Stella’s childhood is full of strange, life-threatening incidents—moments where ordinary situations like cooking eggplant or feeding the pigs inexplicably take lethal turns. Even Stella’s own mother is convinced that her daughter is cursed or haunted.In her rugged Italian village, Stella is considered an oddity—beautiful and smart, insolent and cold. Stella uses her peculiar toughness to protect her slower, plainer baby sister Tina from life’s harshest realities. But she also provokes the ire of her father Antonio: a man who demands subservience from women and whose greatest gift to his family is his absence.When the Fortunas emigrate to America on the cusp of World War II, Stella and Tina must come of age side-by-side in a hostile new world with strict expectations for each of them. Soon Stella learns that her survival is worthless without the one thing her family will deny her at any cost: her independence.In present-day Connecticut, one family member tells this heartrending story, determined to understand the persisting rift between the now-elderly Stella and Tina. A richly told debut, The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna is a tale of family transgressions as ancient and twisted as the olive branch that could heal them.

    She was also generous. When Anna proposed an all-expenses-paid trip to Marrakech, Rachel jumped at the chance. But when Anna’s credit cards mysteriously stopped working, the dream vacation quickly took a dark turn. Anna asked Rachel to begin fronting costs—first for flights, then meals and shopping, and, finally, for their $7,500-per-night private villa. Before Rachel knew it, more than $62,000 had been charged to her credit cards. Anna swore she would reimburse Rachel the moment they returned to New York. Back in Manhattan, the repayment never materialized, and a shocking pattern of deception emerged. Rachel learned that Anna had left a trail of deceit—and unpaid bills—wherever she’d been. Mortified, Rachel contacted the district attorney, and in a stunning turn of events, found herself helping to bring down one of the city’s most notorious con artists.

    What really happened to Cheryl and Rob before, during and after Cheryl Pierson, a sixteen-year-old sexually, physically and mentally abused teen, hired a classmate to kill her father for $1,000 in 1986?The case was in the national media for many years. In 1988 a New York Times reporter wrote A Deadly Silence, a successful true crime book about this case using an investigative journalism style. It also became a TV movie. As a traumatized sixteen year old, Cheryl only gave one short interview 30 years ago, so much of what was reported in the media, book and movie was fabrication and speculation. Some accounts implied she lied about the abuse, others that she did it for her father’s insurance, but Cheryl remained silent for years—too young and destroyed to fight back against the speculation and frequent falsehoods or to discuss the true dark nature of the nightmare she lived every day of her young life. After her release from jail, she and her high school boyfriend, Rob Cuccio were married, they had two daughters and led as normal a life as possible. Most friends and neighbors had no idea of her past.Throughout her life, Cheryl has suffered from PTSD and other symptoms as a result of her father’s abuse and his subsequent murder, but the story doesn’t end there. People often wonder what happened next, or where are they now, because this case continues to hold a fascination. Two episodes are scheduled on Discovery ID channel in early 2017.This is not fiction and is not sugar-coated. It is the story of their life to the present, and everything is backed by documentation. Cheryl hopes through finally telling the truth about what drove her to murder in her own words, it will help other abuse victims and encourage them to speak out.On Cheryl’s forty-third birthday, May 14, 2012, after months of misdiagnosed chest pain and other symptoms, Rob Cuccio, her husband of 25 years, suffered a fatal heart attack. Doctors pronounced him dead after thirty minutes, but he’d saved Cheryl’s life for so many years, even when she wanted to commit suicide, that now she knew in her heart she couldn’t live without him. She had to do everything possible to save him. Over the years through Rob’s love, understanding and support she had come a long way from the abused teenage victim. She refused to accept that he was dead, because something inside told her he was clinging to a remnant of life.She begged doctors to keep trying and wouldn’t give up. The doctor finally said, “We’ll try for ten minutes more, but after that you have to let him go.” Then she prayed to everyone she could think of, even to the father she paid to have killed.With only two minutes of the ten left, forty-three minutes after his heart ceased to beat and supply oxygen to his brain, there was a faint pulse and Rob came back to life. It was called a miracle. The doctors never had a case where the patient was dead for so long and did not sustain massive brain damage. Everything Cheryl endured during her life had given her the strength to demand they keep trying to save her husband.Cheryl and Rob brought a malpractice suit against the cardiologist who had treated Rob for chest pain and other classic symptoms. Over at least a six month period, instead of diagnosing that Rob’s arteries were blocked and his heart was dying, the doctor never ordered tests like an angiogram, and instead told him repeatedly nothing was wrong—it was only anxiety. The malpractice case was proven, but a travesty of justice occurred in an astounding jury verdict—the doctor won the case. Some of the doctor’s testimony is included in the book.***In writing their dramatic book, they want to illustrate that damaged lives can be rebuilt. The book has a photo and media reprint section.

