An inspirational story about the allure of fame and the faith that binds a family forever . . .Delilah Monroe has done everything in her power to keep her three daughters strong since the death of her husband. And a big part of that connection is their singing group, Delilah's Daughters. Veronica, Roxanne, and Alisha each have their own unique sense of self, but they all share the dream of Delilah's Daughters hitting the Billboard charts.Now, just as they enter the final round of a national talent show, a record producer approaches Veronica with the promise of fame . . . if she goes solo. Then the man Delilah has always leaned on wants more from her than just friendship, and someone from her past comes calling with a shocking secret. Will Delilah be able to hold her family together?

In the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, prose magician Michael Chabon conjured up the golden age of comic books -- intertwining history, legend, and storytelling verve. In The Final Solution, he has condensed his boundless vision to craft a short, suspenseful tale of compassion and wit that reimagines the classic nineteenth-century detective story.In deep retirement in the English country-side, an eighty-nine-year-old man, vaguely recollected by locals as a once-famous detective, is more concerned with his beekeeping than with his fellow man. Into his life wanders Linus Steinman, nine years old and mute, who has escaped from Nazi Germany with his sole companion: an African gray parrot. What is the meaning of the mysterious strings of German numbers the bird spews out -- a top-secret SS codeThe keys to a series of Swiss bank accounts perhapsOr something more sinisterIs the solution to this last case -- the real explanation of the mysterious boy and his parrot -- beyond even the reach of the once-famed sleuth?Subtle revelations lead the reader to a wrenching resolution. This brilliant homage, which won the 2004 Aga Khan Prize for fiction, is the work of a master storyteller at the height of his powers.

Jane Charlotte has been arrested for murder. She tells police that she is a member of a secret organization devoted to fighting evil; her division is called the Department for the Final Disposition of Irredeemable Persons—"Bad Monkeys" for short.This confession earns Jane a trip to the jail's psychiatric wing, where a doctor attempts to determine whether she is lying, crazy—or playing a different game altogether. What follows is one of the most clever and gripping novels you'll ever read.

The day after they moved in, Coraline went exploring.... In Coraline's family's new flat are twenty-one windows and fourteen doors. Thirteen of the doors open and close. The fourteenth is locked, and on the other side is only a brick wall, until the day Coraline unlocks the door to find a passage to another flat in another house just like her own. Only it's different. At first, things seem marvelous in the other flat. The food is better. The toy box is filled with wind-up angels that flutter around the bedroom, books whose pictures writhe and crawl and shimmer, little dinosaur skulls that chatter their teeth. But there's another mother, and another father, and they want Coraline to stay with them and be their little girl. They want to change her and never let her go. Other children are trapped there as well, lost souls behind the mirrors. Coraline is their only hope of rescue. She will have to fight with all her wits and all the tools she can find if she is to save the lost children, her ordinary life, and herself. Critically acclaimed and award-winning author Neil Gaiman will delight readers with his first novel for all ages.

Welcome to Salt Lick, Texas, home of big hair,big ranches, and two of the biggest busybodies everto wield a blow-dryer—Debbie Sue and Edwina,also known as the Domestic Equalizers. Their motto:Don't run over him—get over him! Their mission: Track down and expose your straying man. And theywon't stop until female domestic justice is served.Debbie Sue Overstreet and Edwina Perkins-Martin have never encountered a problem that couldn't be fixed with a strong margarita, a whole lot of hairspray, and an ear for gossip. They've learned that you'll only find a straying spouse—or solve a crime—by keeping your senses alert. After all, every red-blooded Texas woman knows ears are more than just a place to hang your diamond earrings!Newcomers stand out in Salt Lick like a preacher in a liquor store, and all ears—and eyes—are on Paige McBride and Spur Atwater. Paige arrived in town with nothing more than two hundred dollars in her pocket and a Cadillac SUV packed with designer clothes. Her oil-rich daddy has cut her off without a penny and now it's time for her to get one of those real jobs.The Domestic Equalizers know that Paige and her Barbie-doll looks are gonna stir things up. Soon every cowboy, trucker, and even one of Debbie Sue's ex-boyfriends, a rodeo star, is knocking on Paige's door. And, at just about the time she turns up to start her job tending the best cutting horses in Texas, the horses start disappearing from all the local ranches.Paige discovers she actually likes her work. After all, horses are more loyal than most men. But she doesn't like Spur, the new town veterinarian. Besides being movie-star good-looking, Spur's an ex–football star. Women of all ages love the new vet, and suddenly, more cats and dogs are getting sick than ever before.Working on the ranch means Paige can't avoid the man, and all those disappearing horses bring her together with the Domestic Equalizers. Edwina and Debbie Sue think that Spur and Paige make the cutest couple—whether they're too bull-headed to realize it or not. But finding themselves knee-deep in the muck of a horse-thievin' and husband-cheatin' escapade is a whole other issue. No doubt about it, hearts are definitely going to get broken, but if these gals have anything to do with it, the hairstyles around town are still gonna look great!

