She makes herself feel better by obsessively critiquing the behavior of her coworker, Jillian, a rapid cycling, grotesque optimist, whose downfall is precipitated by the purchase of a dog.

    No one, not even her adoring husband Will, knows about her secret agent escapades -- chasing no-good masterminds through perilous jungles, escaping evil assassins, and playing dangerous games of cat and mouse with her old nemesis, Ian Blackford, a notorious and dashing illegal arms dealer. In her new life as Lucy Hamilton, she squeezes inside forts crafted from couch cushions by her three-year-old son Theo, makes organic applesauce, and frequents the zoo. But sometimes her well-honed spy reflexes refuse to lay low. She can't help breaking into her own house to check on the babysitter or stop herself from tossing the yoga instructor who gets on her nerves. And when Ian Blackford, who is supposed to be dead, once again starts causing trouble for the USAWMD, the agency becomes desperate to get Sally back on the job. How can Sally or Lucy or whatever her name is save the planet while at the same time keeping her own family's world from spinning out of control? Every bit as much fun as a spy-mom thriller ought to be, Original Sin is a fast-paced adventure story for mothers and spies, and anyone who has ever dreamed about being either.

    Full of dreams and nightmares, Honeycomb is an entrancing mosaic novel of original fairy tales from bestselling author Joanne M. Harris and legendary artist Charles Vess in a collaboration that’s been years in the making. The toymaker who wants to create the perfect wife; the princess whose heart is won by words, not actions; the tiny dog whose confidence far outweighs his size; and the sinister Lacewing King who rules over the Silken Folk. These are just a few of the weird and wonderful creatures who populate Joanne Harris’s first collection of fairy tales.Dark, gripping, and brilliantly imaginative, these magical tales will soon have you in their thrall in a uniquely illustrative edition.

    Perceived betrayal had burned the bridge between them, tossing them into the icy river of estrangement. But life and death has a robust sense of irony, and when they learn that their cruel father has died and made his final request that they travel together across the country to spread his ashes, they have no choice but to spend a long, long car trip in each other s company. It s either that or lose out on the contents of the envelope he s left with his lawyer. The trip will be as gut-wrenching as each expects it to be . . . and revealing in ways neither of them is prepared for. At turns humorous, biting, poignant, and surprisingly tender, ASHES puts a new spin on family and dysfunction with a story that is at once fresh and timelessly universal."

    But when she lands the job of her dreams, it costs her her best friend.However, apart from her creepy ex-boyfriend, Storm loves the job. Until she’s asked to go undercover to find out if sexy TV chef Nico Alvise is cheating on his girlfriend. Storm knows it’s wrong but agrees because she likes him. A LOT. And she’s determined to protect him.She didn’t bank on them falling in love though. But Nico has secrets to hide, and he hates journalists.So when he finds out what Storm does, the fallout is brutal.Suddenly jobless, friendless and heartbroken, Storm knows that no matter how hard she wishes, Nico will never forgive her…

    Falling into a downward spiral of prostitution, drugs and drink, she is picked up by a journalist who has discovered that it was a bomb that caused the crash. And it is his murder that pulls her out of herself.The Rhythm Section is not a thriller about the hunt for a terrorist, although that is the path Stephanie takes, and it’s not a story about revenge, although justice for her family is her initial motivation. Rather, The Rhythm Section is the story of Stephanie’s attempt to reclaim herself. She has to rediscover who she is through a series of roles that she is forced to play; she is never herself. As a prostitute, she is Lisa, the chemical blonde. Later, she is Petra Reuter, German anarchist turned mercenary terrorist. Sometimes, she is Marina Gaudenzi, a Swiss businesswoman, or she’s Susan Branch, an American student, or Elizabeth Shepherd, an English management consultant.But whoever she is, she’s never herself because her life depends on her being someone else. This is the way she is trained by the intelligence service that recruits her, but it’s also the way she’s taught herself to be; being someone else has always worked for her and so it does now, until she begins to fall in love for the first time with Frank White. This undermines her completely and poses new questions: which of the many people she has become is the one to have fallen in love? Stephanie? Petra? Or one of the others? With whom has Frank fallen in love? Marina? Or the real Stephanie? More than anything, The Rhythm Section is about a catastrophic crisis of identity.

