A retired public school teacher, Miss Budge embarks on a series of slice-of-life adventures that take readers into the intriguing and authentic lives of Southern church women. "What our readers love about Miss Budge is that they all know her personally. In fact, they all are her in one way or another. Daphne's stories are instantly recognizable to those in a church community, and that's where the real humour and real pathos comes from. Daphne is a keen observer of the strange and wonderful subculture of 'the church lady.'" Brett Alan Dewing The Christian Courier (Canada) "Mildred Budge is a forthright, almost larger than life, woman who challenges every reader's faith walk by being transparent about her own. She reminds us that Jesus loves us the way we are but He loves us too much to leave us as we are." Julie Innes Evangel

    Jerry’s Stahl’s perverse, yet often touching tales, many of which first appeared in publications ranging from Playboy to the Pushcart Prize to Best Erotic Fiction, plumb the depths of eccentric romance, sex-starved adolescence, mid-life crisis, and family dysfunction. From a teenager’s tryst with a recently widowed middle-aged woman on an airplane, to a dissatisfied dentist’s attempt to find freedom on the road with a much younger woman, all the way to an intensely erotic love affair between an ex-junkie and an ex-circus midget with a sexual obsession with vegetables, this collection never fails to arouse and surprise. With a disarmingly immediate prose style, Stahl finds great eroticism, humor, and humanity in the wildest of encounters.

    A Louisiana farmer sees the image of Christ appear on the freezer door and questions the meaning of faith. In a Maine resort town, Miss Langevin, a spinster who could write a book on disappointment, now gets a chance to help another woman escape it. And in the title story, a science teacher's modest dreams and painful memories erode his existence like water entering stone.

    The second to some, would be considered outright lying, the last a surprise to those who view them as ladies with a gentle upbringing. But the Parker legacy has never been what it seems and keeping up appearances has trumped the truth every time. Just as Charlotte is about to break the news of her plan to strike out on her own, her daughter, Janie, returns from college to announce she’s pregnant. Her sister, Purdy, becomes desperate to take control and devises a sinister plan to rid the Parker’s of yet another family secret. But Janie’s upbringing has instilled a deeper faith in her than anyone realizes. Compelling and unexpected, Wide Planked Porches is a moving novel that will make you rethink family duty, faith, and fortitude. For fans of Kathryn Stockett (The Help) and Sue Monk Kidd (The Secret Life of Bees), a must-read for lovers of the South, and eavesdroppers who love to listen in on someone else's family drama.

    Each night, the dreams grow worse, becoming horrid recreations of the day his childhood died.In 1959, Colin and three friends went camping on the levee, across from the tumbledown old Windsong plantation. When one of the boys disappeared, Colin went searching for him, and was approaching the old estate when he saw what appeared to be a ghost. The next day, he learned a woman had been murdered in the area—an unsolved crime that has haunted him ever since. Decades later, he attempts to solve this forgotten cold case, raking up something even dirtier than the muddy bottom of the Mississippi.

    That was the plan anyway. When Buck noses around in an old missing persons case by way of returning a favor to a neighbor, he unearths more corruption and criminal mischief than he ever suspected the rugged uplands could hide. A departure for T.R. Pearson, East Jesus South is not a comedy. It’s a creepy, unsettling look at the rot beneath the honeyed, 'Aw Shucks' veneer of the American South.

    Written in Noble’s absorbing voice, Show Don’t Tell illustrates how to develop a dramatic framework using similes and metaphors, a focused point of view, steady pacing, increasing tension, and an appeal to the senses to create solid dramatic impact. In other words, how to show, not tell!Perfect for novelists, short story writers, and those interested in writing creative nonfiction.

    After coming within air-kissing distance of a felony charge, Angela is determined to make something of her life. When a sympathetic neighbor offers her work, Angela jumps at the opportunity. She figures it won’t be hard to track down a missing fiancé last seen with two Lady Gaga lookalikes. After all, one of her superpowers is finding badly behaved men. But the trail of the runaway groom has more twists than a bride’s updo. And when Angela uncovers secrets that people will kill to keep hidden, she has to decide the price she’s willing to pay for success. Angela will need to call upon all her charm and cunning—and the deities of her ancient Samoan ancestors—to make sure this professional growth opportunity doesn’t kill her first. Praise: "...An entertaining, unconventional mystery that is difficult to put down. Dara Carr’s Angela Cray Gets Real is a mystery with a decidedly unconventional detective: Angela Cray is broke, living with her mother, desperately in need of a job, and entirely lacking in detective experience. Her story of venturing into this new line of work is stylish, absorbing, and laugh-out-loud funny."—Foreword Clarion Reviews Finalist for a Freddie Award for Writing Excellence from the Mystery Writers of America/Florida chapter.

