Those people are fools. I’m a practiced hand at hiding from the world. The scars I bear are invisible to all but me, and I use them to sustain the walls I’ve built around myself. He knocked my simple life into disarray and infiltrated my carefully constructed defenses. The tight control I maintain is at breaking point, and ever since our eyes connected across a lunch hall, my world has been off balance. I can’t have him, and he can’t have me. I know it. He knows it. I’m just not sure that Tarrant Reigns has ever followed anyone’s rules. Everything and everyone is against us.Even his brother. Caden brought us together, but now he’s standing in our way.

    Poor yet resilient, he lives in the shadows with his Aunt Libby and Uncle Darren, folk who stubbornly make their way in a society that does not understand or want them. They are mongrels, mixedblood, neither this nor that. The boy at the center of Mongrels must decide if he belongs on the road with his aunt and uncle, or if he fits with the people on the other side of the tracks.For ten years, he and his family have lived a life of late-night exits and close calls—always on the move across the South to stay one step ahead of the law. But the time is drawing near when Darren and Libby will know if their nephew is like them or not. And the close calls they’ve been running from for so long are catching up fast, now. Everything is about to change.A compelling and fascinating journey, Mongrels alternates between past and present to create an unforgettable portrait of a boy trying to understand his family and his place in a complex and unforgiving world. A smart and innovative story—funny, bloody, raw, and real—told in a rhythmic voice full of heart, Mongrels is a deeply moving, sometimes grisly novel that illuminates the challenges and tender joys of a life beyond the ordinary in a bold and imaginative new way.

    These ads prove that even if you’re lonely, you don’t have to be boring, as advertisers in this book demand much more than long walks on the beach from their potential mates. .Arranged by theme (“The Usual Hyperbole and a Whiff of Playful Narcissism”), and including footnotes to obscure references, Sexually I’m More of a Switzerland promises to be, like its predecessor, “a bracing splash of cold reality in the flushed face of romance” ( Chicago Tribune )..

    Be Very Afraid.From ghosts, vampires, and zombies to serial killers, cannibalistic hillbillies, and haunted Japanese videocassettes, How to Survive a Horror Movie shows how to defeat every obstacle found in scary films. Readers will discover:- How to Perform an Exorcism - What to Do If You Did Something Last Summer - How to Persuade the Skeptical Local Sheriff - How to Vanquish a Murderous Doll - How to Survive an Alien Invasion - How to Tell If You've Been Dead Since the Beginning of the Movieand much, much more. Complete with useful instructions, insane illustrations, and a list of 100 important films to study, How to Survive a Horror Movie is essential reading for prom queens, jocks, teenage babysitters, and anyone employed by a summer camp.

    But it won't, because Misha's late Beloved Papa whacked an Oklahoma businessman of some prominence. Misha is paying the price of exile from his adopted American homeland. He's stuck in Russia, dreaming of his beloved Rouenna and the Oz of NYC. Salvation may lie in the tiny, oil-rich nation of Absurdistan, where a crooked consular officer will sell Misha a Belgian passport. But after a civil war breaks out between two competing ethnic groups and a local warlord installs hapless Misha as Minister of Multicultural Affairs, our hero soon finds himself covered in oil, fighting for his life, falling in love, and trying to figure out if a normal life is still possible in the twenty-first century. Populated by curvaceous brown-eyed beauties, circumcision-happy Hasidic Jews, a loyal manservant who never stops serving, and scheming oil execs from a certain American company whose name rhymes with Malliburton, Absurdistan is a strange, oddly true-to-life look at how we live now, from a writer who should know.

    This volume encapsulates the finest work from Seeing Things (1991) with its lines of loss and revelation; The Spirit Level (1996) where we experience "the poem as ploughshare that turns time / Up and over."; the landmark translation of Beowulf (1999); Electric Light (2001), a book of origins and oracles; and his final collections, District and Circle (2006) and Human Chain (2010), which limn the interconnectedness of being, our lifelines to our inherited past.

    For a MOMENT she is LOST in thought, remembering WHAT IT HAS TAKEN to get TO THIS POINT..."Grace Cambridge is a young Black Christian with a new husband, old friends, and a shocking moral dilemma. A proverbial "cat fight" opens the story and draws you into a complex relational web. The book peels through layers of dysfunction between Grace and Trina and follows their individual, sometimes intertwining, lives to reveal how they find their way back to Christ and to each other. Grace is intelligent, determined, well-spoken yet vulnerable. You want her to be happy, you want her to succeed. Grace's Christianity isn't sugar-coated. Her faith is real and so is her life---riddled with plenty of twists, turns, and conflicts. As Grace's relationship with God is challenged she questions her identity and is faced with a life-changing decision. She deals with everyday issues, sometimes successfully; sometimes not. Grace's experiences are not much different than yours---how she handles them might be.

    A tale inspired by the ultra-wealthy hedgefund society of the Upper East Side finds Holly, a wife of an elite investment company owner, becoming increasingly disenchanted within a sheltered world of snobby women and interfering in-laws; a situation that is further complicated by her husband's infidelity.

