From the author of Bad Mother and Love and Other Impossible Pursuits—a mystery series featuring a Los Angeles mom...With a new arrival on the way, the Applebaum household is bursting at the seams. And Juliet is balancing clue-chasing and diaper-changing with a new task: house-hunting...Juliet loves her kids. She loves their dirty little faces and skinned knees. She loves the ridiculous and amazing things they say. But when three-and-a-half year old Isaac evicts her husband and her from their own bed one night, love is the last thing on her mind. Juliet now recognizes the need for a few changes...starting with a bigger house. And when the new baby arrives, they'll welcome the extra space.But if there's ever a bad time to search for a new house in L.A., it's now. In a buyer-unfriendly real estate market, one practically has to kill to find an affordable home. No wonder Juliet is prepared to over look a corpse on the grounds of her would-be... Views: 59
An ebook-exclusive short-story prequel to the bestselling Vespasian seriesMarcus Salvius Magnus is a fanatical supporter of the Green Racing Faction and expects a wager to be honoured. Although he does not presume honesty from anyone, he does believe that a bookmaker at the Circus Maximus should record each bet scrupulously and pay the full amount due. But Ignatius, the bookmaker, is foolish enough to attempt to cheat Magnus out of his winnings, incurring not only his wrath but that also of the South Quirinal Crossroads Brotherhood of which Magnus is the leader. In the shady realm of Rome's underworld Magnus will use the full resources of his criminal fraternity to exact appropriate vengeance.But Magnus also has a problem: his patron, Gaius Vespasius Pollo, is attempting to get his nephew, Sabinus, elected as a quaestor. To do this he feels that the support of the senior consul, Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus, would be more than useful. He asks... Views: 59
Daniel Avari awakes in a hospital bed to find that he has been the victim of a terrible accident. He should have died; instead, he has been the unconsenting patient of experimental surgery: he is now permanently joined by a hose to a thurga, a possum-like native of the planet on which Daniel is living and working. This creature is to be his living life-support system – if he still wants to live. Views: 59
Former playboy Darius Jones is back on top. His high-profile legal trouble is finally behind him, and ahead is a bright NBA career--and the engagement to his soul mate, the irrepressibly sexy Fancy Taylor. But bad news has a habit of coming when you least expect it, and this time Darius could loose everything he has. . . The New York Times and Essence Bestseller! Views: 59
Gloria Bickford was happily settled in Appleton when a phone call from her friend and former employer, Harry Griswald, calls her back to Eckerd City. Someone claims to have information about the land development endeavors at the Lakes and she is anxious to investigate further. As Gloria and Cutter discover more about the land development intrigue, she fears for her life and believes she is being followed. Views: 59
It had been fifteen years since Cole Dempsey had set foot in Azalea Bend, Louisiana -- or laid eyes on Bryn Louvel, the beautiful girl who'd betrayed him. He had come home to uncover the truth no matter what the cost...even if it meant risking his heart to Bryn once more. Little was left of the tender boy she had adored before her sister's murder turned their carefree world upside down. Now Bryn was completely vulnerable to an embittered stranger hell-bent on raking up painful memories and rekindling a passion that burned even hotter. She couldn't deny Cole Dempsey was a man on a mission. But was it a second chance at happiness...or revenge? Views: 59
From Publishers WeeklyStarred Review. [Signature]Reviewed by Heidi JulavitsImagine that Edie Sedgwick penned a roman à clef in her 50s, and that she discovered, in her ugly, diseased decrepitude, that celebrities and downtown loft spaces and skuzzy rich hangers-on were the nadir of existence. Imagine that she managed, in her own post–trauma-addled way, to convey a beautiful-ugly portrait of this life, and the life that followed that life, a life of cleaning offices and riding public buses, in a wincingly acute manner that allowed you not only to forgive the destructiveness in which her youthful self luxuriated but view it as a real human tragedy. This is the accomplishment of Veronica, or rather of Alison, who is the narrator and soul-wearied subject of Mary Gaitskill's second novel. Alison, who lived an Edie-ish life, has a face that is "broken, with age and pain coming through the cracks." Now in her 50s, she cleans her friend's toilet for money, she's sick with hepatitis and her "focus sometimes slips and goes funny";an