Best of
American

2018

Tides of Deception


Christy Barritt - 2018
    . . a new romance? Austin Brooks has loved Skye Lavinia from the moment they met, but the walls she keeps around her seem impenetrable. Skye knows Austin is the best thing to ever happen to her. Yet she also knows that if he learns the truth about her past, he’d be a fool not to run. A chance encounter brings secrets bubbling to the surface, and danger soon follows. Are the life-threatening events plaguing them really accidents . . . or is someone trying to send a deadly message? With the tides on Lantern Beach come deception and lies. One question remains—who will be swept away as the water shifts? And will it bring the end for Austin and Skye, or merely the beginning?

The Fighters: Americans in Combat in Afghanistan and Iraq


C.J. Chivers - 2018
    Chivers’s unvarnished account of modern combat, told through the eyes of the fighters who have waged America’s longest wars.More than 2.7 million Americans have served in Afghanistan or Iraq since September 11, 2001. C.J. Chivers reported from both wars from their beginnings. The Fighters vividly conveys the physical and emotional experience of war as lived by six combatants: a fighter pilot, a corpsman, a scout helicopter pilot, a grunt, an infantry officer, and a Special Forces sergeant. Chivers captures their courage, commitment, sense of purpose, and ultimately their suffering, frustration, and moral confusion as new enemies arise and invasions give way to counterinsurgency duties for which American forces were often not prepared. The Fighters is a tour de force, a portrait of modern warfare that parts from slogans to do for American troops what Stephen Ambrose did for the G.I.s of World War II and Michael Herr for the grunts in Vietnam. Told with the empathy and understanding of an author who is himself an infantry veteran, The Fighters presents the long arc of two wars.

The Walsh Brothers


Kate Canterbary - 2018
    Between demolition and restoration, they take unexpected tumbles into love. Start the bestselling family series that's been featured on Buzzfeed, Hypable, and USA Today, and get exclusive extended epilogues, deleted scenes, and bonus content. Underneath It All One hot architect. One naughty schoolteacher. One crazy night that changes everything. The Space Between A brilliant, alpha architect. A smart, sultry apprentice. What could possibly go wrong? Necessary Restorations They liked to call me names. Manwhore. Slut. Player. But I make wrong look so right...

The Girl in the Motel


Chris Culver - 2018
    It’s merely forgotten. Detective Mary Joe Court sleeps with a shotgun beside her bed and a loveable bullmastiff at her feet. For the past twelve years, she’s hidden from a nightmarish past, but with every passing day, her scars fade, and her heart grows lighter. Now, for the first time in her life, she looks forward to her future. She’s happy. Then she finds the body. Someone shot the victim in her chest and left her to die in a cheap motel. Joe knew her well. She grew up with her. They were sisters, of a sort.Twelve years ago, the victim put a gangster in prison. Now that gangster’s out, and he’s looking to settle scores—Joe included.Joe has fought to leave her past behind. Now, she has to face it or lose everything she cares about. Because the killer hunting her will tear apart her carefully constructed life piece by piece until there’s nothing left.Unless Joe gets him first.

The Curse of February Fourteenth


Liz Isaacson - 2018
     Cal Hodgkins, cowboy veterinarian at Bowman's Breeds, isn't planning to meet anyone at the masked dance in small-town Three Rivers. He just wants to get his bachelor friends off his back and sit on the sidelines to drink his punch. But when he sees a woman dressed in gorgeous butterfly wings and cowgirl boots with blue stitching, he's smitten. Too bad she runs away from the dance before he can get her name, leaving only her boot behind... Katrina Salisbury has made Three Rivers her fourth small town stop after she escaped her high profile life as the #1 women's tennis player in the world. She loved the fame and money and attention, until she found out her fiancé was cheating on her. That was all the wrong kind of attention, and she's left tennis behind in favor of being a cowgirl for Bowman's Breeds. If she'd actually worn a pair of cowgirl boots or seen a horse in real life before, she might be able to pull things off. She doesn't want any eyes on her, but when she sees her cowgirl boot on Cal's mantle, her heart flutters. As their friendship blooms into something more, she doesn't have the heart to tell him who she really is. Will Trina take a leap of faith and become Cal's Cinderella? Or will she do what she's gotten really good at: Running from the unpleasant? Read all the novels by USA Today bestselling author, Liz Isaacson! Three Rivers Ranch Romance Series: 1. Second Chance Ranch 2. Third Time's the Charm 3. Fourth and Long 4. Fifth Generation Cowboy 5. Sixth Street Love Affair 6. The Seventh Sergeant 7. Eight Second Ride 8. The First Lady of Three Rivers 9. Christmas in Three Rivers 10. Lucky Number Thirteen 11. The Curse of February Fourteenth 12. Ticket to Bride Gold Valley Romance Series: 1. Before the Leap 2. After the Fall 3. Through the Mist 4. Between the Reins 5. Over the Moon 6. Under the Bridge 7. Up on the Housetop 8. Around the Bend Brush Creek Brides Romance Series: 1. A Wedding for the Widower 2. A Companion for the Cowboy 3. A Bride for the Bronc Rider 4. A Family for the Farmer 5. A Home for the Horseman 6. A Refuge for the Rancher 7. A Marriage for the Marine 8. A Fiance for the Firefighter 9. A Treasure for the Trooper 10. A Date for the Detective 11. A Partner for the Paramedic 12. A Catch for the Chief Steeple Ridge Romance Series: 1. Starting Over at Steeple Ridge (Timeless Romance) 2. Finding Love at Steeple Ridge 3. Learning Faith at Steeple Ridge 4. Kissing Santa at Steeple Ridge 5. Coming Home to Steeple Ridge Grape Seed Falls Romance Series: 1. Choosing the Cowboy 2. Craving the Cowboy 3. Charming the Cowboy 4. Courting the Cowboy 5. Claiming the Cowboy 6. Catching the Cowboy 7. Cheering the Cowboy

Coyote Alibi


Jena Burges - 2018
    A lighthearted small-town mystery on the edge of the Navajo NationOn the edge of the Navajo Nation, Rookie paralegal Naomi Manymules pauses on a lakeside clifftop to enjoy a moonlit moment. When she hears what might be gunshots, she decides to head for home. The next thing she hears is news of a murdered local sleaze whose passing upsets exactly no one. But when his wife can offer only a coyote for an alibi, the police aren't inclined to look much further for a suspect. That leaves Naomi and her new boss, attorney Grant Carson, to take up sleuthing. They navigate through a colorful assortment of criminals, surly teenagers, prominent locals, some polygamists, and a mobster or two—and become targets themselves.Meet the sleuths:Naomi Manymules is bluffing her way into a new paralegal career for which she is not entirely qualified. Luckily, she’s smart and feisty and has lived in Sage Landing all her life, so she knows just about everything that goes on here on the western edge of the Navajo Nation. She’s also got some training and a lot of motivation; as a divorced, thirty-something mom of two, she needs a steady job and wants a stable career.Grant Carson is middle-aged, cynical, and handsomely scruffy. He’s a reluctant attorney, a tough ex-prosecutor from Phoenix who has escaped to a remote lakeside town to practice just enough law to augment his small pension. Since arriving in Sage Landing, he's kept company with some attractive women, but the real passion of his life is his old yacht, the Deep Inn.

W. E. B. Du Bois's Data Portraits: Visualizing Black America


Whitney Battle-Baptiste - 2018
    E. B. Du Bois offered a view into the lives of black Americans, conveying a literal and figurative representation of "the color line." From advances in education to the lingering effects of slavery, these prophetic infographics--beautiful in design and powerful in content--make visible a wide spectrum of black experience.W. E. B. Du Bois's Data Portraits collects the complete set of graphics in full color for the first time, making their insights and innovations available to a contemporary imagination. As Maria Popova wrote, these data portraits shaped how "Du Bois himself thought about sociology, informing the ideas with which he set the world ablaze three years later in The Souls of Black Folk."

Don't Skip Out on Me


Willy Vlautin - 2018
    He’s spent most of his life on the ranch of his kindly guardians, Mr. and Mrs. Reese, herding sheep alone in the mountains. But while the Reeses treat him like a son, Horace can’t shake the shame he feels from being abandoned by his parents. He decides to leave the only loving home he’s known to prove his worth by training to become a boxer.Mr. Reese is holding on to a way of life that is no longer sustainable. He’s a seventy-two-year-old rancher with a bad back. He’s not sure how he’ll keep things going without Horace but he knows the boy must find his own way.Coming down from the mountains of Nevada to the unforgiving desert heat of Tucson, Horace finds a trainer and begins to get fights. His journey to become a champion brings him to boxing rings of Mexico and finally, to the seedy streets of Las Vegas, where Horace learns he can’t change who he is or outrun his destiny.Willy Vlautin writes from America’s soul, chronicling the lives of those who are downtrodden and forgotten with profound tenderness. Don’t Skip Out on Me is a beautiful, wrenching story about one man’s search for identity and belonging that will make you consider those around you differently.

Country Dark


Chris Offutt - 2018
    He falls in love and starts a family, and while the Tuckers don’t have much, they have the love of their home and each other. But when his family is threatened, Tucker is pushed into violence, which changes everything. The story of people living off the land and by their wits in a backwoods Kentucky world of shine-runners and laborers whose social codes are every bit as nuanced as the British aristocracy, Country Dark is a novel that blends the best of Larry Brown and James M. Cain, with a noose tightening evermore around a man who just wants to protect those he loves. It reintroduces the vital and absolutely distinct voice of Chris Offutt, a voice we’ve been missing for years.Chris Offutt is an outstanding literary talent, whose work has been called “lean and brilliant” (New York Times Book Review) and compared by reviewers to Tobias Wolff, Ernest Hemingway, and Raymond Carver. He’s been awarded the Whiting Writers Award for Fiction/Nonfiction and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Fiction Award, among numerous other honors. His first work of fiction in nearly two decades, Country Dark, is a taut, compelling novel set in rural Kentucky from the Korean War to 1970.

My Exaggerated Life: Pat Conroy (Non Series)


Katherine Clark - 2018
    My Exaggerated Life is the product of a special collaboration between this great American author and oral biographer Katherine Clark, who recorded two hundred hours of conversations with Conroy before he passed away in 2016. In the spring and summer of 2014, the two spoke for an hour or more on the phone every day. No subject was off limits, including aspects of his tumultuous life he had never before revealed.This oral biography presents Conroy the man, as if speaking in person, in the colloquial voice familiar to family and friends. This voice is quite different from the authorial style found in his books, which are famous for their lyricism and poetic descriptions. Here Conroy is blunt, plainspoken, and uncommonly candid. While his novels are known for their tragic elements, this volume is suffused with Conroy’s sense of humor, which he credits with saving his life on several occasions.The story Conroy offers here is about surviving and overcoming the childhood abuse and trauma that marked his life. He is frank about his emotional damage—the depression, the alcoholism, the divorces, and, above all, the crippling lack of self-esteem and self-confidence. He also sheds light on the forces that saved his life from ruin. The act of writing compelled Conroy to confront the painful truths about his past, while years of therapy with a clinical psychologist helped him achieve a greater sense of self-awareness and understanding.As Conroy recounts his time in Atlanta, Rome, and San Francisco, along with his many years in Beaufort, South Carolina, he portrays a journey full of struggles and suffering that culminated ultimately in redemption and triumph. Although he gained worldwide recognition for his writing, Conroy believed his greatest achievement was in successfully carving out a life filled with family and friends, as well as love and happiness. In the end he arrived at himself and found it was a good place to be.

