A long-buried personal sadness is enfolding her—and her career is stalled—when she stumbles upon an unusual group of immigrants living in rural California. She follows them on their annual return to the remote Azorean islands in the Atlantic Ocean, where bulls run down village streets, volcanoes are active, and the people celebrate festas to ease their saudade, a longing so deep that the Portuguese word for it can’t be fully translated.Years later, California is in a terrible drought, the wildfires seem to never end, and Diana finds herself still dreaming of those islands and the chuva—a rain so soft you don’t notice when it begins or ends.With her troublesome Labrador retriever, Murphy, in tow, Diana returns to the islands of her dreams only to discover that there are still things she longs for—and one of them may be a most unexpected love.

    Or at least this is what Juliette Sobanet did upon making the bold, heart-wrenching decision to divorce the man she had loved since she was a teenager. This is the story of the passionate love affair that ensued during the most devastating year of Sobanet’s life and how her star-crossed romance in the City of Light led to her undoing. Meet Me in Paris is a raw, powerful take on divorce and the daring choices that followed such a monumental loss from the pen of a writer who’d always believed in happy endings…and who ultimately found the courage to write her own.

    Thomas for Abby Melrose Bellavance, or so she thinks. That is, until her husband Remy steals her trust fund and disappears for parts unknown. Now, with five million reasons to write off men for good, she returns to Charleston, broke and groveling at her mother’s feet.Living again in the opulent mansion on South Battery, Abby is thrown another curve ball. Her mother passes away, leaving Abby with an enormous home but no money to support it.Turning the mansion into a boardinghouse has its advantage—immediate cash—and disadvantage—two of the hottest men in Charleston are now Abby’s tenants.Abby wants love again, especially with hunky Erik, the handyman, and sexy Brandon, the prominent attorney, living in the mansion with her. They are so different, yet they’re similar in one way she needs to avoid—they are men, and she should keep her distance.As the southern summer blazes on, Abby’s life becomes even more complicated. Personal secrets are revealed, and fate deals her one final blow. She wonders if she will ever be given a second chance at falling in love.

    It was a harrowing test of endurance on a snowbound cordillera that ended in a miraculous rescue. Now comes the unflinching and emotional true story by one of the men who found his way home.Four decades after the tragedy, a climber discovered survivor Eduardo Strauch’s wallet near the memorialized crash site and returned it to him. It was a gesture that compelled Strauch to finally “break the silence of the mountains.”In this revelatory and rewarding memoir, Strauch withholds nothing as he reveals the truth behind the life-changing events that challenged him physically and tested him spiritually, but would never destroy him. In revisiting the horror story we thought we knew, Strauch shares the lessons gleaned from far outside the realm of rational learning: how surviving on the mountain, in the face of its fierce, unforgiving power and desolate beauty, forever altered his perception of love, friendship, death, fear, loss, and hope.

    

    From dramatic, high-risk spacewalks to author Scott Parazynski’s death-defying quest to summit Mount Everest—his body ravaged by a career in space—readers will experience the life of an elite athlete, physician, and explorer.This intimate, compelling account offers a rare portrait of space exploration from the inside. A global nomad raised in the shadow of NASA’s Apollo missions, Parazynski never lost sight of his childhood dream to one day don a spacesuit and float outside the airlock. With deep passion, unbridled creativity, resilience, humility, and self-deprecation, Parazynski chases his dream of the ultimate adventure experience, again and again and again. In an era that transitioned from moon shots to the Space Shuttle, space station, and Mars research, Parazynski flies with John Glenn, tests jet packs, trains in Russia to become a cosmonaut, and flies five missions to outer space (including seven spacewalks) in his seventeen-year NASA career.An unparalleled, visceral opportunity to understand what it’s like to train for—and deploy to—a home in zero gravity, The Sky Below also portrays an astronaut’s engagement with the challenges of his life on Earth, including raising a beautiful autistic daughter and finding true love.

