The Quiet Room

At seventeen Lori Schiller was the perfect child -- the only daughter of an affluent, close-knit family. Six years later she made her first suicide attempt, then wandered the streets of New York City dressed in ragged clothes, tormenting voices crying out in her mind. Lori Schiller had entered the horrifying world of full-blown schizophrenia. She began an ordeal of hospitalizations, halfway houses, relapses, more suicide attempts, and constant, withering despair. But against all odds, she survived. Now in this personal account, she tells how she did it, taking us not only into her own shattered world, but drawing on the words of the doctors who treated her and family members who suffered with her. In this new addition, Lori Schiller recounts the dramatic years following the original publication -- a period involving addiction, relapse, and ultimately, love and recovery.Moving, harrowing, and ultimately uplifting, THE QUIET ROOM is a classic testimony to the...
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Dark Mountains

RetailNot every happily ever after comes easily. Some love stories are born in the dark...Cole Andrews knew he would be best friends with Libby Michaels from the moment he met her on the bus ride to preschool. As they grew up together in the rural Kentucky mountains, he knew he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. But Libby had been hiding something and that secret puts her in danger. Cole vows to keep her safe but after 9-11 he goes off to war, nearly losing his life. He returns to Kentucky, determined to heal and start their lives together but Libby's past is threatening their happiness with deadly results. Cole has to use all his training as a soldier to keep her safe but will it be enough to save them both?Dark Mountains is a romantic suspense novella.From the AuthorI started this book right before my first child was born in 2004. Between kids, life and working on other projects, I finally finished Dark Mountains in 2013 and it was made available as an eBook July 2. Authors don't normally get published by taking years to write a novel between diaper changes and cooking dinner but for me, that's what it took. My family has and always will come first but the desire to write, to create worlds that a reader can escape to, has always been a passion. Although this is my first published work it certainly won't be my last! I hope you enjoy it! From the Inside Flap"Please, Pa," she whimpered, her eyes begging him. "Help him, please." He spit again but didn't answer. Libby looked back at me and I knew instantly what she was going to do.     "Libby, don't," I begged, my voice full of fear. Eyes locked with mine, she took a step forward. The snake hissed, its head moving with Libby's movement. Jackson stared at Libby and then back at me as she took another step forward.     "You've got to jump fast, Cole," she whispered as the snake shifted its gaze from her to me. "It won't be distracted for long."     "Libby, no," I begged again. My arms were shaking now. Fear welled up in my throat as she took another step.     "Stop!" Jacksonson shouted, making Libby jump back. "Move again and I'll tan your hide so hard you won't sit for a week." Libby's face paled but she didn't move. Jackson climbed onto the wagon without fear. The snake was still watching me as my arms shook.      He reached out just as my arms gave out and the hay bale dropped. The snake lunged towards me, fangs out. Jackson grabbed its head just before it bit into my leg. I fell backwards, landing hard on my ass. I shoved myself further back until I was up against the stack of hay. Libby rushed over to me, her hands going to my shoulders.     Jackson held the snake, its jaw snapping. He stepped towards us as he caressed the snake's head. He knelt down, snake in hand, until he was eye level. The snake's gleaming fangs were inches from my face. I felt the bile rising in my throat as little, black dots flashed in my eyes.     "You afraid of snakes, boy?" His voice was cold and empty. "Hmm?" He looked at me, his eyes dark and calculating.     "Yes'sir," I whispered, my voice barely audible.     "You'd better be," his voice was menacing as he ran a finger down the top of the snake's scaly head. "Keep your hands off her." The threat in his warning was unmistakable as his eyes moved to Libby's hands, still clenching my shoulders.     Jackson stood up slowly and stepped off the wagon. He laid the snake on the ground and it slithered away, silent and docile. He turned back to us, spitting into the dirt.     "Get off, both of ya," he growled, jerking his head. "Go home."     Willing my muscles to move, I scrambled up, stumbling to the edge and jumping down. Libby followed me as I ran to the edge of the tree line. Her pa climbed back onto the tractor and drove it slowly out of the field.     "Cole?" Libby put a hand on my shoulder but I shrugged her off as I walked towards the trees. When she started to follow, I turned quickly and yelled.     "Stay!" I saw her shrink back, dragging her eyes to the ground. I wanted to apologize but my need for keeping her away was stronger. I half-ran to the nearest tree, bent over and promptly threw up everything I had eaten that day.     When my stomach was empty, I gagged, heaving until the last of the strength left my body. I stumbled back and collapsed in the tall grass. I felt Libby's hand grip my shoulder and turn me towards her. Her face was pale but her eyes were strong as she forced me to look at her. I stared at her, seeing the fear leave her eyes, replaced by sorrow. Not uttering a word, she wrapped her arms around me. My exhausted body gave up as I leaned into her. She laid my head on her chest and I did something I swore I'd never do in front of her. I cried.
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Plot 29

