She'd resolved to "act more sophisticated" and "get out more." But the rumpled bedding, the coffee brewed by other hands and The Note reminded Rachel Harper that she'd done something completely out of character. She'd brought a man home from a bar. And apparently made a baby. She'd been nervous to tell Carter Brockett the news. Oh, she felt strangely safe with him despite his dangerous looks. Worse, she liked him. But what must he think of the naive schoolteacher who'd lost control and gotten herself knocked up? After all, the man had a legion of exes who'd been unable to snare a commitment, and here she had a forever-binding one! Then she remembered. He'd lost control, too.... Views: 17
Even a vampire’s got to earn a living… Vampire wedding planner Jade Simons is used to dealing with the unusual. But when Renaldi D’Aria steps into her office, business suddenly turns personal. Jade’s everything Renaldi’s ever wanted -- the kind of woman he can’t wait to sink his fangs -- and a few other things -- into. But can Renaldi teach Jade to see herself through his eyes? Agent Katya Stern is on the trail of a killer, tracking energy signatures at every vampire hangout in Houston -- til she collides with sexy vampire cowboy Rex Fontainebleau. Their accidental link gives them an insatiable hunger for one another -- but is it enough to keep a slayer and a vampire together when connection fades? Princess Phaedra’s manicure budget alone is enough to bankrupt the treasury of her father’s small Texas Fey kingdom. Which leads her to take a job in Houston’s infamous vampire district, at a club called Black Pearl. Vance, the club’s owner, sees in Phaedra what she’d only begun to suspect herself -- that she’s capable of becoming the ultimate submissive. Cameron Zane can’t stand the sight of vampires, until he gets an eyeful of Eden Lockhart. Eden’s got more curves than most guys can handle -- and a killer hot on her trail. Cameron’s going to prove he can take care of all her needs… in more ways than one. Views: 17
Catherine is dead. At least that's what the FBI claims. They say there's no point investigating the strange disappearance any further. Instead they want Gaia to stay in Quantico to carry on the search for the Lollipop Murderer. Gaia is convinced her partner is still alive -- and that she needs help. Even if it means putting the murder case on hold, Gaia must go after her. But going AWOL means losing the support of the FBI. Gaia will be completely on her own and heading into danger. Because Catherine's abduction is far more complicated -- and more sinister -- than she realized. In fact, it's a whole new mystery. Views: 17
Set in the fictional world of Rehavan, Ariel’s Tear tells the story of Reheuel, Captain of the Guard in the small, peaceful city of Gath Odrenoch. An aging soldier, Reheuel believes his days of battle to be long past. When a tribe of goblins threatens both Gath Odrenoch and the nearby Fairy City, however, Reheuel is forced to fight for both his own city and to protect the childlike fairies. Views: 17
The stories of Mary Gordon return us to the pleasure of this writer's craft and to her monumental talent as an observer of character and of the ever-fading American Dream. These pieces encompass the pre- and postwar Irish American family life she circles in the early Temporary Shelter series, as well as a wealth of new fiction that brings her contemporary characters into middle age; it is their turn to face bodily decline, mortality, and the more complex anxieties of modern life. With their powerful insights into how we make do, both socially and privately, these stories are a treasure of American fiction.From the Trade Paperback edition. Views: 17
Product DescriptionA brilliant and penetrating look behind the scenes of modern American politics, Primary Colors is a funny, wise, and dramatic story with characters and events that resemble some familiar, real-life figures. When a former congressional aide becomes part of the staff of the governor of a small Southern state, he watches in horror, admiration, and amazement, as the governor mixes calculation and sincerity in his not-so-above-board campaign for the presidency. From the Hardcover edition.Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.He was a big fellow, looking seriously pale on the streets of Harlem in deep summer. I am small and not so dark, not very threatening to Caucasians; I do not strut my stuff. We shook hands. My inability to recall that particular moment more precisely is disappointing: the handshake is the threshold act, the beginning of politics. I've seen him do it two million times now, but I couldn't tell you how he does it, the right-handed part of it--the strength, quality, duration of it, the rudiments of pressing the flesh. I can, however, tell you a whole lot about what he does with his other hand. He is a genius with it. He might put it on your elbow, or up by your biceps: these are basic, reflexive moves. He is interested in you. He is honored to meet you. If he gets any higher up your shoulder--if he, say, drapes his left arm over your back, it is somehow less intimate, more casual. He'll share a laugh or a secret then--a light secret, not a real one--flattering you with the illusion of conspiracy. If he doesn't know