Best of
Illness

2015

Not Negotiable


Samantha A. Cole - 2015
    Dominant Parker Christiansen has been craving the perky, petite submissive ever since he laid his eyes on her, but she’s turned down his every attempt to negotiate with her. When Parker finds out Shelby’s hiding a devastating secret from her friends, he steps in to help, and this time he won’t take no for an answer. Can he convince her he’s fallen in love with her, and if they only have this time together, they should make the best of it?***The Trident Security series contains elements of the BDSM lifestyle, sensual romance, nail-biting suspense, and happily-ever-afters.

The Honest Truth


Dan Gemeinhart - 2015
    He's got a dog named Beau and a best friend, Jessie. He likes to take photos and write haiku poems in his notebook. He dreams of climbing a mountain one day.But in one important way, Mark is not like other kids at all. Mark is sick. The kind of sick that means hospitals. And treatments. The kind of sick some people never get better from.So Mark runs away. He leaves home with his camera, his notebook, his dog, and a plan to reach the top of Mount Rainier--even if it's the last thing he ever does.The Honest Truth is a rare and extraordinary novel about big questions, small moments, and the incredible journey of the human spirit.

One More Day


Auryn Hadley - 2015
    As if that isn't bad enough, getting laid off from her job means Mackenzie can't afford to pay her bills, including the medical ones! She's convinced it's the worst day of her life. Not even meeting that Super Hot Guy from the coffee shop can make it better. Or can it? Ryan has been trying to get the nerve to talk to her for months. Her art is amazing. It's exactly the type of thing he'd like to ink onto his skin forever. For the first time, the beautiful artist wasn't lost in her work. Nope, she was lost in something else. Something that brought tears to those gorgeous eyes. It's the excuse he needs to finally get up the nerve and talk to her. She needs a shoulder, and he's more than willing to give it - plus a job that lets her use her art. Mackenzie never expected to be working in a tattoo parlor, but it will pay the bills, and being around Ryan is pretty nice. Maybe too nice. His shy smiles make her stomach flip, or that could be the chemo. It all comes back to the cancer, so why should she even try? The Super Hot Guy is her boss, and maybe this is as good as her life is going to get... because the cancer's getting worse. Mackenzie may want to protect him, but Ryan isn't going to lose the girl. Not because he's her boss, not because he's too scared to make a move, and he's certainly not going to let some disease screw this up. She thinks the cancer is going to win, but he has other plans. He just needs one more day to prove it, but she may not give him that option. **This book contains some mature situations and is recommended for readers 18+**

Today & Tomorrow


Susan Fanetti - 2015
    Though his family is clamoring for him to return home, he doesn’t feel ready yet—he doesn’t feel that he’s been tested enough. Despite the patch on his back, he’s not sure he’s earned the right to sit in the seat his father once occupied.Analisa Winter meets Nolan when he volunteers to teach her to ride a Harley. Learning to ride is on Analisa’s bucket list, and that list is of paramount importance to her. She is dying, and she’s determined live her full life first.Nolan has no intention of falling in love with a dying girl. But Analisa is the kind of girl you can’t help falling in love with, even when you know that love is doomed.Nolan becomes a man in California, and he learns what kind of man he has become. His story is just beginning.Note: Explicit sex.

House Arrest


K.A. Holt - 2015
    Stealing is bad.Yeah.I know.But my brother Levi is always so sick, and his medicine is always so expensive.I didn’t think anyone would notice,if I took that credit card,if, in one stolen second,I bought Levi’s medicine.But someone did notice.Now I have to prove I’m not a delinquent, I’m not a total bonehead.That one quick second turned intojuviea judgea year of house arrest,a year of this court-ordered journal,a year to avoid messing upand being sent back to juvieso fast my head will spin.It’s only 1 year.Only 52 weeks.Only 365 days.Only 8,760 hours.Only 525,600 minutes.What could go wrong?

The Hairy Bikers Blood, Sweat and Tyres: The Autobiography


Hairy Bikers - 2015
    Born in the north of England, both Si and Dave had their childhood challenges. For Si, being bullied as the fat kid in class was part of his daily school routine. For Dave, his life changed when he became a childhood carer for his mother. But through the challenges of their early years came a love of really good food.And it was food that brought Si and Dave together. Their eyes met over a curry and a pint on the set of a Catherine Cookson drama, and they knew they would be firm and fast friends for life.From deserts to desserts, potholes to pot roasts, the nation's favourite cooking duo reveals what's made their friendship such a special and lasting one. They've eaten their way around the world a good few times, but have never lost sight of what matters: great friends, great family and great food.In this heartwarming memoir of friendship and hilarious misadventure, Si and Dave take you on the ride of their lives!

Maggie's Way


Linda Bradley - 2015
     Maggie’s plans are foiled when precocious seven-year-old Chloe McIntyre moves in next door with her dad, John. Maggie’s life changes in a way she could never imagine when the pesky new neighbors steal her heart. With Maggie’s grown son away, her ex-husband in the shadows, her meddling mother’s unannounced visits, and Chloe McIntyre on her heels, somehow Maggie’s empty house becomes home again.

Coming Home Again


T.I. Lowe - 2015
    LOWE comes an emotional family saga like no other. I've lost myself. Where did I go? Can I find myself? I just don't know... Savannah Monroe dances with demons from a complicated past. Families believe ghosts can be well hidden deep in the ancestral closet, but forget all too easily that those ghosts haunt with abandon. Savannah has to face each one of hers as she heads home again to Bay Creek, South Carolina, after running away over five years ago. The closer she gets to home, the clearer the realization becomes that some skeletons need to be dealt with and properly buried. Mature content due to subject matter dealing with rape.

