Growing up together, Jack loved Lily and was fiercely protective of her and for almost all of his life all he wanted was to make her happy. When she was happy he was happy, except Lily lived a world away from him now and Jack missed her dreadfully. As far as Jack was concerned there had never been a time in their lives where they hadn’t shared everything and he valued their special bond. In recent years Lily’s ambitions took her overseas and even with an ocean between them, Jack still managed to support his best friend. One day things changed everything between them and their relationship began to shift. Lily had carved her own life and after observing a scene involving her, it made Jack take a close look at his own. Life post-Lily left Jack feeling confused and he decided to take a difficult decision, never realising the potential fallout from doing something he strongly felt was the right thing at the time. With his life laid bare and as a simple, uncomplicated guy he thought he had finally figured things out. Women loved Jack but they had all come and gone in his life apart from Lily. She was always there until one day she wasn’t. A revelation by Lily left Jack feeling betrayed and abandoned by the one person who he thought he could rely on no matter what. During his journey from that moment on Jack faced more separation and loss than he could have ever imagined. How would his experiences shape him as a man and would he ever find it in his heart to forgive?

    When he is found dead in the French Broad River of rural North Carolina, his teenaged stepsister, Jess, is sought for questioning by their family and the police.Jess's odyssey of escape across four states leads into dark territories of life-and-death moral choices where compassion and grace offer faint illumination but few answers. A Question of Mercy, set in a vivid landscape of the mid-twentieth-century South, is the fifth novel from Robert Penn Warren Award–winning writer Elizabeth Cox. As she challenges notions of individual freedom and responsibility against a backdrop of questionable practices governing treatment of the mentally disabled, she also stretches the breadth and limitations of the human heart to love and to forgive.Jess Booker, on the run and alone, leaves the comfort of her home near Asheville, recklessly trekking through woods and hitchhiking her way to a boarding house in tiny Lula, Alabama, a perceived safe haven she once visited with her late mother. Pursued by a mysterious car with a faded "I Like Ike" sticker, Jess is also haunted by memories of her mother's early death, her father's distressing marriage to Adam's mother, the loving bond she was able to form with Adam despite her initial resistance, and her boyfriend Sam's troubling letters from the thick of combat in the Korean War. In Lula, Jess finds, if only briefly, a respite among a curious surrogate family of fellow displaced outsiders banded together under one roof, and there she finds the strength to heed the call homeward to face the questions she cannot answer about her stepbrother's death.Through her vibrant depictions of characters in crisis and of the lush, natural landscapes of her southern settings, Cox brings to the fore the moral, ethical, and seemingly unnatural decisions people face when caring for society's weakest members. Grappling with the powerful bonds of love and family, A Question of Mercy recognizes the countless ways people come to help one another and the poor choices they can make because of love?choices that challenge the boundaries of human decency and social justice but also choices that can defy what is legal in the course of seeking what is right.

    Sydney McKnight, a young physician battling the deadliest influenza pandemic of all time, joins forces with Dr. Casper Jones, an odd new research virologist whose arrival coincides with the virus’s advent, and whose presence raises more questions than answers.As scientists around the world search for an explanation for the virus’s high mortality rate, Sydney’s distrust of Casper grows, especially after she discovers him injecting an unidentified substance into her patient. Despite a heavy patient load, rebuttals from her boss, and an increasingly strained relationship with her boyfriend, Sydney is determined to learn the truth. But what she finds will plunge her into danger and change her life forever…

    Case in point every time she heads to Costa Rica, she is forced to visit another prison. Although a jail may not be everyone's idea of a place to find a date, Wendy soon falls in love with a man, a country, and its people and risks everything she has to clear his name.

    Jack always thought he had the perfect recipe for happiness; a serious career, a tall, skinny, blonde girlfriend, and a condo full of Ikea furniture. But an icy Minnesota freeway and a Peterbilt truck makes him rethink his life, and he sets out in search of rum, spices, new experiences, and his own song. Written as a tribute to Jimmy Buffett and the Parrot Head way, this light and breezy book is seasoned with a healthy peppering of Buffetteria, and is the perfect read for anyone who ever dreamed of just chucking it all to lie on a beach and drink margaritas for a living. Complete with a short guide to Key West, "I'm Gonna Live My Life Like a Jimmy Buffett Song" is almost as fun as a tropical vacation; well, almost.

    While Kayla is forced to fight for her life in hospital, Dane is thrown back into a world he fled from years before.Kayla tells her story through a series of quirky, unsent letters to Dane and relives her rollercoaster past in her childhood diaries, a past she must face if she is to survive. At the same time, Dane must confront his own violent past and the person who hates him most – the one he was once closest to – if he is to make it back to the woman he loves.Just Went Out For Milk is a physical and emotional journey, the raw love story of two scarred people, who long to find their place in the world.Will Dane make it back to Kayla? Will she be alive if he does?

