How is a small-town art teacher supposed to cope without the never-ending life advice and enjoyment that books give her? Well, when she’s as resourceful and generous as Dodie, she turns her sunroom into her very own little lending library.At first just a hobby, this lit lovers’ haven opens up her world in incredible ways. She knows books are powerful, and soon enough they help her forge friendships between her zany neighbors—and attract an exciting new romance.But when the chance to adopt an orphaned child brings Dodie’s secret dream of motherhood within reach, everything else suddenly seems less important. Finding herself at a crossroads, Dodie must figure out what it means to live a full, happy life. If only there were a book that could tell her what to do…

    As far as everyone who knew him is concerned, he's already dead.And as far as the Mexican drug cartel and the Russians are concerned, dead is what he should be.Within hours of what should have been a relaxing homecoming, Sean is fighting the greatest battle of his life and trying desperately to save the wife and child of a man he never knew.Divide & Conquer is the action packed opener to a scintillating new series...

    He’s going to enjoy the day… For hyper-particular publishing heir Jonathan Grief, the day starts like any other—with a strict morning fitness regimen that’ll keep his divorced, easily irritated, cynical, forty-two-year-old self in absolutely flawless physical condition. But all it takes to put a crimp in his routine is one small annoyance. Someone has left a leather-bound day planner with the handwritten title Your Perfect Year in his spot on his mountain bike at his fitness course!Determined to discover its owner, Jonathan opens the calendar to find that someone known only as “H.” has filled it in with suggestions, tasks, and affirmative actions for each day. The more he devotes himself to locating the elusive H., the deeper Jonathan is drawn into someone else’s rich and generous narrative—and into an attitude adjustment he desperately needs.He may have ended up with a perfect year by accident, but it seems fate has set Jonathan on a path toward healing, feeling, and maybe even loving again…if only he can meet the stranger who’s changing his life one day at a time.

    The stories in Thomas Pierce’s Hall of Small Mammals take place at the confluence of the commonplace and the cosmic, the intimate and the infinite. A fossil-hunter, a comedian, a hot- air balloon pilot, parents and children, believers and nonbelievers, the people in these stories are struggling to understand the absurdity and the magnitude of what it means to exist in a family, to exist in the world. In “Shirley Temple Three,” a mother must shoulder her son’s burden—a cloned and resurrected wooly mammoth who wreaks havoc on her house, sanity, and faith. In “The Real Alan Gass,” a physicist in search of a mysterious particle called the “daisy” spends her days with her boyfriend, Walker, and her nights with the husband who only exists in the world of her dreams, Alan Gass.  Like the daisy particle itself—“forever locked in a curious state of existence and nonexistence, sliding back and forth between the two”—the stories in Thomas Pierce’s Hall of Small Mammals are exquisite, mysterious, and inextricably connected. From this enchanting primordial soup, Pierce’s voice emerges—a distinct and charming testament of the New South, melding contemporary concerns with their prehistoric roots to create a hilarious, deeply moving symphony of stories.

    Upon graduation, she takes a fellowship to Africa, and they lose touch. When, decades later, they meet again, they discover that their prior bond was but a rehearsal for the world stage.THE ROWAN TREE reaches from the tumultuous 1960s into humanity’s future, encompassing the worlds of politics, sport, ballet, presidential leadership, and world governance. An international cast of characters personifies the catalytic role of love in political change.Replete with illicit loves, quixotic quests, and inextinguishable hope, THE ROWAN TREE foretells a dignitarian world much as the story of King Arthur and the round table sowed the seeds of democracy.

    Now that she’s marrying the man of her dreams, she’s sure this is the life she’ll get. Then Marnie meets Blix Holliday, her fiancé’s irascible matchmaking great-aunt who’s dying, and everything changes—just as Blix told her it would.When her marriage ends after two miserable weeks, Marnie is understandably shocked. She’s even more astonished to find that she’s inherited Blix’s Brooklyn brownstone along with all of Blix’s unfinished “projects”: the heartbroken, oddball friends and neighbors running from happiness. Marnie doesn’t believe she’s anything special, but Blix somehow knew she was the perfect person to follow in her matchmaker footsteps.And Blix was also right about some things Marnie must learn the hard way: love is hard to recognize, and the ones who push love away often are the ones who need it most.

    A touching short story of love (1500 words) from bestselling author Bronwyn Parry that spans the decades and is set in the small outback town of Dungirri.Included are previews of Bronwyn's four full-length novels, As Darkness Falls, Dark Country, Dead Heat and her new book Darkening Skies.

