Song of the Surf (Pacific Shores Book 3)

There’s a song the surf sings…but even though Dakota Trask lives on the shore of the Pacific, she’s just discovering how to hear it. One poor choice, made the summer before her senior year in high school, set in motion events that have haunted her ever since. But she’s only now learning how far the consequences spread, and how many people have been impacted. Justus Teague has given the past eight years of his life to serving delinquent boys. For most of that time he would have unequivocally stated that his work made a difference and changed lives. But now one of his boys has altered all that. Justus is no longer sure his ministry matters. What he is sure of is the woman with soft blue eyes and a haunted soul who makes him feel alive and whole. The woman who makes him want to protect her with every fiber of his being. And for that very reason, the woman he can never have.
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Playing Days

"Excellent." —The Times (London)Growing up in Texas, Ben experienced basketball as a mostly solitary pursuit, one he gave up after riding the bench in high school. But as his college classmates prepare for the real world, Ben is seized by an idea. All he needs is a video camera, an empty court, and his mother's German citizenship.Improbably, he lands a roster spot on a lower division pro team in Landshut, forty-five minutes outside Munich. It's Ben's first taste of competition in years, not to mention his first job. And like most jobs, it's defined by repetition, boredom, and gossip. There's Charlie, the trash-talking mercenary from Chicago; the coach, Herr Henkel, a recently retired player anxious to justify his paycheck; and Karl (based on the author's real life encounters with Dirk Nowitzki), a gangly teenage prodigy flashing the raw talent that will make him an NBA star. As a group of men learn how to navigate one another, Ben falls in love with the...
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You Don't Have to Live Like This

A frighteningly prescient novel of today's America—one man's story of a racially charged real estate experiment in Detroit, Michigan."You get in the habit of living a certain kind of life, you keep going in a certain direction, but most of the pressure on you is just momentum. As soon as you stop the momentum goes away. It's easier than people think to walk out on things, I mean things like cities, leases, relationships and jobs."Greg Marnier, Marny to his friends, leaves a job he doesn't much like and moves to Detroit, Michigan in 2009, where an old friend has a big idea about real estate and the revitalization of a once great American city. Once there, he gets involved in a fist-fight between two of his friends, a racially charged trial, an act of vigilante justice, a love affair with a local high school teacher, and a game of three-on-three basketball with the President—not to mention the money-soaked real estate project itself, cut out of 600 acres...
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Catastrophe

In Catastrophe, the renowned Italian short story writer Dino Buzzati brings vividly to life the slow and quietly terrifying collapse of our known, everyday world. In stories touched by the fantastical and the strange, and filled with humor, irony, and menace, Buzzati illuminates the nightmarish side of our ordinary existence. From "The Epidemic," which traces the gradual effects of a "state influenza" that targets those who disagree with the government, to "The Collapse of Baliverna," where a man puzzles over whether a misstep on his part caused the collapse of a building, to "Seven Floors," which imagines a sanatorium where patients are housed on each floor according to the gravity of their illness and brilliantly highlights the ominous machinations of bureaucracy, Buzzati's surreal, unsettling tales reckon with the struggle that lies beneath everyday interactions, the sometimes perverse workings of human emotions and desires, and, with wit and pathos, describe the...
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Imposture

A love affair based on a case of mistaken identity, set in an impeccable re-creation of nineteenth-century London.Lord Byron was the greatest writer and most notorious, scandalous lover of his age—an irresistible attraction for a sheltered, bookish, and passionate young woman like Eliza Esmond. Eliza believes she's met Byron on the doorstep of his publisher, and that her dreams have come true when he arranges to meet her in secret. But what if the man she believes to be Byron is someone else—a look-alike named John Polidori, who once toured Europe as Byron's doctor? And if Polidori is the true author of a wildly successful book everyone believes to have been written by Byron, who is the real imposter?Stylish, subtle, and seductive, Imposture is about ambition, fantasy, the power of artistic greatness, and the consequences of celebrity—by a gifted novelist of true talent. Reading group guide available.
Views: 21

Soft Kisses and Birdsong

Years ago, he walked away from the only woman he had ever loved because he feared she wouldn’t want a man who’d failed. She numbly tried to move on with her life. And is finally beginning to feel she can face the future. Zaire Breckenridge can’t believe it when her lout of an ex-husband walks back into her life, claiming he’s a changed man. Worse than his invading the sanctuary of her town—the town they both grew up in together—is the fact that he’s invading the peace she finds at church. There really ought to be a rule. The heartbreaker should never be allowed to move back to town. Landon Breckenridge knows that he’s made a mess of his life. But he also knows that finally surrendering everything to Jesus was the best decision he ever made. He aims to be a better person, and certainly a better witness to his friends and those who watch his rock climbing show on TV. Now if only he can convince the woman he loves to take him back. But if she won’t? Will Jesus be enough? Sometimes the river of life cascades into a torrent of white-water. And sometimes it levels out on the other side, flowing smooth and slow, like soft kisses…and birdsong. ​This contemporary, sweet, clean romance will take you to small-town America, where the neighbors all know each other's business, and the police chief's biggest worry is where to find his next fishing hole.
Views: 19

Gods Own Country

In one of the most celebrated debut novels of recent years, Ross Raisin tells the story of solitary young farmer, Sam Marsdyke, and his extraordinary battle with the world. Expelled from school and cut off from the town, mistrusted by his parents and avoided by city incomers, Marsdyke is a loner until he meets rebellious new neighbour Josephine. But what begins as a friendship and leads to thoughts of escape across the moors turns to something much, much darker with every step.
Views: 19