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A spiritual adventure affirming that love, faith, hope & charity survived 9/11.Al Masterson, a risk manager working in the World Trade Center, had nothing left to lose on 9/11 with his imminent death. Tower One of the World Trade Center was collapsing on him when he was whisked away on a mysterious journey back through his extraordinary life as it had unfolded, and with some surprises.A TIME TO... is a story about Al Masterson, a baby boomer and a risk manager who worked in the World Trade Center on 9/11. As Tower One collapsed on him and his companions, he was taken away on a mysterious guided tour of his life.He revisited his childhood in the '50s when he had a hard time adapting to his New York City home. A teacher had rescued him from a disastrous year so he gave her a special gift; he couldn't imagine how that gift would later impact his life.In the turbulent '60s, he struggled to become a man, but, his attempt to join a street gang led to a terrible loss that would haunt him for years.His life drifted into the '70s until he left New York for Ethiopia where he served as a Peace Corps Volunteer. While there, he experienced a world full of fascinating people and situations. In the process, his life had purpose once again.Jobs as a broadcast journalist and a public relations executive in the 80's gave him a front row seat to social events that defined the times. But, he learned that high-profile glamorous jobs can be more trouble than they are worth.At the end of his journey, thanks to everything he had experienced on it, he learned that love, faith, hope and charity all survived 9/11 and that his life would never be the same again. Views: 449
Book 4 of the Auralia Thread series
The king is missing.
His people are trapped as the woods turn deadly.
Underground, the boy called Rescue has found an escape.
Hopes are failing across The Expanse. The forests, once beautiful, are now haunted and bloodthirsty. House Abascar's persecuted people risk their lives to journey through those predatory trees. They seek a mythic city - Abascar's last, best hope for refuge - where they might find the source of Auralia's colors.
They journey without their king. During a calamitous attempt to rescue some of his subjects from slavery, Cal-raven vanished.
But his helper, the ale boy, falling through a crack in the earth, has discovered a slender thread of hope in the dark. He will dare to lead a desperate company up the secret river.
Meanwhile, with a dragon's help, the wandering mage Scharr ben Fray is uncovering history's biggest lie - a deception that only a miracle can repair.
Time is running out for all those entangled in The Auralia Thread. But hope and miracles flicker wherever Auralia’s colors are found.
From the Trade Paperback edition. Views: 446
Rosie Ferguson is seventeen and ready to enjoy the summer before her senior year of high school. She's intelligent-she aced AP physics; athletic-a former state-ranked tennis doubles champion; and beautiful. She is, in short, everything her mother, Elizabeth, hoped she could be. The family's move to Landsdale, with stepfather James in tow, hadn't been as bumpy as Elizabeth feared.
But as the school year draws to a close, there are disturbing signs that the life Rosie claims to be leading is a sham, and that Elizabeth's hopes for her daughter to remain immune from the pull of the darker impulses of drugs and alcohol are dashed. Slowly and against their will, Elizabeth and James are forced to confront the fact that Rosie has been lying to them-and that her deceptions will have profound consequences. Views: 445
Troubled teen. Second Chances. Redemption.
