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Gift Horse

Twelve-year-old Winnie Willis has a way with horses. Along with her dad and sister, Lizzy, Winnie is learning how to live without her mom—who was also a natural horse gentler. As Winnie teaches her horses about unconditional love and blind trust, God shows Winnie that he can be trusted as well. Readers will be hooked on the series' vivid characters, whose quirky personalities fill Winnie's life with friendship and adventure.Gift Horse: When a mysterious horse, soon discovered to be sick and with foal, appears in Winnie's pasture, she's suddenly faced with life and death. Just as Christmas arrives, Winnie learns an unforgettable lesson about sacrificial love and God's Christmas gift to the world.
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Brilliant

Brilliant, reminiscent of Lewis Hyde's The Gift in its reach and of Timothy Egan's The Worst Hard Time in its haunting evocation of human lives, offers a sweeping view of a surprisingly revealing aspect of human history—from the stone lamps of the Pleistocene to the LEDs embedded in fabrics of the future.Brox plumbs the class implications of light—who had it, who didn't—through the many centuries when crude lamps and tallow candles constricted waking hours. She convincingly portrays the hell-bent pursuit of whale oil as the first time the human desire for light thrust us toward an environmental tipping point. Only decades later, gas street lights opened up the evening hours to leisure, which changed the ways we live and sleep and the world's ecosystems.Edison's “tiny strip of paper that a breath would blow away" produced a light that seemed to its users all but divorced from human effort or cost. And yet, as Brox's informative...
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Without a Past

Andrea the middle Sullivan triplet is intrigued by the mysterious stranger working on her brother-in-law's ranch. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that Harley Forester's no cowboy. He doesn't talk like one and he doesn't know the first thing about horses. So who is he? Even more perplexing, why is Andi so attracted to a man without a past?
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The Chocolate Tin

The highly anticipated, sensuous new blockbuster by the beloved, bestselling author of The Perfumer's Secret.
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The Wreckers

Despite the stormiest weather he can remember, Edward is looking forward to his holiday with his parents in Cornwall. They are staying with his elderly aunt in a large old house by the sea. From the photos he has seen of the place, Edward is sure that the house could well be haunted – or at the very least there might be secret tunnels and passages hidden behind the wooden panelled walls. Either way, it is sure to be fun exploring the old house. But he does not have to wait until he reaches his aunt's house for odd things to happen. His parents are delayed and he has to travel alone on the train. A spooky incident at the station, strange happenings on the train and a bizarre lamp-lit boat ride along dark flooded lanes are just the beginning of a holiday he will never forget. What starts off as fun when he meets the ghosts of a young girl and her pet cat soon becomes something far more sinister and dangerous. Edward and his new friends are caught up in a life and death race to save...
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Home to Walnut Ridge

It seems everyone needs a second chance. Tracey Collins just left Washington D.C. after her dream job became a personal nightmare. Back home in Jacobs Mill, Tennessee, she quickly realizes she's not the only one needing a fresh start. A former attorney named Noah catches Tracey's eye. Secrets are uncovered and hearts are restored in Jacobs Mill.
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Dance on the Wind

A bargain made in haste. Desperate but determined, lovely Brandy answers an advertisement for a mail order bride, hoping to build a new life out West for herself and the five orphans she's taken under her wing. She needs a guide to reach Fort Laramie by wagon train and turns to Thunder, a Cheyenne scout, for help. When he curtly refuses, Brandy is undaunted. And when he's jailed after a gunfight she makes a devil's bargain: he gets his freedom and she gets a guide.Thunder has learned the hard way that prejudice runs deep for half-breeds. Now, his only desire is to live among the Cheyenne people. He doesn't want the temptation beautiful Brandy offers and the wild passion that explodes between them only hardens his resolve to avoid what he cannot have: another man's soon-to-be-wife. Can he truly walk away from Brandy and the ragtag family? Or has his destiny been sealed by a kiss.
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Snarky Park

