The happiest event in a female's life when she finally crosses that threshold between childhood and becoming an adult. But what happens when you don't really know that person you're having a child with? What if over time you watch that man you gave a part of yourself to morph into someone you don't recognize? That's the case in this book of twisted tales involving four different men with four very similar issues. Over time, each woman in this book watches as the man they gave their all too changes into abusive, obsessive, womanizing, controlling fuck boys. Sex, lies, abuse, jealousy, and even murder are the reoccurring themes in their lives and one by one they find themselves trapped between wanting to live a happy life and desperately trying to separate from their Bitter Baby Daddies. Will these women be able to break the volatile bonds that hold them? Or will these women succumb to the hell they live as the losers who control them refuse to let go? Come on this drama filled, explosive ride through the streets of Memphis and find out just what it takes to get rid of a Bitter Baby Daddy!

    From Dakota’s Black Hills to the gold and diamond fields of Southern Africa, Jim O’Rourke and his daughter, Kathleen step from the sailing ship Eudora and take their covered wagon deep inside a vast and ancient wilderness. The land is raw-boned and unforgiving – the men and women who search its heart for wealth, love and adventure, even more so. Smoke from a thousand fires clung to a broken landscape and towering above it, churned from a vast and open wound in the earth’s crust, were those billowing clouds of powdered Kimberlite; as yellow, ochrous fingers they reached upwards for over a thousand feet, deep inside the heart of that darksome Colesberg sky.

    But she never imagined that three days later she'd be ousted from the family home in Jesmond and sent to live with her mother's unmarried sister, Marjorie, in disgrace.Yet as the days go by, what was intended as punishment brings to Thea the contentment she has never known in her own home. In her Aunt Marjorie she finds the companionship she never had with her mother, and if it wasn't for the fact that her aunt's handsome artist friend, Robert Hedley, doesn't seem to know she's alive, everything would be perfect. But a dark force is about to shatter her new-found security and take Thea to a dangerous world she never dreamt existed...

    "The Lion and the Leopard" takes place during the Great 1914-18 War when German forces invaded Nyasaland, Northern Rhodesia and Portuguese East Africa. Martin Russell ("The Settler") and his step-daughter, Clare, travel to the war front, while the Spaight family (Alan, from "Lake of Slaves", and his son Drew, and daughters Mandy and Kirsty) are also drawn into the conflict. A young British officer falls in love with Mandy, but she finds her true love elsewhere. Kirsty's friend, a Britsh naval reservist, joins the gunboat flotilla on Lake Tanganyika. The Chilembwe Uprising in Nyasaland provides an unwelcome distraction early in the war. The loves and tragedies in the families unfold during the long and bitter campaign.

    While Matt is planning his lavish wedding to his model fiancée, James has vowed to have nothing to do with women ever again. So, when Great Aunt Milly dies and leaves her one-million pound share portfolio to whichever of the boys first marries and has a child, it's assumed the fortune will go to Matt. But add to the mix a sex-mad German, a gorgeous photographer, a matchmaking mother, and one very pampered pooch, and things don't run quite as smoothly as Matt would like ...

    Drop him into a ghastly Kenya prep school in the middle of Rider Haggard country. A school where cricketing news comes by carrier pigeon, leopards are assaulted with a red-hot poker, and runaway boys are hunted down with spearmen and a pack of foxhounds... For Martin Riddle, the experience is unforgettable. For the riding mistress, Lady Bullivant, it is all part of the day's work. And for the headmaster, a disreputable ex-Guards officer, it is simply a means of staving off bankruptcy for a few more weeks. As for the Masai, tennis may be on the curriculum at Haggard Hall, but midnight meetings with naked warriors definitely are not! 'The funniest book I have read since David Lodge's Small World' - Sunday Times 'Wickedly funny' - Daily Mail 'Less savage than Evelyn Waugh, Best is every bit as sharp... an immensely enjoyable book' - Evening Standard 'Very good entertainment' - Sir Alec Guinness (Sunday Times book of the year) Nicholas Best's books have been translated into many languages. He was the Financial Times's fiction critic for ten years and was long-listed in 2010 for the Sunday Times-EFG Bank 30,000 award, the biggest short story prize in the world. For more details, see www.nicholasbest.co.uk

    Ben will stop at nothing to save his son, but what awaits him is an evil, more dangerous and insidious than he could have ever anticipated. Into the Lion’s Den is a fast-paced action thriller, a compelling saga of the love of family and the indomitable will to survive in the face of an implacable malevolence.

    After three broken engagements I’m not going to waste my emotional energy on something that’s not going to give me anything.” – Shikha Bose.“I think my husband is having an affair with one of his colleagues. But I’m afraid to ask. Now it’s just in my head but if I ask and he doesn’t deny, it will become a reality.” – Preeti Singh.“My boyfriend doesn’t want to acknowledge me even as his friend in front of his family, let alone the fact that we’re lovers. It’s like I’m his dirty little secret.” – Siya Grewal.So the three friends come to a unanimous conclusion. Men suck. And like the characters in a sci-fi flick, perfect men are fictitious. The discussion takes off from there and ends with a post on social media. Attributes that this fictitious man should possess; some genuine, some funny and some downright naughty. Response to that post is unexpected in more ways than one. A Man to Die for creates a sensation with countless likes, retweets and forwards. And when the identities of the post-makers are revealed, the three friends are left to face the judging looks and snide comments. But when comments escalate to threatening calls and one of the three gets brutally murdered, the other two flounder in shock, grief, fear and fury. Someone has taken the post as a personal insult and was out for retribution by killing their friend and vowing to kill them too. Now, with the help of a DCP, who, according to Shikha was a dubious combination of a jerk and a hero, the killer must be caught. As the police race to unravel the identity, the killer strikes again...

