My objective has been to provide you with a lifetime supply of icebreakers and points of discussion. Amaze your friends and family by telling them that all the planets in our Solar System could fit in the distance between Earth and the Moon or that flamingos can drink boiling water.Following the success of my site RaiseYourBrain, I decided to collect the best trivia gems and present you with a fact compendium suitable for a wide audience. This is the product of years of sifting through history and references books on a myriad of subjects as well as searching the Internet and paying attention to the news.These facts are a result of years of sifting through history and reference books, as well as searching the Internet and researching the news. Each fact is suitable for nearly any age – the “spiciest” entries are separated by their own chapter but still use clean language!Become a trivia whiz with even more facts in the Hard to Believe Facts series!

    But after her marriage to Andrew fell apart, she ceded most of the raising of the baby to her mother-in-law, the very opinionated Edith Vale, a woman as formidable and steely as her stiff blond bouffant, the veritable helmet that helps her soldier through life. Now, after letting Henry drift away, Susan is determined to make things right, but just as mother and son seem to make headway after embarking on a cross-country road-trip, things take a darker turn. When the family reconvenes in California, everybody must fight to find humor and courage in the face of a situation that threatens to change them all forever.

    But she never took any short cuts to become happier, wiser, healthier and more compassionate. She had to find rays of hope where the dark tunnel seemed unending, and identify shade in life's burning path. She found little pearls of wisdom in chasing her dreams, in spreading laughter, in learning from scriptures and philosophers, and even at one point in almost ending her life. More than Kiara's story and the wisdom she achieves through the various dramatic and hilarious experiences, this book is a motion picture with you in the lead role. You as the 'hero' who can beat the most stubborn of villains — most of which lie deep within us…our fear, unkindness, selfish interests, negative thoughts and jealousy. You as the 'heroine' who is sharp and witty in talking, selfless and caring in love, and charming and beautiful inside out, like none other (perhaps a 2.0 version of you). Walk with Kiara to find a better you, because It Doesn't Hurt to be Nice.

    A fateful one in the history of the indigenous tribes of America. Yuma warrior, Night Wolf, is investigating reports of sheep ravaging Indian land. When he rescues a young white woman being attacked by one of the herders, he takes her to the Kumeyaay medicine woman known as Eagle Woman to treat her injuries. Strangely, she is not afraid, is even drawn to this handsome warrior. The Saga continues as Abigail Cassidy Butterfield, now living on a ranch in the San Diego back country with her family. Though this book is a sequel to Where Eagles Dance, it also stands alone. As Abby continues her fight to help the local tribes retain their land, she becomes an Indian Agent to help survey and mark the reservations. She and her family personally deliver the survey records to President Ulysses S. Grant in Washington D.C. On the return to California with the granted reservations, danger stalks them all along the way. For Abby, it will take all her medicine powers to save her people and combat the threat to her family. Enjoy the drama, the romance and a few light hearted incidents along the way.

     When human remains are discovered in the grounds of an idyllic Tuscan holiday home she is forced to confront the memories she has suppressed until now and relive the summer she spent at the villa in 1992. A summer that ended in tragedy. The nearer she gets to the truth the closer she comes to losing her sanity. In order to hold onto the people she loves most, she must make sure they never discover what she did. But the reappearance of someone else from that summer threatens to blow her secret wide open.

    She left the rural Yorkshire village where she grew up for life as a family lawyer in London, but what secrets did she take with her?When a familiar voice telephones her with tragic news, Anna knows that running away is no longer an option, and that she has to return to face her demons.What led Anna to flee from her home, and what is it that causes her to return?"Charcoal" unfolds a dramatic sequence of events that demonstrate the consequences of desires.

    A secret past. A past that the K’tai didn’t reckon on. Humanity, previously dependent on the K'Tai for its Redlazore, discovers vast resources of the most valuable mineral in the galaxy on Agate and are now free to expand across the stars: Redlazore is also the key component to faster-than-light travel. The planet Agate is, however, the human colony-world which lies perilously close to the K'Tai Imperium and the K'Tai resolve to put the upstart humans back in their place. The K'Tai Imperium invades Agate. On the ground, in the midst of the whirlwind conflict is the Carter family: Dave a mid-level exec is working in downtown Gemini City, Sue his wife, a high school teacher and their teenage twins, Jodee and Chris are on a school trip to a Redlazore mine. In space, the League Border Patrol face overwhelming odds as the K'Tai fleet advance. The K'Tai soldiers of the infamous Black Legion descend on Agate, opposed by the meagre, poorly-armed militia and a sprinkling of regular marines. The planet and those upon it are engulfed in the flames of war. The K'Tai, however, did not count on the Carters. For the Carters have a secret. A secret which will cost the K'Tai Imperium dearly. The Carters are Agate's human population's only hope.

