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Watch Me Go


Mark Wisniewski - 2015
    But on the morning Deesh and two pals head upstate to dispose of a sealed oil drum whose contents smell and weigh enough to contain a human corpse, he becomes mixed up in a serious crime. When his plans for escape spiral terribly out of control, Deesh quickly finds himself a victim of betrayal—and the prime suspect in the murders of three white men. When Jan, a young jockey from the gritty underworld of the Finger Lakes racetrack breaks her silence about gambling and organized crime, Deesh learns how the story of her past might, against all odds, free him from a life behind bars.Interweaving Deesh’s and Jan’s gripping narratives, Watch Me Go is a wonderfully insightful work that examines how we love, leave, lose, redeem, and strive for justice. At once compulsively readable, thought-provoking, and complex, it is a suspenseful, compassionate meditation on the power of love and the injustices of hate.

Rules for Becoming a Legend


Timothy S. Lane - 2014
    College coaches flood his mailbox with recruiting letters, Sports Illustrated has already profiled him, and everyone in town hangs on his every shot. But nobody can possibly fathom the weight of all this upon Jimmy’s shoulders, or the looming legacy that casts a wide shadow.Todd "Freight Train" Kirkus seemed destined for the NBA until he impregnates Genny Mori, the tough yet fragile daughter of the only Japanese family in town. Dreams of stardom and riches are traded in for a hasty marriage and parenthood until tragedy slams the Kirkus family. Jimmy and his wisecracking little brother Dex are born into a broken family, one haunted by wasted talent, alcoholism, and death. Like Chad Harbach’s The Art of Fielding and Friday Night Lights (the book and cult television show), Timothy Lane’s debut novel uses sports as a lens to understand family, community, catastrophe, passion, and hope. Populated with complex characters, Rules for Becoming a Legend is deftly written by an author who understands basketball as well as he understands the human condition.

It Only Takes Once


Susan Colleen Browne - 2011
    Juggling the needs of her daddy-hungry son with her first love Ben and her estranged father, she’s fresh out of her klutzy charm to help her sort out the mess she’s created.Lying low at her granny's cottage in the small village of Ballydara, in County Galway, Aislin is faced with decisions about trust, forgiveness, and the true meaning of family. Can a commitment-shy young mother find lasting love?Books by Susan Colleen BrowneThe Village of Ballydara SeriesThe Secret Well, short story ebookA Christmas Visitor, short story ebook and the sequel of The Secret Well It Only Takes Once, A Village of Ballydara Novel, Book 1 (print and ebook)Mother Love, A Village of Ballydara Novel, Book 2 (ebook, coming soon in print)Children’s StoryMorgan Carey and the Curse of the Corpse Bride, a lighthearted Halloween story for middle-grade readers (ebook, coming soon in print!)Memoir Little Farm in the Foothills: A Boomer Couple’s Search for the Slow Life (print and ebook)

The Forced Redundancy Film Club


Brian Finnegan - 2012
    This is a novel about unlikely friendship, coping with unexpected change, coming to terms with your past and facing new beginnings.

The Easter House


David Rhodes - 2009
    Ansel Easter was a favored minister until he rescued a grotesque creature from a carnival sideshow. His sons, C and Sam, suffer in the shadow of their outcast father until his violent death. C and Sam leave the home their father built for a new beginning, and find fortune building a lucrative business called the Associates — but when a rash of deaths has the townspeople looking at C and Sam as suspects, they find their father's legacy reaches further than they expect. Taut, dark, and engrossing, The Easter House holds up as a brilliant work of fiction some 30 years after its initial publication.

Corruption Officer: From Jail Guard to Perpetrator Inside Rikers Island


Gary Heyward - 2012
    For the Harlem-born ex-Marine, being an officer of the law was the ticket he'd been waiting for to move up from a low-wage security job and out of the Polo Ground Projects in New York City—and take his mother with him.Heyward was warned of the temptations he'd encounter as a new officer, but when faced with financial hardship, he suddenly found himself unable to resist the income generated from selling contraband to inmates. In his distinctive voice, Heyward takes you on a journey inside the walls of Rikers Island, showing how he teamed up with various inmates and other officers to develop a system that allowed him to profit from selling drugs inside the jail.Corruption Officer is a jarring exposé of a man having lived on both sides of the law, a rare insider's look at a corrupt city jail, and a testament to the lengths we'll go when our backs are against the wall.

