But he may be the first to arrive in Montana with a World Series ring, a three-legged dog, and a thirst for self-destruction. High and Inside documents, with stark clarity, one man's struggle with the dark side of fame, as well as his internal battles with alcoholism and a crumbling sense of self-worth. A community of people who love him and a generous inheritance aren't enough to counterbalance Pete's apparent determination to sabotage every healthy aspect of his life. It's a downward spiral that won't end until he's forced to confront not only his own ugly past but his unfulfilled future as well. With wit and compassion, sharp humor and startling insight, author Russell Rowland gives us not only a portrait of fame and addiction, but also an indispensable glimpse into the character of the modern West. "Rowland's people are on a search, and he writes them with wit, humility, and a satisfying sense of trajectory." Leif Enger Author of Peace Like a RiverYou don t have to love baseball to love this story about one (aging) boy of summer who is brought to a bittersweet reckoning with his past. I found myself laughing, cringing, and knuckling down Kim Barnes Author of "In the Kingdom of Men"an elegant and potent investigation of community and home, of healing and forgiveness this wonderful novel is a grand slam of indelible characters and infectious drama, and a flat-out great read. Alan Heathcock Author of "Volt"

    He is excited and afraid; he wants to recapture the love he knew with his parents before they died and become a doctor like his father. But in his new home of celebrities, crooks, untrustworthiness, and excessively wealthy deviants, lust and want thwart his search for selfless caring love, and in his quest to become a doctor, he discovers the altruism of health care and scientific discovery riddled with profit motivation and deficient moral standards. A finalist in the 2012 William Faulkner-William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition.

    

    And in their midst travels Madeleine, the dreamer, who is trying to make sense of her own metamorphosis as she leaves home, joins a gypsy circus, and falls into an unexpected triangle of desire and love.

    I was once a son, a husband, a father. And now I’m a storyteller.” Meet Maqil - also known as Mike, Mehmet, Mikhail and Miguel - a chancer, charmer and charlatan. A criminally clever man who tells a good tale, trading on his charm and good looks, reinventing himself with a new identity and nationality in each successive country he makes his home, abandoning wives and children and careers in the process. He's a compulsive gambler - driven to lose at least as much as he gains, in games of chance, and in life. A damaged man in search of himself.From the day he was delivered in Lahore, Pakistan, alongside his stillborn twin, he proved he was a born survivor. He has been a master of flying escapes, from Cairo to Paris, from London to Hong Kong, humbled by love, outliving his peers, and ending up old and alone in a budget hotel in Biarritz some eighty years later. His chequered history is catching up with him: his tracks have been uncovered and his latest wife, his children, his creditors and former business associates, all want to pin him down. But even at the end, Maqil just can't resist trying it on; he's still playing his game, and the game won't be over until it's been won.

    Peer into the lives of four people from the village of Bethany—a harlot, a mistress, a beggar, and a leper—as their worlds interweave and collide. Throughout similar circumstances, they each have unique and personal encounters with Jesus. Along the way, they learn what it means to experience authentic relationships, genuine community, and true faith. These emotionally charged stories reveal people who struggle with the same kinds of life issues that we all encounter today—feelings of loneliness, guilt, inadequacy, betrayal, and despair. Yet their interactions with Jesus bring profound changes to the way that they view their world, each other, and themselves. These four tales use the creative gift of imagination to explore what each of these men and women might have been thinking and feeling, while remaining true to the biblical accounts and consistent with life in first century Israel. So come on a journey that will challenge you, inspire you, and like these characters from Bethany, leave you forever changed.

    Mouse State Judge.Two young girl are abducted and held hostage by a band of religious fanatics. The girls' anxious father, a politician on the eve of an important election, has reasons of his own not to go to the police, so he hires a pair of shady private eyes to investigate. All the elements of a classic noir—except that the kidnapped girls are mice, the abductors are Sunshine Family dolls, and the detectives are Barbie and Ken. Part 1970s childhood dreamscape, part Raymond Chandler, this is a world both familiar and transformed. Sex shops, illicit affairs, spies, political hypocrisy, and dangerous zealots may coexist with Barbie and Ken's acrobatic poolside sex, but the crises of faith that Nelly Reifler's characters face are as real as our own. Elect H. Mouse State Judge is an unusual—and masterful—blend of irony and tenderness, and a moving portrayal of a father trying and failing to do the right thing.

    Her father, Trevor, adores her but she is neglected by her feckless mother, Grace. When war comes Trevor Molloy is called up. He fears for Winnie and persuades Sandy Coulson to wheel her to school each day in a converted pram. Two years older than her, Sandy sticks up for Winnie and promises to be her lifelong friend. But Grace is drinking very heavily and loses one job after another. To pay the rent on the one squalid room they are now living in she takes Winnie in the pram out begging until she is given a warning by the police. When Trevor is reported 'Missing Presumed Dead' Grace goes on a drinking spree, meets with an accident and dies. And Winnie is left loveless and alone...

    Dunyazade, Scheherazade's kid sister, holds the destiny of herself and the prince who holds her captive.Perseus, the demigod who slew the Gorgon Medusa, finds himself at forty battling for simple self-respect like any common mortal.Bellerophon, once a hero for taming the winged horse Pegasus, must wrestle with a contentment that only leaves him wretched.

