This marriage of convenience is about to get sticky. Getting hitched for the health insurance is not Jocelyn Asher's idea of romance. But the hospital quote has really frosted her cookies, and suddenly, "I'm rich. We should just get married," sounds a whole lot more swoony.Especially when the man proposing is this gorgeous. And takes her to parties featuring champagne and petit fours. She's a sucker for anything with bubbles or icing. And just like that she finds herself married to a near stranger. Grant Lorre is usually allergic to spontaneity. So why did he ask the beautiful small-town baker he had a one-night stand with to marry him? Somehow watching her lick batter off a whisk—not a euphemism—made a wedding and a little fraud seem like a sweet idea. They'll just play house and make some whoopie—pies, of course—for a few months and then move on with their separate lives.... Views: 493
April 1193. England’s King Richard Lionheart languishes in a German prison, and treason scents the air. Richard’s younger brother, John, seizes Windsor Castle, and Dowager Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine summons her trusted personal “queen’s man,” Justin de Quincy, to do the impossible– mediate a truce with her rebel son. Amid such fateful events, the murder of a Welsh peddler’s daughter seems small. But the cruel demise of the beautiful Melangell so troubles Justin that not even a threatened French invasion can keep him from investigating her death. Yet can he bring Melangell’s craven killer to justice? Views: 493
Bestselling author and acclaimed historian Alison Weir tells the tragic story of Henry VIII's fifth wife, a nineteen-year-old beauty with a hidden past, in this fifth novel in the sweeping Six Tudor Queens series.In the spring of 1540, Henry VIII, desperate to be rid of his queen, Anna of Kleve, first sets eyes on the enchanting Katheryn Howard. Although the king is now an ailing forty-nine-year-old measuring fifty-four inches around his waist, his amorous gaze lights upon the pretty teenager. Seated near him intentionally by her ambitious Catholic family, Katheryn readily succumbs to the courtship.Henry is besotted with his bride. He tells the world she is a rose without a thorn, and extols her beauty and her virtue. Katherine delights in the pleasures of being queen and the power she has to do good to others. She comes to love the ailing, obese king and tolerate his nightly attentions. If she can bear him a son, her triumph will be complete. But Katheryn... Views: 493
From the author of The Longest Ride and The Return comes a novel about the enduring legacy of first love, and the decisions that haunt us forever. 1996 was the year that changed everything for Maggie Dawes. Sent away at sixteen to live with an aunt she barely knew in Ocracoke, a remote village on North Carolina's Outer Banks, she could think only of the friends and family she left behind . . . until she meets Bryce Trickett, one of the few teenagers on the island. Handsome, genuine, and newly admitted to West Point, Bryce gradually shows her how much there is to love about the wind-swept beach town—and introduces her to photography, a passion that will define the rest of her life.By 2019, Maggie is a renowned travel photographer. At thirty-seven, she splits her time between running a successful gallery in New York and photographing remote locations around the world. But this year she finds herself unexpectedly grounded over Christmas,... Views: 493
If we didn’t know darkness, we couldn’t fully appreciate the light.
Garth Black’s more familiar with this concept than most people are. He hadn’t just lived in the dark for the majority of his life—he thrived in it. With a mom who’d bailed on him and a dad whose understanding of coddling started and ended with a bottle of whiskey, Garth had never been expected to rise to any sort of occasion other than following down the same dead-end paths.
That changed when he fell in love with Josie Gibson. After years of pulling each other closer before shoving the other way, they finally stopped shoving. Josie’s love is like nothing Garth’s ever experienced. He holds it close. He holds it sacred. He would do anything to preserve it and keep it from pollution, even if that means removing himself from the picture.
Garth might have been allowed a temporary furlough to bask in the light, but that pass has been revoked, and he’s been swallowed again by the dark. Will he revert to his old ways of hurting those he cares for most? Will he go back to the same destructive patterns . . . or will it be worse this time?
We can’t know light without first knowing dark . . . and Garth Black’s about to get acquainted with the dark in a whole new way. Views: 493
Rebecca Wells's wonderful third book in her Ya-Ya trilogy, which includes Little Altars Everywhere and Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, is sure to provide reading that makes you laugh and cry, a book that will break your heart and mend it again.
Ya-Yas in Bloom reveals the roots of the Ya-Yas' friendship in the 1930s, following Vivi, Teensy, Caro and Necie through sixty years of marriage, child-raising, and hair-raising family secrets.