Any Given Moment


T.I. Lowe - 2015
    Life can change at any given moment. Good or bad, one must make the most of it. Samantha Shaw thought she was giving each moment of her life a fair shot until former pro-football quarterback Wiley Black saunters into her world and shows the sassy tomboy exactly what she’s been missing. A sweet sports romance for fans of happily-ever-afters.

Abuse: The Complete Trilogy


Nikki Sex - 2015
    It has been my joy and my great honor to help those who have lost their way. Not long after I began my journey, I met two such wounded souls. Renata Koreman, my little mouse. She came to me as a child—shy, mute, injured… broken. It took oh-so many years to start to bring her back to herself! Yet, I could not fully heal her. Years later, Grant Wilkinson, he too fell into my hands. The ex-Army Ranger was badly disfigured and saw himself as a monster. Isolated by secrets, solitary and self-contained, his colleagues affectionately named him ‘Frosty.’ Yet, how should one behave when besieged by a lifetime of confusion and guilt? The moment I saw him, I thought of her and I wondered. The eyes, they cannot always see clearly. And the heart? Ah, the heart can only guess at the truth. So it was that I remained uncertain. Could the mouse and the monster heal each other? Behind a backdrop of secrets, scandal, and murder, the ABUSE trilogy (Abuse, Accuse, Avenge) is a realistic journey full of healing, twists, turns and surprises.

Bombshell


Xyla Turner - 2015
    After hearing some life-altering news, she literally bumps into a man who knows what he wants regardless of her situation and is willing to pursue her no matter the costs. Joshua Kelly is a successful business man. He has Samantha in his sights for not only business, but pleasure! He makes her a business proposition that she tries to refuse, then he moves in for the kill with a relationship proposal. She is almost helpless to stay away from him, because he represents the type of dominant man that she wants to avoid but his touch is addictive. Maybe this kind of dominant isn’t so bad.This story is about the realities of sexual encounters and how to move on from what you cannot change. Based loosely on a many true stories.***Standalone Novel, BWWM, Interracial Romance***

The Summer Remains


Seth King - 2015
    The first is that due to a quickly worsening medical condition, she faces a risky surgery in three months’ time that may or may not end in her death. The second is that she would like to fall in love before then.As spring sinks into her namesake season on the Florida coastline, Summer plays the odds and downloads a new dating app - and after one intriguing message from a beautiful surfer named Cooper Nichols, it becomes clear that the story of what may be her last few months under the sun is about to be completely revised. All she has to do now is write something worth reading.Tender, honest, devastating and triumphant, The Summer Remains explores a very human battle being waged in a very digital age: the search for a love that will outlast this temporary borrowing of bones. In an era when many feel compelled to share and re-share anything about everything, prepare to feel a love so special, you will want to hug it close and make it yours forever.

Spark


Erin Noelle - 2015
    My younger brother is getting worse, and my job - my duty - is to help him at all costs. We’ve tried everything modern medicine has to offer and nothing works. Nothing. Deciding to turn to unconventional treatments, we end up at Fire-on-the-Mountain, a holistic resort deep in the Rockies. In our search for medical marijuana, I find beautiful, free-spirited Hudson Shavell - a girl who may not only hold the key to heal my brother, but to fix me as well. Even though I can’t afford distractions right now, she’s all I can think about. All that I want. It’s funny how everything can change with one little SPARK.

How to Live Well with Chronic Pain and Illness: A Mindful Guide


Toni Bernhard - 2015
    Beloved author Toni Bernhard addresses these challenges and many more, using practical examples to illustrate how mindfulness, equanimity, and compassion can help readers make peace with a life turned upside down. In her characteristic conversational style, Bernhard shows how to cope and make the most of life despite the challenges of chronic illness. Benefit from: • Mindfulness exercises to mitigate physical and emotional pain • Concrete advice for negotiating the everyday hurdles of medical appointments, household chores, and social obligations • Tools for navigating the strains illness can place on relationships Several chapters are directed toward family and friends of the chronically ill, helping them to understand what their loved one is going through and how they can help. Humorous and empathetic, Bernhard shares her own struggles and setbacks with unflinching honesty, offering invaluable support in the search to find peace and well-being.

Running Like China


Sophie Hardcastle - 2015
    not until we're in the thick of it. It was like that for Sophie Hardcastle, as the joy she'd always known disappeared. She was constantly tired, with no energy, no motivation and no sense of enjoyment for anything. Her hours became empty. And then, the month before she turned seventeen, that emptiness filled with an intense, unbearable sadness that made her scream and tear her skin.In this brave, bold and beautifully told memoir, Sophie lays bare her story of mental illness - of a teenage girl using drugs, alcohol and sex in an attempt to fix herself; of her family's anguish and her loss of self. It is a courageous and hopeful story of adaptation, learning to accept and of ultimately realising that no matter how deep you have sunk, the surface is always within reach.

Unruly


Cora Brent - 2015
    At the end we found each other.Along the way we found everything else.” After a humiliating betrayal, Claudia Giordano heads home only long enough to watch her irresponsible father, Jack, marry her old high school nemesis. Claudia doesn’t believe in love stories anymore. But she never planned on connecting with a wild young baseball player named Easton Malone. She tells herself Easton is cocky, careless and a bad choice on every level. The only option is to forget the hot, reckless week they shared, no matter what her heart says. ***Jack Giordano thinks that after all the mistakes he’s made since becoming a teenage father he’s finally found his happily ever after with sweet Anya. Jack believes love can conquer anything. But he didn’t understand how the joy of building the perfect family would dissolve into agony as he watches the girl of his dreams fade away. *** In the midst of one couple’s tragic ending, another will find a new beginning. And it turns out the most unruly collision of two hearts might have been fated all along…

