Seventeen-year-old Piper knows that Father is a Prophet. Infallible. The chosen one.She would do anything for Father. That's why she takes care of all her little sisters. That's why she runs end-of-the-world drills. That's why she never asks questions. Because Father knows best.Until the day he doesn't. Until the day the government raids the compound and separates Piper from her siblings, from Mother, from the Aunts, from all of Father's followers--even from Caspian, the boy she loves.Now Piper is living Outside. Among Them.With a woman They claim is her real mother--a woman They say Father stole her from.But Piper knows better. And Piper is going to escape.

    His assignment: to investigate a twenty-two-year-old murder.  His suspect's name: Jack Reacher.Jack Reacher is in Fort Knox on his own mission: to bring down a dangerous criminal ring operating at the heart of America’s military.  Except now Will Trent is on the scene.But there’s a bigger conspiracy at play – one that neither the special agent nor the ex-military cop could have anticipated. And the only option is for Jack Reacher and Will Trent to team up and play nicely. If they can…

    Short Sentence was launched in 2012 by Bloomsbury Publishing, in association with the Writers' and Artists' Yearbook. Following a short story written by one of Bloomsbury's brilliant crime authors, competitors were challenged to take up the same theme and write of a dastardly deed using 1000 words or less. This is Bloomsbury's collection of the winning entries in parallel with the five brilliant authors, Parker Bilal, Conor Fitzgerald, Anne Zouroudi, Thomas Mogford and James Runcie.

    Miles away, in a rambling plantation house on the sultry shores of Lake Ponchartrain, popular late-night radio host Dr. Samantha Leeds receives a threatening crank call. All in a day's work for a celebrity. Who would think to link the two? Then Another...A second hooker's corpse turns up. Samantha's ominous caller persists, along with a mysterious claiming to be a woman from her past--a woman who's been dead for years. With Detective Rick Bentz convinced that the serial killer prowling the shadowy streets of New Orleans is somebody close to Samantha, she doesn't dare trust anyone. Especially not Ty Wheeler, her seductive new neighbor who seems to know more about her than a stranger should. ...And AnotherSomebody has discovered Samantha's darkest secret. Somebody is convinced that lives must be sacrificed to pay for her sins. So far, the victims have been strangers. But as a cunning, cold-blooded killer grows bolder, Samantha wonders in dread if she will be the next to die...Cold BloodedHis Vengeance Will Be Repeated. . .A woman's slashed, incinerated corpse is found in a seedy New Orleans apartment. Her killer is certain there were no witnesses, unaware that his every move was seen by a beautiful stranger--from her bed in a bayou cottage on the outskirts of town... And Repeated. . .Weeks later, another violent vision shatters Olivia Bechet's sleep. Convinced a serial killer is stalking the city, Olivia turns to the authorities. But jaded detective Rick Bentz doesn't believe her--even when a second body turns up, slain in exactly the same bizarre, ritualistic manner Olivia described... And Repeated...As New Orleans panics in the icy grip of a merciless killer, Olivia is frustrated by Bentz's skepticism--and captivated by her attraction to him. But soon her dreams are invaded by images of another murder. One that has yet to be committed. This time, Olivia recognizes not only the victim's face--but the murderer's. And both are closer than she ever imagined...ShiverThe Crimes Are UnthinkableA serial killer is turning the Big Easy into his personal playground. The victims are killed in pairs--no connection, no apparent motive, no real clues. It's a very sick game, and it's only just begun. The Fear Is RealAbby Chastain left New Orleans long ago and for good reason. Now she's back where she feels watched, as if the devil himself is scraping a fingernail along her spine. It doesn't help that Detective Reuben Montoya is convinced she's somehow the key to unlocking these horrible crimes--a mystery that has something to do with Our Lady of Virtues Mental Hospital, a decaying old asylum where unspeakable crimes were once committed, and a human predator may still wait. The Truth Is DeadlyAs more bodies are found in gruesome, staged scenarios, Montoya and Abby are in a desperate race to stop a killer whose terrifying crimes are bringing them ever nearer to a shocking revelation. For the past is never completely gone. Its sins must be avenged. And a twisted psychopath is getting close enough to make them...Absolute FearEvery Serial Killer...A serial killer is stalking the streets of New Orleans. The victims are killed in a ritual fashion, a series of numbers tattooed into their bodies. There are no clues, no connections except one: a crumbling old asylum that was once the scene of unspeakable madness--and is now the calling card of a new kind of fear. Is Searching For...Eve Renner knows Our Lady of Virtues Hospital well. As the daughter of one of its doctors, she spent her childhood exploring its secrets chambers, hidden rooms, and forbidden passageways. Now, somewhere in the decaying asylum lies the key to a b

