“That’s all right, Charlie. Never you mind. You just got soft living with your grandparents, is all. You forgot that most people don’t have it so easy—that you have to be tough to make it in this world.”’Set in the 1980’s, Dyed Souls follows the life of 13-year-old Charlie; an intelligent, troubled teen, taken from his grandparents by his drug addicted mother, only to end up at Hawthorne Residential Treatment Village. There he ponders Darwin, Socrates, and Plato, and unexpectedly falls in love with a girl named Margo. When she breaks his heart, Charlie runs away, beginning a new journey that will leave him shattered before he finally makes it to Virginia. Back with his grandparents, the return of his mother forces him to learn a bitter truth that changes his life forever.Dyed Souls is a thought-provoking, gritty novel, that will appeal to fans of literary fiction and philosophical literature. A coming-of-age novel, it is suitable for both young adult and adult readers.

    The story relates the adventures of a thirteen-year-old English boy whose missionary parents came to convert the wild heathens to the way of Christ.Comanches slaughter Reverend John Blackthorn and his family before he preaches one word. Nigel survives by following his mother’s instructions to hide in a hollow tree. Pascal LeBrun, a roaming muleteer, rides to the smoke of the burning wagons to find Nigel, the lone survivor.Plump, lazy, and spoiled, Nigel enters an unwelcome new world–work or starve. He finds survival is the way of life on the prairie. Worse yet, English is a little used third language. Two hundred miles later, when the mule train reaches the first white settlement, Pascal gives Nigel a choice: enter an orphanage, or enter an apprenticeship on the mule train for a piddling wage.Years later, Nigel wonders if the orphanage would have been easier.

    Until recently I was just a normal boy. Well, besides the fact that I grew up wearing a copper bracelet and a malachite collar. When I moved to Johannesburg though, everything changed. I found out that I had a dark side and that I had enemies. Enemies that wanted to destroy me and others like me. I need to find a way to stop them. I need to get control of my dark side. I need help...In a universe filled with war and mystical creatures, Raymond embarks on a journey to discover his true identity and to tame his dark side. During his journey he meets a mermaid, gets tangled up in a love triangle, is taken prisoner, finds his ancestors, and is dragged into the worst war the universe has ever seen. The war of Gog and Magog. Will Raymond discover his destiny? Will he be able to stop the war of Gog and Magog?

    People around him wanted to murder him. He was abusive, mean and a downright nasty character that you prayed you would never meet.Here we read his story. We join him on his journey through life from his very first breath and we find out why he becomes a devil amongst men. Whatever you think you know about Matt, throw it out of the window, it’s wrong. You need to read his story.A twisting dark novel of grand passions, heart breaking love, betrayal, death, deceit and lies. Important. Suitable for 18+ Adults only. Contains sexually explicit scenes.

    I was on the Stuyvesant baseball team, but because of my working hours, my playing time was limited. My first dream to become a corporate president by the time I was 35 years of age was fulfilled.Experience the ups and downs of a life well lived in Bill Morgenstein's compelling new memoir, The Crazy Life of a Kid from Brooklyn.While first reminiscing upon his childhood in Brooklyn during the depression, Morgenstein traces his life through times of war, peace, and everything in between.At times extremely funny and heartbreaking, The Crazy Life of a Kid in Brooklyn details Morgenstein's enlistment in the US Army, his days running a $55 million dollar company, his despair at losing it all to a scam, and much more.His chance encounters with such historical figures as Sergeant York, Cordell Hull, Sid Gordon, Jomo Kenyatta, and Vince Camuto provide amusing cultural touchstones that reveal a willingness to embrace everything life has to offer.Through all the successful, disappointing, dangerous, educational, and enlightening experiences that have shaped his life, Morgenstein remains philosophical as he explores the roles of ethics, honesty, and unfailing determination in shaping the human experience.