Better: How I Let Go of Control, Held On to Hope, and Found Joy in My Darkest Hour


Amy Robach - 2015
    In this intimate memoir she retraces the twelve months following her announcement and speaks candidly, for the first time, about how her illness affected her family life and her marriage, tapped into her deepest fears and strengths, and transformed her in ways she never could have imagined.Only weeks earlier, in September 2013, ABC producers asked Robach to get an on-air mammogram to highlight Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Her first instinct was to say no—there was no history of cancer in her family, she was only forty years old, and she felt strange drawing attention to herself when she had no personal connection to the issue. (She’d been meaning to get her first mammogram that year but had conveniently “lost” the prescription.) Her colleague Robin Roberts, herself a cancer survivor, convinced her to do it with one simple sentence: “I can pretty much guarantee it will save a life.”To Robach’s surprise, the life she saved was her own: Tests revealed malignant tumors in her breast, and she immediately underwent a bilateral mastectomy, followed by six months of chemotherapy treatments.Better is more than a story of illness and recovery. Robach recounts the day she and her husband, Andrew Shue, got the terrible news; the difficulty of telling her two young daughters, and the challenges of carrying on with the everyday duties of parenting, nurturing a fledgling second marriage, and managing a public career. She lays bare the emotional toll of her experience and mines her past for the significant moments that gave her the resilience to face each day. And she describes the incredible support network that lifted her when she hit bottom.With honesty, humility, and humor, Robach connects deeply with women just like her who have struggled with any kind of sudden adversity. More important, she shares valuable wisdom about the power of the human spirit to endure the worst—and find the way to better.

Small Acts of Disappearance


Fiona Wright - 2015
    Fiona Wright is a highly regarded poet and critic, and her account of her illness is informed by a keen sense of its contradictions and deceptions, and by an awareness of the empowering effects of hunger, which is unsparing in its consideration of the author’s own actions and motivations. The essays offer perspectives on the eating disorder at different stages in Wright’s life, at university, where she finds herself in a radically different social world to the one she grew up in, in Sri Lanka as a fledgling journalist, in Germany as a young writer, in her hospital treatments back in Sydney. They combine research, travel writing, memoir, and literary discussions of how writers like Christina Stead, Carmel Bird, Tim Winton, John Berryman and Louise Glück deal with anorexia and addiction; together with accounts of family life, and detailed and humorous views of hunger-induced situations of the kind that are so compelling in Wright’s poetry.

Happily Ever Never


Jennifer Foor - 2015
    We had it all; a life that most could only wish for. I felt like the luckiest woman in the world.Then, in the blink of an eye, it was taken from me.Now I can’t grasp how to move forward. I don’t even think I want to. Whether I’m dead or alive, my happily ever after is NEVER going to happen.

Poison Genius Consort (Poison Genius Consort #1)


芥沫 (Jie Mo) - 2015
    Supported by millions, he was Tianning’s most respected duke with the power to move all under Heaven. On their wedding day the bridal sedan was carried to the front doors, but the Duke of Qin’s gates were shut tight.They told her, ‘Come back tomorrow.’All alone, she walked step-by-step full of pride through the duke’s doors. Little could they imagine, this unattractive good-for-nothing was a beautiful, genius doctor of poisons!—After transmigrating to the past, poisons expert Han Yunxi finds herself on the verge of being married off to the country’s second most powerful man, the Duke of Qin. Her future life seems set–except her husband is an unfeeling ice block, her in-laws think she’s a eyesore, the empress dowager wants to use her for her own goals, and poison-related plots abound.Alone, the intelligent (and sensible) Yunxi must carve her own space from the intricate web of court intrigue and the jianghu, relying on her words, wits, and wisdom to survive. Adapt when necessary, use force when required; to survive and thrive is the name of the game to a prosperous life.No matter what, she’ll prove her right to live!

Between Love and Lies


Jacqui Nelson - 2015
    Now she works in Dodge—one of the most wicked and lawless towns in the West—at the Northern Star saloon. But her survival in this new world of sin and violence depends on maintaining a secret so deadly it could end her life before the town of Dodge can.The one man capable of unraveling all of Sadie's secrets is Noah Ballantyne, the Texan rancher whose herd destroyed her home. Back in town and taking up the role of deputy alongside legendary lawman Bat Masterson, Noah vows he won't leave until he's made things right. But with the saloon’s madam unwilling to release Sadie and a rich cattle baron wanting her as well, the odds aren’t in favor of finding love...or leaving town alive.

Saving Her


Alexis Noelle - 2015
    Love is meant for fairy tales, not real life. My heart was crushed by a man who promised me everything and then took it all away. He proved to me that you never really know someone. But this man makes me want to throw caution to the wind. I don’t want love, but I do want Mason Brooks.Love is a fantasy. Something that people convince themselves is real, but it isn’t. I was taught at a very young age that love is toxic. Since then I have learned to need no one. Only my small group of friends is given my loyalty. I have no use for love. Even though I know she's dangerous, she makes me wonder what her touch would feel like. Lacey Hunt is toxic to me.When two people are irreparably broken can they rise from the ashes?Can love exist in two black hearts?

My Degeneration: A Journey Through Parkinson's


Peter Dunlap-Shohl - 2015
    This graphic novel tracks Dunlap-Shohl's journey through depression, the worsening symptoms of the disease, the juggling of medications and their side effects, the impact on relations with family and community, and the raft of mental and physical changes wrought by the malady.My Degeneration examines the current state of Parkinson's care, including doctor/patient relations and the repercussions of a disease that, among other things, impairs movement, can rob patients of their ability to speak or write, degrades sufferers' ability to deal with complexity, and interferes with the sense of balance. Readers learn what it's like to undergo a dramatic, demanding, and audacious bit of high-tech brain surgery that can mysteriously restore much of a patient's control over symptoms. But My Degeneration is more than a Parkinson's memoir. Dunlap-Shohl gives the person newly diagnosed with Parkinson's disease the information necessary to cope with it on a day-to-day basis. He chronicles the changes that life with the disease can bring to the way one sees the world and the way one is seen by the wider community. Dunlap-Shohl imparts a realistic basis for hope--hope not only to carry on, but to enjoy a decent quality of life.

