On the stormy night of his arrival, he stumbles across a tense gathering of twelve local men who have met in secret to discuss a series of unexplained events: A wealthy man has vanished, a prostitute has tried to end her life, and an enormous fortune has been discovered in the home of a luckless drunk. Moody is soon drawn into the mystery: a network of fates and fortunes that is as complex and exquisitely ornate as the night sky. Richly evoking a mid-nineteenth-century world of shipping, banking, and gold rush boom and bust, The Luminaries is a brilliantly constructed, fiendishly clever ghost story and a gripping page-turner.

    JacksonSet on the stage of America's westward expansion, the story's theme is centered around the unique lives of two young boy's whose lives are picked clean of everything they know and love. The boys are left alone to travel the road from childhood to manhood with nothing but their friendship and their determination to survive.In the end they are two old men with the recklessness of youth still in their nature as they embark on one last mission, one grand adventure wherein, for at least that fleeting moment, they are able to recapture that point in time when we are all at our best.

    Writing, Lamb discovered, was a way for these women to confront painful memories, face their fears and their failures, and begin to imagine better lives. The New York Times described the book as "Gut-tearing tales . . . the unvarnished truth." The Los Angeles Times said of it, "Lying next to and rising out of despair, hope permeates this book."Now Lamb returns with I'll Fly Away, a new volume of intimate, searching pieces from the York workshop. Here, twenty women—eighteen inmates and two of Lamb's cofacilitators—share the experiences that shaped them from childhood and that haunt and inspire them to this day. These portraits, vignettes, and stories depict with soul-baring honesty how and why women land in prison—and what happens once they get there. The stories are as varied as the individuals who wrote them, but each testifies to the same core truth: the universal value of knowing oneself and changing one's life through the power of the written word.

    The house sits on a hilltop, neglected and weathered, until an outlander rolls in to bring it back to life. The lively story of the sordid secrets the renovation reveals is told by a pack of local barflies, a ragged bunch of half-cocked civic boosters and gossips who give us history as seen through the bottom of a shot glass. Funny, bittersweet, and glancingly philosophical, Eaglesworth is a fanciful biography of a place, a latter-day slice of the Old Dominion that the Sage of Monticello would hardly recognize.

    Focusing on the epic love affair between a former amateur musician—who happens to be a bootlegger, mercenary, and killer—and a shebeen queen, this South African love story traces the couple's lives and loves through the interweaving of history and memory in the tradition of village storytellers.

    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."

    But do they really? If you took a bird’s-eye view of Mount Barker, you’d see ordinary Australians living on their ordinary suburban blocks in an ordinary regional town. Get closer. Peer through a window. You might see Nathan Long, obsessively recording the incessant bark of a neighbourhood dog, or the Wheeler family sitting down for a meal and trying to come to terms with a shocking discovery. If you listen, you may hear tales of fathers and their wayward sons, of widows who can’t forgive themselves, of children longed for and lost, of thwarted lust and of pure, incorruptible love. Within the shadows is an unspeakable crime. Rebekah Clarkson has created a compelling, slow-burning portrait of a town in the midst of major change as it makes the painful transformation from rural idyll to aspirational suburbia. What looked like redemption is now profound loss. What seemed spiteful can now be forgiven.

    Follow him from scabby-kneed schoolboy to ambitious artist, from a squat to a mansion, from rent boys to an aristocratic marriage.

    Thus CHACHA CHAUDHARY was born in 1971.Tall and robust SABU, who is an inhabitant of planet Jupiter, gave Chaudhary an ideal company. A combination of wisdom and strength was formed to tackle any difficult task. It is said that " Chacha Chaudhary's brain works faster than a computer". Though both fight the criminals and tricksters, each episode ends with a touch of humour. The duo perform in lighter vein. The CHAUDHARY family consists of his wife Bini, a fat sharp tongue woman, Sabu, Rocket - the dog and Dag- Dag, an old truck who is half human- half machine. Chacha Chaudhary is the most popular Indian comics. More than 10 million readers enjoy this series regularly in newspapers and comic books in ten languages. A T.V. serial based on the comics has crossed 500 episodes and still continue to be telecast on premier channel "Sahara ONE".

    Her sister, Helen, is beautiful but damaged, and hides a secret that has affected the whole family, one they cannot escape but one she is trying to move on from. As Helen learns to become a whole person once again, her family struggles with the past, and how they will move forward together. And Jen realises that the one person she needs to help her through is the one person she cannot have - Helen's boyfriend, Ned...

    Rescued, she is taken to a secret valley, safe. The bearded mountain man and his Indian companions grow in her affections until she opens her heart to her big blue-eyed rescuer. Danger and adventure surround them but the most frightening threat is from her one-time fiance and his obsession with Maryan.

    Abandoning the humdrum routine of life at their retirement estate, they embark on a thousand-mile road trip that will take them from the furthest corner of the Kruger Park to the blazing stars of Sutherland for the biggest adventure of their lives and one last hurrah together. Along the way, they rediscover things about themselves that they thought had long since been lost. Above all, they discover that it’s never too late to start living. Gareth Crocker’s latest novel is all heart and page-turning glory.

    Observe. Ridicule.You run into them every day—the striped-shirt guy, the karaoke master, the dude with a pencil-thin beard, the guy who won’t shut up about his fantasy football team—characters who annoy, irritate, and incense us all. Based on the wildly popular essay on ThePhatPhree.com by Mike Polk, this book is a look inside the heads of the most infuriating douchebags on Earth. It’s the best of ThePhatPhree.com plus more than fifty all-new, hilarious pieces written by some of your favorite writers from this site.Everyone’s (Least) Favorite, The Striped-Shirt Guy…I will valet tonight! I will treat the valet with contempt and make sure that he knows that I am superior to him. I will tell him, “Take it easy on the brakes, champ”! When I do not hook up with a girl at the club, I will say that the place is “full of skanks” and wait in line at another bar, only to strike out again!Your “Cool” High School Teacher…Here are some things I allow in my class that other teachers don’t: eating, drinking,swearing, dancing, smoking, fighting, cell phones, Texas hold ’em, iPods, and sex. Like my Goo Goo Dolls tee? Anyone else here down with the Dolls? No? Me either. I’m just wearing it as a goof.The Guy with Amazing Taste in Music…Personally, I haven’t listened to the radio in fifteen years. If you have ever heard a band on the radio, then I can assure you, I am not a fan. I stopped listening to American music about ten years ago.

    Particularly by Stephen, one of the directors.But despite her newfound confidence, when things start to go wrong, Sophie can’t help wondering whether she’s lost a bit of herself along the way.

    But before Mary-Alice can even unpack her bags, a man of the cloth dies under mysterious circumstances, a device with strange powers turns up in the glove box of her Oldsmobile 88, and her new friends, Ida Belle, Gertie, and young Fortune, are behaving oddly…even for Baptists. This is the first book in a new series, the Mary-Alice files, set in the Miss Fortune world in Sinful, Louisiana. Many thanks to Jana DeLeon for letting us write in her Sinful world!