In a time when people reveal little about themselves, their problems, and their passions, Grace takes readers into the hearts of four families during the last year of the War. Bound together by neighborhood and southern customs, yet separated by class, money and family, they are an unforgettable lot, vibrantly brought to life.As the war draws to an end, it becomes the catalyst that drives the inhabitants of Cold Springs across the boundaries that had once divided them, taking them to places both chaotic and astonishing.

    But as she plans her escape to New York City, turmoil erupts and the demands of family stand between her and her suitcase. Darla must, for the first time in her life, cast an unflinching eye on the hard-to-accept truths regarding love, responsibility, and survival. The Bingo Queens of Paradise lyrically blends a powerful comic voice with a poignant tale of a woman who longs to pursue her dreams.

    This Essence bestseller from an author to watch takes an unforgettable look at love, lust, and secrets that can break hearts--and destroy homes.

    

    Here, historian Alexander Ivanov reveals their fears and betrayals, privilege and debauchery, conspiracies and rivalries, love and tragedy as they forged Russia into one of the world's greatest empires. No ruler in history has embodied the oppressive domination of these rulers more vividly than Alexander Ivanov's opening subject, Tsar Ivan IV, the first of all the Russian tsars, known to history as Ivan the Terrible. Although a gifted ruler who did much to unite and improve the conditions in his primitive country, Ivan was also a notorious sadist who delighted in torturing and murdering anyone who displeased him. Ivan's death in 1584 ushered in the Time of Troubles, thirty-five years of famine, plague, and war that crippled the nation. A series of rulers attempted to cope with the devastation, beginning with Ivan's successor Boris Godunov. Finally, grasping for stability, Russia's nobles begged young Michael Romanov, the great-nephew of Ivan's beloved wife Anastasia, to take the throne. Michael successfully united the war-torn and ravaged nation and founded a dynasty that would rule for 300 years. The Romanov line produced Russia's most brilliant yet most unconventional sovereign: Peter the Great, a towering figure of a man whose restless, creative mind led him on an inexorable quest to modernize and civilize the still backward nation. The reforms he enacted so enraged nobles and peasants alike that Peter had to quash a series of rebellions to keep his crown. Ruthlessly stifling dissent and massacring rebels, he ultimately cowed the Russian people into submission, achieving a legacy that nearly equaled his ambitions. It was left to a woman - and a foreigner, at that - to lead the nation further out of the darkness. German princess Sophie Friederike Auguste of Anhalt-Zerbst, known to the world as Catherine the Great, absorbed the principles of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment and applied them to a country built on the backs of millions of serfs. However ineffective some of her policies, in the end, she made Russia a major player on the European stage. Serfdom was finally abolished in the nineteenth century, but it would be decades before Russian peasants could own land of their own and learn to farm it productively. The boyars and tsars clung to power until the Bolshevik revolution of 1917. The sad fate of the last tsar, Nicholas II, and his family, marked the end of the absolute power that Ivan the Terrible had so exploited. The abuses would continue but under a new and drastically different form of government.

    The heady mix of human depravity, humour, satire, tragedy, revenge and drama makes these stories an essential cocktail of emotions.Review:“Breezy, Flippant, Poignant... Tales of pleasurable wickedness.”-Salil Desai, author of Inspector Saralkar Mystery Series“Although not all sugar and sunshine, Dalvi's voice is an important one, because he chooses to tell stories that others would normally shy away from. There's a serene resignation in his tales, one that is completely devoid of both hope as well as regret. I thoroughly enjoyed the stories.”-Bhaskar Chattopadhyay, author of Patang, Penumbra, Here Falls the Shadow, The Disappearance of Sally Sequeira and Best Served Cold“Gripping short-stories by Rafaa Dalvi. I am both intrigued and scared by his plot-twists. Thrilled to have read this book.”-Sanhita Baruah, author of The Art of Letting Go and The Art of Healing“Some of the best stories I have read so far. Rafaa has a gift of telling complex stories in a very intuitive and straightforward and are easy to read. This book is the best thing that has come out during these current circumstances.”-S. G. Kabe, author of Everything is Normal“Rafaa Dalvi is a flash fiction expert.”-T.F. Carthick, author of Carthick’s Unfairy Tales and More Unfairy Tales“Taut, propulsive and riveting, Rafaa’s mesmerising stories pack a big punch. Chasing Nirvana has been carefully crafted for maximum impact. A highly compelling read.”-Vivek Banerjee, author of ‘The Long Road’ and ‘The Other Side’