When four-year-old Teensy Whitman prisses one time too many and stuffs a big old pecan up her nose, she sets off the chain of events that lead Vivi, Teensy, Caro, and Necie to become true sister-friends. Using as narration the alternating voices of Vivi and the Petite Ya-Yas, Siddalee and Baylor Walker, as well as other denizens of Thornton, Louisiana, Wells show us the Ya-Yas in love and at war with convention. Through crises of faith and hilarious lapses of parenting skills, brushes with alcoholism and glimpses of the dark reality of racial bigotry, the Ya-Ya values of unconditional loyalty, high style, and Louisiana sass shine through.
But in the Ya-Yas' inimitable way, these four remarkable women also teach their children about the Mysteries: the wonder of snow in the deep South, the possibility that humans are made of stars, and the belief that miracles do happen. And they need a miracle when old grudges and wounded psyches lead to a heartbreaking crime...and the dynamic web of sisterhood is the only safety net strong enough to hold families together and endure.
After two bestsellers and a blockbuster movie, the Ya-Yas have become part of American culture -- icons for the power of women's friendship. Ya-Yas in Bloom continues the saga, giving us more Ya-Ya lore, spun out in the rich patois of the Louisiana bayou country and brim full of the Ya-Ya message to embrace life and each other with joy. Views: 493
Join the New York Times bestselling author on a journey to the sun-washed hills of Tuscany. Another sexy, wonderful, contemporary love story with all the heart, wisdom, and wit that have made Susan Elizabeth Phillips the gold standard for women's fiction.
She's Dr. Isabel Favor, America's diva of self-help.
He's Ren Gage, Hollywood's favorite villain.
Sometimes you just know that God has a sense of humor.Dr. Isabel Favor, author of Four Cornerstones for a Favorable Life, has sacrificed everything to build her self-help empire. Then, in a matter of weeks, it all comes crashing down. She loses her money to an unscrupulous accountant, her fiancé to a frumpy older woman, and her reputation to headlines denouncing her as a fraud. America's diva of self-help soon discovers she can fix everyone's life but her own. Broke, heartsick, and soul-weary, she heads for Italy in search of a little breathing room.
Lorenzo Gage makes his living killing people... on the silver screen, that is. He's viciously handsome and sublimely talented. But as he begins his vacation in Italy, he's also vaguely dissatisfied. Being a villain with a face to die for has its rewards, but he hates the feeling that everything he's neglected in life is catching up with him. Then he spots Isabel sipping a glass of wine in a sidewalk café. A good guy wouldn't think of seducing such a tidy-looking woman... but he'd never seen the fun in playing the hero.
It doesn't take long for Isabel to realize she's escaped one kind of chaos only to be plunged into another. Even the shelter of a simple stone farmhouse nestled in a Tuscan olive grove can't provide her with the refuge she needs -- not when the townspeople are scheming to drive her away, and her plan to restore her reputation has come up empty. And especially not when the man who deceived her refuses to leave her in peace.
Breathing Room is a book for any woman who's dreamed of wandering through a vineyard, of lazing under the Tuscan sky, or of reforming a deliciously wicked man. This is a story of hope and renewal, of love and redemption when it's needed the most. Sometimes it takes a special place... a special love... a little breathing room... for life to deliver all its glorious promise. Views: 493
(Bantam Books 1991)Publisher’s Weekly “Hoover’s characters double-deal their way through settings ranging from the Acropolis to the inside of a superplane that skims the edge of space –- the ultimate in death-dealing. A secret agreement between the Russian military and the Yakuza, Japanese crime lords, threatens to shift the balance of world power.”Retired agent Michael Vance is approached for help on the same day by an old KGB adversary and a brilliant and beautiful NSA code breaker. While their problems seem at first glance to be different, Vance soon learns he’s got a potentially lethal tiger by the tail -– a Japanese tiger. A secret agreement between a breakaway wing of the Russian military and the Yakuza, the Japanese crime lords, bears the potential to shift the balance or world power. The catalyst is a superplane that skims the edge of space –- the ultimate in death-dealing potential. In a desperate union with an international force of intelligence mavericks, with megabillions and global supremacy at stake, Vance has only a few days to bring down a conspiracy that threatens to ignite nuclear Armageddon.Publisher’s