In the Sixteenth century the Dutch people established the right of a people to govern themselves, by challenging the Divine Right of a King to rule a nation. It was the most radical revolutionary idea of its day.The eighty year war that followed was the prime precursor to the American Revolution two hundred later.This novel is the story of that evolution and provides information on how the Dutch have influenced American culture and the history of yachts. Views: 71
Stripped of his identity and imprisoned in an insane asylum, Cal's search for the truth has never looked more hopeless. Nobody knows where he is and he has no way to get in touch with his mates. He's also lost all the clues he had to the Ormond Singularity: the family secret that's turned his life into a nightmare. Against all odds, somehow Cal must escape to carry on his father's quest. He has 245 days. The countdown continues. Views: 71
It's 2008. In three days, family man and Silicon Valley speechwriter Dan Jordan will see his start-up stock vest. He'll cash out with $1.1 million, turn in his frenetic Valley life in for a slower one on the beach with his wife and two children, and finally live the life he's supposed to live. Or so he thinks. Before he can collect his cash and get outta Dodge, all hell breaks loose. Dan is kidnapped by a gang of tiny IT nerds who threaten to get him fired before the options can vest, stalked by a potentially murderous corporate security muscle man, and confronted with the possible disintegration of his marriage, all while his sociopath neighbor, Crazy Larry, threatens to ruin everything. . . . Side-splittingly funny and full of larger-than-life characters, Cash Out is like Office Space as reimagined by the creators of The Hangover—a sly caper gone outrageously, unforgettably awry. From BooklistA former reporter turned Silicon Valley speechwriter, Dan Jordan is just days from cashing out $1.1 million in FlowBid stock. The money will enable him to leave a job and a company he despises and build a better life for his family, somewhere on a beach. But as he limps from a doctor’s office following a vasectomy, he’s abducted by three elfin but enraged IT geeks, who blackmail him. Soon after, a thuggish stranger throws him through a glass door into a supermarket freezer. Both attacks threaten his dream and even his wife and kids. Debut-novelist Bardsley, a former reporter turned Silicon Valley speechwriter, succeeds grandly in making Silicon Valley a place of intrigue and dangerous head cases and hard cases. Even Jordan’s neighbors are grotesquely demented and creepily scary. FlowBid is a spectacularly toxic corporate zoo fueled by narcissism, hubris, self-aggrandizement, mendacity, and lack of scruples. A careening plot, plenty of action, outrageous bad guys, an otherworldly milieu, and many laughs make Cash Out a must-read for crime lovers with a taste for the bizarre. --Thomas Gaughan Review"A wild romp of a book ... In this world where making quick money is all the rage, it's quite dead-on." (Bookreporter.com)"Bardsley is smart about Silicon Valley culture,." (Publishers Weekly)"Succeeds grandly in making Silicon Valley a place of intrigue and dangerous head cases and hard cases. ... A careening plot, plenty of action, outrageous bad guys, an otherworldly milieu, and many laughs make Cash Out a must-read for crime lovers with a taste for the bizarre." (Booklist)"A satirical romp. ... A crazy ride through the corporate pressure cooker, filled with lust, ego, greed and dreams of escaping to a simpler, more balanced life." (Metro)“Cash Out is one of those novels that begs for more adjectives: relentless, madcap, polished, lean, vivid, warped, original, horrifying and hilarious in equal measure. It’s like the spawn of mad monkey sex between Charlie Huston and Duane Swierczynski. Which is a good thing.” (Marcus Sakey, award-winning author of The Two Deaths of Daniel Hayes and The Amateurs )“A psychotic head-scratcher in the best possible way. Bardsley’s story is wild, unpredictable, and totally original.” (Los Angeles Book Review )“A tense, satirical black comedy that will leave you with paper cuts from anticipating what’s on the next page and an aching gut from the laughter.” (Frank Bill, author of Crimes in Southern Indiana )“Greg Bardsley’s writing walks on the wild side, with street swagger and a switch-blade in the sock. His short stories are an internet sensation, there’s style and there’s substance and a great big dollop of skill. Utterly unique and head-and-shoulders