    But for a one small boy in the leafy northern suburbs of Johannesburg ... his beloved housekeeper is serving fish fingers for lunch.This is the tale of Hamish Charles Sutherland Fraser – chorister, horse rider, schoolboy actor and, in his dreams, 1st XV rugby star and young ladies’ delight. A boy who climbs trees in the spring and who loves a girl named Reggie.An odd child growing up in a conflicted, scary, beautiful society.A young South African who hasn’t learnt the rules.

    and their marriage is about to be put to the test. It’s obvious that Lava has a piece of Kemp’s heart, and now Satin is working overtime just to keep them apart. Still, Satin has a “job” to do. She has been assigned to yet another fool. Her duty was to make him, Dedrick, love her and steal his heart. And then steal his position, and tear his whole world apart. She just hadn’t expected Dedrick to be so perfect. So, she starts to question if what she’s doing to him is worth it. Kemp’s heart and mind are at a tug-of-war. He might love Lava. But he loves Satin more. Still his choices start to cause problems that he didn’t expect. Things spiral out of control, and he isn’t prepared for what happens next. Sometimes it’s too late. Someone is running out of time. No one will see it coming. And no one can stop this crime. Love and lies. Truth comes out in the end. You never know who’s watching. Sometimes your worst enemy...is a "friend".

    Unfortunately, The Holy Spirit isn't the only spirit alive in between the walls. The Blanks are the first family of First Assembly. Pastor Edwin Blanks II (Junior) is the head pastor. Along with his brothers, sisters and Mama Eloise, First Assembly is run like a well-oiled machine. That is until a new family enters the picture. The Harlot family. Three identical triplets; Jezebel, Delilah, Tamar and the matriarch Lilith make themselves at home at First Assembly. Temptation seems to be lurking around every corner, and the members of the congregation seem to forget that what's done in the dark will soon come to the light. Be prepared to be shocked. Church Whore...

    We were colored girls in a white world that didn’t want us."  Born on the wrong side of a racial divide in apartheid-torn Cape Town, young sisters Ruby and Rose exist in a world where they are not welcome. As part of the Cape Colored community, they are considered socially inferior, yet even within their own social group the sisters live in the poor end of town. Their father was killed when they were very small, so when their mother dies after a protracted illness, Ruby and Rose’s fate falls into the hands of Aunt Olive. Ruby knows without being told that their aunt’s home will not be opened up to them – charity does not extend to the poor relations who would cast a smudge on such a respectable house. Aunt Olive condemns her nieces to the local orphanage, relieving her conscience with monthly invitations to Sunday lunch. In the orphanage the girls grow up sheltered from a divided world that they do not yet fully understand, but the day approaches when Ruby and Rose must forge their own paths in life and confront the lessons that apartheid enforces. Like the award-winning Dance with a Poor Man’s Daughter, this beautifully observed novel of sisterly love once again displays Pamela Jooste’s poignant understanding of human nature.

    As far as she knows, she’s alonein the world – till a mysterious letter arrives from India.Suddenly, Diya has a chance at being part of a family again.But moving from Boston to India also brings Diya closer tothe place where the horror of the Chakwa – the MasterTrickster – first started. As bodies and tragedies pile uparound her, Diya’s belief in the urban legend of the Chakwaincreases. Will the monster that ruined her parents’ life nowdestroy Diya’s happiness? Or will she manage to defeat it atits own game? With the help of her newly discovered friendsand family, Diya must fight not just the monster from hernightmares, but also make sense of a fast-unravelling web oflies that makes up her life.VINAYA BHAGAT is an IT professional and author. Her shortstories have been published in anthologies and have beenshort-listed in national and international writing competitions.Trickster is her debut novel.Vinaya lives in Bangalore, India with her husband, who isa radiologist and her eight-year-old son. Weekends find herinventing stories and games with her son.

    After abandoning his new home as a lost cause, he's caught up in the poker craze and moves to Atlantic City with a new dream of "playing poker for a living", but soon finds himself stuck in a dizzying spell of bad luck at the card tables. Or maybe he just sucks at poker, like everybody else. His money all gone, and finding that it's actually difficult to drink oneself to death at 1am, he's suddenly offered a chance to make his money back, and then some, by running an underground poker game in New York City. Once in New York, Tim finds himself on the road to recovery and making real money for the first time—but at what cost? We Run Bad offers an authentic and darkly comic look at underground poker culture, while serving up an indictment of post-recession America. Here, every game is rigged, and the only way to come out ahead is to be the one doing the rigging.

    Rider Haggard's Quatermain series, including 'King Solomon's Mines' and 'Allan Quatermain.' Includes an active table of contents for easy navigation.Contents:King Solomon's MinesAllan QuatermainAllan's WifeMaiwa's RevengeMarieChild of StormAllan the Holy FlowerFinishedThe Ivory ChildThe Ancient AllanAllan and the Ice-GodsMagepa the BuckA Tale of Three LionsHunter Quatermain's StoryLong OddsHenry Rider Haggard (1856-1925) was an English writer of adventure novels set predominantly in Africa, and a founder of the Lost World literary genre. Haggard is most famous as the author of the novels KING SOLOMON'S MINES and its sequel ALLAN QUATERMAIN, and SHE and its sequel AYESHA, swashbuckling adventure novels set in the context of late 19th century Africa. Hugely popular KING SOLOMON'S MINES is one of the best-selling adventure books of all time.This unexpurgated edition contains the complete text, with minor errors and omissions corrected.