The Problem That Has No Name


Betty Friedan - 2018
    Here are authors ranging from Kathy Acker to James Baldwin, Truman Capote to Stanislaw Lem and George Orwell to Shirley Jackson; essays radical and inspiring; poems moving and disturbing; stories surreal and fabulous; taking us from the deep South to modern Japan, New York's underground scene to the farthest reaches of outer space.

The Determined Groom


Cami Checketts - 2018
     Cambree Kinley is the toughest chick she knows, except when it comes to protecting her heart. Yet how can she resist the billionaire superstar Emmett Hawk? When he pursues her—treating her like gold and making her smile nonstop, only sheer grit can keep her from sprinting toward the Cinderella route again—loving a wealthy man who will dump her like moldy garbage when she offends his high-society friends and family. Emmett Hawk is more than a rich football player—he's a celebrity, the face of the Hawk Family fortune, and practically his own high-end brand. When he blows his knee out and can’t play the game he loves, he starts an elite fitness camp where he meets an intriguing woman who is brutally honest. Emmett falls for Cambree but she’s holding back her heart. Emmett won’t force her to love him but their fierce determination to compete keeps bringing them together, despite Cambree's best intentions.

The Trustworthy Groom


Cami Checketts - 2018
    True, her fake husband can make her quiver with a touch, gets her jokes, and is patience personified, but she knows better than anyone how quickly charm can turn ugly.Brady Giles has dealt with a sweetheart stalker for two years and has no hope of shaking the annoyance. He steps in to rescue the beautiful and feisty Hailey Knight from a leering idiot and somehow ends up engaged to her.The marriage is supposed to help them both out of sticky situations, but instead turns into a media hailstorm with lies and attacks coming from all sides. When Hailey falls in love with her fake husband and danger lurks around every corner, she knows it's time to run, but Brady has never given up on an impossible battle.Can these two trust each other or will the media and predators tear them apart?

The Mercy Seat


Elizabeth Hartley Winthrop - 2018
    They include Willie himself, who knows what really happened, and his father, desperately trying to reach the town jail to see his son one last time; the prosecuting lawyer, haunted by being forced to seek the death penalty against his convictions, and his wife, who believes Willie to be innocent; the priest who has become a friend to Willie; and a mother whose only son is fighting in the Pacific, bent on befriending her black neighbours in defiance of her husband.In this exceptionally powerful novel, Elizabeth Winthrop explores matters of justice, racism and the death penalty in a fresh, subtle and profoundly affecting way. Her kaleidoscopic narrative allows us to inhabit the lives of her characters and see them for what they are - complex individuals, making fateful choices we might not condone, but can understand.

Claire (Ghosts in the Burbs Book 1)


Liz Sower - 2018
    Three women told me a horrific tale from their past and in doing so involved me in their horror. You may have heard part of this story before but I didn't tell you everything..... This is the complete story of Claire.

White House: Mr. President / Commander in Chief


Katy Evans - 2018
    President:He's won the hearts of millions. But is he willing to lose his?I met the president’s son when we were both young. Matthew Hamilton was handsome, polished, and intelligent. I’d never met a guy like him.He promised me that he’d never run for president. I promised that if he did, I’d be by his side.Three terms later, an invitation to join Matthew Hamilton’s campaign is the most exhilarating opportunity I’ve ever experienced. I'm determined to make a difference; he is determined to win. Focused on his goal, Matt is steadfast, ruthless, and disarming. All eyes are on him and his popularity is surging. But soon, the next possible president of the United States is possessing me in more ways than one—and despite the risks, I'm helpless to resist. We're stealing touches, stealing moments, and stealing away at night. But our chemical connection is quickly becoming dangerously combustive, putting not only my heart, but Matt's chance at the presidency on the line. Winning will take everything. Walking away will be the hardest thing of all.Book 2* Commander in Chief: The second installment of the White House Series, from New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Katy Evans.We fell in love during the campaign. The stakes were high. Reputations could have been ruined. Scandal hovered over us like a cloud. Now the man I love is the President of the United States of America. And its not my vote he is after.He wants it all.My heart. My body. My soul. He wants me by his side. In the White House.Normalcy will be gone from my life, privacy forgotten.I am only twenty three. I just wanted to play a part in history. But it seems like history wasn't done with me. The part where I lost my heart to Matthew Hamilton? It was only the beginning...

The Lovely Bones


Alice Sebold - 2018
    She wants to be beautiful, adores her charm bracelet and has a crush on a boy from school. There's one big difference though – Susie is dead.Now she can only observe while her family manage their grief in their different ways. Her father, Jack is obsessed with identifying the killer. Her mother, Abigail is desperate to create a different life for herself. And her sister, Lindsay is discovering the opposite sex with experiences that Susie will never know. Susie is desperate to help them and there might be a way of reaching them…Alice Sebold's novel The Lovely Bones is a unique coming-of-age tale that captured the hearts of readers throughout the world. Award-winning playwright Bryony Lavery has adapted it for this unforgettable play about life after loss.

The Ghost Groom


Jennifer Youngblood - 2018
    Not only can Rennen tear up the dance floor, but he has these adorable blonde curls and compelling green eyes, specked with gold. When Ariana’s around him she feels oh, so alive! And the best part is that he’s a perfect gentleman and easy to talk to. Their first encounter leaves Ariana floating on air, thinking there’s hope for her love life after all … until she learns that Rennen is the celebrated rookie who’s taking her brother’s position as starting running back for the Titans. Too bad she’s totally loyal to her brother and has to hate him now! Rennen Bradley, the Ghost, has worked long and hard to get the opportunity to shine as the starting running back. Sure, he feels bad that Ace Sanchez was injured and that he’s taking his place on the team, but that’s how the game rolls. Rennen never expects to fall for Ariana, and it throws him for a loop when he realizes she’s Ace’s sister. But Rennen’s not going to let a simple complication like that come between him and the woman of his dreams. He understands Ariana’s reservations—heck, even admires her loyalty to her brother. But Rennen’s used to waging uphill battles. Abandoned as a child, Rennen learned a long time ago that you have to fight tooth and nail for anything you want in this life. And he wants Ariana, heart, body, and soul! Caught between loyalty and love, will Ariana choose her family or her heart? Includes bonus chapters of The Persistent Groom and The Perfect Catch.

Through My Father's Eyes


Franklin Graham - 2018
    This is the first book about Billy Graham, the father, written from the perspective of a son who knew him best. As a beloved evangelist and a respected man of God, Billy Graham’s stated purpose in life never wavered: to help people find a personal relationship with God through a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. This was a calling that only increased over time, and Billy embraced it fully throughout his active ministry and beyond. Yet Billy pursued his life’s work, as many men do, amid a similarly significant calling to be a loving husband and father.While most people knew Billy Graham as America’s pastor, Franklin Graham knew him in a different way, as a dad. And while present and future generations will come to their own conclusions about Billy Graham and the legacy that his commitment to Christ has left behind, no one can speak more insightfully or authoritatively on that subject than a son who grew up in the shadow of his father’s life and the examples of his father’s love.  This vulnerable book is a look at both Billy Graham the evangelist and Billy Graham the father, and the impact he had on a son who walked in his father’s steps while also becoming his own man, leading ministries around the world, all of it based on the foundational lessons his father taught him.“My father left behind a testimony to God,” says Franklin, “a legacy not buried in a grave but still pointing people to a heaven-bound destiny. The Lord will say to my father, and to all who served Him obediently, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant’ [Matthew 25:21].”

So Far So Good: Final Poems: 2014-2018


Ursula K. Le Guin - 2018
    Le Guin." --Salon"She never loses touch with her reverence for the immense what is." --Margaret Atwood"There is no writer with an imagination as forceful and delicate as Le Guin's." --Grace PaleyLegendary author Ursula K. Le Guin was lauded by millions for her ground- breaking science fiction novels, but she began as a poet, and wrote across genres for her entire career. In this clarifying and sublime collection--completed shortly before her death in 2018--Le Guin is unflinching in the face of mor- tality, and full of wonder for the mysteries beyond. Redolent of the lush natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest, with rich sounds playfully echoing myth and nursery rhyme, Le Guin bookends a long, daring, and prolific career.From "How it Seems to Me" In the vast abyss before time, self is not, and soul commingleswith mist, and rock, and light. In time, soul brings the misty self to be.Then slow time hardens self to stone while ever lightening the soul, till soul can loose its hold of self . . .Ursula K. Le Guin is the author of over sixty novels, short fiction works, translations, and volumes of poetry, including the acclaimed novels The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed. Her books continue to sell millions of copies worldwide. Le Guin died in 2018 in her home in Portland, Oregon.

The Miracle Groom (Texas Titans Romances)


Lucy McConnell - 2018
     Teo Parata, offensive tackle for the Texas Titans believes in miracles. He sees them every day when he looks into his son’s trusting eyes. Meeting Intern Oakley Bell at the Tiny Titan’s Football Camp was another miracle—at least he though so, until she chewed him out for being irresponsible and rude and demanding. She may have also mentioned something about an “egotistical diva football player” but he's trying to forget that part of the conversation. When he offers to take her to dinner to make up for his mistake, she accuses him of hitting on her and storms off. Wanting only the best for his son, Teo swallows his pride and begs Oakley to be his nanny. To his relief, she accepts the job on a temporary basis. Teo has two months to convince her to stick around. When he finds out there’s more to this woman than ocean blue eyes and a way with kids, his heart begins to truly beat for the first time since his wife passed away. Teo puts himself on the line in every football game, taking hit after hit and giving right back, but putting his heart on the line will take more than all his muscles and determination combined—it will take a miracle.

Lemonade & Love Potions


Bella Falls - 2018
    A singles mingle in her small Southern supernatural town should be the perfect event, but trouble with a capital T shows up when someone attempts to boost the odds of love in their favor. 
Sweet honeysuckle iced tea, it’s gonna take more than lemonade and a little magic to help Charli find out what’s wrong, solve the mystery, and save Honeysuckle Hollow from disaster again. This Southern Charms short was previously included in the paranormal cozy anthology Hexes and Ohs!

Tea Shop Cozy Mysteries - Books 1-6


Katherine Hayton - 2018
    If only she could stop tripping over dead bodies long enough to organize the business! When murder comes to peaceful Aniseed Valley, Willow Foxglove is on the case. Believing the local sheriff to be unequal to the challenge, she pursues leads in between building a new tea shop and looking after her Maine Coon kitten, Mavis. As each crime unfolds, she draws on the book-smarts of best friend Harmony and conspiracy-laden facts from second-best friend Reg to help untangle the evidence. And, of course, she can always rely on handy hints from her favorite TV show of all time - Miss Walsham Investigates! This boxed set contains the following titles to keep you guessing and keep the murderers on their toes! 1: Pushing Up Daisies 2: Berry Murderous 3: Deathbed of Roses 4: Orange Juiced 5: Keeping Mums 6: Hibiscus Homicide Tea Shop Cozy Mysteries are quick 1-2 hour reads perfect for filling in time waiting for appointments, commuting to work, or when your significant other insists on watching the show that makes you roll your eyes! They contain no swearing, no gore, no cliffhangers, and no graphic scenes.

