Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Chapters: Still Life With Woodpecker, Villa Incognito, Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates, Jitterbug Perfume, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, Skinny Legs and All, Another Roadside Attraction, Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas. Source: Wikipedia. Free updates online. Not illustrated. Excerpt: Still Life With Woodpecker (1980) is the third novel by Tom Robbins, concerning the love affair between an environmentalist princess and an outlaw. As with most of Robbins' books, it encompasses a broad range of topics, from aliens and redheads to consumerism, the building of bombs, romance, royalty, the moon, and a pack of Camels. The novel continuously addresses the question of how to make love stay. The story is sometimes called a post-modern fairy tale. The book begins in "the final quarter of the twentieth century," at a year never specified, presumably in the early 1980s. It revolves around a family of deposed European royalty living in a small house in the suburbs outside of Seattle, under the protection of the CIA. They consist of: the father, King Max, a former gambler and poker player whose prosthetic heart valve makes a loud scraping noise when he gets excited; the mother, Queen Tilli, an opera-lover with a strong foreign accent and a fondness for saying "Oh, oh, spaghetti-o"; Gulietta, the non-English-speaking maid (and, as it turns out, Max's half-sister) and the daughter, Leigh-Cheri, a redheaded vegetarian liberal princess and former cheerleader, having pulled out of classes after being asked to resign from the cheer squad after having a miscarriage while cheering at a football game. Leigh-Cheri proclaims herself celibate, withdraws from public life and cloisters herself in her room, only to emerge to ask her parents for permission to go to the Care Fest, a lib...More: http: //booksllc.net/?id=217300

    But who has cursed Whittlecombe and why? Can our Alfie find out and save her friends in the village?Will Alf ever manage to have a crisis free and merry Christmas?Will anybody wake up in time to prepare her figgy pudding?Maybe our favourite witch will be too busy to notice ...Because while mortals sleep, one witch keepsA watch of wondering love.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~O Witchy Town of Whittlecombe is a standalone Christmas cozy mystery that complements the Wonky Inn series as a whole.You’ll love this crazy paranormal cast of witches, wizards, faeries, ghosts and pantomime villains.And not forgetting Mr Hoo of course.This latest Wonky Inn Christmas mystery adventure is best served with a glass of your favourite tipple and a heart full of love.

    Cassidy, the best-selling author of Spilt Milk: A Collection of Stories, continues the story of some of the characters that first appeared in Spilt Milk. Everyone believes in their own version of reality. Will the past deeds of Caleb, Joy, and George come back to haunt them? Discover realities on the spectrum between normal and fantasy. Earlier experiences shape the present and future. Choices change lives. • Can a murderer decide to stop killing? • Can a woman regain the confidence she had in her twenties? • Can a lonely man find the perfect companion? Welcome to the world of Curious Reality. Are any of your realities curious?

    Armed only with courage, his wits, and the dream of something better, Eloy embarks on a quest into the unknown to find the sister he lost and discover the future destined for him.

    Women have almost no rights and men hold all the power. The insidious influence of the oppressive Vanguard Group is spreading around the world and beyond. But while they can try to roll back the clock on social progress, they can’t control the human heart. Or the will to rebel. Emily Bryce was the quintessential self-made woman before the Vanguard Group imposed their archaic views on the country. First, the regime made it illegal for women to own businesses. Then, it forced them out of the working world. The latest blow saw Emily on the auction block, waiting to be sold into marriage to one of her former colleagues. Her humiliation was near complete. Cybernetically enhanced CEO Alek Westmore poured everything he was into building his multinational corporation, with not an ounce of help from his overambitious father. Then a business acquisition brought him a beautiful and brilliant female executive who made him think of much more than the bottom line. A million dollars was a very small price to pay to make her his bride. Alek is determined to be Emily’s hero. But can she ever love a secretive man who will stop at nothing to make her his own?

    How did he get here? From the vantage point of his prison cell, Toby pens his memoir, trying to piece together how he fell so far, all the while fielding the uninvited literary opinions of his murderous cellmate, Gary.What Toby unspools is a tale of twisted bureaucracy, public servants gone rogue, and the ever-present pervasive stench of rotting prawns (don't ask). Realizing that his political career is far from the noble endeavor he'd once imagined it would be, Toby makes a bid for freedom...before the terrible realization dawns: it's impossible to get fired from the public service. Refusing to give up (or have to pay for his relocation fee), Toby's attempts to get fired grow more and more extreme, and he finds himself being propelled higher and higher through the ranks of bureaucracy.