    But somehow, someway, I came back. I always come back. My name is Phoenix Bones, and I hunt monsters." ---------------- The first novel in the International Monster Hunter series introduces Phoenix Bones, self-trained bane of the things that go bump in the night. Phoenix knows what horrors lurk in the shadows. When he overhears a police scanner report of a teenage girl missing from her bedroom without a trace, he knows something sinister is afoot. His worst fears are confirmed when the trail leads him to a ghastly scene in the catacombs of Paris ... and the vile trappings at the heart of the vampire underground's evil plans.

    

    She has a career she loves, an apartment that, while small, meets her needs, and a best friend that is helping her find someone to spend the rest of her life with, or at the very least someone to have a good time with. Zeke is only on Earth long enough to make repairs to some salvaged equipment and relax with the local natives. Just a few, short weeks and then he, and his shipmates are on their way back to their home world. Then he catches Anika's scent and his wolf is gone. Unable, and unwilling, to fight the instant attraction Zeke soon finds himself head over heels, but will the secret he's keeping cause him to lose his mate? Meanwhile, Anika has a secret of her own that could end up having a huge impact on the couple’s future. Disclaimer: This story has several graphic sex scenes and some mild language.

    When children's librarian and self-professed nice girl Jane Jameson is fired by her beastly boss and handed twenty-five dollars in potato skins instead of a severance check, she goes on a bender that's sure to become Half Moon Hollow legend. On her way home, she's mistaken for a deer, shot, and left for dead. And thanks to the mysterious stranger she met while chugging neon-colored cocktails, she wakes up with a decidedly unladylike thirst for blood.Jane is now the latest recipient of a gift basket from the Newly Undead Welcoming Committee, and her life-after-lifestyle is taking some getting used to. Her recently deceased favorite aunt is now her ghostly roommate. She has to fake breathing and endure daytime hours to avoid coming out of the coffin to her family. She's forced to forgo her favorite down-home Southern cooking for bags of O negative. Her relationship with her sexy, mercurial vampire sire keeps running hot and cold. And if all that wasn't enough, it looks like someone in Half Moon Hollow is trying to frame her for a series of vampire murders. What's a nice undead girl to do?

    Enter Alec...vampire, scholar, and worst of all—fan. What could possibly go wrong?Diana, the fire Elemental, is nearly burned out. Tired of traveling the world and losing innocent lives, she's slowly slipping into a depression that may consume her. But when she discovers that a child's life is in danger, she feels compelled to help. However, teaming up with one of the most powerful vampires in North America is the last thing she wants to do.Academic scion, Alec Broussard prefers his studies over the opulent and vicious lifestyles of vampires. And when he learns of another missing child, Alec can't shake the suspicion that his coven may be to blame. Joining forces with an Elemental may be his only hope to save the child and clear his coven's name.As Diana and Alec work together to save the children, they must relinquish their prejudices and trust one another. In time, Alec is wearing down the walls around her. But just when their friendship intensifies, Alec's future is threatened. Now, it's up to Diana to save him before it's too late. Can this Elemental find the fire within her to protect him once and for all?Fans of Patricia Briggs, Ilona Andrews, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer are addicted to this gritty elemental urban fantasy series!The Complete SeriesBook 0: Discordia - An Elemental's Prequel ShortBook 1: Fire, A Readers' Favorite Silver Medal WinnerBook 2: Air, A Readers' Favorite Silver Medal WinnerBook 3: Water, A Readers' Favorite Bronze Medal WinnerBook 4: Earth, A Readers' Favorite Bronze Medal Winner

    As New York Times wine critic Eric Asimov argues, that puzzling uncertainty often prevents people from buying and ordering wine, depriving them of an exquisite, deeply satisfying experience.In How to Love Wine, Asimov examines why the American wine culture produces such feelings of anxiety and suggests how readers can overcome their fears and develop a sense of discovery and wonder as they explore the diversity and complexity of the world of wine. With warmth, candor, and intelligent authority, Asimov interweaves his professional knowledge and insights with engaging personal stories of his love affair with wine, a lifelong passion that began when he was a graduate student on a budget.In a direct, down-to-earth manner, Asimov discusses favorite vineyards, wine's singular personalities, the "tyranny of tasting notes"—those meaningless, overwritten wine descriptions that often pass for criticism today—and current wine issues.Throughout, he incorporates in-depth discussions of beautiful wines, both easy to find and rare, and pays special attention to those that have been particularly meaningful to him. Thought-provoking and enjoyable, How to Love Wine will help diminish readers' anxiety, bolster their confidence, and transform them into true wine lovers.

    Horrific specters walking the streets. A drug that promises to change the world. An apocalyptic cult. Something is stirring in the city of Duluth, Minnesota. Ever since a celebrated researcher announced the creation of a new experimental drug—a drug with the potential to cure the mind of countless ills—people have been disappearing. When a grad student involved with the drug's development unexpectedly commits suicide, a private detective is tasked with unearthing the details of her tumultuous final days. This miracle drug may not be what it seems. Others touched by the drug begin to see things—horrible things—and find themselves transported into a nightmarish world where an ancient evil stirs. Those who taste the drug are left spiraling into horror. Dark figures tail them on the street, and the scenery of their nightmares begins to encroach upon waking life, blurring the lines between dreams and reality. Their terrifying experiences make up the individual fragments of a dire mosaic. As the pieces fall into place, they come to realize the unspeakable horrors that await all of mankind. Midnight is looming, and the sun may never rise again over the city of Duluth.