    To do whatever is the work before her, letting nothing distract her, expecting nothing, fearing nothing -- the way of the Stoics -- this is her ideal. But despite all her stratagems, this ideal constantly eludes her. Life is too unpredictable, her sense of self too fragile and human relationships are too tenuous. She muddles along, a victim of her own anxieties and resentments, her behavior often as mystifying to herself as it is to others. Why though, happily married, does she fly across the country to pursue a man she hardly knows, whom she intuitively mistrusts and does not even much care for? In the aftermath of this calamity, Nona separates from her husband and undergoes a period of intense self-examination. Meanwhile, she struggles to complete a book about her father, a painter, who died when she was a child. Out of both projects -- her work of introspection and her work of memory -- arise thorny questions about love, identity and destiny. Unexpected support appears in the form of one of her father's old lovers, whom Nona now meets for the first time. But while this new friendship thrives, relations between Nona and her husband, and between Nona and her mother, with whom she shares an anguished history, seem to be coming apart. Nona has barely achieved a somewhat surer sense of herself and her way in the world when a series of grave, unforeseeable events threaten her precarious equilibrium.Compelling, emotionally charged and written with the psychological precision and exquisite detail that are among the hallmarks of Nunez's work, "Naked Sleeper" is aboutinescapable and sometimes unendurable complexities of love and the family drama. It is the story of a woman's search for self-knowledge, for understanding of others and for an answer to the imperative question: "How should she live?"

    But for now, he sees the world through a pin hole and notices things other people don't. When Milo's beloved 92-year-old gran succumbs to dementia and moves into a nursing home, Milo begins to notice things amiss at the home. The grown-ups won't listen when he tries to tell them something's wrong so with just Tripi, the nursing home's cook, and Hamlet, his pet pig, to help, Milo sets out on a mission to expose the nursing home and the sinister Nurse Thornhill.

    Find a Job You Love With Your English DegreeWhat do Steven Spielberg, Alan Alda, Barbara Walters, Clarence Thomas, Diane Sawyer, and Stephen King have in common? That's right–they were English majors who now have successful careers.I'm an English Major - Now What? helps English majors and graduates understand their skills and talents so they can find satisfying jobs across a diversity of fields and dispels common fears and misconceptions that English majors will never make good money.In this book, you'll learn:How an English major background can be very marketableHow an English major's skills can be applied to an array of jobs and careers (beyond teaching and writing)How an English major can develop valuable skills and experience through school and extracurricular activitiesYou'll also find answers to common questions such as:Should I go to graduate school? Should I wait?How do I begin a freelancing career?Would I do well in a corporate setting?Authored by a former English major with professional experience across many areas, including corporate communications, journalism, publishing, teaching, and writing, this guide also features more than a dozen interviews with English majors who were able to translate their skills into satisfying careers.

    Ajax Penumbra seeks a book--the single surviving copy of the Techne Tycheon, a mysterious volume that has brought and lost great fortune for anyone who has owned it. Late one night, after another day of dispiriting dead ends, he stumbles across a 24-hour bookstore, and the possibilities before him expand exponentially.

    They know that a day of reckoning is approaching, but events in the United States, and around the world, cause an acceleration of the timeline.La Société de la Frontière Ouverte must awaken and prepare for the exodus.

    For each craves a change in her life: Devera desires a break from her humdrum marital routine; BiDi longs to reconnect with her distant fourteen-year-old daughter (the only girl on the high school hockey team), not to mention jump-start a sex drive stuck in neutral. So when Devera’s husband decides to fulfill his longtime dream of opening a nightclub in his basement, Your Oasis on Flame Lake arrives not a moment too soon. Nothing fancy, it’s just a BYOB joint where you can hang out, sing, dance, tell jokes, and be yourself. But then an unexpected crisis throws both families into chaos, forcing them all to take stock of their lives—and learn the power of forgiveness.

    Handsome, ambitious Jamal-a street-savvy crack dealer-is the son of North Philly's most notorious drug kingpin. A history of violence and betrayal lies between their fathers, who are now bitter enemies. After one of his church members is gunned down-with a bullet he is sure is meant for him-Pastor Anderson goes after Frank Nichols, determined to drive him from the neighborhood for good. There's just one problem: Keisha and Jamal are in love.When the families face off on opposite sides of an anti-drug demonstration, a high-ranking police official is killed in the crossfire, and Jamal becomes the prime suspect in the murder. Keisha is left with a choice. Will she stay with her father, in the confines of the sheltered world she's known, or will she venture into the unknown in order to help Jamal clear his name? She chooses Jamal, and in a whirlwind flight across the seamy underside of Philadelphia, Keisha will risk everything for love. Even her life.

    

    A Half Forgotten Song is by turns haunting, heartbreaking and joyous.1937. In a village on the Dorset coast, fourteen-year-old Mitzy Hatcher has endured a wild and lonely upbringing, until the arrival of renowned artist Charles Aubrey-along with his exotic mistress and their daughters-changes everything. Over the next three summers, Mitzy sees a future she had never thought possible, and a powerful love is kindled in her. A love that grows from innocence to obsession; from childish infatuation to something far more complex. Years later, a young man in an art gallery looks at a hastily-drawn portrait and wonders at its intensity. The questions he asks lead him to a Dorset village and to the truth about those fevered summers in the 1930s.