He is persistent, and he knows what he wants. Me.He doesn’t treat me like I’m fragile.But he doesn’t know, and I’m not ready to tell him.What if it changes everything?Tragedy found me when I was seventeen.Love found me when I was twenty-one.My name is Aundrea McCall, and this is my journey.

    Many remain invisible to a system that would otherwise help them. Abigail is one of those children. This is her story.Ten-year-old Abigail has never known her father. Her mother, Sarah, has multiple sclerosis, and Abigail has been her carer since she was a toddler – shopping, cooking, cleaning and attending to her personal needs. When Sarah is rushed to hospital, suddenly this comes to the attention of the social services, and Abigail has nowhere to go.Though she doesn’t fit the usual profile of a child that specialist foster carers Casey and Mike Watson would take on, they are happy to step in and look after Abigail. It’s an emergency, after all – and all that’s needed is a loving temporary home, while social services look into how to support the family so that they can be reunited.But it soon becomes clear that this isn’t going to happen. Sarah’s MS is now at a very advanced stage, and the doctors are certain that there will no longer be periods of remission. Abigail’s emotional state starts to spiral out of control as she struggles to let go of the burden of responsibilities she has carried for so long.Sarah and Abigail insist that they do not need help, but with no other family to contact, social services are left with no choice but to find long-term care for Abigail, against their wishes. But Casey never gives up on a child in need, and she knows there must be another solution…

    Not to stop a speeding train, or to scale a skyscraper in pursuit of masked marauders. But to face the vile nemesis that children of all races and religions battle on a daily basis - cancer. Nistar is a 116 page, full color graphic novel about JJ Barak, the world's first superhero for children fighting cancer, illustrated by renowned comic book artist Josef Rubinstein. Foreword written by Michael Uslan, executive producer of the Batman movie franchise. Nistar tells the tale of a young doctor, JJ Barak, who discovers a mystical stone with untapped powers. He attempts to harness its powers and save the life of one of his patients fighting cancer. His journey takes him out of the cancer ward and into a parallel realm called Nistar, a place where all things intangible, including a person's thoughts, dreams, and fantasies, manifest themselves in physical form. It is in this place that JJ Barak confronts Karkin, the Demon of Disease, in an epic battle against childhood cancer. Along the way para-human characters guide our hero on his turbulent journey and draw the reader into a highly imaginative, page turning adventure.

    Schmidt, this heartfelt coming-of-age story will make you believe in the power of second chances. Eleven-year-old Sam Brattle is already having the worst Christmas ever – his dad’s bakery is going bankrupt and his mom is spending the holidays with her new family. To make things worse, Nickel Bay Nick, the anonymous Good Samaritan who leaves hundred-dollar bills around Nickel Bay at Christmastime, is a no-show, so this year the rest of the town is as miserable as Sam. When he stumbles upon the secret identity of this mysterious do-gooder, Sam is stunned to learn that he might now be his town’s only hope. But before he can rescue Nickel Bay, Sam has to learn the skills of a spy and unravel some even darker secrets that will change his life forever.

    Unfortunately, if the terminally-ill leukemia patient doesn't find a lover or a stem-cell match within months, her fear will become reality. When her cancer mentor is revealed to be a hottie entrepreneur from California, it seems fate might finally be on her side.Tech-geek Gavin Taylor has everything he ever wanted, except someone to grieve for him when he's gone. With his melanoma cancer beyond the help of his riches, he agrees to participate in a cancer patient mentoring program where he's matched with a dying teen from Texas. Despite his immediate attraction, the Silicon Valley whiz intends only to provide friendship and happy memories to the beautiful, young woman who is determined to win his love.When it's discovered that his frozen sperm and her harvested eggs could lead to a cure, Taylor's mother offers to be a surrogate. And Gavin must decide if he can risk the heart he has never given and a child he'll never know to a girl he just met.

    Nepo has a singular way of distilling great truths down to their essence. Moreover, during his cancer journey, Nepo relied on the power of expression and the writing process to keep him tethered to life. In Reduced to Joy, Mark Nepo explores the places where pain and joy are stitched to resilience, uncovering them with deep wisdom, poetic passages and personal revelations. Nepo reminds us all of the secret and sacred places within, forgotten in the noise and chatter of our busy distracted 21st Century lives. Reduced to Joy is a lesson in stillness, in standing in the mystery and, above all, in the work of love.

    Holidays are always a trial for the family that lost their daughter and sister, but Frank is hopeful that this Thanksgiving will be the exception. He has some happy news to share. If only he wasn't so reluctant to talk about it.

