As German forces launch a massive surprise attack through the frozen Ardennes Forest, two snipers find themselves aiming for a rematch. Caje Cole is a backwoods hunter from the Appalachian Mountains of the American South, while Kurt Von Stenger is the deadly German “Ghost Sniper.” Having been in each other’s crosshairs before, they fight a final duel during Germany’s desperate attempt to turn the tide of war in what will come to be known as the Battle of the Bulge. Can the hunter defeat the marksman? Even in the midst of war, some battles are personal.

    He's also good at holding women at arm's length. Jilted by his fiancée for his dedication to his job, he's not about to open himself up to hurt like that again.Laurie Blake is a struggling photographer. After growing up in a wealthy family, she's determined to make it on her own, even if it means doing it the hard way.When Tuck is assigned to a puzzling burglary involving Laurie's fledgling photography business, he goes into it with his usual perseverance. He wants to help her - if she'll let him. As the case unfolds and the mystery deepens, another question arises.Will their pasts get in the way of a future together?

    The convict who held him hostage during a riot, twenty years ago, is being considered for release. Wes has been away from Black River ever since the riot. He grew up in this small Montana town, encircled by mountains, and, like his father before him and most of the men there, he made his living as a Corrections Officer. A talented, natural fiddler, he found solace and joy in his music. But during that riot Bobby Williams changed everything for Wes — undermining his faith and taking away his ability to play.How can a man who once embodied evil ever come to good? How can he pay for such crimes with anything but his life? As Wes considers his own choices and grieves for all he's lost, he must decide what he believes and whether he can let Williams walk away.With spare prose and stunning detail, S. M. Hulse drops us deep into the heart and darkness of an American town.

    A tragic accident. A young boy lost in the world... When a devastating accident leaves a young, Amish boy mute and orphaned, his uncle Simon steps up to care for him, but Simon is unsure how to help his innocent nephew Abram through his trauma. Lucy, a kind and nurturing young school teacher, finds her heart going out to this sweet new boy in her classroom. Due to her own secret past, she can relate to his tragic experience and non-verbal response, and she feels God’s hand in guiding him to her. She also cannot help but notice his handsome, caring uncle who is showing interest in her. But when Lucy’s past and shame are revealed, will Simon still be interested? Should Lucy even allow the attraction to grow knowing what she knows about herself? Only God knows how past pain and sorrow can bring hope to a questionable future for all of them. Can these three faithful souls truly become an "Unexpected Family?"

    After one week of leaving his ranch in the hands of his foreman to take care of the grieving, needy children, he has to admit the task is beyond him and he needs help. But hired help won't suffice: those children need a mother's hand. Cole needs a wife.This novella is a supplementary short story which has slight connections to Amazing Grace (Hymns of the West, #3).

    As the evidence quickly stacks up against her, she begins to lose hope that the truth will come to light. Even though the handsome FBI Agent, Patrick, has taken up her cause, will they be able to prove her innocence? Will God, who she neglected for so long, listen to her prayers for help?Patrick is an agent with a very special team of agents. He wants to help Kate prove she is innocent, but as each new piece of evidence is revealed, that goal seems harder. He wonders why he feels so compelled to help her and so sure she is innocent despite the evidence. Will he be willing to put his job on the line to help her? Can he trust in God to make sure the truth will come out in the end?

    A stunning and vital piece of work.” —Irvine Welsh, author of Trainspotting and FilthIn a brilliantly stylish breakthrough thriller for fans of Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho and Will Christopher Baer’s Kiss Me, Judas, here is the compelling tale of a man who has lost it all—and is now navigating a crooked, harrowing path to redemption.   Once a suburban husband and father, now the man has lost all sense of time. He retains only a few keepsakes of his former life: a handmade dining room table, an armoire and dresser from the bedroom, and a tape of the last message his wife ever left on their answering machine. These are memories of a man who no longer exists. Booze and an affair with a beautiful woman provide little relief, with the only meaning left in his life coming from his assignments. An envelope slipped under the door of his apartment with the name and address of an unpunished evildoer. The unspoken directive to kill. And every time he does, he marks the occasion with a memento: a tattoo. He has a lot of tattoos.   But into this unchanging existence seep unsettling questions. How much of what he feels and sees can he trust? How much is a lie designed to control him? He will risk his own life—and the lives of everyone around him—to find out. EARLY PRAISE FOR DISINTEGRATION:“Sweet hot hell, Richard Thomas writes like a man possessed, a man on fire, a guy with a gun to his head. And you’ll read Disintegration like there’s a gun to yours, too. A twisted masterpiece.”—Chuck Wendig, author of Blackbirds and Double Dead“This novel is so hard-hitting it should come with its own ice-pack. Richard Thomas is the wild child of Raymond Chandler and Chuck Palahniuk, a neo-noirist who brings to life a gritty, shadow-soaked, bullet-pocked Chicago as the stage for this compulsively readable crime drama.” —Benjamin Percy, author of The Dead Lands and Red Moon“Thomas builds his universe and its population with terse prose and dynamic, often horrifyingly visceral imagery that unspools with grand weirdness and intensity. Then he rips that universe apart, brick by bloody brick. Disintegration is provocative. It’s also damned fine noir.”—Laird Barron, author of The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All and The Croning “A sodden, stumbling anti-hero in a noir so dark it makes much of the rest of the genre seem like Disney movies by comparison. Gritty, obsessive, and compulsively readable.”—Brian Evenson, author of Immobility and Windeye“Disintegration is gritty neo-noir; a psycho-sexual descent into an unhinged psyche and an underworld Chicago that could very well stand in for one of the rings of Dante's Hell. Richard Thomas' depraved-doomed-philosopher hitman is your guide. I suggest you do as he says and follow him, if you know what's good for you.”—Paul Tremblay, author of A Head Full of Ghosts and The Little Sleep“In sharp, icy prose that cuts like a glacial wind, Richard Thomas’ dark Chicago tale keeps us absolutely riveted to the very end.” —Donald Ray Pollock, author of The Devil All the Time and Knockemstiff

