The Mermaid Girl: A Story


Erika Swyler - 2016
    She traveled everywhere with two boxes: the first with red sequins for the dress she wore as a magician’s assistant, the second with green sequins for her mermaid tail. She'd grown up on wild stories told by wild circus people. Books, she hadn’t had books until she’d found Daniel Watson and stopped moving.The first time Daniel saw her, Paulina was floating in a glass tank, suspended in water that sparkled like it was made from night sky. She has settled down now, living in a house on a cliff on Long Island Sound with Daniel and their young family: six-year-old Simon and his baby sister, Enola. But if you steal the magician’s assistant from a carnival, how can you know if she’ll disappear?

Leave No Man Behind: The Untold Story of the Rangers’ Unrelenting Search for Marcus Luttrell, the Navy SEAL Lone Survivor in Afghanistan


Tony Brooks - 2021
    . . but just one lone survivorOn June 28th, 2005, a four-man Navy SEAL reconnaissance team under Operation Red Wings was ambushed in northeastern Afghanistan--as depicted in the book and film Lone Survivor. A quick reaction force was dispatched to assist them. Turbine 33, carrying eight Navy SEALs and eight members of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment was struck by a rocket propelled grenade, bringing the dual rotor chinook careening toward the rugged peak of Sawtalo Sar.The result was the deadliest single incident in Afghanistan Special Operations at the time.Commanders, unwilling to let this disaster get any worse, quickly called on the largest element of the secretive Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), the 75th Ranger Regiment. The rescue mission: Operation Red Wings II.Tony Brooks, then a newly minted Army Ranger, tells a first-hand account of the daring recovery of Turbine 33, and the subsequent search for the remaining compromised Navy SEAL reconnaissance team--one of whom was Marcus Luttrell, the lone survivor. The Rangers would need to overcome lack of intel, treacherous terrain, violent weather, and an enemy that was born and raised to fight.Like his fellow Rangers, Tony Brooks lived--and many died--by the axiom, "Leave No Man Behind." His account is the first to tell the story other books and films have left out, one of courage, skill, and perseverance in overcoming overwhelming odds to accomplish a mission to bring every American soldier home.

The Munich Girl


Phyllis Edgerly Ring - 2015
    Fifty years after the war, she discovers what he never did—that her mother and Hitler’s mistress were friends. The secret surfaces with a mysterious monogrammed handkerchief, and a man, Hannes Ritter, whose Third Reich family history is entwined with Anna’s. Plunged into the world of the “ordinary” Munich girl who was her mother’s confidante—and a tyrant’s lover—Anna finds her every belief about right and wrong challenged. With Hannes’s help, she retraces the path of two women who met as teenagers, shared a friendship that spanned the years that Eva Braun was Hitler’s mistress, yet never knew that the men they loved had opposing ambitions. Eva’s story reveals that she never joined the Nazi party, had Jewish friends, and was credited at the Nuremberg Trials with saving 35,000 Allied lives. As Anna's journey leads back through the treacherous years in wartime Germany, it uncovers long-buried secrets and unknown reaches of her heart to reveal the enduring power of love in the legacies that always outlast war.

What Game Are You Playing?: A Framework for Redefining Success and Achieving What Matters Most


Robin Moriarty - 2019
    We build our personal and professional lives around those expectations and at some point, many of us wonder if we are on the right path. We may want to make changes, but it's difficult and we don't know how to start. In What Game Are You Playing?, author Robin Moriarty, PhD shares her view on what being “successful” should look like, and those views will be a surprise to many. According to Moriarty, life is a game, and it is up to each individual to determine just what kind of game they want to play. The author guides readers through a process that shows them how to assess their current state and outlines the steps they need to take in order to achieve their new game and own version of success.The book enables readers to— • Gain awareness of the way they want to live their lives • Reframe success on their own terms • Map out what they will need to do to get there Through a series of examples and exercises designed as a game, Moriarty helps readers recognize—and then step away from—the expectations of others so they can define and pursue their own version of success in work and in life. Through this process of finding and designing their own games,, readers will no longer be a pawn in someone else’s.

What Ever Happened to Heather?


