Dhane, son of the great wizard Algernon, is the only male on the witch council. In fact, he's the only male allowed to practice magic at all.Many years ago, Algernon went mad and committed atrocities against members of the council. The vampires were a target as well. Finally the witches prevailed, and Algernon is long since dead. But his son must carry on, hated because of a father he never even knew.The vampires and werewolves are captives of the witch council for everyone's safety. Their hatred of each other could lead to streets flowing red with blood. Now Dhane must navigate in a world where the vampires despise him, the witches distrust him and the werewolves would use him for their own purposes. But not everyone is out to harm him.Amelia, the beautiful and powerful werewolf would seduce him with lust. Heather, the mysterious and dangerous vampire would seduce him with power. Dhane will do whatever he can to keep his urges for each of them at bay.Something is brewing, however. Rumors of Algernon's spell book put everyone on edge. Is it the key to freedom for the werewolves and vampires? Could it be a temptation to pull Dhane down his father's path?The Magestorm trilogy will answer these questions and follow Dhane as he decides which path to follow, which woman to love, and what the ultimate cost will be to survive in a world that fears and hates him. Views: 19
“A classic travel-writing piece originally published in the 1980s. This is a record of Michael Asher's journey through Chad and the Sudan by camel, in an attempt to trace the Forty Days Road, an ancient trade route.” Views: 19
Phoebe only wanted to find her birth parents. That is all she dreamed about since she was a child. But finding the reality would never match her dream. Her birth mother killed because she asked too many questions about her, and her birth father in jail for the illegal activities his crime syndicate committed, Phoebe does the only thing she can do. Go undercover to find who killed her mother. She gets more than she bargained for, and it takes Shane and Drake to rescue her.Shane and Drake have been watching Phoebe; they know she is the one they are looking for in many ways. First, she is their boss's long lost sister who has no idea the kind of danger she is in. Someone wants her dead, and she has landed smack-dab in the middle of a war.Getting out alive may be what they are all thinking but their attraction to each other is an added bonus. Warning: hot car sex is a must when you are on the run, MMF scenes. Please remember all of the proceeds from this book will be going to Wolf Wildlife Refuge and the Red Cross for the victims of the Colorado wildfires. So far it has destroyed over 100 homes, burnt the Wildlife Refuge, and one person has been killed. AND it is still growing. I hope you all like the book and also feel good about helping the people from the fires. Views: 19
Three days after arriving in Galveston, newly widowed Sage McMurray finds herself taken hostage in a robbery. She fears she may never see Whispering Mountain again when the outlaws decide to auction their pretty captive off to the highest bidder, until a tall stranger offers twice the highest bid. Views: 19
Is it possible to find the love of your life, lose them, and then find them again? Priscilla had to ask herself that question. She’d fallen in love with Travis and thought her life would be the perfect fairytale. But, as we know, all fairytales don’t have a perfect ending. Priscilla has to grow and learn that when you have a good thing, never take it for granted because you can find yourself in the love lost and found. Views: 19
Tymmon was thrown out of his kingdom, and has to make his way in the world, but unexpected help from a singing gargoyle will certainly make that easierIn one night, Tymmon's life is turned upside down. His father, the beloved court jester of Austernerve, is kidnapped in a night raid. Tymmon escapes his father's fate but must find shelter in the dark, deep, and dangerous Sombrous Forest.There, he meets another kind of outcast: Troff, a fearsome-looking dog-like gargoyle with an unexpectedly gorgeous singing voice. Together, the two form a great duo: Tymmon plays the flute while Troff sings. They take their act around the kingdom, until a chance encounter with a mysterious old man gives the two an opportunity to save Tymmon's father, and change Tymmon's life forever.This ebook features an extended biography of Zilpha Keatley Snyder. Views: 19
