Shaken with fright when he nudges a gun to her body and demands protection, Audra has no clue how deeply the murderer's rough, tender touches will penetrate the hardened layers of her heart.Dean Casey can't believe he's on the run after shooting two cops. But he never dreamed that his young daughter would be molested, either, a crushing reality that pushed the hardworking father to the brink of insanity. With the entire city of Miami on the hunt for him, Dean must figure out a way to save his daughter before vanishing from her life forever. To complicate matters, his hostage is a sexy, thick beauty whose attraction to him is impossible to ignore.Overcome with the thrill of their forbidden lust and imprisoned in the walls of her home, Audra and Dean lose themselves in an addictive, erotic haze - until sudden tragedies and shocking twists force them to escape Miami. As the fugitives set sail on the tranquil Caribbean Sea, their treacherous journey will, once and for all, test the limitless bounds of their passion.

    Written in the spirit of Jodi Picoult and Anna Quindlen, Chosen is an extraordinary debut novel from Chandra Hoffman that deals with the controversial subject of adoption while providing a riveting read that will equally ensnare lovers of suspense, domestic drama, and literary fiction.

    But instead of the abstract canvases of the Pollocks and Rothkos, he stubbornly hewed to painting one subject the female nude. When he died in 2001, he left behind a wife, Abigail, an autistic son, and a sister, Maxine, herself a notable abstract painter all duly noted in the New York Times obituary.What no one knows is that Oscar Feldman led an entirely separate life in Brooklyn with his longtime mistress, Teddy St. Cloud, and their twin daughters. As the incorrigibly bohemian Teddy puts it, "He couldn't live without a woman around. It was like water to a plant for him." Now two rival biographers, book contracts in hand, are circling around Feldman's life story, and each of these three women, Abigail, Maxine, and Teddy, will have a chance to tell the truth as they experienced it.The Great Man is a scintillating comedy of life among the avant-garde of the untidy truths, needy egos, and jostlings for position behind the glossy facade of artistic greatness. Not a pretty picture but a provocative and entertaining one that incarnates the take-no-prisoners satirical spirit of Dawn Powell and Mary McCarthy.

    Then rough, tough karate champion Jordan walks into Kelsey's life and dares her to risk her heart on a night of searing passion. The two women are caught in an inferno of desire while secrets from the past threaten to destroy them.

    Unlike Frédéric Moreau in Flaubert's L'Éducation sentimentale (to which this book owes no meagre debt), Piet is magnificently gifted, not only "extremely attractive to most women and to many men," but also a fine pianist, draughtsman and lover. We first meet him interviewing for the role of tutor to the son of the wealthy hotelier, Maarten Vermeulen-Sickerts. All is not well in his gilded household. Egbert, the son, is agoraphobic. The matriarch, Jacobina, hasn't been touched by her husband in almost a decade. Into this highly strung atmosphere comes Piet, charged with the task of freeing Egbert from his paralysing fear of the outside world. We soon realise, however, that Egbert isn't the only one in need of help. Piet sets about liberating the libidos of the repressed family through music – championing bawdy Bizet over abstract Bach – and oral sex. While the setting is Dutch, the influences are French – think Bel-Ami, Les Liaisons dangereuses and Gide's L'Immoraliste.

    She thought she was better than everybody, or rather you thought it. But remember the day you found out that she lived in the projects/ghetto/hood just like everybody else? You were shocked, and now less envious of her, knowing she came from exactly where you did. Well, Trouble is that chick! Spoiled rotten by her brother, who has a complex occupation, and her boyfriend, the star B-ball player at their high school being sought after by colleges across the map who don't mind lacing him with SUVs and putting money in his pocket to sway him towards attending their university to play ball--Trouble seems to have it all. And what she doesn't have, she manages to get. But unlike some of the chicks in these other street lit tales; she doesn't have to use her body to get things. She uses the ghetto diva attitude that makes people believe she deserves the best and therefore they do back flips trying to provide. This urban novel has a completely different twist than any other written thus far. In Trouble's journey, she loses her brother, who she is closer to than bark on a tree, and feels as though it's the end of the world. But when she finds out that the person who murdered him had once tried to get with her, a huge scheme comes to mind in order for her to seek revenge. She pretends to like her brother's killer in order to get him right where she wants him, but her plan backfires when something happens that she never saw coming. She falls in love with her brother's killer.

    Set during the uncertain early days of World War II, this suspenseful story from the New York Times bestselling author of City of Light follows the work of photojournalist Claire Shipley as she captures America’s race to develop life-saving antibiotics—an assignment that will involve blackmail, espionage, and murder.