Fast Draft Your Memoir


Rachael Herron - 2018
    "Rachael Herron resonates with our audience, and not just because she knows her stuff--she does--or because she's hilarious--she is--but because her honesty and earnestness come through in all her messaging." Samantha Sanders, Writer's Digest Writing memoir is daunting! You're the expert on your life, naturally, but narrating and organizing your own experiences in the best way can feel impossible. Many writers become frustrated in early drafting stages and quit after a couple of brief attempts. Learn from bestselling memoirist Rachael Herron (who teaches this class at Stanford Continuing Studies) how to fast-draft your memoir while keeping its structure compelling. Learn how to frame your life's story and give it a natural arc to keep your reader glued to the page. Figure out how to handle those family and friends you're writing about. Explore what truth means in memoir. Work quickly to quiet the inner critic. Most of all, learn how to get out of your own way to get the words on the page. You can do this! Rachael will show you how.

The Midnight Groom: Last Play Christmas Romances


Taylor Hart - 2018
    Sure, maybe part of the reason he agreed to go was because it got him out of court mandated therapy for a week. Still, he was trying to focus on relaxing. He was trying to focus on having fun. He was trying not to look at the reports that came everyday from the private investigator’s he’d been hiring and firing for the past year to bring justice to the man who killed his wife. Isabel Kind was only on this Christmas cruise for one reason—to heal. After tragically losing her husband and son five years ago, she’d been stuck. And she and her therapist thought doing the list of excursions they’d planned to do as a family—might help her move on. When she sprains her ankle and Cameron Cruz offers to help her, she finds herself accepting. After reluctantly getting piggy backed around by the amazingly strong and handsome man, swimming with the sting rays, and zip lining through the Honduran jungles, she is more and more mystified by this troubled man. Even more mystified that he’s not only helping her physically but he’s also trying to help her emotionally—even if, as he says, he can’t heal himself. When bad news comes to light and Cameron has to face the past, they are left with a choice—walk away or let the power of grace make them whole.

Carousel Horse Christmas


Danni Roan - 2018
    Can one simple gift from an unknown giver change everything? Holden Bays has too much to do to be slowed down by an accident but when his truck and trailer are damaged moving through the city one chance encounter could turn his world upside down. Christmas Miracles come in small packages in this delightful sweet short western bundle of Christmas Cheer.

If I Could Stay


Annette K. Larsen - 2018
    Being pursued from one state to another, she has learned to constantly look over her shoulder, and when necessary, to become someone new. She’s burned through four cities and four identities, always managing to stay one step ahead. Now Leila is left with nothing. No car, no money, and no choice but to trust the man who finds her, half frozen, wandering the back roads of Missouri.Despite the fact that Jack seems to genuinely care about her, Leila knows all too well the danger she poses to anyone brave enough to get close to her. Her growing feelings for Jack force her to make a choice. She could risk staying and hope she’s not found, or she could do what she’s always done, and disappear.

Love, Snow and Mistletoe: Four Sweet Christmas Romance Novellas


Victorine E. Lieske - 2018
    She doesn’t know he’s been secretly in love with her since grade school. A Holiday Rescue BY TAMIE DEAREN Despite her fame as an author, Amy is all alone at Christmas. Stranded in a snowstorm, she's rescued by a handsome stranger. Can shared cocoa lead to love?  A Second Chance for Christmas BY MICHELLE PENNINGTON Grace planned to spend December moving into her new apartment and getting ready for Christmas with her daughter, not falling for her neighbor, Sam--whose heart she broke years ago.  The Billionaire’s Perfect Match BY ANNIE HOUSTON Heading up large corporations is tough on your love life. A trip home throws high school friends Aurelia and Lander together and sparks fly. They each have everything, except love.

The Beastly Groom


Cami Checketts - 2018
    A reality show host looking to expose his personal life. Will this hero turn into a beast to protect his daughter and his privacy?Knox Sherman, aka the Beast, left the military to raise his best friend's daughter and play professional football. When an irresistible reality show host buys a date with him at a charity auction, it's all he can do to keep her away from his heart and his home.Ema Kahue is fighting her way into the top rankings of television. Interviewing the beast will propel her career to stardom. Yet when she's given a sneak peek into his heart and his relationship with his daughter, Ema wants a shot at taming the Beast for life.Can these two overcome repeated misunderstandings and a vicious predator to give love a chance?Don't miss all the fabulous Texas Titan Romances:The Fearless Groom by Cami CheckettsThe Persistent Groom by Jennifer YoungbloodThe Tough Love Groom by Taylor HartThe Miracle Groom by Lucy McConnellThe Second Chance Groom by Taylor HartThe Trustworthy Groom by Cami CheckettsThe Ghost Groom by Jennifer YoungbloodThe Forbidden Groom by Sarah Gay

The Second Chance Groom


Taylor Hart - 2018
    But after what should have been a career-ending injury, he's happy to still be in the game. With his life in a constant state of flux, it shouldn't have been a surprise to see his first love at a PR event. When old feelings rise to the surface he finds himself kissing her ... too bad she slaps him. As if mourning her fiancé who was killed in the line of duty wasn't hard enough, Cassidy Stone reluctantly returns to her old stomping grounds to help her dad through chemo. With everything she's going through, she doesn't need Anthony Kinkaid, the man who broke her heart at the tender age of sixteen, in her life. But when the owner of the newspaper asks if she'll do an exclusive interview on Anthony, she accepts. After all, who better to get the truth than the woman who knows all his secrets? She's objective. She is! When Anthony makes it clear to her that he's in this interview for more then just the article, she becomes caught up in their shared memories and falls for him all over again. But old boyfriends and finance's never really disappear and when new secrets come to light, she is faced with a choice...let go of the past or give it one more second chance.

The Dream Groom


Taylor Hart - 2018
    He didn’t want to take crap from his brother, he didn’t want to deal with a lippy waitress, and he really didn’t want random people calling him on the phone. Shayla Castle came to San Diego to finally live out her childhood dream. When she accidentally calls the mysterious phone number left on her table while waitressing, she never anticipated it would be the handsome jerkface soldier who chewed her out that morning. It confuses her even more when the same jerkface shows up the next night and saves her from an attacker. She never would have imagined she and soldier boy would start talking every night and she really never imagined he would convince her to let him do her bucket list together. After a hike at Torrey Pines, a helicopter ride, and surfing at Oceanside…she finds she just might be falling for this soldier boy. When things get heated, she’s left with a choice—let go of the past or lose a new dream she was just starting to discover.

Everything is Normal: The Life and Times of a Soviet Kid


Sergey Grechishkin - 2018
    On one hand, it is a light-hearted worm’s-eye-view of the USSR through one middle-class Soviet childhood in the 1970s - 1980s. On the other hand, it is a reflection on the mundane deprivations and existential terrors of day-to-day life in Leningrad in the decades preceding the collapse of the USSR.The author occupies a peculiar place in the Soviet world. He is the son of a dissident father and also the step-son of a politically favored Leningrad University professor and Party member. He also occupies a peculiar place in the literal geographic sense- both his home and school are only a few blocks away from the city’s KGB headquarters, where a yet-unknown officer called Vladimir Putin is learning his trade.His world is a world without flavor. Food is unseasoned. Bananas are a once a year treat. A pack of instant coffee is precious enough to be more useful as a bribe to a Party official than a consumable. Parents on business trips thousands of miles away from home schlep precious and scarce bottles of soda across the Soviet empire for their kids. Everything is bland: TV, radio, books, music, politics - life itself. The author staves away boredom the best he can, with a little help from his friends. They play in the streets of their beautiful city, still resplendent with pre-Revolutionary glory; make their own toys and gadgets; and, when they get older, pass around forbidden novels and books of poetry.But occasionally, an infinitely more exciting world makes itself briefly known. A piece of foreign bubble gum with a Disney wrapper. A short Yugoslavian cartoon. A smuggled cassette tape with mind-blowing music by someone named Michael Jackson. And these hints of a completely different life introduce small cracks into the author’s all-pervading late-Soviet boredom - cracks that widen and widen, until reality itself shatters, and a brand new world rushes in.

Covering Coco


Heather Long - 2018
    Some things don’t change, and not even a traumatic brain injury sidelining him keeps him from kicking in when his friends need it—most recently a top-secret mission to retrieve a lost asset.

 Bolt action is louder than words
 Coco Adler’s military career ended abruptly on a dishonorable discharge. Or so reads her military file. Recruited for a top-secret program, she digs in deep. When her cover is nearly compromised and she can’t reach her handler, she goes dark but stays on mission. The last thing she expects is a lunatic in a Hawaiian shirt to take her down a moment before a sniper’s bullet would have.

 Forced to work together, Jacko will do everything to cover Coco’s extraction—even if it kills him.

Once Hitched Twice Shy


Kimberly Krey - 2018
    So far, each episode has been filmed in Oregon, yet when Mia gets an invitation from her Granddad to try life on his ranch in Montana, she’s ready for roping, riding, and even shoveling piles of muck. What Mia isn’t prepared for is losing her heart to the brooding ranch hand, Hunter Coleman. Hunter lost big in love when his ex left him for her Hollywood dreams. When Mia Reynolds spends a week on the ranch to film her hit online show, Hunter is sure she’s just another version of his self-centered ex. But all too soon he sees new sides of the fun-loving woman that urge him to toss his wounded heart to the wind and give love another try. Once the sparks start to fly, Mia's forced to make a difficult choice, one that gives Hunter a bad case of Déjà vu. When the fear of losing another woman to the spotlight becomes too much, Hunter might have to cut his losses before he gets in too deep. The trouble is, he's already in over his head.

Her Country Star Fake Fiancé (Christmas Romance Series)


Sarah Gay - 2018
    Only one thing stands in her way of her happily ever after, and that is the guy she’s had a crush on since the sixth grade, her brother’s best friend and country music superstar, Cash Jackson. When she attends Cash’s concert to gain closure, destiny is not kind when she finds herself accidentally fake-engaged to her childhood crush. Cash Jackson’s country music tour has come to an end, as will his career if he can’t resurrect his dead muse. His label has given him until the first of the year to come up with new material. When his best friend’s kid sister, Gracie Sawyer, shows up at his last concert in Asheville, North Carolina, they share a passionate kiss, which may just be the inspiration he needs. The only problem is she’s engaged to another man.