Single mom, Maggie Sommerfield, is struggling with her preteen son who is angry with all that has happened in Hope, Mississippi and the hurricane that upended his life. Cody Weston, a crisis counselor, becomes a part of Maggie’s and her son’s lives. In Cody’s efforts to help Maggie with her son, a relationship blossoms between them, but his secrets that he’s kept locked away come to the foreground. Can the two open their guarded hearts and give each other a chance to find love again? Views: 444
Mia is charged with a task vital to the strange world of Morrah. Finnegaff the Sorcerer, and a tiny, hyper fairy act as her guide. Along the way she must select a member of each sentient species to go with them, all teens, with which Finnegaff doesn’t do well. But the dark sorceress wants to stop them and will stop at nothing. Join Mia’s adventures on the magical world of Morrah.Sixteen year-old Mia Murphy finds herself in a world not her own. Very frightened, she wanders into a village of trolls, where she’s beaten and jailed with the intent of being tomorrow’s dinner. She escapes with the aid of a small, fast-flying little drop of light and is led to a small cottage belonging to Finnegaff the Sorcerer. The little light turns out to be the fairy Belemeriath, a comic relief of the story.Mia learns she has been selected by Saa, the force employed by the wizards of Morrah, to perform a task vital to its replenishing. And that she, too, is a wizard, and can thus execute unearthly feats of magic. Mia cannot return home. She’s stuck on Morrah until she completes this vital task.Finnegaff escorts her to Marigaff’s Farm, a wizard training camp. Mia also learns the task assigned her is to carry the Book of Life to the Glen of Giants to read it and replenish Morrah’s sustaining power. This has happen every four hundred years. On her travels with Finnegaff as her guide, she must select, aided by Saa, one representative from each of the sentient species of Morrah to accompany her. The dark sorceress Eringaff, turned evil by the renegade elf wizard Gaff, seeks to seize the Book of Life which, will cause the balance of Saa to shift and allow Gaff world domination.Embarking on her journey, she is guided by Saa to select each representative as they pass through their respective countries. She picks mostly teens. Finnegaff, though always kind and wise, does not quite know how to handle teenagers and, as teens do, they play on this.Each selected representative possesses particular talents, though most are not wizards. Romessee, a member of a race of nomadic people, can feel other’s emotions as if her own. She is a member of Shadowlight Stand, stand being a synonym for tribe. Romessee refers to their little group as Mia’s Stand. The name sticks. Zim, a three-foot praying mantis, can fly and write very fast. Strongwind the centaur is powerful and fast, and eventually overcomes his prejudices toward mantids. Macca the dwarf is a novice wizard, though she’s very young and untrained. Caithya, a sylph, can broadcast fear and cause hysteria to her enemies. Belemeriath the fairy is a flirt (regardless of species) and a show-off, hyper, talks constantly, and is lots of fun. At first Mia can’t stand him, but after a bit he becomes very dear to her. His is the fastest species on Morrah, and he’s very stealthy. Others are a dragon who breathes fire (what dragon doesn’t) named Cwyth, who can telepathically communicate with Mia; Geramel, a tomboy soldier who has defected from the dark sorceress’ army, has attitude, brains, and brawn. She can feel when others are lying. Carameth, the incredibly handsome, kind elf is quiet, knowledgeable and has connections. A gentle romance develops between the two.The romance is squeaky clean, as is the entire writing, and meant to promote good morals. Many other moral issues are addressed and overcome: prejudices, differences, value of life, bullying, abuse of power, compassion, the reality of war, respect for nature and more. Comedy is prevalent; a few parts are sad, and action is frequent.Throughout Mia’s travels, she and her stand are faced with many obstacles. They are harassed by the dark sorceress Eringaff and her minions, the darkhounds. Battles ensue, some large, some skirmishes. Mia often is the key in the turn of battle. They must pass through the Land of Lost Memories, where ghosts can take their souls and make them one of their own. A black cloud falls on the party, making the air thick and not breathable. Mia combats this with extraordinary wizardry. Through magic, Mia defeats a gigantic amoeba-like creature that incinerates everything in its path. Obstacles are around every corner, and Mia, though strong willed and fearless, is none the less modest about being the heroine. Views: 444
If Lars Marlin had three wishes, two have already been granted: he has escaped from Devil’s Island . . . and he has come face to face with the man who put him there—Paco Corvino. But the third wish—putting a bullet in Corvino—will have to wait. They’re off to sea, and not since Fletcher Christian and Captain Bligh set sail on the Bounty have two more heated enemies been in the same boat.
Corvino is a convict, con-man and killer who has schemed his way into a position as chief steward on a luxury yacht sailing out of Rio de Janeiro. And, in a twist as devious as it is diabolical, he’s managed to install Lars—his hated rival—as captain of the very same vessel. And there are even darker twists to come. . . .
