Praying consistently seems almost impossible. Too often and too easily, prayer becomes a burden: one more item on an already overcrowded to-do list. Failing to pray becomes a source of guilt and stress as we must once again admit our inconstancy and procrastination to our father confessor. Yet, our Lord said, “Come to me, all of you who are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. My burden is easy and my yoke is light” (Matt. 11:30). The purpose of this book, then, is not to add to the burden, but to ease it by distilling the advice and experience of those who pray.

    But when will things be good for me? Cynthia Thomas has spent a lifetime on the sidelines watching everyone else's lives blossom with marriage and babies. All she's ever wanted was to experience those joys for herself. But, when she realizes she's spent too many years invested in one toxic relationship after another, she fears she may not deserve the true love she craves. Now, months before her 40th birthday, with a string of failed relationships in her past and a habit of submitting to her own inner demons, she's reached a crossroads. She'll have to dig deep to find descernment and self-love. Until now, nothing else has worked, time is ticking, and her chance for real love and motherhoood depend on it. This heartfelt, honest, and introspective sequel to Daines Reed's Trust will leave you laughing, crying, and rooting for a happily-ever-after.

    For twelve years, it remained untouched.Now a near fatal riding accident has shattered Piper’s dreams of Olympic glory. After her grandfather’s death, she inherits the house and all its secrets, including a key to a room that doesn’t exist—or does it? And after her grandmother is sent away to a nursing home, she remembers the box buried in the backyard. In it are torn pages from a scrapbook, a charm necklace—and a newspaper article from 1939 about the body of an infant found floating in the Savannah River. The necklace’s charms tell the story of three friends during the 1930s— each charm added during the three months each friend had the necklace and recorded her life in the scrapbook. Piper always dismissed her grandmother as not having had a story to tell. And now, too late, Piper finds she might have been wrong.

    After her mother's death, young Jorie grows up with her two older brothers and a mostly absent physician-father. While her brothers become increasingly wild, Jorie becomes the central force holding the family together. And as they discover more of their father's entangled secret life, Jorie embarks on her own relationships that threaten their strange-but-stable world.

    A household name as the host of Rise and Shine, the country's highest-rated morning talk show, Meghan cuts to a commercial break–but not before she mutters two forbidden words into her open mike. In an instant, it's the end of an era, not only for Meghan, who is unaccustomed to dealing with adversity, but also for her younger sister, Bridget, a social worker in the Bronx who has always lived in Meghan's long shadow. The effect of Meghan's on-air truth telling reverberates through both their lives, affecting Meghan's son, husband, friends, and fans, as well as Bridget's perception of her sister, their complex childhood, and herself. What follows is a story about how, in very different ways, the Fitzmaurice women adapt, survive, and manage to bring the whole teeming world of New York to heel by dint of their smart mouths, quick wits, and the powerful connection between them that even the worst tragedy cannot shatter.

    Now she wants just one thing for Christmas: an angel doll. Unfortunately, in this small North Carolina town, no one has ever heard of such a thing. Nevertheless, Whitey Black and his best friend set out to find her one, at great cost and for even greater reward.Along the way they learn much about sadness and heartbreak, but most important, they learn about the transformative power of love.The Angel Doll is about childhood reaching out in later life and grabbing hold-never to be forgotten or remembered exactly as it was. Timeless and touching, The Angel Doll is sure to become a family favorite and a tradition for years to come.

    How easy. Sam and Ella both looked at me for a moment, their faces a mixture of apprehension and wistfulness. I smiled back at them indulgently, feeling so pleased with myself. Now, I look back and I want to grab my old self by the shoulders and shake, hard. I want to slap the smug smile off my face. I wasn’t just complacent; I was blind. Jane Berry has always dreamed of moving to the country. When she uproots her family and takes them to live in a rural paradise, at first it all seems perfect. She has the house and the space she always longed for and is determined to make a better life for herself and her children. But when her marriage comes under pressure the dream starts to fall apart. A seemingly promising new friendship shows its dark side and Jane finds her life spiralling out of control. Then one night a line is crossed that threatens to ruin her and break apart her family forever.

    Desire. Betrayal. Her choice could save a nation. Chicago, 1950. Rosalind Porter has always defied expectations--in her work as a physicist on the Manhattan Project and in her passionate love affair with colleague Thomas Weaver. Five years after the end of both, her guilt over the bomb and her heartbreak over Weaver are intertwined. She desperately misses her work in the lab, yet has almost resigned herself to a more conventional life. Then Weaver gets back in touch--and so does the FBI. Special Agent Charlie Szydlo wants Roz to spy on Weaver, whom the FBI suspects of passing nuclear secrets to Russia. Roz helped to develop these secrets and knows better than anyone the devastating power such knowledge holds. But can she spy on a man she still loves, despite her better instincts? At the same time, something about Charlie draws her in. He's a former prisoner of war haunted by his past, just as her past haunts her. As Rosalind's feelings for each man deepen, so too does the danger she finds herself in. She will have to choose: the man who taught her how to love . . . or the man her love might save?