Emotional Sensitivity and Intensity


Imi Lo - 2018
    Learn how to cope with intense feelings, and discover how to use your sensitivity, empathy and intelligence to live a meaningful and fulfilling life.Emotional Sensitivity and Intensity will give you in-depth information about this trait, as well as practical exercises and strategies to help with your daily struggles.It will help you come to new ways of thinking about your past, thrive in your current life, and create exciting possibilities for the future. Written in a friendly and compassionate tone, the chapters will answer questions raised by many emotionally intense individuals:Is there something wrong with me? How does this trait explain my life experiences so far? What can I do right now to better my life and to fulfil my potential?You will learn to:- Understand what it means to live with emotional sensitivity and intense feelings- Debunk the myths and stereotypes about this trait - Let go of old emotional baggage and limiting mindsets- Develop real resilience and find peace within life's ups and downs- Navigate challenging social and family situations - Build healthy and fulfilling intimate relationships- Find your unique calling and liberate your creative potential

Gutter Medicine: Twenty-six Years as a Firefighter Paramedic


Roger Huder - 2018
    These are stories from those years on the street. That place I named so long ago, the other reality that exists just outside most people’s everyday lives. It is a place that seems to exist parallel to the normal workaday existence: yet it is only a car accident or cardiac away for any of us. It manifested itself in brushfires, house fires, shootings, stabbings, hangings, accidents with injuries, cardiacs, codes, drownings, and a thousand other emergencies. The street was more than a physical place. It was a place filled with excitement, fear, tragedy, horror, sadness, despair, joy, and laughter. It was a place where routine decisions could have terrible consequences: I am going to the grocery store. Or, I will get the wiring fixed next month. Where people died or were maimed. Often, it was terrible place. Or maybe it was reality. It was where all safeguards ended and our job began. There were thousands of cases, but these are the ones etched in my memory. The ones that will never go away." Roger Huder

The Irresistible Groom: The Lost Ones


Cami Checketts - 2018
    This Lost One is about Claire Tucker, Brady Giles and Knox Sherman's agent and Brig Hunsaker, Knox's bodyguard. A vivacious sports agent loses her memory and her safe, perfectly-planned life. The only hope is a tough security specialist who for some reason she’s never allowed herself to fall for. Claire Tucker is a feisty and successful sports agent. When she wakes up with amnesia she has to rely on a handsome security specialist, which doesn't seem too bad ... until she learns she's known him for years and has repeatedly turned him down. When Brig proves irresistible to her, she realizes she needs to guard her heart until she gets some answers or her past will catch up to her. Brig Hunsaker has everything he needs, except the sassy lady he’s had a crush on for years. When Claire is injured, and the hospital staff believe he’s her fiancé, he finally gets the chance to protect her and prove he’s worth taking a chance on.

Between the Raindrops


Sydney Logan - 2018
    With a dead father and a junkie mom, she can’t imagine things can get worse. Then her mother tries to sell her for a bag of meth. After her mom’s arrest, Scout’s forced to switch schools in the middle of senior year. Scared and alone, she pours her heart into her journal and dreams of the day she turns eighteen.For Wyatt Campbell, senior year is predictable purgatory. Then the new girl steals his seat in history class, and suddenly, school’s not so bad. They bond through their love of music, and Wyatt finds himself falling hard for the journal-loving girl with the sad blue eyes.Wyatt’s heard the rumors. He knows Scout’s had it rough.He’s determined to be the one thing in her life that’s easy.In this captivating teen novel, Sydney Logan weaves a touching story that tackles the heartbreak of addiction, the power of forgiveness, and the wonders of first love.

Possessive Portuguese


Flora Ferrari - 2018
     But after I take possession of my high school diploma, and he possesses yet another victory in the Regata de Portugal, my dad takes me abroad for a sailing trip for the three of us to celebrate… and I find out what Possessive Portuguese really means for the very first time. After we lock lips in Lisbon, this older man sailing skipper says he wants to skip past all the formalities because he’s already obsessed with putting a baby inside this younger woman. Portuguese men discovered the world, but what happens the first time this older man discovers this younger woman has yet to be claimed? Will the idea of my dad’s best friend’s obsession with his daughter make my dad more than seasick as we make our way around the Portuguese islands in the Atlantic, or will the two of us sail off into the sunset, the wind at our backs forever? *Possessive Portuguese is an insta-everything standalone instalove romance with an HEA, no cheating, and no cliffhanger.

The Shift: The Next Evolution in Baseball Thinking


Russell A. Carleton - 2018
    It's a thinking game. It's also a shifting game. Nowhere is this more evident than in the statistical revolution which has swept through the pastime in recent years, bringing metrics like WAR, OPS, and BABIP into front offices and living rooms alike. So what's on the horizon for a game that is constantly evolving? Positioned at the crossroads of sabermetrics and cognitive science, The Shift alters the trajectory of both traditional and analytics-based baseball thought. With a background in clinical psychology as well as experience in major league front offices, Baseball Prospectus' Russell Carleton illuminates advanced statistics and challenges cultural assumptions, demonstrating along the way that data and logic need not be at odds with the human elements of baseball—in fact, they're inextricably intertwined. Covering topics ranging from infield shifts to paradigm shifts, Carleton writes with verve, honesty, and an engaging style, inviting all those who love the game to examine it deeply and maybe a little differently. Data becomes digestible; intangibles are rendered not only accessible, but quantifiable. Casual fans and statheads alike will not want to miss this compelling meditation on what makes baseball tick.

The Sound of Distant Thunder


Jan Drexler - 2018
    Seventeen-year-old Katie is starry-eyed, in love with the idea of being in love, and does not want to wait to marry Jonas until she is eighteen, despite her parents' insistence. So much can happen in a year. Twenty-year-old Jonas is taken in by the romance of soldiering, especially in defense of anti-slavery, even though he knows war is at odds with the teachings of the church. When his married brother's name comes up in the draft list, he volunteers to take his brother's place. But can the commitment Katie and Jonas have made to each other survive the separation?From the talented pen of Jan Drexler comes this brand new Amish series set against the backdrop of the Civil War. She puts her characters to the test as they struggle to reconcile their convictions and desires while the national conflict threatens to undermine and engulf their community.

Her Hollywood Fake Fiance: The Legendary Kent Brother Romances


Taylor Hart - 2018
    And he really doesn't like the fact his brothers' give him grief about it. So when he's asked to help out at an acting camp for inner city kids, he jumps at the chance to do something real. Too bad the woman in charge tells him outright she thinks he's a hack.The talented Jewel Olympia only wants to help inner city kids by giving them an opportunity to learn acting skills. When she's notified the week before Christmas that the P.I. she's hired to track down her birth mother has a solid lead on her whereabouts, she decides it's time to finally meet the woman that abandoned her in a hospital emergency room twenty-five years ago. Too bad an amazing looking movie star keeps bugging her to go on a date--bug off, she's unavailable.But when her parents show up on her doorstep asking where she's going, she tries to distract them with Grant's star power to avoid hurting their feelings. When he blurts out he's her fiance, everything gets derailed and she finds herself on a jet to Jackson--this is not her life!When a simple trip turns into a media frenzy, they're left with a choice--trust in Christmas angels or lose everything.

The Freelance Content Marketing Writer: Find your perfect clients, Make tons of money and Build a business you love


Jennifer Goforth Gregory - 2018
    Earn six figures as a freelance content marketing writer with this comprehensive how-to guide. This book reveals their secrets. Inside is everything you need to know to start or grow a freelance content marketing business. Jennifer shares her proven ideas, step-by-step processes and templates for writers of all career stages. Hundreds of writers (including Jennifer, herself) have used these methods to find high-paying clients, increase their income and create businesses they truly love. You’ll learn how to: • Craft an LOI that’s worth $10k or more • Create a website and LinkedIn profile that brings clients to you • Tap into your experience and skills to find your perfect niches • Write great content that your clients love • Design a business that gives you work-life balance

Bittersweet Betrayal


Stephanie Damore - 2018
    Except one of them is dead. Ever since Nick passed, Claire has been able to see ghosts. Well the grounded ones anyway. When Nick’s not-so-dearly departed grandma makes an untimely exit, Nick relies on his ever-clever wife to track the clues and bring the killer to justice. Claire is more than willing to take the case if only to send Grandma up to the Pearly Gates and get her out of her hair...and bakery. If you love a clean paranormal mystery, heavy on the whodunit, you're going to love these quick reads!

The Gift of a Child


Donna K. Weaver - 2018
    She and her two young children must now face a holiday season filled with so many reminders of what they've lost. But when a coworker who’s raising his young nephew moves next door, Rae discovers that the support of a good friend, and the gift of a child, can bring back some of the joy of the season.

Mourning Routine


S.E. Babin - 2018
    Now, in desperate need of some way to make ends meet, she skulks back to her hometown of Asheville. Unfortunately, the employment offers are slim pickings for a has-been whose sole talent is being able to cry on cue. That is, until one odd turn leads to another, which leads to the little-known profession of Personal Mourning. Here, the better Kitty can fake it, the more dollars she’ll find stacked up in her bereft bank account. Talk about a role she was born to play! And townsfolk are just dying to hire her. Her first gig casts her as the bereaved girlfriend of one newly deceased Chase McCormick, someone she would never have dated in life. Still, Kitty will have to act like her life depends on it, because--OMG!--it does. Can she perform an investigation that could turn out to be murder before she gets her own curtain call? Find out whodunit in this hilarious mystery series filled with fake tears and a very real body count... Order your copy and start reading today! Mourning Routine is book one in The Funeral Fakers series. Each book stands completely on its own, but you'll have more fun if you read them all together!

The Why & How of Woodworking: A Simple Approach to Making Meaningful Work


Michael Pekovich - 2018
    There is a growing understanding of the need to fill our lives with meaningful and useful objects. How can woodworkers answer that call? Instagram sensation Mike Pekovich explains how to make work that is worth the time and effort it takes to make it, work that makes a difference, and work that will add to the quality of our lives.Explains the basics of woodworking, from choosing lumber with care, cutting joinery accurately, and preparing and finishing the surfaces. A simple approach to building boxes and furniture that are built to last. Includes information on designing and building cabinets, boxes, chests, casework, and tables.

Martin Luther King Jr.: A Life From Beginning to End


Hourly History - 2018
    The life of Martin Luther King Jr. was painfully short but joyously valuable. Using non-violent direct action and the principles of Christian love, King became the most influential pioneer of the civil rights movement in the United States of America. A husband, father, pastor, and leader, King preached a message of hope by taking to the streets and changing the world. Inside you will read about... - Early Life - Montgomery Bus Boycott - A Brush with Death - March on Washington and Murders in Selma - Riots in Watts and War in Vietnam - The Poor People's Campaign and the Assassination And much more!

A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today


Bonnie Kristian - 2018
    We fail to realize how many ways there are to follow Jesus, convinced that our own tradition is the one Christian alternative to nonbelief. A FLEXIBLE FAITH is written for the convinced and confused believer alike. It is a readable exploration of the lively theological diversity that stretches back through church history and across the spectrum of Christianity today. It is an easy introduction to how Christians have historically answered key questions about what it means to follow Jesus. Chapters will include 17 big theological questions and answers; profiles of relevant figures in church history; discussion questions; single-page Q&As-profiles of more unusual types of Christians (e.g., a Catholic nun or a member of an Amish community); and a guide to major Christian denominations today.As Bonnie shares her wrestlings with core issues-such as who Jesus is, what place the Church has in our lives, how to disagree yet remain within a community, and how to love the Bible for what it actually is-she teaches us how to walk courageously through our own tough questions.Following Jesus is big and it is something that individual believers, movements, and denominations have expressed in uncountably different ways over the centuries. In the process of helping us sort things out, Bonnie shows us how to be comfortable with diversity in the Body. And as we learn to hold questions in one hand and answers in the other, we will discover new depths of faith that will remain secure even through the storms of life.

