Book picks similar to
The Dark Secrets of Rebecca Marie by R.M. Méndez


abuse-violence-victims
check-library
dont-have-yet
read-in-the-past

Centurion


Ryan Casey Waller - 2013
    In its place stands the most powerful government the world has ever seen: the Kingdom. Led by King Charles and his Centurion Guard, Americans live in fear of being abducted north in a train marked for death. Deacon Larsen boarded a train three years ago to travel west, the only region where medicine is still taught. But after the Kingdom abducted his parents, he returned home to the South. But Deacon hasn't come home to put his parent's affairs in order, as stated in his strictly controlled travel visa. No. He's come back for the only thing he has left: revenge. But waiting for Deacon are truths he never expected and a decision so impossible he may have to die to make it. The life Deacon knew is gone. The ones Deacon loves are dead. The truth Deacon craves is out there. But can he find it? Centurion is an imaginative retelling of Mark's gospel as a dystopic thriller. It's the greatest story ever told, as never before told.

Strong, Brave, Loved: Empowering Reminders of Who You Really Are


Holley Gerth - 2019
    She understands that you want to be a woman who looks life in the face and says, "You can't beat me." A woman who knows love is a risk and reaches out anyway. A woman who understands kindness takes real courage. Who doesn't fake it or try to hide her scars. Who fights to believe she is who God says she is and helps others do the same.Strong, Brave, Loved offers 60 short devotions to empower you to be that kind of woman. It's simple, personal, and practical, with room for you to journal your own responses and reflections. With these concise and compassionate devotions, Holley leads you on a journey of discovery as you learn to live in freedom, hope, and holy courage.

How Happy to Be


Katrina Onstad - 2006
    She’s been dining out too long, literally and figuratively, on a culture of celebrity worship and empty punditry. She seeks refuge from her better judgment in endless parties, ritual substance abuse, and half-hearted attempts to get herself fired, but in a libertarian newsroom where outrageous spin is the easiest way to sell papers, her bad-girl behaviour just wins her more accolades.Along this path of self-destruction, Max’s past, comic and poignant, keeps intruding: memories of her mother’s brutal death and her hippie father’s crippling breakdown; the reappearance of an aging vegan idealist who briefly played her stepmom on the West Coast commune where she came of age; tender realizations about the bad artist she was supposed to marry and a long-lost boyfriend who seems exotically sane. When a host of prior indiscretions finally catches up with her, Maxime realizes that any chance at happiness depends on uncovering, at last, her one true story.Set during the madness of the Toronto International Film Festival and weaving back and forth between Max’s commune past and her newsroom present, How Happy to Be portrays with razor-sharp insight and bittersweet wit a modern woman’s descent into — and eventual escape from — the deafening pop culture noise of the early twenty-first century. Intelligent, savvy, this novel marks the arrival of a remarkable new fiction talent.

The Jodi Picoult Collection #3: Vanishing Acts, The Tenth Circle, and Nineteen Minutes


Jodi Picoult - 2012
    Raised in rural New Hampshire by her widowed father, Andrew, she now has a young daughter, a handsome fiancé, and her own search-and-rescue bloodhound, which she uses to find missing persons. But as Delia plans her wedding, she is plagued by flashbacks of a life she can't recall. And then a policeman knocks on her door, revealing a secret that changes the world as she knows it. The Tenth CircleFourteen-year-old Trixie Stone is in love for the first time. She's also the light of her father, Daniel's life—a straight-A student; a pretty, popular freshman in high school; a girl who's always seen her father as a hero. That is, until her world is turned upside down with a single act of violence. Suddenly everything Trixie has believed about her family—and herself—seems to be a lie. Could the boyfriend who once made Trixie wild with happiness have been the one to end her childhood forever? She says that he is, and that is all it takes to make Daniel, a seemingly mild-mannered comic book artist with a secret tumultuous past he has hidden even from his family, venture to hell and back to protect his daughter. Nineteen MinutesSterling is an ordinary New Hampshire town where nothing ever happens—until the day its complacency is shattered by an act of violence. Josie Cormier, the teenage daughter of the judge sitting on the case, should be the state’s best witness, but she can’t remember what happened before her very own eyes—or can she? As the trial progresses, fault lines between the high school and the adult community begin to show— destroying the closest of friendships and families.

