Barefoot Dogs: Stories


Antonio Ruiz-Camacho - 2014
    The Arteagas find few answers; the full truth of what happened to Arteaga is lost to the shadows of Mexico’s vast and desperate underworld, a place of rampant violence and kidnappings, and government corruption. But soon packages arrive to the family house, offering horrifying clues.Fear, guilt, and the prospect of financial ruination fracture the once-proud family and scatter them across the globe, yet delicate threads still hold them together: in a swimming pool in Palo Alto, Arteaga’s young grandson struggles to make sense of the grief that has hobbled his family; in Mexico City, Arteaga’s mistress alternates between rage and heartbreak as she waits, in growing panic, for her lover’s return; in Austin, the Arteagas’ housekeeper tries to piece together a second life in an alienating and demeaning new land; in Madrid, Arteaga’s son takes his ailing dog through the hot and unforgiving streets, in search of his father’s ghost.Multiple award-winning author Antonio Ruiz-Camacho offers an exquisite and intimate evocation of the loneliness, love, hope, and fear that can bind a family even as unspeakable violence tears it apart. “A straight-on jab to the soul” (Ben Fountain, author of Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk), Barefoot Dogs is a heartfelt elegy to the stolen innocence of every family struck by tragedy. This is urgent and vital fiction.

Everyone Knows You Go Home


Natalia Sylvester - 2018
    Her husband, Martin, still unforgiving for having been abandoned by his father years ago, confesses that he never knew the old man had died. So Omar asks Isabel for the impossible: persuade Omar’s family—especially his wife, Elda—to let him redeem himself.Isabel and Martin settle into married life in a Texas border town, and Omar returns each year on the celebratory Day of the Dead. Every year Isabel listens, but to the aggrieved Martin and Elda, Omar’s spirit remains invisible. Through his visits, Isabel gains insight into not just the truth about his disappearance and her husband’s childhood but also the ways grief can eat away at love. When Martin’s teenage nephew crosses the Mexican border and takes refuge in Isabel and Martin’s home, questions about past and future homes, borders, and belonging arise that may finally lead to forgiveness—and alter all their lives forever.

Call of an Angel


Patricia O'Toole - 2017
     This was no chance meeting between heaven and earth and they soon became part of a phenomenon that would change their lives forever. 'In the still silence of the night, I said a little prayer asking the angels never to do anything that might startle me. Feeling somewhat reassured by this, I snuggled down and drifted off to sleep. I am not so sure I would have been quite so easily placated if I had had any notion of the sheer volume of angels and spirits that were soon to come into my life at every opportunity and everywhere I went, from that night forward.' Call of an Angel will appeal to a wide audience, including the many fans of angel author Lorna Byrne, and the growing force of modern millennial followers of angel gurus Kyle Gray and Radleigh Valentine.

Imperial


William T. Vollmann - 2009
    It sprawls across a stirring accidental sea, across the deserts, date groves and labor camps of Southeastern California, right across the border into Mexico. In this eye-opening book, William T. Vollmann takes us deep into the heart of this haunted region, exploring polluted rivers and guarded factories and talking with everyone from Mexican migrant workers to border patrolmen. Teeming with patterns, facts, stories, people and hope, this is an epic study of an emblematic region.

B-24 Co-Pilot: First Lieutenant John F. Lance


Kathryn Lance - 2016
    A short book detailing: The most terrifying missions: The first mission to Balikpapan, an important Japanese fuel depot, and why it was considered impossible to achieve. Coping with boredom and fear: How joking and calculating survival odds helped deal with the realities. The snafus: The time a temporary Group Commander tried to bomb the US Seventh Fleet. True stories from a man who was there--as dictated toward the end of his life.

I Escaped North Korea!: Survival Stories For Kids


Scott Peters - 2019
     14-year-old Dae has been taught that North Korea is the best place in the world. Yet the painfully skinny boy can't help wondering why all his family has to eat is watery porridge made from grass. At school, Dae and his friends bow before the giant portraits of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il, their clothes flapping around their bony limbs. Dae begins to question why the Great Leaders look so well fed. When Dae's beloved father is hauled away to a hard-labor camp, the young teen must fend for himself. Alone, things turn from bad to worse and Dae dreams of rebellion—of fleeing across the scary border into China to look for work. For how else can he help feed his family and pay the bribes to free his father? But can he survive the deadly crossing? Does he have what it takes to escape? Young readers will be transported by this new series about brave kids who face real world challenges and find ways to escape. Sure to appeal to fans of New York Times Bestseller Lauren Tarshis's I Survived Series and Refugee by Alan Gratz. A study guide is available at https://tinyurl.com/studynk A powerful, relevant read in turbulent times.

Like Mother, Like Daughter


Maggie Hope - 2014
    Only, when she meets the upper-class Jack on the grounds of his father's estate, she is tempted by the thought of an affair. Is she destined to follow in her mother's scandalous footsteps after all...? (Note: previously published as The Pitman's Brat by Una Horne)