    Each of them is handed a tantalizing clue to her true heritage—a clue which takes Maia across the world to a crumbling mansion in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Once there, she begins to put together the pieces of her story and its beginnings.Eighty years earlier in Rio’s Belle Epoque of the 1920s, Izabela Bonifacio’s father has aspirations for his daughter to marry into the aristocracy. Meanwhile, architect Heitor da Silva Costa is devising plans for an enormous statue, to be called Christ the Redeemer, and will soon travel to Paris to find the right sculptor to complete his vision. Izabela—passionate and longing to see the world—convinces her father to allow her to accompany him and his family to Europe before she is married. There, at Paul Landowski’s studio and in the heady, vibrant cafes of Montparnasse, she meets ambitious young sculptor Laurent Brouilly, and knows at once that her life will never be the same again.In this sweeping, epic tale of love and loss—the first in a unique, spellbinding series of seven novels—Lucinda Riley showcases her storytelling talent like never before.

    She'll take you searching for bodies of loved ones - through woodlands, along hedgerows, field-edges, and through plantations - solving time since death, and disposal of remains, from ditches to living rooms. She will give you glimpses of her own history: her loves, her losses, and the narrow little valley in Wales where she first woke up to the wonders of the natural world. Pat will show you how her work with a microscope reveals tell-tale traces of the world around us, and how these have taken suspects of the darkest criminal activities to court.From flowers, fungi, tree trunks to car pedals, walking boots, carpets, and corpses' hair, Traces is a unique book on life, death, and one's indelible link with nature.

    I Love You about a young woman with breast cancer who undertakes a mission to find a new wife for her husband before she passes away.Twenty-seven-year-old Daisy already beat breast cancer three years ago. How can this be happening to her again?On the eve of what was supposed to be a triumphant “Cancerversary” with her husband Jack to celebrate three years of being cancer-free, Daisy suffers a devastating blow: her doctor tells her that the cancer is back, but this time it’s an aggressive stage four diagnosis. She may have as few as four months left to live. Death is a frightening prospect—but not because she’s afraid for herself. She’s terrified of what will happen to her brilliant but otherwise charmingly helpless husband when she’s no longer there to take care of him. It’s this fear that keeps her up at night, until she stumbles on the solution: she has to find him another wife.With a singular determination, Daisy scouts local parks and coffee shops and online dating sites looking for Jack’s perfect match. But the further she gets on her quest, the more she questions the sanity of her plan. As the thought of her husband with another woman becomes all too real, Daisy’s forced to decide what’s more important in the short amount of time she has left: her husband’s happiness—or her own?

    Black Mass Film Tie In

    Armed men bound and drugged them, then abducted Denise. Warned not to call the police or Denise would be killed. Aaron agonized about what to do. Finally he put his trust in law enforcement and dialed 911. But instead of searching for Denise, the police accused Aaron of her murder. His story, they told him, was just unbelievable. When Denise was released alive, the police turned their fire on her, dubbing her the "real-life 'Gone Girl'" who had faked her own kidnapping.In Victim F, Aaron and Denise recount the horrific ordeal that almost cost them everything. Like too many victims of sexual violence, they were dismissed, disbelieved, and dragged through the mud. With no one to rely on except each other, they took on the victim blaming, harassment, misogyny, and abuse of power running rife in the criminal justice system. Their story is, in the end, a love story, but one that sheds necessary light on sexual assault and the abuse by law enforcement that all too frequently compounds crime victims' suffering.

