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Keeping Lucy
T. Greenwood - 2019
Dover, Massachusetts, 1969. Ginny Richardson's heart was torn open when her baby girl, Lucy, born with Down Syndrome, was taken from her. Under pressure from his powerful family, her husband, Ab, sent Lucy away to Willowridge, a special school for the “feeble-minded." Ab tried to convince Ginny it was for the best. That they should grieve for their daughter as though she were dead. That they should try to move on. But two years later, when Ginny's best friend, Marsha, shows her a series of articles exposing Willowridge as a hell-on-earth--its squalid hallways filled with neglected children--she knows she can't leave her daughter there. With Ginny's six-year-old son in tow, Ginny and Marsha drive to the school to see Lucy for themselves. What they find sets their course on a heart-racing journey across state lines—turning Ginny into a fugitive.For the first time, Ginny must test her own strength and face the world head-on as she fights Ab and his domineering father for the right to keep Lucy. Racing from Massachusetts to the beaches of Atlantic City, through the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia to a roadside mermaid show in Florida, Keeping Lucy is a searing portrait of just how far a mother’s love can take her.
Been In Love Before
Bryan Mooney - 2016
o get them to reengage with the world, Ryan’s daughter, Mary Kate, signs them up for dance lessons and insists that each find a partner in time for her wedding.Robert, the eldest of the brothers, rediscovers an old friend who brings the spark back to his life. Eian, a former professional baseball player, takes another swing at love with the widow of his best friend. Ryan, the doctor in the family, hopes his beautiful new dance instructor can put the spring back in his step. But Mary Kate’s fiancé is a member of the rival Campbell clan, and as the wedding approaches, joyful anticipation turns into a heated family rivalry.Together the Macgregor brothers will dance their way through first-date jitters and plenty of wrong moves as they try to save the wedding—and restart their lives.
Magnificent Joe
James Wheatley - 2013
What Jim needs is a fresh start.Living in a former pit village in the North of England, Joe’s learning difficulties have left him isolated, his only contact with the community playing the back-end of the horse in the local panto. Until Jim, another of life’s outsiders for a whole different set of reasons, comes home. So begins an unlikely friendship. Jim and Joe offer one another loyalty and camaraderie, simple but magnificent qualities that give Jim that most elusive thing – hope – as he rebuilds his life. But when rumours of an unthinkable crime get out of control, Jim’s loyalty is put to the test, with heartbreaking consequences.Funny, bittersweet and unforgettable, Magnificent Joe is a tale of devastation, loss and the redemptive power of one extraordinary friendship."
Last Alive: An Apocalyptic Thriller (Last Days Book 1)
M.C. Magill - 2016
Without warning, life as we knew it ended.Husband and father Will Carter is an ordinary man plunged into an unthinkable situation. An attack has devastated America and everything changed in an instant. Now the Carters must stay alive and together in the face of an unknown enemy.The Carters embark on a rescue mission in a landscape that is no longer the safe haven they once knew. If they want to survive they'll have to rely on their determination, instincts and their strength as a family. Last Alive book 1 of the Last Days apocalyptic thriller series.
The God of Sno Cone Blue
Marcia Coffey Turnquist - 2014
Medallion.Story summary: Something is odd about Grace. She has mismatched eyes, one dark and one light. She thinks she's seen God. When her mother dies, she begins to get letters from her, as if from the grave. The letters tell of her mother's life before she married Grace's father, in time, confessing fiercely guarded family secrets. "I wasn't always a Preacher's Wife... I made mistakes along the way."Looking back, as a middle-aged woman, Grace relives those transformative years, coming of age in the 1960s as the daughter of The Reverend Thad Carsten and his much-younger wife, Sharon. When they move to a new neighborhood in Portland, Oregon, Sharon is healthy and Grace takes turmoil in stride: a new school, her backward neighbors, the simmering Vietnam War and political unrest. On the whole, life is sublime-until Sharon gets sick and dies. Then Grace's world turns upside down.Days after Sharon is gone, the letters to her daughter start coming, delivered mysteriously in the dark of night. Grace finds them-addressed to her-and devours every word, desperate to figure out who's delivering them. As she struggles with questions of loss and faith, she begins to butt heads with the preacher, increasingly focused on the mysterious messenger and her mother's letters. The handwritten pages arrive periodically as Grace matures, fostering a strange mother daughter relationship.Early on, the letters offer motherly advice, but increasingly they shift their focus to Sharon's early teens, eventually confessing a forbidden young adult romance. By then, Grace is desperate for the rest of the story, searching everywhere for her mother's writings, until finally there's a breakthrough. When she reads the last of the letters-and an astonishing truth-she embarks on a journey that changes her life and perspective forever.What did Sharon confess in the last letter to her daughter? How does it affect their unusual mother daughter relationship? As Grace runs away to trace her mother's past and teenage romance, what will she find?With its elements of romance and mystery, The God of Sno Cone Blue, sometimes searched as "Snow" Cone Blue is best described as contemporary women's fiction, though its strong central male character also appeals to men. The novel's storyline and mother daughter relationship are fitting Inspirational Fiction, and its passion and coming of age tale are appropriate for teenagers and young adults.* USA Today Bestselling Author Linda Needham on this inspirational fiction story: "The God of Sno Cone Blue is a joyous celebration of a young girl's journey to womanhood. Grace is a modern match for Tom Sawyer, with a grand spirit and enough spunk to weather the heartache of losing her mother at a tender age. Along the way, she gains the wisdom to recognize the breadth of her mother's love through a series of posthumous, sometimes shocking letters delivered in the years that follow. With a driving style and a colorful cast of eccentric characters, author Marcia Coffey Turnquist fiercely delivers equal parts laughter, sorrow and the kind of joy that will stay with you long after you've finished the book."*Author Rod Gramer on this novel fraught with family secrets: "Marcia has created a compelling character in Grace, one whose great personal loss is redeemed by a great personal discovery."*Portland Society Page editor Elisa Klein on the story's mystery and romance: "Surprises abound and the twists and turns kept me flipping pages late into the night as I curled up in my favorite chair to drink it all in."*Award-winning artist D.K. Lubarsky on this coming of age novel: "A masterful storyteller, Turnquist takes you on a magical journey of discovery in this poignant tale of innocence and growing up. The God of Sno Cone Blue is a delightful read."