    Their friendship has now lasted thirty-five years. As their birthdays all fall in the same week they long ago made a pact to spend each big decade birthday together. So far they'd managed it. Now as their thirty-ninth birthday looms, Angel, a famous Hollywood actress, announces that this will be her last birthday. Terrified of aging, she absolutely refuses to turn forty. So Lexi, the mother hen of the group and an artist, invites them to Florida for a week-long celebration of this, their last birthday together. Brenda, mother to five grown-up children, flies in from Dublin, eagerly looking forward to her first foreign holiday ever. Mel, however, has to be prised away from New York where she is a successful partner in a law firm - she is a workaholic with no other friends or love in her life. The four come together for the celebration but soon things start to unravel and the week ends disastrously. Lexi is distraught. Can their friendship endure? Only time will tell.

    Eventually, she did.He felt like the kind of man who didn't just break the rules, but made new ones. He led and it was follow or get out of the way.Why did a billionaire with a voice like liquid silk and a face like a bad angel take a second look at a girl in no-name jeans, with a fifteen-dollar haircut and a beat up car she calls her "Eep" because the 'J' fell off long ago?I didn't want to know why and when I thought I knew I didn't want to admit it. By the time I found his secret, it was already too late. His passion had me hooked like a drug. It didn't hurt that he pulled the people I love the most out of harm's way. A girl can get used to a knight in shining armor even when the armor has some very large dents in it.This 33,000 word novella is part of a series, although this book can be enjoyed as stand alone work. This is adult fiction with explicit sexual content and is intended for mature readers only.

    The lush and majestic setting of the Pacific Northwest calls to her and offers a place of refuge and perhaps renewal. Her grandmother has passed away, leaving the Madrona Island Bed & Breakfast Inn to Lily. Left with only an old guestbook as her guide–a curious book full of letters, recipes, and glimpses into her family history–Lily is determined to embrace her newfound independence and recreate herself, one page at a time. With the help of the quirky island residents she has befriended, she slowly finds the strength to seek out happiness on her own terms. But as soon as she has sworn off men and is standing on her own two feet, Lily meets Ian, the alluring artist who lives next door, and her new life is suddenly thrown off course. The last thing she wants to do right now is to open her heart to another man. Ultimately, Lily must decide if it’s worth giving up her soul for security or risking everything to follow her heart.

    A rich and emotionally resonant collection of twelve stories of hope, momentary joy, and powerful endurance.

    Around the same time, an Indian elephant was deliberately put to death by electricity in Coney Island.These are the facts.Now these two tragedies are intertwined in a dark alternate history of rage, radioactivity, and injustice crying out to be righted. Prepare yourself for a wrenching journey that crosses eras, chronicling histories of cruelty both grand and petty in search of meaning and justice.

    Many years ago, he was a grumpy young man. Now he’d much rather spend time with his canine companion, Daisy, than any of his nosy neighbors. But as his behavior becomes increasingly peculiar, his daughter grows concerned and begins to consider moving him into a retirement home.In order to maintain his freedom, Ferdinand must submit to an apartment inspection by his longtime enemy, the iron-fisted concierge, Mrs. Suarez. Unfortunately, he’s never tidied up a day in his life. His neighbors, precocious ten-year-old Juliette and vivacious ninety-two-year-old Beatrice, come to the rescue. And once he lets these two into his life, things will never be the same. After an eighty-three-year reign of grouchiness, Ferdinand may finally learn that it’s never too late to start living.

    In each of these tales Margaret Atwood deftly illuminates the single instant that shapes a whole life: in a few brief pages we watch as characters progress from the vulnerabilities of adolescence through the passions of youth into the precarious complexities of middle age.  By superimposing the past on the present, Atwood paints interior landscapes shaped by time, regret, and life's lost chances, endowing even the banal with a sense of mystery.  Richly layered and disturbing, poignant at times and scathingly witty at others, the stories in Wilderness Tips take us into the strange and secret places of the heart and inform the familiar world in which we live with truths that cut to the bone.Contents:True trash --Hairball --Isis in darkness --The bog man --Death by landscape --Uncles --The age of lead --Weight --Wilderness tips --Hack Wednesday.

    Anna Denton is not like the other prospectors traveling to the Yukon on the promise of riches. It’s duty—not profit—that calls her into the wild unknown. With her family nearing financial ruin, Anna has agreed to marry Henry Bradwell, the wealthy King of the Klondike.She meets Will and Silas, childhood friends, on the steamer north. After the ship docks in a lawless Alaska town, Anna’s chaperones run afoul of local criminals, leaving her stranded. Will and Silas agree to escort her the hundreds of treacherous miles to Dawson City—the gateway to the goldfields—and her betrothed, a man she doesn’t know.Upon their arrival, Bradwell warmly welcomes them all. But as a brutal winter sets in, relations sour, and Anna is caught between the promise her family made to the power-hungry Bradwell and her feelings for Will. Anna and her companions soon find themselves in a deadly game where few can be trusted and where the greatest danger in the frozen wilderness of the Klondike is man himself.