"It's peculiar, and sometimes frightening, what the mind can devise when left to its own devices." ~Edward J. Yaeger, Jr.Gifting is a contemporary fairy tale about two best friends who learn the value of giving and receiving in very strange ways. "Strange" might be an understatement given the dark and sensationalistic style of Yaeger's storytelling, which is as refreshing as it is creepy and unsLong, long ago in a land at the edge of a desert that howls against the walls of the village, a poor young boy named Samir is sent to work for a strange old man who stays up all night listening to the stars. In his curiosity to find out why, Samir stumbles upon a secret and is swept up in an epic journey across the ancient world. It is up to him and his brother Hamdan - with a lot of help from Munira, the camel - to deliver a very special treasure to a king and perhaps rescue their land from disaster. Can they overcome thieves and a sandstorm to reach their destination in time?This imaginative reconstruction of the tale of the Magi will appeal to children aged five and over, and draws on real astronomical research into the real Christmas Star. The story is set in the ancient Middle East, in which region the author lived for many years - although at a much later date, of course! Views: 349
It all begins with an ad in the newspaper. When Jean Sasson, a young Southern woman, answers a call to work in the royal hospital in Saudi Arabia, what should have been a two-year stay turns into a life-changing adventure spanning over a decade. Jean is plunged into the hidden lives of the veiled women in Riyadh, where women are locked in luxurious homes and fundamentalist mutawas terrorize the streets. Jean meets women from all walks of life--a feisty bedouin, an educated mother, and a conservative wife of a high-ranking Saudi--all who open a window into Saudi culture and help to reshape Jean's worldviews. What follows is a heartfelt, inspiring memoir about Jean's new-found conviction to fight for women's rights in a country of limited personal freedom.
PRAISE FOR JEAN SASSON'S BOOKS:
“Fascinating...an intimate account of a family life that became steadily more dangerous and bizarre...in forced pursuit of Osama’s jihadist dreams.” --Washington Post
"The startling truth behind veiled lives...frank and vivid" Sunday Express
"Anyone with the slightest interest in human rights will find this book heart-wrenching." --Betty Mahmoody, bestselling author of NOT WITHOUT MY DAUGHTER
"A fascinating narrative...devasting" Robert Harris, Sunday Times
"Absolutely riveting and profoundly sad..." --People
"A chilling story...a vivid account of an air-conditioned nightmare..." --Entertainment Weekly
"Must-reading for anyone interested in human rights." --USA Today
"Shocking...candid...sad, sobering, and compassionate..." --San Francisco Chronicle
Jean's first book THE RAPE OF KUWAIT, based on her eye witness reporting on the invasion of Kuwait by Iraqi troops, was an immediate bestseller. Shortly thereafter she became a full-time writer. Her next three books, PRINCESS, PRINCESS SULTANA'S DAUGHTERS, and PRINCESS SULTANA'S CIRCLE, became international sensations as they were the first books to bring to the western world the shocking stories about life for women in Saudi Arabia. Jean is also the author of MAYADA, DAUGHTER OF IRAQ, about the prison experiences of an Iraqi journalist praised by Saddam Hussein; LOVE IN A TORN LAND: The True Story of a Freedom Fighter's Escape from Iraqi Vengeance which tells the story of a beautiful Kurdish woman; GROWING UP BIN LADEN: Osama's Wife and Son Take Us into Their Secret World; and FOR THE LOVE OF A SON: One Afghan Woman's Quest for Her Stolen Child. Her work has been featured in People, Vanity Fair,The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, The New York Post, The Sunday London Times, The Guardian, CNN, FOX, NBC, and many other news organizations.
