Follow Giulietta Bracca's notorious rise to wealth and power, from street urchin in 1905 Genoa, Italy, to the headmistress of Night School, Chicago's most popular and innovative men's club in the 1920s. Along the way Giulietta plays a deadly game of one-upmanship with men who use her, abuse her, and fall head-over-heels in love with her. This quick-study seductress soon learns to give as good as she gets, and with few regrets--those so devastating they will haunt her into eternity. But there is one man Giulietta will never forget: the immigrant bootlegger she gave up too soon and will stop at nothing to lure him back, even if it means jeopardizing all she holds dear. A prequel and partial parallel to Giacoletto's Italian/American saga The Family Angel, Chicago's Headmistress can also stand alone. Every story has more than one side and within a generational saga many stories link and overlap. And as in real life, their endings rarely dissolve into happily ever after. A must-read for fans of The Family Angel, Family Deceptions, The Godfather, and HBO's Boardwalk Empire.

    First, it's a faint tap. Ignore it. If you're lucky it will go away. Daniel Haley isn't one of the lucky ones. It started as a prank to breathe life into a stale relationship. The spirit board was meant to scare Daniel's girlfriend back into his arms. Ignoring the board's danger for a cheap scare, Daniel unlocks a haunting past determined to destroy everything he has ever loved.You never know what will happen when you play with the dark stuff.

    As all large cities, it attracts a substantial amount of crime largely ignored by the city's civil watch. But when the sorcerers of six races come together, sometimes the friction is bound to make things a bit hot. Enter: The Sorcerous Crimes Division. The S.C.D. is an organization of mage-adept constables dedicated to investigating and policing magical crime in the city of Kaharas. They spend their nights chasing rogue wizards, locking away dangerous artifacts, and just making sure citizens don’t wake up with their feet melted off.In Devilbone, Commander Vulfort struggles with a growing problem of sorcerous contraband within the city that reaches a breaking point when an ancient necromantic reagent called Devilbone Dust, one of 14 forbidden substances, is discovered just outside the city. Meanwhile, Private Tanner has just arrived at the Division and faces the difficulty of adjusting to the dangerous life of a raider and tension within his squad. Together they must find the source of the Devilbone before the dark powers at work use it to destroy the city they are sworn to protect.

    Playing sick from school in Portland, she’s casting rune spells during a rare astronomical convergence to bring about a better, happier planet — and hoping her parents don’t find out.What Sally doesn’t know is that the Norse gods are still around, albeit without their divine powers — Odin is a high school principal, and blustering Thor is about to lose yet another job as a photocopier repairman. But Heimdall has the perfect cover as a forest ranger while he and his kin hunt for the newly reincarnated World Tree and try to prevent Ragnarok, the literal end of the world that could be timed to the same alignment of stars.Instead, Sally stumbles across Managarm the Moon Dog, a lost god who seems desperate for her magickal help. But does he really share Sally’s vision of a more peaceful world, or are his intentions much, much darker? And what can she do about the ancient Berserker warriors she accidentally calls up, who pledge their allegiance and then demand junk food runs to Voodoo Doughnut and Burgerville?

    Greta, an intrusive, sinister doula has wormed her way into their lives, driving a wedge between Michael and his family. Every time he leaves the Harrowgate, he returns to find his beloved wife and baby altered. He feels his family slipping away, and as a malevolent force begins to creep in, Michael does what any new father would do - he fights to keep his family together. Kate Maruyama's debut novel, Harrowgate, is a chilling, richly detailed story of love, loss, and the haunted place that lies between.

    An American neighborhood like any other, sheltered in the seeming tranquillity of the 1950s. Except it exists on the island of Alcatraz, the Rock, where a looming cellhouse imprisons the most vicious and irredeemable of America's criminals. Olivia grows up here and watches as her family slowly falls apart, trapped in its own prison rules and silences. She watches the disintegration of her mother, a brilliant woman isolated in a role that closes in on her as inexorably as the metallic crash of any cell door. Olivia can only watch, and retreat into herself, for she's only a little girl; there's no escape for her from the island she calls home.

    But for the men on the ground below they were a puzzlement. And no wonder: the year was 1863 and the men were Confederate soldiers marching toward the most significant battle of the American Civil War.Thousands of miles away and 105 years later, Navy pilot Nathaniel Booth and his navigator complete their air mission over Laos and are headed back to the deck of the USS Enterprise when their aircraft mysteriously vanishes. Our hero Booth is declared Missing In Action. Years later when Rose Booth, the family matriarch, learns that her son may not have been a casualty of the war as previously believed, she enlists a prominent history professor and his protégé to uncover the truth.In this carefully researched historical novel with a cosmic twist, the author traces the convoluted struggle to weave together the threads of a lost airman's life and bring solace to a grief-stricken mother. 352 pages, 88,000 words, 73 Chapters.