'When I am disturbed, even angry, gardening has been a therapy. When I don't want to talk I turn to plot 29, or to a wilder piece of land by a northern sea. There, among seeds and trees, my breathing slows; my heart rate too. My anxieties slip away.' As a young boy in 1960s Plymouth, Allan Jenkins and his brother, Christopher, were rescued from their care home, fostered by an elderly couple. There, the brothers started to grow flowers in their riverside cottage. They found a new life with their new mum and dad. Yet as he grows older, Allan feels unsatisfied with the unanswered questions about his past. His foster parents were never quite able to provide the family the brothers needed, but the solace he finds in tending a small London allotment echoes the childhood moments when he grew nasturtiums from seed. Over the course of a year, Allan digs deeper in to his past, seeking to learn more about his absent parents. Examining the truths and untruths that he'd been told, he discovers...
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Roman Mercenary

A simple rescue mission, that’s what they said to Casca. But to the Eternal Mercenary it was anything but that. Recovering from the trauma of seeing his beloved Rome fall to the Goths, he’d taken on the first job that came his way in Gaul, to rescue a rich man’s beautiful daughter from a barbarian occupied city. Getting a group of mixed Roman and Germanic mercenaries to come with him on the mission was not difficult, given the gold promised in those times of uncertainty. What was difficult though was to find out which of his six companions was hiding an alternative agenda while travelling north to barbarian territory. What was also hard was to avoid getting caught up in a dynastic squabble between the King of the Burgundians and one of his group, the son of a rival Burgundian noble. It would be a mission that would test Casca to the limit of his endurance and abilities.
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Without Reservations

ParisDear Alice,Each morning I am awakened by the sound of a tinkling bell. A cheerful sound, it reminds me of the bells that shopkeepers attach to their doors at Christmastime. In this case, the bell marks the opening of the hotel door. From my room, which is just off the winding staircase, I can hear it clearly. It reminds me of the bell that calls to worship the novice embarking on a new life. In a way I too am a novice, leaving, temporarily, one life for another.Love,AliceIn the tradition of Anne Morrow Lindbergh's Gift from the Sea and Frances Mayes's Under the Tuscan Sun, in Without Reservations we take time off with Pulitzer Prize winner Alice Steinbach as she explores the world and rediscovers what it means to be a woman on her own."In many ways, I was an independent woman," writes Alice Steinbach, a single working mother, in this captivating book. "For years I'd made my own choices, paid my own bills, shoveled my own...
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Hell To Pay n-7

Введите сюда краткую аннотацию
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Some Bright Morning, I'll Fly Away

Some Bright Morning, I'll Fly Away is a deeply poignant memoir set in a post-Katrina Mississippi. Alice is returning to assess the damage to her beloved Mississippi coastline and the once-immaculate home that she'd carefully cultivated for her husband, Dr. Liam Rivers, and their three children. Liam is the town hospital's highly respected Chief of Medicine, for whom Alice willingly left behind her writing life in New York and vestiges of her modeling career in Paris, to become a wife and full-time mother. In the wake of this natural disaster, the tenuous balance of her marriage is lost as Liam's mental health spirals. When Liam violently attacks her at knifepoint, Alice is saved only by their three-year-old son. The author flees with her children and what ensues is an epic battle—emotional, psychological, spiritual and legal—for redemption, preservation of self and the welfare of her children. It's a battle that continues even as life goes on, finally coming...
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Starry Night

Sometimes one night can change everything. On this particular night, Wren and her three best friends are attending a black-tie party at the Metropolitan Museum of Art to celebrate the opening of a major exhibit curated by her father. An enormous wind blasts through the city, making everyone feel that something unexpected and perhaps wonderful will happen. And for Wren, that something wonderful is Nolan. With his root-beer-brown Michelangelo eyes, Nolan changes the way Wren's heart beats. In Isabel Gillies's Starry Night, suddenly everything is different. Nothing makes sense except for this boy. What happens to your life when everything changes, even your heart? How much do you give up? How much do you keep?
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