When a dying mother hears the voice of her son thirty years after his death in Vietnam, she recalls the promise he made in 1968 as he boarded a military plane headed overseas: that one day again she would hear his voice. But it is not until she learns about the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C., that she is able to decipher Jesse's mysterious message. Alicia realizes she must journey to the wall to touch her son's name and honor his memory, and like a spark kindling a new flame, her decision inspires her warring children to join her. Let Their Spirits Dance is the story of a family's journey across America toward reconciliation and hope. Seen through the eyes of Alicia's newly divorced schoolteacher daughter, Teresa, the story uncovers Teresa's own belief, as revealed to her by Don Florencio, ancient seer and mystic, that Jesse would one day return in a new form. Among others joining Alicia and Teresa on the trip are Jesse's ex-addict brother Paul, his flamboyant sister Priscilla, and his whiz-kid nephew Michael, whose talk of parallel universes suspends reality, connecting the living with the dead. The cross-country trip gathers old friends of Jesse's, garners the good wishes of strangers and elicits media coverage from coast to coast. With questions about Jesse's death that were never fully explained by the military, along with a mysterious plaguing phone call received from Vietnam two years after he died, the family comes to realize that the Wall is the magnet luring them on: the answers are there. Stella Pope Duartes stunning debut novel portrays a family struggling with the universal scars suffered by all who have been touched by death through war. With this novel, Pope Duarte connects family, friends, and an entire nation with the names on the Wall, honoring the men and women who served in Vietnam as well as those left behind who watched and waited, but never forgot.

Four stories of sisterhood—the bonds, the wars, the frustrations, the love—seasoned with hot Latin spice! Those "Wild Orihuela Girls," Dori and her sister Sela, intend to live up to their reputation—and more!—in order to give their snooty sister-in-law-to-be exactly what she deserves on her wedding day . . . Till Death Do Us Part by Mary Castillo Anita Suarez is only seeking comfort after losing her dream job and carefree lifestyle, but finds that her old-fashioned sister Susana has abandoned her family to run off to Sin City with a college hunk. Now it's up to Anita to bring Susu back to reality and keep the younger man's sexy big brother at bay . . . What Stays in Vegas by Berta Platas Michelle Saez is a total straight-arrow by day—but at night, she lives a shocking double life in leather as Madame Michelina. And her scandalous secret could very well derail her attorney sister Jennifer's bid for elected office . . . Whipped by Sofia Quintero Popular talk-radio queen Marisol Avila can't keep her mouth shut—and she's airing her sister Cristy's dirty laundry to millions of listeners nationwide. It's going to take more than Cristy's unwanted fifteen minutes of fame to repair this sisterly rift and re-connect siblings who are seriously . . . Diss-Connected by Lynda Sandoval

A Hollywood insider draws from his four decades of experience to create a scathingly brilliant and caustically comedic bird's-eye view behind the scenes of comedy television.A wickedly delicious roman-a-clef about the making of a sitcom called My Urban Buddies, this satirical romp of a novel portrays life on the other side of the television lens, hilariously sending up self-serious Hollywood stereotypes across the board.Programmed-for-success director J. T. Baker has to bring an up-and-coming sitcom to fruition after its initial director shoots himself in the head with a nail gun. Comically annotated with helpful and enlightening Hollywood glossary terms ("Creative-type director: One who has no hope of working in this town again"; "Eccentric: Affecting a style of dress, coiffure, speech, mannerisms, etc., carefully calculated to give the impression of creative credibility"), Benson creates an exaggerated world of crazy writers; backstabbing executives, agents, and producers; foul-mouthed everyone-elses; and hardcore cynics—and the ridiculous inner monologues behind them.