    journalist, learns of a local legend. The deceptively simple fable about the thirteenth gift has a profound effect on Claire, which soon transforms her marriage, her work, and the way she sees the world. The Thirteenth Gift is both a cautionary tale and an inspirational fable as it shows a way through the perilous consequences of greed, arrogance, and abuse of power to an uplifted state of consciousness and community. The Thirteenth Gift invites readers to renew their own sense of wonderment, which can lead to freedom from fear and a greater experience of hope, beauty, and joy in daily life. Like the message of the award-winning book, The Twelve Gifts of Birth, this novella from Charlene Costanzo reminds readers to see the dignity that is inherent in themselves and others.

    The perfect boyfriend. The perfect lie.Mags doesn't believe her brother's fall was an accident. In that forty-foot stairwell, he didn't just slip over the edge.But there is only one witness, Jody, the girlfriend grieving at his bedside.Which is another story Mags doesn't believe.Because Jody likes telling stories, and this may be her most twisted one yet.As Mags begins to unearth the secrets hidden in her brother's wake, she finds she isn't just looking for the truth. For Mags, this is more than a simple tragedy. This is an opportunity for revenge.

    To make matters worse, Painters Mill is in the midst of a county-wide power outage. At the height of the rager, a teenage Amish girl is attacked with a hammer and left for dead. Kate is called to the scene—an abandoned farm teeming with loud music and rowdy behavior—to find the girl unconscious and bleeding from a head wound. With the girl in a coma and an unknown attacker on the loose, Kate must discover who would want to hurt her, and why, before it’s too late.

    Amid the rubble of a difficult childhood lie memories of huddling beneath beds and behind sofas while parental wars raged. Sisterhood was safety . . . once. But now? Faced with legal papers for a fraud she didn't commit, Tandi suspects that her sister has done something unthinkable. With Tandi's wedding just around the corner, a trip to the North Carolina Tidewater for a reckoning with Gina was not part of the plan. But unraveling lies from truth will require confronting strained sibling bonds and uncovering a dark family secret that could free Tandi from her past or stain her future forever. (Novella)

    Or at least she thought it was…until two police officers showed up at her door with devastating news. Her husband of eight years, the one who should have been on a business trip to Kansas, had suffered a fatal car accident in Hawaii. And he wasn’t alone.For Jacks, laying her husband to rest was hard. But it was even harder to think that his final moments belonged to another woman—one who had left behind her own grieving and bewildered fiancé. Nick, just as blindsided by the affair, wants answers. So he suggests that he and Jacks search for the truth together, retracing the doomed lovers’ last days in paradise.Now, following the twisting path of that fateful road, Jacks is learning that nothing is ever as it seems. Not her marriage. Not her husband. And most certainly not his death…

    The fascination with cosmic mysteries that had led her to become an astronomer in the first place, and a glimmer of professional ambition, still existed somewhere deep inside. But opportunity wasn't exactly pounding down her door.Then it came blazing out of the sky: a huge meteor that crashed in the remote Amazon jungle.It was the scoop of the century for the CNN team covering the event. They wanted an expert with them on the scene, and Lori's boss picked her for the assignment. Only it turned out to be an even more incredibly story than anyone bargained for.The meteor was no ordinary hunk of rock. It held a gateway through space that led to the Well World—a world originally created by a vanished race for a complex, long-term experiment...research now possibly tainted.Lori and the news team weren't the only new variables on the Well World. But their presence was more disruptive because they inadvertently got involved with a centuries-old woman named Mavra Chang, whose association with an even more ancient fellow named Nathan Brazil—the guardian of the Well—had reached a critical point. It was up to Nathan to restart the universe when things went awry. The question was, what had gone awry this time? And did the universe really have to end again to put it right?If either Mavra or Nathan had known about the alien entity that had arranged for the meteor to land on Earth—the first phase of its plan to disrupt the Well World—they'd have had a least one of the answers to those disturbing questions...

