This has never been more evident than when Kylie vents her frustrations to an innocent employee—and the whole scene is posted online, tanking her career and earning her the dubious distinction of "World's Worst Boss." But when she flees home to the South, Kylie finds her childhood home has changed. The high school quarterback is now the hot and handsome sheriff. Her mother has turned her home into a nudist colony. And worst of all, having heard about her daughter's exploits, her mother won't let her in the door until Kylie completes fifty kind acts in fifty days. The task seems easy enough at first—and may even help repair her media image—but it quickly turns into a hilarious quest that leads Kylie down a bumpy road filled with new challenges. What started as a gimmick to save her career evolves into a mission to save a spunky old woman and her little dog from homelessness. As Kylie learns about the nature of kindness, she finds the path to happiness and, for the first time ever, maybe even love.

    Building a school seems simple enough until the locals give chase. She won’t say what she did to provoke them, but providing her protection just flipped from being a mini-vacation to a death sentence.Athlete Pia Sabel intended to put her fortune to use helping educate isolated children. When corrupt officials force her to flee, she remains haunted by the sight of dead and dying villagers. Without evidence of murder, international authorities dismiss her as simply rich and spoiled. Her obsession even grates on the Sabel Security team. Then one of their own contracts a highly contagious disease.Her friend is near death. A mole in her ranks tries to destroy her. Pia turns to Jacob and his questionable sanity to help bring the guilty to justice. When their primary suspects turn up dead, she must recalculate the evidence. Can Jacob and Pia expose the conspiracy before a tyrant unleashes an apocalyptic virus?

    Okay, she might not have the best taste in men, but she’s got great friends, a good job, and an independent spirit. That is, until her 30th birthday ushers in a whirlwind romance with a sexy Irish musician who leaves her, not at the altar as she imagined, but accidentally pregnant. And when he disappears, she’s downsized out of a job, her apartment is robbed, and lapsed health insurance coverage leaves her with a C-section to pay for, Amanda is launched headfirst into the life of a broke single mom. But her friend and uber successful ob-gyn, Joy, clues her in to an unlikely temp position with one of Chicago’s celebrity elite that just may be the answer to all her woes. Or could it be just the beginning?It’s with serious trepidation that Amanda embarks on her surprisingly lucrative new career: underground wet nurse to the offspring of Chi-town’s rich and famous. Amanda must quickly understand how to live at the whims and mercy of the one percent as she deals with the irony of nursing – and loving – someone else’s child, while still making ends meet for her own daughter. And then there’s Cute Daycare Dad (aka Dan), who’s obviously interested in her. But can she afford to tell him what she really does for a living? Is her new job (something she thought went out with the 19th century) a shameful thing? Just another way of selling her body? Or does it have something to teach her after all?A novel of motherhood, its many demands, and all the little triumphs along the way, MILKED is a warm and witty debut about making tough choices and traveling the roundabout road to happiness.

    You’re awakened by a noise. Someone is in your house. What do you do?When it happens at 148 Maple Drive, homeowner Jeff Shaw gets his gun and goes downstairs to investigate while his wife calls 9-1-1. It’s their home, after all. Jeff has to protect it. He finds two men in the kitchen and shoots them both. Dead.The incident puts great strain on Jeff and his family. He wants to believe they just need to get on with their lives and everything will return to normal. But it’s not that easy. The dead intruders belonged to a gang, ANG, “Ain’t No Game,” that now wants revenge. And one of the gang, an ex-con who goes by the name I-Man, knows more about the break-in than he’s letting on.It starts with a threatening phone call. Then it gets worse. The police, unable to protect the Shaws, suggest they move away for a while. But Jeff isn't going to be intimidated from his house. Homeowner With a Gun takes the reader on a suspense-filled thrill ride as this everyman fights to save himself and his family, while something a detective said plays in the back of his mind: Maybe the intruders broke into the wrong house. Happens all the time. You wouldn’t believe how often...