Weekly“Hoover’s adept handling of convincing detail enhances this entertaining thriller as his characters deal and double-deal their way through settings ranging from the Acropolis to the inside of a spacecraft. Michael Vance, formerly of the CIA, is on his way to an archeological dig when some old friends show up. First comes KGB agent Alex Novosty, caught laundering money that the KGB claims was embezzled – and he wants Michael to take charge of the hot funds. Then National Security Agency cryptographer Eva Borodin (who is Michael’s ex-lover) appears with an undecipherable but dangerous computer file: the co-worker who gave her the file has since vanished. Heavies from a Japanese crime syndicate attack Michael and Eva, who are rescued by Alex, but it looks like Alex and the syndicate aren’t complete strangers. Moreover, the mysterious Daedalus Corporation seems to be a link between Alex’s money and Eva’s file. As Michael is drawn into this deadly web, he realizes there is a secret agreement between the Russians and the Japanese – and it has nothing to do with tea-brewing customs.Tags: Hypersonic, Superplane, Edge of Space, thermonuclear warhead, Supersonic, Space Plane, Crete, Minos, Palace of Minos, Greece, Greek Islands Views: 493
"Oates's introduction to Akashic's noir volume dedicated to the Garden State, with its evocative definition of the genre, is alone worth the price of the book . . . Poems by C.K. Williams, Paul Muldoon, and others--plus photos by Gerald Slota--enhance this distinguished entry."
-- Publishers Weekly
"It was inevitable that this fine noir series would reach New Jersey. It took longer than some readers might have wanted, but, oh boy, was it worth the wait . . . More than most of the entries in the series, this volume is about mood and atmosphere more than it is about plot and character . . . It should go without saying that regular readers of the noir series will seek this one out, but beyond that, the book also serves as a very good introduction to what is a popular but often misunderstood term and style of writing."
-- Booklist , Starred Review
"A lovingly collected assortment of tales and poems that range from the disturbing to the darkly humorous."
-- Shelf Awareness
Featuring brand-new stories (and a few poems) by: Joyce Carol Oates, Jonathan Safran Foer, Robert Pinsky, Edmund White & Michael Carroll, Richard Burgin, Paul Muldoon, Sheila Kohler, C.K. Williams, Gerald Stern, Lou Manfredo, S.A. Solomon, Bradford Morrow, Jonathan Santlofer, Jeffrey Ford, S.J. Rozan, Barry N. Malzberg & Bill Pronzini, Hirsh Sawhney, and Robert Arellano.
From the introduction by Joyce Carol Oates:
". . . The most civilized and 'decent' among us find that we are complicit with the most brutal murderers. We enter into literally unspeakable alliances--of which we dare not speak except through the obliquities and indirections of fiction, poetry, and visual art of the sort gathered here in New Jersey Noir." Views: 492
A young reader version of the New York Times and USA Today bestselling novel A Dog's Way Home by W. Bruce Cameron, now a major motion picture! Even though Bella has to hide from the neighbors and learn boring games like No Barks and Go Home, she loves her boy Lucas. Then one day Bella is picked up by Animal Control and Lucas is forced to send her to a foster home far away. Bella waits and waits for Lucas to come and get her, but days go by and he does not come. Finally Bella realizes what she needs to do—she needs to Go Home to Lucas—and even four hundred miles of dangerous Colorado wilderness won't get in her way. Bella's Story includes charming illustrations by Richard Cowdrey as well as a reading and activity guide at the end of the book.More Puppy Tales for young readers by W. Bruce Cameron:Bailey's StoryEllie's StoryMax's StoryMolly's... Views: 492
The #1 New York Times bestselling author of Countdown returns with a knock-out suspense thriller that pits a mother and son against a killer who's the stuff of nightmares.If you close your eyes, he'll get you. Sophie Dunston knows all too well how dreams can kill. As one of the nation's top sleep therapists, she specializes in the life-threatening night terrors that her ten-year-old son, Michael, suffers from. But she is also an expert in another kind of terror--the kind that can turn a dream life into a living nightmare in the blink of an eye.Someone is watching. He's a shadowy figure from out of her darkest fears and he hasn't forgotten her. In one shocking moment of violence, he'd shattered Sophie's world forever and left her with only one thing to live for: her son. But the nightmare isn't over for Sophie Dunston. It's just begun. He's been waiting. Sophie was supposed to die the first time around, but fate intervened. This time he'll make sure... Views: 492