    Stella’s disease wreaked a lot of havoc, leaving her with visible and invisible scars, but she’s hanging in there. Doing just fine, actually. Or she was until HE showed up. Nathan Drazek is a mess and he knows it. A childhood full of mental and physical abuse, four tours in Afghanistan, and ten years policing one of the toughest beats in East Cleveland have left him aloof and nearly incapable of interpersonal relationships. But that’s okay, because Nathan isn’t interested in anything more than just getting by. Or he wasn’t until SHE showed up. From the moment Nathan nearly arrests Stella, sparks fly, limits are tested, and boundaries are shattered. A tenuous, tender friendship quickly evolves into something powerfully passionate they cannot wish away or control. As they grow closer, new issues arise and old hurts resurface, threatening to destroy their fragile new beginning. With everything at stake, Nathan and Stella must ultimately decide which runs deeper: their scars or their love.

    Not much time to complete the bucket list she's had since she was twelve. The first item is the hardest--"Get married"--so she turns to the only man she knows who can help.Paul, a barely reformed bad boy, has inherited a fortune from his mother, but his life is defined by his conflicted relationship with his father--a white-collar, organized-crime boss who, thanks to Paul, is being brought up on federal charges. Without Emily's testimony, his father might walk, so Paul agrees to her unconventional proposal. He'll be her husband for her last three months.They agree that she'll testify against his father and he'll help her complete her bucket list. It's not supposed to be a true marriage. No consummation. No future. No love.No love.She's supposed to die, after all, and love might not be enough

    Plotting another escape becomes harder, the more she gets to know her new husband. Jackson Pruitt didn’t expect a secretive mail order bride to show up the same week cattle rustlers absconded with a large part of his herd. The bigger surprise was the loveliness of the woman. Why would a beauty like her need to travel so far to marry? Jackson and Adeline learn that secrets and marriage do not go hand-in-hand when both of their pasts comes knocking and both have to come to grips with the reality, that sometimes trust comes only after you lose it all. Retelling of my bestselling novel!

    Through a powerful combination of cultural analysis and memoir, this stunningly original book explores why cancer remains so confounding, despite the billions of dollars spent in the search for a cure. Amidst furious debates over its causes and treatments, scientists generate reams of data—information that ultimately obscures as much as it clarifies. Award-winning anthropologist S. Lochlann Jain deftly unscrambles the high stakes of the resulting confusion. Expertly reading across a range of material that includes history, oncology, law, economics, and literature, Jain explains how a national culture that simultaneously aims to deny, profit from, and cure cancer entraps us in a state of paradox—one that makes the world of cancer virtually impossible to navigate for doctors, patients, caretakers, and policy makers alike. This chronicle, burning with urgency and substance leavened with brio and wit, offers a lucid guide to understanding and navigating the quicksand of uncertainty at the heart of cancer. Malignant vitally shifts the terms of an epic battle we have been losing for decades: the war on cancer.

    With literary finesse, compassion, and a powerful gift of storytelling, Marie Williams writes poignantly of her husband Dominic’s struggles with early onset dementia and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) at the age of 40, and how their family found hope amidst the wreckage of a mysterious neurological condition.  As the condition develops and progresses, the normally devoted family man and loving partner seems to disappear beneath an expressionless facade, erratic behavior, and a relentless desire to wander that often leaves him lost. The road to diagnosis is long and confusing, and what starts off as perplexing for the family then becomes frightening. The man they love is changing, and no one seems to know why. He no longer turns up to his sons’ high school events. He falls and bumps into things. He becomes verbally disinhibited, emotionally disengaged, and, at times, belligerent. He doesn’t seem to be able to read the social cues of other people. He gets lost in familiar places, as well as on obsessive work trips overseas. He recklessly spends the family money, leaving them in near financial ruin. Despite this, Williams and her children strive to find new ways to keep him safe and to connect with the husband and father they love so dearly.   While the family learns to cope with Dominic’s illness—which they call the Green Goblin—Williams is determined that her children reclaim the dad of their memories. She finds creative ways to make visible the stories of the man beyond the illness, and helps them remember him as the engaged, healthy, and loving man she fell in love with. She humanizes the experience through storytelling and assembling a quilt made up of transferred photographs, painted artwork, family footprints, and personal inscriptions from family and friends. This, along with tea rituals, music, and stories of fatherhood, love and value, support them as fierce advocates for Dominic’s dignity and give the family new ways to be together as they journey through his decline. Spanning between moments of intense joy and incredible sadness, this book is a passionate testament to one family’s unconditional love for one another. It is, “a tale of a strange place—the real world— in which green goblins and hope find a way to live together.”   Above all, it is a love story.

