Combining the raw-edge realism of Richard Price with the imaginative flair of Jonathan Lethem, a riveting literary mystery in which the disappearance of a teenaged girl sends shock waves through her waterfront community."Visitation Street is urban opera writ large. Gritty and magical, filled with mystery, poetry, and pain, Ivy Pochoda's voice recalls Richard Price, Junot Diaz, and even Alice Sebold, yet it's indelibly her own."-Dennis Lehane Summer in Red Hook, Brooklyn, a blue collar neighborhood where hipster gourmet supermarkets push against tired housing projects, and the East River opens into the bay. Bored and listless, fifteen-year-old June and Val are looking for some fun. Forget the boys, the bottles, the coded whistles. Val wants to do something wild and a little crazy: take a raft out onto the bay.But out on the water, as the bright light of day gives way to darkness, the girls disappear. Only Val will survive, washed ashore semi-conscious in the weeds.June's shocking disappearance will reverberate in the lives of a diverse cast of Red Hook residents. Fadi, the Lebanese bodega owner, trolls for information about the crime. Cree, just beginning to pull it together after his father's murder, unwittingly makes himself the chief suspect although an elusive guardian seems to have other plans for him. As Val emerges from the shadow of her missing friend, her teacher Jonathan, Julliard drop-out and barfly, will be forced to confront a past riddled with tragic sins of omission.In Visitation Street, Ivy Pochoda combines intensely vivid prose with breathtaking psychological insight to explore a cast of solitary souls, pulled by family, love, and betrayal, who yearn for a chance to escape, no matter the cost. Views: 15
When men fight over the feisty new arrival in town, the battle for her hand begins...
Annalee Gallagher loses her parents, home, and business in the Great Fire of Chicago. When she travels to Cicero Creek in the Wyoming Territory to start a new life, more heartache awaits her, and so do the attentions of several men--for good and for evil. Why was her stagecoach attacked, and was the shot that zinged over her head one night a wild bullet or a bad aim?
Boone Hartwell, the marshal of Cicero Creek, suspects someone is out to kill the new spitfire in town. She amuses him and touches a lonely part of his soul, but keeping her safe is a fulltime occupation. More importantly, can a white man raised as Cheyenne rise above her other suitors to win her heart? One thing is for certain in his determined mind: He's the man for Annalee. Views: 15
Ben Yagoda's How to Not Write Bad illustrates how we can all write better, more clearly, and for a wider readership.He offers advice on what he calls "not-writing-badly," which consists of the ability, first, to craft sentences that are correct in terms of spelling, diction (word choice), punctuation, and grammar, and that also display clarity, precision, and grace. Then he focuses on crafting whole paragraphs—with attention to cadence, consistency of tone, sentence transitions, and paragraph length.In a fun, comprehensive guide, Yagoda lays out the simple steps we can all take to make our writing more effective, more interesting—and just plain better. ReviewPraise for *Memoir: A History"Spirited... Yagoda's incisive exploration is a worthy study of a genre that even now cannot completely be defined." -- Los Angeles Times“Perceptive, thorough, and amusing.”-- New York Magazine “This idea-driven cultural criticism leads to all kinds of interesting places.” -- Christian Science Monitor“Ben Yagoda is one of the most subtle—and entertaining—writers about writing one can find. His history of the memoir reads between the lines—and the lies—with illuminating precision.” —Ron Rosenbaum, author of Explaining Hitler and The Shakespeare Wars“We owe Ben Yagoda such a huge debt of thanks: his witty, comprehensive, and insightful ‘biography’ of the form reminds us why the memoir matters – and will continue to matter as long as humans think, read, and write. This is literary criticism at its lively best.” —David Friedman, author of A Mind of Its Own: A Cultural History of the Penis and The Immortalists: Charles Lindbergh, Dr. Alexis Carrel, and Their Daring Quest to Live Forever“A shrewd and witty history of memoir sweeps us from Julius Caesar to James Frey. Our guide, Ben Yagoda, is always fine company, with just the right word, kindly good judgment, and another great story coming up on the next page. It's a splendid journey.” —Richard Ben Cramer, author of Joe DiMaggio: The Hero’s Life and How Israel Lost: The Four Questions"Fascinating… With its mixture of literary criticism, cultural history and just enough trivia, Yagoda’s survey is sure to appeal to scholars and bibliophiles alike.” – Publishers Weekly (starred review)About the AuthorBen Yagoda is a journalism professor at the University of Delaware. He is the author, coauthor, or editor of ten books, including Memoir: A History, Will Rogers: A Biography, and When You Catch an Adjective, Kill It, and has written for Slate, The New York Times Magazine, and publications that start with every letter of the alphabet except J, K, Q, X, and Z. He lives in Pennsylvania with his wife. Views: 15
The second installment in Kristen Simmons’s fast-paced, gripping YA dystopian series. After faking their deaths to escape from prison, Ember Miller and Chase Jennings have only one goal: to lay low until the Federal Bureau of Reformation forgets they ever existed. Near-celebrities now for the increasingly sensationalized tales of their struggles with the government, Ember and Chase are recognized and taken in by the Resistance—an underground organization working to systematically take down the government. At headquarters, all eyes are on the sniper, an anonymous assassin taking out FBR soldiers one by one. Rumors are flying about the sniper’s true identity, and Ember and Chase welcome the diversion…. Until the government posts its most-wanted list, and their number one suspect is Ember herself. Orders are shoot to kill, and soldiers are cleared to fire on suspicion alone. Suddenly Ember can’t even step onto the street without fear of being recognized, and “laying low” is a joke. Even members of the Resistance are starting to look at her sideways. With Chase urging her to run, Ember must decide: Go into hiding… or fight back? Views: 15
