Fourteen-year-old Nikki is forced to leave her whole world behind when her mother makes an impulsive move to Missouri. Once in the heart of Saint Louis, her mother begins a vicious cycle of abuse and abandonment, leaving Nikki to fend for herself at her grandmother's house, amidst her mother's drug addicted siblings.Humiliated, lacking resources, and feeling more than ever like a burden, Nikki decides to take matters into her own hands—when she embarks on a journey to find her father, a missing piece to the puzzle of her life. Along the way she unravels more pain and layers of family abuse, causing her to want to give up.But she won't give up. Not yet. Not Nikki. Not until she finds what she's looking for. But, will Nikki find the love she desperately needs? Views: 46
Those who do not remember family history are condemned to repeat it...Haunted by a failed marriage, a resentful son left deaf by a bout of meningitis, and the slow death of her artistic aspirations, Margaret Yearwood takes refuge in Blue Dog, New Mexico. There, in the shadow of Shiprock Mountain, and in the unlikely arms of Owen Garrett, she finds the courage to love again, and to be loved. And she comes to realize that even the most primal wounds scar over and that there's nothing so renewable or so healing as passion. This is a bittersweet story of ordinary people who must learn to heal family bonds before they are permanently severed. Views: 46
"A stark, harrowing, yet deeply courageous work of immense power and magnitude."-QuadrantHomeless and alone, a disturbed youth drifts between town and the Australian Outback, growing increasingly isolated and distrustful in a society lacking the means and seemingly the will to help him. He is coerced by strange voices and haunted by a history of family violence. This compelling coming-of-age novel tells Peter Kocan's own story, offering us an intimate portrait of the dark forces at work in the evolution of a loner. "No more authentic study of this type of loner exists," wrote The Times, naming Fresh Fields book of the year in 2005. "Taxi Driver is a melodrama by comparison."From Publishers WeeklyStarred Review. Australian writer Kocan, who spent 10 years imprisoned for attempted murder, unflinchingly renders the isolation, grief and longing of a troubled outsider in this dire, semiautobiographical novel. Having fled a violent home with his mother and younger brother, an unnamed 14-year-old soon finds himself on his own. He drifts between Sydney and brief jobs in the bush, often lost in the expanses of his mind. He pours his heart into the objects of his imagination, including Grace Kelly, whom he calls "Sweetheart," and Diestl, who is probably Marlon Brando's character from The Young Lions (Brando plays a young Nazi officer who wanders alone through the French countryside after Germany's WWII defeat). "The youth" identifies painfully with Diestl. And whether abusive, careless or sympathetic, the various adults that pass in and out of the youth's life fail to draw him into any community: his sense of the world as lacking promise becomes increasingly justified. Nevertheless, Kocan indulges in neither sentimentality nor rage, and his unnamed protagonist's story is a fine achievement. As the young man descends into madness, "the Diestl mood" becomes more and more pronounced; by the end Diestl seems to speak to the youth. Here and throughout, Kocan writes clearly and beautifully. (May) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. ReviewIn Kocan's latest bleak novel (The Treatment and the Cure, 1985, etc.), a teenager, down and out in Australia, is sustained by his fantasies.Three people arrive at the train station of a large city: The woman, the youth and the boy. We don't know their names, nor that of the city. They are fleeing Vladimir, an abusive husband and father. The 14-year-old youth knows he doesn't have the will to fight him. What inner strength he has derives from Diestl, a German soldier in a war movie. The Germans have lost, and Diestl is on enemy terrain, but he still has his Schweisser sub-machine-gun. Diestl the self-reliant loner consoles the youth through thick and thin. The youth gets a job in the country, on a sheep ranch, while his mother finds work elsewhere upstate. He's a slow learner, and his boss is short-tempered; he's fired. He doesn't fare any better on a wheat farm, or as a cleaner at a movie theater (let go because he smells bad). Daytimes he's in parks or visiting museums; some nights he finds crummy hotels, others he sleeps on the street. His thoughts revolve around Diestl, the Anglo-Saxon King Harold (another outnumbered hero) and pin-up Grace Kelly. He cries a lot - the least thing sets him off - and he's never had a girlfriend. There are opportunities to explore his sexuality (with a girl on the wheat farm, with some gay guys he meets while clipping cotton), but Kocan's not interested in that coming-of-age story. That wouldn't matter if he replaced it with something else, but he doesn't, so we get a slow fizzle. One fellow lodger says the youth is "a young tiger that doesn't know whether to hide or kill," and the youth does buy a rifle, but Kocan, who in 1966 attempted to assassinate an Australian politician and subsequently spent time in a hospital for the criminally insane, must have a problem imagining his crybaby pulling the trigger, for he leaves everything up in the air. The youth doesn't have the spirit to carry this tale of woe. (Kirkus Reviews) Views: 46
ContentsSummation: 2003Off on a Starship • William BartonIt’s All True • John KesselRogue Farm • Charles StrossThe Ice • Steven PopkesEj-es • Nancy KressThe Bellman • John VarleyThe Bear’s Baby • Judith MoffettCalling Your Name • Howard WaldropJune Sixteenth at Anna’s • Kristine Kathryn RuschThe Green Leopard Plague • Walter Jon WilliamsThe Fluted Girl • Paolo BacigalupiDead Worlds • Jack SkillingsteadKing Dragon • Michael SwanwickSingletons in Love • Paul MelkoAnomalous Structures of my Dreams • M. Shayne BellThe Cookie Monster • Vernor VingeJoe Steele • Harry TurtledoveBirth Days • Geoff RymanAwake in the Night • John C. WrightThe Long Way Home • James Van PeltThe Eyes of America • Geoffrey A. LandisWelcome to Olympus, Mr. Hearst • Kage BakerNight of Time • Robert ReedStrong Medicine • William ShunnSend Me a Mentagram • Dominic GreenAnd the Dish Ran Away with the Spoon • Paul Di FilippoFlashmen • Terry DowlingDragonhead • Nick DiCharioDear Abbey • Terry BissonHonorable Mentions: 2003Acknowledgments Views: 46
The only thing naughtier than a bad boy is a good girl...Amara Maria Robles is a good girl. So good that she gave up her dreams of becoming a renowned pastry chef to help her parents with their struggling Mexican bakery. Yet her parents reject any changes she suggests, and refuse to sell her mouth-watering confections. Clearly being a good girl isn't paying off. So when her brother's sexy ex-best friend walks into the bakery, Amara's tempted to be very bad indeed...After a scandal twelve years ago, resident bad boy Eric Valencia has returned to make things right with his family and friends. One glance at Amara and her wicked curves, however, and Eric finds himself thinking about how she'd feel beneath him-something he promised Amara's brother he would never think about, let alone do.But this bad boy is in deep trouble...because Amara's determined to have her cake, and Eric, too. Views: 46
When Adrian Carter, Viscount Weller, comes across an unconscious woman in the rain, his attempts to aid her land them in a compromising position.Now, with her reputation ruined, Madeline has no choice but to accept Adrian's marriage proposal-and face the secrets from his past that could tear them apart forever. Views: 46