you all that well and you've just told him something "important," something earnest or emotional, he will lock in and honor you with a two-hander, his left hand overwhelming your wrist and forearm. He'll flash that famous misty look of his. And he will mean it. Anyway, as I recall it, he gave me a left-hand-just-above-the-elbow plus a vaguely curious "ah, so you're the guy I've been hearing about" look, and a follow-me nod. I didn't have the time, or presence of mind, to send any message back at him. Slow emotional reflexes, I guess. His were lightning. He was six meaningful handshakes down the row before I caught up. And then I fell in, a step or two behind, classic staff position, as if I'd been doing it all my life. (I had, but not for anyone so good.) We were sweeping up into the library, the librarian in tow, and now he had his big ears on. She was explaining her program and he was in heavy listening mode, the most aggressive listening the world has ever known: aerobic listening. It is an intense, disconcerting phenomenon--as if he were hearing quicker than you can get the words out, as if he were sucking the information out of you. When he gives full ear--a rare enough event; he's usually ingesting from two or three sources--his listening becomes the central fact of the conversation. He was doing this now, with the librarian, and she was staggering under it. She missed a step; he reached out, steadied her. She was middle-aged, pushing fifty, hair dyed auburn to blot the gray, unexceptional except for her legs, which were shocking, a gift from God. Had he noticed the legs when she almost went down on the stair? I couldn't tell. Howard Ferguson III had insinuated himself next to me, as we nudged up the crowded staircase, his hand squeezing my elbow--Lord, these were touchy fellows--saying: "Glad you changed your mind. Jack's really excited you could do this." "What are we doing?" I asked. Howard had called and invited me to meet Governor Jack Stanton, who might or might not be running for president. The governor was stopping in New York on his way to do some early, explanatory wandering through New Hampshire. The invitation came with an intriguing address--in Harlem, of all places. (There was no money in Harlem and this was the serious money-bagging stage of the campaign, especially for an obscure Southern governor.) It also came with shameless flattery. "You're legendary," Howard had said in a dusty midwestern voice, cagey and playful. "He wants to lure you out of retirement." Retirement: I had fled Washington after six years with Congressman William Larkin. It had been my first job out of school--and I was a victim of his upward mobility, from member to whip to majority leader. Too much. I hadn't been ready for power; I'd kind of enjoyed the back benches. It was too soon for me to be someone, the majority leader's guy, the guy you had to get with if you wanted something in or out of this or that. And so, on my thirtieth birthday, an epiphany: "I'm sorry, sir--I need a break," I told the congressman. "Don't you believe in what we're doing?" he asked. You mean, counting heads? Lemme outta here. I was going out with a woman named March then; she was great-looking, but she worked for Nader and came equipped with a lack of irony guaranteed to survive the most rigorous crash testing. I found myself having fantasies of working my way through the months: April, May, June. . . . I don't remember what I told her. I told her something. "Henry, isn't this a little young for a midlife crisis?" she asked. No. I called Philip Noyce at Columbia. I'd known him all my life. He was a colleague of Father's--back when, back before Father left Mother and began his World's Most Obscure Universities Tour. In the event, Philip got me a gig. I taught legislative process. As midlife crises go, it had been a busman's holiday. Now I thought I might be ready to resume . . . things. Anyway, I was curious. What was Jack Stanton doing up in Harlem when he should have been down on Wall Street trying to impress the big spenders? Was he trying to impress me? I doubted it. More likely, he had invited me along for racial cover. I was, I realized, the only black face in his entourage. Howard Ferguson certainly was about as far as you could get from dark. I noticed a discrete bauble of perspiration moving diagonally down the side of his forehead into his weird Elvis sideburn, as if his sweat were rationed: he was so dry, so thin-lipped austere--and his eyes burned so hard--one imagined that whatever juice he had inside was precious; if he didn't stay lubricated, he might catch fire. Howard was legendary himself, sort of: vestigial, a prairie ghost. He was born to a line of arsonists. His great-grandfather Firefly Ferguson had set the wheat fields ablaze and run for governor from a jail cell. Howard wore Firefly's parched, sandy face, thinning hair parted in the middle--and a pink flowered Liberty tie: I do not take this life, these lawyer clothes seriously, it said. His role in the Stanton operation was elusive--months later I'd still be trying to figure it out. He was a man who never tipped his hand, who never expressed an opinion in a meeting, and yet gave off the sense that he had very powerful convictions, too powerful to be hinted among