Early From The Dance - A Southern Novel Of Love And Betrayal


David Payne - 1989
    Then Jane McCrae comes into their lives like a hurricane. When Cary falls in love with her, the boy's twosome becomes a tightly knit group of three, and they make plans for their summer after high school graduation. When Cary must remain in Killdeer, Adam and Jane head off to the Outer Banks alone, where they fall under the spell of the Lost Colony Hotel and its mysterious and charming proprietors. In a summer full of bright promise and heartache, Adam's feelings for Jane force him to make a difficult choice. . .

Coming Home


Sue Gee - 2013
    In a few months' time the British flag will be lowered all over India, and with Independence thousands of those who made their lives there - as planters, civil servants, or in the Indian army - will be returning to England.Among those coming home, as everyone speaks of it, are Will and Flo Sutherland, who fell in love at the end of the war. India has been the defining experience of their lives: how will they make a new life now?Sue Gee's new novel is filled with pathos and humour, beautifully evoking an all-but vanished world.

Extraordinary Hearts: A Journey of Cardiac Medicine and the Human Spirit


John A. Elefteriades - 2014
    Elefteriades, one of Men’s Health magazine’s ten best doctors in America, shares moving patient stories and lessons about the human heart. The human heart is a paradox, incredibly strong yet surprisingly fragile. And while stories that reveal its symbolic characteristics abound, there are far fewer that laud its physical capabilities, which are perhaps even more profound. Dr. Elefteriades, one of the most respected cardiac surgeons in America, has treated more than 10,000 patients in his distinguished career. Now, for the first time, he shares fascinating stories of his most memorable patients and cases—patients who have challenged him technically and moved him emotionally, patients who have enriched his life and expanded his horizons while he cared for their hearts. By detailing heart conditions and cardiac reparative procedures with specific yet accessible medical narratives, Dr. Elefteriades encapsulates the beauty, complexity, and majesty of the human heart. But there is far more to this organ—and these stories—than a collection of veins, arteries, and valves. These are stories of courage, miracles, and the bravery of patients (some famous and others not) and their families when facing nearly insurmountable challenges, offering a thought-provoking, informative, and at times heart-wrenching study of the resilience of both the human body and spirit.

Taking the Fall


A.P. McCoy - 2013
    He's one of the country's up-and-coming young jockeys and this season his sights are set on getting right to the top, but his demons threaten to overwhelm him. Duncan was taught everything he knows by his father, Charlie, a former trainer whose career and reputation were destroyed when a series of bitter rivalries got out of hand. It ruined him and Charlie hasn't been able to set foot on a racecourse since. Now, with his father's health rapidly declining, Duncan is desperate to beat the best and at the same time take down the men responsible for Charlie's ruin. But can he do both or must he choose between his family and his future?

Drive for Five: The Remarkable Run of the 2016 Patriots


Christopher Price - 2017
    They become larger than life and bigger than anyone ever thought possible, leaping off the field, the court, or the diamond and into the annals of not only history, but the very fabric of the American milieu. We all just witnessed such a moment on February 5th, 2017, when the New England Patriots battled back from the largest deficit in Super Bowl history to once again become world champions and secure Tom Brady's legacy as the greatest quarterback of all time.Amid a season of controversy, turmoil, and the most tumultuous political climate of our lifetime, the Patriots won. In spite of becoming entangled in the national spotlight on several occasions, the Patriots won. And in spite of being faced with any number of circumstances that would sink almost every other franchise in the NFL, the Patriots won.The season began with the fallout around Deflategate and losing their MVP-caliber quarterback for the first four games of the season, but honestly, the Deflategate saga was just a small part of it all.This is the story of how the Patriots rallied together as a team to surpass their obstacles on and off the football field and how that led to a remarkable run to the title - and the biggest comeback in Super Bowl history.Complete with player interviews, behind-the-scenes stories never told before, and content provided by Patriots players themselves, Drive for Five provides a unique level of insight and access to the story behind the legendary New England Patriots' 2016 season.

