Now if only she could keep Casey from sneaking into her heart. Excerpt His bright blue eyes pierced through me. I wasn't sure how long he had been looking at me. I ignored him at first, but found it impossible to concentrate on anything else. Eventually I met his gaze evenly, and watched as his lips turned up into a smirk. It took effort not to roll my eyes when he raised his eyebrows slowly. His eyes were burning through me; their intensity made me uncomfortable, but I wasn't going to let him know that. "Mr. Fitzgerald!" my new English teacher, Mr. Oldman, barked. "Could you please at least pretend to pay attention?" Mr. Oldman sounded so exasperated. There were still three months left before graduation, but most of the seniors were already acting as if they didn't need to be in school any longer. "Sure, Mr. Oldman," he said, never taking his eyes from me. I didn't back down even after realizing people were staring at us. "Casey, what do you find so fascinating about Ms. Fuller?" Mr. Oldman turned to him again a few minutes later after realizing he still wasn't paying attention. If it was the teacher's goal to embarrass him, it didn't work. His smirk just widened. "She's new," he said simply, his blue eyes sparkling. Casey's caramel brown hair was messy, his style trendy. He reminded me of every popular guy in high school, except for the confidence he exuded. It was as if he knew he was the shit and was daring anyone to say otherwise. "Casey, will you leave the poor girl alone?" Mr. Oldman sighed. "I've got your letter of recommendation done. Should I send it myself or does it need to go with yours?" Casey didn't respond. His eyes were still piercing through mine, a small smirk playing on his lips. "Casey!" Mr. Oldman yelled, causing both of us to look at him. He handed him a sealed envelope. "Get out of my classroom," he pointed at the door, defeated. "Don't you have friends to bother?" I let out a snicker, though I felt bad for Mr. Oldman. It was obvious he was at his wit's end. Casey seemed to be doing everything he could to push him over the edge. "I'm trying to make the new girl feel welcome," Casey explained, his eyes on me again. I picked up my book, finding my place with ease. "Thanks," I said shortly, "I feel welcome now." And I refused to pay him any more attention. He wouldn't stay with Mr. Oldman in the room, looking dangerously close to pelting him with dry erase markers. With the obvious dilemma before him, he backed down. He stared at me for a second longer, daring me to look at him and when I didn't, he left. I smiled to myself, turning the page leisurely. Mr. Oldman let out a chuckle, "Looks like he's finally met his match."

    She lives on a manor in the countryside and the distance from the city suits her well. She loves her charges and her employer is understanding and kind. What more could a poor vicar's daughter ever dream of? The Duke of Rossdale is lonely. He's not really aware of that. At least not yet. When he is dragged to a house party at a manor in the country side, he has no idea he will come face to face with his loneliness. He is happiest at his spread of land in the Scottish Highlands, but he needs an heir. For that, he needs a wife. When the duke and Dorothea first meet, there are sparks that neither can acknowledge. Eventually, they must. He has to tell her how he feels. Will she find the bravery to let him overlook her humble family heritage?

    “What?” I stammer, thrown. “No I’m not.” “Aren’t you?” “No!” “Are you sure about that?” “Yes.” “Weird,” he says. “You had that look on your face.” “What look?” “The same one I feel when I look at you.” After the death of her father when she was twelve years old, Skye Levene finds it easier to stick to her daily routine and keep her heart firmly closed against love. Without love, there is no possibility for hurt. At least so she thinks. However, when she falls off the edge of a cliff and is saved by the mysterious Tai, routine goes out the window and suddenly she’s feeling things she never even knew were possible. Tai, fascinating, funny and sexy as hell, has his own burdens to bear, the reason why he’s camping out in the old abandoned lighthouse on the top of the cliff. As snow falls and winter deepens, he introduces her to new experiences; card games, hot chocolate and the magic of stargazing. Most of all, he introduces her to love. But when his past catches up with them, Skye is left wondering whether love is worth risking your heart for after all.

