But in a strange twist of fate, their town’s matriarch, an eccentric, wealthy old woman whose family once owned the county coal mines, hears the boys’ story. Candace Jack doesn’t have an ounce of maternal instinct, yet for reasons she does not even understand herself, she is compelled to offer them a home.Suddenly, the two boys go from living in a small, run-down house on a gravel road to a stately mansion filled with sumptuous furnishings and beautiful artwork—artwork that’s predominantly centered, oddly, on bullfighting. And then there’s Miss Jack’s real-life bull: Ventisco—a regal, hulking, jet-black beast who roams the land she owns with fiery impudence.Kyle adjusts more easily to the transition. A budding artist, he finds a kindred spirit in Miss Jack. But local baseball hero Klint refuses to warm up to his new benefactress and instead throws himself into his game with a fierceness that troubles his little brother. Klint is not just grieving his father’s death; he’s carrying a terrible secret that he has never revealed to anyone. Unbeknownst to the world, Candace Jack has a secret too—a tragic, passionate past in Spain that the boys’ presence threatens to reveal as she finds herself caring more for them than she ever believed possible.From the muted, bruised hills of Pennsylvania coal country to the colorful, flamboyant bull rings of southern Spain, Tawni O’Dell takes us on a riveting journey not only between two completely different lands, but also between seemingly incompatible souls, casting us under her narrative spell in which characters and places are rendered with fragile tenderness.

    But as the son of a single father working in warehouses across the Pacific Northwest, Charley's been pretty much on his own. When tragic events leave him homeless weeks after their move to Portland, Oregon, Charley seeks refuge in the tack room of a run-down horse track. Charley's only comforts are his friendship with a failing racehorse named Lean on Pete and a photograph of his only known relative. In an increasingly desperate circumstance, Charley will head east, hoping to find his aunt who had once lived a thousand miles away in Wyoming — but the journey to find her will be a perilous one. In Vlautin's third novel, Lean on Pete, he reveals the lives and choices of American youth like Charley Thompson who were failed by those meant to protect them and who were never allowed the chance to just be a kid.

    It was ranked #1 political thriller by Amazon reader reviews for 8 months in 2012-2013. It has been favorably compared to Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged many times, but also to George Orwell’s 1984, Michael Chrichton’s State of Fear and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. In this novel the U.S. is nearing economic collapse as a result of political corruption, an un-repayable national debt, the selling of legislation by members of Congress, central command of the economy and devaluing of the national currency. Power hungry members of Congress have made democracy and the Constitution a sham with legislation making it almost impossible for a challenger to defeat an incumbent and absolutely impossible for a third party to compete. In a dramatic and very public manner the libertarian TLR accuse Congress of having “increased your powers far beyond the constitutional limits of your offices. You have become a political aristocracy taking our property and our production as if we are your serfs.” They give Congress “three days to approve a proposed Term Limits Amendment to the Constitution or, unless you first resign, the long-term incumbents will be term-limited in the only way you leave us.” If the amendment passes and is then approved by the people, it will prevent professional politicians from ever again serving in Congress. They announce to the nation, “Ours is the only form of revolution now possible in the United States. But our revolution has this advantage: If lives must be taken, it will be those that have stolen the lives and rights and property of the people, or, perhaps it will be our own.” In a brutal hunt for the TLR, the Department of Justice wrongly targets term-limit supporters and those who have opposed the administration or the Department of Justice. But it is clear the TLR will not be easily found or stopped when the first senator is “term-limited” in spite of all that federal authorities can do to stop them. The TLR are inside the federal law enforcement agencies that are hunting them. The characters on both sides in the struggle are as realistic as I could make them. Brave souls who defend liberty and family, lovers and cowards and even NSA, FBI and CIA agents confront their consciences and make their choices to aid the TLR or smash them. The novel examines a critical issue: If our liberties—our right to own ourselves and make our own choices in life—are diminishing with every year, is deadly force justified as a self-defense issue? If not, will we ever regain our individual rights? Erne el@ernelewis.com

    A town of spilled peaches fields its own game show. A mosquito fogger finds an unlikely friend. The stories in Mike Young's debut collection Look! Look! Feathers tap into the surreal and sad, the absurd and ragged dreams scratching at the edge of the American heart. Punks drive auctioned police cars, and necklaces of bluebird bones are sold from a roadside van. In these tales of the Pacific Northwest, Young finds magic burrowed under the moss of ordinary life.

    people the way Dutch Leonard had his hand down the pants of every degenerate in his great Detroit novels.”— Barry Gifford, author of Wild at Heart From Tony O’Neill, the author of Down and Out on Murder Mile and coauthor of the Neon Angel and the New York Times bestselling Hero of the Underground, comes Sick City—a wild adventure of two junkies, Hollywood, and the Sharon Tate sex tape. Readers of Elmore Leonard (Get Shorty) and Irvine Welsh (Trainspotting) will take great delight in Sick City, “a disturbingly twisted ride through Hollywood’s underbelly with a degenerate cast of colorfully interwoven characters” (Slash).

    His mother has committed suicide, dredging up old resentments between Hiram and his father, Sloane. When a gruesome act of violence stuns the insular mountain community, father and son must journey together to see justice carried out while coming to terms with a deeply troubled family history.