     Warning: This is an independent companion to All the Light We Cannot See, meant to enhance your experience of the novel. If you have not yet bought All the Light We Cannot See , make sure to purchase it before buying this unofficial Sidekick. Blind since early childhood, Marie-Laure is only twelve years old when she is forced to flee her home as the Nazis occupy France. Werner, a German orphan, has a talent for fixing radios—a talent that the Nazi government is all too eager to embrace. As Doerr sweeps us forward, backward, and forward again in time, the lives of these two individuals weave together, intersecting at the bombing of Saint-Malo. With this Sidekick, you’ll: • Discover some of the novel’s fascinating hidden gems • Spend some more time with the characters you’ve come to know and love • Learn what you might have missed on your first read of All the Light We Cannot See • Explore a possible alternate ending and imagine ideas for a sequel • Get a chance to discuss the book with other readers on our Facebook forum Sidekicks are entertaining and insightful reading companions, filled with delightful commentary and thought-provoking questions. Readers have raved that Dave Eagle’s Sidekicks "really put you in touch with the many layers of the novel," "keep you entertained even longer," and are "perfect if you want a vivid understanding of the story." Designed to be read side by side with the novels they complement, they’ll give you even more reasons to love some of today’s best books.

    She writes of the human condition with precision, in language that is both grave and conversational. Her characters step out of the real world onto the page, where she develops them quietly, but with compassionate fullness. This writer grips the reader with her keen knowledge of the psyche of individuals-—their motives and secrets—and also with the surprising things that happen to them.”—Laura Kasischke, judge, Michigan Literary Fiction AwardsOf Elaine Ford’s novel, Missed Connections, the Washington Post wrote that it is a work “of small episodes, of precise sentences, of unusual clarity.” That same clarity proves an unsettling force in Ford’s stories, where precision of prose often belies uncertainties hidden beneath. In the title piece, an American woman in England, embroiled in a relationship doomed to fail, discovers how little she understands about her own desires and impulses. In another story, another American wife, abandoned in Greece by her archaeologist husband, struggles to solve a crime no one else believes to have been committed.Throughout her stories Ford touches on the mysteries that make up our lives. Each story in itself is a masterpiece of such detail and power as to transform the way we see the world.

    Her life is a whirl of parties and drinking, pursued by the press and staying on just the right side of scandal, all while running from the life her parents would choose for her.Lawrence Weston is a penniless painter who stumbles into Selina's orbit one night and can never let her go even while knowing someone of her stature could never end up with someone of his. Except Selina falls hard for Lawrence, envisioning a life of true happiness. But when tragedy strikes, Selina finds herself choosing what's safe over what's right.Spanning two decades and a seismic shift in British history as World War II approaches, Iona Grey's The Glittering Hour is an epic novel of passion, heartache and loss.

    She lived with her mother, father, sister, and brother in an affluent suburb of Minneapolis. Lucia had no doubt she was loved and cared for. But when it came to accidents and illnesses, Lucia’s parents didn't take their kids to the doctor's office--they prayed, and called a Christian Science practitioner.   fathermothergod is Lucia Greenhouse's story about growing up in Christian Science, in a house where you could not be sick, because you were perfect; where no medicine, even aspirin, was allowed. In 1985, when Lucia and her siblings discovered that their mother was sick, they came face-to-face with the reality that they had few--if any--options to save her. Lucia pulls back the curtain on the Christian Science faith and chronicles its complicated legacy for her family.

    This wise, wonderful, and delightfully witty New York Times bestseller is a coming of age novel about four intrepid women who discover themselves as they were truly meant to be: passionate, alive, and ready to face the best years of their lives.

    Especially having been through the same rigmarole when he was 11! Needless to say, Luke Ryan is eyeing off 33 warily.There's only one course of action to take after you've fought off cancer twice – stand-up comedy. Growing out of a sell-out show at the Melbourne Comedy Festival, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Chemo is a warm-hearted and hilarious memoir from someone who has laughed in the face of more adversity than most of us would face in a lifetime.Luke's is a life marked by cancer, not defined by it. These are stories of growing up, getting sick, getting better, getting sick again, dating while bald, keeping your semen in the freezer and living life to the full.

    Traveling abroad with her mother at the turn of the twentieth century to seek a titled husband, beautiful, vivacious Cora Cash, whose family mansion in Newport dwarfs the Vanderbilts', suddenly finds herself Duchess of Wareham, married to Ivo, the most eligible bachelor in England. Nothing is quite as it seems, however: Ivo is withdrawn and secretive, and the English social scene is full of traps and betrayals. Money, Cora soon learns, cannot buy everything, as she must decide what is truly worth the price in her life and her marriage. Witty, moving, and brilliantly entertaining, Cora's story marks the debut of a glorious storyteller who brings a fresh new spirit to the world of Edith Wharton and Henry James.