    Eight-year-old Rocky worships his older brother, Paul. Sixteen and full of rebel cool, Paul spends his days cruising in his Chevy Nova blasting Neil Young, cigarette dangling from his lips, arm slung around his beautiful, troubled girlfriend. Paul is happy to have his younger brother as his sidekick. Then one day, in an act of vengeance against their father, Paul picks up Rocky from school and nearly abandons him in the woods. Afterward, Paul disappears. Seven years later, Rocky is a teenager himself. He hasn’t forgotten being abandoned by his boyhood hero, but he’s getting over it, with the help of the wealthy neighbors’ daughter, ten years his senior, who has taken him as her lover. Unbeknownst to both of them, their affair will set in motion a course of events that rains catastrophe on both their families. After a mysterious double murder brings terror and suspicion to their small town, Rocky and his family must reckon with the past and find out how much forgiveness their hearts can hold.

    However, his life has not always been a bed of roses. When was just a 12-year-old boy, he saved his best friend from a grisly death at the hands of the outlaw gang that killed her parents. As if that wasn’t enough, his friend was sent away to an orphanage in Denver City and John vowed to one day find the murderers and bring them to justice. Years go by and he works out a plan to shed some blood and take down those who stood in the way of his friend’s happiness. What will John be willing to risk in order to get the revenge he’s been waiting for his whole life?Maggie McDermott is deeply traumatized by the events of that nightmarish night. Having lost all of her childhood memories—even those of her best friend, John, she can’t help but wonder whether she’ll find peace one day. That is until John shows up at her door many years after the haunting event that changed her life. He has become a successful bounty hunter and has a bold plan to recover her childhood memories. His plan involves Maggie joining him on a dangerous mission of vengeance, in order to capture the gang that destroyed her life. Will Maggie find the courage to follow this dangerous prescription to get her childhood memories back?Even though John and Maggie haven’t seen each other for many years, their wild thirst for revenge will take them on a sprawling adventure with gunfire, romance, and a longing for justice. Will John be able to protect the girl from the most infamous outlaw gang in the West? Or will they be forced to abandon all hope for a better life once and for all?

    Failing out of school, picking up shifts at Margo’s diner, she’s left fending for herself in a town where she’s never quite felt at home. When she “borrows” her neighbor’s car to perform at an open mic night, she realizes her life could be much bigger than where she came from. After a fight with her dad, April packs her stuff and leaves for good, setting off on a journey to find a life that’s all hers.As April moves through the world, meeting people who feel like home, she chronicles her life in the songs she writes and discovers that where she came from doesn’t dictate who she has to be. This lyrical, unflinching tale is for anyone who has ever yearned for the fierce power of found family or to grasp the profound beauty of choosing to belong.

    An exceptional swimmer, Coralie appears as the Mermaid in her father’s “museum,” alongside performers like the Wolfman, the Butterfly Girl, and a one-hundred-year-old turtle. One night Coralie stumbles upon a striking young man taking pictures of moonlit trees in the woods off the Hudson River. The dashing photographer is Eddie Cohen, a Russian immigrant who has run away from his father’s Lower East Side Orthodox community and his job as a tailor’s apprentice. When Eddie photographs the devastation on the streets of New York following the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, he becomes embroiled in the suspicious mystery behind a young woman’s disappearance and ignites the heart of Coralie.

    At last she will be free from him, even though she and Nuala, the sister who depends on her for everything, must now leave his miners cottage. Then Kate discovers they have an aunt in the Midlands whom their father had kept secret, and who now offers them a home. Despite leaving her heart in Durham with Matthew, a young artist, Kate feels loved and safe with Aunt Beth. But her peace is shattered by an astonishing revelation from Nuala, and a series of brutal attacks on the women of Nuneaton. Kate turns to a handsome widower, Martin Denby, but is his kindness too good to be true?

