Salty Sky


Seth Coker - 2016
    Coleman is both wrapping up a reunion for childhood friends and battening down the hatches for an approaching hurricane when his life gets a jolt of adrenaline.Francisco Escobar, nephew of Columbian drug kingpin Pablo Escobar, has spent the last two decades maintaining a low profile but now ready to expand his family’s empire. As Escobar plans for new business opportunities, he also wrestles with how to handle old grievances.In this riveting thriller, Seth Coker develops a range of unforgettable characters while providing a nuanced glimpse of a waterman’s life on the North Carolina coast.

The God of Sno Cone Blue


Marcia Coffey Turnquist - 2014
    Medallion.Story summary: Something is odd about Grace. She has mismatched eyes, one dark and one light. She thinks she's seen God. When her mother dies, she begins to get letters from her, as if from the grave. The letters tell of her mother's life before she married Grace's father, in time, confessing fiercely guarded family secrets. "I wasn't always a Preacher's Wife... I made mistakes along the way."Looking back, as a middle-aged woman, Grace relives those transformative years, coming of age in the 1960s as the daughter of The Reverend Thad Carsten and his much-younger wife, Sharon. When they move to a new neighborhood in Portland, Oregon, Sharon is healthy and Grace takes turmoil in stride: a new school, her backward neighbors, the simmering Vietnam War and political unrest. On the whole, life is sublime-until Sharon gets sick and dies. Then Grace's world turns upside down.Days after Sharon is gone, the letters to her daughter start coming, delivered mysteriously in the dark of night. Grace finds them-addressed to her-and devours every word, desperate to figure out who's delivering them. As she struggles with questions of loss and faith, she begins to butt heads with the preacher, increasingly focused on the mysterious messenger and her mother's letters. The handwritten pages arrive periodically as Grace matures, fostering a strange mother daughter relationship.Early on, the letters offer motherly advice, but increasingly they shift their focus to Sharon's early teens, eventually confessing a forbidden young adult romance. By then, Grace is desperate for the rest of the story, searching everywhere for her mother's writings, until finally there's a breakthrough. When she reads the last of the letters-and an astonishing truth-she embarks on a journey that changes her life and perspective forever.What did Sharon confess in the last letter to her daughter? How does it affect their unusual mother daughter relationship? As Grace runs away to trace her mother's past and teenage romance, what will she find?With its elements of romance and mystery, The God of Sno Cone Blue, sometimes searched as "Snow" Cone Blue is best described as contemporary women's fiction, though its strong central male character also appeals to men. The novel's storyline and mother daughter relationship are fitting Inspirational Fiction, and its passion and coming of age tale are appropriate for teenagers and young adults.* USA Today Bestselling Author Linda Needham on this inspirational fiction story: "The God of Sno Cone Blue is a joyous celebration of a young girl's journey to womanhood. Grace is a modern match for Tom Sawyer, with a grand spirit and enough spunk to weather the heartache of losing her mother at a tender age. Along the way, she gains the wisdom to recognize the breadth of her mother's love through a series of posthumous, sometimes shocking letters delivered in the years that follow. With a driving style and a colorful cast of eccentric characters, author Marcia Coffey Turnquist fiercely delivers equal parts laughter, sorrow and the kind of joy that will stay with you long after you've finished the book."*Author Rod Gramer on this novel fraught with family secrets: "Marcia has created a compelling character in Grace, one whose great personal loss is redeemed by a great personal discovery."*Portland Society Page editor Elisa Klein on the story's mystery and romance: "Surprises abound and the twists and turns kept me flipping pages late into the night as I curled up in my favorite chair to drink it all in."*Award-winning artist D.K. Lubarsky on this coming of age novel: "A masterful storyteller, Turnquist takes you on a magical journey of discovery in this poignant tale of innocence and growing up. The God of Sno Cone Blue is a delightful read."

Here Am I, Lord...Send Somebody Else: How God Uses Ordinary People to Do Extraordinary Things


Jill Briscoe - 2004
    He offered this extremely simple advice in considering the Christian life: Go where you are sent, stay where you are put, and do what you are asked.With her trademark warmth and keen sense of humor, esteemed Bible study teacher Jill Briscoe follows Major Thomas’s example to help readers learn how to allow God to live through them, finding their mission field to be right before them—in the space between their own two feet. She uses stories from her own life and of other contemporaries to unpack the story of Moses in helping us better understand our true worth and calling. She asks, “What is your Jerusalem, your Judea, your Samaria? Whether you’re fifty or fifteen, you are called to be God’s light in a troubled world.” This classic work is being updated to include conversation starters and Bible study questions at the end of each chapter.

SurviRal


Ken Benton - 2014
    A Denver couple tries to escape the chaos of the city after a killer manmade virus causes the economic collapse of society.

Where Have I Gone?


Pauline Quirke - 2012
    Yes, the 'F' word. Tipping the scales at nearly 20 stone, with creaking knees and a dodgy ankle to boot, at the beginning of 2011 Pauline had reached a crisis point. Something had to change, and fast. It was never going to be an easy ride, but with her trademark warmth and sense of humour, Pauline recounts the highs and lows of the rollercoaster year in which she whips herself, and her life, into shape - with a fair few tales from her celebrated forty-year acting career thrown into the bargain. She reveals all: from the strain of working long hours away from home on one of Britain's most popular soaps to renewing her wedding vows and reuniting with her Birds of a Feather co-stars; from battling the bulge and facing the naysayers to rediscovering the joys of airline travel . . . without a seatbelt extension.Honest and revealing, Where Have I Gone? is brimming with brilliantly funny anecdotes and truly moving moments. So put your feet up and join Pauline as she embarks on the most incredible year of her life.