strangers. He had known the governor forever, since the antiwar days. "You ever been to an adult literacy program?" he asked, then chuckled. "Jack eats this shit up. Says it's like going to church." So it was. It was a better room than the usual government-issue Formica and cinder block. There were none of the relentlessly cheery posters of books and owls. It was a dark, solemn place--a WPA library. The bookcases were oak and went most of the way up the walls; there was a mural above, a Bentonian, popular-front vision of biplanes buzzing the Statue of Liberty, locomotives rushing through wheat fields, glorious, muscular laborers going to work--a Howard Ferguson dreamscape. (They didn't need hortatory read books propaganda back then; there were other struggles.) The class was seated around a large, round oak table. They were what the WPA muralist had in mind: a saintly proletariat. The librarian, condescending to them in the reflexive, unconsciously insulting manner of public servants everywhere, introduced the visitor: "Governor Jack Stanton, who has been a great friend of continuing education, and is now running for . . ." She tossed a flirtatious look his way. "Cover," he said. "Do you want to say a few--" "No, no--y'all go on ahead," he purred. "Don't mind me." He took a seat away from the table, deftly respecting the integrity of the class. I sat diagonally across the room from him; I could watch him watching them. Howard stood behind me, leaning against a bookcase. They introduced themselves. They were waitresses, dishwashers and janitors, most in their twenties and thirties, people with night jobs. Each read a little; the women had an easier time of it than the men, who really struggled. And then they said something about their lives. It was very moving. The last to go was Dewayne Smith, who weighed three hundred pounds easy and was a short-order chef. "They just kept passin' me up, y'know?" he said. "Couldn't read a lick, had a . . . learning disbility." He looked over to the librarian to make sure he had said it right. "Dewayne's dyslexic," she said. "They just kept a passin' me up--third grade, fourth grade--and I'm like too proud, y'know? It was like no one noticed anyways. I sit in the back, I ain't a mouthy broth--person, I don't cause no trouble, I stick to my own self. So I go on through, all the ways through. I graduate elementary school. They send me to Ben Franklin, general studies. They coulda sent me to the Bronx Zoo. No one ever tell me nothin'. No one ever say, 'Dewayne, you can't read--what you gonna do with your sorry ass?' Scuse me." He looked over at the governor, who smiled, urging him on. "This was twenty years ago," the librarian interjected. "We're better about catching those things now"--as if that canceled out such monumental callousness, the numb stupidity of the system. "Anyway, graduation come. My momma come. She take the day off from the laundry where she work, puts on her church dress. She don't have a clue nothin's wrong; me neither. I been skatin' through? So we're there and Dr. Dalemberti is callin' out the names and what we did, like 'Sharonna Harris, honors,' or 'Tyrone Kirby, Regents diploma,' and everyone's gotta just stand there on the stage, while they come up one by one. So they get to my name--goin' alphabetical, y'know--and Dr. Dalemberti says, so everyone hear it, 'Dewayne Smith receive a certificate of attendance.' You can hear people buzzin', coupla folks laughin' a little, and I gotta go walk up there, and get this . . . it ...
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It is unlawful for anyone but cruel King Erno to have dragons. So when Donavah finds one, newly hatched, in her brother Breyard’s room, she begs him to let it go. The Royal Guard discovers the crime and takes Breyard away to be executed. Heartbroken and guilt ridden, Donavah runs away from school to save him. Pursued by the king’s savage soldiers, her treacherous journey turns into one of self-discovery as Donavah learns to use her “maejic” gift for animal communication. She forms a special bond with Xyla, who turns out to be no ordinary dragon. When Xyla is captured, everyone is depending on Donavah—whose destiny is somehow linked with this mystical beast—to rescue her. As her brother’s execution looms near, Donavah wonders how she can possibly save both of them... Views: 17
Determined to do her duty for family and faith, Melisande Chapelaine, daughter of the Earl of Heathwyre, travels to the Holy Land to serve with her brother and father. She is saved from a deadly ambush by a mysterious, compelling man known as Renard du Vent (Fox of the Wind). When he offers his help to make the bandits pay for killing her brother and his companions, she agrees. Gabriel de la Rive, who has sworn a vow to keep the war away from his lands in the mountains of the Holy Land, lives between two worlds—his father's in Europe and his mother's in the desert. He believes that all he wants is peace . . . until he rescues the beautiful Melisande. While war and betrayal swarm around them, they become embroiled in a very private war of wills that could lead to love or to the destruction of all they hold dear. Views: 17
More information to be announced soon on this forthcoming title from Penguin USA Views: 16
