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MAYDAY: A Frighteningly Realistic Aviation Thriller


Dan Stratman - 2018
    Drenched in authenticity that only comes from decades in the cockpit…Perfect in-flight reading material.” –K.J. Howe, bestselling author of SKYJACK The Tech-Liner—appropriately christened the Spirit of Silicon Valley—is the most advanced airliner ever built. Its speed and luxurious amenities could usher in a new golden age of air travel. Struggling Alpha Airlines is betting its future on the new jet. But on its maiden voyage—packed with VIPs from government, industry, and banking—this state-of-the-art plane is also a prime target for attack. Capt. Mark Smith, former US Air Force pilot and now Alpha Airlines Chief Pilot, will need to draw on all his decades of experience to make sure that never happens. At thirty-five thousand feet above the ocean, things on his flight spin wildly out of control. Smith will need a decidedly old-school strategy to save this high-tech marvel. If you fly on the airlines, MAYDAY! is a must read. Learn what has the FAA so nervous in this fictional aviation thriller. Ever wonder what really happens in an airliner cockpit during a life-threatening emergency? Then this is a book you won’t want to miss. Airline pilot Dan Stratman takes his readers where no passenger is ever allowed to go – past the armored steel cockpit door and into the pilot seat – transporting them on a terrifying journey that has a chilling resemblance to recent actual events. Only an experienced pilot like Captain Stratman could bring such authenticity and frightening realism to this story.

Twelve Cases: A Psychiatrist’s True Stories of Mental Illness and Addiction [and Other Human Predispositions]


Daniel Mierlak - 2018
    Daniel Mierlak, a psychiatrist for twenty-five years, on a journey to the stranger corners of human experience. Here you’ll meet: Tony, chauffeur to the fabulously rich, who overcomes crippling anxiety only to find himself descend into a homicidal rage following a botched cosmetic procedure. Amanda, hospitalized for mania, who sees a change to her medicine as an assassination attempt, and then stalks her doctor for a year after discharge. James, a schizophrenic hearing voices telling him to kill himself, whose piano playing leads to a shocking secret about his past. Psychiatric treatment is normally a private encounter and often misunderstood. In describing twelve of his most challenging cases, Dr. Mierlak brings you into his sessions, into his patients’ lives, and into the world of psychiatry. Get ready for some surprises.

A Great Beauty


A. O'Connor - 2019
    He lives a life in hiding, conducting guerrilla warfare, outsmarting the authorities, a figure of mystery and intrigue. Very few know even what he looks like. He occasionally finds rest and comfort with the family of Kitty Kiernan, his best friend’s sweetheart. Then Michael finds himself falling in love with the complex and enigmatic Kitty.Lady Hazel Lavery, wife of famous artist Sir John Lavery, is considered the most beautiful and charming society hostess in London. An American of Irish descent, haunted by a tragic past, she sets out to use her friendships with men like Winston Churchill to bring peace to Ireland.When Michael, recently engaged to Kitty, arrives in London as part of the Irish peace delegation, he finds himself the centre of intense public fascination. Hazel Lavery takes Michael under her wing and navigates him through London high society. They form a close bond and soon are engulfed in rumours of an affair and accusations that Michael has been seduced by the glamour of London and by Hazel. Kitty all but despairs at the situation but is determined to fight for him.After the infamous Anglo-Irish Treaty, Ireland veers towards civil war. As Michael, Hazel and Kitty arrive in Dublin that fateful week in August 1922,the war is at its zenith – and this love triangle is about to implode with devastating results.An epic story of war, love, suspense, betrayal and murder – the Michael Collins story