The Resolved Warrior


Jennifer Youngblood - 2018
    Add to the list Sutton’s failed marriage and losing the love of his life, the heartbroken billionaire is at the end of his rope.Sutton embarks on a one-day mission to do all of Doug’s favorite activities one last time before focusing on all he’s lost. However, an unexpected encounter at a diner changes everything, making Sutton realize he might just be the answer to someone else’s prayers.At the end of the day, he’s left with a choice. Throw in the towel or buck up and resolve to become the warrior his son Doug would’ve been proud of.

Texas Splendor: His Savage Embrace


Bobbi Smith - 2018
    TEXAS SPLENDOR HAD ALL THE ELEMENTS AS ALWAYS. A SUPER READ. I COULD NOT READ IT FAST ENOUGH.”—Beverly Riedel, Amazon “I absolutely loved the descriptions of desire between Trista and Lance!”—Elicori Verified Purchase, Amazon From New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author Bobbi Smith comes the spellbinding story of a half-white Comanche warrior whose quest for vengeance becomes the ultimate lesson in fiery desire and true love... HE CLAIMED HER BODY. . . An Easterner born and bred, Trista Sinclair falls in love the minute she lays eyes on the open Texas terrain of her fiancé’s ranch. But the whispers she hears from corral hands about unseen dangers come instantly to life when she is captured while out riding. The blue-eyed Comanche warrior takes her. He is a broad-chested brute of a man whose sensual touch she finds more dangerous than anything. HE WANTED HER HEART AND SOUL. . . Until he sees Trista Sinclair, the fierce warrior Lance Barrett has never been tempted to take a captive. As Trista Sinclair is his half-brother's untouched fiancé, she poses the perfect way for him to get revenge against the white father who rejected him and the half-brother who berates him. Yet what Lance wants most is the one thing Trista swears never to give—her willing surrender. This beautiful woman has hair like spun gold like a magnificent stallion and the backbone to boot! She will come to me when her heart is full.They soon kiss and their passion overflows. In this wild moment, their hearts are torn between their irresistible desire and the past life they have known. Only together can they claim a love as vast and wild as the West itself... ESCAPE WITH HORSES, STEAMY SEX AND BLUE WESTERN SKY BONUS This edition contains a bonus excerpt from THE LADY AND THE TEXAN by Bobbi Smith. REVIEWS OF TEXAS SPLENDOR 4.21 average rating, 154 ratings, 11 reviews, added by 617 people, 314 to-reads, 95% of people like it—Goodreads4.0 out of 5 stars (14 customer reviews)—Amazon“Excellent read…After putting the kids to bed at night, this was a great way to unwind…and just dream...this one does not disappoint in anyway… characters were interesting, plenty of sexy scenes…Highly recommend!”—P.H. ABOUT BOBBI SMITH Bobbi Smith is a New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author with more than 6 million books in print. She has been awarded the prestigious Romantic Times Storyteller of the Year Award and two Career Achievement Awards. Since she sold her first book, Rapture’s Rage, in 1982 she has published more than 38 books and contributed to six collections of short stories. When she’s not on deadline, Bobbi teaches writing at The Write Stuff at the University of Missouri, St. Louis, and is a frequent guest speaker for writer’s groups. Her western historical romances appeal to readers of C. J. Petit, Shirleen Davies, and Judith E. French. Bobbi Smith is the mother of two sons and lives in St. Charles, Missouri, with her husband and three dogs.

The Return: Reflections on Loving God Back


Lacey Sturm - 2018
    Why did God make us? What does he want us to do with the time he has given us? And how can we find out?In her bestselling story-driven style, Christian rocker Lacey Sturm shares with readers the beautiful struggle of learning what one's unique gifts are and pursuing them wholeheartedly. She helps them see each day as a gift from God, find balance in their busy lives, and discover the joy of giving God's gifts back to him by using them to bring him glory.Young people especially will love this openhanded and openhearted take on what to do with their lives, as will those who feel like they've been coasting or heading down the wrong path.

The Book in Room 316


ReShonda Tate Billingsley - 2018
    Now, she believes revenge is the only way her heart can heal from the betrayal. For fifty-two years, Ollie Moss lived side by side with the love of his life, his wife Elizabeth. But now that she’s gone, so is his desire to live, despite the love from his children, and his beloved grandson Samuel. Can anything save Ollie’s life? Anna Rodriguez just wants to work and provide for her three children by any means necessary. But her decision to break the law in order to get a job is threatening life as she knows it. Trey Brown is known in his neighborhood as a hustler, so much so that the gangs want him to join their ranks...but there’s a reason the nineteen-year-old does what he does—he’s the only one left who can save his little brother. Different circumstances lead each of them to The Markham Hotel, where they hope to find solace, comfort, and answers. Told from multiple perspectives, The Book in Room 316 will renew your strength and faith that there is always a way forward.

The Christmas Girlfriend


Taylor Hart - 2018
    She needs money for a dream. Maybe they'll both get a Christmas miracle!The handsome and kind, Mike Hamilton, doesn't want to go back to his hometown, Snow Valley, to attend his sister's wedding and spend Christmas, especially since he didn't tell anyone he got dumped two weeks ago. So when he discovers a girl standing on a roof praying, running to the top to join her doesn't feel thatdesperate. Too bad they both fall and she accuses him of trying to kill her. Aspiring singer and songwriter, Zoey Harper, doesn't know who this guy is -- but she doesn't need his help. When he offers to pay her to be his FAKE girlfriend to get him out of a little situation, she immediately says no. But when she finds herself without a job, without a car, and with no money to go try out for The Voice and fulfill a life-long dream, she agrees! But ONLY kissing. And only pecks on the cheek! She doesn't know how she finds herself making out with him to keep his ex girlfriend at bay, then cannon balling into the hot springs on his property and spilling all of her secrets. And who would have guessed that her favorite person would be his grumpy grandpa? Her lonely heart doesn't know when things started to change between she and Mike--when he ran up on the roof to save her or when she finds herself singing a song for him in front of his whole family. When their lies fall apart, they are left with a choice--forget the past five days or get the Christmas miracle that could change their lives forever.

Behold, America: A History of America First and the American Dream


Sarah Churchwell - 2018
    How would he revive it? By putting 'America First'. The 'American Dream' and 'America First' are two of the most loaded phrases in America today – and also two of the most misunderstood. As divides within America widen, Sarah Churchwell looks to the past to reveal what the surprising history of these two phrases can tell us about today.

The Christmas Window: A Small-Town Holiday Romance


Melissa McClone - 2018
     All doggy daycare owner Callie Andrews wants for Christmas is to win first prize this year. The annual window display competition is a huge event in Silver Falls, and she’s determined to showcase her success when her family visits her small town. It's time for her parents and three older brothers to realize the "baby" of the family is thriving on her own. The last thing Brandt Winslow wants to do is rehash the past, but returning home to Silver Falls means confronting the reason he left. His vacation, however, takes an unexpected turn when his well-meaning aunt meddles in his love life, and he finds himself caught up in her misguided efforts at matchmaking. Despite their reluctance at being paired up, Callie and Brandt discover the holidays are full of surprises...and romance. But is the magic of Christmas strong enough to keep the couple together through the new year?

Honey Buns and Homicide: A Funny Culinary Cozy Mystery (Mom and Christy's Cozy Mysteries Book 6)


Christy Murphy - 2018
    But when Robert’s girlfriend gets in an auto accident, everyone is sure Christy caused it. Can Mom and Christy solve yet another whodunit? And will Christy’s burgeoning relationship with a certain handsome detective survive?

Lou Reed's Transformer (33 1/3 series #131)


Ezra Furman - 2018
    And yet, it doesn't neatly fit into any of these descriptors. Buried underneath the radio-friendly exterior lie coded confessions of the subversive, wounded intelligence that gives this album its staying power as a work of art. Here Lou Reed managed to make a fun, accessible rock'n'roll record that is also a troubled meditation on the ambiguities-sexual, musical and otherwise-that defined his public persona and helped make him one of the most fascinating and influential figures in rock history. Through close listening and personal reflections, songwriter Ezra Furman explores Reed's and Transformer's unstable identities, and the secrets the songs challenge us to uncover.33 1/3 is a series of short books about popular music, focusing on individual albums by artists ranging from James Brown to Celine Dion and from J Dilla to Neutral Milk Hotel. Each album covered in the series occupies such a specific place in music history, so each book-length treatment is different. Jonathan Lethem, Colin Meloy, Daphne Brooks, Gina Arnold and Alan Warner are just some of the authors who have contributed to the series so far. Widely acclaimed by fans, musicians and scholars alike. More

Harlem


Eric Jerome Dickey - 2018
    I dubbed myself after that dangerous neighborhood that I’d never seen. I read life is rough in Harlem, and a black man isn’t expected to live to see twenty-five. I was twenty-three. The clock was ticking.”When Harlem gets off on a murder charge due to insanity, the asylum he’s sent to feels worse than death, with one exception: the beautiful nurse Daphane. As their relationship grows, so do the stakes: she has the ability to help him escape, and he has the ability to set her free from her abusive relationship. Yet Harlem has one big secret: he was perfectly sane when he committed his crime. But in the end, Daphane’s own secret may be the deadliest of all. . . . Includes an excerpt from Eric’s upcoming novel, Before We Were Wicked, coming April 2019. Harlem was previously published in the 2006 anthology Voices from the Other Side.

Venom #1


Donny Cates - 2018
    In the wake of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s collapse, an ancient and primordial evil has been awakened beneath the streets of New York, and with it, something equally evil has awakened in that most Wicked of Webslingers – VENOM! Still a Lethal Protector of the innocents in New York, this never-before-seen threat could force Venom to relinquish everything it holds dear – including Eddie Brock! Join two of the hottest creators in comics today, Donny Cates and Ryan Stegman, for a VENOM adventure a thousand years in the making!

Water & Power


Steven Dunn - 2018
    In this shifting landscape, deployments are feared, absurd bureaucracy is normalized, and service members are consecrated. water & power is a collage of voices, documents, and critical explorations that disrupt the usual frequency channels of military narratives.

Ernest Hemingway: Artifacts From a Life


Michael Katakis - 2018
    But the actual life underneath these various legends remains elusive; what did he look like as a laughing child or young soldier? What did he say in his most personal letters? How did the train tickets he held on his way from France to Spain or across the American Midwest transform him, and what kind of notes, for future stories or otherwise, did he take on these journeys? Ernest Hemingway: Artifacts from a Life answers these questions, and many others. Edited and with an introduction by the manager of the Hemingway estate, featuring a foreword by Hemingway’s son Patrick and an afterword by his grandson Seán, this rich and illuminating book tells the story of a major American icon through the objects he touched, the moments he saw, the thoughts he had every day. Featuring over four hundred dazzling images from every stage and facet of Hemingway’s life, many of them never previously published, this volume is a portrait unlike any other. From photos of Hemingway running with the bulls in Spain to candid letters he wrote to his wives and his publishers, it is a one-of-a-kind, stunning tribute to one of the most titanic figures in literature.