Heroin: A True Story Of Drug Addiction, Hope, And Triumph


Julie O'Toole - 2008
    

Sistah for Sale


Miasha - 2008
    Beautiful and ambitious, Sienna determines that the best route to the life she wants is to become the most coveted of Chatman's call girls. When Sienna learns that her mother has been murdered and that Chatman had a role in the murder, she turns to her friend Ryan for comfort, beginning a secret relationship with the boy Chatman is grooming to take over his business. Eager to gain her independence from the man she both admires and loathes, Sienna takes steps to increase her value as a sex worker by learning her wealthy clients' cultures and languages, but her plan backfires. Chatman is more determined than ever not to let her go, and Sienna is equally intent on finding a way to break free -- no matter what it takes.

F?@k Knows


Shailendra Singh - 2013
    Told with sparkling, flavourful and in-your-face humour, this book will advise you on how to:Find yourself (Because youre probably lost. Admit it.)Follow your heart (Because if you dont then youll die unhappy,you stupid f?@ker.)Achieve your goals (You know you want to.)Live life like you give a f?@k (Because....why not?)Candid and thoughtful, F?@k Knows will show you how to really live life on your own terms, to do what you want to do and not what you have to do just because your father said so!

God Carlos


Anthony C. Winkler - 2012
    In scenes of a mixture of pride, madness, and comedy, Carlos plays out his role as deity among the naked islanders, living a fantasy that most readers will find believable, if horrific. Along with the horror, the book does offer some beautiful moments of discovery, as when, as Winkler narrates, the ship takes the Mona Passage to Jamaica...we hear of an Edenic island, green and aromatic, opened like a wildflower. For all of its scenes of braggadocio and brutality, the book often works on you like that vision."--Alan Cheuse, NPR, All Things Considered"Readers are transported to Jamaica, into Winkler's richly invented 16th century, where his flawless prose paints their slice of time, in turn both brutally graphic and lyrically gorgeous. Comic, tragic, bawdy, sad, and provocative, this is a thoroughly engaging adventure story from a renowned Jamaican author, sure to enchant readers who treasure a fabulous tale exquisitely rendered."-- Library Journal "A tale of the frequently tragic--and also comic--clash of races and religions brought on by colonization...Anthony Winkler spins an enlightened parable, rich in historical detail and irony."-- Shelf Awareness "Darkly irreverent...With a sharp tongue, Winkler, a native of Jamaica, deftly imbues this blackly funny satire with an exposé of colonialism's avarice and futility."-- Publishers Weekly "With perceptive storytelling and bracing honesty, Mr. Winkler, author of a half-dozen well-reviewed books, has a lovely way of telling a good story and educating concurrently...God Carlos teaches history in a subtle but meaningful way. Too literary to be lumped in with typical historical fiction, and too historical to be lumped in with typical literary fiction, God Carlos defies categorization."-- New York Journal of Books "God Carlos provides a welcome opportunity to glimpse...the lives of ordinary people, both European and Caribbean, as they experience the calamitous effects of the encounter of two worlds."-- Sargasso: A Journal of Caribbean Literature, Language, & Culture "The author's piercing narrative drives home...Here, Winkler's brilliance as a storyteller is unmistakable...God Carlos is a literary tour de force--atmospheric and incisive. It effuses raw emotion--perplexing, bewildering, and dark...On multiple levels, Winkler proves his salt as a genuine raconteur...the architect of an invaluable literary work."-- The Jamaica Gleaner "Well-written...Winkler's descriptions of sea and sky as seen from a sailing ship, and of the physical beauty of Jamaica, are spot-on and breathtaking."-- Historical Novel Review "In God Carlos and The Family Mansion, Anthony Winkler, the master storyteller, has provided us with texts of both narrative quality and historical substance that should find place in the annals of Caribbean literature."--SX SalonGod Carlos transports us to a voyage aboard the Santa Inez, a Spanish sailing vessel bound for the newly discovered West Indies with a fortune-seeking band of ragtag sailors. She is an unusual explorer for her day, carrying no provisions for the settlers, no seed for planting crops, manned by vain, arrogant men looking for gold in Jamaica.Expecting to make landfall in paradise after over a month at sea, the crew of the Santa Inez instead find themselves in the middle of a timid, innocent people--the Arawaks--who walk around stark naked without embarrassment and who venerate their own customs and worship their own Gods and creeds. The European newcomers do not find gold, only the merciless climate that nourishes diseases that slaughter them. That the Arawaks believed that the arrivals were from heaven makes even more complicated this impossible entanglement of culture, custom, and beliefs, ultimately leading to mutual doom.

The Year the Music Changed


Diane Thomas - 2005
    Achsa is a lonely, passionate and precocious fourteen-year-old. Isolated at school by her intelligence and disfigurement, troubled at home by the undercurrents in her parents' relationship, she finds comfort and inspiration in the tunes and rhythms she hears on her radio. Hearing a recording by an unknown 20-year-old country singer named Elvis Presley, she fires off a fan letter, telling him she knows he's going to be a star.