Overdose


Glen Apseloff - 2013
    Emily Morrison undertakes a controversial drug study over protests from fringe groups and even some colleagues. Soon she’s facing death threats and a letter bomb that maims her secretary. Then a young coed suddenly dies after taking the experimental medication. Emily figures out what killed the girl—not the study drug but DIFP, a toxic chemical from her lab. A diabetic, Emily discovers the same toxin in her insulin. But when the police find a bottle of DIFP in Emily’s office, she suddenly changes from victim to suspect.Then a professional killer comes after her, and he eliminates anyone who gets in the way. Emily knows she must confront this stalker on her terms, but she’ll have to do it without help, using only the element of surprise. And that’s just her first step in uncovering the truth – she needs to find out who hired the killer before someone else tries to finish what he started."An intriguing thriller set against a backdrop of clinical drug tests and medical research." — Kirkus Reviews

Enslaved: My True Story of Survival


Emily Vaughn - 2021
    But soon it becomes clear that his motives are not all they seem.At the age of 11, Emily is groomed into being a ‘county lines’ drug trafficker. It is the beginning of a vicious cycle that sees her become prey to one abuser after another, involving a huge child-sex-trafficking gang.The scale of the abuse – at the hands of hundreds of men – is sickening, and at times it feels like there will never be an escape. But then, in the darkest of moments, a ray of light shines …This is the moving true story of how one girl overcame her traumatic past and learned to love for the very first time.

And The Whippoorwill Sang


Micki Peluso - 2007
     Around the dining room table of her 100 year old farmhouse Micki Peluso's six children along with three of their friends eagerly gulp down a chicken dinner. As soon as the last morsel is ravished, the lot of them is off in different directions. Except for the one whose turn it is to do the dishes. After offering her mother a buck if she’ll do them, with an impish grin, the child rushes out the front door, too excited for a hug, calling out, "Bye Mom," as the door slams shut. For the Peluso’s the nightmare begins. Micki and Butch face the horror every parent fears—awaiting the fate of one of their children. While sitting vigil in the ICU waiting room, Micki traverses the past, as a way of dealing with an inconceivable future. From the bizarre teenage elopement with her high school sweetheart, Butch, in a double wedding with her own mother, to comical family trips across country in an antiquated camper with six kids and a dog, they leave a path of chaos, antics and destruction in their wake. Micki relives the happy times of raising six children while living in a haunted house, as the young parents grow up with their kids. She bravely attempts to be the man of the house while her husband, Butch is working out of town. Hearing strange noises, which all the younger kids are sure is the ghosts, Micki tiptoes down to the cellar, shotgun in hand and nearly shoots an Idaho potato that has fallen from the pantry and thumped down the stairs. Of course her children feel obligated to tell the world. Just when their lives are nearly perfect, tragedy strikes—and the laughter dies. A terrible accident takes place in the placid valley nestled within the Susquehanna Mountains in the town of Williamsport, Pennsylvania. On a country lane just blocks from the family’s hundred year old haunted farmhouse, lives are changed forever. In a state of shock, Micki muses through their delightful past to avoid confronting an uncertain future—as the family copes with fear and apprehension. One of her six children is fighting for life in Intensive Care. Both parents are pressured by doctors to disconnect Noelle, their fourteen-year-old daughter. Her beautiful girl, funny and bright, who breathes life into every moment, who does cartwheels in piles of Autumn leaves, who loves to sing and dance down country roads, and above all loves her family with all her soul. How can Micki let this child go? The family embarks upon yet another journey, to the other side of sorrow and grasps the poignant gift of life as they begin. . .to weep. . .to laugh. . .to grieve. . .to dance—and forgive.

An Illusion of Normal: The True Story of a Child's Survival in a Home Tormented by Mental Illness