The Last Voyage of Sigismund Skrik


Karsten Flohr - 2014
    Not only will he give clients new, life-changing looks—he also gets to know all their secrets.But the days of transatlantic sailing are numbered. It’s 1879, and Europeans immigrating to the United States are starting to prefer the huge new steamships that make the crossing ten times as fast. As those glory days come to an end, Sigismund embarks on his final voyage from Hamburg in the old clipper Liberty, welcoming the latest batch of emigrants with his usual open-minded calm. He doesn’t know them yet, but he will. As each one passes through his cabin salon, the stories they tell reveal the drama, pathos, and humor of a thousand lives that, for a brief, wave-tossed spell, come together on their way to the promised land.

Up to the Mountains and Down to the Countryside


Quincy Carroll - 2015
    The first, Thomas, is an entitled deadbeat, content to pass the rest of his days in Asia skating by on the fact that he's white, while the second, a recent college graduate named Daniel, is an idealist at heart. Over the course of the novel, these two characters fight to establish primacy in Ningyuan, a remote town in the south of Hunan, with one of their more overzealous students, Bella, caught in between. Quincy Carroll's cleverly written debut novel examines what we bring from one country to another.

A Path Revealed: How Hope, Love and Joy Found Us Deep in a Maze Called Alzheimer's


Carlen Maddux - 2016
    She and her husban, Carlen, feel as though they've been shoved out of a plane 10,000 feet up, with nothing to grab but themselves. But A Path Revealed is not about the fallout from an insidious disease that extended nearly seventeen years. It is in Carlen's words, "The story of a path emerging during our darkest hours, a path that we neither planned, nor foresaw." Carlen traveled with Martha to the backwoods of Kentucky, where the quiet presence of a Catholic nun revealed a hidden path. He was forced to slow down as he traced this path halfway around the world to Australia, retreated weekends to a monastery, embraced meditation, and landed all alone in Thomas Merton's cabin. A Path Revealed echoes accents heard in Anne Lamott's Traveling Mercies, Richard Rohr's Falling Upward, and John Bunyan's 17th-century classic, The Pilgrim's Progress.

Missing


Shelley MacKenney - 2014
    An inspirational tale of her journey through extreme personal crisis."You can run, but you can't hide from yourself."Abandoned by her mother as a young child and with a father constantly on the run, Shelley's life was never normal. Her family's involvement with South London's criminal underworld left her isolated, vulnerable and lonely. Falling deeper and deeper into depression and despair - she snapped.Shelley got on the first coach out of London with only the clothes she stood up in and £30 in her pocket. She didn't care where she was going, as long as she could disappear completely from her oppressive life. For years, she lived anonymously in refuges, hostels and on the streets. It would take something remarkable to bring her back to the real world.

Adventures in Saying Yes: A Journey from Fear to Faith


Carl Medearis - 2015
    This exciting, entertaining account of a Christian family's life in the Middle East offers an inspiring dare to live boldly wherever you are.

Ride of Your Life: A Coast-to-Coast Guide to Finding Inner Peace


Ran Zilca - 2014
    Back in 2010, research scientist and entrepreneur Ran Zilca set out from his home in New York on a motorcycle, bound for California in search of the next chapter in his life. Along this soul-searching journey, he spent hundreds of hours in contemplation on the road, met with fellow travelers from all walks of life, and interviewed leading experts in research labs, spiritual centers, and temples all across the country. Six-thousand miles later, he returned home, sold his company, and moved to a different continent. Ride of Your Life chronicles this transformative journey, sharing the collective wisdom Ran learned from one-on-one discussions with spiritual leaders and researchers, including Deepak Chopra, Phil Zimbardo, and Sonja Lyubomirsky. This groundbreaking book in the field of positive psychology is part travel memoir, part spiritual compass, and a practical handbook for personal transformation. Ride of Your Life will help you awaken your dreams and answer your own calling for a happier and more meaningful life.

To Catch a Cat: How Three Stray Kittens Rescued Me


Heather Green - 2016
    She loved her work and threw herself into sixty-hour weeks—once walking into a subway pole, getting a concussion, and still going to the office. Her new boyfriend Matt lived across the river in a New Jersey town that had none of the glamour of New York. She liked Matt—a lot—yet she wasn’t sure what to make of weekends in gritty, dilapidated Union City.   But things changed the summer morning Heather discovered a beautiful stray cat and her three black-and-white kittens in Matt’s neighbor’s backyard. When she made eye contact with one of the kittens, she felt something she’d never felt before. She and Matt had to save the little animals. Because if they didn’t, who would?   The crazy world of cat rescue soon drew Heather in. As she and Matt worked together to figure out how to trap, tame, and find homes for their foundlings, she began to question the life she had back in Manhattan. This is the story of how three furry beings taught one woman about love, community, and what truly matters in life.

Rumi, Day by Day


Maryam Mafi - 2014
    These poems have been selected on the basis of the poignancy of their message and their relevance to contemporary life.This is timeless wisdom translated for modern readers. It is a guide for meditation and a light switch that you can turn on to make your daily connection with spirit. Use these words as tools to better your life each day, to draw continued guidance, inspiration and spiritual wealth.

The Skinning Tree


Srikumar Sen - 2012
    When Sabby is sent to a boarding school in northern India, he witnesses a strict regime in which the schoolboys are beaten and brutalized by the teachers.The boys themselves take on their abusers' cruel traits, mindlessly killing animals and hanging their skins on a cactus, before their thoughts turn to even more sinister schemes. Conspiratorial whisperings and plans of revenge spiral into a tragedy engulfing Sabby in a chilling exploration of human nature's darkest facets.

Crossing Into Medicine Country: A Journey In Native American Healing


David Carson - 2005
    Through her teachings and his own mind-bending experiences, he gives us a glimpse into an alternate reality.