    He wants her complete surrender.He’s ambitious. Meri Darrow has Rob McLain pegged. He’s a fund manager, more interested in profit than innovation. Rob wants the privileged life she rejected long ago, right down to the showy ocean view villa. Cute as he is, he’s definitely not her type. But Meri needs Rob’s help after she is suddenly fired from her dream job developing a breakthrough anti-aging drug. She’s a lightning rod for trouble. Rob is shocked how much he wants this brilliant but naïve scientist, even though helping her could ruin his career. Then there’s her mysterious illness. This intense attraction scares the hell out of him. They can’t win. Now Rob is about to lose everything he’s worked for. Meri’s attempts to do the right thing have only brought fear and death, putting Rob and his little boy in danger. The best thing she can do for them is walk away.

    This rich collection, filled with interviews, essays, and color reproductions of testosterone-heavy thirty-five-cent magazines with names like Man's Exploits, Rage, and Escape to Adventure (to name a few), illustrates the culture created to help veterans confront the confusion of jobs, girls, and the Cold War on their return from World War II and the Korean War.Contributions from the original men's magazine talent like Bruce Jay Friedman, Mario Puzo, and Mort Künstler bring the reader inside the offices, showing us how the writers, illustrators, editors, and publishers put together decades of what were then called "armpit slicks." Reproductions of original paintings from Norman Saunders, Künstler, and Norm Eastman are featured within, and Bill Devine's annotated checklist of the many thousands of adventure magazines is essential for collectors of the genre.The expanded paperback edition includes wartime illustrations and advertisements from mass-produced magazines that preview the xenophobia and racist ideas later seen throughout men's adventure magazines of the '50s and '60s.

    But “faith is not equivalent to mere belief. Faith is the condition of ultimate confidence that we have the capacity to follow the path of doubt to its end. And courage.”In this engaging spiritual memoir, Stephen Batchelor describes his own training, first as a Tibetan Buddhist and then as a Zen practitioner, and his own direct struggles along his path. “It is most uncanny that we are able to ask questions, for to question means to acknowledge that we do not know something. But it is more than an acknowledgement: it includes a yearning to confront an unknown and illuminate it through understanding. Questioning is a quest.”Batchelor is a contemporary Buddhist teacher and writer, best known for his secular or agnostic approach to Buddhism. He considers Buddhism to be a constantly evolving culture of awakening rather than a religious system based on immutable dogmas and beliefs. Buddhism has survived for the past 2,500 years because of its capacity to reinvent itself in accord with the needs of the different Asian societies with which it has creatively interacted throughout its history. As Buddhism encounters modernity, it enters a vital new phase of its development. Through his writings, translations and teaching, Stephen engages in a critical exploration of Buddhism's role in the modern world, which has earned him both condemnation as a heretic and praise as a reformer.

    Accountability is a way of thinking.  Those who achieve greatness know true accountability makes all the difference between success and failure. Based on extensive interviews with accountable leaders—from Fortune 500 CEOs to Hall of Fame athletes—No More Excuses identifies the five accountabilities of successful people and organizations. These tenets encourage accountability in others and performance at the highest level. When you willingly accept and embrace the five accountabilities, you encourage accountability in others and empower your teams to achieve at the highest level. The result is an organization focused on its fundamental values and committed, at the individual level, to achieving critical strategic goals. Whether you’re a business owner, a top executive, or a team leader, accountability starts with you and trickles down to everyone else. If you want to build an organization that achieves its goals and beats the competition it’s time for No More Excuses.

    In this insider's guide, former Onion editor Joe Randazzo delivers a funny and insightful blueprint for those looking to turn their sense of humor into a vocation. Explaining how it works and how to break in, Joe provides tips and guidance, outlines successful career paths, and solicits advice and stories from the likes of Judd Apatow, Jack Handey, Joan Rivers, Tim & Eric, and more. From writing for TV to doing standup or developing a successful YouTube channel, Funny on Purpose gives readers the knowledge and inspiration to launch a career in comedy with confidence.

