She was the glue that held their family together and, now that she's gone, Alfie and his dad don't really know how to be a family without her. And then Alfie meets Alice. Alice is a force of nature and has her own set of problems, but at least when Alfie's with her he can forget about his. Or can he? Because no matter how hard you run, life will always catch up in the end. Despite everything holding them back, together Alfie and Alice learn two things: that friendship can help dig you out of even the blackest hole, and that it's not the falling down that matters, it's the getting back up. Enormously heartfelt and insightful, this fiercely uplifting novel is Eve Ainsworth at her best.

    With prodigious talents, Caleb is easily one of the best teenage hockey players in America. There is no doubt that Caleb will become the next greatest star on ice. The only problem is: he knows it. And he demands to be treated like a star. Cocky, arrogant and self-centered, Caleb is on a straight path to destroying his own career. Jennifer Beckett is academically gifted, as her longstanding position on the honors list indicate. While she may seem flawless inside the classroom, Jennifer is a totally different person outside of class. Broken, fearful, dependent. To hide her insecurities, Jennifer stays away from any sign of trouble. But Caleb is a different kind of trouble, one that draws her into his world. Can this relationship save the two of them from their own destruction?

    But his subject seems more interested in finding out about Robert's past than he does in revealing his own. For years, Robert has refused to discuss his past. After the war ended, he refused to go to reunions, believing in some way that denying the killing and the deaths of his friends and fellow soldiers would mean he wouldn't be defined by the experience. Suddenly, he can't keep the memories from overtaking him. But can he trust his memories and can we believe what other people tell us about theirs?Moving between the present and past, between France and Italy, New York and London, this is a powerful story about love and war, memory and desire, the relationship between the body and the mind. Compelling and full of suspense, Where My Heart Used to Beat is a tender, brutal and thoughtful portrait of a man and a century, which asks whether, given the carnage we've witnessed and inflicted over the past one hundred years, people can ever be the same.

    In the background loom the many tumultuous changes that have gripped Afghanistan in the years since Amir's carefree kite-flying childhood. From the fall of the monarchy through the Soviet invasion to the mass exodus of refugees to Pakistan and the United States to the rise of the Taliban regime, the story of Amir and Hassan emerges as the story of Afghanistan itself. The engaging new guide to this modern-day classic features an annotated bibliography, a listing of other works by the author, and an introduction by noted literary scholar Harold Bloom.

    Marine Logan Thibault finds a photograph of a smiling young woman half-buried in the dirt during his third tour of duty in Iraq, his first instinct is to toss it aside. Instead, he brings it back to the base for someone to claim, but when no one does, he finds himself always carrying the photo in his pocket. Soon Thibault experiences a sudden streak of luck—winning poker games and even surviving deadly combat that kills two of his closest buddies. Only his best friend, Victor, seems to have an explanation for his good fortune: the photograph—his lucky charm.Back home in Colorado, Thibault can’t seem to get the photo—and the woman in it—out of his mind. Believing that she somehow holds the key to his destiny, he sets out on a journey across the country to find her, never expecting the strong but vulnerable woman he encounters in Hampton, North Carolina—Elizabeth, a divorced mother with a young son—to be the girl he’s been waiting his whole life to meet. Caught off guard by the attraction he feels, Thibault keeps the story of the photo, and his luck, a secret. As he and Elizabeth embark upon a passionate and all-consuming love affair, the secret he is keeping will soon threaten to tear them apart—destroying not only their love, but also their lives.Filled with tender romance and terrific suspense, The Lucky One is Nicholas Sparks at his best—an unforgettable story about the surprising paths our lives often take and the power of fate to guide us to true and everlasting love.

