We follow how their lives change over the course of four seasons. Their voices creating around us, a world filled with love, gratitude, bravery, self discovery, and forgiveness as well as shining a light on loneliness, fear, ignorance, and hatred. Thank-You is an uneducated, bi-racial orphan who views the world beyond what her young eyes can see. She is filled with hope, love, understanding, and an overwhelming desire to find a place where she belongs. She travels through this story with the voice of an angel, imparting her wisdom, sending ripples through the core of the human spirit. With the help of her social worker, Miss Felix, Thank-You goes on a journey and what she discovers is more than she would ever imagine. Josephine Dieu is a young, wealthy socialite, who comes from a prominent African American family. Her voice is heavy with sadness, carrying the burden of a disinterested father and an alcoholic mother. Her life is lonely, having no friends or siblings. Yet, underneath all of her sadness peaks the innocence of childhood, which yearns for a loving home. As the story unfolds, we follow as Josephine’s life unravels as we witness her encounter ignorance, hatred, shame, and abuse. Josephine’s story saddens us with its overwhelming truth and empowers us with hope as she overcomes every obstacle to get her voice heard. Deeply meaningful, rich, and quirky, the stories of Thank-You and Josephine unfold in such a way that will leave you breathless and yearning for more words. It will also leave you with not just another novel in your collection, but another beautiful story engraved into the memory of your heart.

    After the death of her parents, she is placed in the care of her alcoholic uncle. For years, she assists her uncle in growing the family empire, all the while plotting his demise and / or her escape. A college scholarship gives her the opportunity to break free of her life to start a new one - under a new name.Follow Mary and her often hilarious misadventures in the early 1990's while attending college in a small town in Louisiana. The story reads as a series of diary entries which chronicle the thoughts, feelings, and experiences of the main character during this time in her life. The novel's title refers to a cajun restaurant in which the main character works as a waitress. The colorful descriptions of the town of Bayou Bend, the college, its inhabitants and the surrounding areas paint a vivid and amusing tale of life in the South.

    Her heart still belongs to the boy she fell in love with in high-school, but she's come to accept that she can never regain the love she lost.Kyle Andersen has moved to a new city and is determined to make a new life for himself, but he still feels incomplete. He's never gotten over the girl who broke his heart when he was just fifteen, and the hurt she caused him anchors him to his past.On the same night, the two remember each other, and they think back to that one year in high-school that came to define their lives.This is their story.Set at boarding school in Switzerland, Scars of Youth is the emotional first book in a unique series about the power of first love and second chances.If you like tender romances full of emotion, love, and heartbreak then you'll love this heartfelt and moving tale of two teens who find true love together, and the scars that their youth carves into their hearts.

    Still, an aristocracy would emerge in this society: artist, poets, and musicians, plantation owners, scientists and craftsmen whose talents and reputations would extend far beyond the limits of their small world. Mega-selling author Anne Rice's probing, lyrical style sweeps us into their midst as she introduces Marcel, the sensitive, blue-eyed scholar, Marie, his breathtakingly beautiful sister, whose curse is to pass for white; Christophe, novelist and teacher, the idol of all young gens and stunning Anna Bella, whose allure for the well-to-do white man would become legend.Here is a compelling and richly textured tale of a people forever caught in the shadows between black and white.

    A scholarship student at the prestigious Evergreen Preparatory Academy in Seattle, all Ethan wants is to fit in with his prep-school classmates. But Ethan’s divorced mother – a senior actuary at Northwest Life Insurance who calculates insurance risks – is convinced he is going to die. The most mundane moments pose a risk of death according to Ethan’s mother. Life is even worse for Ethan’s four-year-old brother who still wears clothes with snaps and rides in a stroller. When Ethan befriends the school’s star baseball player he gets a chance to break into Evergreen’s elite social circle. He sneaks out at night, he goes to parties attended by his love interest, and his new friend teaches him to drive. But then his crush starts dating someone else and his mom calls the cops when she finds his bed empty in the middle of the night. Desperate to escape his mother’s strange rules, Ethan kidnaps his brother and goes to Oregon on a search for his dad. But Ethan’s father’s not in Oregon. Instead he uncovers a family secret that explains his mother’s odd behavior, finds out the truth about the disappearance of a childhood neighbor, and gets a chance to repair his family before it’s too late.From Publishers WeeklyEthan, a painfully overprotected teenager and the narrator of this winning story, is a sophomore in high school. His father has been gone for three years. His mother is an actuary for an insurance company, calculating the risk of various mortal accidents. She then imposes her resulting paranoia on Ethan and his brother, only letting them out of the house for study group and not letting Ethan get his driver’s license. Finally, fed-up with watching parties from his bedroom window and being ridiculed by his peers, Ethan starts to take control of his life. Ethan’s voice is strong, consistent, and clear, and the author has done a good job in setting up a plot full of hooks: the mystery of Ethan's next-door neighbor; a strange man Ethan keeps running into; the reason for Ethan's dad's departure and why Ethan hasn't heard from him; and, of course, there’s the girl he has a crush on. It's refreshing to encounter a YA novel that is a realistic account of a teenager's life that still feels unique and compelling to the end. (This book was reviewed as part of the 2011 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award.)

