The New York Times bestselling author of "The Girls from Ames" shares an intimate look at a small-town bridal shop, its multigenerational female owners, and the love between parents and daughters as they prepare for their wedding day.Thousands of women have stepped inside Becker’s Bridal, in Fowler, Michigan, to try on their dream dresses in the Magic Room, a special space with soft lighting, a circular pedestal, and mirrors that carry a bride’s image into infinity. The women bring with them their most precious expectations about romance, love, fidelity, permanence, and tradition. Each bride who passes through has a story to tell - one that carried her there, to that dress, that room, that moment.Illuminating the poignant aspects of a woman’s journey to the altar, "The Magic Room" tells the stories of memorable women on the brink of commitment. Run by the same family for four generations, Becker’s has witnessed transformations in how America views the institution of marriage: some of the shop’s clientele are becoming stepmothers, some are older brides, some are pregnant. Shop owner Shelley has a special affection for all the brides, hoping their journeys will be easier than hers. Jeffrey Zaslow weaves their true stories using a reporter’s research and a father’s heart.The lessons Zaslow shares from within the Magic Room are at times joyful, at times heartbreaking, and always with insight on marriage, family, and the lessons that parents - especially mothers - pass on to their daughters about love. Weaving together secrets, memories, and family tales, The Magic Room explores the emotional lives of women in the twenty-first century. Views: 47
A simple trinket left in a confessional begins a path of destruction throughout the years. The golden locket, left behind by a woman who killed her boyfriend, is supposedly cursed; at least that's what she claimed before she raced out of the church. Anyone who dares fasten the pendant around her neck suffers severe and uncontrollable anger. Woe be it to anyone who gets in the path of the wearer. Is the piece cursed, or are the deaths totally unrelated? Detective Clarence O'Day is unwilling to make the connection—until forty years after the first case. Views: 47
Erotica/Romance. 27660 words long. First published in 2009, 2009 Views: 47
Every Choice Has Its DangersJasmine Spain knows a lot about expectations. She grew up in a family of prominent lawyers, and her parents expected their Ivy League—educated daughter to marry a well-to-do man while making them proud. Instead, at thirty-four, Jasmine is divorced and living in a one-bedroom apartment while working at a mid-sized African-American law firm. It's as far from her parents' social-climbing values as she can get, but at least she can sleep at night—until Chester Jackson, a partner and ex-boyfriend, is found murdered. . .Jasmine knows a lot of people would have loved to have sent the charming but ruthless Chester to his grave. But when she takes over his case load, she discovers more than she bargained for—a decade-old rape case, shady deals, blackmail. Suddenly the only person Jasmine can turn to for help is the detective assigned to the case, Marcus Claremont. Their attraction is as intense as it is immediate... Views: 47
Dudley Pope meticulously researches the story of the bloodiest mutiny in the history of the Royal Navy - the butchering of the officers aboard His Majesty's Frigate HERMIONE 32 guns, in the West Indies in 1797. The captain of the frigate, Hugh Pigot, was a brutal and sadistic commander who flogged his men mercilessly and drove them beyond the limits of endurance. However, nothing could excuse the slaughter of guilty and innocent officers alike as the mutineers went wild and committed crimes beyond anything Pigot could have dreamt up. Not content with that, they then took the ship into an enemy port and gave her up to the Spanish who, unaware of the true facts for some time, nevertheless greeted them with the contempt they deserved. The Spanish took the ship into their service but due to an amazing episode of red tape and internal wrangling, never actually got the frigate to sea. Meanwhile the Royal Navy relentlessly hunted down the mutineers over the next ten years and of the... Views: 47
Hellequin, last of the HawkEye military elite, is desperate to escape the legacy of Soul Food, the miraculous plant food that leeched the soil, destroyed his family, and instigated a bloody civil war. For a man awaiting the inevitable madness brought on by his enforced biomorph implant, there’s only one choice. Run away with the circus… Drifting above a poisoned landscape, Cyber Circus and her exotic acrobats and bioengineered freaks bring a welcome splash of colour into folk’s drab lives. None more so than escaped courtesan turned-dancer Desirous Nim. When Nim’s freedom and her very life are threatened, Hellequin is forced to fight again. But, even united, will the weird troupe and their strange skills be enough to save Nim and keep their home aloft? That’s assuming, of course, that Zan City’s Blood Worms, mute stowaways, or the swarms don’t manage to bring them down first… Welcome to the greatest show on Sore Earth! The book also features: “Black Sunday” – a free-standing but associated novelette. A tale of desperation, incorporating drought, science, giant burrowing machines, rural magic, racial tension and sensuality in the 1930s Kansas dustbowl. Views: 47