    His forty-year-old boyfriend, health care activist Kit Kramer, had once been romantically involved with another kind of writer entirely, the handsome experimentalist Sam D’Allesandro, now clinging onto the last shreds of life after several decades fighting off AIDS. The young, unstable art student Eric Avery, a fan of D’Allesandro’s, finagles a room in the vast California Street brownstone Isham and Kramer share. On the fringes of the story lurk two shady brothers—Gary Radley, a grifter who lives by selling fake anti-AIDS drugs to deluded New Age San Franciscans, and Adam Radley, a perfectionist porn director specializing in gay spanking videos. When D’Allesandro, who has lost his savings to Radley, threatens to expose the racket, things turn violent.Kevin Killian is a poet, novelist, critic, and playwright who most recently co-edited My Vocabulary Did This to Me: The Collected Poetry of Jack Spicer. He lives in San Francisco.

    1932) has become known as the principal voice of American countercultural fiction. His cult celebrity was further solidified by the success of Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1976) and Still Life With Woodpecker (1980). Robbins's mix of vivid language, ribald humor, philosophical musings, controversial commentary on religion and sexuality, and concentration on female protagonists and feminine consciousness has marked almost all of his fiction, as well as his short writings.Despite his undeserved reputation as 1960s hippie icon, all of Robbins's work remains popular and in print, and his later novels--including Jitterbug Perfume (1984), Skinny Legs and All (1990), Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas (1994), Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates(2000), Villa Incognito (2003), and B Is for Beer (2009)--engage thoroughly with current politics, mores, and trends.Conversations with Tom Robbins brings together more than twenty interviews with the acclaimed author, from the mid-1970s to the present. Throughout the volume, Robbins discusses his working methods, his fusion of Eastern and Western philosophical traditions, the need for wit and humor in serious fiction, and the ways living in the Pacific Northwest has fueled his work.

    Writer Don McGregor teamed with artists Rich Buckler and Billy Graham to tell "Panther's Rage," a story so huge it ranges across the savannah, into the deepest jungles and up to the snow-topped mountains of Wakanda. Over its course McGregor & Co. would define T'Challa, give full depth and life to the Wakandas and their culture, while pitting the Panther against the murderous Erik Killmonger for control of the kingdom. Not one to rest on his laurels, McGregor then set out to raise the bar once again, sending T'Challa to the American South to investigate the murder of Angela Lynne and its connection to the Klan and the history of the Soul Strangler. A challenging storyline by a challenging storyteller, you'll read it and so much more in this much anticipated hardcover classic! Collecting JUNGLE ACTION #6-24.

    The war is over, and the boys are coming home. But some cannot adjust to the nonviolent world of civilian life. "The Adjustment "follows Wayne Ogden careening like a pinball through a troubled postwar Midwest. Wayne, an ex-supply sergeant, black marketer, and pimp, is trying hard to make it as a husband, father and civilian in Wichita, Kansas. But old temptations keep crying out to him as he serves as bag-man and procurer for his elderly and increasingly debauched boss, Everett Collins, founder of Collins Aircraft Company, and Wayne's wandering eye makes it hard for him to stay true to his beautiful, trusting young wife Sally. A series of events further complicates matters: A boardroom conspiracy at Collins aimed at throwing him out on the street; his increasing certainty that he knows the identity of the Wichita Butcher, whose specialty is leaving severed body parts in public places; and finally, his failure to identify the author of a series of poisoned pen letters from someone who knows more about his recent past than he wants revealed. When these elements converge, it's all Wayne can do to keep his wits about him and orchestrate a bloody series of events that will determine whether he can stay in his hometown or go on the run. Wayne's problem is that he doesn't know which prospect sounds worse.

    Sounding out the nerves and nodes of language to transform "every burn-mark and blemish," to “bind our river-wrack and leavings," Romey seeks to forge finally (if even for a moment) a chord in which he might live. Intently visceral, aural, oral, Atsuro Riley's poems bristle with musical and imaginative pleasures, with story-telling and picture-making of a new and wholly unexpected kind.

    Superstar writer Jason Aaron's searing take on the Spirit of Vengeance finds Johnny Blaze facing off against the forces of heaven itself in an epic saga that sends Ghost Rider down a blazing new road! When the rogue angel Zadkiel tries taking over the world' Ghost Riders--that's right, there's more than one!--Blaze and his flame-headed alter ego are in for the fight of their lives! Featuring the return of the OTHER Ghost Rider, Danny Ketch, in a team-up you never imagined and a showdown that had to happen! Strap in for a tale of insanity jam-packed with new villains, old allies and the same old grindhouse action that Flamehead fans have come to know and love! COLLECTING: Ghost Rider #20-35, Ghost Riders: Heaven's On Fire #1-6

    Surviving battles, homelessness, and disease, he squanders his days on women and wine, trying to forget his lost love. But life is not idle in Iowa during his absence, and when a bitter and weary George comes home twenty-two years later, he finds a web of murder, suicide, and shocking revelations. The future of his family rests on one terrible choice...but is he prepared to make it? Spanning the years 1893 through 2009, "Hammon Falls" weaves a tapestry of estrangement, loss, love, sacrifice, and redemption.