    He’s been Macduff Brooks for only a few years and often wants to return to his earlier existence as the happily married law professor Maxwell Hunt in Florida. It is not to be ― his wife El died in a horrible accident on the Snake River in Wyoming. Depressed, he was increasingly willing to accept “special work” for a federal agency, which resulted in near death from a beating in Guatemala. Saved and returned to Washington by embassy persons, his death from a stroke was announced in the press, and he was placed in a federal protection program with a new identity and location. As Macduff Brooks, he moves between his new homes in Montana and Florida, but cannot escape his Guatemalan assailants who increasingly doubt that he died. A client on his drift boat is killed - shot from the shore by a sniper, and his cabin is rigged with bombs, not helping his new relationship with a New York investment banker lady, who owns a ranch next to Brooks’ Montana cabin.

    1965.  War's found himself deep in the glamorous yet lethal world of international espionage. Unhappy with both the treachery and restrictive dress-code, when a name from the past reappears in his life War realises he must risk everything to keep the world safe once again. This short story follows on from the How To Be Dead series and continues the tale of everybody's favourite grumpy Horseman of the Apocalypse...  What Amazon readers are saying about the How To Be Dead Comedy Fantasy Series: ★★★★★ “Dave Turner is a funny man and ‘How To Be Dead’ is a brilliant read.”★★★★★ “If Neil Gaiman and Simon Pegg sat down to write a story together they might come up with something like this.”★★★★★ “Hilarious and unexpectedly moving.”★★★★★ "Laughs and excitement combined!"★★★★★ “Laugh out loud funny… It’s been a while since an author has made me laugh more than Pratchett does.”★★★★★ "If you like Tom Holt, Douglas Adams or Terry Pratchett, Dave Turner's books will fit perfectly into your collection."

    It is the late 1960s and the family enjoy an idyllic life in the Vale of Kashmir, despite the area being riddled with conflict and poverty. But after a devastating earthquake wipes out her entire family, Jaya is taken into the care of relatives in Delhi, who attempt to marry her off and keep secret from her the possibility that Tahir, her younger brother, has survived the earthquake. After escaping from the arranged marriage Jaya is put through medical training in Scotland, as she had always dreamed, and where she develops feelings for her foster family’s eldest son, Alastair, who is engaged to someone else. In the meantime, Tahir has been abducted by a band of Kashmiri freedom fighters, who have made him one of their own. Jaya finally returns to her troubled homeland to find him and come to terms with the loss of her family. Alastair, who arrives in Kashmir to announce his love for Jaya, is kidnapped by the freedom fighters, forcing her to risk everything to get him back.

    Suddenly his world was knocked out of orbit and he found himself living with his Uncle Mickey above Mickey's bar in South Florida. Mickey's untimely death leads to Jack becoming a bar owner. Jack's protective approach to his life includes staying emotionally uninvolved with everyone around him, those who work at the bar, customers, and the objects of his frequent one-night stands. Without warning Jack finds himself struggling to protect his beautiful bartender from unknown forces intent on killing her. Jack is confronted with decisions that require him to ignore rules he had previously deemed unbreakable. The characters who inhabit Cap's Place turn out to be much more complex than Jack ever anticipated. Each book in the Cap’s Place Series is a snapshot into the adventures and evolving lives of Jack Nolan and those who are a part of his South Florida Bar. As is true in real life, no single snapshot answers every question. In Jack’s case, no single glimpse ever clearly reveals to him all of the unfolding puzzles.