    Badge of Evil is the first novel in a bold new thriller series from the writing team of private investigator Bill Stanton and award-winning journalist Craig Horowitz.All eyes are on New York City’s police commissioner Lawrence Brock after his hands-on role in a raid on a potential terrorist cell that turns into a blazing shootout. There’s even talk that he may be headed to Washington to take over Homeland Security.Investigative journalist A. J. Ross wants to expose the ruthless opportunist behind Brock’s heroic image. Freewheeling private investigator Frank Bishop is hired by the family of the lone surviving suspect, desperate to prove the young man’s innocence. A. J. and Bishop hate each other at first sight, but they’ll need to learn to work together quickly if they want to take down the commissioner—because Lawrence Brock will do anything to ensure the dark secrets of his past remain hidden.Badge of Evil introduces a dynamic new voice in thriller fiction, in the spirit of such bestselling authors as Harlan Coben and David Baldacci. It is a novel of our times and for our times—an all too familiar story of corruption and abuse at the highest levels, and how the lust for power can drive men to commit the most shocking acts.

    She soon runs into a problem: her family. Unwanted interruptions and household duties tear her away from the time she longs to spend in the Bible. Journey with her as she strives to learn the balance of spending time in God’s Word and applying it to her daily life.

    A kiss. A shotgun wedding. NATHANIEL WARD, wealthy entrepreneur, needs a wife. But he’s not interested in the preening, high-society women who are offered to him on a silver platter. He wants one woman, and one woman alone: the girl who gave him all the money in her reticule years ago when the Great Chicago Fire left him destitute. He sets out to find this woman and discovers she’s unattached. There’s only one problem, a shotgun wedding may be able to bind them, but will he ever be able to win her heart? AMELIA E. TAYLOR blows a kiss to a street rat. Little did she know, years later that kiss would follow her to Green Pines Colorado. When a handsome stranger arrives in her hometown, she guards her heart from the stirrings this man ignites. Despite society’s disapproval of spinsterhood, she is determined not to marry, having witnessed first-hand the lack of love and horrors that accompany marriage. But will a shotgun wedding reveal blessings that arise out of the ashes?

    In this magisterial biography, Patrick McGilligan brings young Orson into focus as never before. He chronicles Welles's early life growing up in Wisconsin and Illinois as the son of an alcoholic industrialist and a radical suffragist and classical musician, and the magical early years of his career, including his marriage and affairs, his influential friendships, and his artistic collaborations.The tales of his youthful achievements were so colorful and improbable that Welles, with his air of mischief, was often thought to have made them up. Now after years of intensive research, McGilligan sorts out fact from fiction and reveals untold, fully documented anecdotes of Welles's first exploits and triumphs, from starring as a teenager on the Gate Theatre stage in Dublin and bullfighting in Sevilla, to his time in the New York theater and his fraught partnership with John Houseman in the Mercury Theatre, to his arrival in Hollywood and the making of Citizen Kane. Filled with intriguing new insights and startling revelations--including the surprising true origin and meaning of "Rosebud"--Young Orson is a fascinating look at the creative development and influences that shaped this legendary artistic genius.