Reporter Bertie Mallowan has a knack for finding trouble. . . or it that trouble has knack for finding her? Whatever, she's still reeling from being laid off from her job when she lands a job as a society columnist at a newspaper owned by multimillionaire Dillard Johnson—known as "The Big Johnson" among his employees. His friend, environmental activist Rowley Poke, is murdered at a party sponsored by Johnson and of course Bertie was one of the guests as part of her new job. The Big J tells Bertie to infiltrate The End, Poke's eco-conservation group, and report back to him. Being dangled before her is a job as an investigative reporter. Bertie must navigate the eccentricities of the Big J, his family, and the new head of The End, Buddy Laird, to solve the mystery. Funny, fast-paced, Snarky Park is another triumph from a writer to watch.
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Three Against the Witch World ww-3

The offspring of Simon Tregarth, half earthling, half witch-brood, realized that they alone could perceive the four directions-for everyone else, there was no East! It was a blank in the mind, a blank in legend and history. And when new menaces threatened, the Tregarths realized that in that mental barrier there lay the key to all their worldsomewhere to the unknown eastward must lie the sorcery that had secretly molded their destinies!
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Dark Angel: The Eyes Only Dossier

Seattle ca. A.D. 2020 A post-Pulse city crawling with cops on the take, crooks on the make, genetically engineered supersoldiers, and hundreds of thousands of plain folks just hanging on by a thread to the sputtering engine that was once the all-powerful American economy . . .*November 12, 2021: My name is Logan Cale—though whoever finds this material will undoubtedly know me better as Eyes Only. In the years after the Pulse struck, greed, corruption, and cruelty exploded on a scale I never before imagined possible. Something had to be done.I began working as an investigative journalist to expose the truth, but the truth brought a lot of enemies out of the woodwork. So I went undercover, and EYES ONLY was born. For years, with the help of a lot of good people, we’ve uncovered many wrongs and made them right. No matter what the dangers, this work needs to survive, and continue . . . especially some of the more explosive facts still need to be revealed. Facts concerning the Grand Coulee massacre, the secret government program known as The Phoenix Project, and the Conclave’s breeding program, to name but a few.Putting these documents together in one place poses a big risk—not just to the corrupt, but to the innocent as well. Yet the chance that these truths might remain unspoken is an even bigger risk.People may die, but the truth must live on.From the Trade Paperback edition.From the Inside FlapSeattle ca. A.D. 2020 A post-Pulse city crawling with cops on the take, crooks on the make, genetically engineered supersoldiers, and hundreds of thousands of plain folks just hanging on by a thread to the sputtering engine that was once the all-powerful American economy . . .November 12, 2021: My name is Logan Cale—though whoever finds this material will undoubtedly know me better as Eyes Only. In the years after the Pulse struck, greed, corruption, and cruelty exploded on a scale I never before imagined possible. Something had to be done.I began working as an investigative journalist to expose the truth, but the truth brought a lot of enemies out of the woodwork. So I went undercover, and EYES ONLY was born. For years, with the help of a lot of good people, we've uncovered many wrongs and made them right. No matter what the dangers, this work needs to survive, and continue . . . especially some of the more explosive facts still need to be revealed. Facts concerning the Grand Coulee massacre, the secret government program known as The Phoenix Project, and the Conclave's breeding program, to name but a few.Putting these documents together in one place poses a big risk—not just to the corrupt, but to the innocent as well. Yet the chance that these truths might remain unspoken is an even bigger risk.People may die, but the truth must live on.Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.IMAGER IS EVERYTHINGSECTOR THREE,11:00 P.M.TUESDAY,MARCH 2,2021Like a relentless boxer, rain beat down on the city, firstjabbing with sharp needles, then smacking Seattle with hugefat drops that hit like haymakers, the barrage punctuated bythe ominous rumble of thunder and the eerie flash of lightning.An unmarked black car drew to a stop in a rat-infestedSector Three alley, the rain rattling the metal roof likemachine-gun fire. Two men in dark suits climbed out, to beinstantly drenched, though neither seemed to notice. Eachwore a radio earplug with a short microphone bent towardhis mouth.Sage Thompson--the man who'd emerged from the passenger'sside--was relieved that the headsets, at least,seemed to be waterproof. In their coat pockets, each