    

    Fleeing boredom, bad marriages, and dead-end jobs, these adventurers wander south to Playa Paraiso—a lush, unspoiled village on Mexico’s idyllic Caribbean coast. There they find the unpredictable, hedonistic, and sometimes frightening world of the tropics.At the center of this extraordinary group is Poppa, the irreverent and savvy owner of the local beach bar. As he tries to make sense of his own vagabond existence, he offers his fellow expats booze, advice, and the occasional helping hand. It is Poppa who tells the tales of these intriguing runaways, as together they encounter true loves, vicious drug dealers, charming rogues, clueless do-gooders, and a devastating hurricane. Against a backdrop of stunning blue water and endless white sand, they experience the heart’s tug of war between the need for a place to call home and the desire for the freedom to roam.Author Anthony Lee Head is very familiar with the dream of living in paradise portrayed in Driftwood: Stories from the Margarita Road. After leaving a long career as a San Francisco trial lawyer, he moved to Playa del Carmen, Mexico where for ten years he ran a small hotel and margarita bar near the beach.Travelers, wanderers, explorers and dreamers alike will see themselves in these unforgettable characters, all the while craving an icy boat drink on a sprawling beach. But be careful: if you stick your feet in the sand and come along on this journey, you may not want to go home again."... Joseph Conrad collides with Jimmy Buffett in a journey through the dark heart of Mexico's Riviera Maya."~ Bob Calhoun, bestselling author and journalist"Truly wonderful and moving tales; the author is a writer to watch."~ Kirkus Reviews (starred review)"Beneath the 'palm and balmy breezes' tone, a deep, empathetic humanity affords each character and event vivid authenticity."~ Peter Coyote, bestselling author and actor

    Georgetown, Kentucky, 1939...soon after dawn on a February morning, Elliott Chapel discovers an unconscious, bloodied, young woman lying face up in the cold waters of Penny Creek. Days later, awakening from her hypothermic coma, Ellie Evans finds herself on the Chapel Farm. Once she explains her plight as the abused wife of a powerful man, Elliott offers her and her son a place to stay and vows to keep them from harm. For both Ellie and Elliott, life under the same roof is a challenge--with the cantankerous Paul Chapel, Elliott's father who spends his retirement days drinking whiskey with his aging coonhound by his side. Elliott has taken over the daily operations of the horse farm with his assistant, Booley. Unusual for the time--when blacks were subservient to whites--Booley manages a small staff and helps Elliott attempt the impossible with the newly-acquired horse of a high-profile client. Ellie pitches in and helps out when she can and helps change the mood of the busy farm with her sweet charm and culinary skills, even getting on the good side of the bad-tempered Paul Chapel. Just when daily life settles into an enjoyable rhythm, a violent struggle erupts when the malicious Mayor Evans descends on the farm with the county sheriff and two deputies. Armed with shotguns, they remove Ellie and her son from the farm, against her will. Narrated by Elliott five decades later, he recalls the incident on the Chapel Farm and subsequent events which ultimately reveal the long-kept secret...hidden in a small town since 1939.

    In the life she constructs as a barrier against the emotional wreckage of her family tragedy, Anna settles comfortably into a career as a teacher of deaf children. But a challenge arrives—in the form of a young girl. Adrea’s disarming vulnerability and obvious need for love offer Anna the possibility of reconnecting with the world around her—if she has the courage to open her heart. In this debut novel, Rachel Stolzman has crafted a moving and poetic witness to love’s power to transcend grief, pain, and the constraints of human language. The Sign for Drowning is a poignant story of loss and the unexpected occasions of grace that enable us to heal from it and grow beyond it.

    Although the sisters are as different as night and day, they were taught by their father that it's always family over everything. Diem, the foul-mouthed tycoon and oldest of the three, can't seem to balance her multimillion-dollar business and personal life at the same time. Never one to back down from a challenge, her world is flipped upside down when the brother of a close friend unexpectedly catches her attention and has her questioning whether it's possible to have a romantic relationship while managing an already chaotic life. Drea has always had a thing for hot boys with big toys, especially since she totes one of her own. Whether she's at her flower shop making beautiful floral arrangements or at the gun range perfecting her skills, this quiet storm never misses her mark. That is, until a mysterious and sexy ally comes into her place of business and knocks her off her square. Ophelia loves only three things in this world: her family, her bikes, and the club. Nothing or nobody has ever come between them. She has a temper known to go from zero to one hundred in a matter of seconds, but riding and restoring bikes help to ease her mind. The two pastimes easily turn into three when a restoration job goes from strictly business to extremely personal. These ladies demand respect, not only for themselves, but for their club as well. When enemies start to surface, personalities will clash, and family motives will be questioned. Will the pressure cause these Angels to fall, or will they rise to the occasion like they've done time and time again?