What the River Washed Away


Muriel Mharie Macleod - 2013
    Here eight-year-old Arletta lives with her family in an isolated shack in the woods. Sometimes she sees the white men walking down the track toward her home and knows to hide. But sometimes she sees them too late, until one day she finds the strength to fight back with ferocity. The men don’t return. But when years later she hears that another girl has been attacked, and past meets present, Arletta is compelled to act, plotting a revenge that will leave its mark on history.

The Old Neighborhood


Bill Hillmann - 2014
    This cool, incendiary rites of passage novel is the real deal."—Irvine Welsh, author of Trainspotting"Bill Hillmann's The Old Neighborhood is like a right hook to the chin with brass knuckles, crackling with both bravery and urgency. Brilliantly evoking Nelson Algren's Neon Wilderness and Richard Price's The Wanderers, the novel is unflinchingly honest in its depictions of class and race, a deft portrait of our sometimes-less-than-fair city."—Joe Meno, best-selling author of Hairstyles of the DamnedA bright and sensitive teen, Joe Walsh is the youngest in a big, mixed-race Chicago family. After Joe witnesses his heroin-addicted oldest brother commit a brutal gangland murder, his friends and loved ones systematically drag him deeper into a black pit of violence that reaches a bloody impasse when his eldest sister begins dating a rival gang member.Bill Hillmann is an award-winning writer and storyteller from Chicago, Illinois. His writing has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, Newcity, Salon.com, and has been broadcast on NPR. He's told stories around the world with his internationally acclaimed storytelling series the "Windy City Story Slam." Hillmann is a union construction laborer and a bull runner in Spain, who in the not-so-distant past was a feared street brawler, gang affiliate, drug dealer, convict, and Chicago Golden Glove Champion.

The Hundred Hearts


William Kowalski - 2013
    Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award.On April 7, 2005, an I.E.D. blast in Afghanistan alters the course of Jeremy Merkin's life forever. Still grieving the loss of his best friend, who was killed by the explosion, and nursing the physical and psychological wounds of the war, Jeremy returns home to find that nothing has changed, and yet everything is different.Living in the basement of a house he shares with his grandparents, mother, and mentally-challenged cousin, Henry, Jeremy smokes marijuana to combat his constant pain. He begins a career as a high school teacher, but memories of the war, the physical limitations caused by his injuries and a criminal accusation threaten to end his teaching career before it's even begun.After Helen, the matriarch of the family, dies in her sleep, the already-dysfunctional Merkin clan comes unglued. Jeremy contacts his father, who lives in a local mental institution, to seek advice, only to discover that his grandfather has been hiding a dark secret from his family. His discovery of the secret alters the way he sees his family, and himself, forever.Amidst all this chaos, his cousin runs away from home to find his mother in New York City. Knowing Henry can't possibly survive the trip on his own, Jeremy races across the country to find him. While in New York, Jeremy's world is altered yet again, as more family secrets are uncovered, this time with dreadful consequences.The Hundred Hearts is a darkly funny story of the courage required to carry on after coming home, and the redemptive power of accepting and revealing our own secrets in order to move forward.

Finding Arun (Living Lies, #1)


Marisha Pink - 2013
    Forced to question everything that he has ever believed, should he simply follow the path that has been laid out for him, or will pursuing the truth help him to find what has always been missing? As the tangled web of lies unfolds and uncertainty takes over, a startling chain of events are set in motion that will see Aaron make the journey of a lifetime to discover not only who he really is, but ultimately who he wants to be.Awarded a B.R.A.G. Medallion and shortlisted for the inaugural Quagga Prize for Literary Fiction, if you love engrossing books that will take you on a journey, buy Finding Arun now.