When three best friends come together for their sorority sister's tony wedding on New Year's Eve, they make a vow at the stroke of midnight to get married within one year. As the three women embark on their search to find their soul mates, they navigate the full-contact sport known as being a SSBFDLA (successful, single, black, female dating in L.A.) and negotiate the shark-infested waters of making a name for themselves in Hollywood. Can Trista, the hyper-driven celebrity agent, find the time to schedule a meaningful romanceWill Amaya, the sexy starlet, convince the married hip hop–label exec she has been seeing to leave his wife and slip a ring on her finger or will the NBA star steal her heart in the final secondsAfter undergoing a complete makeover, will Vivian, the jaded gossip columnist, win back the father of her child?Set against the seductive backdrop of money, power, and sex, The Vow follows these women as they discover that their desire to find a husband isn't as important as finding themselves.

From New York Times bestselling author A. Manette Ansay comes an unforgettable story of two families united by tragedy -- and one woman's deeply emotional journey toward a choice she'd never thought possible.On an ordinary morning in Fox Harbor, Wisconsin, Meg and Rex Van Dorn's lives are irrevocably altered when a drunk driver -- Meg's onetime best friend, Cindy Ann Kreisler -- slams into the Van Dorns' car, killing their six-year-old son, Evan. As Meg recovers from her own injuries, she and Rex are shocked when Cindy Ann receives a mere slap on the wrist. In their rage and grief, they buy a boat to sail around the world, hoping to put as much distance as possible between themselves and Cindy Ann. But when Meg returns to Fox Harbor for a family wedding, she's forced to face the complex ties that bind her to the woman who has destroyed her peace.

Fourteen-year-old Jamie will never forget the summer of 1976. It's the summer when she has her first boyfriend, cute surfer Flip Jenkins; it's the summer when her two best friends get serious about sex, cigarettes, and tanning; it's the summer when her parents throw, yes, naked swim parties, leaving Jamie flushed with embarrassment. And it's the summer that forever changes the way Jamie sees the things that matter: family, friendship, love, and herself.Includes an excerpt from Jessica Anya Blau's The Wonder Bread Summer

Here comes the bride . . . there goes the groom.Penny Bracket waited two years to marry dream man Bram Shiraz. Then on the morning of the Big Day, while she's trying on her veil, Penny receives the worst two-line letter of her life: "Penny, I can't go through with it. Sorry, Bram."Penny's hurt and upset. But Esther, Penny's divorced mom, wants Bram's head on a platter. So Mom ambushes the cold-footed coward before he hot-foots it out of town, bonks him on the head with a champagne bottle, and spirits him away to a hidden room in her gargantuan mansion in Short Hares, New Jersey. Esther doesn't want much. All Bram has to do is write personal, heartfelt apologies to each of the two hundred disappointed wedding guests . . . and eat every mouthful of the very expensive gourmet wedding feast that has gone to waste. Then he'll be free to leave.Penny doesn't want Bram tortured. She just wants answers to "why" . . . and maybe a little revenge. Will she discover her runaway groom is locked away in the atticWill Bram's widowed father—handsome tough-guy Keith Shiraz—be able to locate his missing son . . . and maybe seduce Esther Bracket in the bargainWill Bram be able to maintain his athletic figure after consuming two hundred entrées and thousands of baby quichesRead on!

A husband can be good for a number of things:Companionship (when he's home)Household repairs (if he's handy)Good loving (if you're lucky), but . . . no girl needs a husband seven days a week!Marie needs her "stay-at-home husband" to clean the house and babysit the kids, so she can take care of business coast-to-coast . . . and enjoy some harmless flirting on the side.Mai's perfectly content to be the perfect wife to a successful corporate superstar—throwing lavish parties and organizing gala charity fundraisers. But it's funny how quickly everything can change with just a single phone call . . . from prison!And high-powered ad exec Kennedy believes the best husband is no husband at all. Hot encounters with a succession of studs keep her going strong as she climbs to the top of her profession.A spouse is fine as long as he doesn't screw up the rest of your life. Now three lovely ladies who think they have this "husband" thing all worked out are about to learn that, when it comes to love and marriage, "perfection" can always be improved upon. And it's going to be one wild ride!

Emily has a tendency to live with one foot out the door. For her, the best thing about a family crisis is the excuse to cut and run. When her mother dramatically announces they've found a lump, Emily gladly takes a rain check on life to be by her mother's side, leaving behind her career, her boyfriend, and those pesky, unanswerable questions about who she is and what she's doing with her life. But back in her childhood bedroom, Emily realizes that she hasn't run fast or far enough. One evening, while her mother calls everyone in her Rolodex to brief them on her medical crisis and schedule a farewell martini, Emily opens the door, quite literally, to find her past staring her in the face. How do you forge a relationship with the father who left when you were five years oldAs Emily attempts to find balance on the emotional seesaw of her life, with the help of two hopeful suitors and her Park Avenue Princess sister, she takes a no-risk job as a receptionist at her father's law firm and slowly gets to know the man she once pretended was dead. From the brainy, breezy writer who "writes like a professional comic" (The Onion) and is "hard to stop reading once you start" (USA Today) comes a laugh-out-loud tale that confirms you can recover from your parents, the bad habit of missed opportunities, and men who romance you with meat. When opportunity knocks, it's time to stop running and start living.