    In more ways than one.Music wonder Rowena Krebs is so huge she's now in the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame. Right at the top of Musica Records. Her old rival, now best friend, Topaz Rossi is a magazine guru in New York, heading up American Magazines. Bright and energetic as the city itself.But things are changing: Rowena senses a shift both in business and on the home front. And Topaz can't work out why the circulation figures are dropping. Something's up. Paradise is a place that can bring trouble...

    Fans will set in motion a plea for Mr. Goldman to return with more Mason (Lou not Perry) legal thrillers." Harrriett Klausner Lou Mason is back in The Last Witness and this time it's personal as Mason unearths secrets someone will do anything to keep. Goldman goes Grisham one better! "Fast, furious and thoroughly enjoyable, The Last Witness is classic and classy noir for our time, filled with great characters and sharp, stylish writing." Jeffery Deaver, bestselling author of The Vanished Man A troubled young woman turns herself in for murder in Cold Truth and Lou Mason takes the case. A riveting, page-turning romp in the tradition of James Patterson! "Wanted for good writing: Joel Goldman strikes again with Cold Truth." The Kansas City Star When Lou Mason is hired to prove a death row convict's innocence in Deadlocked, the past and present collide in an explosion of deceit, corruption and murder. "Deadlocked, the fourth Lou Mason case, is the best and...when the action starts it is a real page turner delivered by a pro." Mystery Scene Magazine Think Lee Child's Jack Reacher meets Michael Connelly's Mickey Haller and you'll get Joel Goldman's Lou Mason! Dead Times Four is the perfect gift at a great price! Buy it today for someone you love or treat yourself to four unforgettable thrillers!

    A desperate mission. An unlikely hero. In the normal course of events, Zac Perryman was destined to live an unremarkable life and die without leaving more than the faintest ripple in the ocean of humanity’s existence. But the normal course of events was about to be rudely interrupted. As he slept past his alarm on a warm February morning, events were conspiring to derail his ordinary life and sweep him up into a tsunami of cosmic proportions. Zac becomes part of ragged band of desperate survivors who flee from a dying Earth in search of a new home. Leaving behind a planet that has been decimated by global catastrophe, they set course for a distant star system on board mankind’s only surviving starship. But the universe plays a cruel joke on them. Awakening from cryogenic stasis, they discover that they have not only travelled through space, but through time as well. Now facing even deadlier threats from a strange world, as well as traitors in their midst, their battle for survival is only just beginning. An exciting, intelligent, fast-paced adventure that spans the galaxy. "The Stars That Beckon" is an action-packed, hard science fiction space adventure about mankind's attempted colonisation of another planet. Written with intelligence, humour, a dash of romance and a twist of time travel thrown in for good measure, it is a thoroughly engaging and compelling read. It begins with a post apocalyptic Earth and quickly moves into a fast-paced narrative involving space exploration on board an impressive starship. The book also features some fascinating artificial intelligence entities which play an increasingly dark role as the book and the entire series develops. Be warned: there are plenty of twists and turns awaiting you! If you enjoyed the movies "The Martian", "Ad Astra", "Passengers", "Supernova" or "Interstellar" you will love this book! Similarly, if you enjoyed the books "Children of Time", "Winter World", "The Enceladus Mission" or any of the classic space exploration stories by sci fi masters such as Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, & Arthur C Clarke, then this is the book for you!

    Some will like it.... some wont but its all fiction and TJ just wanted a good time for his last summer back home. NOTE ... Uncle Peter cheats on his wife, so if you will have issues with this, then this is not the book for you. It's all fiction, with some youthful exuberance. We were all young at some time in our lives and we may have made mistakes too.One last wild summer before college. TJ always spent the summer with his uncle since he was 15. He looked forward to spending time with Uncle Peter and all the adventures he got to experience. But now he was 18 and this summer was going to be different; he had a girlfriend whom he could not bear to leave behind. During those past summers, TJ had been the sole witness and confidant to Uncle Peter and his endless shenanigans with the different women in his life. As such, TJ felt Uncle Peter owed him and it was time to collect; it was time for Uncle Peter to return the favor and cover for TJ. To TJ's delight, Uncle Peter was more than eager to comply and he even came up with the perfect plan for the two of them to spend time together without TJ leaving his girlfriend's side. Follow the wicked adventures of this duo as TJ finds himself at a crossroads between being an honorable man or the ladies' man his uncle groomed him to be. Was it worth it when summer ended? That will depend on whose side you are on.Some readers focus on Uncle Peter's cheating ways and less on the crux of the story which is, the unique bond between a nephew and and uncle as well as your sins will find you out.