Lars is determined to find out what Corvino has up his sleeve . . . and what killer cargo he’s hiding on board. But the yacht owner’s daughter proves to be a beautiful—and dangerous—distraction. Will Lars be safe in her arms . . . or is she part of Corvino’s plot—a deadly trap set with honey?
Like several leading writers of the day, L. Ron Hubbard was invited to Hollywood to write scripts, where his superior talent and productivity attracted numerous lucrative offers from the studios. But, as he wrote in a letter to the editor of Argosy magazine in August 1937: “I love to tie a yarn and try to make it blaze in print. The mags will never lose me to the movies. Never, at any salary!” And as Argosy gleefully responded in its pages: “Next to exorcise the Hollywood virus from his veins was L. Ron Hubbard. . . . he has set to work to give Argosy some more of his rousing yarns. The first, ‘Cargo of Coffins,’ is due to appear in the November 13th issue, and a serial is likely to follow.”
Views: 443
The Countess Krak has arrived on Earth, and the planet-not to mention Atlantic City-will never be the same again. She is the most beautiful, the most deadly and certainly the most feared woman in the 110-planet Voltarian Empire. Her only equal is her lover, royal combat engineer Jettero Heller, whose mission is to keep Earth from destroying itself long enough to be invaded by the empire. Their mortal enemy is Soltan Gris, the Voltarian Apparatus killer sent to sabotage Heller's mission. The presence of Heller, Gris and the Countess Krak is enough to threaten the future of any planet, but the sudden arrival from Voltar of over $250 million in gold may be the death blow for Earth. FORTUNE OF FEAR blazes an explosive trail of action from the secret Apparatus base in Turkey across the Mediterranean, through Swiss banks into a Mafia-controlled casino, as two alien forces struggle to determine not only the fate of planet Earth but the control of the entire galactic empire as well. Views: 442
Timothy Mayfield is ready to marry for love, but, since his personal finances are thinner than he'd like, he knows he'll also need to find a wife with wealth. After receiving an unexpected inheritance, Timothy's circumstances change, and he is free to pursue his "perfect woman"—one with blonde hair, blue eyes, a light laugh, arched eyebrows, elegant fingers, and a dazzling smile, among nearly twenty other characteristics. Maryann Morrington doesn't match anything on Timothy's list—except for wealth. An heiress in her own right, she is tired of men pursuing her only for her money. But at nearly twenty-two years old, and not a particularly stunning beauty, she can't be as picky as her friend Timothy is. The two friends end up playing matchmaker for each other. Timothy will find a decent gentleman for Maryann, and Maryann will prove to Timothy that his "perfect woman" doesn't exist. Until Miss Shaw comes to London. Now, with Timothy's heart... Views: 439
In a stream of consciousness mode ‘Glaring
Shadow’ is the self-account of the life and times of a man, who liquidates his
immense wealth only to consign it to the flames.The agony and ecstasy of his
life as he makes it big in our materialistic world and the way he loses his
soul in the bargain, only to regain it when tragedy strikes him makes one
ponder over the meaning of success in life. This
philosophical ‘novel of a memoir’ is a compelling read that is conducive to
contemplate about the nature and scope of human relationships.Chapter
Titles1. Glaring Shadow2. Pains of Regret3. Cradle of Life4. Outlook for Re-look5. Humbling Reality6. Orgies
of Love7. Pangs of Remorse8. Villainy
of Innocence9. Couple of a Kind10. A
Character of Sorts11. Moments of Poignance12. Enigma of Being13. Vignettes of a Village14. A Teacher of Note15. Brink of Incest16. Love-less Love17. Flights of Heart18 Gaffes of Youth19. Pats
and Slights20. An Emotional Affair21. The Harlot Zone22. A Lingering Longing23. Smallness of Bigness24. Disown to Own25. Sentiment of Ruin26. Enigma of Attraction27. Veneer of the Vile28. Swap for Nope29. Goring Syndrome
30. Back to the BasicsBook excerpt for a feel of its literary style:Glaring Shadow
He had the soul of our times, and is the namesake of many.