    They're not criminals. They're outlaws. They have made a living by driving anything and everything for the Stanleys, the criminal family who has been employing them for decades. It's ended with Tucker. He's gone straight, much to the disappointment of his father, Webb. When Webb vanishes after a job, and with him a truck load of drugs, the Stanleys want their drugs back or their money. With the help from his grandfather, Calvin-the original lead foot-Tucker is about to learn a whole lot about the family business in a crash course that might just get him killed.Praise for RUMRUNNERS:“A killer. If you dug Bull Mountain, you’ll love it.”—Brian Panovich, author of Bull Mountain“The best word to sum up this book is ’FUN’, in capital letters.”—Stuart MacBride, author of The Missing and the Dead“Buckle up...RUMRUNNERS is a fast and furious read.”—Samuel W. Gailey, author of Deep Winter“Few contemporary writers do justice to the noir tradition the way Eric Beetner does. Others try to emulate and mimic; Beetner just takes the form and cuts his own jagged, raw and utterly readable path.”—Gar Anthony Haywood, author of Assume Nothing, Cemetery Road and the Aaron Gunner series“Rumrunners just never lets up. It's a fuel-injected, mile-a-minute thrill ride. I had a blast.”—Grant Jerkins, author of A Very Simple Crime and Done In One

    In this eShort, readers can compare both versions of this iconic work of fiction, gaining insight into Carver’s aesthetic and the foundations of the contemporary American short story.

    The mysterious, blonde-haired mute, a man Moses believes to be responsible for four murders, continues to elude the police. Tracking him is an endless task, but Moses and his new partner, Sam Walker, are asked to step up their investigation of the "Prostitute Murders" after the head of a courtesan is found impaled on the tip of a sword in front of the precinct building. When the twin daughters of a successful elevator manufacturer are kidnapped, Moses and Walker are asked to prioritize this new case. As the pressure mounts and the cases get darker, Moses begins to unravel. The trips to the opium den and his drinking take over. Moses knows he is slowly becoming one of the Levee District animals he usually tracks.

    Given a year to prove he can make rain during Florida’s economic drought, David rolls up his sleeves and lands the client of his dreams—Frank O'Reilly, a real estate developer embroiled in dozens of lawsuits and hell-bent on turning a profit during the recession. Little does David know that Frank's company is involved in a murderous plot to cover up years of mortgage fraud in the Sunshine State. As David prepares for a trial that will make or break his career, he discovers that a secret investor in Frank’s company is responsible for murder and will continue killing to hide the truth. The only thing David can’t figure out is whether Frank is the conspiracy’s victim or its mastermind. To answer that question, David must risk far more than partnership as he unravels one dark secret after another about his client, his law firm, and, ultimately, himself.

    This is the context that frames The Revelator's protagonist: a young orphan named Joseph. Reared on nights spent carousing with drunks and con men, the young protagonist dreams of something more.He begins to preach. Soon he takes a young wife, to the horror of her father, a butcher. They depart for the wilderness where Joseph's visions, haunted by a dark Beast, take hold of his life. Husband and wife nearly die of exposure, and upon their return, Joseph begins to build his congregation, built on the discovery of the golden plates that deliver the Almighty's message.As his congregation grows, Joseph builds a settlement, takes multiple wives, and negotiates multiple betrayals and intrigues with his followers, his wife, and even his suspicious and distant son. Persecuted by society at large, and on the U.S. government's watch list, Joseph takes his people further and further west to meet their destiny.Written in the second person, author Robert Kloss's prophetic voice demonstrates the macabre and gruesome consequences of Manifest Destiny and the conflicted motivations behind the creation of a religion that boasts 15 million members today.

    In these stories, a drunken, lonely woman is convinced that her new neighbor is the daughter of her dead lover; a one-armed tennis player and a motherless girl reckon with death amid a rainstorm; and happening upon a car crash, a young woman is unaccountably drawn to the victim, even as he slides into a coma and her marriage falls into jeopardy.Again and again, Beach's protagonists find themselves unable to express their innermost feelings to those they are closest to, but at the same time they are drawn to confide in strangers. In its confidence and subtle precision, Beach’s prose evokes their reticence but is supple enough to reveal deeper passions and intense longing. Shot through with loss and the regret of missed opportunities, Swallowed by the Cold is a searching and crystalline book by a startlingly talented young writer.

    Whether exploring family, religion, politics or the true meaning of home, these stories range from deeply affecting to wildly absurd and back again, all in the blink of an eye.

    She and her twin brother, Leigh, had been foster kids for as long as they could remember. Naturally shy, this life of bouncing around from one foster home to another, of changing schools mid-term, and of never having a real place they could call home had left Lissa with feelings of insecurity and doubt. Would they ever have a real home? Why didn’t anyone want them? Then one cold, winter afternoon, Lissa persuades her brother to make believe that a tunnel under a snow covered bridge is the entrance to a new world and a new life; together they walk through it, and it changes their lives forever.

