Includes Readers Guide! To Robin Bartlett, men were nothing more than violent users. After a hair-raising childhood, Robin and her two younger half sisters battled simply to survive. Determined to give her sisters a very different life from that of their mother; to never have to rely on a man for anything, she worked two jobs and put them both through college, while accepting help from no one. Her heart had turned to ice and she had no use for men or God.Antonio "Tony" Viscolli had grown up on the streets, homeless. At seventeen, he entered a downtown church with the intent of casing it, but found himself on his knees at the alter. After being fostered by the youth minister, Tony followed God's leading and eventually became a very successful and powerful businessman. In a fallen world, he was a gem.When Tony bought the restaurant where Robin bartended, she immediately resented his intrusion into her well ordered, but exhausting, life. She suspected his offering her special attention and constant kindness was merely his way of expecting something from her in return, something she wasn't willing to give.Tony knew God had led him to Robin. Would she ever allow herself to trust him? Could she ever allow herself to trust God? Or would the winter of their tragic youth rise from the shadows of the past and freeze any chance at happiness?About the AuthorHallee Bridgeman lives with her husband and their three children in small town Kentucky. When she's not writing Christian romance novels, she blogs about all things cooking and homemaking at Hallee the Homemaker. Hallee started writing when her oldest child and only daughter was a baby, but a busy professional career and being the wife of a deployed soldier had her shelve her books for another time. Two more children, a cross country move, and God's perfect timing brought the books off of the shelf to be dusted off and presented to you now. Hallee loves coffee, campy action movies, and regular date nights with her husband. Above all else, she loves God with all of her heart, soul, mind, and strength; has been redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ; and relies on the presence of the Holy Spirit. She prays her books are a blessing to you and would love to hear back from you. Views: 25
Thunder Canyon NuggetA Season of Thanks and GivingNext time you pass Major Forrest Traub on the street, make sure you give him a real Thunder Canyon-style welcome! The handsome soldier hasn't smiled much since moving here from Rust Creek Falls, but this hasn't deterred our favorite do-gooder, Angie Anderson. Angie's convinced she's met the man she's going to marry.Forrest sees Angie as a rosy-eyed optimist, too young and innocent for a man who's lived through Iraq. Yet her irresistible warmth may actually be thawing his hardened heart. Suddenly she's got him volunteering with teens, arranging holiday events, even--gasp--smiling. Can Angie's unwavering faith rescue Forrest from himself? Give thanks, loyal readers, for your many blessings--and hope that Angie and Forrest can find theirs! Views: 25
Book three in The Downing Brothers SeriesStuck in close quarters with the two wickedest, wildest Downing brothers of them all, Teresa West had better prepare herself for the most sensually erotic experience of her life...Ever since her best friend married one of the infamous Downing brothers, Teresa West cannot seem to shake aggravating playboy, Jeff Downing - the third eldest and undoubtedly the wickedest and wildest of all the brothers. Just because his brother now lives on the neighbouring ranch with her best friend, doesn't mean Jeff Downing has any business being in Hockley, Texas so often. He's been in hot pursuit for a year now, and Teresa is starting to think Jeff either doesn't have a job, or he really needs a hobby—one that doesn't include her.Jeff Downing would argue that no matter his job or hobby, his only purpose right now is to convince the fiery, stubborn redhead to let loose and live a little. His first order of business? To get Teresa West into... Views: 25
“The only way this war is going to end is if the American people truly understand what we have done in their name.”—Kelly Dougherty, executive director of Iraq Veterans Against the WarIn spring 2008, inspired by the Vietnam-era Winter Soldier hearings, Iraq Veterans Against the War gathered veterans to expose war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq. Here are the powerful words, images, and documents of this historic gathering, which show the reality of life in Afghanistan and Iraq.Iraq Veterans Against the War argues that well-publicized incidents of American brutality like the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and the massacre of an entire family of Iraqis in the town of Haditha are not the isolated incidents perpetrated by “a few bad apples,” as many politicians and military leaders have claimed. They are part of a pattern, the group says, of “an increasingly bloody occupation.” "Here is the war as it should be reported... Views: 25
In the bookshops and cafes of present-day Paris, ex-psychologist Gabe Figaret is trying to put his shattered life back together. When another doctor, Reynard, asks him to help with a delusional female patient, Gabe is reluctant... until he meets her. At first Gabe thinks the woman, Angelina, is merely terrified of Reynard, but he quickly discovers she is not quite what she seems. As his relationship with Angelina deepens, Gabe′s life in Paris becomes increasingly unstable. He senses a presence watching and following every move he makes, and yet he finds Angelina increasingly irresistible.When Angelina tells Gabe he must kill her and flee to a place she calls Morgravia, he is horrified. But then Angelina shows him that the cathedral he has dreamt about since childhood is real and exists in Morgravia.Soon, Gabe′s world will be turned upside down, and he will learn shocking truths about who he is . . . and who he can - or cannot - trust.A fantastic, action-packed adventure starting in Paris and returning to Morgravia - this wonderful epic adventure grabs the reader from the first paragraph and doesn′t let go.About the AuthorBorn in 1960 and raised in southern England, Fiona McIntosh spent an early childhood in the gold-mining camp of Bibiani in Ghana, where her father was working. She studied in Brighton before starting a career in PR and marketing in London. She made Australia her home in 1980, continuing in a travel-marketing career with an ad agency, a tourism authority, and an international airline. Fiona married her magazine-publisher husband, Ian, and they now live in Adelaide with their teenage twin sons, Will and Jack. Views: 25