“One of my favorite ideas is, never to keep an unnecessary soldier,” Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1792. Neither Jefferson nor the other Founders could ever have envisioned the modern national security state, with its tens of thousands of “privateers”; its bloated Department of Homeland Security; its rusting nuclear weapons, ill-maintained and difficult to dismantle; and its strange fascination with an unproven counterinsurgency doctrine. Written with bracing wit and intelligence, Rachel Maddow’s Drift argues that we’ve drifted away from America’s original ideals and become a nation weirdly at peace with perpetual war, with all the financial and human costs that entails. To understand how we’ve arrived at such a dangerous place, Maddow takes us from the Vietnam War to today’s war in Afghanistan, along the way exploring the disturbing rise of executive authority, the gradual outsourcing of our war-making capabilities to private companies, the plummeting percentage of American families whose children fight our constant wars for us, and even the changing fortunes of G.I. Joe. She offers up a fresh, unsparing appraisal of Reagan’s radical presidency. Ultimately, she shows us just how much we stand to lose by allowing the priorities of the national security state to overpower our political discourse. Sensible yet provocative, dead serious yet seriously funny, Drift will reinvigorate a “loud and jangly” political debate about how, when, and where to apply America’s strength and power—and who gets to make those decisions. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9xoM7TMiTA Views: 19
"Reasonable Fear" is the fourth of the acclaimed Joe Dillard series offered by Scott Pratt. The series has encompassed legal thriller, legal mystery, and legal suspense, and has been favorably compared to the master, John Grisham. In this novel, Joe Dillard has become the district attorney in Northeast Tennessee and is confronted with the most difficult case of his life. Three young women have been murdered, and Dillard becomes deeply involved in the case with Sheriff Leon Bates. Dillard soon realizes that he is up against an enemy that he has never before encountered; someone so rich and so powerful that the course of justice could easily be altered by money and politics. When the villains start threatening Dillard's family, he asks himself the most difficult question he has ever faced: "When is it reasonable under the law to kill? What circumstances make it reasonable to use violence to defend one's own family?" Dillard's life, and the lives of his wife and children, will depend on the answer, and on the strength of his character. Views: 19
With time running out to stop the nuclear destruction of Tel Aviv, Dewey Andreas must defeat his most fearsome opponent yet.Off a quiet street in Brooklyn, New York, Israeli Special Forces commander Kohl Meir is captured by operatives of the Iranian secret service, who smuggle Meir back to Iran, where he is imprisoned, tortured, and prepared for a show trial. What they don’t know is that Meir was in New York to recruit Dewey Andreas for a secret operation. Meir had been tipped off that Iran had finally succeeded in building their first nuclear weapon, one they were planning to use to attack Israel. His source was a high-level Iranian government official and his proof was a photo of the bomb itself. Dewey Andreas, a former Army Ranger and Delta, owes his life to Meir and his team of Israeli commandos. Now, to repay his debt, Dewey has to attempt the impossible ---to both rescue Meir from one of the world’s most secure prisons and to find and eliminate Iran’s nuclear bomb before it’s deployed---all without the help or sanction of Israel or America (at the near certain risk of detection by Iran). Unfortunately, Dewey’s first moves have caught the attention of Abu Paria, the brutal and brilliant head of VEVAK, the Iranian secret service. Now Dewey has to face off against, outwit, and outfight an opponent with equal cunning, skill, and determination, with the fate of millions hanging in the balance.About the AuthorBEN COES is the author of the critically acclaimed Power Down and Coup d’Etat. He is a former speechwriter for the George H .W. Bush White House, worked for Boone Pickens, was a fellow at the JFK School of Government at Harvard, a campaign manager for Mitt Romney’s run for governor in 2002, and is currently a partner in a private equity company out of Boston. He lives in Wellesley, Mass.Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.1ASPEN LODGECAMP DAVIDCATOCTIN MOUNTAIN PARKNEAR THURMONT, MARYLANDPresident Rob Allaire sat in a comfortable, red-and-white-upholstered club chair. His worn L.L.Bean boots were untied and propped up on a wood coffee table. Allaire wore jeans and a faded long-sleeve red Lacoste rugby shirt. His longish brown hair was slightly messed up, and there was stubble across his chin.To his right, Allaire’s yellow Lab, Ranger, lay sleeping. Another dog, an old English bulldog named Mabel, was napping by the fireplace, the sound of her snoring occasionally making Allaire look up.To most Americans, the sight of the slightly unkempt president of the United States might have been off-putting, perhaps even a little shocking. If Allaire looked as if he hadn’t taken a shower in two days and had worn the same pants an entire weekend, during which he chopped half a cord of wood, hiked ten miles, and shot skeet twice, it was because he had done just that. However, most Americans would have been pleased to see their president in his element, with his unadorned love of the outdoors, his simple joy in physical labor, his affection for his dogs. And now, at five fifteen in the afternoon on a windswept, rainy Saturday in April, his satisfaction at the sight of a bottle of beer, Budweiser to be exact, which one of Camp David’s servants brought him as he sat staring into the fireplace.“Thanks, Ricko,” said Allaire.“You’re welcome, Mr. President.”In President Allaire’s six years in office, he’d been to Camp David 122 times. Allaire would not, by his term’s end, set any records in terms of time spent at the presidential retreat; that record would still belong to Ronald Reagan, who visited Camp David 186 times during his two terms in office. Still, Allaire loved Camp David just as much as Reagan, both Bushes, and every other president since Franklin Roosevelt had the retreat built almost a century before. Allaire loved its rustic simplicity, the quiet solitude, and he loved most the fact that Camp David allowed him to escape the backbiting, lying, sycophancy, and subterfuge of Washington. If Allaire was compared to Reagan for his constant escaping to Camp David, and for his conservative politics, that was okay by him. Allaire believed it was important to have a set of beliefs and to stick by them, through hell or high water, no matter what the polls or the prevailing wisdom said. It’s why America loved Rob Allaire.Allaire sipped his beer as he stared down at the iPad, leaning closer to try and see, adjusting his glasses. He looked up. Seated on the far side of the room, reading a book, was John Schmidt, his communications director.“I can’t read this goddamn thing,” said Allaire.“You’re the one who said you wanted one,” said Schmidt. “Remember? ‘It’s the future’ and all that?”“Yeah, well, I changed my mind. I’m sick of pretending I like these fucking things.”Schmidt nodded.“We’ll go back to the daily notebook, sir.”“Good. In the meantime, have you read this editorial by our friends at The New York Times? How the hell is The New York Times editorial board aware of what’s happening in Geneva?”“It’s coming out of the Swiss Foreign Ministry,” said Schmidt. “They’re taking the credit, which is not necessarily a bad thing. To the extent it adds to the public pressure on Tehran, it’s helpful.”There was a knock on the door and in stepped two men: Hector Calibrisi, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and Tim Lindsay, the U.S. secretary of state.Calibrisi and Lindsay, who had been out shooting at the camp’s private skeet range, were both dressed in shooting attire. Calibrisi was an expert shot. He came up through the ranks of the CIA paramilitary and was deft with most weapons known to man. Lindsay, a retired former admiral in the navy, and lifelong hunter, was even better.“Well, if it isn’t Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” said Allaire, a shit-eating grin on his face as he watched the two men stomp their boots on the welcome mat and remove their Filson coats. “Either of you manage to hit anything?”“No, Mr. President,” Calibrisi said politely. “We thought it would be impolite to hit more clays than you.”Allaire laughed.“Wise guy,” said Allaire as Ricko returned to the sitting area near the fireplace. “Do you two have time for a drink before you leave for D.C.?”“Sure,” said Calibrisi. “Same thing as the president, Ricko.”“Pappy Van Winkle,” said Lindsay, looking at Ricko, “if there’s any left. A couple rocks. Thanks, Ricko.”“Yes, sir,” said the bespectacled servant, who turned and left for the kitchen.“Seriously,” continued Allaire. “Who won?”