    The most "developed" nations of the world have fallen to the shambling zombie masses. Only a few pockets of humanity survive — in places rife with high-powered weaponry, such as Somalia. In New York City, the dead walk the streets, driven by an insatiable hunger for all things living. One amongst them is different; though he shares their appetites he has retained his human intelligence. Alone among the mindless zombies, Gary Fleck is an eyewitness to the end of the world — and perhaps the evil genius behind it all. From the other side of the planet, a small but heavily-armed group of schoolgirls-turned-soldiers has come in search of desperately needed medicine. Dekalb, a former United Nations weapons inspector, leads them as their local guide. Ayaan, a crack shot at the age of sixteen, will stop at nothing to complete her mission. They think they are prepared for anything. On Monster Island they will find that there is something worse even than being undead, as Gary learns the true price of survival.

    Copperfield at a party. Two serious ladies who want to live outside of themselves, they go in search of salvation: Mrs. Copperfield visits Panama with her husband, where she finds solace among the women who live and work in its brothels; while Miss Goering becomes involved with various men. At the end the two women meet again, each changed by her experience. Mysterious, profound, anarchic and very funny, 'Two Serious Ladies' is a daring, original work that defies analysis.

    We witness the secrets of Ann Biddle's family through every lens: from the clarity of the rearview mirror, through the haze of Alzheimer's, and as a young housewife in 1960s suburbia grappling with illness, death, heartbreak and tragedy.

    A manic cross between Mark Leyner, Fran Lebowitz, and the National Enquirer, Sedaris’s collection of essays is a rollicking tour through the national Zeitgeist: a do-it-yourself suburban dad saves money by performing home surgery; a man who is loved too much flees the heavyweight champion of the world; a teenage suicide tries to incite a lynch mob at her funeral; a bitter Santa abuses the elves.David Sedaris made his debut on NPR’s Morning Edition with “SantaLand Diaries”, recounting his strange-but-true experiences as an elf at Macy’s, and soon became one of the show’s most popular commentators. With a perfect eye and a voice infused with as much empathy as wit, Sedaris writes stories and essays that target the soulful ridiculousness of our behavior. Barrel Fever is like a blind date with modern life, and anything can happen.Parade --Music for lovers --The last you'll hear from me --My manuscript --Firestone --We get along --Glen's homophobia newsletter vol. 3, no. 2 --Don's story --Season's greeting to our friends and family!!! --Jamboree --After Malison --Barrel fever --Diary of a smoker --Giantess --The curly kind --SantaLand diaries

    In Eyes for Consuela, based on Octavio Paz’s classic story “The Blue Bouquet,” a vacationing American encounters a knife-toting Mexican bandit on a gruesome quest. And in When the World Was Green, cowritten with Joseph Chaikin, a journalist in search of her father interviews an old man who resolved a generations-old vendetta by murdering the wrong man. Together, these plays form a powerful trio from an enduring force in American theater.

    . . or survivors. Reckless Whitney MacAllister possesses all the wealth and beauty every woman dreams of. Streetwise Douglas Lord has the good looks and quick wits to be a success at his chosen profession: larceny. She has the cash and the connections. He has the stolen documents leading to a fabulous hidden fortune. It is a business proposition, pure and simple.But the race to find the treasure, from Manhattan to Madagascar, is only part of the game. For their fierce and dangerous attraction to each other soon threatens to overwhelm them—unless their merciless and shadowy rivals kill them first.

    The month before their second anniversary, during a long-awaited holiday, Aura broke her neck while body surfing. Francisco, blamed for Aura’s death by her family and blaming himself, wanted to die, too. Instead, he wrote Say Her Name, a novel chronicling his great love and unspeakable loss, tracking the stages of grief when pure love gives way to bottomless pain.Suddenly a widower, Goldman collects everything he can about his wife, hungry to keep Aura alive with every memory. From her childhood and university days in Mexico City with her fiercely devoted mother to her studies at Columbia University, through their newlywed years in New York City and travels to Mexico and Europe—and always through the prism of her gifted writings—Goldman seeks her essence and grieves her loss. Humor leavens the pain as he lives through the madness of grief and creates a living portrait of a love as joyous as it is deep and profound.Say Her Name is a love story, a bold inquiry into destiny and accountability, and a tribute to Aura, who she was and who she would've been.

    When Edward is tragically killed, Viola survives the best way she can, and ends up becoming partner with another widow in a laundry and dressmaking business, barely making ends meet. When her partner deserts her and her husband's debts threaten to destroy her, Viola offers William Donovan - a self-made Irish man - a deal he can't resist. She offers to be his personal mistress for three months; in return, Donovan agrees to house and feed her, which allows Viola to turn down the advances of Paul Lennox, a treacherous man whom she loathes. As Viola and William start to trust each other - much to both of their surprise - things heat up as Lennox plots to kidnap Viola. But will the growing bond between Viola and her Irish devil prove strong enough to overcome the dangerous circumstances that are headed their way?