    Tolkien.Having grown up on their great-grandfather’s stories, Royd Tolkien and his brother, Mike, have always enjoyed adventures. So when Mike is diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease, the brothers decide to use the time they have left to tick off as much as possible from Mike’s bucket list, from remote camping in Norway to travelling through Royd’s beloved New Zealand.Yet, when Royd loses Mike, he discovers his brother had been writing another kind of bucket list: fifty things he wanted Royd to do after his death. His first task? Mike wants his mild-mannered brother to trip up on his way to the lectern to deliver his eulogy. What follows is a set of emotionally charged tests that will push Royd firmly out of his comfort zone.This is the story of Royd’s journey to accomplish a challenging, humorous, and often heart-breaking list of unknown tasks that chart the brothers’ lives from childhood to adulthood. But above all, it is a story of the sibling bond, of grief—and of treasuring every moment.

     A relatable must-read for anyone who has lost a loved one, this memoir lights the way to afterlife and afterdeath where forgiveness supersedes pain, blame, remorse and regret. In her effort to understand the generational effects of alcoholism and subsequent dysfunctional adult relationships, Marlayna takes her youngest son and her father's ashes on a personal journey, embarking on an emotional voyage to both physical and mental states of being. She confronts her own existence as a mother and a daughter, seeking and ultimately finding peace with her disappointment, anger, failed marriage, and complex relationships with her own four children.

    But after her mother, unsettled by growing political unrest, leaves for medical treatment in India, the civil war intensifies, changing young Enjeela’s life forever. Amid the rumble of invading Soviet tanks, Enjeela and her family are thrust into chaos and fear when it becomes clear that her mother will not be coming home.Thus begins an epic, reckless, and terrifying five-year journey of escape for Enjeela, her siblings, and their father to reconnect with her mother. In navigating the dangers ahead of them, and in looking back at the wilderness of her homeland, Enjeela discovers the spiritual and physical strength to find hope in the most desperate of circumstances.A heart-stopping memoir of a girl shaken by the brutalities of war and empowered by the will to survive, The Broken Circle brilliantly illustrates that family is not defined by the borders of a country but by the bonds of the heart.

    In the Dam Square in Amsterdam, long-haired young people wearing vibrant clothes and burning incense could be found meditating, playing music and discussing sexual liberation, the expansion of consciousness and the search for an inner truth. They were a generation refusing to live the robotic and unquestioning life that their parents had known.At this time, Paulo is a young, skinny Brazilian with a goatee and long, flowing hair who wants to become a writer. He sets off on a journey in search of freedom and a deeper meaning for his life: first, with a girlfriend, on the famous “Death Train to Bolivia,” then on to Peru and later hitchhiking through Chile and Argentina.His travels take him further, to the famous square in Amsterdam, where Paulo meets Karla, a Dutch woman also in her 20s. She convinces Paulo to join her on a trip to Nepal, aboard the Magic Bus that travels across Europe and Central Asia to Kathmandu. They embark on a journey in the company of fascinating fellow travelers, each of whom has a story to tell, and each of whom will undergo a transformation, changing their priorities and values, along the way. As they travel together, Paulo and Karla explore their own relationship, an awakening on every level that brings each of them to a choice and a decision that sets the course for their lives thereafter.

    They are full of enthusiasm and the dazzling spirit of adventure that only seems possible when we are young. Essential swimwear is selected and Lipton’s vegetable oil is perfumed with patchouli for the perfect tan. They end up in Argelès-sur-Mer, on a campsite close to the coast and not far from the border with Spain. Every day brings new challenges: how to hold a meaningful conversation on a naturist beach, what to do about a precocious teenage stalker, how to transport a gallon of port on a moped… all of which they meet head-on, with dubious philosophy and irrepressible optimism. One Summer in France is a humorous tale based on a three-month study break the author took as part of her languages degree course at Keele University in 1979. ‘Would you do it all again?’ asked Carol.‘Like a shot!’ I said.And I would.

