Apprehensive about spending the rest of her existence in a void of nothingness in Nowheresville, Florida, where she currently lives with her painfully intrusive family, she decides to tip her life over into any kind of surrealism she can lay her hands on. Shortly after graduation and a heated fight with her mother featuring an airborne toaster, Hester's life takes a turn for the better when she notices a billboard with two wide-eyed children and the catchy phrase "All they want for Christmas is a family." What better way to drive a chainsaw through her placid existence? But when the adoption agency rejects her application to adopt a child, she realizes she must do something more drastic to derail the mediocre life threatening to spread out before her. Having found herself stuck in a camper named Arlene with Fenton Flaherty, her nemesis from the library (who, through a series of interesting events is now also Hester's husband), Jethro, Hester's ten-year-old cousin, and Duncan Clyde, a.k.a. "Jesus Freak," who is traveling along the side of the road asking passersby to sign his life-sized cross, Hester is quickly freed from anything even remotely mediocre (or normal, for that matter) about her life. Preposterously dysfunctional, side-splittingly funny, and surprisingly touching, The Potential Hazards of Hester Day is an adventure that you'll want to experience again and again.

    Before the vampire can kidnap her, there is an unexpected rescue by a group of vampire hunters. Overwhelmed by the feeling of safety, Chloe passes out and they whisk her away to their small community. When Chloe wakes, she comes face to face with the only other living relative, besides her mother, whom she has ever met: her grandfather.Through her grandfather, she learns her mother was a vampire hunter. In fact, her entire family is descended from the powerful bloodlines of vampire hunters. Chloe agrees to join the family she has never known for one reason only: Chloe vows to kill the vampire responsible for her mother’s murder.With vengeance in her soul, Chloe is even more determined to follow through on her vow when she discovers the true identity of her enemy and how he is connected to her.So, she begins to train hard, mentored by Drew, the young hunter who saved her and lives with her grandfather. Although she is directly descended from ancient, powerful vampire hunters, the rigorous training schedule begins to break her down.Chloe also experiences her first Christmas without her mother. As part of the grieving process she visits her mother’s grave for the first time and there, she is visited by Sostrate, the immortal demi-god from whom she is descended.As she comes of age, Chloe is changing and developing the gifts unique to her heritage. She discovers a new power she must learn to use and control. During this emotionally chaotic time in her life, the community is attacked, her grandfather injured and hunters are killed. After almost losing her only remaining family, Chloe questions whether her continued presence in the community will sacrifice everyone she has come to care about.

    Then about the murders, which happened later."When fifteen-year-old Dell Parsons' parents rob a bank, his sense of normal life is forever altered. In an instant, this private cataclysm drives his life into before and after, a threshold that can never be uncrossed.His parents' arrest and imprisonment mean a threatening and uncertain future for Dell and his twin sister, Berner. Willful and burning with resentment, Berner flees their home in Montana, abandoning her brother and her life. But Dell is not completely alone. A family friend intervenes, spiriting him across the Canadian border, in hopes of delivering him to a better life. There, afloat on the prairie of Saskatchewan, Dell is taken in by Arthur Remlinger, an enigmatic and charismatic American whose cool reserve masks a dark and violent nature.Undone by the calamity of his parents' robbery and arrest, Dell struggles under the vast prairie sky to remake himself and define the adults he thought he once knew. But his search for grace and peace only moves him nearer to a harrowing and murderous collision with Remlinger, an elemental force of darkness.A true masterwork of haunting and spectacular vision from one of America's greatest writers, Canada is a profound novel of boundaries traversed, innocence lost and reconciled, and the mysterious and consoling bonds of family. Told in spare, elegant prose, both resonant and luminous, it is destined to become a modern classic.

    Describes her virtuous life, poverty, holiness, valiant resistance, heroic and lingering death, conversion of her murderer and canonization in 1950 with her mother, her murderer and over 500,000 present. This is the famous, popular, classic biography! This is a good book to read to children, so they have someone worthwhile to imitate. By having Maria put before them as a model, they will learn to appreciate the virtue of purity. For a child to imitate the saints, he or she must first love them -- which in turn requires knowing them. Get your children acquainted with one of the greatest saints of the twentieth century!

    The authors in this series take a panoramic approach to the topic of each book aimed at a non-specialist but enthusiastic readership. Forthcoming titles planned for this series include: literature, salvation, mercy, history, art, music and philosophy.At every Sunday Mass, Catholics confess that Jesus came down from heaven "for us men and for our salvation." But what does "salvation" mean? In this robust and accessible book, Scripture scholar and theologian Michael Patrick Barber provides a thorough, deeply Catholic, and deeply biblical, answer. He deftly tackles this complex topic, unpacking what the New Testament teaches about salvation in Christ, detailing what exactly salvation is, and what it is not. In easy and readable prose, he explains what the Cross, the Church, and the Trinity have to do with salvation. While intellectually stimulating, Salvation: What Every Catholic Should Know is deeply spiritual, and at its core is the salvific message that God is love, and his love is one of transformation and redemption.