“It’s not a contest,” said Calibrisi, his confident smile leaving little doubt as to who hit more clays that afternoon. He moved to one of the sofas and sat down.“I’m sixty-four years old, for chrissakes,” said Lindsay, sitting across from Calibrisi, next to Schmidt. “I’m surprised I hit anything.”“I’ve heard that one before,” said Allaire, taking a sip from his beer and shaking his head at Lindsay. “Right before you took twenty bucks off me.”“That was a lucky day, Mr. President,” said Lindsay as Ricko brought a tray with drinks on it.The four men sat talking about skeet shooting and hunting for a long time, the president regaling the others with a story about the time when, as governor of California, he’d gone dove hunting with then vice president Cheney just a few months after Cheney had strafed someone with an errant shot. The story, as with most of Allaire’s elaborate and expertly told stories, left the other three in laughter.Allaire stood and put more wood on the fire, played with the arrangement of the logs for a time, then returned to his chair.“Before we take off, Mr. President,” said Lindsay, “we need to discuss the proposal by the Swiss foreign minister.”“We’ve already discussed it,” said Allaire. “I gave you my answer two days ago, Tim. I refuse to sit down with the president of Iran. It’s that simple.”“Ambassador Veider believes that if we agree to a summit, with you and President Nava meeting one-on-one, that the Iranians will renounce their nuclear ambitions and might even agree to begin talks with the Israelis.”“I trust Iran about as far as I can throw them,” said Allaire. “They’re lying. I’ve seen this movie before, Tim. I don’t like the ending.”Lindsay nodded at the president.“We have to consider the larger objective,” said Lindsay. “The Iranian government is reaching out to us. This meeting would be the first step toward normalizing relations between our countries.”“They’re playing the Swiss and they’re attempting to play us,” said Allaire, nodding across the room at Ricko, indicating he wanted another beer. “President Nava has created a distraction which he’s using to get us to take our eye off the ball. So while he makes the world and The New York Times believe he’s had a change of heart, Iran continues to pour tens of millions of dollars into Hezbollah and Al-Qaeda. And they continue to build a nuclear weapon.”“We don’t have definitive proof the Iranians are constructing a nuclear bomb, sir,” said Lindsay.Allaire glanced at Calibrisi. “Here we go again,” said Allaire, shaking his head.“We know they are, Tim,” said Calibrisi. “They have enough highly enriched uranium to assemble at least half a dozen devices. They have the uranium deuteride triggers. We know that. These are facts. They’re getting close.”“Our objective, Mr. President, is to put Iran in a box,” said Lindsay. “We do that by allowing the Swiss to bring our countries together, and then holding our noses and sitting down with President Nava. He publicly commits, we get inspectors in there, and the box is complete.”Allaire nodded, but said nothing.“We have to be willing to be the adults here,” continued Lindsay. “The reward is worth whatever risk we take by virtue of standing on the same stage as Nava. This is a good deal. They’ve agreed to on-demand inspections, access to their scientists, and details on their centrifuge supply chain.”“Tim, there are certain things that, for whatever reason, you don’t seem to understand,” said Allaire, leaning back. “One of those things is Iran.”“I think I understand Iran, sir,” said Lindsay sharply.“You understand Iran from a policy perspective. You know the names of the cities, the history of the country. You’ve studied their leadership, their institutions, their culture. You’ve been there how many times? Five? Six? A dozen? I know all that. But I don’t think you understand that the Iranians are, quite simply, the most dishonest group of people on this planet.”“You can’t seriously mean that, Mr. President,” said Lindsay.“Yes, I can. And I do mean it. I don’t trust those fuckers one bit. The Supreme Leader, Suleiman, is insane. President Nava is a menace.”“You’re misunderstanding me, sir,” said Lindsay. “I don’t trust them either. But you’ll forgive me if I take a slightly more nuanced view of Iran. It’s a country ruled by a corrupt group of individuals, but a large majority of the country desires freed... Views: 19
Tom and Marybeth, two young police officers discover the local fire chief was something of a hero. But, as Mickey Mantle once said, you don't have to wait long, or look far, to be reminded how thin the line between a hero and a goat. Views: 19