    With a wife and five small children, a hectic schedule, and a new book due to his publishers, Nicholas Sparks was busy with his usual routine. The colorful mailer, however, described something very different: a tour to some of the most exotic places on Earth. Slowly, an idea took hold in Nicholas's mind and heart. In January 2003, Nicholas Sparks and his brother, Micah, set off on a three-week trip around the globe. It was to mark a milestone in their lives, for at thirty-seven and thirty-eight respectively, they were now the only surviving members of their family. And as they voyaged to the lost city of Machu Picchu high in the Andes. . . to mysterious Easter Island. . . to Ayers Rock in the Australian outback. . . and across the vast Indian subcontinent, the ultimate story of their lives would unfold. Against the backdrop of the wonders of the world and often overtaken by their feelings, daredevil Micah and the more serious, introspective Nicholas recalled their rambunctious childhood adventures and the tragedies that tested their faith. And in the process, they discovered startling truths about loss, love and hope. Narrated with irrepressible humor and rare candor, and including personal photographs, Three Weeks with my Brother reminds us to embrace life with all its uncertainties. . . and most of all, to cherish the joyful times, both small and momentous, and the wonderful people who make them possible.Did You Know?---Three Weeks With My Brother is Nicholas's second work of non-fiction? (The first was Wokini, written with Olympic Gold Medalist Billy Mills.)Nicholas and Micah Sparks wrote the book together from separate coasts by talking on the phone and faxing drafts back and forth?The trip around the world was part of a Notre Dame alumni package?

    In this collection of his stories (each of which has a story behind it), you'll read about two retired spiritual leaders who experience a miracle in their nursing home, a gay relationship that must end between an American man and a Thai student, the astonishing adventures of an early mid-life failure, the thrilling chase one gay man undertakes for another intriguing, confusing, mysterious man, and a mind-blowing time-travel misadventure involving a man and a dog, as well as a few other surprises. This genre bending collection will captivate you. You might even enjoy the stories. Adam Carpenter Welles works in media in a major city in the Southeastern United States.

    Kya Clark is barefoot and wild; unfit for polite society. So in late 1969, when the popular Chase Andrews is found dead, locals immediately suspect her.But Kya is not what they say. A born naturalist with just one day of school, she takes life's lessons from the land, learning the real ways of the world from the dishonest signals of fireflies. But while she has the skills to live in solitude forever, the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. Drawn to two young men from town, who are each intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new and startling world—until the unthinkable happens.In Where the Crawdads Sing, Owens juxtaposes an exquisite ode to the natural world against a profound coming of age story and haunting mystery. Thought-provoking, wise, and deeply moving, Owens’s debut novel reminds us that we are forever shaped by the child within us, while also subject to the beautiful and violent secrets that nature keeps.The story asks how isolation influences the behavior of a young woman, who like all of us, has the genetic propensity to belong to a group. The clues to the mystery are brushed into the lush habitat and natural histories of its wild creatures.

    She doesn’t believe that the Nazis will invade France…but invade they do, in droves of marching soldiers, in caravans of trucks and tanks, in planes that fill the skies and drop bombs upon the innocent. When a German captain requisitions Vianne’s home, she and her daughter must live with the enemy or lose everything. Without food or money or hope, as danger escalates all around them, she is forced to make one impossible choice after another to keep her family alive.Vianne’s sister, Isabelle, is a rebellious eighteen-year-old, searching for purpose with all the reckless passion of youth. While thousands of Parisians march into the unknown terrors of war, she meets Gaëtan, a partisan who believes the French can fight the Nazis from within France, and she falls in love as only the young can…completely. But when he betrays her, Isabelle joins the Resistance and never looks back, risking her life time and again to save others.With courage, grace and powerful insight, bestselling author Kristin Hannah captures the epic panorama of World War II and illuminates an intimate part of history seldom seen: the women’s war. The Nightingale tells the stories of two sisters, separated by years and experience, by ideals, passion and circumstance, each embarking on her own dangerous path toward survival, love, and freedom in German-occupied, war-torn France—a heartbreakingly beautiful novel that celebrates the resilience of the human spirit and the durability of women. It is a novel for everyone, a novel for a lifetime.