He tamed success by the scruff of its neck, only to fuel envy in our
neighborhood. When it seemed there was no stopping him, fate dealt him a deadly
blow in his early sixties. Besides losing his wife, son and daughter-in-law
with their children in that fatal road mishap, he found his leg mangled in the
debris of that Ferrari. The intensity of the pity all felt for him seemed to
match the magnitude of his loss, but as he became a recluse, his thought eluded
all, and in due course, his tragedy became a thing of the past. But, in time,
his intriguing behavior brought him back to the top of the page three in the
local media – why he had disposed off his lucrative real estate for a song that
left the realtors in the lurch. And as if to create a newsflash in the business
world, he had off-loaded his considerable stockholding, which sent the bulls
running for cover in the country’s bourses. Soon, even as the scrip was still
crunching in the bear hug, the closure of his umpteen bank accounts earned him
the national headlines, as it heralded a first rate liquidity crisis in the
country’s banking system. But even in that gloomy setting, it cost me a fortune
to acquire his palatial bungalow the outhouse of which he had retained.
When I called on him for chitchat that morning, I was
shocked to see him shredding mounds of money lying beside him. Unmindful of my
protests, as he picked up another wad of notes, I snatched it from him as if it
were the money I paid through my nose. However, getting hold of another set,
when he resumed his destructive regimen, I said it was absurd that the toil of
a lifetime should be laid waste thus. Maybe, to clear my vision as well as to
set his mind at rest, he unwound himself, which I would rewind for man to
readjust his clock of life. But then why not reveal his name when he is worth
writing about? It’s because, the value of this tale lies not in his name,
hallowed though, but in the hollowness of life he had led that is even as his
name became a synonym for fame. However, if someone were to guess who it is, so
be it.
“My tragedy brought to the fore the falsities of life,” he
began melancholically. “How sickening it was to sense the anxiety of those to
step into the shoes of my lost heirs. If only they stopped at that, and not
stooped further, wouldn’t I have taken them as the necessary evils of my
aimless life! But they began to believe that they had a case for cause of
action to file a suit in the court for their share in the spoils of my life.
Let them go in for a writ if they want to, how I care now. What is the
injunction they are going to get from the court but to maintain the status quo.
Better still if the court were to grant them this shredded stuff; won’t that
save me the bother of scavenging it. But then, why blame them? How I failed to
see that the self-worthy will not ingratiate themselves, and that it is the
self-serving that cater to the egos of the egotists. Won’t the upright seem
arrogant to the egotistic, served by the servility of the spongers. Oh, by
letting success go to my head, how I began to condescend to descend to the
principled folks, who tend to occupy the middle order. Didn’t Napoleon say,
‘The surest way to remain poor is to be an honest man” and, anyway, they are
few and far between as Shakespeare had averred “Ay, sir; to be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man
picked out of ten thousand”.
“Maybe in our age
of the billionaires, the ratio could as well be one in a million.”
“You may not be off the mark after all,” he said. “Aren’t
more and more people getting exposed to the temptations of money these days,
and don’t I know how difficult it is to resist the temptation of the moolah.
More so, as it appears, Mammon and Bacchus have pushed Venus to the backbench
of life. Well, warming up to the dubious, didn’t I make it appear that only
those who courted me counted? But why would sane minds court the empty heads
any way? But still, I didn’t care that my attitude distanced the discerning,
even Anand my nephew I was fond of, and he was the last to know of my tragedy.
Why not, won’t it take time for news to trickle down to the distant relations?
When he came to offer his condolences, how my troubled conscience was solaced
by the empathy I saw in his eyes! What a contrast it was with the put-ons of
others underscored with their eyes-on-my-heirless-wealth! It was as if his
ethos had placed my derailed life back on its ethical tracks. How I pleaded
with him to become the prince of my domain and the inheritor of my fortune, and
it was only when he declined my offer, did I realize what a pauper I was in
spite of my riches.”
