Never Girl


Ana Valen - 2021
    Two LAPD officers arrived at her condo and said her older brother was murdered. In the wake of this, she seeks guidance from James Reed—a lifelong friend and defense attorney in her brother’s law firm. James cautions against rash action, and she heeds this advice… until one of the homicide detectives updates her on the proceedings.Detective Stacy Raven doesn’t believe the facts on the ground—that someone killed Claire’s brother in a robbery. The crime hints at passion, not desire for his wallet. When Raven informs Claire about the irregularities, Claire shifts into action.Claire needs to find out what happened, but she doesn’t possess investigative skills. She needs someone who understands crime scenes. Better yet, she needs someone who understands the criminal mind. After finding the ideal person, they begin their own investigation. They quickly realize that the truth differs from what even Detective Raven suspects.

Two Thousand Minnows: A Young Girl?s Story of Separation, Hope, and Forgiveness


Sandra Leigh Vaughan - 2014
    One winter night, she ushered her mother out of the house during one of her father’s tirades, and then snuck her back into the dark home through a window.Sandra was used to events like these; what she wasn’t used to were the mountains and nature surrounding her new home in West Virginia. Raised in the city, it took some time to get used to the long, hot summer days and nights, but she soon found that the forests, rivers, and mountains were more secure and comforting than the house that held her abusive and volatile father. Catching minnows in the gentle river, riding on rope swings, and exploring the outdoors distracted her from what was waiting at home.But then, her mother became pregnant again, and Sandra’s concern for her family and their well-being grew when her mother returned home from the hospital without the baby.In Two Thousand Minnows, Sandra reflects on the events of her childhood and adolescence, including the time spent traveling across the country with her anxious, worn out family in a small, cramped car. As Sandra grows older, she realizes that what they’re chasing when they move from town to town�the perfect, stable life�cannot exist, at least for her, until she has the answers to all the questions she never asked. As an adult, Sandra decides to stop running from the past and instead revisit it, refusing to give up until she unearths the truth�and finds the sister who never came home.

Stranger


Clifford Irving - 1961
    He ruled the minds and bodies of every man and woman in Diablo Valley. The Guardian called this powerful mythic tale of a ruthless man, his rebellious son - and the beautiful young woman from New York who becomes wife to one and mistress to the other.

The Forgotten Child: A little boy abandoned at birth. His fight for survival. A powerful true story.


R. Gallear - 2019
    A baby boy, a few hours old, is left by his mother, wrapped in nothing but two sheets of newspaper and hidden amongst the undergrowth by a canal bank. An hour later, a late-shift postman is walking wearily home when he hears a faint cry. He finds the newspaper parcel and discovers the newborn, white-cold and whimpering, inside.After being rushed to hospital and against all odds, the baby survives. He’s baptised by the hospital chaplain as Richard.Everything feels as though it’s looking up; Richard is put into local authority care and regains his health. However, after nearly five blissful years in a rural care home filled with loving friends, it soon unfolds that his turbulent start in life is only the beginning…Based on a devastating true story, this inspirational memoir follows Richard’s traumatic birth, abusive childhood, and search for the truth.

Conflicting Hearts


J.D. Burrows - 2012
    Instead, fate had different plans. Caught in traffic and late for work, she can do nothing except wait for the freeway gridlock to ease. A three-car pileup has caused the snarl. Just as cars begin to move at a faster clip, Rachel takes her eyes off the road to gawk at the accident and rear-ends the car in front of her. Sick over having ruined her day, she lowers her head onto the steering wheel and waits for the driver to begin a tirade over her stupidity. Instead, a kind man taps on her window showing genuine concern about her welfare. The brief colliding encounter suddenly starts a relationship between two strangers that takes off under odd circumstances. When the couple gets to know each other on a more intimate level, their relationship turns into a conflicting set of desires and needs. Rachel is bound by a shameful, dark childhood. After she falls in love with the handsome Ian Richards, she is faced with the decision to leave him or finally confront her demons to obtain the one thing in life she's always needed--healing from the sexual abuse she endured as a little girl.