    Being assassinated twice is enemy action. Aeneas Tell of the House of Tell is one of the youngest Lords of Creation. His family rules the Nine Worlds through its control of the ultra-advanced technology that has permitted the colonization of the entire solar System. More gods than men, the Lords of Creation have cheated Death itself. But even a quasi-immortal god will take exception to being assassinated. Twice. Especially when the assassin turns out to be a someone he thought was a friend.

    Scarb are the enemy. The enemy. The enemy. I told myself this over and over. They murdered my parents. They rape the land and kill humans as if they are the vermin. They took Ray. I ran water over my face, looked at my eyes with their double lenses like two blue lakes: one navy, one ice. The enemy. And now I’m one of them. Ray. I can almost see his brown eyes and feel the warmth of his touch like a sun-warmed towel on my skin. Will you still love me now that I’m everything you hate? Seven years ago, most of humanity transformed into a mutated species known as scarb. With their superior speed, protective platted chitin bone structure, and deadly barbs, they easily slaughter un-changed humans. Cat and a small pocket of humans have survived. But when the scarb capture Cat’s boyfriend, she is determined to face an entire colony of the ruthless creatures to get him back. She quickly discovers she must confront not only her enemy, but the strengths and weakness inside her when she becomes scarb herself. In Swab, Heather Choate delivers a captivating combination of suspense, romance, and self-discovery as Cat faces a treacherous world and uncertain future. Fresh, riveting and rich with surprise, this Dystopian series will leave readers hungry for more.

    When an acquaintance introduces him to God and invites him to a college youth group, the changes in his life are immense and unsettling. The most unsettling part is Jenny Clearwater, his boss's daughter. He can't deny his attraction, but she courts instead of dating, and courting seems all about keeping the Shawn Carpenters of the world away from the Jenny Clearwaters.Danger and heartache seem to come around every bend, from a cave trip gone wrong to a friendship that goes up in flames to an accusal of crime at work. Seems God has put events in motion to lead Shawn back into a life of community and growth, assuming, of course, they don't kill him first.Get set for this first book of the Christian series Boys of Summer, for teens and anyone else who appreciates the challenges of stepping into adulthood.

    But spirited young Madlen finds her calling as assistant to the city’s trusted midwife, Clara. Working alongside Clara, Madlen develops a surprisingly soothing technique and quickly becomes a talented healer.After Clara’s tragic death, Madlen alone rushes to assist the birth of a local nobleman’s child. But rather than the joy of birth, Madlen walks into an accusation of murder and witchcraft because of her extraordinary gifts. Forced to flee her own town, she establishes a new identity in the home of her aunt. Yet even though it endangers her life, she cannot resist the urge to help the sick patients who seek out her miraculous treatment. When she meets handsome Johannes—an investigator hired by the Church to bring her to justice for sacrilegious acts—she becomes drawn to the very man who could destroy her.Will Madlen’s gifts bring about her downfall? Or can love and reason prevail in a time of fearful superstition?

     With astounding narrative power—Vaughn Heppner, Winner of the Writers of the Future Award—sweeps the reader into the whirlpool of pageantry, passion, splendor, chaos and earth-shattering upheaval that was the world before the Flood. Here is the story of Methuselah, the wealthy patriarch of a rebellious clan, and Noah, a farmer driven mad with a vision of catastrophic disaster. So begins a towering saga of great events and mortal frailties. It is peopled with a vast, and vivid cast of unforgettable men and women—queens and soldiers, temptresses and wives, carpenters and orphans—combined in a richly embroidered human tapestry to bring a remarkable era to bold and breathtaking life.

    After all, the serial gambler and womaniser has made plenty of enemies.As events come to light however, the finger of suspicion points to three women in particular – and the men they’re married to.Ellie Scott, the beautiful socialite with a dubious past; Loretta Fiorentino, the fame-seeking gold-digger and Victoria Mayfield, the glamorous successful author.Full of intrigue, revenge and decadence, this is a tale you’ll want to revisit again and again.

    A fictionalized account, told in verse, of the Salem witch trials, told from the perspective of three young women living in Salem in 1692-- Mercy Lewis, Margaret Walcott, and Ann Putnam, Jr.

    Ajax Penumbra seeks a book--the single surviving copy of the Techne Tycheon, a mysterious volume that has brought and lost great fortune for anyone who has owned it. Late one night, after another day of dispiriting dead ends, he stumbles across a 24-hour bookstore, and the possibilities before him expand exponentially.