    Despite her appalling childhood, Dana’s courage and determination shine through on every page.

    But the wonderful man I just married believes as I do―work is paramount, absolutely no children―and now love seems to me quite marvelous.These words are spoken to a rapturous audience by Joan Ashby, a brilliant and intense literary sensation acclaimed for her explosively dark and singular stories.When Joan finds herself unexpectedly pregnant, she is stunned by Martin’s delight, his instant betrayal of their pact. She makes a fateful, selfless decision then, to embrace her unintentional family.Challenged by raising two precocious sons, it is decades before she finally completes her masterpiece novel. Poised to reclaim the spotlight, to resume the intended life she gave up for love, a betrayal of Shakespearean proportion forces her to question every choice she has made.Epic, propulsive, incredibly ambitious, and dazzlingly written, The Resurrection of Joan Ashby is a story about sacrifice and motherhood, the burdens of expectation and genius. Cherise Wolas’s gorgeous debut introduces an indelible heroine candid about her struggles and unapologetic in her ambition.

    Lost Girls is a portrait of unsolved murders in an idyllic part of America, of the underside of the Internet, and of the secrets we keep without admitting to ourselves that we keep them.

    Six weeks later they ordered their first microphones and the rest is history. From the hosts of the hit podcast RedHanded (dubbed by Anna Paquin as her “all- time favorite true crime podcast”), Bala and Maguire have amassed a cult following of “spooky bitches.”What is it about killers, cults, and cannibals that capture our imaginations even as they terrify and disturb us? Do we find these stories endlessly and equally compelling and frightening, because they hold up a mirror to society’s failings and to the horrors that we humans are capable of? RedHanded rejects the outdated narrative of killers as monsters and that a victim “was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.” Instead, it dissects the stories of killers in a way that challenges perceptions and asks the hard questions about society, gender, poverty, culture, and even our politics.With their trademark humor, research on real-life cases, and unflinching analysis of what makes a criminal, Bala and Maguire take you through what drives the most extreme of human behavior to find out once and for all: what makes a killer tick?

    Perfect for fans of Katie Flynn.For the ordinary people of Empire Street, life will never be the same again.Kitty Fisher has plenty on her plate to keep her busy. Since her mother died when she was just a child, she’s cooked, cleaned and scraped to make ends meet for her drunken father and her headstrong brothers.Rita Kennedy, living with her husband under the roof of his spiteful mother-in-law, is desperate for their own home. Perhaps that will help them get their marriage back on the rails again?For the two women and others like them on Liverpool’s dockside and across the whole country, the threatening clouds of war will bring heartache and tragedy. It will take courage and the bonds of family and friends to help them see this through.

    In a raw, first-person account, Waite recounts each heartbreaking discovery, every life-destroying lie, and reveals what happens once the dust finally settles on her demolished marriage.After a disturbing email sparks Waite's suspicion that her husband is having an affair, she tries to uncover the truth and rebuild trust in her marriage. Instead, she finds more lies, infidelity, and betrayal than she could have imagined. Waite obsessively analyzes her relationship, trying to find a single moment from the last five years that isn't part of the long-con of lies and manipulation. With a dual-timeline narrative structure, we see Waite's romance bud, bloom, and wither simultaneously, making the heartbreak and disbelief even more affecting.

    As we reel from the latest horror . . . " So begins a new epilogue, illustrating how Columbine became the template for nearly two decades of "spectacle murders." It is a false script, seized upon by a generation of new killers. In the wake of Newtown, Aurora, and Virginia Tech, the imperative to understand the crime that sparked this plague grows more urgent every year.What really happened April 20, 1999? The horror left an indelible stamp on the American psyche, but most of what we "know" is wrong. It wasn't about jocks, Goths, or the Trench Coat Mafia. Dave Cullen was one of the first reporters on scene, and spent ten years on this book-widely recognized as the definitive account. With a keen investigative eye and psychological acumen, he draws on mountains of evidence, insight from the world's leading forensic psychologists, and the killers' own words and drawings-several reproduced in a new appendix. Cullen paints raw portraits of two polar opposite killers. They contrast starkly with the flashes of resilience and redemption among the survivors.