True Love Way


Mary Elizabeth - 2015
    It’s betrayed her.Unable to escape the imbalance she was born with, waking up in the morning is a never-ending game of Russian Roulette. After moving to a new town, she’s afraid no one will understand the cloud cover above Castle Rain, Washington isn’t the only reason everything’s gloomy.Until she’s introduced to Dillon Decker, her new neighbor. Dillion offers Penelope stability like she’s never known before. He shines a light on her dark days, and he’s determined to be the cure to her madness. But when friends turn to lovers, and one lover becomes a caretaker, how much can either of them tolerate before they're swallowed whole?A story about epic first loves and the struggle to keep it sane. The true love way.

In the Nick of Time


Tiana Laveen - 2015
    There is a Part 1 and Part 2 included in this ONE TIME purchase. (Hence, the reason for the page count.)WARNING: This novel is intended for mature audiences only (18+).Tick tock…Officer Nick Vitale has worked his way up to becoming one of the most-respected and talented cops in Brooklyn, New York. Yet, for many years, he has harbored a destructive secret. When he witnesses a horrific murder-suicide that rattles him to the core, he finally realizes he has reached rock bottom. In a last ditch effort to help himself and turn his life around, he seeks professional assistance, fully aware his time is running out.A doll with a beating heart…Taryn Jones is a mystery who wastes no time with putting Nick in his place during their awkward first meeting. The world-renowned supermodel is battling her own demons, yet, in healing herself, she also finds time to be a bright ray of sunshine for others in need. She dives headfirst into her therapy, determined to succeed, and reaches deep within to find the inner strength required to start afresh and pursue her new dreams.When Beauty meets Beast, the unthinkable happens…Nick and Taryn forge a strong friendship built on respect and restraint, until their control slips and sparks fly. Through the challenges of their respective addictions and the dark shadows of their past, they find the joy of nourishing the seeds of a love they can no longer deny.Time is running out…Nick works hard to gain the trust of his colleagues, while Taryn strives to find her own way in the beginning stages of a new endeavor. This is the time of reckoning, when temptation and doubt rear their ugly heads to awaken old pain and fears. In this race toward redemption, will Nick and Taryn’s hearts and lives be saved in the nick of time?

Handle Me with Care


Helen J. Rolfe - 2015
    She lost the love of her life in the 9/11 attacks, and since then has hopped from one casual fling to the next. But when she delivers an erotic cake to a one-hundredth birthday party by mistake, she meets Evan and starts to believe in second chances … until she realises there’s a risk of getting hurt all over again. Evan Quinn is serially single, yet when he meets Maddie he feels an instant connection, so much so that he confesses on their first date that he may have testicular cancer. Was it a mistake to tell her? He wants Maddie more than he has ever wanted any other woman. But he doesn’t want her pity.With the odds stacked against them both, finding love won’t be easy. But beneath the Australian sun, a Happy Ever After could be worth fighting for.

Highlander's Winter Tale


Donna Fletcher - 2015
    To keep Dawn’s mind off her disappointment and entertain some of the villagers who have sought the safety of the keep, Old Mary tells a tale—Winter Tale—that enthralls as much as it frightens.At the end of the tale, a stranger suddenly appears and peculiar things begin to happen in the keep. Could the tale be true? Did Old Mary release the evil of the Winter Tale upon the village? Cree will not hear of such nonsense, but when some in the keep begin to fall ill along with Old Mary and Elsa, the healer, Cree begins to wonder. And he knows it will not be long before his wife does as she pleases and searches for the truth, possibly placing herself in danger.Is the stranger a mere man who seeks shelter from the storm or the phantom of Winter Tale?

when Time stood still


K.S. Adkins - 2015
    We go to sleep by it. Wake up to it. Rely on it. Race it.It's easy to forget that we're only given so much.We ignore it because we're convinced we'll always have more.I am proof that we aren't promised anything.The clock owes us nothing.I know this because not only was Time my name, I wasn't given enough of it.Sure I had challenges but I vowed to make the most of it, of my young life.My limitations wouldn't hold me back.Time was on my side.Then I was told otherwise.Now the clock was working against me.I would face this disease alone.Then he walked in and changed everything.He gave me a reason to fight.He helped me prepare.Like others before me, when time slowed I wasn't ready.I begged for more.But the clock, it stopped for no one.On the day my world went black, I refused to take him with me.Only he didn't listen.I was a doctor.A bringer of bad news.I read the chart.She was fucked.My hands, they were tied.I was a doctor who could not heal what was beyond that door.I had no hope to offer her.But I wanted this over with.The sooner the better.I walked in, looked up and saw color.Not one.All of them.They surrounded her.She was a patient.You did not cross that line.I would not cross that line.I should have kept my eyes closed.Life was easier when you didn't see.But they were open now.They saw her.They saw everything.Suddenly invisible lines ceased to matter.For me, Time mattered.How far would you go to make sure the one you loved had enough of it?Would you challenge the clock?Help them prepare?Could you watch them suffer?Could you accept a life without them in it?Or, would you follow them into the darkness?I did. This is our story.