Dirty Laundry - A True Story: From The Streets to an Executive One Man's Forty Year Journey


Ivan Von Baublitz - 2016
    On the very day Richard Millhous Nixon became the 37th President, Ivan was born into a dysfunctional family. From a mentally challenged mother to an incapable father and a fragile brother, Ivan was faced with challenges no child is ready for. And yet despite all the anger and frustration that came with them, he somehow managed to persevere, to become more what society deemed him to be: an executive. This creative uncensored biography recounts in vivid detail the anger and depression of growing up in poverty, the gripping homicidal effects of drugs, racism, police brutality and a broken government system. Ivan’s voice is expressed through a masterful use of syntax that reveals a soul that, while battered, is far from broken. His tale maintains steadfast a hope for a better future that would give Richard Nixon himself reason to pause. From Illinois to Indiana comes a story over forty-years that highlights the indomitable power of a determined soul. Relive some of the most unimaginable situations, leading up to a meeting with a certain angel that will change his life for the better. Find out how a word as simple as “FAVOR” can make all the difference in the world. This unrestricted story will leave you never looking at your own “Dirty Laundry” the same.

Burden of Breath


Ann Minnett - 2013
    At the age of sixty she adopted an infant, and now that she’s dead, Hannah must raise the child. But fighting the effects of severe burns sustained in childhood may be all that Hannah can manage. Defined and alienated by both emotional and physical scars, Hannah fears that she might be abusive and crazy, too. Burden of Breath alternates between the intervening years since the fire and the present as Hannah struggles to separate from her mother’s crippling influence - even from the grave. Anger and isolation force Hannah to confront her emotional and physical damage, and she transforms her life in ways she could never have imagined.

Boneyard Dog: War Dog


Andrew Beery - 2018
    The only the thing is, it usually happens when I’ve been drinking… and I’d been dry for the better part of two years. I’m Commodore Jeremy David Riker… my friends call me JD or just plain “Dog.” I have the dubious honor of running a starship boneyard in the middle of nowhere.

Say Hey: The Autobiography of Willie Mays


Willie Mays - 1988
    Mays recalls his childhood in rural Alabama, his early playing career, and his life as a star rookie in the glory days of New York baseball.

Going Bare!


John David Harding - 2012
    The book is short - around an hour of reading - and details everything from when I first decided naturism appealed to me, to my thoughts after the holiday.

Semper Cool: One Marine's Fond Memories of Vietnam


Barry Fixler - 2010
    Marine Corps seeking adventure and his father's approval and finds both, plus more danger than he ever could have imagined. With its vivid imagery, Semper Cool thrusts readers into a grunt's-eye view of the blood, guts, tears and laughter of war, as told by a Marine who returned home a man and a patriot. Be prepared to laugh and cry and ultimately thank God for the men and women willing to risk their lives for the freedoms that so many Americans enjoy.