Linda Schoonover - 2016
    Mom is "sick in the head." In an era when speaking of mental illness was taboo, Linda learns from an early age not to talk about her mother's bizarre behavior. Now her mother's escape from a would-be killer threatens to expose the family secret. They are not a normal family. Finally, after her mother's extended stays in mental institutions, Linda accepts that her Mom will never be normal. That, she assumes, makes her abnormal as well. She wrestles against her father's abuse and constant shaming of her and her faith. Will she ever feel normal in an abnormal family? Did God make a mistake? Why is she in a home where she doesn't feel loved or accepted? Is there a way for her to break away from the shame that holds her captive? An Illusion of Normal is the riveting and award-winning memoir of the life of a child whose mother suffers from paranoid schizophrenia. At times shocking and heartbreaking, her story exposes the darkness in a home tormented by a parent's mental illness and the light that shows the way out. "Schoonover's harrowing remembrance is unflinching, remarkable for a level of candor that demands courage. Her spare but moving prose tenderly portrays the terror and isolation she weathered as a child. Yet this is not a scornful lament but rather an inspiring account of personal triumph; the author writes affectingly about the love and sympathy she still has for her mother. This brief memoir is untainted by cloying self pity and full of wise counsel for others who have suffered similarly. An affecting look at childhood trauma." Kirkus Reviews

From Our House: A Memoir


Lee Martin - 2000
    This candid memoir reveals how Lee grew up to know his father as a harsh, angry man, but underneath it all is the painfully deep, strong current of real love (Reeve Lindbergh, author of Under a Wing).

Big in Japan


Jennifer Griffith - 2012
    It was probably around the time he hit 300 pounds, and that was quite a few pounds ago. At six-foot-six, he's the elephant in the room nobody notices. Still, his social leprosy doesn't keep him from putting in for a promotion in the stats department, or from carrying a torch for the gorgeous Alison, who just might see through the blubber to the real Buck inside.So when Buck gets Shanghaied to Tokyo for a family emergency, the last thing he expects is to be marveled at everywhere he goes. Little kids run up to him and want to pull the hair on his arms. He's suddenly the Jolly Blond Giant.As his life takes a new turn in a country where being big can mean fame and fortune, Buck must embark on the most dangerous yet adventurous ride of his life--to find the ultimate meaning of love and acceptance. Even if it means risking his life and giving up everything he has.

Stick a Fork in Me


Dan Jenkins - 2017
    For 15 years, he has steadily and skillfully guided the school into the high society of major college sports. But now Pete, fed up with politically correct campus culture and babysitting fragile egos, is retiring from the "arms race." As he waits for the university's board of trustees to act on his early retirement package, he reflects on his career, the people he's come across, and what life will be like in retirement. Pete's story is told in Jenkins's unmistakable, raucous, old-school style, and it's full of colorful, absurd, and downright crazy characters--from clueless trustees and busybody protestors to prima donna football coaches and booster club pests. Stick a Fork in Me is a rollicking, no-holds-barred tour of the world of big-time college sports. Praise for the work of Dan Jenkins: ..".the best sportswriter in America." --Larry King "Dan Jenkins is the nearest thing to Ring Lardner this generation has ever seen. No one has captured the essential lunacy of the twentieth-century sports (and TV) scene as accurately and hilariously as this." --Los Angeles Times "Dan Jenkins is a comic genius." --Don Imus "Dan Jenkins has been among America's best and funniest sportswriters for more than six decades." --The New York Times "Jenkins is hilarious, providing more laughs per page than any other writer in the 'bidness.'" --People

This Is How It Really Sounds


Stuart Archer Cohen - 2015
    Investors he has ruined, looming federal investigations, and a remote but alluring woman all converge on one hallucinatory night that ends in the labyrinth of an ancient Chinese garden. On the other side of the ocean, chasing the last vapors and diminishing sexual returns of fame in Los Angeles, faded rock star Pete Harrington is bankrupt. With no band, no hits, and no money, he suddenly finds one last flash of brilliance that sets him on an absurd and epic quest for revenge. Finally, there is Harry Harrington. Raised in a world of snow, ice, and avalanches, Alaskan Harry Harrington is the greatest extreme skier on the planet. A legend in a sport that few people have ever heard of, he descends from the slopes of Tahoe and Aspen to the sunny streets of Hollywood, looking for the connection that will change his life.Welcome to This Is How It Really Sounds, where the worlds of wealth, pop-culture celebrity, and physical prowess collide in a supernatural realm that is shared between three men, each in search of his Other Life. From an assassin moving through the treacherous streets of 1946 Shanghai to the twenty-first-century delirium of Internet fame, Stuart Archer Cohen's novel centers around a mysterious house that none of its denizens can fully remember, but none can ever forget. Part satire, part revenge tale, part wilderness adventure---with a heavy dash of noire espionage---This Is How It Really Sounds explores the seductive power of the Other Life, and what happens when you finally grasp it.