The Explain Pain Handbook Protectometer


G. Lorimer Moseley - 2015
    David Butler.Based on the most up-to-date research and the Explain Pain book, it allows patients experiencing pain to explore their unique pain story.The centrepiece of the handbook the ProtectometerTM is an interactive device that allows patients and therapists to gain a deeper understanding of the experience and establish an individualized treatment and education plan.

Bittersweet


Kimberly Loth - 2015
    She doesn’t know how the emails work but she’s finally ready to start looking for answers. To find those answers she has to go to the one place she swore she’d never set foot in after he died—Haunted Valley, the amusement park. Once there and on the hunt for answers she is distracted by the charming Dallas and falls hard for him. When the answers she finds aren’t what she expected and Dallas betrays her, Savannah must make a choice—succumb to the insanity that destroyed her father or find the strength to rise above it.

Summer Ever After


M.C. Cerny - 2015
    I finished law school…passed the bar, got a good job…followed the rules, but it’s never been good enough. Roman Winters awakened something inside me besides complacency working under my dad’s thumb and dating Lucas the loser. Roman saw something inside me worth breaking the rules for… Roman… She was a blonde bombshell brat toting fancy luggage and a chip on her shoulder. Knocking her down a peg became a game, until I started to feel things I hadn’t felt in a long time. I had worked hard to keep things superficial, avoid commitments because the people I loved always left me. Abigail Holliday demanded more from my already broken heart and I wondered if it would be so horrible to give in… It started as one summer, but our story begins the summer ever after… *** A standalone romance with a long sought after HEA. Previously published in the Nighttides Anthology (2014) for charity, this story is now approximately 75,000 words. I hope you, my darling readers enjoy your #RomanHolliday. ***

Dementia: The One-Stop Guide: Practical advice for families, professionals, and people living with dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease


June Andrews - 2015
    Hundreds of millions of people are affected by the dementia of parents, partners, siblings or friends. And as much of the world struggles with an aging population, dementia is set to become ever more of a challenge for societies and individuals.But still, most people who are diagnosed, or who are dealing with the diagnosis of a loved one, feel as though they are alone. Dementia: The One-Stop Guide aims to fill this gap, providing practical information and support for living with, or caring for, dementia.With clear and sensible information about recognising symptoms, getting help, managing financially, staying at home, treatment, being a carer and staying positive, this guide will help those with dementia and their families to make sure that they can stay well and happy as long as possible.

Resignation


Steve Genis - 2015
    

Poison Genius Consort (Poison Genius Consort #3)


芥沫 (Jie Mo) - 2015
    Supported by millions, he was Tianning’s most respected duke with the power to move all under Heaven. On their wedding day the bridal sedan was carried to the front doors, but the Duke of Qin’s gates were shut tight.They told her, ‘Come back tomorrow.’All alone, she walked step-by-step full of pride through the duke’s doors. Little could they imagine, this unattractive good-for-nothing was a beautiful, genius doctor of poisons!—After transmigrating to the past, poisons expert Han Yunxi finds herself on the verge of being married off to the country’s second most powerful man, the Duke of Qin. Her future life seems set–except her husband is an unfeeling ice block, her in-laws think she’s a eyesore, the empress dowager wants to use her for her own goals, and poison-related plots abound.Alone, the intelligent (and sensible) Yunxi must carve her own space from the intricate web of court intrigue and the jianghu, relying on her words, wits, and wisdom to survive. Adapt when necessary, use force when required; to survive and thrive is the name of the game to a prosperous life.No matter what, she’ll prove her right to live!

The Empty Form Goes All the Way to Heaven


Brian Teare - 2015
    Teachers are sought and rejected (the Buddha, Christian thinkers, an Abstract Expressionist painter); illness is at once personless violence and a means of perfection; the body, both physical and a nostalgic memory from the days before sickness. There is also heaven itself: something Agnes Martin’s Buddhist readings would insist is possible and current on earth, but a notion that the sufferer ruptures by existing. The space of the hospital—designed to be as utilitarian and perfect as graph paper, filled however with blood tests, nausea, vomiting, weeping—becomes a palpable hell. Teare’s title is in this way wishful thinking, a goal prayed for: perhaps the form of the body, emptied of the illness that entered it uninvited, can attain heaven, though altered by messy suffering. Indeed, the calmed body may be a new object entirely, as void as it is beautifully scarred by its new understanding: “form empties itself / on its way to heaven.”“Titled with Agnes Martin’s singularly flowing lines, these poems weave phrases from writers as rangy as Larry Eigner and Rosalind Krauss, Antonio Damasio and Maurice Blanchot together with an evolving examination of the immediate experience of illness and pain. In The Empty Form Goes All the Way to Heaven, a kind of stillness gradually builds through these carefully-shaped pieces, a distilled poise in which one comes to hear Agnes Martin as one simultaneously sees the Zen koan that the collection itself slowly, precisely forms.” —Cole Swensen“To live we must bring perception and proprioception into alignment; outer and inner must correspond. Disease threatens this correspondence. Teare, struggling with illness, searches for lost balance through an intense engagement with the painting of Agnes Martin. These achingly beautiful poems demonstrate the ways that, as Dickinson puts it, ‘After great pain, a formal feeling comes.’” —Rae Armantrout“After centuries of poets and painters collaborating comes this very different and remarkable integration of artistic forces. Brian Teare placed his body and poems into the Agnes Martin grid for a holistic magic that, as he writes, ‘I couldn’t tell / until I held it’ and we feel all the unloved places of our world rise up with him. It is rare to bear such change with the poet. Do not pass by this book without grabbing it.” —CAConrad(from the publisher's website)

