Some of the details in this fictional penning are true. Some of the details are exaggerated and are simply the work of the author's imagination. What is clearly evidenced in this novel is the coldness of a mother's heart and the madness of her cruelty. The mind cannot comprehend lives the children depicted here were forced to endure: from black punishment closets of hell, kitchen tables used for crudely performed operations, to a high sierra execution by fire. The terror is real. The pain is vicariously felt. Unbelievable? Yes, it is unbelievable that such depravity, such MAMA'S MADNESS exists in our world. Accept the embellishments with the truth.Let this novel be a 'silent siren' to be ever alert in your environment - children and adults alike!

    In her new collection, gifted poet and novelist Kim Addonizio uses her literary powers to bring to life a variety of settings, all connected through the suggestion that things in the known world are not what they seem.In “Beautiful Lady of the Snow,” young Annabelle turns to a host of family pets to combat the alienation she feels caught between her distracted mother and ailing grandfather; in “Night Owls,” a young college student’s crush on her acting partner is complicated by the bloodlust of being half-vampire; in “Cancer Poems,” a dying woman turns to a poetry workshop to make sense of her terminal diagnosis and final days; in “Intuition,” a young girl’s sexual forays bring her closer to her best friend’s father; and in the collection’s title story, a photographer looks back to his youth spent as a young illusionist under the big tent and his obsessive affair with the carnival owner’s wife.The stories in this collection have appeared in journals ranging from Narrative Magazine to The Fairy Tale Review, and include the much loved "Ever After," which was featured on NPR's "Selected Shorts."Distracted parents, first love, the twin forces of alienation and isolation: the characters in The Palace of Illusions all must contend with these challenges, trafficking in the fault lines between the real and the imaginary, often in a world not of their making.

    Yet despite the distinctive differences from poem to poem, Bernstein's characteristic explorations of how language both limits and liberates thought are present throughout. Modulating the comic and the dark structural invention with buoyant soundplay, these challenging works give way to poems of lyric excess and striking emotional range. This is poetry for poetry's sake, as formally radical as it is socially engaged, providing equal measures of aesthetic pleasure, hilarity, and philosophical reflection. Long considered one of America's most inventive and influential contemporary poets, Bernstein reveals himself to be both trickster and charmer.

    Heart - warming and compulsive reading, this is an entertaining, lively and moving novel from one of New Zealand's favourite authors.

    When Robert Creeley died in March 2005, he was working on what was to be his final book of poetry. In addition to more than thirty new poems, many touching on the twin themes of memory and presence, this moving collection includes the text of the last paper Creeley gave—an essay exploring the late verse of Walt Whitman. Together, the essay and the poems are a retrospective on aging and the resilience of memory that includes tender elegies to old friends, the settling of old scores, and reflective poems on mortality and its influence on his craft. On Earth reminds us what has made Robert Creeley one of the most important and affectionately regarded poets of our time.

    Yet, everything turns upside down when the spell explodes in their faces. Dulce’s prayer seems to be answered. She meets a delicious hunk of an Alpha shortly after. There are just a few problems—he’s a hybrid, he might be married, and has a daughter. Derek has had enough of having his heart broken. Looking for a fresh start to focus on his daughter, he relocates his pack to a place where hybrids are welcome. Still, he wasn’t expecting to find a sexy shewolf who made his heart beat faster than ever. Meeting Dulce, sets off an avalanche of emotions that Derek has never felt before. But as a single father, he swore to put his child above all else. Can he keep his promise and not give in to temptation one last time?

    The court, the country and the world are waiting to meet his fiancée. The trouble is, he hasn’t got one. He needs a fake, and fast.Rhian Rothe is trapped. With her dreams of stage stardom in tatters, she needs a new opportunity—enough to agree to play Cinderella to an arrogant prince. But this is no fairytale, and Rhian’s not the one who needs to be rescued. If Prince Less-Than-Charming wants her help, he’d better start acting like it.Sparks fly as soon as the pair meet at the palace, and it turns out that the only thing Cor hates more than lying to his country is working with Rhian. But nothing is as it seems in the royal court—and, no matter what, the show must go on.Rescuing the Prince is a sweet contemporary romance novel for fans of fairytales, tiaras and happy endings.

    Frantic, he calls on the Honolulu Chief of Police Walter Tseng, demanding that the perpetrator be brought to justice as swiftly and silently as possible, fearful a scandal might destroy whatever chance he still has at gaining re-election.Blackmailed into complicity and unable to draw from his active force, Tseng calls in Kalani Lewis, a young detective three months off the job. Still battling her own demons from an investigation that resulted in the death of her partner, Kalani is forced back into action, pulled into a life she isn’t certain she still wants to be a part of, a family friend that was once a military policeman and now a full-time surfer as her only support.Inch by inch they work their way through the investigation, navigating mounting crime scenes and intense bureaucratic pressures as the election looms ever closer, the killer growing more emboldened by the day…

     The season is rife with tasks and obligations. Shopping, cleaning, cooking, and parties...you need some downtime. So, cue up your favorite holiday album and stoke up a blazing fire. Grab your preferred beverage and a bowl of freshly popped corn, and immerse yourself in murderous fun from a dozen goddesses of mystery, mayhem, and murder. Deck the halls with mystery, hear sleigh-bells in the bloody snow, wish for a merry murder, and make this holiday season your very own with this fun collection of cozy mystery novellas featuring Ava Mallory, Carolyn Ridder Aspenson, Jenna St. James, K.M. Waller, Laina Turner, Rachael Stapleton, Sam Cheever, Stephanie Damore, Susan Boles, Tara Meyers, Tricia L. Sanders, and Wendy Meadows. Get your copy now!