The Mahabharata Code: Yet Another Retelling of the Mahabharata, or Is It?


Karthik K.B. Rao - 2016
    NR and a few other crew members agree to take part in the NASA mission to visit this mystery planet from which they had received mysterious signals. Here, they meet a man with a long flowing white beard, and he introduces himself as Vyasa. He reveals that he has a crazy plan in mind and seeks NR and his members' help in implementing this plan. He intends to recreate the entire Mahabharata on this planet to restore the faith of the primitive simpletons here. As the Mahabharata incidents start unfolding, NR realizes that Vyasa intends to recreate them page by page here, if not paragraph by paragraph. Also NR begins to realize that his son, Krishna, who is being groomed by Vyasa as Vishnu's avatar, is nothing more than a pawn in Vyasa's scheme of things. Other incidents of Mahabharata also unfold according to the original epic. Pandavas and Kauravas grow up hating each other and finally the restaging plan culminates with both the warring sets of cousins facing each other in the battlefield of Kurukshetra. Inexplicably, like the original epic, Arjuna develops cold feet seeing his own cousins, teachers and relatives on the opposite side. He seeks Krishna's divine intervention. Is the brainwashed "alien" Krishna prepared for this intervention?

The Chateau by the River


Chloé Duval - 2018
    . . and the enduring mystery of love.   Traveling to France on business, Alexandra Dawson has decided to seize the opportunity to explore a mysterious piece of her own heritage—a half-burnt picture of a woman who looks eerily like her, taken more than a hundred years ago in a local castle. In the charming rural village of Chandeniers, she discovers something else too—the gruff, ruggedly good-looking heir of the crumbled chateau.   Eric Lagnel is completely uninterested in Alex’s queries, until he realizes that she may have stumbled on a way to save the building. Their unlikely partnership is a surprise. But as Alex slowly unravels the secrets of her great-great-grandmother’s photograph—and the true history of the chateau—she begins to understand that no one is ever prepared for the ways love can heal old wounds and open the hardest hearts.

Twelve Clean Pages


Nika Maples - 2011
    Not only did she stand, obliterating doctors initial prognoses, she walked ... directly into the passionate profession of a public high school teacher. Thirteen years after the medical trauma she was not expected to survive, Nika stood inside the glimmering granite capitol building in Austin, honored to receive state House and Senate resolutions as 2007 Texas Secondary Teacher of the Year. Let your heart rise along with the inspirational account of a single mother's faith, her dying daughter's hope, and God's triumphant love.

Edge of the Pit


Bill Thesken - 2016
    Their clients are the richest people in the country and they pay a lot of money to stay safe. He works on the outer perimeter of a security team and is one of the best in the business. From running with gangs as a teenager, and with the US Army in Iraq during the surge, he has a unique set of skills to keep his team alive.It was a standard operation, a bread and butter job, get a client from one point to another and back again.Badger works the perimeter as always, and the client is a beautiful young singer, a rising star who is going to a nightclub in the gritty belly of the city after midnight. Everything is going smooth until the convoy is ambushed, and Badger wakes up in the hospital with no memory of what happened.Everyone else in the convoy is dead, the singer is missing, and Badger is a prime suspect.The agency is in trouble, more ruthless than the mob, and they’ll get answers out of him using any means necessary, if they can only get their hands on him.He is on the run from the agency, the kidnappers, and the police, and he has to find the girl, or die trying.