The Ghost of You


Amanda Burckhard - 2015
    But one night rips it all away.A car accident shatters her world, claiming the lives of her twin brother and her best friend. In the wake of the accident, her friends drift away, her family falls apart, and her boyfriend cheats. The grief is more than she can handle, so she finds escape at the bottom of a bottle of painkillers. Taking the pills makes her brother alive again, if only in her head. Seeing and talking to her brother as if he were still alive is the only thing that keeps her going. Until Logan King moves to town.Logan sees past the mask of pristine popularity she wears in public and he’s the only one who can tell she hasn’t moved on. His uncanny ability to read her forces her to open up and she starts to fall for him, no matter how unwilling she is to admit it. But Emmy isn’t the only one keeping secrets and when a close brush with death sparks events that bring everything to light, Emmy will have to decide what’s more important: learning how to forgive and move on, or holding onto the pills and the ghost of her past."A lovely, haunting, captivating tale from the first page to the last. It grips your heart and keeps it until the very end." - Natalie Decker

Poison Genius Consort (Poison Genius Consort #2)


芥沫 (Jie Mo) - 2015
    Supported by millions, he was Tianning’s most respected duke with the power to move all under Heaven. On their wedding day the bridal sedan was carried to the front doors, but the Duke of Qin’s gates were shut tight.They told her, ‘Come back tomorrow.’All alone, she walked step-by-step full of pride through the duke’s doors. Little could they imagine, this unattractive good-for-nothing was a beautiful, genius doctor of poisons!—After transmigrating to the past, poisons expert Han Yunxi finds herself on the verge of being married off to the country’s second most powerful man, the Duke of Qin. Her future life seems set–except her husband is an unfeeling ice block, her in-laws think she’s a eyesore, the empress dowager wants to use her for her own goals, and poison-related plots abound.Alone, the intelligent (and sensible) Yunxi must carve her own space from the intricate web of court intrigue and the jianghu, relying on her words, wits, and wisdom to survive. Adapt when necessary, use force when required; to survive and thrive is the name of the game to a prosperous life.No matter what, she’ll prove her right to live!

King-Cat Comics and Stories #75


John Porcellino - 2015
    

Poison Genius Consort (Poison Genius Consort #4)


芥沫 (Jie Mo) - 2015
    Supported by millions, he was Tianning’s most respected duke with the power to move all under Heaven. On their wedding day the bridal sedan was carried to the front doors, but the Duke of Qin’s gates were shut tight.They told her, ‘Come back tomorrow.’All alone, she walked step-by-step full of pride through the duke’s doors. Little could they imagine, this unattractive good-for-nothing was a beautiful, genius doctor of poisons!—After transmigrating to the past, poisons expert Han Yunxi finds herself on the verge of being married off to the country’s second most powerful man, the Duke of Qin. Her future life seems set–except her husband is an unfeeling ice block, her in-laws think she’s a eyesore, the empress dowager wants to use her for her own goals, and poison-related plots abound.Alone, the intelligent (and sensible) Yunxi must carve her own space from the intricate web of court intrigue and the jianghu, relying on her words, wits, and wisdom to survive. Adapt when necessary, use force when required; to survive and thrive is the name of the game to a prosperous life.No matter what, she’ll prove her right to live!

The Painful Truth: What Chronic Pain Is Really Like and Why It Matters to Each of Us


Lynn R. Webster - 2015
    It is a despoiler of dreams and a thief. Chronic pain can appear suddenly in a person's life, changing it forever. Dr. Lynn R. Webster puts a face on chronic pain through the lives of his patients, and provides an intimate view of what it is like to live with it. The Painful Truth will open your eyes to the world of those who are stigmatized and marginalized by our society and healthcare system. Yet the new book offers hope and a path forward for those willing to engage in a crusade against the human race's primal enemy--pain.

Hell Before Their Very Eyes: American Soldiers Liberate Concentration Camps in Germany, April 1945


John C. McManus - 2015
    In the weeks that followed, as more camps were discovered, thousands of soldiers came face to face with the monstrous reality of Hitler’s Germany.These men discovered the very depths of human-imposed cruelty and depravity: railroad cars stacked with emaciated, lifeless bodies; ovens full of incinerated human remains; warehouses filled with stolen shoes, clothes, luggage, and even eyeglasses; prison yards littered with implements of torture and dead bodies; and―perhaps most disturbing of all―the half-dead survivors of the camps. For the American soldiers of all ranks who witnessed such powerful evidence of Nazi crimes, the experience was life altering. Almost all were haunted for the rest of their lives by what they had seen, horrified that humans from ostensibly civilized societies were capable of such crimes.Military historian John C. McManus sheds new light on this often-overlooked aspect of the Holocaust. Drawing on a rich blend of archival sources and thousands of firsthand accounts―including unit journals, interviews, oral histories, memoirs, diaries, letters, and published recollections― Hell Before Their Very Eyes focuses on the experiences of the soldiers who liberated Ohrdruf, Buchenwald, and Dachau and their determination to bear witness to this horrific history.