    Her stories remind us how precious and fragile life can be—and that we must risk our hearts every day to know happiness. Follow the Stars Home is just such a novel: a story of poignancy and heartbreak, grace and courage.Being a good mother is never simple: each day brings new choices and challenges. For Dianne Robbins, being a devoted single mother has resulted in her greatest joy and her darkest hours. Weeks before her daughter was born, she and her husband, Tim McIntosh, received the news every parent fears. Tim had not reckoned on their child being anything less than perfect, and abruptly fled to a solitary existence on the sea, leaving Dianne with a newborn—almost alone.It was Tim's brother, Alan, the town pediatrician, who stood by Dianne and her exceptional daughter. Throughout years of waiting, watching, and caring, Alan hid his love for his brother's wife. But one of the many hard choices Dianne has made is to close her heart toward any man—especially one named McIntosh. It will take a very special twelve-year-old to remind them all that love comes in many forms and can be received with as much grace as it is given.As lyrical and moving as the poetry of nature, Follow the Stars Home is a miracle of storytelling that will take your breath away. If words alone can dare us to confront our fears and to choose joy over sorrow, then Luanne Rice's magnificent novel is a benediction and a call to celebrate our lives.

    Now the arc of that achievement appears in one definitive volume. Set in the seedy corners of Key West, the remote shore towns of the Bahamas, and McGuane's hallmark Big Sky country, with its vast and unforgiving landscape, these are stories of people on the fringes of society, whose twisted pasts meddle with their chances for companionship. Moving from the hilarious to the tragic and back again, McGuane writes about familial dysfunction, emotional failure, and American loneliness, celebrating the human ability to persist through life's absurdities.

    Downloaded by more than one million readers!Attorney Sasha McCandless has one goal: Make partner at the best firm in town. Then a plum assignment plunges her into a world of deceit and danger.When a commercial flight crashes, killing everyone on board, she's tapped to defend the airline. It's her big chance ... high-stakes litigation for an important client. But, as she digs into the evidence, people close to the case start dying.She discovers the crash was intentional, caused by a smartphone app capable of overriding the cockpit controls. But she's not sure who she can trust with the horrifying truth. She teams up with a federal air marshal, and they race to prevent another airline disaster.Soon, Sasha finds herself with a brand-new life goal: Stop a madman before he kills her.

    1 bestselling crime writer Stuart MacBride, featuring DS Logan McRae and his boss DI SteelSTRAMASH:Something fishy is happening on the isle of Jura.DS Logan McRae gets a phone call from DI Steel ordering him to come to the island at once. One freezing night’s sleep in a hatchback and two storm-battered ferries later, Logan arrives – but there’s no sign of Steel.She's lumped him in the middle of a policing nightmare, with bodies, and bullets, and tiny wee boats. And a dangerous hard man who’s meant to be dead…DI STEEL’S BAD HEIR DAY:Why is DI Steel in an even worse mood than usual?Is it because it’s Christmas? Or maybe it's because the missing persons case she’s just caught looks like a hoax from a mile off? Or is it because she’s just been left a huge amount of money…?One thing’s for certain: Steel’s having a bad day, and she’s hell bent on making sure Constable Guthrie has one too.

    Of the twenty-two stories collected here—some written recently, others decades ago—all but two have never before been published. Bradbury has crafted tales that are strange and scary, nostalgic and bittersweet, and humorous and touching, set in the not-so-distant past and an unknowable future: a group of senators drinks too much and gambles away the United States, a newly-wed couple buys an old house and finds their fledgling relationship tested, two mysterious strangers arrive at a rooming house and baffle their fellow occupants with strange crying in the night, and a lonely woman takes a last chance on love. The final piece is a story-poem, a fond salute from Bradbury to his literary heroes Shaw, Chesterton, Dickens, Twain, Poe, Wilde, Melville, and Kipling.A timeless collection from one of America's greatest storytellers, The Cat's Pajamas is a panoramic view of Ray Bradbury's rich and remarkable imagination.(from back cover)