Today is Monday. The calls do not come as before. Weeks elapse between them, and when I answer the phone there is no overlap of voices, only my mother's. She spends much of the conversation avoiding mention of the pink elephant trumpeting in the middle of the room.The pink elephant would be my defection to Georgia. When I telephoned with the news of my imminent relocation my father asked, "Georgia, as in the Republic of Georgia by the Black Sea, or Georgia as in the Peach State?" He hoped I meant the former because that Georgia promised unique opportunities to advance the democratic cause of justice. What could Georgia, former land of the Confederacy, offer?Convicting arsonists and thieves in Macon, Georgia, was never Harvard Law grad Natalie Goldberg's dream. The pay is abysmal, the work is exhausting, and the humidity is hell for a woman with curly hair. But when a steamy romance with her high-powered New York boss went bad, Natalie jumped at the first job offered, packed her bags, and headed south.Natalie's leftist Yankee background brands her a conspicuous outsider in this insular community. Her father, a famous civil rights lawyer, refuses to accept her career change—or talk to her. Her best friend begs her to come back home, and Natalie keeps thinking she sees her former lover everywhere. But Natalie's not completely alone. There are a garden-obsessed neighbor, a former beauty queen–turned–defense attorney, and a handsome colleague who has a nervous tic whenever she gets near. And then there's a capital case that has her eating antacids by the truckload.Yep, it's going to be one heckuva long, hot summer. . . .

Powerful, elegant, moving, and suspenseful -- the drama of an aged Boston matriarch's unlikely bond with her young caregiver and the buried secrets that haunt her Meet Madeline Bemis, dowager of one of Boston's oldest Brahmin families: gracious, distinguished, refined. Meet Dr. Alice Matthews, resident psychiatrist at the Montrose Psychiatric Hospital: young, smart, passionate, and desperately in search of her own identity. When Alice finds the elderly Mrs. Bemis curled up on a bed in Filene's furniture department, suffering from an apparent breakdown, she immediately wants to help, and arranges to have Mrs. Bemis brought to Montrose. As her therapist, Alice is soon probing deeper into Mrs. Bemis's past than she ever expected, pushing the formidable woman to reveal her shadowy psychological history. Through memories and dreams, Alice and Mrs. Bemis begin to piece together a heartbreaking saga, replete with shameful secrets and forgotten sorrows, that reaches all the way back to the 1940s, and turns out to be unexpectedly linked to a recent unsolved murder. The two women are drawn to each other in a way that goes far beyond the ordinary doctor-patient relationship, and as their intimacy deepens, Alice realizes that Mrs. Bemis's recovery -- and perhaps even her safety -- depends on her coming to terms with her secret history. In the tradition of Susan Minot's Evening and Anna Quindlen's One True Thing, The Education of Mrs. Bemis is a mesmerizing and riveting story of friendship, murder, and romance, beautifully told and ultimately redemptive.

Paranoid yet judiciously reasonable, innocent yet calculating, strange yet strangely endearing, Emmet Barfield finds the world around him looming larger and larger the more he struggles to make his way within it. With Emmet as our guide, Force of Gravity transforms the world through a solitary consciousness until the reader's perceptions become as inverted as if seen through a modern version of Alice's looking glass.Emmet's world is a place where shopping in a market requires the cunning of a carefully considered crime, where a bustling city street in summer appears as desolate as a forgotten wasteland, where a stray cat adopted for company becomes as menacing as one's darkest foe, and where a mother and son riding a ski lift suddenly find themselves dizzy with the threat of death. Through his eyes, the world becomes newly alive with the terrible vividness and weird beauty of an undiscovered territory.

A collection of offbeat, funny, and often moving backstories of the many entertainers and athletes covered by award-winning Newsweek journalist Allison Samuels, Off the Record reveals the inner worlds of today's A-list black celebrities.With anecdotes on everyone from Snoop Dogg, Shaquille O'Neal, Denzel Washington, Eddie Murphy, and Whitney Houston, this "all-access" book is filled with insightful stories that never made it into the pages of the mainstream press.From her start at CAA's infamous agent training program which included tasks such as blowing up 200 dinosaurs for the lobby when Steven Spielberg made a quick visit, and picking up Ted Danson's half-million-dollar weekly paycheck there was no chore too small. But these humble beginnings gave Samuels access to Hollywood's A-list and led to her eventual focus on the world of black entertainers.

