Breaking Twig


Deborah Epperson - 2011
    Not even Twig’s vivid imagination, keen wit, and dark sense of humor is enough to help her survive the escalating assaults of Helen and a new stepbrother, but help comes from an unexpected source—Frank, her stepfather. Sometimes, having one person who loves and believes in you is all a girl needs to keep hope alive. Often raw and irreverent and sprinkled with all the Southern flavoring found in a good bowl of chicken and dumplings, BREAKING TWIG, is about finding love where we least expect it, destroying lives with easy lies, and realizing each of us determine our own truth. (Taken from author's website.)

When I Married My Mother:A Daughter's Search for What Really Matters--and How She Found It Caring for Mama Jo


Jo Maeder - 2012
    What unfolds in this best-selling memoir is a hilarious, heartbreaking love story that sees eldercare and making peace with the past in a most unexpected way. Bonus material includes an author Q&A, Mama Jo's Favorite Cookie award-winning recipe, caregiving tips, discussion questions, and links to the trailer and short film "The Doll Dilemma" by Jacob Rosdail. Suitable for age 15+

Night Terrors III


Theresa DillonPaul Tremblay - 2014
    A wave of sinkholes appears on the anniversary of a rural tragedy, and local residents begin to hear the voices of the dead. A woman encounters a predator from her youth—and a chance to turn the tables. A child’s inner beast takes on a sinister life of its own. An undetectable serial killer raises tensions on a college campus. Experimental physics reveals another world, and it might mean the end of ours. Shrouded in darkness, lurking in the shadows, NIGHT TERRORS III awaits you. The third installment of the chilling Night Terrors anthology series includes stories from Jack Ketchum, Steve Rasnic Tem, Dennis Etchison, Taylor Grant, Eric J. Guignard, Aric Sundquist, Jennifer Brozek, John McNee, Simon McCaffery, Patty Templeton, and many more!

Reinventing Mona


Jennifer Coburn - 2005
    That's when the realization hit: I'm young, I'm rich (thanks to a hefty inheritance), and I'm boring. Not "needs a little zip" boring, either. More like "mustard stain on a Sears tweed couch" drab. French's in a squeeze bottle, that's me. But suddenly I have Grey Poupon aspirations! Things are gonna change-starting now... Building a better mantrap... First things first: Exercise. Carrot juice. Straight hair. Whiter teeth. Clothes that fit (I have breasts? Who knew?) But wait-there's more. Life's kicked me around a bit, and I've been nursing my wounds for too long. I'm finally ready to take a chance on love with the perfect guy. He's handsome. He's smart. He's reliable. He's my CPA. Problem is, I'm clueless about winning him over. It's time to call in an expert. It's time to call in The Dog. Down, boy. Mike "The Dog" Dougherty is a man's man. A guy's guy. Okay, he's a chauvinist pig, and his sty is "The Dog House," a testosterone-charged column in Maximum for Him magazine. On one hand, I abhor all he stands for. On the other hand, who better to coach me? So here I am. Learning the complex unspoken language of the American male (Talk, bad. Sex, good.); trying exciting new things (Stripping lessons are empowering. Really.); falling for Mike. Uh oh. But the Mike I'm getting to know is different from The Dog. And the Mona I'm becoming isn't quite who I expected, either. This whole makeover scheme is getting crazier by the minute. But "crazy" beats "boring"...right? Jennifer Coburn is an award-winning journalist who has written for magazines and newspapers in the United States, Canada and Australia. She lives in San Diego with her husband, William and their daughter, Katie. Jennifer desperately wishes she had Mona's unlimited cash, beachfront estate and singing voice. When she's not living vicariously through chick-lit characters, Jennifer runs a public relations business which serves non-profit organizations and small businesses in southern California. She is also the coordinator of the Del Cerro Soccer Moms League and coach of the real-life Kickin' Chicks, the best seven-year-old girls to ever tear up suburban soccer fields.

The Last Girlfriend on Earth: And Other Love Stories


Simon Rich - 2013
     In Magical Mr. Goat, a young girl's imaginary friend yearns to become "more than friends." In Unprotected, an unused prophylactic recalls his years spent trapped inside a teen boy's wallet. The stories in Simon Rich's new book are bizarre, funny, and yet...relatable. Rich explores love's many complications-losing it, finding it, breaking it, and making it-and turns the ordinary into the absurd. With razor-sharp humor and illustrations, and just in time for Valentine's Day, Rich takes readers for an exhilarating, hilarious ride on the rollercoaster of love.

Gods and Mortals: Fourteen Free Urban Fantasy & Paranormal Novels Featuring Thor, Loki, Greek Gods, Native American Spirits, Vampires, Werewolves, & More


C. GockelMary Ting - 2015
    over one million words of divinely (and diabolically) inspired fantasy, adventure, and romance.Join the freshest voices in urban fantasy and paranormal, New York Times, USA Today, and Amazon bestselling authors, on unique journeys to heaven, hell, and worlds beyond.

Daughter of Sand and Stone


Libbie Hawker - 2015
    She won’t submit to a lifetime of subservience. When her father dies, she sets out on her own, pursuing the power she believes to be her birthright, dreaming of the Roman Empire’s downfall and her ascendance to the throne.Defying her family, Zenobia arranges her own marriage to the most influential man in the city of Palmyra. But their union is anything but peaceful—his other wife begrudges the marriage and the birth of Zenobia’s son, and Zenobia finds herself ever more drawn to her guardsman, Zabdas. As war breaks out, she’s faced with terrible choices.From the decadent halls of Rome to the golden sands of Egypt, Zenobia fights for power, for love, and for her son. But will her hubris draw the wrath of the gods? Will she learn a “woman’s place,” or can she finally stake her claim as Empress of the East?