     On the eve of her thirtieth birthday, Meara O’Rourke can’t help but feel alone. With her last remaining relative newly buried and her potentially disastrous engagement freshly broken, she makes a resolution to begin her life anew -- only to have an unexpected phone call turn her whole world upside down. Her biological mother Sheila, whom she met only once six years before, lies in critical condition in a nearby hospital. And though the woman once refused to see her daughter ever again -- her last wish is just the opposite.A few whispered words, and Sheila is gone. But the questions she has put into her daughter’s head, and the historic stone inn she has unknowingly bequeathed, sweep Meara up into the whirlwind of another life -- and a legacy of deception. When Meara begins to have memories of a place she's never been, she realizes that while finding out the truth about her birth and adoption could answer all her questions -- it could also tear her apart.

    His journey is chronicled in Eyes Pried Open: Rookie FBI Agent. Readers will experience both the highs and the lows of an FBI agent working bank robbery, kidnapping, murder-for-hire cases, and border-related crimes in San Diego, California. The book's from-the-heart narrative demonstrates that the typical lifestyle of an FBI agent assigned to a violent crime squad may not be for everyone. This is the first book to be written from the fresh perspective of an agent who joined the FBI after 9/11.

    Chronicles of a Cruise Ship Crew Member goes below the waterline to explore the cramped, dirty, and dimly lit crew areas on a revealing tour of the ship's underworld. Go where no passenger has gone before and learn what the crew eats, where they sleep, how they party, and finally understand why all of the officers on a cruise ship are Italian.Climb aboard an adventure on the high seas and witness the wonderful side of ship life where crew members have whirlwind escapades while traveling the world aboard a massive sailing city.Drawing from his experiences working as a musician aboard cruise ships for more than five years, Joshua tells the laugh-out-loud funny and also beautifully poignant story of what cruise ship crew members experience from the minute they first step onto a ship to the day they walk down that gangway for the last time.

    But now her uncle's heart is failing and she has to convince him that surgery will save his life. She never dreamed the first thing she'd see when she stepped off the plane would be her biggest nightmare...the one man she'd never stopped loving.Beau Gentry had the fever for two things: the rodeo and Mandy Morgan. But for Beau, loving Mandy was complicated by his father's vendetta against her uncle. This led him to make the hardest decision of his life and he can still see the bitterness and hurt on Mandy's face. All these years it has killed him to think Mandy had forgotten him and moved as far away as possible from him. But now they're back in Texas, and he's going to do all he can to win back her love.HIS HEART FOR THE TRUSTINGEver since Mitch Broader set foot in Texas, he dreamed of owning his own ranch. Now that he's bought a share in the Double T Ranch, he's one step closer to the dream. Then his past greets him in the form of a baby basket, complete with infant and birth certificate naming him as the father. He can't change diapers and work toward his dream at the same time.When Sara Lightfoot, "Miss Hollywood" in Mitch's eyes, rescues him with her particular knack for handling his precocious son, he hires her on the spot as a temporary nanny. No matter how much Sara's dark eyes and warm heart make this bachelor think of making their arrangement permanent, she's made it perfectly clear she has other plans that don't include him or his dreams.Sara Lightfoot never thought she'd return to her home on the reservation. Now she plans to reclaim the life she left by going back to the reservation as a Native American storyteller, teaching the Apache children stories of their culture. She didn't expect Mitch Broader's sexy smile or job offer as a live-in nanny to derail those plans. After all she's been through to come home, can she open up her heart once again to love?THE MORE I SEEAs a top-notch cutting horse trainer, Cody Gentry was riding high until he lost his eyesight after a freak chemical accident. Unable to see the hand in front of his face, never mind the horse or cattle he trained, he knows his life is over and slips deep into depression. His whole future hinges on the success of an eye surgery that could give him his old life back.When guide dog trainer, Lyssa McElhannon, arrives on his ranch like Florence Nightingale coming to save him, he wants no part of her or her guide dog. But something about Lyssa's musical laugh coupled with her tenacity digs under his skin and won't let go. Having been blind most of her life, Lyssa understands the paralyzing fear Cody feels after losing his vision. But she refuses to let the stubborn cowboy waste his life away sitting in a chair when she knows first-hand that a good guide dog can change his world. She just needs one month to prove it to him.Falling in love with Cody was not part of Lyssa's plan, nor was having him open her eyes to see that there was a whole lot of living she'd been missing.