Brutal: The Heartbreaking True Story of a Little Girl Stolen


Nabila Sharma - 2012
    I should have been able to trust him. But he made me do unspeakable things!It is a tale of innocence lost and a life shattered, but above all it is a tale of survival, of a young girl who found love and hope in the darkest of places.

Rise of the Truth Teller: Own Your Story, Tell It Like It Is, and Live with Holy Gumption


Ashley Abercrombie - 2019
    We withhold the truth, pretend we're okay, and perform at great personal cost. In fact, many of us are so good at lying to others about how we're "just fine, thank you" that we don't even realize anymore that we're lying to ourselves. We're missing the opportunity to offer our true selves to the world around us, to say what needs to be said and do what needs to be done, and to live with grace and gumption.If you're tired of smiling on the outside while you are broken and battered on the inside, Ashley Abercrombie has a message for you--it's okay to tell the truth about yourself and what you've been through. In being brutally honest about her own struggle to overcome addiction, rape, abortion, perfectionism, and dysfunctional relationships, she helps you break the silence on your own pain and shame in order to find healing, encouragement, and ultimately acceptance. You'll learn to listen to your gut, courageously own your story (no matter how messy), and release those around you to do the same.

True Horsemanship Through Feel


Leslie Desmond - 1999
    Learning that language can expand any horseman's knowledge and abilities—whether he or she is learning to ride, train, or compete. In a writing style that is generously detailed and packed with meaning, Dorrance directs the reader’s attention to the many subtle things about how horses and humans act and interact. In these pages, he urges us to reach toward a deeper level of insight into horses and their riders, as he shares a wealth of helpful information. With hundreds of illustrations, True Horsemanship Through Feel takes the reader step by step through the basic challenges that have characterized horse-human relations for centuries. Drawing on his years of experience, Bill Dorrance has crafted a book that imparts knowledge previously available only by word of mouth.

Crack Head II: Laci's Revenge


Lisa Lennox - 2008
    Nobody s lives were ever the same. Six weeks later, Dink and Laci are adjusting to life as college students at Boston University. But with Laci fighting the demons of her past addiction at the hands of the South Bronx Bitches, and Dink struggling to adapt to the legit life away from his former drug empire, will their pasts keep them from moving forward? Smurf has taken over the South Bronx in Dink s absence. When he joins up with the mysterious Dirty, who comes to town with a new product and plans to take over the state, can they avoid the reach of a detective hell bent on solving the mysterious deaths of Dame, Marco and Crystal? Or will Smurf s own strained relationship with his mother play a part in the demise of his newly acquired empire? Lisa Lennox delivers in this fast-paced, emotional sequel to her best selling first novel, Crack Head. With an ending so unexpected, and revenge so cold, fans will be talking about this book for years to come.

Summer with You: One Summer / Island Of Flowers


Nora Roberts - 1986
    

Emotional Intelligence: For a Better Life, success at work, and happier relationships. Improve Your Social Skills, Emotional Agility and Discover Why it Can Matter More Than IQ. (EQ 2.0)


Brandon Goleman - 2019
    Emotional intelligence is essentially the kind of smart you need to understand your emotions, relate well to people, and handle the curve balls that life may throw at you. People with emotional intelligence seem to have everything figured out because they have mastered the most important thing of all: They have learned themselves. Emotional Intelligence is a handbook on all things that you may have questions about regarding your emotional quotient, abbreviated EQ. It explores the various aspects of EQ from why we have emotions to why we need them. It explains why emotional intelligence might get you further in life than IQ without necessarily diminishing the crucial role played by book smarts in your life. It also goes to bust the popular myths about emotional intelligence that exists, thus allowing you to distinguish the truths from the misconceptions. This book is dedicated to helping you explore the various components of emotional intelligence and show you how you can improve at each of them. It discusses the role of emotional intelligence at home and in the workplace and helps you identify simple ways to go from low EQ to high EQ. Inside you will discover: What emotional intelligence is, and why rise your EQ is so important How emotional intelligence affects your relationships and your work The importance of empathy How to manage and reduce energy vampire  And much more… If you have been struggling to understand where your emotions fit in the overall picture of your life or what you can do to achieve greatness in your personal and professional life, then this book is perfect for you.Do not allow yourself to live another day in oblivion. Get ready to figure out the hard questions thanks to Emotional Intelligence. You will thank yourself later for choosing to read this book.   Scroll up to the top of the page and click the "Buy Now" button. Your key to bouncing back from adversity is one click away.