1-800-CUPID


Josie Riviera - 2018
    A survivor with a dream. Can two broken hearts find a place to call home?Prepare for romance and fun with the first book in a brand new home-flipping series brought to you by USA Today bestselling author Josie RivieraWhen a Miami investor calls in search of prime property flip prospects, North Carolina real estate broker Candee Contando expects to meet a balding, steely-eyed land shark. Turns out the first customer she’s had in months is a hot prospect in more ways than one.Except his gaze has fallen on her dream house, a dilapidated Victorian she just bid her last penny on in hopes of creating a safe place for disadvantaged children—like the girl she used to be.Teddy Winchester is adept at negotiating life’s curves, but Candee’s curves stop him in his tracks. She’s a warm spark in the emptiness he’s felt since his brother died, leaving him with a beloved nephew to raise.Attraction glows in Candee’s eyes as well, but there’s also wistfulness as she points out all the reasons an old, tumbledown Victorian doesn’t fit into his tried-and-true house-flipping plan. Yet the more he looks at the house—and at her—he begins to think some things are worth the risk.Now if only he can convince her that building a new life often starts with tearing down some walls…When the heart flips, there’s no telling where the walls will fall.

Rand McNally 2019 Large Scale Road Atlas


Rand McNally & Company - 2018
    Updated atlas contains maps of every U.S. state that are 35% larger than the standard atlas version plus over 350 detailed city inset and national park maps and a comprehensive, unabridged index. Road construction and conditions contact information for every state conveniently located on map pages. Contains mileage chart showing distances between 77 North American cities and national parks with driving times map. Tough spiral binding allows the book to lay open easily. Other FeaturesRand McNally presents five of our favorite national parks big and small, east and west that showcase this country's astonishing beauty, highlight essential visitor information, and offer insightful travel tips.Tell Rand! As much as we work to keep our atlases up to date, conditions change quickly and new construction projects begin frequently. If you know of something we haven't captured in our atlas, let us know at randmcnally.com/tellrand.Tourism websites and phone numbers for every U.S. state and Canadian province on map pagesDimensions: 10.375" x 15.375"

Love, Austen


Britney M. Mills - 2018
     Matchmaker Meg Austen is focused on one thing—finding the financial backing to create the app for her company, Love, Austen. When the investment firm tells her she needs a boyfriend to prove her faith in the process, she agrees to a fake relationship with a divorce attorney. Parker Matthews is determined to get the partnership left vacant by his father’s death. But when a colleague suggests having a girlfriend will increase his chances to get the partnership, he lucks out by finding the one girl who doesn’t expect a future with him. As they spend time together, their feelings change. But when their fears about commitment resurface, can they find a way to make it work?

The Prince Charming Groom


Taylor Hart - 2018
     The Lost Ones...are for all those who want to know what happened to the other guy or girl who got away. This Lost One is about Kyle Bones--the guy in The Second Chance Groom---who was captured and presumed dead. --But he's not dead. Oh no! Kyle Bones, ex Navy SEAL, doesn't want to be raffled off for a date at a radio station. He certainly doesn’t want to attend a swanky party where his ex fiancé will be there, and he really doesn’t want to take someone he doesn’t know with him. But when a beautiful red head wins the date, suddenly it doesn't seem so bad. Kennedy Dawson, doesn't believe in Prince Charming. After losing both of her parents when she was sixteen to a car accident, her life hasn't been easy. When her roommate enters her in a radio contest, she never imagined she would win a date to Jackson, Wyoming with Kyle Bones. Sure, the guy's a hot, millionaire, but he’s super cocky and a bit stalker-ish. Definitely not her type. After flying to Jackson, staying at Kyle's new house, helicoptering over Jackson Mountain, and getting a glimpse of his tough, yet tender side, she starts to like this man...more than she ever thought possible. When misgivings and misunderstandings rise to the surface, Kennedy has a choice to make--give love another chance or let Prince Charming walk away.

You Can't Spell Truth Without Ruth: An Unauthorized Collection of Witty Wise Quotes from the Queen of Supreme, Ruth Bader Ginsburg


Mary Zaia - 2018
    An octogenarian who has proven that disagreeing does not make one disagreeable, Ginsburg is well-known for her pithy observations as well as her strongly argued dissents. Beloved by many - including her ideological opposition, former Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who was her dear friend - Ginsburg's wisdom has never been more relevant or more important to American democracy.Sample quotes: "Women belong in all places where decisions are being made...it shouldn't be that women are the exception.""Fight for the things you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.""People ask me sometimes...When will there be enough women on the Court? And I say, 'When there are nine.' People are shocked. But there'd been nine men, and nobody's ever raised a question about that.""My mother told me two things constantly. One was to be a lady and the other was to be independent. For most girls growing up in the '40s, the most important degree was not your B.A. but your M.R.S.""We have the oldest written constitution still in force in the world, and it starts out with three words, 'We, the people.'"

Asking Fur Trouble


Ally Roberts - 2018
     Back home on Sweetwater Island after a decade long absence, Wendy is looking to start anew. Armed with a place to live and her trusty dog, Trixie, all Wendy needs is…well, everything. Money. A job. A plan. When one of the locals on the island assumes she’s a dog walker, she jumps at the chance to make a little money. But walking dogs leads her directly into the path of Caroline Ford. Or, rather, the body of Caroline Ford. An unfriendly police chief soon suspects that Wendy might be involved in the crime and she immediately sets out to prove her innocence. As she works to clear her name, she meets several islanders who already have the wrong impression about her…and who might be the one responsible for Caroline Ford’s murder. The situation turns dire when Wendy realizes she’s not just a suspect…she might soon be a victim, too. She knew coming back home wouldn’t be easy. She just didn’t expect it to be deadly, too.

Possessive Brazilian


Flora Ferrari - 2018
     The first time I heard about machismo, possessiveness, jealousy, and obsession and how prevalent it can be in Latin romance, I thought it was just an exaggeration. But when I have my first hands-on, unwanted experience the first time my company sends me to Brazil I see that it’s no exaggeration at all. And neither is the bulge in the Speedo of the older man who comes to my rescue and tells the younger man my age “hands off” before taking matters into his own hands. Violence isn’t my thing, but neither are grabby guys. And when that older man throws out the pervy perpetrator for not knowing how to treat a lady I have to admit I’m really relieved…and totally turned on by this possessive alpha male. And when this possessive Brazilian tells me right away that I’m his I’m not sure it’s a case of déjà vu and I should grab my luggage and run right back to the airport, or grab him and for the first time in my life tell this real man that he’s mine too. And the more I see that he’s a real man who knows what he wants, and what he wants is me, I realize for the first time I’m ready to give him what I’ve been saving up all these years for one man and one man only. But I didn’t come down here looking for a Brazilian romance. I came here for work, and to look for another man that doesn’t even know I exist. My dad. But can I find my father while my possessive Brazilian is telling me he wants to be the father of my children? Or will my attempts turn futile when my possessive alpha male wonders why this younger woman is looking for another older man when he thought all along that we only had eyes for each other? *Possessive Brazilian is an insta-everything standalone instalove romance with an HEA, no cheating, and no cliffhanger.

Wounded Hearts


Julia Sykes - 2018
    Another night flirting with strangers; another night pretending I wasn’t desperately lonely. I met a man with pain in his eyes and lies on his lips. A man even more isolated and damaged than I was. For one passionate night, we held together the broken pieces of each other’s souls. When he shows up in my life months later, it can’t be coincidence. I don’t even know if he gave me his real name, but I crave to learn more about the enigmatic man who set my body on fire. He told me he does things that haunt him to keep people like me safe. He carries the weight of the world on his shoulders and terrible secrets in his heart. Indulging in our intense connection could leave me more broken than ever, but I can’t help hoping we might find a way to heal each other. I thought I no longer believed in soulmates, but this damaged, scarred man could be my happily-ever-after.

Blood Standard


Laird Barron - 2018
    But when he forcibly ends the moneymaking scheme of a made man, he gets in the kind of trouble that can lead to a bullet behind the ear. Saved by the grace of his boss and exiled to upstate New York, Isaiah begins a new life, a quiet life without gunshots or explosions. Except a teenage girl disappears, and Isaiah isn't one to let that slip by. And delving into the underworld to track this missing girl will get him exactly the kind of notice he was warned to avoid.

The Word Pretty


Elisa Gabbert - 2018
    Combining elements of criticism, meditation, and personal essay, this book reveals a poet’s attention turned to subjects from translation to aphorism, from unreliable memory to beauty and the male gaze.

The Way Home


Lily Hammond - 2018
    Leaving the city and an old love affair behind, she buys a medical practice in a small country town. Here she hopes to find peace, friendships, and the sort of medical practice she’s always dreamed of, where she knows all her patients by name. What she discovers is the possibility of a new, deep love with Eadie McClintock, a young woman struggling to raise her baby nephew while hiding her brother from the men determined to send him off to the war. Shunned by the town, however, Eadie refuses to have anything to do with May – for the new doctor’s own good.Which leaves May with an impossible task. How can she win the trust of the town when they are so set against the one person May wants to be closest to?

RISK!: True Stories People Never Thought They'd Dare to Share


Kevin Allison - 2018
    Collecting the most celebrated stories from the hit podcast RISK!, along with all-new true tales about explosive secrets and off-the-wall adventures, this book paints a spellbinding portrait of the transformational moments we experience in life but rarely talk about. No topics are off-limits in RISK!, no memories too revealing to share. From accidentally harboring a teen fugitive to being poisoned while tripping on LSD in the Mayan ruins, these stories transport readers into uncharted territory and show how your life can change when you take an extraordinary leap. In these jaw-dropping stories, edited and introduced by RISK! host Kevin Allison, writers reveal how they pushed drugs for a Mexican cartel only to end up kidnapped and nearly killed, how they joined a terrifying male-empowerment cult and fought desperately for a way out, how they struggled with pregnancy complications and found a hero where they least expected it, and so much more. A lifelong construction worker shares the intimate details of transitioning to being a woman, a bestselling author discusses how he assumed the identity of his babysitter online in a social experiment gone awry, and a beloved comedian discusses how a blow job from a prostitute changed his life. By turns cautionary and inspiring, RISK! presents an extraordinary panorama of the breadth of human experience and a stunning tribute to the power of the truth to set us free.

First Site


Rose Fresquez - 2018
    He’s a successful firefighter in the heart of Colorado, is committed to his faith and family life, and relishes exploring the outdoors in any spare time he can squeeze into his hectic schedule. Between it all, he’s busy enough to keep his mind off the one thing he’s missing: a relationship. A weeklong camping and cycling trip to the mountains with his siblings is exactly the distraction he needs. Leila Morgan is an African-American teacher with a bucket list for summer specifically designed to force her out of her comfort zone—the indoors. With plans to go camping with her best friend, she sets out to expand her horizons…however, she meets a few obstacles along the way. And whether it be a flat tire, an injured ankle on the trail, or a midnight storm, Ezra is at the center of it all. She never thought she’d see the mysterious but strikingly handsome man again, but here she is, seeking shelter in a neighboring trailer…which belongs to Ezra and his siblings. And after the storm destroys what little shelter she has, Leila is forced to share space with Ezra, who is more than thrilled to show her the breathtaking scenery. It’s not long before a connection sparks between them, despite Ezra’s doubts and ever-present commitment issues. Determined to put Leila out of his mind after the trip, Ezra returns to his busy life. But, despite Leila’s absence, his attraction to her blossoms more and more with every passing moment, until his committed bachelor status is more than a little at risk. And while commitment is scary, losing Leila is even more terrifying. First Site is a sweet interracial romance set in the awe-inspiring world of the Colorado mountains, where love is only a camping trip away. Book 1 in the Buchanan series. Can be read as a stand alone.

