A strikingly original first novel about a female circus roustabout and her shadowy existence behind the bright lights of the big top, Roustabout marks a debut of uncommon impact that readers will not soon forget.

    The Long, Long Trail (1922)Jess is a gunslinger, an outlaw on the run trying to elude the sheriff. When a woman enters his life, he reconsiders his future.About The AuthorSeattle-born Frederick Schiller Faust (1892 –1944) was a western author who wrote under pen names including Max Brand. He grew up working on a ranch in California's San Joaquin Valley. His books inspired Hollywood films and he created popular characters including Dr. Kildare.

     In this Kindle Short Read, Grandma Maggie has been running the Madrona Island B&B for many years. But when she finds out her time is short, she decides to make her final months the best they can be. Maggie begins putting together a last weekend at the bed and breakfast with all of her favorite guests; a weekend she hopes they will never forget. Together with her late-in-life love, Grandpa John, Maggie sets out to rediscover the beauty of the place she’s called home for so long, alongside the people who have meant so much. Join your favorite Madrona Island characters in a prequel that’s filled with food, love, and the celebration of family and friends. Advance Reader Praise: “This is my first book of yours, and it won’t be my last! A beautiful story of life, love, friendship, and family.” “What a truly beautiful story. I am still crying. I loved it, and can’t wait to read The Guestbook again with fresh eyes.” “This story is so special. I cried and cried. I was truly touched by the characters.” “I loved all the characters, and when I read these books it’s like I’m right on the island with all of them.”

    The humor is ridden with pathos, and yet is quite sharp. This collection has 36 stories including: "The Gentleman is Cold," "Everything is Wild," "Mr. Preble Gets Rid of His Wife," "Hell Only Breaks Loose Once," "If Grant Had Been Drinking at Appomattox," and "How to See a Bad Play." The London Times said, "There may be greater humorists writing in America today than James Thurber, but none with quite his individual touch and his flavor."

    Hassler’s wry humor is in full force as this wonderful tale unfolds. In the more poignant and bittersweetThe Life and Death of Nancy Clancy’s Nephew, elderly W.D. Nestor finds his loneliness dispelled by his friendship with a young Staggerford boy, but it is a sudden visit to his one hundred-year-old Aunt Nancy that provides the peace he has always been looking for.

    It ends with a promise. On her deathbed Frances extracts it from her three daughters—the utterly capable homemaker Alice; the recalcitrant Allegra, a recovering alcoholic; and bohemian Edie, who shrinks in the face of any commitment: their promise to “look after Libba.” As if the formidable, tough-minded Libba Charles, author of ten books, a literary celebrity, needed looking after. Yet when they are summoned by Libba to Creek Cabin, their mother’s summer hideaway in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, they go. None of them is prepared, though, for what they will discover there—about their mother, about Libba, about themselves—in this poignant, adroit rendering of reunions and farewells.

    A former resident of St. Louis, where he founded the Observable Poetry reading series, he now lives in Hillsborough, North Carolina.

    Bigotry, poverty, social injustice, and sexual squalor in the Deep South—hallmarks of one of the most daring and phenomenally popular bestselling novelists of the twentieth-century. Here, in one volume, are three of his best-known works. “None of [his] characters would be caught dead in a novel by John Steinbeck, Carson McCullers, or Eudora Welty” (The Daily Beast).  Tobacco Road: The Great Depression compromises the morals of a poor farming family in Georgia. This classic, a Modern Library 100 Best Novels selection, was adapted for the stage in 1933 and made into a 1941 film directed by John Ford.  God’s Little Acre: Desperation takes its toll on a deluded Southern farmer obsessed with sex, violence, and the promise of gold. Banned in Boston, censored in Georgia, and prosecuted by the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, this international bestseller was adapted into a film in 1958.  A Place Called Estherville: In the pre-civil-rights-era South, a biracial brother and sister move to a small segregated town to care for their aunt, only to be subjected to systematic racism, sexual violence, and prejudice.   “What William Faulkner implies, Erskine Caldwell records,” said the Chicago Tribune of the author who earned his reputation by writing about sex, racism, and religious hypocrisy when no one else was. Caldwell remains one of the most widely translated American authors of all time.  This ebook features an illustrated biography of Erskine Caldwell including rare photos and never-before-seen documents courtesy of the Dartmouth College Library.

    A poor African American boy and his mother experience both discrimination and kindness during a trip to town to see the dentist.

    Descended from pioneers and the daughter of a rancher, Pamela lives according to her own script, and nothing seems to happen as expected. The world beats on—World War I, the influenza epidemic of 1917, the Great Depression—and local fortune rise and fall with the price of beef. For Pamela the fight that counts is defined by a sense of independence and pervasive loneliness, by the twists and turns of love and friendship.

    

    The central figures are the Baums, a wealthy family whose fortune has vanished in the stock market crash, but their story is amplified and illuminated by brief glimpses of other lives; a farmer who has lost all in the dust bowl; a prostitute who exchanges her favors for dental work; a white Southern sheriff in thrall to a black short-order cook; a young man who dreams of success on Tin Pan Alley, etc. Moving deftly from scene to scene, some funny, some movingly poignant, the play becomes a deeply affecting evocation both of a tortured time in American history and of the indomitable spirit of the people who survived and prevailed in the face of unaccustomed adversity.

     We see what we want to see, nothing more. When detectives Coughlin and Holzer investigate the disappearance of a successful young businessman, they’re both impressed by his beautiful wife. Slender, curvy, delicate—Michelle Fanning is not the kind of woman a man would choose to leave. Soon, a gruesome discovery leads the detectives to believe they’re investigating a murder. Reeling from the collapse of his own marriage, Detective Coughlin sees Michelle Fanning as a suspect. Detective Holzer, fascinated by her gentle femininity, sees her as a victim. Which cop turns a blind eye to the truth? Inspired by a true crime that occurred in New Jersey, this **short story** originally appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. The story introduces the character of Detective Sean Coughlin, who goes on to play a role in the full-length novels, ANOTHER MAN’S TREASURE and TREASURE OF DARKNESS, in the Palmyrton Estate Sale Mystery series. Please be aware that BLIND EYE is a short story, not a full-length novel. Chapter 1 of ANOTHER MAN’S TREASURE is also included.

    The city of Sevilla waits, heavy with anticipation. But Pacote finds he is afraid, and fears disgrace in the ring. Time, once his friend, now presses him on to the moment when the gate opens and the first bull enters the ring. You are there in the stands with the screaming crowd and in the lonely emptiness at the center of the arena with only a red cap and a slender sword. You are there for one of the most magnificent passages ever written on bullfighting. "Conrad, himself a veteran of the bull ring, knows the sport even better than Hemingway. And he writes about it magnificently...a tale of high courage, throbbing with excitement." (B-O-M-C News)

    The 6 ladies are reminiscent of an elite high school clique where there is heavy competition and an odd man out. The story focuses on the visit of a famous guest author, that doesn't turn out quite as planned. The only topic presented that the guest will discuss is Xingu. The ladies all state that they have just studied it ... but have they and do they even know what it is?