friends for years. But Heather's two older brothers have always teased and bullied the two, especially Hope. Luckily, Hope manages to avoid them for a couple of years while they are away at college.
But when Hope moves closer to her friend, she finds out the two are returning and will have no chance of avoiding them forever.
What would happen if you fall for your best friend's brother?
Adventurer Richard Hannay, just returned from South Africa, is thoroughly bored with London life—until he is accosted by a mysterious American, who warns him of an assassination plot that could completely destabilize the fragile political balance of Europe.
Initially skeptical, Hannay nonetheless harbors the man—but one day returns home to find him murdered...
An obvious suspect, Hannay flees to his native Scotland, pursued by both the police and a cunning, ruthless enemy. His life and the security of Britain are in grave peril, and everything rests on the solution to a baffling enigma: what are the 'thirty-nine steps?'
Author note: This is NOT a dark romance.
Delilah “Lily” Flynn is used to her drab existence. Lily’s been living it for twenty-two years. Her boring life is suddenly turned on its head when she’s rudely kidnapped from her bedroom. Or so she thinks.
Nox Taylor is far too high up in his field to be assigned a babysitting job. There’s nothing more he wants than to complete his mission so he can be rid of the smartass tomboy, Lily. Day after day, Nox watches Lily and her strange ways. She’s unlike any woman he’s ever met. Getting close to the girl is purely for her own protection…right?
Lily never imagined she’d make her first real friends in captivity. What lengths would she go through to keep them?
This is a stand-alone novel and is unrelated to Friend-Zoned.
I want to change. I need to change. I'm gradually losing touch with myself.
Adultery, the provocative new novel by Paulo Coelho, best-selling author of The Alchemist and Eleven Minutes, explores the question of what it means to live life fully and happily, finding the balance between life's routine and the desire for something new.
A woman in her thirties begins to question the routine and predictability of her days. In everybody's eyes, she has a perfect life: a solid and stable marriage, a loving husband, sweet and well-behaved children, and a job as a journalist she can't complain about. However, she can no longer bear the necessary effort to fake happiness when all she feels in life is an enormous apathy. All that changes when she encounters an ex-boyfriend from her adolescence. Jacob is now a successful politician and, during an interview, he ends up arousing something in her she hadn't felt for a long time: passion.
Four years ago, Judith and her best friend disappeared from their small town of Roswell Station. Two years ago, only Judith returned, permanently mutilated, reviled and ignored by those who were once her friends and family.
Unable to speak, Judith lives like a ghost in her own home, silently pouring out her thoughts to the boy who’s owned her heart as long as she can remember—even if he doesn’t know it—her childhood friend, Lucas.
But when Roswell Station is attacked, long-buried secrets come to light, and Judith is forced to choose: continue to live in silence, or recover her voice, even if it means changing her world, and the lives around her, forever.
This startlingly original novel will shock and disturb you; it will fill you with Judith’s passion and longing; and its mysteries will keep you feverishly turning the pages until the very last.
A publisher in New York asked me to write down what I know about the Greek gods, and I was like, Can we do this anonymously? Because I don't need the Olympians mad at me again. But if it helps you to know your Greek gods, and survive an encounter with them if they ever show up in your face, then I guess writing all this down will be my good deed for the week.
So begins Percy Jackson's Greek Gods, in which the son of Poseidon adds his own magic--and sarcastic asides--to the classics. He explains how the world was created, then gives readers his personal take on a who's who of ancients, from Apollo to Zeus. Percy does not hold back. If you like horror shows, blood baths, lying, stealing, backstabbing, and cannibalism, then read on, because it definitely was a Golden Age for all that.
Dramatic full-color illustrations throughout by Caldecott Honoree John Rocco make this volume--a must for home, library, and classroom shelves--as stunning as it is entertaining.