    With school over and the locked world of their fathers before them, they rush towards the climax of their youth: a magical weekend in Manchester, the epicentre of everything that inspires them in working-class Britain. There, against the greatest soundtrack ever recorded, a vow is made: to go at life differently. Thirty years on, half a life away, the phone rings. Tully has news.Mayflies is a memorial to youth's euphorias and to everyday tragedy. A tender goodbye to an old union, it discovers the joy and the costs of love.

    But everything changes when Abbie is twelve and their emotional, spirited mother casts them into a crisis for which no one is prepared. Six years later the Morris family have rebuilt their lives, and when Abbie and Beatie, Abbie's adored elder sister, set off for the county fair, the world seems a good place. But their new-found happiness is not to last. A chance encounter with Louis, a personable, handsome stranger, leads to tragedy and has repercussions that threaten to destroy Abbie's peace of mind for ever. Abbie struggles to forget what happened that night, to get on with her life, but when she meets charming, honourable Arthur - and re-encounters Louis - it becomes clear that she might never recover from the night they stayed so long at the fair...

    All this seems far removed from Kami, a boy who quietly goes about his everyday life in his farm village until one day he trips over the unconsious body of a warrior hidden in the long grass.That discovery will lead him on an adventure across the warring kingdoms, facing assassins and enemy soldiers as he journeys to the capital to face the new Shogun. Through his travels he aspires to become a samurai, and in his many challenges he eventually comes to understand what it means to be one.

    A seamless blend of imperial politics, chariot races, sex and sword fights: Roman history as the gods intended! Rome's Executioner: the second installment in the epic Vespasian series that chronicles the rise from humble origins of one man to fulfil his destiny as one of Rome's greatest Emperors. False God of Rome: Action, adventure and battle in the third installment of Robert Fabbri's bestselling Vespasian series. Rebellions in the provinces, murders and political manoeuvrings in the Eternal City - and a mission to steal one of the greatest artefacts of the ancient world.

    The story covers Maggie Clarke's upbringing in the tenements close to the docks, the River Mersey and the Leeds and Liverpool Canal: an area notorious for having the worst slums in Britain, yet the closest community as well.At the tender age of 11, Maggie Clarke finds herself the matriarch of the family when her Irish mother runs off with another man. Leaving school at 14 to work at a local factory putting sticks into lollies, she is determined to make a better life for herself and her family - before starting her own family with her childhood sweetheart, who she marries at 19 after 'falling in the family way'. She has one night of married life with her husband before he is sent to India with the Navy and is devastated when she never hears from him again, presuming him a casualty of the war that is raging at home and abroad. Another tragedy strikes when Maggie's brother Tommy is also claimed by the war, leaving her father inconsolable, but Maggie knows life has to go on and falls in love with Joseph, an Irish settler who she has 8 children with. But her happiness is short-lived as her first husband suddenly appears out of the blue demanding a divorce, and her new husband drinks away what little money they have, returning in fits of rage that leave Maggie and her children hungry and afraid. Many times she is only able to feed her brood by the kindness of neighbours putting a 'pan of scouse' on the range for her, or feeding her kids jam butties to help out. Maggie's story sweeps across the changing face of Liverpool, from its squalid dock streets, the tenement blocks and cobbled roads to the decline of the docklands, new council housing, the rise of the Mersey beat, the Beatles and the energy and passion of a city that is home to a cast of colourful characters with the resilience to withstand the heartbreak and hardships that only the poorest can know.

    She loves their new home called Oakley Plantation, especially when she finds old love letters dated back to the Civil War. Unfortunately, she has only one side of them—letters from Lt. Stanton Winston Tate. Little does she know that across the state, a young man named Trevor Whitfield finds the other half—letters from Constantine Oakley. They both research the couple and find lots of history of the old plantation—and some not so good. In the meantime, Sheriff Carlton Adams is trying to solve all the cold cases before he retires. Three murders are left; all were in the late 1800s, and all involve the Oakleys. Fate intertwines their lives and research. When all seems to come to a dead end, a century year old lady named Mable Carter helps. However, her help unveils a curse and the spirits. Can Issy, Trevor and the Sheriff solve the case? Can they undo the curse?