    There, people without pigment in their skin are called “zeru-zeru,” it means “ghost,” and they are believed to possess magical powers. When Aliya goes missing, her father sets out on a mission to find her. He soon discovers that she was up to more than teaching the alphabet and handing out sunblock. With each step he learns more about his daughter and a country rooted in ancestry, rich with resources, full of mystery and conflict, and a world of witchdoctors and foreign plundering, with little transparency and less justice. From the shadow of the Mukuyu tree he follows her “ghost” to the head of the dragon in Europe. But will he reach Aliya before it is too late?

    Leigh Blackburn, the main character of Deliberate, finally has the life she’s dreamed of and fought for. Happily divorced and living on a shabby chic farm with her sixteen-year-old son, she owns an upscale consignment store and has been building a new life free of tension. Free that is until her mother gets herself thrown out of her assisted living facility and moves in with Leigh. Abba Gee, Leigh's mother, will be familiar to those who have read, Spit of a Minute. Last seen at age fifteen, Abba Gee is seventy-years-old and still herself... Only More So!

    Working for low pay as an aide in a special needs classroom, she is flattered when the handsome guardian of a student asks her out on a date. The chemistry between them is intense. But she can’t be fully honest with Chalton, scared that he’ll back off fast once he knows how out of control her brother is becoming. And what she doesn’t know is that Chalton isn’t being fully honest with her either . . . and the truth is worse than anything she could imagine.

    Nobody except Jake’s crew of urban explorers. They think they’re infiltrating another disused Tube station tonight, but he hasn’t told them the truth.Jake is haunted by a secret. An untold history that connects Black Death plague pits, the Necropolis Railway, the Moorgate disaster and some of London’s darkest legends. Tonight, Jake will discover what’s under the Underground. What’s under us all.Under is a horror/mystery novel set on the London Underground, from the author of the Auto Series.The short story Signal Failure, a prelude to Under, is free to download as an eBook from Amazon.

    You paint with words and that is beautiful." "Your words capture a truth some may feel but be unable to word." "Definitely a skilled tongue." Join over 10,000 people who follow and enjoy Andrea Michelle's poetry. Download now for free!

    She doesn’t even know how to hug. Everyone thinks she’s smart, but straight A's are way easier than making friends. Then she meets Dane, a golden-haired surfer whose easy charm and hot touch teach her what she longs to know.Dane lives for the salty breeze and a sweet wave, because that’s all he has. He’s been on the streets since he was fourteen. A drifter. Homeless. Then he meets Amy. Smart and accomplished, she’s everything he’s not. He wants to be the sort of man who deserves her.Except that means facing down his past—and that past might very well swallow them both.

    Now thanks to an ancient IOU, he's stuck there trying to save the inheritance of the only woman who ever dumped him. His first love, Kezia Rose.He never said goodbye...These days she might be a respected pillar of the community, but Kezia will dance with the devil if it will keep a 100-year-old hotel in her family—except this time she’s calling the tune. What if all you ever wanted were the things you left behind?... As old secrets are revealed, they're faced with the same dilemma. Can a loner find the courage to be vulnerable? Should a nurturer settle for a man who refuses to need her? Trusting love is still their greatest challenge.Romantic Book of the Year (RUBY winner Australia)

    Known among locals as the daughter of a brothel prostitute, Josie wants more out of life than the Big Easy has to offer. She devises a plan get out, but a mysterious death in the Quarter leaves Josie tangled in an investigation that will challenge her allegiance to her mother, her conscience, and Willie Woodley, the brusque madam on Conti Street. Josie is caught between the dream of an elite college and a clandestine underworld. New Orleans lures her in her quest for truth, dangling temptation at every turn, and escalating to the ultimate test. With characters as captivating as those in her internationally bestselling novel Between Shades of Gray, Ruta Sepetys skillfully creates a rich story of secrets, lies, and the haunting reminder that decisions can shape our destiny.

     Dylan Myers is a self-professed womanizing billionaire, with more zeroes on the end of his bank balance than he cares to count, and too many stories of wealthy exuberance to recall. But does this vicarious and charismatic man harbor a secret? Soon their paths collide, and they fall into bed in hot and salacious circumstances! But will Holly be able to solve the riddle that is Dylan Myers? And will their turbulent relationship teach them the true value of enduring love?

    In solidarity, her two roommates got tattoos to match her distinctive ink. The three dropped-out to start over in Montana where she gave birth to a son Zane. The friends conspired never to reveal Zane’s true heritage. Fifteen years later, a stranger recognizes the tattoo. He stalks mother and son, causing the lies to unravel. Was the stranger a witness to the rape or in fact one of the assailants? Beautiful Whitefish, Montana serves as the setting for Fifteen Years of Lies, yet the story could occur anywhere people go to escape and in any family struggling to keep secrets. Parents of teenagers will relate to a mother’s fears for her son as his rebellion leads to violence. Fifteen Years of Lies goes beyond the timely issue of sexual assault on campus to lay bare the aftermath of rape and its effects on the survivor, the child, loved ones, and even the rapist. Experience the raw emotions of past injustice and imminent threat when a suspected rapist believes he has found his victim and his son. How far will the three women go to protect Zane from the truth?