Longlisted for the 2015 Center for Fiction First Novel PrizeLizet, a daughter of Cuban immigrants and the first in her family to graduate from high school, secretly applies and is accepted to an ultra-elite college. Her parents are furious at her decision to leave Miami, and amid a painful divorce, her father sells her childhood home, leaving Lizet, her mother, and older sister, a newly single mom-without a steady income and scrambling for a place to live.Amidst this turmoil, Lizet begins college, but the privileged world of the campus feels utterly foreign to her, as does her new awareness of herself as a minority. Struggling both socially and academically, she returns home for a Thanksgiving visit, only to be overshadowed by the arrival of Ariel Hernandez, a young boy whose mother died fleeing with him from Cuba on a raft. The ensuing immigration battle puts Miami in a glaring spotlight, captivating the nation and entangling Lizet's entire... Views: 14
RetailC. S. Lewis is the 20th century's most widely read Christian writer and J.R.R. Tolkien its most beloved mythmaker. For three decades, they and their closest associates formed a literary club known as the Inklings, which met every week in Lewis's Oxford rooms and in nearby pubs. They discussed literature, religion, and ideas; read aloud from works in progress; took philosophical rambles in woods and fields; gave one another companionship and criticism; and, in the process, rewrote the cultural history of modern times.In The Fellowship, Philip and Carol Zaleski offer the first complete rendering of the Inklings' lives and works. The result is an extraordinary account of the ideas, affections and vexations that drove the group's most significant members. C. S. Lewis accepts Jesus Christ while riding in the sidecar of his brother's motorcycle, maps the medieval and Renaissance mind, becomes a world-famous evangelist and moral satirist, and creates new forms of religiously attuned fiction while wrestling with personal crises. J.R.R. Tolkien transmutes an invented mythology into gripping story in The Lord of the Rings, while conducting groundbreaking Old English scholarship and elucidating, for family and friends, the Catholic teachings at the heart of his vision. Owen Barfield, a philosopher for whom language is the key to all mysteries, becomes Lewis's favorite sparring partner, and, for a time, Saul Bellow's chosen guru. And Charles Williams, poet, author of "supernatural shockers," and strange acolyte of romantic love, turns his everyday life into a mystical pageant.Romantics who scorned rebellion, fantasists who prized reality, wartime writers who believed in hope, Christians with cosmic reach, the Inklings sought to revitalize literature and faith in the twentieth century's darkest years-and did so in dazzling style.** Views: 14
God Dies by the Nile is Saadawi's attempt to square religion with a society in which women are respected as equals; Searching expresses the poignancy of loss and doubt with the hypnotic intensity of a remembered dream; while in The Circling Song, Saadawi pursues the conflicts of sex, class, gender and military violence deep into the psyche. Views: 14
There's more than one way to ruin a beautiful friendship.
Tech entrepreneur Sly has a portfolio of lucrative San Francisco Bay Area start-ups, but while his financial options are unlimited, his romantic options are anything but. Bored with the same old, same old, he finds himself spending more and more time with Cleo, his former piano teacher and current pizza-eating, binge-TV-watching partner.