    But despite his lack of recognition, Mr. Hennen...has simply gone about his calling with humility and gratitude in a culture whose primary crop has become fame. He just watches, waits and then strikes, delivering heart-buckling lines.” —Dana Jennings, The New York Times"As with Ted Kooser, Tom Hennen is a genius of the common touch. . . . They are amazingly modest men who early accepted poetry as a calling in ancient terms and never let up despite being ignored early on. They return to the readers a thousandfold for their attentions."—Jim Harrison, from the introduction"Many readers will appreciate this evocation of a life not as commonly portrayed in contemporary verse."—Library Journal"There is something of the ancient Chinese poets in Hennen, of Clare and Thoreau, although he is very much a contemporary poet."—Willow Springs"One of the most charming things about Tom Hennen's poems is his strange ability to bring immense amounts of space, often uninhabited space, into his mind and so into the whole poem."—Robert Bly"America is a country that loves its advertising. That loves its boxes we can put people and places into. We love 'Heartland' as opposed to 'Dustbowl.' We also love to be surprised. Rural Minnesota, as written by Tom Hennen in Darkness Sticks to Everything, is a world of realistic loneliness and lessons. It’s a collection of sincere poems about man and the land."—The Rumpus"Hennen is a master of the prose poem [who] can take little details, tiny details and make them universal."—River Falls Journal"What separates Hennen from many of his contemporaries is his willingness to identify with the natural world in a way that feels neither possessive nor self-serving, but simply (once again) sincere."—Basalt Magazine"There is something strong in all Tom Hennen's poems, an awareness and a clear, sure voice... I don't usually want to end by saying 'Buy this book,' but I'm going to say it this time: 'You should buy this book.'"—Fleda Brown, Interlochen Public Radio, "Michigan Writers on the Air"Tom Hennen gives voice to the prairie and to rural communities, celebrating—with sadness, praise, and astute observations—the land, weather, and inhabitants. In short lyrics and prose poems, he reveals the detailed strangeness of ordinary things. Gathered from six chapbooks that were regionally distributed, this volume is Hennen's long-overdue introduction to a national audience. Includes an introduction by Jim Harrison and an afterword by Thomas R. Smith."In Falling Snow at a Farm Auction"Straight pine chairComfortableIn anyone's company,Older than grandmotherIt enters the presentIts arms wide openWanting to hold another young wife.Tom Hennen, author of six books of poetry, was born and raised in rural Minnesota. After abandoning college, he married and began work as a letterpress and offset printer. He helped found the Minnesota Writer's Publishing House, then worked for the Department of Natural Resources wildlife section, and later at the Sand Lake National Wildlife Refuge in South Dakota. Now retired, he lives in Minnesota.

    A Christian romance.

    Life is good - nice and tidy. Until, that is, on her fiftieth birthday when her boyfriend does the unthinkable: He proposes. Libby's been down the marriage road before and it just didn't work. While she's trying to persuade her guy to keep things status quo, she reconnects online with her high-school boyfriend and begins an email correspondence...just for fun.But fun soon turns to flirtation and Libby is startled to feel some stirrings of the passion she felt at seventeen. How is that possible? She thought she had things all figured out. Now she must take stock of her life and everyone in it, to answer for herself the question everyone has been asking --What more could you wish for?

    First appearing on YouTube, the video of Wendy Francisco's charming animated illustrations and moving song tells of the unconditional love of both God and Dog. With over 2 million YouTube viewings to date, Francisco's story appeals to all ages, to animal enthusiasts, to people of religious persuasions, and especially to anyone who has been loved by a dog.Now in book format, Wendy's touching narrative will be expanded on through additional lyrics, illustrations, photographs and some of the powerful mail that is continually being sent to Francisco.

    We witness scenes of passionate, even violent intensity that give rise to meditations on eros and literature, the solitariness of travel, and the poetics of place.These individual pieces, most of which first appeared in The London Review of Books and won an international cult following, are by turns "poignant, surreal, down home and lyrical, a mixture of qualities that inheres in his language with uncommon delicacy and effect" (Leonard Michaels). Together they make up an intellectual and emotional autobiography on the run. The book's final section, about Kleinzahler's adored, doomed older brother, is unforgettable, and since its appearance last year in the LRB, has already entered the literature as one of the most moving contemporary memoirs.

    As the bushfires continued to rage into the new year on an unprecedented scale, Ben, feeling angry, helpless and broken-hearted as he watched the devastation from across the ocean, sat down and put his feelings into words. To My Country is an ode to the endurance of the Australian spirit and the shared love of our country.In the true Aussie spirit, Ben and Allen & Unwin will be donating proceeds of To My Country to The Koala Hospital.