    All of Edgar's problems become mundane, however, when he and his lesbian Blackfoot nurse's aide best friend, Pat Fillmore, become responsible for the disappearance of their fellow worker, Beverley Fey, after an LSD party gone awry. Ballantine's own brand of delicious quirkiness and storytelling is smooth and compelling, and God Clobbers Us All is guaranteed to satisfy Ballantine fans as well as convert those lucky enough to be discovering his work for the first time.

    So far he’s on the winning side. He’s never lost a case. But nothing lasts forever, and pride like his has a long way to fall.Funny, smart and always surprising, A Naked Singularity speaks a language all of its own and reads like nothing else ever written. Casi’s beautiful mind and planetary intelligence make him an inimitable and unforgettable narrator.In De La Pava’s hands, the labyrinthine miseries of the New York Justice System are as layered and diabolical as Dante’s nine circles of Hell. But the Devil doesn’t hog the best lines. There are plenty here to go around.

    . . and the enduring mystery of love.   Traveling to France on business, Alexandra Dawson has decided to seize the opportunity to explore a mysterious piece of her own heritage—a half-burnt picture of a woman who looks eerily like her, taken more than a hundred years ago in a local castle. In the charming rural village of Chandeniers, she discovers something else too—the gruff, ruggedly good-looking heir of the crumbled chateau.   Eric Lagnel is completely uninterested in Alex’s queries, until he realizes that she may have stumbled on a way to save the building. Their unlikely partnership is a surprise. But as Alex slowly unravels the secrets of her great-great-grandmother’s photograph—and the true history of the chateau—she begins to understand that no one is ever prepared for the ways love can heal old wounds and open the hardest hearts.

    That is, until Lady Emily, a widow, returns to society and finds herself in a position to help these ladies find love and happiness.Book 1 – A New BeginningEmily, a widow, returns to society with a new attitude. Admired by some “almost on the shelf” ladies, they ask for her help in finding husbands. Then an old beau is begging her to consider his courtship. Can Emily help others find love, and have a chance at love herself?Book 2 – The Disgraced BrideMiss Emma Bavidge can barely make her way through society without someone whispering about her. Her father’s disgrace has ruined her reputation and left her struggling in society. Her one hope is Lady Emily Smithton, who leads ‘The Spinsters Guild' and has promised to help. Book 3 – A Gentleman’s RevengeMiss Sarah Crosby is considered to be a spinster. Helping her cousin, Sophia, with her debut, she is attracted to Sophia’s suitor, Lord Ruddington. Lord Ruddington has a secret and a desire for revenge. Will he able to enact his revenge? Or will Sarah stop him?Book 4 – A Foolish WagerLady Amelia is forever burdened with an injured leg, a consequence of a fall from a tree. Lord Montague is blackmailed into a wager and is forced to court Lady Amelia to win the bet of making Lady Amelia fall in love with him. He soon realizes his mistake. But what can he do when so much is at stake?Book 5 – A Lord UndoneLady Beatrice's father said her mother played him false, and now she can barely lift her head in society. While hiding from society in a bookshop, she discovers a mysterious note in a book. She takes it home and becomes entwined in a mystery that changes her life!The Spinsters Guild series features Lady Emily Smithton as something of a matchmaker for a group of unusual ladies who are almost “on the shelf.” Can Lady Emily help them find their perfect match? Get your copy today!

    Broken by tragedy. Consumed by revenge.Fleur de La Fontaine attends the court of King Louis XIV at Versailles for the first time. Dazzled by the opulence, she is soon besotted with handsome courtier, Philippe de Mortain. When she believes his words of love, she gives in to his seduction – with devastating consequences.Nine months later, when the boy she has given birth to is whisked from her grasp, she flees the convent and finds shelter at the brothel of Madame Claudette.Jacques de Montagnac, a spy working for the Lieutenant General, investigates a spate of abducted children from the poorer quartiers of Paris when his path crosses Fleur’s. He searches for her son, but the trail leads to a dead end – and a dreadful realisation.Her son’s suspected fate too much to bear, Fleur decides to avenge him. With the help of her new acquaintance, the Duchess de Bouillon, Fleur visits the famous midwife, La Voisin, but it’s not the woman’s skills in childbirth that Fleur seeks.La Voisin dabbles in poisons.Will Fleur see her plan through? Or can she save herself from a tragic fate?Delve into The Shadows of Versailles and enter the sinister world of potions and black masses during the Affairs of the Poisons, a real series of events that stunned the court of the Sun King!

    The barricades are going up, the students of the Sorbonne are taking to streets alive with the graffiti of revolt, and the Odeon is ablaze with speechmaking. For Annie, a young American painter, and Julian, her Portuguese lover, a banker and anarchist, the events of that Paris spring form the backdrop against which their love affair is played. Annie sees the world through an artist's eyes; she is reckless in her passions, wanting and needing love with other people. There is none of this fanciful nonsense for Julian, an anarchist disdainful of the entire human race, who thinks even the enraged students storming the streets of Paris with their posters proclaiming “open the windows of your heart” and “revolution is the ecstasy of history” to be hopelessly naïve and sheeplike. Ferlinghetti charts the progress of love unfolding against those heady and momentous days when the pampered children of the bourgeoisie tried to find common cause with workers who despised them, “when Julian and Annie were in the heat of their love and reason.”