    False accusations.... A coded message.... When all they can see is each other's flaws, how can Jake and Sophie work together to figure out what's really been happening at the abandoned silver mine?Follow Sophie and Jake into secret tunnels as they unravel the mystery and challenge each other to become who God wants them to be.2016 First Place Catholic Press Association Book Award2016 Silver Medal Illumination Christian Book Award2018 Gold Medal Reader's Favorite Book Award

    He's been rebuilding an old Honda Civic working at a salvage yard, and designing T-shirts to help pay for food and parts. As long as Stet avoids his abusive, alcoholic father, he considers himself lucky. His car, his art, and a high school diploma are his tickets out of their factory town. Then his father brings home Kayla-a younger sister Stet never knew he had. His mother had been pregnant when she left, but told no one; now she's dead, and Kayla has nowhere else to go. Can these two wary siblings find anything in common, and try to build a future together?

     You may have liked the book, but not be a fan. You may call yourself a fan, but few truly are. Are you? Trivia-on-Books is an independent quiz-formatted trivia on the book for readers, students, and fans alike. Whether you're looking for new materials to the book or would like to take the challenge yourself and share it with your friends and family for a time of fun, Trivia-on-Books provides a unique approach that is both insightful and educational! Features You'll Find Inside: • 30 Multiple choice questions on the book, plots, characters and author • Insightful commentary to answer every question • Complementary quiz material for yourself or your reading group • Results provided with scores to determine "status" Promising quality and value, grab your copy of Trivia-on-Books!

    "I live in the in between. Between yesterday and forever. The way forward haunts me. The gap I must cover daunts me. And hope beckons, 'Run to me,' but I just learned to walk." After a lifetime of abuse, the Vanderbilt siblings flee their home, finally free to pursue new dreams while running from yesterday's nightmares. Once bed-ridden Jesse navigates the Chicago streets, concealing his identity and planning revenge. A chance encounter in the rain introduces a girl who offers Jesse a glimpse of a sunnier future, but how will he weather the growing storm inside himself?Separated from her Post-it note prince, Talia hides at a safe house for survivors of domestic violence while her father turns the city upside-down to find her. Surrounded by women fighting their own demons, Talia faces her past at every turn.

    When he finds a crooked storyteller with the ability to read him back, Dustfinger leaves behind his young apprentice Farid and plunges into the medieval inkscape once more.Distraught, Farid goes in search of Meggie, and before long, both are caught inside the book, too. There they meet Inkheart's author, Fenoglio, now living within his own story. But the tale is much changed, and threatening to evolve in ways none of them would ever have imagined. Will Meggie, Farid, and Fenoglio manage to write the wrongs of a charmed world? Or is their story on the brink of a very bad ending?This book has been split into two volumes. Have you listened to Volume 1?

    Teenagers are celebrating the first taste of freedom as they line their pockets with newly printed driver’s licenses and long-awaited paychecks. Days off are spent at the town’s only lake, nights under the yellow lights of the drive-in restaurant.But Billy Tupper’s life is a far cry from that of other teenagers. One mistake too many lands him in front of a judge who sentences him to a summer working for Old Lady Baxter, the victim of his latest carelessness…and the rumored child killer of Munroe, Kansas. As Billy sweats his way through endless months of mowing her lawn, weeding her garden, and painting her house, he also searches for the evidence to prove she’s guilty, but what he finds, and what he learns about himself, will change his life forever.I Know an Old Lady is a touching coming-of-age story of loss and redemption, of understanding and compassion, and of a family torn apart and slowly put back together.I Know an Old Lady is Billy Tupper’s story.

    Enjoy all the heart-pounding adventures of the Hawkins family as you are transported back through time into ancient Book of Mormon and Bible lands—worlds where danger and survival are a way of life.

    

    Noni's a good girl who wants more from Nike than he's willing to offer, so after graduation she runs to Atlanta to start college and get a fresh start from Nike after he's broken her heart not once, but twice. Nike loves her but he just can't seem to get things right so he pushes her out of mind and out of sight. But after 4 years of being gone Noni returns, not only running from an abusive ex but also because she has a secret and she needs Nike help. How will he deal with the bomb Noni drops on him? Will he man up? Or keep her buried in the past?

    He's failing in school, his teachers pick on him, his classmates laugh at him, a relentless bully terrorizes him, his best friend has moved away, and he's hopelessly in love with the prettiest girl in his school. At home, his harsh and distant father has all but disinherited him, he worries his mother to tears, and he squabbles senselessly with his pretty, talented sister Anica, who seems to be everything he is not. Then adolescence comes along and really complicates things. A torrent of long-denied feelings for a sister who once adored him compel Joshua to repair the damage he's done to their relationship. His longtime babysitter helps him to understand things his mother doesn't know how to tell him and his father doesn't want him to know. Then, in a murky funeral home far away from home, he meets a distant cousin who changes his life in ways he could never have imagined. As Joshua starts to turn his life around, his father's tortured past catches up with him, and life at home begins to unravel. Joshua is faced with a decision that could imperil his very life. He will risk everything to protect his sister, and in the process, he learns the power of love and the meaning of courage.