    But cancer continues to kill with abandon. In 2013, despite a four-decade “war” against the disease that has cost hundreds of billions of dollars, more than 1.6 million Americans will be diagnosed with cancer and nearly six hundred thousand will die from it.A decade ago, Clifton Leaf, a celebrated journalist and a cancer survivor himself, began to investigate why we had made such limited progress fighting this terrifying disease. The result is a gripping narrative that reveals why the public’s immense investment in research has been badly misspent, why scientists seldom collaborate and share their data, why new drugs are so expensive yet routinely fail, and why our best hope for progress—brilliant young scientists— are now abandoning the search for a cure. The Truth in Small Doses is that rare tale that will both outrage readers and inspire conversation and change.

    Ruth knows she has been overprotective, but hoped that she would outlive her special-needs daughter. Metastasized cancer crushes that hope and forces Ruth to find a way to provide for Denise once she is dead. First Ruth turns to Social Security for Disability benefits. After tests, pokes and prods, doctors, nosy psychologists, and ill-furnished waiting rooms, the government declares Denise not eligible for benefits. Mad at the world and daring the government to arrest her so they will have to take care of her since they wouldn't her daughter, Ruth takes up smoking pot in the backyard. A few joints in, Ruth begins to realize her anger is self-directed. She doubts every decision she has ever made in raising her daughter that doctors, in the 1950s, labeled "retarded." Partially to coax her mother from the backyard and partially because Ruth will not speak of the past, Denise asks her mother to write down their history of which Denise has no memory. Trying to atone and explain how she could be so obtuse, Ruth agrees. Telling her story becomes an obsession for Ruth who sees the history as her only chance to leave a place for herself in the world since cancer is steadily eating away her physicality. While Ruth writes, Denise begins to pursue her own independence, despite the minor setbacks of a chopped off fingertip and chemo poisoning. She begins to make choices for herself and finally tells her mother pieces of her own truth: Denise stayed with her mother because she chose to, because she loved her mother more than any life she could make for herself. In claiming her own truth, Denise also chooses silence about the biggest secrets of all. Comfort of Fences explores the messy business of mothering. It is a story about the love between a devoted mother and her special daughter that exposes the irony that the people we love the most can also be the ones we underestimate the greatest.

    Participants are affiliated with a house, an alternative family structure typically named after haute couture designers and providing support to this diverse community. Marlon M. Bailey’s rich first-person performance ethnography of the Ballroom scene in Detroit examines Ballroom as a queer cultural formation that upsets dominant notions of gender, sexuality, kinship, and community.

    As a single mother, with no family and the only friends she had now hours away, life isn't easy. But the last several years taught her what is truly important and she plans on spending the time she has loving her little girl and keeping her safe and happy. She doesn't plan on her new gorgeous, blue eyed neighbor turning out to be the one thing her and Olivia have been missing.Andrew Carter has been waiting his whole life for a woman like Jocelyn. After his parents died years before, leaving him to care for his little sister, Madison, he spent years patiently waiting for a family of his own. When Jocelyn and Olivia completely steal his heart, he knows his patience has finally paid off and it's time for his life to finally start.What he doesn't know is that Jocelyn is keeping something from him. Something she learned a few years ago.Life is short and sometimes, time isn't on your side.

    Joe’s happy in goal but Geoff wants a headline gig. Viv just wants to beat the lesbians to the league title. Game on.

    In this book, she introduces a prop-supported practice that will help deepen and extend the benefits of yoga. This restorative practice meets you where you are, using props to extend the time you remain in a posture and encouraging self-inquiry, reflection, and relaxation. The use of props allows everyone to receive the benefits of these poses, regardless of physical ability or injury. Restorative Yoga Therapy includes over one hundred photos and clear instructions for seated and supine forward bends, back bends, twists, and inversions, as well as breath work and final relaxation poses. Carey also provides helpful hints and suggested poses to relieve common complaints, including stress, lower back pain, stiff shoulders, PMS and menopause discomfort, and overexertion.