Already divorced at only twenty-nine, Cleo's not looking for love. Certainly not with a gorgeous workaholic who usually dates high-powered, MBA-toting supermodels. Although, come to think of it, Sly hasn't dated anyone in a long time. And Cleo isn’t the only one to notice he seems lonely…
An unexpected weekend trip to Las Vegas forces Cleo to confront her past while Sly slams into his own demons and realizes he's his own worst enemy. What happens when they cross the line? And then move it, jump over it, trample it, zigzag across it, and forget where the line was in the first place? Views: 14
Welcome back to charming Blue Arrow Lake as temptation sizzles in a
glittering new romance from USA TODAY bestselling author Christie Ridgway Blue-collar
landscaper Brett Walker has no interest in the Hollywood vacationers flocking to his
hometown in the California mountains. But the scarred ex-soldier does have a duty to
protect Blue Arrow Lake—and the family ski resort—from a serial burglar. So when he
suspects a break-in, he takes action…and ends up catching sinfully tempting
down-on-her-luck heiress Angelica Rodriguez. She reminds him of trouble, but he can’t
deny her a safe place to stay—in one of his cabins. Angelica has plenty of reasons to
distrust—losing her money to her father’s legal woes being one of them. Getting up close
and naughty with rough, tough and sexy Brett tempts her out of her comfort zone and into
the arms of a man who’s not from her wealthy world. She’s after safety and he’s chasing
justice, but the fire between them might reveal that all they want is each
other. Views: 14
Jemma Peeters knows exactly what she wants out of life, right down to the very last detail. She has it all planned out, the perfect career, the perfect husband, the perfect family. It's going to be... well, perfect. She knows how she wants things, and even how her perfect man will be. Reid Padin is not it. He's dangerously sexy and annoyingly arrogant. He smokes too much, drinks too much and drives his stupid motorcycle way too fast. He curses like a sailor and goes through so many women he can't even remember their names. He's wrong for her in every way. So why can't she stay away from him? When Jemma accidentally stumbles into the tattoo shop where Reid works, an unlikely friendship is born. He'll give her freedom, he'll make her feel things she's never felt before, he'll show her that she's just as flawed as anyone else. Soon, lines are crossed, boundaries are obliterated and Jemma learns that a person's imperfections are kind of what makes them perfect. He wants her, she wants him, and only her stubbornness will stand in their way. Views: 14
Beatrice More is no average third-grader. She is a list-making, hyperorganized perfectionist whose laid-back parents and messy little sister consistently frustrate her high standards. And when a new house, a new neighborhood and new friends are thrown into the mix, Beatrice sends the family into a comic tailspin, all in the name of "professionalism." Despite her most feverish organizational efforts, Beatrice ultimately discovers that some of the best experiences are the ones you can't control. Views: 14
working hard to combine her love of travel and growing social media presence into a career, even involving her followers in her (somewhat dismal) dating life. When the combustible heat between her and her best bloke, Charlie, explodes, she’s unprepared for the secrecy of “friends with benefits.” Charlie’s an artist who’s already been burned by one woman who used social media against him. He’s determined to keep his hands on the glass he works with—and off the irresistible Milla, who’s sure to share every detail with her followers. Will their best intentions survive a secret relationship? Or will the heat transform their fling into something that can overcome Milla’s fear of permanency and Charlie’s reluctance to trust again? Views: 14
Ryck has proven himself as a warrior, a fighter, and sometimes, in a peacetime Corps, that can get a Marine into trouble. Ryck’s temper gets the best of him, and because of that and with a heavy heart, he resigns his commission. As an old enemy comes a-calling, a new threat surfaces, and Ryck’s services are once again needed. Given a second chance, Ryck answers the call, determined to make good. This new threat, however, might be insurmountable, especially when Ryck has to deal with a personal crisis that could overcome him. ** Views: 14
“Marie Antoinette’s Watch is a wonderful book.” – William Gibson, author of Neuromancer. Across continents and into and out of the hands of royalty, revolutionaries, smugglers, thieves, and the world’s greatest tech engineers, was Marie Antoinette’s watch, the “160,” worth an estimated $40 million in today’s dollars. Perhaps the most sought after personal technology device of the last 200 years, the timepiece, designed by the legendary Abraham-Louis Breguet, is the launching point for a thrilling and fluidly woven set of narratives that are, in part, forbidden love story, historical document, and police procedural. Marie Antoinette’s Watch also deftly lays out the history of horology and the 18th Century engineering feats attained in Paris’s answer to Silicon Valley, the Île de la Cité, that made the watch the most intricate and prized personal device of its time – something that’s come full circle today. In the hands of Techcrunch’s East Coast Editor, John Biggs, Marie Antoinette’s Watch is by turns edifying and lurid, historical and utterly modern. Culminating in a heist in a Tel Aviv antiquities museum in the 1980s, Biggs tells the story of how one object can transform countries, cultures, high technology, and time itself.** Views: 14