Ann O'Leary - 2020
    

Chancer: How One Good Boy Saved Another


Donnie Kanter Winokur - 2017
    As Iyal and Morasha grow, it becomes clear that Iyal’s development is drastically lagging behind his sister’s. By age four, he has a devastating diagnosis: fetal alcohol syndrome. But naming their battle provides little relief as Iyal and his family try to cope with the lifelong impact of his invisible disability. As the Winokurs’ marriage is unraveling, Donnie and Harvey hang on to the last shreds of their own promise.Desperate to alleviate his constant rages and their crushing toll on the family, Donnie comes up with an innovative, untested, four-pawed solution: a golden retriever service dog named Chancer. Chancer is specially trained to give Iyal a unique love he desperately needs. But in this true-life tale infused with moments of despair, tenderness, and humor, Chancer turns out to be what the entire family has needed to stay—and grow—together.

Drops of Cerulean


Dawn Adams Cole - 2019
    Cadmus is plagued with guilt and feels responsible for the death of his mother. Two worlds collide when, years later, Delphina comes to understand that she had been Ilona, Cadmus’s mother, in her previous life. Well written and engaging, Drops of Cerulean deals with topics such as socioeconomic class, LGBT rights and acceptance, rebirth, and past-life regression. Set in Houston and revolving around the city’s ever-changing skyline, Drops of Cerulean is an amazing debut from a gifted writer.

Napoleon Hill Is on the Air!: The Five Foundations for Success


Napoleon Hill - 2017
    In each one, Hill walked his listeners through one of the Five Foundations for Success—what he described as absolute musts connected to “practically all achievement that’s worth mentioning.”Napoleon Hill Is on the Air! comprises those never-before-published transcripts in an engaging Q&A format. Together they provide deep analysis of the “Big Five” principles and how to apply them for maximum benefit in business and relationships. The transcripts also offer rich, off-the-cuff insights and inspirational stories derived from Hill’s years spent studying American icons, including Henry Ford, Andrew Carnegie, Thomas Edison, Charles M. Schwab, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt. This remarkable book offers a unique perspective on Napoleon Hill’s groundbreaking principles of success—as practical and powerful today as when he first discovered them.

Days of Hope, Miles of Misery: Love and Loss on the Oregon Trail


Fred Dickey - 2020
    For five months, and two thousand miles, the wagon train lumbers toward California on the Oregon Trail and into big trouble. The emigrants endure disease, dirt, and attacks from outlaws, and invaded Indians. Bitter strife erupts between ill-matched pioneers forced together by necessity.The 1845 wagon train is part of a vast westward movement; a monument to Americana that fascinates readers 175 years later.In one of the wagons is a heart-sick physician, Hannah Blanc, whose tribulations are Jobian: the suicide of a beloved husband, unfair denial of her medical career by graybeards of the profession, and a nightmarish new "marriage of necessity to a vile man named Ed Spencer.The guide is a hard-to-figure mountain man, Nimrod Lee, who knows the trail, but is also looking a man he needs to kill. Guilt over the murder of his Crow wife beclouds his conscience. Betrayal of his word to her chief father threatens his life. The killer of his wife is still out there.A love affair between Hannah and Nimrod is inevitable, but it's complicated, because for both, painful histories and mixed-up emotions make tall walls. The heart of the story is the pool of misgivings that threatens to drown their tenuous affair.The wagon train is a village of strangers locked together with no escape.Beyond all they must endure, the pioneers keep fighting, and keep coming. Those who make it are survivors; survivors with a great story to tell.

The Searcher


Ray Dacolias - 2012
    He and his family live there peacefully for ten years, and then tragedy strikes. His wife and daughter are killed in a confrontation with bank robbers, and he blames himself. He quits the police force and begins a wandering, aimless life around town, walking wherever he goes—silent, brooding, filthy. He exists like this for five years. The majority of people in town see him as a man who is mentally disabled. Few people dare bother him. Then one day, John Slaughter, the man who was responsible for the death of Joaquin’s family, comes back to this town. After robbing the bank with his fellow criminals, he kidnaps a young girl as he gets away. Joaquin recognizes the man, and gives chase. Thus, the tale begins.