Still traveling the world, Jean has made her homebase in Atlanta, Georgia where she is a passionate animal rights and women's rights supporter. You can learn more by visiting her website at http://www.jeansasson.com Views: 349
Telling Tales is John Wheatcroft’s latest collection of ten stories that explore the human condition as well as (in the first and last work) the nature of fiction itself. The stories exemply the same qualities that led Jay Neugeboren in a New York Times Book Review to say of an earlier collection, “Mr. Wheatcroft ... gives us tales that are stark and memorable.”Kara has one burning desire. To free her mother from slavery. But after Kara's father spurns her from his estate, brutally thrusting her into a world rife with creeping evil and dark magic, she must find a new home for safety. And she does.At a traveling carnival, where the only work she can get is as a pickpocket, luring crowds into shows and then stealing from them. But under the bright lights and gaudy masks hide dangers far worse than Kara ever thought possible. How will she free her mother and keep herself alive?Spurned is the first book in 'The Hither and Nigh Carnival' series. It is written by R. Moses, author of 'The Last Savior Trilogy.' Views: 349
The City That Never Sleeps is a book of two novellas. "Just Drive" follows four friends as they set out on a road trip and find themselves in a life-altering situation after taking a stranger along for the ride.In "The House In The Hamptons" a girl, ignored by her family and friends, forms a unique bond with her kidnapper.Two tales of strange human bonding, "The City That Never Sleeps" is a double-novella. The first novella, "Just Drive" follows a musician from New York, Nathanial, as he ventures out on a road trip to L.A. to see his favorite punk band, The Dead Joneses, in hopes of handing them his demo. Nathanial’s one mistake – offering a ride to a stranger who needs to get to Wisconsin. Meanwhile, things start to fall apart for The Dead Joneses as they try to balance fame and their private lives.The second novella, "The House In The Hamptons" is a heartbreaking story of a teenage girl, Sophie, who desperately craves attention. After her mother ships her off to The Hamptons for the summer, Sophie decides to run away and ends up in the wrong place at the wrong time. In a surprising twist, she finds solace in a rather harrowing situation. Views: 349
“I love you Simon. I wish I didn't, but I do. It’s destiny, as if I were made for you.” She looked up at Simon, her eyes big, twinkling, passionate, and tracking him perfectly. He felt as if he could fall into them.“I love you too,” Simon said. “But sometimes, love is not enough. Sometimes, loving someone, is just not-- right...”Carlos Robertson asks his long-time friend, Fredrick, for help with a problem of the heart. There are two women, one a lover, one a friend, but accidents of time, space and the flesh are obscuring the distinction in his feelings. Fredrick’s advice is on target, but not what Carlos wants to hear. Views: 349
Special contribution by Nikola Danaylov - According to future studies, the world will be dominated soon by disruptive technologies, able to plunge Mankind into an era of accelerated progress.“Evolution: the future” is a breathtaking story set in a near future altered almost beyond recognition by disruptive technologies. Script available.Special contribution by Nikola Danaylov - According to future studies, the world will be dominated soon by disruptive technologies, able to plunge Mankind into an era of accelerated progress. Main outcomes will be the achievement of immortality, the creation of smarter than human Artificial Intelligence and the spread of the new species through the universe."Evolution: the future" is a transhumanist novel about emerging technologies and space, set in a near future populated by humans and digital beings. Suspense and action, but also a fascinating travel into the impacts of Artificial Intelligence on our civilization. The main characters move in a context of epoch making events, rising to leaders. Their world, alien at the beginning, becomes plausible from the continuous references to the present reality until it seems an inevitable evolution. From this, a powerful and disquieting comparison with our current civilization emerges; that stripping away layer after layer of conventions and prejudices, leaves us at last face to face with the basic values and the fragility of a human being. In the novel, these same factors will give Mankind the strength to take courageous decisions for its own destiny. Meanwhile, the artificial intelligence reveals itself as the means of evolutionary progress towards superior states of awareness and sharing.24th century. Humans live on Earth and the Moon, last strongholds of their past power. Mars and the Net are inhabited by artificial intelligences and souls, these last obtained by digitizing the brain after death. The virtual reality allows the two races to communicate. Their differences are deep, their interests incompatible.With digitization, humans have postponed real death to an indeterminate future, but they are not happy. Towards the virtual beings they feel admiration but also envy and inferiority. The digital creatures instead cannot bear being relegated in worlds too small for their unbounded ambitions. Their Martian experience has allowed them to develop the competence necessary in extra-terrestrial environments, most of all to acquire the self-confidence indispensable for the colonization of other star systems.Eve and Victoria, the main characters, are “souls”, digital beings whose brain was digitized after death. They move in a context of epoch making events, trascending progressively their human values and finally merging their destiny with that of the digital people.A script is available. The novel has been translated into English, Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese. The last editions of the ebooks can be downloaded for free from the Author's website. Views: 348
