The Duty and Destiny Series is a superbly-crafted collection of historical novels with a strong naval/seafaring theme. The series follows the naval career, loves and business dealings of Englishman, Frederick Harris, a brave but reluctant mariner. Despite his disinclination, he is seemingly destined to become a Master and Commander of his own ship. Book One - The Friendly Sea: The second son of a Hampshire landowner, Frederick Harris has no expectations worthy of the name. He takes to the sea as a profession, rather than from love of the seafaring life. Early in the French Revolutionary War he seizes the chance to shine in a bloody sea battle. After promotion, he is sent to the Caribbean where he gains further promotion and the patronage of a senior admiral.

    With remarkable honesty and wit, author Joan Kendall nimbly explores her upbringing in the prim and proper segregated South during the 1950s with an outrageously unpredictable and destructive alcoholic mother.Joan and her two sisters--Linda, the perplexing spendthrift, and Susan, the practical optimist--never knew which mother would appear on the scene: the charming Mary Poppins or the spiteful Cruella de Vil. Their loving father did his best, but behind closed doors, his criticism of their mother's drinking fueled her bizarre and neglectful behaviors and further withdrawal into an ocean of whiskey.The sisters often had each other's backs, and the family maid and daytime buffer, Jadie Bell, provided a fortress in their domestic war. Although Jadie Bell loved them as her own, she could not rid their home of gloom and shame.In Joan's adulthood, a lamentable family secret is divulged, and the pain and trauma of the past becomes clear. In this beautifully written memoir, Joan reveals her own brokenness, and shares her path to redemption, healing, and joy.

    Steinbeck immortalized Monterey's bohemian spirit in Cannery Row, but the area's true lifeblood was his best friend and mentor, Ed Ricketts. Today Ed Ricketts is usually remembered as "Doc"—the beer-drinking philosopher-scientist who presided over Monterey's population of "whores, pimps, gamblers, and sons of bitches" in Cannery Row—but Ricketts was actually a trailblazing ecologist who did seminal work in the emerging field on the Pacific Coast. His ideas were decades before their time, and his two books, Between Pacific Tides and Sea of Cortez (coauthored with Steinbeck), are still considered classics. Now, some sixty years after his untimely death, Ricketts' ecological approach and ethic seem more relevant than ever.

    You’ll smile at some of Andy’s real patient encounters, while others will cause you to wipe a tear. Using official NHS documentation recorded at the time to give precise details of each incident, Andy has held firm to the real-life accounts, even in keeping the dialogue as close as his memory allows to what was really said at the time. It’s as if you’re there next to him, struggling with the effects of adrenaline and fighting to save life. This is a rare work of medical non-fiction delivered in a way that is factual, informative, but at the same time naturally entertaining and moving, written with candour and humour. And if you have ever thought what it takes to become a paramedic – or any other of the specialist vocations - and that you could never achieve it yourself, Andy’s inspiring story of how he went from postman to frontline healthcare professional, fulfilling his dream, will make you think again that anything is possible if you have the desire. Andy says there are no heroics in the book and that he simply did his job, but we are sure The Dark Side will leave you convinced there are true heroes on our streets right here, right now. Saving lives every day, every night and often against all the odds. It might even change your whole perspective on life.

    And if she happened to find a great hunk of spunk to worship the ground she walks on, spend his days feeding her grapes and granting her every wish... then, you know, she wasn’t going to say no, right?Only, someone up there had it in for her. Because rather than giving her a worshipful, grant-her-every-wish mate, she was given the growly, uncommunicative, bossy kind.Where did she go wrong?Her mate is damaged. He’s stubborn. He’s possessive.He might just be the death of her.Hopefully not literally...

    For 800 years the Zadokite priesthood has led the Jewish People. But the ancient world is changing. Without, Rome is rising, becoming the super power of the world. Within, a power struggle inside the House of Zadok is a golden opportunity for interlopers, who seek to unseat them from the throne. The delicate balance which has allowed the Jewish Nation to survive in this age of Empires is threatened.On the background of these tumultuous times, Judah, scion of a minor priestly lineage, comes of age in Judea. While experiencing love, friendship, and conflict he slowly transforms into the warrior and leader his people are waiting for.Fascinating Historical Novel about Judah the Maccabee, who led the ancient Israelis to a brave rebellion against the Seleucid Empire. A gripping glimpse into the heart of the dramatic events that took place in the Land of Israel before and during the Maccabee Rebellion.

    Symons reveals Poe as his contemporaries saw him a man struggling to make a living out of hack journalism and striving to find a backer for his new magazine, and a man whose life was beset by so many tragedies that he was often driven to excessive drinking and a string of unhealthy relationships. Fittingly written by another master in the art of crime writing, this volume brilliantly portrays the original creator of the detective story and reveals him as the genius and unashamed plagiarist that he was."

    Her new next door neighbors, Hunter Thurman and his son Jason, had been arguing just before Jason jumped in the vehicle and took off without looking behind him. Now her daughter has a concussion and a broken leg,and Sandy has a sexy neighbor who will stop at nothing to make it up to her.Whether she wants him to or not.Hunter Thurman has a mission: to fix the mess his son has made and to fix the mess he's made of his son's life. He is determined to take care of his next door neighbor and her daughter after the accident, but Sandy is independent and determined to take care of herself, insisting she doesn't need Hunter's help.His son, Jason, bridges the gap, opening up to Sandy in a way he never has to his father, revealing things Hunter wishes his son had told him instead.

    In this 10,000 word horror story, set in the same fictional universe as his zombie novel Mort, newlyweds Rachel and Charlie Carlson find themselves trapped in the basement of a rural farmhouse, surrounded by the walking dead. It's not much by way of honeymoons, her dying husband admits, but sometimes you have to take the good with the bad.And sometimes the bad, as Rachel is about to find out, is really... really... bad.

    Mine was 1989. In that year, I travelled the length and breadth of a chunk of South-East Asia, started a new business in India, wrote two travel guidebooks, got married in a Balinese village, nearly killed the King of Thailand, got attacked by giant spiders in Australia, had bombs raining down on me on the Cambodian border, and received the death penalty in Malaysia.That's what you get when you go off the beaten track...

    Their scouts encounter Darius, a lost colony world whose inhabitants have apparently discarded the technology that brought them to the planet, in order to adopt a virtually feudal culture.But the scouts are shocked when they discover that the controlling elite, in each of the major centres of population, exhibit abilities that defy the accepted laws of physics. Although the population appear to believe their leaders to be capable of performing sorcery, the Confederation concludes they must in fact be using a technology sufficiently advanced to seem like magic. Is it a technology left behind by long-gone Elders, or an indication of an advanced race trying to control the colony – perhaps one of a number of such races who are intent on meddling in human affairs?Either way, the need to understand and utilise such a technology leads the Confederation Security Council to launch an urgent mission to investigate Darius. Suitable specialists are swiftly enlisted to create a team, including both scientists and AIs, but all under military control. Protocol dictates that stealthy infiltration should precede initial contact, but the lack of sufficient prior observation and analysis will make it harder for the team to establish a credible cover story. Although their ship can remain in a hidden orbit, the research team will be on their own once they land, especially as Confederation technology seems to be unreliable or even inoperative on the planet’s surface. But they will soon discover that the people on Darius are not all the simple folk that they seem.This is the first book in the exciting new epic Inverse Shadows universe from best-selling science fiction author Christopher Nuttall.