“Don’t tell me he’s a saint not wanting to be one of the
richest on earth. Maybe, it’s his weird way of getting even with you.”
“You may know that he values love above all else, and that’s
saintly, isn’t it?” he said. “He’s skeptical about the senseless wealth for its
malefic affects on the ethos of his life, and what’s worse, the questionable
quality of those that it ushers into one’s life. While his modest station in
life keeps off the axe-grinders and the gold-diggers from trespassing into his
life to his hurt, he’s afraid that the halo of my bequeathal would change all
that for it might make him a false deity flocked by the dubious gang. That used
to be my philosophy of life as well. I always wanted a woman to enter into my
life, pulled by my persona and not seduced by my wealth for I know women have a
weakness for successful men. Well for my part, I always had a weakness for
desirable women. When Ruma wanted me to own her and her riches as well, for
good or for bad, it all changed forever, but now, how I wish I had his
pragmatism to love and to life. Whatever, that monetary rise was the beginning
of my moral fall.”
“But money can bring the best out of man and I’ve a cousin
to name for that,” I said.“When he was a man of modest means, he pestered me no end for a paltry sum he
lent me but now he’s a silent donor of millions. I guess that it was his
insecurity then that made him petty in spite of his being large-hearted. Why,
it’s the hand that holds the money that shapes its character and not the other
way round.”
“And sadly for my money it fell into my frivolous hands,” he
said staring at the heap. “When I said
at his refusal what I was to do with all the money, Anand said in jest that I
might as well hang myself with it. Oh, if only he had told me how to go about
it; can one make a rope out of a wad of a trillion? Why money is paper and rope
is coir; money can buy rope but can’t make one on its own; which is stronger
then, money that buys rope or the rope that gets sold for money? Yet all the
money in the world cannot tie a monkey? But strangely it can bind man, even the
Herculean one! Or is it that man himself submits to money, thinking that he
would be weak without it. Oh, how I acquired wealth to feel strong and appear
so to Ruma. But what money did to me than making me a weakling? What of this
impulse to destroy that, which I had accumulated all my life. Can I become
strong by shredding the stuff? Maybe, am I not rooting out the cause of my
bane? How my hands have begun to ache already, and I’ve so much more to shred
still! Wonder why didn’t I feel any strain at all accumulating all that wealth;
what a heady feeling, the sense of success is! Why did I let the glaring shadow
of success eclipse my soul? Maybe I would never know. But now, wiser for the
myth of wealth don’t I see the falsity of fame in which I had been gloating
over.”
“You seem to be shaken really.”
“I was in a slumber till Anand stirred my soul in showing me
the reality of life,” he said reflectively. “And what a shock it was.”
“Maybe it paves the way to unburden yourself.”
“Isn’t it strange that unburdening itself is a burden for
me,” he bemoaned. “How tiring it is to destroy all that I had built, so to say,
over my dead soul. Whatever, can one either build much or destroy enough with
bare hands. Maybe as business machines generate wealth, we need money munches
to devour it. But all I’ve is a pair of scissors.”
“If ever you get to invent one, I don’t see any takers for
it and that saves the bother of patenting it.”
“Surely sense of humor helps,” he said trying to get up from
his chair to reach the bureau. “How I forgot I needed crutches, don’t I have
the ghost leg still? Even after exorcizing the devil of wealth, I may have to
put up with it for long. And that speaks about the power of habit that is the
bane of man. Didn’t I develop the habit of making money to impress Ruma, only
to go down on the road of doom? Wasn’t my sense of insecurity to retain her
love that was behind all that? But then, how admirably did Anand lead his wife
Anitha through the travails of life.”
“If you don’t mind my being frank with you,” I said
involuntarily, “your tone betrays your jealousy couched by the admiration of
him. It’s also clear that you wished Ruma was cast in Anitha’s mold.”