South Side Boys: A Complete Bad Boy Collection


Alexis Winter - 2021
    This time, the big bad wolf just might eat you alive.”Meet the South Side Boys. Damaged. Alpha. Protective.So filthy you just might melt...From best-selling author Alexis Winter comes a complete bad boy collection of four full-length novels. Each book will leave you satisfied with a steamy happily ever after sure to keep you reading long into the night.Books included:Bad Boy ProtectorI’m not a protector. I’m a damaged ex-con.The last thing I need is an innocent little virgin, thinking I’m her happily ever after.So I kept my distance,Until that night.Saving her felt like redemption from my past.Falling for her was where I fucked up.Now the shadows from my past have returned and I’ll stop at nothing to keep her safe.Even if that means I have to lose her forever.This isn’t a fairytale sweetheart and I’m no knight in shining armor.This time the big bad wolf just might eat you alive.Fake BoyfriendEx-con, hothead, broken beyond repair.I’m the guy you don’t take home to mom.She may need a fake boyfriend, but you better believe the way I'll have her screaming my name is real.We agreed it was only pretend and I made damn sure she knew…I’m nobody’s happily ever after.Brother-In-Law's BabyTwo pink lines...yup, pregnant by my hot AF brother-in-law/roommate.Baby number two couldn't have come at a worse time.Look, this isn’t my dream life.I never planned on being a single mom begging to live with my brother-in-law and it’s no secret he didn’t want this arrangement either.Fresh off a broken engagement, he isn’t exactly welcoming us with open arms.So how do I tell him the reason I ran away is because he’s about to be a daddy?Bad Boy's BabyHow to NOT have a happily ever after...#1. Get pregnant by your brand new boyfriend.#2. Don’t tell said boyfriend you’re pregnant.#3. Oh, and don’t tell him you’re the reason his brother is rotting in prison.Getting pregnant by Ben is only the start to this drama, and now I’m neck-deep, hiding secrets of my own.Someone lock me up and throw away the key, I’m about to serve a life sentence for screw up of the century.Note from the author: This series was previously published in a boxset titled Say You’re Mine. Each book in this deliciously steamy set is a full-length novel with NO cheating or cliff-hangers and LOTS of heat, drama and angst.

Children of Sugarcane


Joanne Joseph - 2021
    

Coyotes: A Journey Through the Secret World of America's Illegal Aliens


Ted Conover - 1987
    The compelling adventure of a young writer who poses as a Mexican wetback to discover the hardships, fear and camaraderie of illegal aliens crossing the border to work in the United States.

The Callaghan Mafia Series: Books 1-4


Savannah Rylan - 2020
    

Working in the Shadows: A Year of Doing the Jobs (Most) Americans Won't Do


Gabriel Thompson - 2009
    He stooped over lettuce fields in Arizona, and worked the graveyard shift at a chicken slaughterhouse in rural Alabama. He dodged taxis—not always successfully—as a bicycle delivery “boy” for an upscale Manhattan restaurant, and was fired from a flower shop by a boss who, he quickly realized, was nuts.As one coworker explained, “These jobs make you old quick.” Back spasms occasionally keep Thompson in bed, where he suffers recurring nightmares involving iceberg lettuce and chicken carcasses. Combining personal narrative with investigative reporting, Thompson shines a bright light on the underside of the American economy, exposing harsh working conditions, union busting, and lax government enforcement—while telling the stories of workers, undocumented immigrants, and desperate US citizens alike, forced to live with chronic pain in the pursuit of $8 an hour.

Brothers in Arms


Marcus Wynne - 2004
    Lost in the maze of one patient's shattered mind is a terrible secret, so terrible that even in his shattered state he cannot be allowed to live.The Twins are young, blond, nubile women---and the most deadly team of assassins in the world. Their first attempt at killing the patient succeeds only in killing a double, and they are almost killed by two unlikely bystanders: ex-military special operator Dale Miller (No Other Option) and former CIA operator Charley Payne (Warrior in the Shadows).Miller and Payne are recruited by the CIA to protect the patient. And a clandestine game of cat and mouse between the assassins and the protectors leads to Amsterdam, where the money man behind the Twins' operations has set up base, and to a bloody showdown in Athens, where Dale Miller nearly loses his life.It's left to Charley Payne to discover the secret locked deep in the subconscious of the patient's shattered mind and hunt one deadly man through the streets of Washington, D.C., and stop him before he can unleash an event that could kill millions.Marcus Wynne took you on a thrill ride in his first book, No Other Option, when a special ops team had to hunt down one of its own. In Warrior in the Shadows, Payne pursued a psychopathic killer who drew his strength from cannibalism and black magic. Brothers in Arms unites the heroes from his previous books in a global battle to face down a threat to the United States of America.

The Piranha Solution


John Triptych - 2017
    Private industry is now pushing the limits of human exploration and colonization. NASA has changed its mandate into a regulatory agency that oversees all US-based corporations and individuals involved in interplanetary expansion. Stilicho Jones always has his hands full while working as a personal troubleshooter for eccentric trillionaire Errol Flux and his numerous cutting edge space projects. When a mysterious and potentially deadly situation threatens the colonies on Mars, Stilicho must team up with a feisty NASA special agent in a race against time to avert a looming catastrophe that would end any hope of a permanent settlement on the Red Planet.

Across the Wire: Life and Hard Times on the Mexican Border


Luis Alberto Urrea - 1993
    Luis Alberto Urrea's Across the Wire offers a compelling and unprecedented look at what life is like for those refugees living on the Mexican side of the border—a world that is only some twenty miles from San Diego, but that few have seen.  Urrea gives us a compassionate and candid account of his work as a member and "official translator" of a crew of relief workers that provided aid to the many refugees hidden just behind the flashy tourist spots of Tijuana.  His account of the struggle of these people to survive amid abject poverty, unsanitary living conditions, and the legal and political chaos that reign in the Mexican borderlands explains without a doubt the reason so many are forced to make the dangerous and illegal journey "across the wire" into the United States.            More than just an expose, Across the Wire is a tribute to the tenacity of a people who have learned to survive against the most impossible odds, and returns to these forgotten people their pride and their identity.