Let Me Be Weak: What People in Pain Wish They Could Tell You


Brittany Barbera - 2015
    This book will be a valuable resource and comfort for many raised in the Christian Church, who feel the stigma surrounding conversations about mental and emotional health, and the manner in which God heals our wounds. In a world where we are praised for being self-sufficient, we feel isolated and embarrassed when we find ourselves struggling. Unsettled by the surge of emotions we work so hard to hide, we develop pain resistance, and complicate the work of healing because it is a messy and uncomfortable process. Additionally, our lack of empathy makes it difficult for people to be share their experiences with us, for fear of being judged or labeled "too sensitive." As a result, our relationships lack depth and we feel disconnected, especially during seasons of grief-and too often, our 'help' is poorly received among those that need it most. Unlike the advice found in many self-help books, Barbera refuses to oversimplify the complex nature of grief. She does not insult the bereaved with insensitive platitudes or suggest pain management secrets that will quickly take the pain away in 5 easy steps. Instead, she prioritizes mental health awareness, shares wisdom and stories from her personal trials and asks questions about faith, God and our emotions, as we journey toward healing. Drawing on personal experience and learning by watching the people she loves walk through the most devastating moments of their lives, Barbera's depth of understanding and ability to articulate the plight of the wounded heart are revealed on each page. Let Me Be Weak: What People in Pain Wish They Could Tell You sheds light on the struggles people face during times of loss and demonstrates how to respond appropriately, by: -Honoring those courageous enough to admit their limitations and ask for what they need -Giving ourselves permission to feel our feelings, even when they make us uncomfortable -Increasing our capacity for empathy and self-compassion -Listening without judgment or a hidden agenda -Enduring silence and finding peace, when the answers don't come -Having faith that the whole world won't fall apart, even if someone you love does -Learning how to love yourself, even though you are imperfect Follow the advice in this book and you will develop the courage to let down your guard and push past the discomfort, in order to become the kind of person others can trust with their pain and suffering. We all need a friend whose words are honest and graceful, whose commitment to us is unwavering, even in our darkest hours. What's stopping you from becoming that kind of friend? Scroll to the top and click the "buy now" button.

Neck Check: Chronic Neck Pain Relief Once and For All (Super Spine)


Sean Sumner - 2015
     Living with neck pain makes life a chore instead of a joy. It affects everything you do, including computer work, getting in and out of your car, or even simply washing the dishes. When your neck hurts, your movements become more difficult and stressed, causing more tension and pain. It is a nasty cycle that keeps you from ever truly getting pain free and healthy. Dealing with neck pain it can be scary and it's hard to know what to do without making time to see a doctor, physical therapist, or chiropractor for advice. And even when you make the decision to get professional help, should you see a specialist or not? How many times have you wanted to try something but were scared, not knowing if it would help the pain or make things worse? Should you use ice, heat, or alternate between the two? Should you get a massage or will that make things worse? Don't waste any more time and energy dealing with neck pain without a plan. Don't wait for someone to come along with the magical cure or continue to rely on medications. You do not have to live with neck pain. The truth is that you that you do not have to keep living this way. There are ways to get rid of the pain once and for all. In this book, I will share what I have learned from over a decade of treating all types of patients with neck pain. Whether you are an office worker who sits at a desk all day, an electrician who relies on his neck to be able to look up, or even if you are retired and starting to experience arthritic pain from simple wear and tear over the years, this book will show you that there are things you can do to keep your neck healthy and pain free. Hundreds of people just like you, who used the strategies in this book, are now living pain-free. They learned how to keep their necks strong and healthy and so can you. Learn what you can do at home. You will learn the exact strategies that I teach my patients each day, including things like when to use heat or cold, which stretches work best, how to calm a muscle spasm, how to set up your desk and workplace, and more. Take action and learn the specific you can start doing today to bring back the joy of pain-free life and get your neck in better shape for the future. Get expert advice without the copay In this book, I will share what I have learned from over a decade of treating all types of patients with neck pain. Whether you are an office worker who sits at a desk all day, an electrician who relies on his neck to be able to look up, or even if you are retired and starting to experience arthritic pain from simple wear and tear over the years, this book will show you that there are things you can do to keep your neck healthy and pain free. I will teach you the exact strategies that I teach my patients each day, including things like when to use heat or cold, which stretches work best, how to calm a muscle spasm, how to set up your desk and workplace, and more. Take action and learn the specific you can start doing today to bring back the joy of pain-free life and get your neck in better shape for the future.

The Family Tooth: A Memoir


Ellis Avery - 2015
    THE FAMILY TOOTH is a cancer story sandwiched inside a grief-and-food memoir, but more than that, it’s a story of hope and, ultimately, triumph: it tells the story of the medical and psychological sleuthing that enabled her to walk again by the end of the year.The thread that pulls this whole book together is food, both in terms of the dietary changes that helped Avery out of the scooter and onto her feet and in the way that she comes to recognize her mother’s appetite in her own. She begins the book unsypmathetic to her mother’s alcoholism, and, through learning both that she can control her pain through diet and that not eating what she wants (day after day, eleven hundred meals a year) might be the hardest thing she’s ever done, she discovers a deeper compassion for her mother than she’d previously imagined.Along the way, this memoir shows a queer marriage of thirteen years weathering the stresses of grief and illness with as much grace as possible, rising to the occasion of mortal fear with a wedding at City Hall.

Pain is Really Strange


Steve Haines - 2015
    The narrator in this original, gently humorous book explains pain in an easy-to-understand, engaging graphic format and reveals how to change the mind's habits to transform pain.

Thicker Than Bone


Matthew J. Metzger - 2015
    A committed vegetarian, charity-supporter, and blood donor, Ali would do anything for anyone. Ali may share parentage with Tony, but he’s determined not to share anything else if he can help it.So when Tony contracts leukaemia, and Ali is the only match for the urgently-needed bone marrow transplant, Ali is caught between two equally awful choices: to refuse and condemn a man to death, or to donate.And in donating, save the life of the man who nearly murdered Ali's Iraqi boyfriend?