Small Town Hero


Kim Koby - 2018
    Rebecca is saving herself for marriage. After a crushing betrayal, she spins out of control when she catches her fiancé and best friend in bed together. Grief-stricken and desperate, she finds herself stranded in Tennessee and forced to rely on the kindness of a stranger.Ryan knows heartache. The only woman he loved walked away the day he proposed to her. He knew in that instant he'd never trust his heart to another. At least he has his dog to keep him company and a good job as a local firefighter.When Rebecca ends up in Ryan’s path, they blend like oil and water. While he’s content with what life gives him, she escapes by seeking her identity in expensive things. Can two broken souls find salvation with their complete opposite?

One Little Kiss


Kaylee Baldwin - 2018
    First get into medical school and become a doctor like everyone else in her family—despite her queasiness around blood. Second meet and marry someone who is just as successful as her brother—the new, handsome doctor in her ward will be just right. And last, prove to her brother that, despite what he thinks, she has it all together. Easy, right? Except that she’s just been called to be the ward road show director for the upcoming stake singles activity, a distraction she doesn’t need. And when a mix-up means that she’s partnered with her bug-eating, seventies dressing home teacher? It’s a disaster with a capital D, and she knows that no one in her family can ever find out about this. As a PhD student studying insects, Henry White has had his fair share of girls try to change him into someone more socially acceptable—including his ex- fiancé. When his sister convinces him to join the singles ward for his last year of school, he decides to play up his oddness in order to keep the singles at a distance. When he begins to work with Tessa on the road show, he finds that she’s managed to get past his defenses. One little stage kiss is all it takes to make him question everything. But then his ex-fiancé comes home from her mission with one goal in mind: win Henry back, no matter what it takes. Tessa is soon faced with a choice. Go for the perfect life she’s always pushed herself to have, or find the courage to look past appearances and figure out what she really wants.

Booze Vinyl: A Spirited Guide to Great Music and Mixed Drinks


André Darlington - 2018
    From modern craft cocktails to old standbys, prepare to shake, stir, and just plain pour your way through some of the best wax ever pressed. Wickedly designed and featuring photography throughout, Booze & Vinyl is organized by mood, from Rock to Chill, Dance, and Seduce. Each entry has liner notes that underscore the album's musical highlights and accompanying "Side A" and "Side B" cocktail recipes that complement the music's mood, imagery in the lyrics, or connect the drink to the artist. This is your guide to a rich listening session for one, two, or more. Among the 70 featured albums are: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club, Purple Rain, Sticky Fingers, Born To Run, License to Ill, Appetite for Destruction, Thriller, Like a Virgin, Low End Theory, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust, Hotel California, Buena Vista Social Club, Back to Black, Pet Sounds, Vampire Weekend, and many more

The Patch


John McPhee - 2018
    It is divided into two parts.Part 1, "The Sporting Scene," consists of pieces on fishing, football, golf, and lacrosse--from fly casting for chain pickerel in fall in New Hampshire to walking the linksland of St. Andrews at an Open Championship. Part 2, called "An Album Quilt," is a montage of fragments of varying length from pieces done across the years that have never appeared in book form--occasional pieces, memorial pieces, reflections, reminiscences, and short items in various magazines including The New Yorker. They range from a visit to the Hershey chocolate factory to encounters with Oscar Hammerstein, Joan Baez, and Mount Denali.Emphatically, the author's purpose was not merely to preserve things but to choose passages that might entertain contemporary readers. Starting with 250,000 words, he gradually threw out 75 percent of them, and randomly assembled the remaining fragments into "an album quilt." Among other things, The Patch is a covert memoir.

Freedom


Catherine Johnson - 2018
    Nathaniel doesn't want to move to England with his master's family, leaving behind his mother and sister on the Jamaican plantation. But then he remembers what his mother told him: once a slave sets foot on English soil, they're free. Perhaps he can earn his fortune and buy his family's freedom, too. When Nat arrives in London, he soon discovers that his mother was wrong. Nat refuses to live like a caged bird, and seizes the first opportunity to escape. Alone on the streets of London, he hears the story of a nightmare ship, the Zong, where over a hundred slaves were thrown overboard. Now, those responsible face a trial. Will the world continue to turn a blind eye to the horrors of slavery? And can Nat really evade his masters forever?

Taking A Shot


Taryn Leigh Taylor - 2018
    But when his personal life ends up in the tabloids, he knows his career is on thin ice. Luckily, a new team decides to take a chance on him. All he has to do is keep head in the game. But when temptation walks up wearing black knee-high boots, looking for one night of nameless, no-strings passion, well, what's a guy to do?Chelsea London is looking to misbehave. What's being good ever gotten her, besides getting dumped and passed over for a big promotion at work? But her one delicious night of rebellion has unexpected consequences--her hot one-night stand is the latest addition to her father's hockey team. And suddenly, one night of bad-girldom isn't nearly enough.But one false move, and Brett might spend this season in the penalty box...

Hermeneutics: Facts and Interpretation in the Age of Information


John D. Caputo - 2018
    Caputo in this wide-reaching exploration of what the traditional term 'hermeneutics' can mean in a postmodern, twenty-first century world. As a contemporary of Derrida's and longstanding champion of rethinking the disciplines of theology and philosophy, for decades Caputo has been forming alliances across disciplines and drawing in readers with his compelling approach to what he calls "radical hermeneutics." In this new introduction, drawing upon a range of thinkers from Heidegger to the Parisian "1968ers" and beyond, he raises a series of probing questions about the challenges of life in the postmodern and maybe soon to be 'post-human' world.'

Gilded Summers


Donna Russo Morin - 2018
    These two young women must decide who they want to be in this world, and survive what it takes to get there…even if it includes murder.Surrounded by Astors and Vanderbilts, Pearl fills her days with teatime and shallow friendships, yearning for something more. A chance meeting with Mary Cassatt sparks her a secret desire to be an artist, a “new” woman. Meanwhile Ginevra, fresh off the boat from Italy, finds her own dreams out of reach as she joins the unwelcoming household as a servant and seamstress. Kindred souls, the girls become fast friends but must keep their friendship hidden from Pearl’s controlling and social-climbing mother. Each summer, they meet in a hidden spot beneath the weeping beeches to talk of art and life, their struggles to break the barriers of their lives and draw inspiration from the writings of Lucy Stone. But before long, the realities of adulthood begin closing in on them. Accepting a “suitable” marriage proposal, Pearl tries her best to fit into her new role, while Ginevra begins to harbor feelings of jealousy and resentment. Going behind the façade of this glittering era, Gilded Summers is a gripping, richly detailed story of friendship, prejudice, and life-altering choices. The novel will appeal to fans of Downton Abbey and The Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood.

A Hard Rain: America in the 1960s, Our Decade of Hope, Possibility, and Innocence Lost


Frye Gaillard - 2018
    He explores the competing story arcs of tragedy and hope through the political and social movements of the times -- civil rights, black power, women's liberation, the War in Vietnam, and the protests against it. But he also examines the cultural manifestations of change -- music, literature, art, religion, and science -- and so we meet not only the Brothers Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X, but also Gloria Steinem, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Johnny Cash, Harper Lee, Mister Rogers, Rachel Carson, James Baldwin, Andy Warhol, Billy Graham, Thomas Merton, George Wallace, Richard Nixon, Angela Davis, Barry Goldwater, the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and the Berrigan Brothers. "There are many different ways to remember the sixties," Gaillard writes, "and this is mine. There was in these years the sense of a steady unfolding of time, as if history were on a forced march, and the changes spread to every corner of our lives. As future generations debate the meaning of the decade, I hope to offer a sense of how it felt to have lived it. A Hard Rain is one writer's reconstruction and remembrance of a transcendent era -- one that, for better or worse, lives with us still."

Catholic Republic: Why America Will Perish Without Rome


Timothy J. Gordon - 2018
    Few, if any, have sought to explain the origin of all of these problems at once. In Catholic Republic, Timothy Gordon argues that America’s premature withering could have been avoided if only the founders had fully incorporated into the new republic the Catholic natural law. The anti-Catholic bias of 18th Century America kept our Protestant and Enlightenment forefathers from admitting their dependence upon the ideas of Aristotle, St. Thomas Aquinas, and the early Jesuits. In Catholic Republic, Gordon unpacks our nation’s complicated history of repudiating, yet borrowing, the Catholic ideas about politics and nature, which turn out to be indispensable to our—and all—republics.Indeed, America still can be saved. It is not too late.

Money Rock: A Family’s Story of Cocaine, Race, and Ambition in the New South


Pam Kelley - 2018
    Du BoisMeet Money Rock, a charismatic young man—and Charlotte’s flashiest dealer—at the center of a decades-spanning and eye-opening, riveting social history, in the tradition of GhettosideMoney Rock is the gripping story—by turns action-packed, uplifting, and tragic—of a striving African American family, swept up and transformed by the 1980s cocaine epidemic. This epic account begins in 1963 when Belton Lamont Platt (who would come to be known as Money Rock) is born in a newly integrated North Carolina hospital to Carrie, an activist mother. It ends with Belton’s sons, three of whom die violently as teenagers, and one—his oldest—who’s trying to transcend a criminal past in a world where the odds are stacked against him.Veteran reporter Pam Kelley takes readers through a shootout that shocks the city, a botched FBI sting, and a trial with a judge known as “Maximum Bob.” Yet Money Rock transcends the dramatic details, illuminating the power of family and the near impossibility of creating lasting change without reckoning with the sins of the past. This intimate journey shows the social forces and public policies shaping the choices of characters both brilliant and flawed, complex people whose lives are often oversimplified and undervalued. Readers will find in Money Rock a deeply American story, one that shouldn’t be possible, let alone common.

Sally Mann: A Thousand Crossings


Sarah Greenough - 2018
    1951) has made experimental, elegiac, and hauntingly beautiful photographs that explore the overarching themes of existence: memory, desire, death, the bonds of family, and nature’s magisterial indifference to human endeavor. What unites this broad body of work—portraits, still lifes, landscapes, and other studies—is that it is all “bred of a place,” the American South. Mann, who is a native of Lexington, Virginia, uses her deep love of her homeland and her knowledge of its historically fraught heritage to ask powerful, provocative questions—about history, identity, race, and religion—that reverberate across geographic and national boundaries. Organized into five sections—Family, The Land, Last Measure, Abide with Me, and What Remains—and including many works not previously exhibited or published, Sally Mann: A Thousand Crossings is a sweeping overview of Mann’s artistic achievements.