mancarried one of the new portable thermal imagers that, justthis week, had become standard equipment. Thompson--barely six feet, almost skinny at 180 pounds--wondered ifwater-tightness was among the gizmo's various high-techbells and whistles.Water sluiced down the alley in a torrent that seemed toexpress the sky's anger, eventually bubbling over the edge ofa rusty grate maybe ten yards in front of them. Thompsonwas forced to jump the stream and his feet nearly slid outfrom under him as he landed and bumped into a triangle ofgarbage cans, sending them crashing into each other, creatinga din that rivaled the storm's, his hands flying wide tohelp maintain his balance. Then his hands dropped back tohis sides, the one holding his flashlight clanging off the imagerin his coat pocket, the other moving to make sure hispistol was still secure in its holster on his belt.The hefty man who'd been driving--Cal Hankins--shonehis flashlight in Thompson's face, huffed once, and easedaround a dumpster that looked like it hadn't been emptiedsince before the Pulse. Moving slowly ahead, their flashlightssweeping back and forth over the brick hulk in frontof them, the two men finally halted in front of what had oncebeen a mullioned window.The interior of the six-story brick building--an abandonedwarehouse, Thompson surmised--seemed a blackhole waiting to devour them without so much as a belch.Next to Thompson, his partner Hankins swept a flashlightthrough one of the broken panes, painting the rainy nightwith slow, even strokes. Darkness surrendered only briefglimpses of the huge first-floor room as it swallowed up thelight."You sure this is the right place?" Hankins asked gruffly.There was no fear in the man's voice--Thompson sensedonly that his partner didn't want his time wasted. At forty,bucket-headed Hankins--the senior partner of the duo--wore his blondish hair in a short brush cut that revealed onlya wisp or two of gray. His head rested squarely on his shoulders,without apparent benefit of a neck, and he stood nearlysix-three, weighing in (Thompson estimated) at over 230.But the man wasn't merely fat--there was enough gristleand muscle and bone in there to make Hankins formidable.Still, Thompson knew their boss--that nasty companyman, Ames White, a conscienceless yuppie prick if thereever was one--had been all over Hankins about his weightand rode the older guy mercilessly about it. Though he knewbetter than to ever say it out loud, Thompson consideredWhite the worst boss in his experience--which was sayingsomething.White was smart, no doubting that, but he had a sarcastictongue and a whiplash temper that Thompson had witnessedenough times to know he should keep his mouth shut and hishead low."This is the right place, all right," Thompson said, raisinghis voice over the battering rain. "Dispatch said the thermalimager team picked up a transgenic in the market inSector Four.""This is Sector Three.""Yeah--they followed him here before they lost him."Hankins shook his head in disgust. "Then why the fuckain't they lookin' for him, then? What makes us the clean-upcrew for their sorry asses?"These questions were rhetorical, Thompson knew, thoughthey did have answers, the same answer in fact: Ames White.And Hankins spent much of his time bitching aboutWhite, behind the boss's back, of course. But they bothknew it was only a matter of time before White found a wayto get rid of Hankins .... . . and then Thompson would have to break in a newpartner, possibly one even younger than himself. Then hewould be the old-timer. The thought made him cringe.Not exactly a kid at twenty-seven, Thompson was the antithesisof Hankins: the younger man seemed like a long-neckbottle standing next to the pop-top beer can that washis partner. Married to his college sweetheart, Melanie, andwith a new baby daughter, Thompson was the antithesis ofHankins in terms of home life, as well: the gristled bulldoghad been divorced twice and had three or four kids he neversaw and didn't really seem to give a damn about.
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Between Cups of Coffee

A middle-aged university lecturer has an established single man's life. He lives alone in a small flat, has daily work aggravations and affairs. While he continues to be in a relationship with a woman with little common interests, he enjoys existential discussions with a librarian, often over cups of coffee. Within all his discussions rotating around personal freedom, there is an underlying personal ego-centricity. There is a duality of involvement and aloofness when he faces a society that is increasingly content with the mundane. In this, he has, unwittingly, chosen a life of compromise. He is always ready to criticise a passive society losing its passion yet he is indecisive in his own affairs and he ignores what matters to him. His protected life is shattered when he is told that the librarian has died after a period of illness during the period that he had ...
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