    The stories reveal their characters and histories, but the scrabble itself is a mere transient remission from the vagaries and harshness of prison life, which continues unabated around them and through them.We are party to a voyage through calm settled waters of support, camaraderie and story-telling, to storms of violence, abuse and abject despair in a rigid, alien and unforgiving environment. We feel the emotions of the highs and lows of prison life through the victimisation, determination and hope of our players, who ultimately all show resilience in one way or another.It is a fable about humanity, garnered with wit, insight and encouragement, with a little whodunnit? thrown in for good measure.

     Darren is homeless when he’s offered the deal of a lifetime: get paid to play a bard in an online, virtual reality game. The catch? He’s tasked with awakening Angelica, a crippled girl who’s spent ten years in the game. As he embarks on his search for her, Darren goes on adventures, learns the lore of the land, and finds that being a bard is more fun than it seemed. But appearances can deceive—especially in a VR world—and Darren is taken aback to discover the girl he’s been assigned to track may not even be the right one. When he finds not one but three girls who fit the bill for Angelica, Darren is forced to stretch his talents and skills to investigate them all, thrusting himself into the midst of warring players, corrupted guilds and forgotten lore. As secrets bubble to the surface and chaos looms, Darren’s investigation puts the girls under threat, and he’s forced to decide where his loyalties lie. Can he uncover the truth and save them before it’s too late? And more importantly… does he have what it takes to be a Bard? Read Breaking Bard: Serenade now and immerse yourself in a LitRPG adventure with sexy goodness and a wily hero who doesn’t quite know what he’s gotten himself into. Warning: Contains graphic violence, revenge, swear words, conspiracies, harassment, forbidden gods, gratuitous sex, and elements of polyamory/harem. If any of these is not your thing, this book is not for you.

     Frederick Lockland has been one of the most powerful empath for the better part of a century. In service to the King he has ended bloody wars, hunted rogue empaths and defended the realm from most horrifying beasts in existence. Nothing seems impossible for the legendary hero but when an eight-year-old boy becomes his ward he may have found a challenge he cannot handle. Before he was able to walk Falcon learned the bitter taste of pain and loss but pain comes in many flavors and there is always more to lose. In a world where strong emotions can give someone unbelievable power or destroy them from the inside out, Falcon must master his pain before it tears him apart.

    

    Now in a world forever changed, a place where magic is real, and monsters have come to life. A place where magic and science blend with pop culture

    In a profoundly strange country called Inner Horner, large enough for only one resident at a time, citizens waiting to enter the country fall under the rule of the power-hungry and tyrannical Phil, setting off a chain of injustice and mass hysteria.An Animal Farm for the 21st century, this is an incendiary political satire of unprecedented imagination, spiky humor, and cautionary appreciation for the hysteric in everyone.

    No lights. A world in chaos…When a Coronal Mass Ejection causes an EMP catastrophe that shuts down power worldwide, Melanie Pearson must embark on a dangerous journey to reunite with her husband and daughter. But to earn a spot in a secure fortress along the way, she agrees to help her boss find his own son first. And it quickly becomes clear she may have made a deal with the devil himself…Meanwhile, her husband Mark vows to do whatever he can to protect their daughter Shona. There’s no way to turn the power back on, and their home town of Knoxville is quickly descending into chaos. His only goal is to find a way to get his family to safety.As they struggle to come together, this fractured family must face off against a society gone mad. And when even greater tragedy strikes, they will need to find a new way to survive. But what is the cost of survival in a world on the brink of collapse?

    With his rippling muscles, long raven hair, and intricate tattoos, he should terrify me. Instead, he enthralls me.From the possessive look in his eyes, it seems the feelings are mutual. But the danger’s only just begun. Other native barbarians want a piece of me. And what Kade has to do to protect me from them…Well, let’s just say it involves taking off our clothes, among other things.Kade knows how to get me back to my people. But will his quest to avenge a terrible loss get in the way?And if returning home means leaving him behind, do I really want to go?Savage Seed is an alien sci-fi romance, from the Warriors of the Oasis series of standalone books. This novel features a spitfire heroine and the sexy alien warrior who seeks to possess her. No cheating, no cliffhangers, and a very happily ever after is guaranteed.

    On her twenty-first birthday, when she registers her Right to Amend, Emelia is filled with hope for the first time in years. Hope for her sister, Finola. Hope for her and Gabe. Maybe even hope for humanity.But fate forces her hand far quicker than she could have imagined and Emelia quickly learns that acting upon the little envelope containing her amendment is far harder than sending it. Even armed with a message from the future, the way forward is far from clear.Faced with an impossible decision, her sister or her soulmate, Emelia must try and predict exactly just how far the ripples of her amendments will spread…