above his peers.” (Tony Black, author of Truth Lies Bleeding )“Wow and wow again. CASH OUT gets the 3-E merit: Excellent, enthrallingand with a wicked elegance. I loved it.” (Ken Bruen, best-selling author of The Devil [Minotaur] and other books )“A cold heart is beating in [Greg Bardsley’s] prose, one that suspects there’s nothing much good to say about people. Still…you can say it with a sly wink that lets everyone know we’re all in on the same grim joke. Bardsley gives us the wink and delivers the black punchline.” (Charlie Huston, best-selling author of The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death and The Shotgun Rule [Ballantine], as well as the Henry Thompson trilogy and the Joe Pitt casebooks )“Bardsley’s work will be around a long time. He forces you to remember. … My prediction: As soon as the novels start rolling out, Bardsley will be as big as Palahniuk. But the critics will like him a lot more.” (Anthony Neil Smith, author of Hogdoggin and Yellow Medicine [Bleak House] )“Bardsley’s writing always makes me laugh and long for more. His characters are outrageous… yet beneath their antics and quirks are kernels of people we recognize from our everyday lives - or would, before Greg let them run wild. CASH OUT provides a delicious romp… I loved every minute of it.” (Rachel Canon, author of The Anniversary [Random House] Rachel Canon, author of The Anniversary [Random House] Rachel Canon, author of The Anniversary [Random House] Rachel Canon, author of The Anniversary [Random House] Rachel Canon, autho )“Greg Bardley’s writing is so good it’s criminal. The guy has style. And a wicked imagination. And nobody has more fun with his characters than Mr. Bardsley does.” (Al Riske, author of Precarious and Sabrina's Window [Luminis] )“Greg Bardsley. Remember his name. Mark my words, he’s gonna be huge.” (Jedidiah Ayres, Ransom Notes: The Barnes & Noble Mystery Blog )“Irreverent, surreal, utterly original. Bardsley is a genre unto himself.” (Keith Rawson, editor of Crimefactory magazine )“Greg Bardsley is one of the funniest writers, period. Someone once asked me to describe Greg’s writing and all I could come up with was it’s like being stuffed into a gag bag full of razor blades and getting tossed into the gibbons cage at the zoo.” (Kieran Shea, author of "The Lifeguard Method" [Ellery Queen] and other stories )“Cash Out is a wonderful combination of the bizarre, hysterical, and gruesome. Bardsley is a rising star in the world of crime fiction.” (Mark Richardson, author of "Tattoo Woman" and other stories ) Views: 71
Raised with four older stepcousins in a conservative, churchgoing family, Frannie Price teeters on the brink of adolescence in the summer of 1985. Her timidity and awkwardness make her easy to overlook, yet she has one true friend in her cousin Jonathan. Jonathan, her childhood champion and the best person she knows. But when the Grant twins enter her life, Frannie’s world turns upside down. Not only does the sly and charming Eric Grant set her girl cousins against each other, but his flirtatious sister makes off with Jonathan’s heart. Only Frannie sees the faults running beneath the family landscape—not that anyone’s asking her opinion. Not her strict Uncle Paul, not her beloved Jonathan, and certainly not the Grants, who, after having their way with the rest of the Beresfords, turn their sights on her. What’s a girl to do? And why does she feel, in this uncharted territory, like God left her at the border? With sympathy, humor and more than a nod to Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park, The Beresfords chronicles Frannie’s coming of age, when all around her is coming apart.Review"Christina Dudley is a masterful writer." - The Bookcast.com on Everliving"Ingenious and entertaining." - The Seattle TimesAbout the AuthorChristina Dudley's latest novel EVERLIVING has been called "spooky and romantic" and chosen as a Staff Favorite by the University of Washington Bookstore. Her debut novel MOURNING BECOMES CASSANDRA was a LoveWebRadio Book-of-the-Month and chosen Top Four of 2010 by DailyCheapReads.com. At the urging of her readers, she penned MOURNING's sequel THE LITTLEST DOUBTS. For the younger readers, her MIA AND THE MAGIC CUPCAKES garnered a 2010 Zola Award for Best Children's Picture Book. When not writing, Dudley can be found crashing local books clubs, acting in Sunday school skits, and speaking for love or money to any large group that will have her. She also blogs for the Bellevue (WA) Farmers Market as the UrbanFarmJunkie. More than you ever wanted to know about her can be found at her eponymous website. She and her family live in Bellevue, Washington. Views: 71