    Now he shares what he's seen and heard on the Other Side.In this book, John shares with us fifteen fascinating stories of what happens when clients ask him to contact their dead friends and relatives. Included here are the story of a 30-something New Yorker who was unable to stop fantasizing about suicide until he conveys healing words from her dead fiancé; an account of an encounter with a grieving young woman in a drugstore--and the message he conveys from her dead six-year-old son; and a disturbing story of an unsolved murder case solved by information he received from the other side.Above all, this is a book filled with comfort, love, forgiveness, and hope. For Thomas John, death is not the end, it is just the beginning. Our friends and relatives are still with us. They care for us. They watch over us. And, in times of particular need, they offer us their help.

    The QC with a conscience - privileged, reputable and emotionally frozen. The perfect barrister. But Lawrence hasn't always been who he is now. When he is glaringly in the public eye after his enigmatic wife is killed in an apparently random hit and run, he could do with his hidden past surfacing like a hole in the head. Unfortunately the past has a way of finding its way back to you, just like betrayal. His dead wife has helpfully left him a sinister resume of his, and she just keeps adding to it... Patchwork Man is a psychological thriller as fast-paced as any of Dan Brown's, whilst evocatively recreating the chaotic and poignant childhood that has led Juste, the patchwork man himself, to chaos. 'Gripping all the way through...' 'Compelling.' 'Patchwork Man' is the first in the Patchwork series. 'Patchwork People' - the second in the series - will be released in September 2014.

    One snowy New England night, she receives a panicked phone call from a young boy named Justin. He says, "There's a man in my house," and Leslie is the only person who can save him. Armed with only a handheld receiver, Leslie must use experience, intuition, and love to talk her young caller through his ordeal. The hushed conversations lead to a shared intimacy which forces Leslie to take a closer look at the boy's domestic situation, which makes her peer unwillingly into the darkened corners of her own life and state of mind. As the intruders get closer to Justin and become all the more threatening, Leslie realizes that despite the frigid weather, she must get the boy out of his house and to safety. Danger soon takes an unexpected personal turn. By then, it's too late to turn back: Leslie is part of Justin's life, and she will stop at nothing to keep an innocent child safe from monsters of the night.

    *** One snowy evening, a stranger with a horribly scarred face stomps on the porch of Stella Hunter’s house, holding her latest book of myths and legends. He points to the bloody fingerprints of the book’s now deceased owner, marking a passage of the Peacetaker myth. When she asks how he came by the book, he tells her he took the controversial book from the lifeless hand of a traffic fatality in Cairo. And suddenly, Stella could swear that somewhere a clock started ticking down to doomsday. After all, the fate of humanity depends on whether she was right or wrong when she wrote her infamous book.

    You will also learn how to modify exercise technique to influence results and individualize training programs according to your specific needs.Combining the expertise of MuscleMag International columnist, bodybuilder, and orthopedic surgeon Dr. Nick Evans with the talent of acclaimed bodybuilding artist Bill Hamilton, Bodybuilding Anatomy is the ultimate training guide for bodybuilders and dedicated strength trainers.

    Each day we add more possessions, more commitments, more worries, more stress to our lives. Striving for fulfillment, our closets become overstuffed, our calendars overscheduled, and our spirits overwhelmed. Instead of feeling happy, we just feel heavy.Lightly offers help. Whether you want to strip down your life to a backpack or free up some space in your closet, overhaul your schedule or gain back an hour in the evening, Lightly helps you identify what you treasure, while letting what’s unnecessary fall away. You will learn to lighten:  Your Stuff: advice on how to declutter what’s weighing you downYour Spirit: release the worries and emotional baggage that can be just as burdensome as possessionsYour Stress: reclaim your time and strive not to get more done, but to have less to doYour Step: reduce your consumption and make the planet as beautiful and clutter-free as your homeWithout a strict regimen, Lightly puts the power back in your hands to take control of your life.