    First US publication for the Scottish Spence.Neil McGraw is a lad in Glasgow, an only child, the son of a dour undertaker permanently embittered by his wife's death during childbirth. Whenever the boy misbehaves, he's locked in the basement among the coffins, so it's not surprising he asks every body: What happens when you die? Against his will, he finds himself learning the trade. This is less gloomy than it sounds. The story moves at a good clip as the resilient Neil experiments with drinking and dating.The crisis comes when his dad finds him and his girl making out in a coffin. Soon, it's Neil's turn to lock his old man, dead drunk, into the basement, before hightailing it to the London of the Swinging '60s. A friendly queer, Abe Morris, offers him a crash pad, no strings attached, where Neil finds drugs, straight sex, and Zen. The party ends when Abe, stoned, is killed in traffic and Spence abandons conventional narrative to send Neil hopscotching around the world before depositing him, 15 years later, beside the funeral pyres of the Ganges. Here, he gets very sick but is rescued by a vision in a sari: Lila, a Londoner, back home for her father's funeral. The two fall in love and marry, lickety-split, before Neil is summoned back to Glasgow. His father has died, leaving him the business, which Neil gives a hippie twist, producing brightly painted coffins in unusual shapes, with Lila a business partner.The mood is light and buoyant, but novelistic concerns (what makes Lila tick? why do the couple decide not to have kids?) are shelved in favor of a scrapbook of original last rites, seasoned with Eastern mysticism. There's an appealing freshness to Spence's writing; too bad he gives up on credible plotting and characterization.

    In the depths of WWII, 12-year-old Edie is nervous at the prospect of being sent to live with an unknown aunt whilst her mother flies planes for the ATA. Aunt Roberta welcomes Edie with open arms, but does a dark secret lurk at the heart of the village?

    Get this once in a lifetime collection NOW.Mature audiences only.

    No more men, no more heartbreak, and no more pain.Psychiatrist Jake Steinmann is making a new start too, leaving his broken marriage behind in San Francisco. From now on there'll just be one love in his life: New York.At a party where they seem to be the only two singletons, Bea and Jake meet, and decide there’s just one thing for it. They will make a pact: no more relationships.But the city has other plans . . .

    From then on, Grace gives her heart to her brother's wealthy friend, but he sees her as a mere girl and marries a woman from his own station in life.They meet again when the Great War has changed them both. Grace has suffered loss and pain and emerged as a strong, passionate woman. Rupert, nearly broken by the horrors he has endured, has been humiliated by the bride who once seemed so right for him, and he rejects Grace's love and any hope of future happiness. But Grace is determined to rediscover the spirit of the only boy she ever loved in the man who is ready to die.

    He has always been mine. And he always will be. On some level deep inside, Laura Bateman knows something is wrong. That her relationship with her son is not what it should be. That it is based on lies.But bad things have happened to Laura. Things that change a person. Forever.For twenty-six-year-old Daniel, the discovery that his mother is not who he thought comes close to destroying him. As his world turns upside down, he searches for sanity in the madness that has become his life. Daniel is left with nothing but questions. Why did Laura do something so terrible? Can he move past the demons of his childhood?And the biggest question of all: can he ever forgive Laura? Revised edition: This edition of His Kidnapper's Shoes includes editorial revisions.

    Dave Kelly and Andy Zymanczyk are classmates at a strict Catholic school. Both, desperate to escape their stifling backgrounds, get part-time work in the local cinema. Here they form a binding friendship and, with the help of one charismatic cinema manager, embark on a voyage of discovery. Dave falls in love with Rachel, a Jewish girl who also wants to escape from her strict religious background, while Andy falls for a girl he knows he can never have. When the cinema is threatened with closure, the boys realise that more than their new-found freedom is at risk...

    aka Victor Vazquez’s debut novel "O.K." Written in as many languages as drugs it lists consumed (we’re counting idiolects, and music as a drug), "O.K." is a book of changes, as in flow, the Way, a contemporary perennial philosophy, starring Sun Ra, Bill Burroughs, 2Pac, you name It (knowing literary spirits)

    A romantic thriller set against the background of the French Revolution.

    What he finds is the dying and the dead, an entire population suffering from a strange and unnatural plague. Is it possible that every one of the townsfolk have been poisoned? At the heart of the mystery is the local pharmacist, Aiken. He is responsible for summoning young Maxwell to Carrick. He offers motives, explanations, stories, questions. But could he also be guilty of this heinous crime? Maxwell soon realizes that, although a great violence is being done to Carrick, the town itself hides from its own secrets - events from long ago and truths hidden from outsiders at all costs, even their lives. Maxwell interviews the final survivors who are suffering from a disease characterized by a barely recognizable but nonetheless identifiable odour, and a garrulousness unusual in such taciturn people, long accustomed to keeping secrets. yet their confessions lead constantly to more questions and always back to Aiken. As one who knows him well queries, "He's like a stick in water. Is he bent or not?"In The Mysterium, Eric McCormack's second novel, the nature of truth is found to be as deadly as the poison killing the people of Carrick. For at the heart of everything, at the heart of every story and every truth, there is only the mystery.