Takeo works to escape the Tribe and fulfill the last wishes of his adoptive father, Lord Shigeru Otori. And Kaede, heir to two seats of power, moves forward step by step, aided by her own wits and a precarious alliance with Lord Fujiwara. In their separate worlds, the two long for each other, knowing that they are meant to be together, wondering if they will ever see each other again. . . .

    With her mom in prison, and her father AWOL, Katie is sent to live with a squeaky-clean family who could have their own sitcom. She launches a full-scale plan to get sent back to the girls’ home when she finds herself in over her head...and heart. When Katie and her new "wrong crowd" get into significant trouble at school, she finds her punishment is restoring a historic theater with a crazy grandma who goes by the name of Mad Maxine. In the midst of her punishment, Katie uncovers family secrets that run deep, and realizes she's not the only one with a pain-filled past. Katie must decide if she'll continue her own family’s messed up legacy or embrace a new beginning in this place called In Between.

    An impassioned proponent of reason, rational self-interest, individualism, and laissez-faire capitalism, she expressed her unique views in numerous works of fiction and non-fiction that have been brought together for the first time in this one-of-a-kind volume.Containing excerpts from all her novels--including Atlas Shrugged, Anthem, and We The Living--The Ayn Rand Reader is a perfect introduction for those who have never read Rand, and provides teachers with an excellent guide to the basics of her viewpoint.

    Distracted from her cause by the sudden return of her once-dear friend, the unhappily wed Helen Codrington, Fido is swept up in the intimate details of Helen's failing marriage and obsessive affair with a young army officer. What begins as a loyal effort to help a friend explodes into a courtroom drama that rivals the Clinton affair --complete with stained clothing, accusations of adultery, counterclaims of rape, and a mysterious letter that could destroy more than one life.Based on a scandalous divorce case that gripped England in 1864, The Sealed Letter is a riveting, provocative drama of friends, lovers, and divorce, Victorian style.

    A Mother’s Heartbreak. A Family’s Crisis. As the wife of a prominent city attorney and the mother of two teenage children on the brink of adulthood, Glennis Harmon lives the kind of successful, high-profile life that many people envy. But when nineteen-year-old Jacob is drawn into substance abuse, Glennis’ “perfect” world shatters like a crystal vase rocked from its once-steady shelf. Glennis struggles to understand the response of her family as they seek to support Jacob’s recovery. Her husband appears more concerned with protecting his image than with finding help for their troubled son, but Glennis becomes determined to save Jacob no matter what the cost. Stepping into a rescuer role, she unintentionally puts her relationship with her older daughter, Sarah, and her already strained marriage on the line–and a revelation about her husband will push her to the brink of what she can bear. How far should a mother go to save her child?A compelling, compassionate, and ultimately hopeful novel about the impact of substance abuse and addiction, Crystal Lies is an intimate portrayal of one mother’s attempt to simultaneously love, trust, and let go.

    Look Closely.That's all the anonymous letter said, but attorneyHailey Sutter understands the meaning behind the well-chosen words. Someone wants her to investigate what happened to her mother, who died when Hailey was only seven.The death was ruled accidental, but Hailey begins having flashbacks that tell a different story: a pounding at the door...her mother struggling to stand...a man with a gold ring that flashed in the night as he held her mother's lifeless body.Obsessed with uncovering the truth, Hailey can't trust anyone, especially her father, whose secrecy both unnerves and protects her. Desperate to remember that fatal night, she seeks out the brother and sister who left home after their mother's death. But they have disappeared. It's soon clear to Hailey that the answer is right in front of her--all she has to do is find the courage to look closely....

    Skeptics and True Believersis the culmination of that search—a passionate, ever-inquisitive statement that science and religion can mutually reinforce the way we experience the world.Acknowledging that the scientific and the spiritual communities are increasingly split, Raymo builds strong bridges between them. He illustrates his argument with an array of thought-provoking stories, such as the remarkable migratory flight of a small bird called the red knot; the long, glorious glide of the Comet Hyakutake across the night sky; a hilarious alien abduction that didn't happen. Together, they are compelling evidence that religion should embrace the reliable knowledge of the world that science provides, while at the same time science should respect and nourish humankind's need for spiritual sustenance. "Miracles are explainable," Raymo paraphrases the writer Tim Robinson, "it is the explanations that are miraculous."For anyone drawn to reflect on life's meaning and purpose, Chet Raymo's uncompromising skepticism and reverence for mystery will affirm and inspire.

    David Drake pays homage to his own sub-genre by collecting ten classic stories of men-at-arms by top writers including himself.

    A Rifle section is halfway through their six-month tour of duty in Helmand Province. Sixteen men from their Battalion have already been killed. Forty-seven others have been wounded and flown back home.The last three months have been tough and it shows. Their kit is in a bad way. They are in a bad way. Young men with tans, scruffy beards, peeling noses and lips burnt raw by the Afghan sun. Despite the hardships they are enjoying their time out here learning how to fight the Taleban. The lads are on their way to becoming the best soldiers in the Army.Last Night Another Soldier... is the story of four of the young men in this Rifle section, partly told from the point of view of eighteen-year-old squaddie, David 'Briggsy' Briggs.