Product DescriptionLegends from a small town come in many forms. Near Tsalagee, Oklahoma a monster lurks and an infamous 19th Century outlaw's booty lays hidden. When two renegade bikers ride into town looking to find the Lost Treasure of Belle Starr, local legends Hayward Yost and Socrates Ninekiller suspect the ruffians' involvement in the murder of a local farmer; a man rumored to have knowledge of the lost treasure's location...and its curse. As events unfold, others in the community are drawn into the hunt - a Wiccan who moves to town to pursue her New Age lifestyle; her bumbling, socially inept boyfriend women can't seem to resist; a young Iraqi War veteran home to heal his physical and emotional wounds; and a mysterious creature known in Native American lore as a forest demon whom they call "Hill Man who screams at night." Mystery, romance, comedy, and adventure await in Legends of Tsalagee. Views: 47
After winning the coveted Top Young Chef award, Yasmine Taylor is finally going to realize her lifelong dream of opening her own restaurant. But first she's returning home to help her aunt recover from surgery and to plan her own next move. Yasmine has never forgotten her roots growing up on the Wyoming Wilde ranch, or Holt Wilde, her gorgeous teenage crush. He's grown into a sinfully sexy bad boy who's left a trail of broken hearts scattered across Views: 47
From Publishers WeeklyStarred Review. "Metaphorical thinking is the way we make sense of the world" and neurological research shows that humans experience pleasure when performing the "cognitive gymnastics" of deciphering metaphors to connect two dissimilar things, asserts Geary (The World in a Phrase) in a delightful examination that borrows for its title from a poem by Rimbaud, whose writing aimed to "upset conventional orders of perception." Tests on people who do not understand metaphors, such as those with Asperger's syndrome, uncover the roles that "mirror" and "Gnostic" neurons play in conceptual comprehension and long-term memory. Geary also analyzes how metaphors are used in advertising, scientific discoveries, economics, and politics. "Metaphors, once forgotten or ignored, are easily mistaken for objective facts," he warns, showing how metaphor "surreptitiously infiltrates our purchasing decisions." Voters, consumers, and investors interested in knowing how their decisions may be influenced by well-planned metaphors will be fascinated by Geary's adept explication of the metaphor's role in defining perceptions. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved. Review“In his fine new book, James Geary [shows that] metaphors are not rhetorical frills at the edge of how we think. They are at the very heart of it.” (David Brooks, New York Times ) “Smart fun for anyone fascinated by the play of language. . . . Geary traces the history of [metaphor] from Aristotle to Elvis.” (Washington Post ) “An illuminating study of metaphor in all its guises...Required reading for anyone with even a passing interest in language.” (Time Out London ) “Enchanting...It is [its] playful celebration of meanings that makes this book optimistic. And though the subtitle has a whiff of conspiracy about it, the sheer ubiquity of metaphor in everyday life makes the book feel urgent....addictive...Geary writes with clarity and power.” (The Independent ) “The author further manages to weave together a fascinating amount of information. . . . I Is an Other really shines when it focuses on the simple yet profound . . . you’ll never look at a metaphor the same way again—metaphorically speaking.” (New York Journal of Books ) “This book is a prism, refracting the white light of language into a kaleidoscopic celebration of its images and etymologies.” (Ben Schott, author of Schott’s Original Miscellany and Schott’s Almanacs ) “Sherlock Holmes could glance at a bowler hat and tell that its owner’s wife had ceased to love him. In this brilliant book about metaphor James Geary is no less astonishing....You’ll scarf down every page of I Is an Other and then ask for more.” (Michael Dirda, Pulitzer Prize-winning critic and author of Book by Book and Classics for Pleasure ) “Geary . . . succeeds in making the case that metaphor is the meat of language and not a sauce.” (Wall Street Journal ) “This book is for everyone interested in the subtle operations of language and thought....I is an Other is one of those ‘must-read’ books for this year, for any year. It deserves a wide audience, and it will find one.” (Jay Parini, Professor of English and Creative Writing, Middlebury College and author of Promised Land: Thirteen Books that Changed America ) Views: 47
An ancient blood sacrifice.An Aztec holy man, determined not to lose his dead sex slaves, regardless of the cost or consequences.And a trio of young people thrown together on a lonely Ohio road five centuries later, bring a shocking act of treachery full-circle. Before one steamy late-summer night is over, two young women and one young man will become linked forever in a reality far more horrifying than anything they’ve experienced in their worst nightmares. Or yours. Views: 47