Between May 5 and June 3, 1864, the Union and Confederate armies suffered 88,000 casualties. Twenty-nine thousand were killed, wounded or captured in the first two days of combat. The savagery shocked a young, divided nation. Against this backdrop of the birth of modern warfare and the painful rebirth of the United States, New York Times bestselling novelist Ralph Peters has created a breathtaking narrative that surpasses the drama and intensity of his recent critically acclaimed novel, Cain at Gettysburg.In Hell or Richmond, thirty days of ceaseless carnage are seen through the eyes of a compelling cast, from the Union’s Harvard-valedictorian “boy general,” Francis Channing Barlow, to the brawling “dirty boots” Rebel colonel, William C. Oates. From Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee to a simple laborer destined to win the Medal of Honor, Peters brings to life an enthralling array of leaders and simple soldiers from both North and South, fleshing out history with stunning, knowledgeable realism.From the horrific collision of armies in the Wilderness, where neither side wanted to fight, to the shocking slaughter of the grand charge at Cold Harbor, this epic novel delivers a compelling, authentic, and suspenseful portrait of Civil War combat.Commemorating the approaching 150th anniversary of this grim encounter between valiant Americans, Ralph Peters brings to bear the lessons of his own military career, his lifelong study of this war and the men who fought it, and his skills as a bestselling, prize-winning novelist to portray horrific battles and sublime heroism as no other author has done. Review“Firmly grounded in the historical record, Hell or Richmond recounts the horrific bloodbaths of The Wilderness, Spotsylvania and Cold Harbor with the skill of an accomplished novelist...gripping you-are-there urgency...enthralling historical fiction of the highest order.”—Gordon C. Rhea, author of The Battle of the Wilderness and Cold Harbor“A towering work of historical fiction, majestic in its ferocity, strangely beautiful in its expression, cold-eyed honest in the truths it tells about men at war.”—William Martin, New York Times bestselling author of The Lincoln Letter“Authenticity has always been Ralph Peters' trademark. In this superb novel, he blends phenomenal research and historical imagination to achieve it in capital letters.”—Thomas Fleming, New York Times bestselling author of The Secret Trial of Robert E. Lee“A profound reflection on the relationship of men and violence. Ralph Peters continues to be the most reliable, insightful and readable historian of our times...and he never loses sight of the human beings, great and small, caught up in war's vortex. An outstanding read.”—Gen. Sid Shachnow, U.S. Army Special Forces (Ret.)About the AuthorRALPH PETERS, New York Times bestselling author of Cain at Gettysburg, is a retired U.S. Army officer, a controversial strategist and veteran of the intelligence world, a journalist who appears frequently in the broadcast media, and a lifelong traveler with experience in over seventy countries on six continents. In addition to works under his own name, he is also the author, under the pen name Owen Parry, of a series of award-winning Civil War mysteries.Peters has studied the Civil War since childhood. Combining painstaking research, years of walking those fields of battle, with insight gleaned from his own military career, Ralph Peters tells this great American tale in a masterful style. Views: 15
Shades of Gray meets The Dog Whisperer as the radio host of a women’s talk show uses dog training techniques to domesticate her live-in boyfriend, empower her listeners, and raise ratings. Views: 15
The Forgotten tells the story of the more than 10,000 Canadian servicemen, merchant mariners and civilians whose war ended in surrender, capture and imprisonment, through the eyes of 65 men in Hitler's grasp: Private Stan Darch, who had already survived the cauldron of Dieppe; seventeen civilian priests and brothers captured at sea, one of whom played a key role in the Great Escape; Edward Carter-Edwards, who endured the hell of Buchenwald concentration camp; and RCAF Sergeant Ian MacDonald, who after being on the run for six weeks after being shot down was betrayed to the Gestapo and survived six weeks in the notorious Fresnes Prison in Paris. To survive the often horrid conditions of Stalags across Europe and the hunger marches through the freezing snows of the winter of 1944/45, these otherwise ordinary Canadians demonstrated extraordinary valour and commitment to each other and to the Allied cause.Nathan M. Greenfield, author of the Governor General's Award... Views: 15
Book 3 in the Origins series“When darkness comes keep an eye on the
light, no matter how far away it seems.” These wise words are put to the
ultimate test as time moves forward into the Middle Ages for the
Lazarus crew.Hastelloy recalls for his therapist mankind’s fall from the
Golden Age of Rome into a darkness that humanity was powerless to
escape for a thousand years. Evils both alien and human, near and far
conspire against his best intentions. Meanwhile, Dr. Holmes is forced to
question if humanity would still be mired in the dark without
Hastelloy’s help, or was the cure worse than the disease? Light and dark
suddenly blend into shades of gray when NSA agent Mark Holmes finally
comes face to face with Hastelloy in the present. Right and wrong are
indistinguishable as these two men strive to progress their vision of
the greater good, leaving Dr. Holmes to judge the merits of each man’s
case.It is a judgment that may never happen as an ancient threat is
unearthed by a team of archeologists working at the tomb of China’s
first emperor. This time even Hastelloy and his crew may not be able to
save humanity; not by themselves at least. Views: 15
Fifty years after World War III, the residents of New Orleans struggle daily just to survive. Despite being surrounded by the waters of the Mississippi, latent radiation and pollution have made clean drinking water hard to come by. So Rue has reason to worry when their water purifier breaks down and her husband’s depression keeps him from fixing it. She reluctantly accepts the aid of her neighbor’s son Joseph, who had taken to practicing the dark arts at the Circle of Magi. But as her husband’s increased hostility makes her more dependent on Joseph just to survive, Rue has to make a decision that will impact not just her own life, but the lives of everyone in Bywater. Water is Thicker than Blood is a 9700 word novelette set in the universe of the Post-Apocalyptic Blues campaign setting. More information on the world can be found at bardsandsages.com . Views: 15