    Metzger is now available in a box set exclusively on Kindle! For one low price, get all 3 books in 1 ebook! Contains the stories: VIVALDI IN THE DARK: Jayden's course changes when he falls for dry violinist Darren. But all is not what it seems, and Jayden is confronted with a dangerous depression that has brought Darren to the edge more than once, and undoubtedly will again. Darren's talent is his own undoing - until a mugging takes the music forcibly away, and Jayden has the chance to change Darren's life and, quite literally, his mind. THE DEVIL'S TRILL SONATA: Jayden is going to university. Dream-chasing and distance have Jayden thinking a break-up with his boyfriend is inevitable - but they've weathered worse storms, right? Wrong. As their relationship fractures, Darren's depression strengthens -- until one night, a rejected call, and drastic action. Too late, Jayden learns where his heart truly lies. The dream is over -- and the reality is far, far worse. RHAPSODY ON A THEME: Their relationship has been repaired since Darren's overdose, but Darren has not. When two attempts at medication fail badly, his partner Jayden fears that the end of this depression will only come with the end of Darren himself. Until Darren is asked to play at Ethan's upcoming wedding. As Darren slowly returns to the music that never quite left him, the shadows finally begin to fade.

    That’s a good thing…because none of that ever happened.Drew Alexander was the one person who knew Cass better than almost anyone, and the friendship that developed in high school carried them to college. Despite the distance, their bond grew stronger, revealing to each of them what they meant to each other. A series of fleeting moments and a string of failed relationships helped them realize that what they really wanted, what they needed, was each other. But that was five years ago, and sometimes things just don’t work out. Now twenty-five, Cass finds herself living in Houston, working at a small publishing house as an editor. By most accounts, she appears happy, however she has managed to avoid a true relationship, opting to channel all of her energy on work, despite protests from her best friend.The only thing that can drag her away is the annual girls’ weekend, which comes at the best possible time, because Cass has just learned life-altering news. With the most recent blow to her life looming overhead, will the getaway with her closest friends change her outlook on life? Or will her inability to put the past behind her stifle any chance she has of moving on? Will she ever be able to open up and let those who love her be there for her?

    The Nazis are in power and war is on the horizon. Timid Sophie Adler is a member of Hitler Youth and a talented amateur photographer. When she contracts polio, her Youth leader supplies her with film. Photographs she takes of fellow polio patients are turned into propaganda, mocking people with disabilities, people just like her. Sophie’s new disability has changed her status. She has joined the ranks of the outsiders, targets of Nazi scorn and possible persecution. Her only weapon is her camera.This book is an Indie B.R.A.G. Medallion Honoree for Historical Fiction.The story concludes in The Path Divided.

    And whether a child has a crummy cold, a ferocious fever, a nasty bite, or a burn from touching a hot stove, pain is confusing and distressing. Why does it feel so bad? Can something make it stop? For all those kids who want to be doctors, scientists, or medical professionals, here’s their first introduction to the way the body works.OUCH! comforts hurting kids by explaining all the different ways they get injured and sick, how their body works, and what parents and doctors can do to make it all better again. It covers all the familiar childhood ailments—upset tummies, sore throats, earaches, allergies, infections, and even poison ivy.Youngsters can explore the armor (like skin) that keeps the bad stuff out, the warriors that attack the stuff that does get in, and the "maintenance crew" that cleans up the mess and heals them. Whether they want to understand what’s wrong and learn what they can expect, or get ready for a future career in medicine, this information—and the accompanying photos and fun illustrations—will take them there.

    She's a thrill seeker with a penchant for extreme sports and a fascination with death. Withdrawn and broody David from English class is the boy of Syd's dreams, but love soon becomes just another extreme sport when Syd finds out that David has cheated on her. Betrayal, loneliness, and a shard of glass set Syd on a course of self-destruction.Will new friends and her love of the stars be enough to pick Syd up from rock bottom and guide her to the path of forgiveness and redemption?

    He snappedthe book shut and shoved it across the table.“I hate reading.”Eleven-year-old Josh’s summer is getting off to a bad start. It’s the first week of vacation, but instead of being out on the water in his nifty sailing dinghy, he’s stuck in the library with the latest in a long string of tutors. Josh is dyslexic—and since he moved out west to live with Dad, a whole new crop of kids have been teasing him about his problems writing and reading.At least Josh loves living at the marina on Dad’s cruising yacht. He’s counting the days until his brother, Matt, still back in Toronto with their mom, comes out to join Josh and his dad for a sailing trip.When a mean classmate, Brittany, bets Josh he can’t beat her in an upcoming boat race, Josh isn’t too worried. With Matt as his racing partner, he’ll stand a good chance. But when the news comes that Matt has to enroll in summer school instead, Josh’s anxiety goes into overdrive. If he loses the race to Brittany, he’ll have to volunteer as a reader at the library—his worst nightmare! It’s time for Josh to prove what he’s made of, and readers will cheer him on as help comes from unexpected quarters.Combining sailing lore, page-turning adventure and gentle humour, first-time novelist Jenny Watson has crafted an engaging, encouraging tale. Josh’s story comes full of inspiration, not just for the learning disabled, but for anyone who has to overcome adversity.