The Crowns of Croswald


D.E. Night - 2017
    Hailed by Kirkus Reviews as “an action-packed treat […] with a relatable heroine facing challenges in a vivid world of magic and mystery,” and called a new classic by readers, The Crowns of Croswald series is a magical romp through a fully formed universe with dragons, magical quills, potions, and mythical creatures.Ivy Lovely is 16 and she has no idea who she is—or what her powers could be. When she crosses a magical boundary, she discovers a whole new world of enchantment and mystery. Making friends that will last a lifetime—and save her life—she steps into her own abilities and discovers more about her hidden past, magical blood, and the power of Croswald’s mystical stones. But all is not well: a dark history and an evil Queen threatens all that is good. Will Ivy’s bravery and wit be enough?Curious and whimsical, both shy and brave, Ivy is a hero that connects with readers of all ages. For those who wished that Narnia, Harry Potter, and Alice in Wonderland could go on forever, Croswald opens a whole new world of magic. Recommended as a read-aloud for families and a first middle-grade fantasy read, The Crowns of Croswald is a four-part series that will carry readers to a whimsical world that they won’t want to leave.

Christmastime 1939


Linda Mahkovec - 2018
    Set in Brooklyn, we meet the young widow Lillian Hapsey and her two sons, Tommy and Gabriel. Even though the Christmas season is just around the corner, Lillian has no Christmas spirit. Alone, unhappy with her job, and plagued by financial concerns, Christmas has become a burden to her. Overshadowing everything is the war in Europe. Despite the setbacks, Lillian is determined to give her sons a happy Christmas. Can she rekindle her girlhood love for the holiday season? Rediscovering her touchstone just might be the key to unlocking the excitement and magic of Christmas.

Smash All the Windows


Jane Davis - 2018
    It will take courage to learn how to live again.‘An all-round triumph.’ John HudspithFor the families of the victims of the St Botolph and Old Billingsgate disaster, the undoing of a miscarriage of justice should be a cause for rejoicing. For more than thirteen years, the search for truth has eaten up everything. Marriages, families, health, careers and finances.Finally, the coroner has ruled that the crowd did not contribute to their own deaths. Finally, now that lies have been unravelled and hypocrisies exposed, they can all get back to their lives.If only it were that simple.Tapping into the issues of the day, Davis delivers a highly charged work of metafiction, a compelling testament to the human condition and the healing power of art. Written with immediacy, style and an overwhelming sense of empathy, Smash all the Windows will be enjoyed by readers of How to Paint a Dead Man by Sarah Hall and How to be Both by Ali Smith.

Ghosted


J.E. Rowney - 2020
    Meanwhile Violet tries to juggle a new relationship and a demanding job as a midwife, where she meets a mum-to-be who faces her own unexpected challenges. Who can Violet turn to to help her to find out what lies behind Zoe’s disappearance?This is a story with twists and turns. A story of friendship. A story of trust.

The Dark Awakening


D.L. Blade - 2018
    An ancient witch. And a vampire who desires her blood. Mercy knows what true pain is—she’s lived with it since her high school graduation when someone drove a knife into her chest. She’s taken comfort in knowing they're locked away, but now, months later, a new threat lurks in the shadows—a stalker—and he’s watching her every move.As she nears her eighteenth birthday, a series of strange events lead Mercy to discover a long-held dark secret that shakes her conscience and stirs a magic inside her. Her body heals at an unnatural speed, and a power ignites at her fingertips. She has no idea what’s happening until a mysterious stranger, Caleb, comes into town, and reveals to Mercy a past life she can’t remember—she’s an ancient witch, vampires are real, and she is destined to destroy them.As Caleb teaches Mercy how to harness her magic, a plan unfolds within Salem’s most powerful vampire clan–and their leader, Maurice—is coming for her.Mercy must fight to survive and release the dark power she was born with. Because to slay a monster, she must become a monster.◆ A top 10 finalist for young adult books at the Author Academy Awards, 2019 & 2020, and Amazon bestselling author. Immortals of East Greenwich Series-The Dark Awakening-The Dark Underworld-The Dark DeliveranceREADER REVIEWS★ ★ ★ ★ ★ “Character development is fantastic."★ ★ ★ ★ ★ "I didn't see THAT coming!"★ ★ ★ ★ ★ "This book had me in another world without realizing I'd left my own."★ ★ ★ ★ ★ "A definite page turner!"AUTHOR NOTESSecond edition. Complete rewrite, added prologue & 100k more words. (The story, plot and characters are the same) The Chosen Coven series has been renamed Immortals of East Greenwich series.