    “Well written and I was left wanting to read on.... It is certainly an intriguing concept” (Troubador)“Writing is dynamic and fast-paced. There's a definite charm about the novel that, I think, would appeal to the kind of audience cultivated by writers such as Marina Lewycka” (HHB Agency)“What a charming novel. I’m from Dundee myself, and the masterful way you wove together setting and culture was admirable. Your characters, too, were powerful yet compassionate, and the prose had a lovely twisting quality” (Canongate Press)“This is fresh and intriguing” (Andrew Lownie)Mrs Keiller's Marmalade is a book about marmalade, the isolation of old age, respect for tradition and the pain of abandonment. Maggie Keiller is a fictional descendent of John Keiller, the last patriarch of Keiller marmalade, whose clan famously created the first ‘Dundee Marmalade’. She is married John's son Billy Keiller in 1909 but lost him in the same year to a storm which visited their small enclave of Auchobane, a village perched precociously on the Dundee coastline of North-East Scotland. Forward fifty years, and Maggie lives a lonely life in Rose Cottage surrounded only by her jars of fine and vintage homemade marmalade. Her only visitor is Dougie, an elderly grocery man and decorated veteran. Maggie’s life is changed when she unexpectedly receives a letter from her estranged niece in London, asking for haven for her teenage daughter. Maggie takes her on, not out of affection for her niece whom she loathes, but to fill the void left by her childless marriage. Isla arrives in 1969, a year on the cusp of a revolution in the London she has just left, and in her own life, hiding the pregnancy she has kept from her mother. Maggie teaches Isla about her heritage, and hopes to pass on to her the tradition of marmalade making. For Isla, abandoned by mother and lover, and struggling to cope with the imminent arrival of an unwanted child, her bond with Maggie becomes a channel to help regain the self-esteem taken from her over her young years. The book culminates in Isla’s entry into the silver spoon Marmalade competition, fifty years after Maggie Keiller had taken the same prize.

    But these are not the only scars that have resolutely refused to heal. Shortly afterwards, Colonel Mitchell Havilland sacrificed himself on a Falklands hillside in an act of characteristic - but baffling - heroism. When Julia comes home from China fifteen years later, it is to a place of ghosts. Whilst she awaits the outcome of the enquiry that seems destined to end her short but spectacular career in military intelligence, Julia is drawn back across the landscape of the past, to find that it is not just the tortured image of her much-loved father that returns to haunt her. Everything she has ever believed in and lived for has suddenly been called into question, and unless she confronts her demons, she will not survive. For there have been other deaths, and the dead will not sleep... At once a race-against-the-clock thriller and a complex psychological drama where the memories of the past conflict with knowledge of the present, The Sleep of the Dead is a stunning read on any level and more than confirms Tom Bradby as one of this country's foremost thriller writers. Praise for Shadow Dancer: 'Quite exceptional...Tom Bradby succeeds in creating real characters. Far too many novels take refuge in cliché and caricature - Bradby refuses to. The language, the tension, the fear - all are portrayed vividly and correctly...A taut, compelling story of love and torn loyalties'Daily Telegraph 'A remarkable first novel...Bradby handles the tension with skill to produce a gripping tale'The Times 'The best book on the northern conflict since Harry's Game...An excellent read on any level. It scores heavily as a thriller and as an accurate unblinking look at what is happening right now'Irish Independent

    "The book succeeds because the characters are realistic and because Hannah is able to make us care about them".--Houston Post.

    

    The answer sent him into a web of treachery, of ancient secrets and forbidden knowledge, and entangled him in matters far beyond his understanding, until he found himself face to face with the gods of destruction and death.

    Their seafront business is failing with the loss of Genie’s grandmother and her legendary ice cream flavours. Genie is determined to be the one to save her family’s heritage, but suddenly her mother wants to sell to developers and leave their shared history behind.Buying the business and taking on a sixty-eight year old business partner, Ada, with a mysterious past and a gorgeous but distracting grandson, Genie sets out to prove her parents wrong.Ada’s grandson, Cal, wants to protect his gran from ‘pensioner persuader’, Genie, but soon realises that living in a little seaside town and away from the paparazzi in Hollywood can actually give him time to heal. Hiding in a seafront business with its fiery owner and working as kitchen staff, is the only way he can think of to keep his ex-Hollywood glamour-puss, gran from harm. But his meddling might also ruin Ada's second chance at love. Hiring a private detective and learning about Genie’s parent’s past makes Cal regret his own impulsiveness. The information he has unearthed could destroy their blossoming romance and turn Genie’s world upside down.Genie soon discovers that friends can become enemies and your closest family can have lied to you for your whole life.