In a posh suburb of the nation’s capital, at the most exclusive high school in the world, the vampires who secretly run the government have created a game for America’s daughters of privilege. Show up to Homecoming in a black dress and you’ve entered yourself in a contest where the winner becomes a vampire, and the loser becomes the winner’s first victim.In a posh suburb of the nation’s capital, at the most exclusive high school in the world, the vampires who secretly run the government have created a game for America’s daughters of privilege. Show up to Homecoming in a black dress and you’ve entered yourself in a contest where the winner becomes a vampire, and the loser becomes the winner’s first victim.Only the wealthiest, most connected students can hope to win, so when new girl Nicky Bloom wears a black dress to Homecoming, everyone assumes she has a death wish. They don’t know that Nicky has her own agenda. As the dance continues into the night, they will find out that Nicky Bloom is far more than she seems. Views: 348
An old flame’s fiancé is missing, and only Drum can save him from the SovietsChester Drum will never love another woman the way he loves Marianne. After years of on-and-off romance, he tells her that his work as a private detective is too dangerous for him to ever marry, so she ends the affair and moves to West Berlin, to report on the Cold War from its front lines. There she falls in love with Quentin Hammond, ace foreign correspondent, and Drum is happy for her until her new man disappears behind the Iron Curtain. She telegraphs for help, and Drum is on the next plane. Hammond was close to winning the scoop of the century, by cooperating with an exiled East German dissident to tunnel beneath the Berlin Wall and free thousands of people from the other side. Before they could complete their audacious scheme, though, the Stasi kidnapped them. Only Drum has the skills to go behind the wall and return with the man who’s stolen the woman he loves. Views: 348
A cry in the woods leads Ranger Kell Ardantin to the rescue of a lovely young lady, escaping a horrible fate in her homeland to start life anew.Santa’s Ninja Elves: two short stories depicting elite elves whose missions are to protect Santa against all enemies using an assortment of cinna-bombs, candy cane bullets, tinsel traps and throwing bells and intelligence from the fortune-telling Mrs. Clause. After years of dedicated service, Santa decides to reward them by helping them find love on Christmas.Past retirement, Natasha is sent from the North Pole to Ohio on a final mission to identify a threat to Santa. Natasha runs the lead to ground, only to find Santa sent her there for an entirely different mission. She’s been set up with a handsome stranger, a final gift from Santa to his favorite Ninja Elf.Hunter gets drunk on eggnog one day and beheads an innocent snowman. His punishment: he’s banished from the North Pole to work at a mall in Arizona, managing a fake Santa’s long line of kids. When the fake Santa sheds the fat suit to reveal a beautiful woman, Hunter falls fast for the woman who makes him feel the thrill Christmas Eve with one look. Views: 348
Mamma sat quite quietly in her favourite corner, on the sofa in the drawing-room, all the time papa was speaking. I think, or I thought afterwards, that she was crying a little, though that isn\'t her way at all. Dods didn\'t think so, for I asked him, when we were by ourselves. She did not speak any way, except just to whisper to me when I ran up to kiss her before we went out, \'We will have a good talk about it all afterwards, darling. Run out now with Geordie.\' I was very glad to get out of the room, I was so dreadfully afraid of beginning to cry myself. I didn\'t know which I was the sorriest for-papa or mamma-mamma, I think, though I don\'t know, either! Papa tried to be so cheerful about it; it was almost worse than if he had spoken very sadly. Views: 347
Stephanie is on the search for the source of her newly discovered power. She is helped by a talking cat.Stephanie takes another train journey with a white cat who guides her to the source of all her power. Views: 347
Every second he spent with me, every instant he touched me was like a slow-working poison... I had to end this, now.
When dark spirits threaten to hurt the people Amelia cares for most, she will do whatever it takes to protect the.
Joshua has his own reasons for meeting Amelia at the New Orleans St Louis Number One cemetery at midnight.
Together they will join in a powerful ritual - both knowing that once Amelia steps inside the Voodoo Circle, everything will change, forever. Views: 347