    She’s Saga, Artificial Intelligence Detective.The exciting action of the Swiftsure Yacht race launches an adventure which ranges from the urban landscape of Vancouver to the wild islands of Alaska. Chandler Gray, a sailor and software developer has created Saga (Say-Gah), an Artificial Intelligence app which emulates the powers of fiction’s greatest detectives. A chance encounter with the wealthy, glamorous Gina Lee, leads to an invitation to sail on her yacht in the Swiftsure race. When Gina is kidnapped, Saga falsely claims Chan is a Private Investigator, and he takes on the rescue.Sometimes bumbling, but always determined, Chan and Saga roll through adventures in flight, at sea and on the ground. With a band of friends providing support, and sometimes derision, Chan doggedly pursues the truth, no matter where it leads.The quest leads to piracy in the Aleutians, a Land Rover attacked in the backwoods of Vancouver Island, and a lover’s betrayal. Saga’s remarkable abilities don’t always lead in the right direction, and her sassy attitude sometimes annoys Chan, but in the end they make an effective team.

    Rick Daly has established a business in the exotic surroundings of the Philippines, while simultaneously discovering Marilyn Delgado, the woman of his dreams. However, a clash of cultures and his own naiveté lead to disaster. Falsely accused of a sexual crime, Rick loses both his freedom and his business. To add insult to injury, a prison escape merely amounts to switching jails. In a world where the rich prosper, honest individuals are forced to the wall, and a cynical disregard for all but the dollar is destroying society from within, crime soon follows punishment for Rick. Close to losing his soul, will Rick's ultimate success in drug and arms dealing finally lead him to face up to reality? Difficult to put down and including erotic scenes, this is a high octane adventure, which will take the reader into a sea of cultural and ethical flashpoints, while exposing huge cracks in the world’s political and social order.

    She must take the bodies of those that the devil favors to protect her family. She must uncover the motive behind the illusive Ursula/Louis Bossidan, the scandalous cross-dresser who is pursuing her beautiful granddaughter, and she must learn, being one of God’s most powerful witches, how to use her power. But will it be enough to save her husband from Urbain’s fiery inferno? Will it be enough to save her children from demons greater than themselves? Read on, you will learn more…

    . . .One of the most acclaimed novels of our time, Wally Lamb's I Know This Much Is True is a story of alienation and connection, devastation and renewal, at once joyous, heartbreaking, poignant, mystical, and powerfully, profoundly human.

    She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone.Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. She is devoted to the little girl she looks after, though she knows both their hearts may be broken.Minny, Aibileen's best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody's business, but she can't mind her tongue, so she's lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation. But her new boss has secrets of her own.Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed.In pitch-perfect voices, Kathryn Stockett creates three extraordinary women whose determination to start a movement of their own forever changes a town, and the way women, mothers, daughters, caregivers, friends, view one another. A deeply moving novel filled with poignancy, humor, and hope, The Help is a timeless and universal story about the lines we abide by, and the ones we don't. (jacket flap)Librarian's note: An alternate cover edition can be found here

    The only problem is that neither his school nor his ultra-rational physicist father appreciate his unique ideas. When he reacts to a stressful situation at school by mooning the class, his suspension sends him straight to his father’s workplace. After his frustrated father leaves him unattended, Bernard does what any teen would do: wander into the particle accelerator and accidentally get transported through a wormhole! It doesn’t take long for Bernard to realize he’s in deep trouble. Not only did the wormhole drop him in the middle of a civil war over a depleted resource, but the battle is actually taking place inside his father’s brain. Bernard has one chance to save the dying side of his father’s creative brain from the tyrannical left side. Can he use his outside-the-box thinking to save his father’s life?Brainwalker is a young adult sci-fi fantasy novel that turns the world of neuroscience on its head. If you like incredible fantasy worlds, fast-paced entertainment, and the human mind, then you’ll love Robyn Mundell and Stephan Lacast’s amazing journey inside the brain. Buy Brainwalker to help the mind survive today!