Now Wells is back, writing about his favorite subject–the exotic, beleaguered Louisiana wetlands–in a sharp, rollicking tale of corporate corruption and political shenanigans. The fight over one man’s tract of sacred marsh fronts a deeper story of our place in the environment and our obligations to it. Justin Pitre’s marsh island, a legacy of his trapper grandfather, is a scenic rival to anything in the Everglades, and he has promised to protect it from all harm. But he hasn’t counted on oil bigwig Tom Huff’s plans to wreck his bayou paradise by ramming a pipeline through it. When cajolery doesn’t sway Justin to sign the land over, Huff turns to darker methods. But Justin and his spirited wife, Grace, prove to be formidable adversaries–and the game is on.Into the fray comes the charismatic Cajun governor Joe T. Evangeline, who seems more interested in chasing skirts than saving Louisiana’s eroding coast. The Guv, though, is a man on the edge, upended by a midlife crisis and torn between a secret political obligation to Big Oil and the persuasive powers of Julie Galjour, a feisty environmentalist. Julie is clearly out to reform more than the Guv’s ecopolitics, but will his tragicomic Big Oil deals wreck both his career and his chances with the brash and beautiful activist?As Justin and Grace battle to stop this Big Oil assault, the plot thickens–and the Guv becomes snared in the web. Featuring a gumbo of eccentrics and lowlifes, a kidnapping, a sexy snitch, a toxic-waste-dumping scheme, a boat chase, and a fishing trip gone horribly awry, Crawfish Mountain, spiced with Ken Wells’s keen eye for locale, showcases his adventurous storytelling.

    Using this opportunity to act out his resentment for the death of his mother and his father's leaving to fight in the war he does all he can to tyrannize his new family. Yet, thrown into the warmth of this country family, Wendall finds his resolve softening.

    The continuing popularity of these books stems from the author's intimate knowledge of the places, people, and events of which he writes. He gathers the mysteries, tales, legends, and lore that have been handed down for generations on the North Carolina coast and recounts them with a sensitivity for tradition that makes him a master at what he does.For decades, the folk tales of Charles Harry Whedbee have been available wherever you care to look on the Outer Banks. Their popularity has transcended Whedbee's loyal readership among North Carolinians and visitors from the Northeast and the Midwest.Charles Harry Whedbee was an elected judge in his native Greenville, North Carolina, for thirty-plus years, but his favorite place was the Outer Banks, Nags Head in particular. Whedbee was the author of five folklore collections. He died in 1990.

    

    Noel, who prefers The Exorcist to Ecclesiastes, must navigate a world of Bible-thumpers, born-again Christians, and a stepfather who bears an uncanny resemblance to Billy Graham. Darkly comic and lyrically moving, Rides of the Midway introduces a formidable talent in contemporary fiction.

    A cross between William Faulkner (Times-Picayune) and John Irving (Detroit Free Press), Dufresne once again masterfully charts the power of truth and lies and the magic hidden in the mundane.

    With a nice house, a son in medical school, and a wife who's become one of the top brokers stoking the heedless real estate rush in north Raleigh, Will has the perfect life. But overnight a nasty conglomerate buys his station and throws him out, he's arrested for running a red light, he badly injures his knee, and he begins to see both that his marriage is in danger of crumbling, and that his son doesn't like him much. Then the past he thought he didn't have comes calling, in the person of his cousin Wingfoot Baggett, who collects a bewildered Will for some R&R back home, on the banks of the Cape Fear River. How Will comes to terms with his history, sorts out his legal dilemmas, reinvents himself, gets to know his son, and maybe, just maybe, reconciles with his wife, is the subject of Bob Inman's graceful, comic, and poignant novel. In a larger sense, this is also a novel about how the New South, with its booming economy and newly minted cities, is stamping out the Old South, losing in the process a sense of tradition and identity.

    For the past three years, she has not dated the same one twice, and only one in ten has received even a goodnight kiss as she turned him away. Karen is an artist. She follows her feelings, lives in a cluttered loft, and gushes over vivid sunsets.Mark still dreams about his almost-fiancée, and his date book has been empty since he threw her out a week before he’d planned to ask for her hand. His friends call him the “Ice Man,” since he seldom smiles, especially at a woman. A math professor at the College, logic guides his behavior, he loves order, and an elegant proof is a thing of beauty.Both Karen and Mark have all but abandoned hope of ever falling in love, and, left on their own, these opposites would never attract. So, their mothers become matchmakers, entangling them in a series of dates, promises that they will go out together three times, suggesting that, in the absence of love, a “marriage of convenience” is a live option.