Second-Chance Mother


Denise Roessle - 2011
    She felt as if she were 19 again, the age at which she got pregnant out of wedlock and relinquished her newborn son for adoption. Suddenly, he was back — this stranger she had given birth to — and he wasn’t just searching for his roots. Joshua was looking for a mom. Eager to embrace the second chance she had been granted, Denise leapt wholeheartedly into the role. “It’s a BIG boy,” she announced to her family and friends, setting free her twenty-six-year secret. But Joshua was not a boy. He was a grown man, with a history that fell far short of what she had envisioned for him when she’d been assured he would be “better off” without her. His adoptive parents had essentially given up on him at age thirteen, sending him away with only an eighth-grade education. He drifted through a series of institutions and group homes, and ultimately onto the New York City streets, where he fell into drugs and crime. When an early marriage failed, he and his young wife surrendered an infant and toddler to adoption. By the time Denise and her son reunited, he was in his second marriage to a teenaged runaway who was six months pregnant with their first child. Despite her disappointment and his obvious problems, Denise was determined to restore their severed bond and give him the unconditional love that had been lacking in her own childhood.At the same time, she struggled with her parents’ adverse reaction to her reunion and their refusal to acknowledge their grandson’s existence. The shameful event that they had worked so vigorously to bury was back to haunt them. They could not accept their daughter’s happiness at having found her lost child.Still reeling in the overwhelming mix of joy and grief, gratitude and guilt triggered by reunion with her son, Denise received a letter from an aunt she never knew existed. Aunt Mabel revealed some startling information about Denise’s mother, who had claimed to be an only child raised by a kindly couple after both her parents passed away. In truth, she was one of nine siblings tossed to the winds by their mother after the death of their father in 1929. As she got to know her new-found aunts, uncles and cousins, Denise became obsessed with understanding how her grandmother could desert her children and how her mother, who so clearly bore the scars of abandonment, could then force her own daughter to give up a child.A year into their reunion, after Josh’s wife left him with their ten-month-old daughter, the rage that he had initially denied surfaced. Denise went from feeling like a new mom to the frustrated parent of an out-of-control teenager. In the face of his angry outbursts and threats to cut her off, she remained intent on “fixing” him, believing that, in time, she could heal his wounds. Once more, she put her own pain aside and stood by him as he married twice more and fathered another child.Only when Josh and Denise reached an impasse in year five, did she recognize how emotionally shutdown she had been since relinquishing her son — and how she had let her fear of losing him again hold her hostage. In the silence of their estrangement, she began the hard work that ultimately allowed her to resolve her own issues, reclaim the young woman she had left behind after surrendering what turned out to be her only child, and make peace with the past. She found acceptance and forgiveness for her mother, her son, and ultimately herself.

Thoughts on The Promise and Darkness On The Edge Of Town


Bruce Springsteen - 2010
    The second essay appears in Springsteen's forthcoming releases, The Promise and The Promise: The Darkness On The Edge Of Town Story.

Expect This


Heather Slee - 2011
    

Cayenne Pepper Cures (Miracle Healers from the Kitchen)


Sharon Daniels - 2012
    It is more powerful than any other." - Dr. Richard Schulze, Medical Herbalist from herbdoc.com.Hats off to you! You've just plunged into a wealth of information that hardly any professional doctors have a clue about. Get ready to relish in the brilliance of the kitchen miracle that surgeons shun and doctors disgrace.A sea of unknown, unrevealed information awaits you. This book will act as your guide, so that you will soon be able to harness the full power of cayenne - the herb I once took for granted, and the herb that I now owe my health.Everyone out there seems to be promoting good health. Well, that's great. Good health is something that needs to be promoted. You need herbs, not drugs. You need nature, not synthetics. You need to use the proven, natural, side-affect-free healers that the earth is full of, not the clear, cold liquids that scientists processed through a test tube.If I had the time, I'd drive from house to house, shaking people out of their beds and telling them to wake up to the miracles of cayenne. But I can't, so I've got the next best thing.This report, which I've been compiling for a while, is brimming with the fiery brilliance of cayenne and all that I've found out about it.For example, cayenne has been known to cure 17 big diseases. It has been known to stop a heart attack in a matter of minutes. It can sharpen your vision better than the most powerful contact lenses available. It can expand your arteries like anything, giving the blood room to really flow and travel everywhere, from your arms (giving you strength) to your brain (giving you better brainpower). It can cure arthritis and much, much more.If your heart can't pump enough blood to a certain area, take cayenne pepper.Because if you're on prescription medications, you could take up to a year (or more!) to heal. But if you take cayenne, you could cut it down to a month or two.Did you know that if you take garlic in the right proportions, you can bring your blood pressure back to normal in three months?Well, if you add cayenne, you could cut that down to three days.Cayenne can unclog your kidneys and your sinuses, allow you to breathe freely and restore broken, bleeding gums to normal. Cayenne, in short, is a kitchen miracle.I owe my health to cayenne. I hope that by reading this report, you soon will too.To your health,Sharon Daniels