The Angry Woman Suite
Lee Fullbright - 2012
Raised in a crumbling New England mansion by four women with personalities as split as a cracked mirror, young Francis Grayson has an obsessive need to fix them all. There's his mother, distant and beautiful Magdalene; his disfigured, suffocating Aunt Stella; his odious grandmother; and the bane of his existence, his abusive and delusional Aunt Lothian. For years, Francis plays a tricky game of duck and cover with the women, turning to music to stay sane. He finds a friend and mentor in Aidan Madsen, schoolmaster, local Revolutionary War historian, musician and keeper of the Grayson women's darkest secrets. In a skillful move by Fullbright, those secrets are revealed through the viewpoints of three different people-Aidan, Francis and Francis'stepdaughter, Elyse-adding layers of eloquent complexity to a story as powerful as it is troubling. While Francis realizes his dream of forming his own big band in the 1940s, his success is tempered by the inner monster of his childhood, one that roars to life when he marries Elyse's mother. Elyse becomes her stepfather's favorite target, and her bitterness becomes entwined with a desire to know the real Francis Grayson. For Aidan's part, his involvement with the Grayson family only deepens, and secrets carried for a lifetime begin to coalesce as he seeks to enlighten Francis-and subsequently Elyse-of why the events of so many years ago matter now. The ugliness of deceit. betrayal and resentment permeates the narrative, yet there are shining moments of hope, especially in the relationship between Elyse and her grandfather. Ultimately, as more of the past filters into the present, the question becomes: What is the truth, and whose version of the truth is correct? Fullbright never untangles this conundrum, and it only adds to the richness of this exemplary novel. A superb debut that exposes the consequences of the choices we make and legacy's sometimes excruciating embrace.
Manhattan Mango
Madhuri Iyer - 2014
What happens when three ambitious, high-achieving, 20-something Mumbaikars become New Yorkers?A. Madness.Zipping through life’s ups and downs like a high-speed elevator during rush hour, buddies Shri, Shanks, and Neel hold on to each other, and their sanity, with a bro-hood bonding that chipkos them together, fevicol se.Neel’s the driven hedge fund guy, with a weakness for scotch and women. Tam Brahm Shanks, a techie, falls for the "wrong” girl. Good Son Shri, a banker, holds a secret he means to take to his grave. Their intertwined lives buzz with high-voltage drama — explosive secrets, super-charged romances, and a-fuse-a-minute meltdowns.There’s alcohol-fueled passion, Devdas style. Inter-racial hook-ups. Even a fake affair, because money can’t buy the real thing. When their skyscraper-sized dreams are tested, this “desified” saga of friends in Manhattan is like the city’s rapid transit express subway line. You won’t want any stops in between.
The Chair: Special Edition
Peter Simeti - 2008
Witnessing savage killings at the hands of the prison's sadistic and psychotic Warden, Sullivan decides that in order to survive he must match the brutality occurring in the prison.But as he fights to escape his fate, Sullivan is forced to question his sanity and confront his own horrific past. This Special Edition has a limited print run of 750 copies and includes the upcoming film's screenplay, a pencils to inks gallery, and a behind the scenes featurette on the making of the death row film set.