    It was the gift that Maggie had desired throughout her teen years.Yet was God’s purpose for this gift for her to fulfill her own desires? Or did He have something much better in store? Something that Maggie could not quite understand?A short story.

    He has a decent job, a beautiful wife and a nice home in a trendy part of the city. Everything seems to be in its right place, at least until an old childhood friend re-emerges. Kent's life quickly begins disintegrating, starting with blackmail and progressing into murder. Someone is trying to ruin Kent's cozy little setup, and Kent isn't about to go down without a fight.

    "The Burning of Lawrence" vibrates with the raw terror of a town pillaged by pro-Confederate raiders. "O Death" recalls the harrowing, desperate journey of the exodusters—African-American migrants who came to Kansas to escape oppression in the South. And, in the collection's haunting title piece, a professor of Kansas history surveys his decades-long slide from radicalism to complacency, a shift that parallels the landscape around him.Using his own home state as a prism through which to view both a nation's history and our own universal battles as individuals, Milward has created a fresh and complex new palimpsest of the American experience.

    Reluctantly, Lilly succumbs to her own exhaustion, falling asleep by her mother’s side as she whispers her last words.Lilly wakes up in Connecticut’s vast countryside on a farm under the temporary care of Doctor Ashby, the doctor who tried to save her mother’s life. Feeling alone, she struggles to accept her mother’s death while adjusting to the new world she has found herself in, a world of uncertainty.Forging relationships with Doctor Ashby and his family, Lilly discovers they are as much in need of her as she is of them, while her loyal and untamed friend, Laurie, never fails to bring life into her soul and adventure into her heart even in her darkest times. As Lilly is going through her mother’s things, she happens upon letters revealing a past her mother hid from her compelling Lilly to remember her mother’s last whispered words, exposing lies that Lilly built her life upon, forever altering her future.

    A dude jumps out of a window; Halloween goes to Hell; a junk-sick redhead ransacks a wallet; a school teacher’s habit of leaving drawers open rattles her obsessive compulsive husband; a gory melodrama unfolds as a self-absorbed mother and her sadistic daughter vie for the love of a handsome con artist; two losers conjure bloodlust fantasies to pass the time; a severed body part resurrects to claim vengeance against a cunning, materialistic witch; a trailer park love triangle reaches its drunken precipice at a Sunday barbecue—just a few of the sometimes good, sometimes bad, and sometimes dirty attractions found in Brian Alan Ellis’s latest, aptly titled story collection, where bearded women, bloody tampons, online dating debacles, ornery waffle waitresses packing pistols, drunk Harry Dean Stanton look-a-likes dressed as Santa Claus, floating Mickey Mouse T-shirts, and lawn gnomes on fire all cast a harrowing glow!

     Ellis O’Donovan was an American through and through. He had no intention of going to his ancestral home in Ireland. After all, his parents were chased out by the English. But his mother insists on being taken back to die at her old estate, Kilpara. Ellis reluctantly agrees, expecting a quick round trip. Kilpara and its residents have other plans. The strife Ellis finds between his desire to return to his life in America, and to aid his kin in Ireland reaches a dangerous pinnacle when he meets Morrigan, the daughter of the very English overlord who has taken his birthright.

    As Nicole attempts to take over the kitchen, she begins to wonder if the kitchen will take over her?

    These stories will take you somewhere long ago, and yet much like today. With a touch of humor and a family-loving gentleness, these stories carry all the hope of Christmas. The Wind Chimes-- Still bitter over a hurtful mistake a year ago, Martin Roebuck meets the despised doctor on Christmas Eve. The Two Runaways-- Lost while running away from home, Albert Russell is taken in by an old man, who seems to also have past grievances. On the Fourth Floor-- Though living on the same floor, George Nolan and Christin Rimmers overlook each other-- until a common challenge brings them together the night before Christmas Eve. The Spinster-- Wanting to avoid Christmas loneliness, Milly Lambert finds herself in the cabin of an old woman who holds a wise secret. The Broken Man-- Criminal Arch Fisher attempts to take advantage of a kindly old settler in the woods, but things go miserably awry. Winifred's Adventure-- Elderly couple Amias and Winifred Hambly--eager for an uncommon life--discover a dying mother the day before Christmas.

    In Norma Cantú’s fictionalized memoir of Laredo in the 1940s, 1950s, and early 1960s, it also represents a time between childhood and a still-unknown adulthood. Snapshots and the author’s re-created memories allow readers to experience the pivotal events of this world—births, deaths, injuries, fiestas, and rites of passage. In celebration of the twentieth anniversary of the original publication, this updated edition includes newly written pieces as well as never-before-published images—culled from hundreds of the author’s family photos—adding further depth and insight into this unique contribution to Chicana literature. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Norma Elia Cantú is a professor of Latina/Latino studies and English at the University of Missouri, Kansas City.