Ghost Unbroken


Annie McLeod - 2013
    Short StoryHer future is set, her life mapped out, but one unexpected meeting turns her carefully laid plans upside down.

The Misremembered Man


Christina McKenna - 2008
    This vivid portrayal of the universal search for love brings with it a darker tale, heartbreaking in its poignancy.

Purling Road - The Complete Second Season: Episodes 1-10


M.L. Gardner - 2015
    Even with this small reprieve, everyone is faced with a long, hot summer. Relationships are brutally tested. Some are broken, never to be the same again and even Maura finds it difficult to help her friends. The fuse is lit when boredom and frustration lead Claire, Ava, and Arianna to a girl’s night that reincarnates Arianna to her former glory. After suffering a loss, she reaches her breaking point and Caleb is left to deal with the aftermath of her destructive decisions. Ruth moves to town with her son and finds the women welcoming her friendship and advice. Tempers rise faster than the tide when Claire makes a decision that Aryl can’t live with. Ava and Jonathan welcome a new member of the family, and soon after, she is forced to reveal a carefully guarded secret, but not before Jonathan assumes the worst. With her paper on more solid ground, Muzzy is forced to take drastic action to save her reputation, taking Rockport by surprise. As everyone focuses on their own crises, it becomes increasingly hard to come together—the only thing that has saved them in the past. Season Two is nothing short of explosive as everyone must look within themselves for answers.

This Is How You Lose Her


Junot Díaz - 2010
    In the heat of a hospital laundry room in New Jersey, a woman does her lover’s washing and thinks about his wife. In Boston, a man buys his love child, his only son, a first baseball bat and glove. At the heart of these stories is the irrepressible, irresistible Yunior, a young hardhead whose longing for love is equaled only by his recklessness—and by the extraordinary women he loves and loses: artistic Alma; the aging Miss Lora; Magdalena, who thinks all Dominican men are cheaters; and the love of his life, whose heartbreak ultimately becomes his own. In prose that is endlessly energetic, inventive, tender, and funny, the stories in This Is How You Lose Her lay bare the infinite longing and inevitable weakness of the human heart. They remind us that passion always triumphs over experience, and that “the half-life of love is forever.”

Davenport House


Marie Silk - 2016
    She lives isolated in the Pennsylvania countryside with her affluent and secretive family. When her father dies suddenly, Mary becomes pained with grief and increasingly suspicious of those around her. A humble servant girl has the chance of a lifetime to become a lady's companion. Costly dresses, exquisite rooms, and fine dinners are pleasant distractions from what is really happening in the house.

Grimm Diaries Prequels


Cameron Jace - 2012
    I like to think of them as poisoned apples. Once you taste them, you will never see fairy tales in the same light again. The Grimm Diaries Prequels are short books in the form of epistolary diary entries. They are teasers for The Grimm Diaries. The 6 diaries are told by The Evil Queen, Peter Pan, Little Red Riding Hood, the Devil, Prince Charming, and Alice Grimm.Grimm Diaries Prequels:1 Snow White Blood Red (narrated by The Snow White Queen)2 Ashes to Ashes and Cinder to Cinder (narrated by Alice Grimm)3 Beauty Never Dies (narrated by Peter Pan)4 Ladle Rotten Rat Hut (narrated by Little Red Riding Hood)5 Mary Mary Quite Contrary6 Blood Apples (narrated by Prince Charming)7 Jawigi (narrated by sandman Grimm)

The Secret Lives of People in Love


Simon Van Booy - 2007
    They stay with you like a significant memory.”—Roger Rosenblatt“Van Booy is a remarkable young writer. Taste, touch, smell, sight and sound, in spite of their evanescence, are frozen for a moment in these stories and celebrated, along with their subtle interconnection, in all the aspects of love.”—Fred VolkmerThe Secret Lives of People in Love is the first short story collection by award-winning writer Simon Van Booy. These stories, set in Kentucky, New York, Paris, Rome, and Greece, are a perfect synthesis of grace, intensity, atmosphere, and compassion. Love, loss, frailty, human contact, and isolation are Van Booy’s themes. In radiant prose he writes about the difficult choices we make in order to retain our humanity and about the redemptive power of love in a violent world.Born in London, Simon Van Booy grew up in Wales. A keen rugby player, he was recruited to play football for Campbellsville University in Kentucky. He eventually returned to England, where he graduated from Dartington College of Arts. Now a New Yorker, he teaches at the School of Visual Arts and in the Bard College Clemente Course. As a freelance journalist, he writes for several New York newspapers. He has won a first-place award for in-depth reporting from the New York Press Association.

And Thereby Hangs a Tale


Jeffrey Archer - 2010
    Others will bring you to tears. And once again, every one of them will keep you spellbound.Contents:Stuck on YouThe Queen’s Birthday TelegramHigh Heels 4. Blind DateWhere There’s a WillDouble-Cross‘I Will Survive’A Good EyeMembers OnlyThe Undiplomatic DiplomatThe Luck of the IrishPolitically CorrectBetter the Devil You KnowNo Room at the InnCaste-Off