    But Eli's tragic accident changes the trajectory of their lives and of those connected to them. Shunned and even tortured by his peers for his disfigurement and frailty, Eli struggles for acceptance in childhood as Delia passionately defends him. Delia's narrative voice presents Eli as a confident young man in adolescence, but underneath he hides indelible wounds harboring pain and insecurity, scars that rule his impulses. And while Eli cherishes Delia and attempts to protect her from her own troubles, he cares not for protecting himself. In this compelling coming of age story, culture, family, friends, bullies, and lovers propel two young people to unite to guard each other in a world where love, hope, and connectedness ultimately triumph.

    Set in a small town well below the Mason-Dixon line, River Jordan features an improbable friendship among three people who come to depend on one another like family. Jordan, a girl with an adventurous imagination, is hungry for warmth and companionship, since she gets no more than scolding from her strict mother and stepfather. When Jordan’s step-grandmother, Miss Amylee, needs a live-in nurse, the family’s housekeeper suggests her sister, Pansy—newly saved and released from prison—for the job. Pansy, Jordan, and Miss Amylee form an unlikely trio, and through small and large triumphs, each recovers a part of herself that was lost.

    Not yet ready to fully embrace adulthood, Simons finds himself surrendering to cynicism, as well as to the temptations of his “turned-out-well” first cousin, Patricia.To avoid sinking further into his rut, Simons embarks on a road trip through the South. After a disastrous stint as a Corpus Christi fisherman, he exits the Lone Star State, doubling back to the Louisiana bayou to spend some quality time with his former friend and mentor—and his mother’s ex-lover—Taurus. But as even Taurus’s once sought-after wisdom wears thin, Simons begins to suspect that the grass is not greener on the other side—it may be burnt, brown, and dead wherever he goes.

    

    We were best friends, sharing everything - until I made a mistake and got a girl pregnant. Pretty soon I was a single dad while I was still a kid myself. Our friendship suffered. He joined the military.And I thought I'd never get another chance to let him know what he really means to me.Now he's back, reeling from the loss of his newborn baby's father, and he needs a place to stay while he settles back into parenthood and small town living. I won't pressure him. I won't rush him. And if he's still not interested, I'll let him go.But I'll be damned if I won't hold on to this second chance with the best friend I thought I’d lost long ago.Welcome to Blackwater, Montana - a small town with a big personality, where shifters and humans coexist. Claimed By The Soldier is a dual point of view shifter novel with mpreg, an unexpected inheritance, and a guaranteed happy ending. The fifth in this series, this book can also be read as a standalone.Get Claimed By The Soldier and 3 other amazing books in second Blackwater Pack Bundle Today!

    Jesse’s talent is for music, which has given him a livelihood and a home as a bass player in a bar band called Anything Goes. Band life offers the opportunity for the dregs of experience (hangovers, mildewed hotel rooms), and the antics of his band mates (all of them older than he is; some of them wiser, some not) offer more schooling in hard knocks.Anything Goes tells Jesse’s story over the course of a year, during which he finds his life slowly being tempered by the unexpected: by a dad who wants to make up and be part of Jesse’s life; by a female lead singer who suddenly makes the band sound a lot better than they have any right to be; and by the confidence Jesse begins to feel in his own musical talent.A complete departure from the sweeping historical vision of Madison Smartt Bell’s Haitian novels and the gritty cynicism of his intense urban dramas, Anything Goes confirms Bell as one of the most versatile, most gifted, most surprising novelists of his generation.

    She'll show the good-looking lawman he's wrong, even if it means setting out on a risky race across Texas to catch the real killer. Rett doesn't want to convict an innocent man. But he can't let the Boston beauty sway his senses to set a guilty man free. When Elizabeth follows him on a dangerous trek, the Ranger vows to keep her safe. But who will protect him from the woman whose conviction and courage leave him doubting everything—even his heart?