    It was a special mirror and the man he followed was a special man - a man who led him to the things that underlie the fate of all creation. Lilith is considered among the darkest of MacDonald's works, and among the most profound. It is a story concerning the nature of life, death, and salvation. In the story, MacDonald mentions a cosmic sleep that heals tortured souls, preceding the salvation of all.

    So when impulsive Meg elopes with her boss, a U.S. senator twice her age, Lauren hops on a plane to talk her into an annulment...but comes face-to-face with the senator's handsome son, Drew, instead. Demanding to know what she's done with his father, Drew is as infuriating as he is annoyingly irresistible. But he's not the only one who mistakes Lauren's identity. A relentless foe is on a deadly hunt for the missing newlyweds -- unless Lauren and Drew can find them first. Venturing into the elite Washington social scene, they discover an elaborate web of explicit photos and blackmail, but the biggest surprise is the fiery attraction they can barely control. The clock is ticking, and while the sparks between Lauren and Drew burn hot, the trail of clues is growing cold....

    That's what makes Mastering the Grill a standout on the cookbook shelf. From equipment (grill types and tools) to fire (wood, charcoal, or gas) to ingredients (meat, poultry, fish, and vegetables), the authors have shared their impressive grilling know-how to explain the whys and the howsand guarantee the wowsclearly and comprehensively. In addition to hundreds of tips and techniques, this ultimate guide is packed with how-to illustrations and mouthwatering photographs plus 350 surefire recipeseverything from rubs and marinades to appetizers, entrees, side dishes, and desserts. Mastering the Grill is a master class in cooking, destined to become a sauce-stained, well-thumbed classic.

    The unexplored doubts of a marriage. And the redemptive power of literature...Julie Buxbaum, the acclaimed author of The Opposite of Love, delivers a haunting, gloriously written novel about love, family, and the secrets we hide from each other—and ourselves.It happened on a tree-lined street in Notting Hill to a woman who seemed to have the perfect life. Ellie Lerner’s best friend, Lucy, was murdered in front of her young daughter. And, as best friends do, Ellie dropped everything—her marriage, her job, her life in the Boston suburbs—to travel to London and pick up the pieces of Lucy’s life. While Lucy’s husband, Greg, copes with his grief by retreating into himself, eight-year-old Sophie has simply stopped speaking.Desperate to help Sophie, Ellie turns to a book that gave her comfort as a child, The Secret Garden. As the two spend hours exploring the novel’s winding passageways, its story of hurt, magic, and healing blooms around them. But so, too, do Lucy’s secrets—some big, some small—secrets Lucy kept hidden, even from her best friend. Over a summer in London, as Ellie peels back the layers of her friend’s life, she’s forced to confront her own as well: the marriage she left behind, the loss she’d hoped to escape. And suddenly Ellie’s carefully constructed existence is spinning out of control in a chain of events that will transform her life—and those around her— forever. A novel that will resonate in the heart of anyone who’s had a best friend, a love lost, or a past full of regrets, After You proves once again the unique and compelling talent of Julie Buxbaum.

    In fact, the short story, as A. O. Scott wrote in The New York Times Book Review, shows “McInerney in full command of his gifts . . . These stories, with their bold, clean characterizations, their emphatic ironies and their disciplined adherence to sound storytelling principles, reminded me of, well, Fitzgerald and also of Hemingway—of classic stories like ‘Babylon Revisited’ and ‘The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber.’ They are models of the form.”Only seven of these stories have ever been collected in a book, but all twenty-six unveil and re-create the manic flux of our society. Whether set in New England, Los Angeles, New York or the South, they capture various stages of adulthood, from early to budding to entrenched to resentful: a young man confronting the class system at a summer resort; a young woman holed up in a remote cabin while her (married) boyfriend campaigns for the highest office of all; a couple whose experiments in sexuality cross every line imaginable; an actor visiting his wife in rehab; a doctor contending with both convicts and his own criminal past; a youthful socialite returning home to nurse her mother; an older one scheming for her next husband; a family celebrating the holidays while mired in loss year after year; even Russell and Corrine Calloway, whom we first met in McInerney's novel Brightness Falls.A manifold exploration of delusion, experience and transformation, these stories display a preeminent writer of our time at the very top of his form.

    Tobias is obsessed with two things: God and girls. Mostly girls, of course. But being a Baptist preacher's son, he can't escape God. When his father is blinded in a bizarre accident (involving hard cider and bird droppings), Tobias must ride the rails to Texas to recover a long-hidden stash of money. Along the way, he's initiated into the hobo brotherhood by Craw, a ribald vagabond-philosopher. Obstacles arise in the form of a saucy prostitute, a flaming boxcar, and a man-eating catfish. But when he meets Sarah, a tough farm girl under a dark curse, he finds out that the greatest challenge of all is love.