She wanted out.She wanted a new life.She wanted a trophy worthy of a master thief.She wanted to find the source of the treasured crimson gold.She wanted to face an undead emperor on his home ground and live to tell the tale.Careful what you wish for.The Crimson Gold is the third title in this ongoing Forgotten Realms series focusing specifically on the shadowed life of the iconic character class of the rogue. Each novel in the series is a stand-alone adventure, allowing readers an easy entry point into the Forgotten Realms world. Views: 71
The first in a brilliant new series of nautical adventure novels featuring Matthew Quinton, a Restoration-era 'gentleman captain' fighting for King Charles II. Views: 71
After a disastrous marriage and divorce, Detective Cary Stevens vowed he'd never let another woman into his heart. But when his latest investigation puts him in the way of a bullet, his bachelor days—and one-night stands—may be numbered. On the brink of death, he finds himself in Room Six, a waiting room in the hereafter where in-betweeners' fates are truly decided. He resigns himself to dying of boredom, if nothing else, in the lineup of senior citizens with their AARP magazines, when in walks the one woman who could make him want a second chance at life . . . and love.Chloe Sanders learns the hard way that no good deed goes unpunished when she pushes a little girl out of the way of a moving car and wakes up in some type of purgatory. Or maybe it's heaven, because she couldn't have asked for a hotter guy with whom to await her final judgment. The sweeping glances of his bedroom eyes and sharp-tongued flirtatiousness tell her Cary's certainly no angel, but is he real? When she... Views: 71
What would you sacrifice to save the one’s you love? To save the one who holds your heart? To save the world? Kenley Grayson is all too familiar with these questions. After Earth is thrust into its first intergalactic war with an unknown race called the Bringers, our military forces begin to suffer heavy losses. Desperate for a solution, the Allied Federation issues a worldwide draft for every able seventeen year old to enlist. As Kenley turns seventeen, she finds herself thrown into the very war that took her older brother’s life. This year’s draft is a little different than in the past though. A new program, known as the Magnus Project, has been introduced, and only the best and brightest qualify. Kenley is amongst a select few whom are chosen to join this elite group of soldiers, and as a part of this project, undergoes a modification procedure that leaves her and her peers endowed with powers beyond their wildest dreams. As Earth continues in its struggle against the Bringers, Kenley is transported to a high-tech training facility, the Magnus Academy, to prepare for the major battle that lies ahead. It’s here that she meets the California heartthrob, and son of a legendary war hero, Landon Shaw. As unexpected feelings toward Landon begin to develop, Kenley wonders if this is the right time or place for romance to bloom, especially when those feelings start to interfere with her training. With the weight of the world on her shoulders, Kenley is constantly reminded of how important she and the rest of the Magnus cadets are to the fate of humanity. She is one of the Modified, Earth’s last line of defense against utter destruction. Views: 71
The little-known story of the dramatic political maneuverings and personalities behind the creation of the office of the president, with ramifications that continue to this day. On June 1, 1787, when the Federal Convention first talked of establishing a new executive branch, James Wilson moved that “the Executive consist of a single person.” To us this might sound obvious, but not so at the time. Americans had just won their independence from an autocratic monarch, and they feared that a single leader might commandeer power or oppress citizens. Should the framers even flirt with one-man rule? For the first and only time that summer, there was silence. Not one of the loquacious delegates dared speak up. Eventually Benjamin Franklin rose, then others. James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and George Mason joined the debate, and for three months their deliberations continued. By early September the framers had made up their minds. A chief... Views: 71