Sweet and Low: Stories


Nick White - 2018
    But they are not what they seem. In these stories, Nick White deconstructs the core qualities of Southern fiction, exposing deeply flawed and fascinating characters—promiscuous academics, aging podcasters, woodpecker assassins, and lawnmower enthusiasts, among others—all on wildly compelling quests. From finding an elusive bear to locating a prized timepiece to making love on the grave of an iconic writer, each story is a thrilling adventure with unexpected turns. White's honest and provocative prose will jolt readers awake with its urgency.

Footprints in the Dust: Nursing, Survival, Compassion, and Hope with Refugees Around the World


Roberta Gately - 2018
    There are more than twenty-two million refugees worldwide and another sixty-five million who have been forcibly displaced. But who are these people? Images filter into our consciousness via dramatic photographs—but these photos only offer a glimpse into their stories. Footprints in the Dust aims to share the real stories of refugees around the world in hopes of revealing the truth about their experience.As a young ER nurse in Boston, Roberta was stopped cold by stark images of big-bellied babies with empty haunting stares in the news. She called the aid organization featured in the news story and within two months, she was on her way. Roberta would soon learn that world into which millions of children around the globe were born was fraught with unspeakable horrors.  The only certainties for so many of these children were, and remain to this day—disease and devastating injury.Footprints in the Dust reveals the humanity behind the headlines, beginning where the newscasters end their reports. The people we meet within this riveting book are neither all saints nor all sinners—and impossible to forget.

The Dean: The Best Seat in the House, from FDR to Obama


John David Dingell - 2018
    House of Representatives for fifty-nine consecutive years, from December 13, 1955 to January 3, 2015—the longest tenure of anyone in Congressional history. The son of a Congressman, Dingell worked in his father’s office from childhood and became a house page in 1938, when he was just eleven years old. Retiring from Congress at eighty-nine, he has witnessed some of the most significant events that have shaped our nation and the world.In The Dean, Dingell looks back at his life at the center of American government and considers the currents that have reshaped our Congress and America itself, from his childhood memories of wartime Washington during the FDR administration, through the Reagan Revolution, to the election of the first black president, Barack Obama.Rife with a wisdom that literally only Dingell can possess, The Dean is the inspiring story of some of the greatest congressional achievements, of which Dingell was an integral part, and of the tough fights that made them possible. Dingell offers a persuasive defense for government, explaining how it once worked honorably and well—in defeating Hitler, sending us to the moon, ending segregation, and providing for the common good of all our citizens. He argues that to secure our future and continue our progress, we must work together once again—lessons desperately needed today.

White Hot Grief Parade


Alexandra Silber - 2018
    But when her beloved father dies after a decade-long battle with cancer when she is just a teenager, it feels like the end of everything. Lost in grief, Al and her mother hardly know where to begin with the rest of their lives.Into this grieving house burst Al’s three friends from theatre camp, determined to help out as only drama students know how—and they’re moving in for the duration. Over the course of that winter, the now five-strong household will do battle with everything Death can throw at them—meddling relatives, merciless bureaucracy, soul-sapping sadness, the endless Tupperware. They will learn (almost) everything about love and will eventually return to the world, altered in different ways by their time in a home by a river.Told with raw passion, candor and wit, White Hot Grief Parade is an ode to the restorative power of family and friendship—and the unbreakable bond, even in death, between father and daughter.

Sweet Peppermint Kisses


Josie Riviera - 2018
    Until the heart gallops off in an unexpected direction…Prepare for romance in this heart-warming holiday book brought to you by USA Today bestselling author Josie Riviera.After Chiara passes her RN license exam, she plans to leave Virginia and return to her beloved Kansas hometown for good. Except her home health client’s handsome brother makes her consider changing her plans.Between his job, his sister’s injury, and his horse ranch, Vance has no time for Christmas But Chiara’s delight in the season makes him willing to do anything to keep the enchanting smile on her face.When it comes down to asking her to stay, can he let go of his painful past, throw his heart over the fence, and follow it toward a future together?Light and sweet, this romance is full of Christmas cheer. Because sometimes the best gifts are hiding right under your heart.

Korea


Michael Pembroke - 2018
    It provides the history and the context that explains US involvement; why there has been no peace treaty, no unification, and why we now live with the threat of nuclear war in Northeast Asia. Few people understand the real failures of the Korean War or that the United States was the first to abrogate the armistice. As President Trump threatens to totally destroy North Korea, this book tells the tale that fires Pyongyang's indignation from the disastrous decision to invade North Korea; to the longest retreat in American military history; to the napalm, the nuclear threats, the biological warfare and the ghastly treatment of POWs in camps run by the US Army. Korea examines Washington's role from 1945 to the present in the creation and worsening of relations how hubris, overreach and militarism have dominated policy, and how, in pursuit of regional hegemony in Northeast Asia, the United States has made a bad situation worse.Perceptive and compelling often heart-rending, sometimes downright terrifying... The lessons are all too pertinent in today's toxic political climate, with Korea once again a centrepiece and victim. - Noam ChomskyThis is a very important book, an eye-opening one, and a wise one. ... beautifully written...the phrase 'as gripping as a thriller,' really applies... No-one with an interest in recent history and current affairs should fail to read it. - AC GraylingAs Alistair Horne once observed so wisely, ‘How different world history would have been if MacArthur had had the good sense to stop on the 38th parallel’.

River of Lost Souls: The Science, Politics, and Greed Behind the Gold King Mine Disaster


Jonathan P. Thompson - 2018
    Thompson digs into the science, politics, and greed behind the 2015 Gold King Mine disaster, and unearths a litany of impacts wrought by a century and a half of mining, energy development, and fracking in southwestern Colorado. Amid these harsh realities, Thompson explores how a new generation is setting out to make amends.As shocking and heartbreaking as the Gold King spill and its aftermath may be, it's merely the tip of the proverbial iceberg. The disaster itself was the climax of the long and troubled story of the Gold King mine, staked by a Swedish immigrant back in 1887. And it was only the most visible manifestation of a slow-moving, multi-faceted environmental catastrophe that had been unfolding here long before the events of August 5, 2015.Jonathan Thompson is a native Westerner with deep roots in southwestern Colorado. He has been an environmental journalist focusing on the American West since he signed on as reporter and photographer at the Silverton Standard & the Miner newspaper in 1996. He has worked and written for High Country News for over a decade, serving as editor-in-chief from 2007 to 2010. He was a Ted Scripps fellow in environmental journalism at the University of Colorado in Boulder, and in 2016 he was awarded the Society of Environmental Journalists' Outstanding Beat Reporting, Small Market. He currently lives in Bulgaria with his wife Wendy and daughters Lydia and Elena.

LaGuardia #1


Nnedi Okorafor - 2018
    After smuggling an illegal alien plant named ''Letme Live'' through LaGuardia International and Interstellar Airport's customs and security, she arrives at her grandmother's tenement, the New Hope Apartments in the South Bronx. There, she and Letme become part of a growing population of mostly African and  shape-shifting alien immigrants, battling against interrogation, discrimination and travel bans, as they try to make it in a new land. But, as the birth of her child nears, Future begins to change. What dark secret is she hiding? Written by Nnedi Okorafor, Hugo, Nebula and World Fantasy Award winner (Who Fears Death, Binti, Akata series) and illustrated by Tana Ford (Silk, Duck!), the team behind Black Panther: Long Live the King #6.

Rendezvous with Oblivion: Reports from a Sinking Society


Thomas Frank - 2018
    They capture a society where every status signifier is hollow, where the allure of mobility is just another con game, and where rebellion too often yields nothing.For those who despair of the future of our country and of reason itself, Rendezvous with Oblivion is a booster shot of energy, reality, and moral outrage.

Eleanor and The Christmas Carol Fudge: Inspired by A Christmas Carol (Holiday Romance Collection)


Tamara Passey - 2018
    A small-town, holiday romance inspired by A Christmas Carol.Eleanor Fooge didn’t ask to have a name that rhymed with the most famous miser in history, but she did vow to never be like him—a vow that was easy to keep during high school and college and right on through success at running her grandmother’s fudge business. But she discovered success was like trying to hold water in her hand—the harder she tried, the more tightfisted she became. When the orders slowed and the customers flocked to the new cupcake shop in town, her hands—and her heart—closed up and iced over. Soon it wasn’t just the business and protecting the family name at risk. As the boys in ninth grade had teased her, no one loves a Scrooge.Cam Wilson traded his small ski-town childhood for big-city college and a fast track to the good life. Or so he thought. The only good thing about his new job was the money. He hadn’t bargained for the travel, the constant pressure to deliver results, and the shallow relationships that would leave him wanting more. The years he spent helping desperate CEOs save their businesses from bankruptcy taught him something he hadn’t expected—he may have left the good life back in Pine Creek.He found himself missing everything he thought he didn’t need—fresh air, a town full of people who felt like family, a view of the mountains that never got old. And longing for one more chance to get to know Eleanor—the girl with the funny last name but the sweetest smile he’d ever seen. Going back wasn’t the hard part. What he wanted was a reason to stay.When a viral video drives them apart, can a rare copy of A Christmas Carol bring them together? Find out in this heartwarming, second-chance holiday romance.

My Fair Lacey & A Perfect Fit


Janette Rallison - 2018
    When Garrett Halifax, her roommate's Harvard-educated brother, offers to help her clean up her appearance and manner to impress the bank manager, she jumps at the chance - but will she be able to keep up appearances without falling for the sexy Garrett? In "A Perfect Fit" Rallison Jojo Halifax believes that winning Echo Ridge's float competition is just what her fledgling art career needs. And if that means giving her ex-boyfriend, Anthony, a second chance so she can be a designer on his team, well, she's willing to make the sacrifice. But when a lost bet leads to a blind date with her brother's friend, Wyatt, she begins to have second thoughts about second chances. Wyatt is handsome and charming and just might have been paid to make her forget about Anthony. Is falling for his charm worth the risk or should she take Anthony back again?

A Match Made at Christmas


Julia Ridgmont - 2018
    By the time Christmas arrives, will they be a real family? Arizona Territory - 1895 At age twenty, Deborah Hunter is discovering that approaching spinsterhood isn't the horrible prospect her mother has led her to believe. She wants more in life than just marriage and babies. But when the new astronomer in their small town of Pine Ridge suddenly becomes the guardian to his nine-month-old nephew, Deborah is called on to provide assistance. As she reluctantly accepts, little does she knows she's about to start the adventure of her life by becoming part of a ready-made family. Helping his boss find the perfect location to build his revolutionary new observatory isn't as easy as Jacob Bryers, a young astronomer, thought it would be. Not only are some of the residents of Pine Ridge against the idea, but he's suddenly been thrust into fatherhood and knows very little about taking care of a baby. Even worse, his faith has grown cold. When Deborah Hunter steps in at just the right moment, she offers more than her help. She offers hope. But there's a new problem. While fighting feelings of attraction for each other, the baby's wealthy grandparents show up on Jacob's doorstep and want to take the baby back into their possession. A marriage of convenience seems the best solution. Can something that started out so simple turn into more? Jacob and Deborah will need a Christmas miracle--or two--to heal their hearts and help them forge a new love. Let your heart be touched by the magic of Christmas as you read this Christian romance by new historical Western romance author Julia Ridgmont.