    Then his body is discovered. Her cousin Michael is found guilty of his murder and incarcerated in a secure psychiatric unit.Four years later, now divorced and back in the police force, Rachel discovers that Michael is being released to a less secure step-down unit, with his freedom a likely eventuality. Unable to cope with this, she decides upon revenge, assuming a new identity to hunt him down and kill him. However, as she closes in on her target, her friend Jonathan, a journalist, uncovers some unnerving information about her mother and others in her family and begins to suspect that Rachel’s perception of the truth might not be as accurate as she thinks – that she might be about to murder the wrong man…

    It was also the last time. Molly Blackburn, nicknamed Jane the Ripper by the Las Vegas press after killing eleven men while posing as a prostitute, was strapped to the chair without incident. The switch was flipped.Everything after that went horribly wrong.Since that day, a copycat Jane the Ripper has appeared almost every decade in a different city, mimicking Molly's choice in victims as well as her methods of murder. She kills eleven men then disappears, never to be found. The similarities between the bodies left behind each decade is uncanny. As if they are all the victims of the same murderer, not a copycat.But that's impossible, of course, because Molly Blackburn is dead, her execution witnessed by a dozen people.FBI Agent Jack Shaw, the lead investigator in the Jane the Ripper cases since the seventies, finally catches a break in 2009 when the intended fifth victim manages to turn the tables on the newest copycat . Everyone believes that the horror has finally ended with her capture. Shaw is not so sure, though, wondering if someone else will take up the mantle and kill seven more men to complete the cycle. But when no more bodies with her distinctive markings show up over the next two years, Shaw allows himself to believe that maybe he has seen the end of the Jane the Ripper murders.As it turns out, what he thought was the end was only the beginning.His hunt will take him across the country, and even when he thinks he's finally discovered the truth, he quickly learns that not everything is as it seems.That not every monster is created equal.That the nature of good and evil is not as black and white as he has always believed.That not everything that is broken can be put back together.That not every fractured soul can be saved.When blood, smoke and ashes rise, no one comes out the same on the other side.Blood, Smoke and Ashes is a 115,00 word supernatural thriller/horror

    Legs like toothpicks, body and face all ribs and cheekbones. And that hair. Come on, what is it? Like friggin' barbed wire. I see you with a hand-me-down cracked bat creaming a leather ball, in a sock, hanging from the branch of a mango tree.' Being accepted into an elite international school on a cricket scholarship doesn't mean your life is going to change. Except it does, because hunky Indika - I for Indika, I for Incredible - takes you under his wing, drags you to posh restaurants and shows you pictures from glossy magazines of women who ... well, never mind, that's not the point. The point is: if your best friend snogs your girlfriend, can he still be Incredible? Was he ever? But don't sweat the small stuff. There are cricket matches to win, examinations to pass, a horrifying past to forget, a sinister schoolmaster to avoid ... and, of course, a first kiss to finally experience. Prabu's life is never going to be the same again. Funny, diamond-sharp and unapologetic, Panther is a novel about that familiar, fractured passage to adulthood that can make us magnificent if it does not kill us.

    The road to revenge is ahead. But the pit stop she makes along the way could reroute her life. Amanda Martin refuses to burn for the crimes of her manipulative ex-boyfriend. After all, he was the one who strong-armed her into committing fraud and left her to shoulder the blame. When an enraged investor sets fire to their office building, she scrambles onto the first bus out of the city. With the authorities hunting for her, she hides out to plot her revenge in the last place anyone would look—the tiny Texas town of Phoenix.But when Amanda uncovers a hidden talent for reporting at the local paper and starts a sweet romance with a charming cop, she starts to question whether she’d be better off building a new life than tearing her ex a new one. Just as she starts settling in, her work at the paper unearths a decades old cold case that threatens to turn the town against her and expose her criminal past. With time running out before the townsfolk discover her true identity, Amanda is faced with an impossible choice—turn her back on a fellow victim of crime or stand her ground and lose her precious freedom. Phoenix is the first book in an enthralling women’s fiction series. If you like compelling characters, nail-biting suspense, and a dash of romance, then you’ll love Kimberly Packard’s small-town mystery.