apt description of her story's pleasing disorientation, a story which amounts to a nonchronological recounting of her "bright and scalding" past as she hikes feverishly up a hill. Alison's narration begins as a bracing account of her "gray present" from which she recalls her childhood and her years as a model in Paris and New York and the death of her friend Veronica from AIDS. A former inhabitant of a face-deep world, she cannot describe a person without first reducing his or her face to a single violent visual stroke ("his face was like lava turned into cold rock"). These descriptions;or dismissals;fail, on purpose, to render any character a visual flesh-and-blood presence; instead, Alison's way of seeing renders people distressingly naked. Of course no seasoned reader of Mary Gaitskill would expect a preeningly tragic book about the emotional pitfalls of modeling, and so where there might be an airbrushed homage to failing beauty or weepy nostalgia over formerly elastic body parts there are instead turds, sphincters, scars, wounds and other celebrated repugnancies. Gaitskill's style is gorgeously caustic and penetrating with a homing instinct toward the harrowing; her ability to capture abstract feelings and sensations with a precise and unexpected metaphor is a squirmy delight to encounter in such abundance. As the book progresses, Alison's gray present becomes subsumed by the scalding brightness of her past, until her sick and ugly self is all but obliterated from the pages; aside from the occasional reminder that Alison is climbing a hill, her sage hindsight collapses into the immediacy of her recollections, and Alison's shallow bohemian fixations again become her only story. The result is that her blunt honesty feels face, rather than soul, deep. It is hard to convey the tragedy of a girl in the prime of her beauty who savors the ugly way she experiences herself; it is more wrenching, and more in keeping with the gimlet-eyed clarity of the book's earlier pages, to convey the tragedy of the truly ugly woman, who once, despite her demurrals and insecurities, knew beauty. (On sale Oct. 11)Heidi Julavits is the author of two novels, The Mineral Palace and The Effect of Living Backwards. She is a founding editor of the Believer. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From The New YorkerGaitskill's second novel is narrated over the course of a single day by an ailing former fashion model named Alison, now cleaning offices for a living, who ruminates on her glamorous youth and on her friendship with an older woman who died of AIDS. Her recollections range through the bohemian San Francisco of the late nineteen-seventies, the fashion worlds of Paris and New York in the eighties, and her family's claustrophobic but comforting home in suburban New Jersey. Gaitskill's distinctive prose often traverses decades and continents in a single paragraph, in a way that is more montage than narrative. When this ambitious approach succeeds, it yields startling revelations; when it doesn't quite come off, the result is a pleasant muddle. Recalling San Francisco prostitutes, Alison says, "Most of them weren't beautiful girls, but they had a special luster." An analogous allure pervades this book. Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker Views: 59
It's only one month later, and so much has happened: Jonathan's dad has remarried without telling Jonathan, his mom's flown to Paris to sulk, his friends are all breaking up with their girlfriends, and an ugly rumor is going around...is Jonathan's dad a thief? Did he really cheat all Jonathan's friends' parents out of megabucks? And if so, will Jonathan's friends forgive him? Hot guys, hip parties, tumultuous relationships, and, of course, great clothes are only some of the elements of this hilarious and addictive new series. Views: 59
The White Table is set in many mess halls as a symbol for and remembrance to service members fallen, missing, or held captive in the line of duty. Solitary and solemn, it is the table where no one will ever sit. As a special gift to her Uncle John, Katie and her sisters are asked to help set the white table for dinner. As their mother explains the significance of each item placed on the table Katie comes to understand and appreciate the depth of sacrifice that her uncle, and each member of the Armed Forces and their families, may be called to give. It was just a little white table... but it felt as big as America when we helped Mama put each item on it and she told us why it was so important. "We use a Small Table, girls," she explained first, "to show one soldier's lonely battle against many. We cover it with a White Cloth to honor a soldier's pure heart when he answers his country's call to duty." "We place a Lemon Slice and Grains of Salt on a plate to show a captive... Views: 59