    In this disturbing, yet darkly funny novel, Iain’s near death experience is not a vision of exquisite godliness with light at the end of a tunnel. Instead he experiences a place of darkness and heat, inhabited by foul creatures, the sounds of suffering and a beast. During a long recovery Iain becomes plagued by nightmares and premonitions, shadowy apparitions, a magpie, and a vile old man. They all have a message, that something wants Iain and it won't give up easily. Iain’s friends do their best to cheer him up in ways they know how, until the unexpected events of one sunny afternoon mean that he is on his own, caught up in the age old battle of good versus evil.

    Following on from 'The Speckled People', Hugo Hamilton's new memoir has, at its heart, the story of a summer he spent working at a local harbour in Dublin, at a time of tremendous fear and mistrust.

    But for Wylie, the gentle, cropped eared ball of fur, miracles seemed to happen quite regularly. Beaten and abused at the hands of uncaring humans, Wylie suffered terrible injuries that needed urgent treatment. Rescued close to death, with hacked off ears and a severed tail, he was attended to by soldiers who feared he would not last the night. Astonishingly he did, only to return days later with new injuries. However a lifeline came when he was handed over to animal welfare Charity Nowzad and flown to Britain in the hope of finding a new life. But would anyone take a chance on a seemingly undomesticated stray? Luckily for Wylie his biggest adventure yet was about to begin...

    Tess is skeptical, but cannot deny a request that might be Ellie’s last. Together with Joline, whose spiritual work inspired the trip, they travel to the mountain village of Otavalo, where they are immersed in nature and introduced to strange, ancient traditions. After an ayahuasca ceremony goes awry, and an unlikely betrayal threatens their friendship, each woman faces her own deep need for healing. FILL THE SKY is a story about the complexity of friendship, the power of the spirit, and the quest to not simply fight death, but to shape an authentic life.

    After six months, to her disappointment, they cease. But the montage she has created on the wall of her flat has cast a spell. She must see this country for herself.On the morning Ellie leaves for Athens, a notebook arrives. Its pages tell the story of a man's odyssey through Greece. Moving, surprising and sometimes dark, A's tale unfolds with the discovery not only of a culture but also of a desire to live life to the full once more.

    A village that nobody has ever left. Peach, the sadistic chief of police, makes sure of that. Then, one misty morning, a young couple secretly set their baby son Moses afloat on the river, in a basket made of rushes. Years later, Moses is living above a nightclub, mixing with drug-dealers, thieves and topless waitresses. He knows nothing about his past - but it is catching up with him nevertheless, and it threatens to put his life in danger. Terror, magic and farce all have a part to play as the worlds of Peach and Moses slowly converge.

    A reporter with a beautiful wife and talented son, Richey couldn’t imagine how it could be any better....Then his marriage falls apart and he can’t imagine how it could be any worse.The divorce leaves Richey questioning everything, while struggling to find a way forward. To get his bearings, he enters the first Ultimate Florida Challenge, an all-out twelve-hundred-mile kayak race around Florida.The UFC is less of a race than it is a dare or a threat. The thirty-day deadline sets a grueling, twenty-four-hour-a-day pace through shark- , alligator- , and even python-infested waters. But those twelve hundred miles are only a fraction of a journey that pulls Richey back to when he was embedded with troops in Iraq, reporting on missing children, and hiking the mountains of Montana with his son, and shows him where he went wrong, where he went right, and how to do it better the second time around.Warren Richey’s memoir Without a Paddle is a remarkable physical and emotional journey that cuts to the heart of what it means to be a man, a husband, and a father.

     Our intrepid adventurers work their way through numerous mishaps, including, but not limited to, an ill-advised river crossing, an inappropriately packed roof rack and some truly horrible singing. During their journey they stumble across a motley assortment of characters such as a confused check-in clerk, a grey nomad with an eye for detail regarding torches, and several Crazy Germans. While reading Campervan Kama Sutra, you’ll not only fall in love with Australia’s vast, ever-changing countryside, but you’ll also delight in the tragicomedy that arrives with unerring regularity. You’ll laugh until something hurts. *P.S. There was no dog.

    Scarred and scared and initially bound to be euthanized, the dogs were saved by a fearless team of advocates who fought for their rights and futures. Now, on the tenth anniversary of the bust, The Lost Dogs author Jim Gorant picks up their stories where he left off, tracking the striving and thriving, trials and triumphs, and happiness and heartbreaks that have characterized their lives. The Found Dogs brings the story of The Lost Dogs full circle.