In the fifth and final novel of the Kauffman Amish Bakery Series, three young women are about to change their lives. Lizzie Anne and Samuel have decided to get married, and Lindsay is about to be baptized in the Amish faith and is courting Matthew. While Katie Kauffman is happy for her friends who seem to have settled their futures, she is also finding herself something of a fifth wheel. When Lindsay's sister Jessica returns to Bird-in-Hand, she finds that Jake Miller has moved on with his life. He lost hope that Jessica would ever be satisfied to settle in rural Pennsylvania and takes comfort in becoming close friends with Katie. However, it's not an easy road as Jake is Mennonite and Katie has just been baptized in the Amish faith. Her father forbids them to see each other, adamant that his daughter marry an Amish man. A Season of Love is filled with surprising twists that will grip you to the very last words. As the stories of your favorite Amish community draw to a close, join Lindsay, her friends, and all the people of Bird-In-Hand for one last volume. Views: 25
Everyone's favorite witch has the sniffles! Will she be able to sneeze out a spell to cure herself in time for the fall harvest festival?Heidi Heckelbeck is all excited about Brewster's fall festival. She can't wait to go through the haunted barn with her friend Lucy. But when Heidi starts to sniffle, and then sneeze, and then ache all over, it looks like she's going to miss out on all the fun. Will a spell do the trick and get her back on her feet again? With easy-to-read language and illustrations on almost every page, the Heidi Heckelbeck chapter books are perfect for beginning readers. Views: 25
The Grievers is a darkly comic coming of age novel for a generation that's still struggling to come of age.When Charley Schwartz learns that an old high school pal has killed himself, he agrees to help his alma mater organize a memorial service to honor his fallen comrade. Soon, however, devestation turns to disgust as Charley discovers that his friend's passing means less to the school than the bottom line. As the memorial service quickly degenerates into a fundraising fiasco, Charley must also deal with a host of other quandaries including a dead-end job as an anthropomorphic dollar sign, his best firned's imminent move to Maryland, an intervention with a drug-addled megalomaniac, and his own ongoing crusade to enforce the proper use of apostrophes among the proprietors of local dining establishments.Desperate to set the world right and keep his own life from spiraling out of control, Charley rages through his days and nights, plotting all the while the ultimate eulogy for his deceased friend and a scathing indictment of a world gone wrong.From BooklistIn his second novel (after The Singular Exploits of Wonder Mom and Party Girl, 2011), Schuster homes in on the travails of an unhappy grad student. Charley Schwartz can’t seem to finish his dissertation and has taken a ludicrous job at a bank that requires him to dress up as a dollar sign. When he learns that his friend Billy Chin has committed suicide, he determines that a memorial fund should be set up at their prep school in Billy’s honor. What he has trouble admitting to himself is that he is feeling incredibly guilty, aware that he had not been a good friend to Billy, and is now anxious to make amends. But the preparations only seem to fuel his bitterness, as he watches in despair while an old nemesis turns the tribute into a fund-raiser. Yet with the support of his loving wife and long-suffering best friend, Charley somehow manages to do the right thing without launching into one of his signature rants. What starts out as a broadly humorous satire of dysfunction evolves into a surprisingly tender look at loss and grief. --Joanne Wilkinson ReviewSchuster s off-kilter portrait of a guy unsatisfied like the old Replacements song adds pivotal bite to the pre-programmed humor of his ensemble. --KirkusWhat starts out as a broadly humorous satire of dysfunction evolves into a surprisingly tender look at loss and grief. --Joanne Wilkinson, BooklistLike the movie Four Weddings and a Funeral, Marc Schuster s The Grievers blends the post-juvenile humor of adults refusing to grow up with aching pathos and biting touches of genius. Comedy travels hand in hand with tragedy in this novel, neither any further away than the next page, but both singing in tune. --Cafe Libri Views: 25
"It is possible to invent a single machine which can be used to compute any computable sequence," twenty-four-year-old Alan Turing announced in 1936. In Turing's Cathedral, George Dyson focuses on a small group of men and women, led by John von Neumann at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, who built one of the first computers to realize Alan Turing's vision of a Universal Machine. Their work would break the distinction between numbers that mean things and numbers that do things--and our universe would never be the same.Using five kilobytes of memory (the amount allocated to displaying the cursor on a computer desktop of today), they achieved unprecedented success in both weather prediction and nuclear weapons design, while tackling, in their spare time, problems ranging from the evolution of viruses to the evolution of stars.Dyson's account, both historic and prophetic, sheds important new light on how the digital... Views: 25