“I like your perceptivity, the acme of sensitive writing,”
he said and added reflectively. “Don’t I know you aspire to be a writer? Your
muse willing, maybe my life can inspire you to make a memoir of it. If so, pray
not give away those who came into my life and I too, but for a slip of the
tongue, won’t name any save those you are already in the know. Name them as
your fancy suggests, and what’s in a name as Shakespeare had said.”
“Why it’s an idea, and as Abhishek Bachchan says, it can
change one’s life,” I said enthusiastically. “Let me take notes,”
“Why
not you give it a try as I glean through the glaring show of my life in all its
myriad shades,” he said handing me a writing pad. Views: 437
Three stories tied to a single place of pain. The trailer that symbolizes one man's dashed hopes; the trailer that embodies the torture of one man's abuse; and the trailer that transports a man through time, giving him a most unusual chance to change his destiny. Beware the prowler. It will change your life.The Music Box is a story about a boy's adventure in a music store. The various sounds of different instruments captured his imagination. Tim's love for music grew stronger after hearing the various sounds in the music store. He was able to play a variety of instruments in the store. The Music Box turned out to be his favorite place to be. Views: 432
Author Vern Charles lost his precious wife and son to the Undeath. Now he has nothing left but his words. But as a creator of fiction, trading stories for bullets is the only way he knows to survive in the post-zombie-apocalypse economy. Until he discovers the power of those words...Nightmares have visited her every night for as long as she can remember. She would draw them out, hoping they'd disappear from her mind. Sometimes it worked, other times it didn't. And then, one normal day, the characters from these dreams of terror materialize, making Krystal question both reality and her sanity. When two of these characters reveal themselves as friends, they ask for her help, quickly earning her trust. They stumble across an old curse cast on Krystal's great-great-great-grandfather that will soon be bestowed upon her own shoulders. Can Krystal break the curse and dodge the prophecies appearing, or will she get caught up, destroying her town and, soon after, the world? Views: 427
Like no other masterpiece of historical fiction, Herman Wouk's sweeping epic of World War II is the great novel of America's Greatest Generation.
Wouk's spellbinding narrative captures the tide of global events, as well as all the drama, romance, heroism, and tragedy of World War II, as it immerses us in the lives of a single American family drawn into the very center of the war's maelstrom.
The Winds of War and its sequel War and Remembrance stand as the crowning achievement of one of America's most celebrated storytellers. Views: 426
With generosity, humor, and pathos, Anne Lamott takes on the barrage of dislocating changes that shook the Sixties. Leading us through the wake of these changes is Nanny Goodman, a girl living in Marin County, California. A half-adult child among often childish adults, Nanny grows up with two spectacularly odd parents: a writer father and a mother who is a constant source of material. As she moves into her adolescence, so, it seems, does America. While grappling with her own coming-of-age, Nanny witnesses an entire culture's descent into drugs, the mass exodus of fathers from her town, and rapid real-estate and technological development that foreshadow a drastically different future. In All New People, Anne Lamott works a special magic, transforming failure into forgiveness and illuminating the power of love to redeem us. Views: 425
Lance Gordon's running out of time. He's killed the man who murdered his father, and now he has a price on his head. Lance wants to live in peace, but he'll have to go through hell to get there. He heads for the one place no lawman will go-into the territory ruled by the feared king of the cattle rustlers. Taking on the Baron is his last chance-as Lance vows to redeem himself ... or die trying. Views: 424
Will finding her son a friend lead to forever love? Single mom Molly Kane will do anything to help her son overcome his anxieties—including enlisting former police officer Sawyer Bradshaw to give him golf lessons. Sawyer's a loner, yet he quickly forms a bond with little Zack. And with Molly. But protecting Zack means Molly must keep her heart off-limits from Sawyer, even as her little boy draws them together...From Love Inspired: Uplifting stories of faith, forgiveness and hope.Wander Canyon Book 1: Their Wander Canyon WishBook 2: Winning Back Her HeartBook 3: His Christmas WishBook 4: A Mother's Strength Views: 421