Ashoka: Lion of Maurya
Ashok K. Banker - 2016
Their target—the entire imperial family.The prince makes it his mission to root out the assassins with the help of the Chandikas—the female military order instituted by Samrat Chandragupta Maurya. But when his own lover, a Chandika, confesses a terrible secret, he realizes that the threat lies within his own family!Meanwhile, the palace is not without its own intrigues. Queen Khorasan and her mother are playing their own game of thrones. Dowager Queen Apama is secretly working for her father, Seleucus Nicator, who still has ambitions of invading the sub-continent. King Bindusara’s harsh methods are turning the marbled floors of the imperial palace awash with blood. Will Prince Ashoka be able to save his family —and Mauryavansh—before it’s too late?India’s epic storyteller turns his masterful hand to the life of ancient India’s greatest ruler, Ashoka in a thrilling trilogy packed with non-stop action, adventure, battles and lusty no-holds-barred storytelling.
Paradox
Arya Narrayan - 2020
No one has any idea how this pandemic happened; even the WHO is stuck for an effective cure. Just as the whole world is growing desperate for resolution and low in hope, unexpectedly, a grey alien visits the earth in December 2025—five years after the initial outbreak—claiming that it has the concrete cure for A-virus.Can humans believe the announcement from the grey alien? Who really is this grey alien? Where did it come from? What could the purpose of its visit to Earth be? Did the grey alien bring the first life to our planet? Does it have any influence on ancient architecture and the many great wonders of the Earth? Did Neil Armstrong meet the alien?If you’re a fan of sci-fi, don’t miss Paradox—an enthralling rendition!
Dublin in the Rain
Andrew Critchley - 2013
As the subsequent years pass, unable to come to terms with the accident, the survivors set the path for a deeply troubled future for each generation that followed.Jonathan Melton had a traumatic childhood in which he ended up in foster care, but when he meets the wild, willful, sexually experienced and free spirited Sophia at university, everything changes. At first inept with women, Jonathan’s complex relationship with Sophia evolves from a one-way obsession into a genuine love and shared passion, as the relationship brings happiness, romance and joy to both their lives that neither thought was ever possible. The two marry, and Sophia gives birth to their first child; a beautiful baby daughter. Everything is seemingly perfect, until the evening that their tiny baby is found dead in her cot. As his world falls apart around him, Jonathan slips into a dark depression and, increasingly haunted by his past, becomes distant and dysfunctional as he struggles to cope with the loss of his daughter. His marriage to Sophia disintegrates, and Jonathan along with it as he descends further into darkness after leaving Sophia. Although his close friend David succeeds to some extent in saving him from his demons, Jonathan remains a lost and lonely soul, until his apparent chance meeting with the enigmatic Maolíosa in a Dublin bar. Maolíosa and Jonathan form a unique bond, and she challenges his vision of life and the world around him. Fate intervenes, but it ultimately leads Jonathan to redemption, and a final resolution to the aftermath and consequences of the 1947 tragedy. Inspired by the timeless film, It’s a Wonderful Life, Dublin in the Rain provides a sweeping narrative of love, desire and misfortune, spanning the thirty years of Jonathan Melton’s life. Andrew Critchley’s witty and complex characters reveal how a painful familial legacy can haunt our present and distort our future. Moving and magical, Dublin in the Rain reminds us that while tragedy can blight our journey, life is still very much what we choose to make it.Dublin in the Rain is the first of a trilogy of contrasting stories around the theme of redemption by Andrew Critchley.
The Finger Trap
Johnny Worthen - 2015
He’s had 12 years to prepare for his divorce and didn’t. He had his entire life to choose a career and hasn’t. Now time’s up, and he’s in a world of trouble. But all of that changes when Tony takes a first date to a drunken party and ends with him facing prison for the murder of a girl he hardly knew. To save himself, wise-cracking Tony must discover who the mysterious girl was, what she was involved in, and what the hell she saw in him in the first place.
Towards the Within
Reece Willis - 2018
What starts out as a simple trip around India soon becomes a psychological journey into the darkness of Sam’s past. One he knows there's no running from. When Sam decides to give up his mundane life and travel to India he has no idea what he’ll do when he gets there and it isn’t long before his lack of preparation takes its toll. Vulnerable and alone, Sam is haunted by memories of his childhood and as he struggles to make sense of the pain he has suffered he follows a dangerous path that has devastating consequences.
Frend
Jonathan R. Miller - 2014
Both thought-provoking and action-packed, Frend is a story of transformation, the unceasing drive to belong, and the struggle to liberate oneself from oppression, both internal and external.
Kilbride House
Sheila Forsey - 2019
Victoria Goulding, a Protestant, falls in love with Canice Meagher, born on the Blasket Islands and a Roman Catholic. To be together they must elope. Before their escape, the hand of fate plays its cards and changes their lives irrevocably.Sixty-three years later, in the leafy suburbs of New York, Edith Goulding, Victoria’s sister, has died. Edith left Ireland in the winter of 1955 all those years ago, never to return. In her will she has insisted that her daughter Catherine and granddaughter Lainey visit Kilbride.Kilbride House, despite all its grandeur, holds shocking memories within its walls – memories that have slipped through the cracks of time. As the ghosts awaken the lies begin to unravel, and everything is altered. The past cannot remain untold.