Avalon


J. Scott Coatsworth - 2015
    It's clear to him that it won't be long, so when Jake asks to go to the ocean, Tony leaps at the chance to do something to make him happy. But when they get lost in the fog after wandering farther down the beach than Tony has ever gone, a deserted cottage beckons them by the water. There's magic in the little house by the sea, and it will change them both forever. Note: This short story first appeared in the MCB Quarterly

The Cruel Country


Judith Ortiz Cofer - 2015
    This richly textured, deeply moving, lyrical memoir centers on Cofer’s return to her native Puerto Rico after her mother has been diagnosed with late-stage lung cancer. Cofer’s work has always drawn strength from her life’s contradictions and dualities, such as the necessities and demands of both English and Spanish, her travels between and within various mainland and island subcultures, and the challenges of being a Latina living in the U.S. South. Interlaced with these far-from-common tensions are dualities we all share: our lives as both sacred and profane, our negotiation of both child and adult roles, our desires to be the person who belongs and also the person who is different. What we discover in The Cruel Country is how much Cofer has heretofore held back in her vivid and compelling writing. This journey to her mother’s deathbed has released her to tell the truth within the truth. She arrives at her mother’s bedside as a daughter overcome by grief, but she navigates this cruel country as a writer—an acute observer of detail, a relentless and insistent questioner.

The Dutiful Daughter's Guide to Caregiving: A Practical Memoir


Judith Henry - 2015
    As Judith looks back at her childhood, and reveals intimate stories about assisting both her parents years later, she also shares practical suggestions and critical information on topics every son and daughter should know as their own caregiving journey begins. Delivered in a no-nonsense style, with a healthy dose of humor, this is a guide to buy in bulk. One for you, and the rest for all your friends with aging parents.

Shattered Hearts


Stacy Lynn Carroll - 2015
    Thrown into the world of pornography, therapy, and support groups, Sarah must find a way to forgive before she drowns in betrayal and despair. The task before her seems impossible as she struggles to care for their five children on her own. Growing up without religion in her life, Sarah is forced to make difficult choices and finds herself being drawn to a higher power she never understood. But with the help of a mysterious friend, Sarah just might be able to piece back together the life, and the love, she and her husband once shared.

The Power of Resilience: How the Best Companies Manage the Unexpected


Yosef Sheffi - 2015
    State-of-the-art passenger jets are grounded because of a malfunctioning part. A strike halts shipments through a major port. A new digital device decimates the sales of other brands and sends established firms to the brink of bankruptcy. The interconnectedness of the global economy today means that unexpected events in one corner of the globe can ripple through the world's supply chain and affect customers everywhere. In this book, Yossi Sheffi shows why modern vulnerabilities call for innovative processes and tools for creating and embedding corporate resilience and risk management. Sheffi offers fascinating case studies that illustrate how companies have prepared for, coped with, and come out stronger following disruption--from the actions of Intel after the 2011 Japanese tsunami to the disruption in the "money supply chain" caused by the 2008 financial crisis.Sheffi, author of the widely read The Resilient Enterprise, focuses here on deep tier risks as well as corporate responsibility, cybersecurity, long-term disruptions, business continuity planning, emergency operations centers, detection, and systemic disruptions. Supply chain risk management, Sheffi shows, is a balancing act between taking on the risks involved in new products, new markets, and new processes--all crucial for growth--and the resilience created by advanced risk management.

League Of Mortals


Duncan Cross - 2015
    His story will resonate with those who’ve experienced illness at a young age, but equally, it will find its way into the hearts of any reader who has come of age." - Elizabeth Scarboro, author of My Foreign Cities."I love this story... the emotions and the realities of illness were presented with such authenticity, and with humor and wit" - Laurie Edwards, author of In The Kingdom of the Sick."Duncan Cross's vividly written novel is an addictive page turner for young adults coping with lesser talked about and life altering diseases. It's a refreshing rarity to read about the subject of chronic illness from a guy's perspective."- Kairol Rosenthal, author of Everything Changes: The Insider's Guide to Cancer in Your 20s and 30s."With League of Mortals, Cross captures the chaos and frustration of contending with a disease while young, and tells it in a witty and engaging voice." - Caitlin Caven, columnist for Psychology Today.League of Mortals is the most honest thing you will ever read about illness: a razor-sharp story told with shocking candor, fierce wit, and deep compassion. Wesley Peary gets sick just before his senior year, and in short order loses his job, his friends, and his fun - everything but his mind. When that goes, too, he finds the only person who can help is in even worse shape than he is.League of Mortals begins as Wesley gets sick the summer before his senior year. As he shuffles from one diagnosis to another, Wesley befriends Travis, an older boy with a terminal disease. Meanwhile, Wesley contends with his fussbudget English teacher and a girlfriend with hospital issues, each a monster in her own way.Wesley tells the story as a memoir, looking back to 1994 – when music was terrible, health reform was hot, and the Internet was brand new. As Wesley gets worse, life gets harder - his girlfriend torments him, his English teacher humiliates him, and even his doctors push him to despair. In coming to terms with his illness, Wesley endures the unbearable, commits the unthinkable, and considers the unforgivable. The result is a gripping exploration of life, youth, illness, hope, and death.Duncan Cross writes 'the best-written patient blog on the web', and has written for Change.org and Kevin, MD. He has contributed to two books on chronic illness, including Laurie Edwards's In the Kingdom of the Sick. He founded Patients for A Moment, the first blog carnival for people with chronic illness. Cross has won several contests and awards for writing, in particular the Muir Prize for Literary Humour from the University of St. Andrews.League of Mortals is his debut novel, a semi-autobiographical account of his first year with chronic illness. In the book, Cross reveals details of his life that are humiliating, infuriating, and crushing - not simply to shock, but because lives like his are long absent from literature and pop culture. With League of Mortals, Cross at last shines ruthless light on a subject that has been kept in darkness far too long.Note: because League of Mortals is above all honest, it contains scenes that may upset or offend some readers - including bathroom scenes, adult content, medical procedures, mild violence, and extremely dark comedy. While the content may be appropriate for late teen readers, League of Mortals not intended for young adults, and young readers will benefit from parental guidance.Smashwords 2nd Edition: fixes typos and formatting problems.