Weis was taught football by some of the best minds in the game: Bill Parcells and Bill Belichick. Parcells would give him a life-defining break in 1990 by hiring him as an assistant on the New York Giants staff. For a Jersey guy who loved sports, this was a dream come true, especially when Weis won his first championship in his debut year in the NFL. He'd always wanted to be a sports announcer the next Marv Albert but he'd caught the coaching bug and was now in a position to learn from the best. And he did, following Parcells to the New England Patriots and then to the New York Jets. Under enormous pressure and exacting standards, Weis flourished and later became offensive coordinator.When Parcells stepped down as coach of the Jets, Weis joined his colleague and friend Bill Belichick, who was the newly named Patriots head coach. Together they would thrive, building a storied franchise, a rare modern-day dynasty that won three Super Bowls in four years. Through it all, Weis designed offensive schemes that would befuddle even the best defenses in the NFL, and he coached a number of players to greatness, including Pro Bowlers Ben Coates, Curtis Martin, and, of course, Tom Brady.The chance of a lifetime arrived in December of 2004: Weis was offered the opportunity to lead one of the most prestigious football schools in the country, Notre Dame home of coaching legends Knute Rockne, Frank Leahy, Ara Parseghian, Dan Devine, and Lou Holtz. And so began a new chapter in Weis's career. Weis took over a program in dire need of direction, and now he is in the process of building his own legacy with his unique vision.Off the field, Weis faced his other challenges. Seeking to improve his health and lose weight, he decided to get gastric bypass surgery. What he thought would be a routine procedure turned into a nightmare as he nearly bled to death, lapsed into a coma, and was read the last rites. It was a horrifying experience, yet he battled back in inspiring fashion and still demands nothing less of himself despite the long-lasting aftereffects.He has had his joys, too. Weis considers his wife, Maura, his best friend. They have two beautiful children: Charlie, his "best buddy," and Hannah, who he and his wife consider their "guiding angel." Hannah is developmentally delayed and has been the inspiration leading to the establishment of Hannah and Friends, a nonprofit foundation seeking to improve the quality of life for people with special needs. No Excuses is not only illuminating and insightful, it is an extraordinary look inside one of football's greatest minds who has helped shape today's game.

Rob Ryder made that pledge to his wife, and he was determined to stick to it. As technical consultant on blockbuster sports films, he had seen up close how the film business works and what kind of chaos can, and usually does, ensue. And now he was ready to take it on!Hollywood Jock is the suspenseful, dramatic, outrageous, and honest true story of the year when Rob Ryder, screenwriter, laid it all on the line -- and kicked, scratched, wheeled, dealed, and fought like hell to hit the Tinseltown big time. It is a chronicle of schmoozing producers, shopping screenplays, corralling sports legends, and dodging irate actors -- a fascinating perspective on the highs, the very lows, and the behind-the-scenes madness that makes the world of Hollywood so endlessly compelling . . . and infamously brutal.

Bill Parcells was living in self-imposed exile from the National Football League sidelines. The Tuna had earned living-legend status after coaching the Giants, Patriots, and Jets from the skid-row district of the NFL and transforming those teams into champions. The final weeks of the 2002 season found Parcells working as an analyst at the ESPN studios. His heart aching, Parcells was like a televangelist with no cripples to heal. The Tuna urgently yearned for another lost cause.In Dallas, Cowboys' owner Jerry Jones described by author Mike Shropshire as "a man involved in a heroic struggle to overcome what had been diagnosed as a terminal face-lift" was suffering through sleepless nights. Although his once-proud pro football powerhouse traveled beneath a banner that read "America's Team," it had suffered three straight 5-11 seasons. This team was so sick, it had bedsores.After a clandestine meeting aboard Jones's private jet, parked at a New Jersey airport, Parcells agreed to abandon his East Coast roots and travel south to restore life to the Cowboys. The Tuna and Jones needed each other in the worst kind of way, so a shotgun wedding was performed. The pundits of the national media joined hands and shouted, "Parcells and Jones can't stand each other! They're too set in their ways! It'll never work!"As usual, the pundits were wrong. With Parcells the ultimate motivator and so-called Jock Whisperer applying his craft, Dallas rolled to a 10-6 regular-season record and shocked the NFL by making the playoffs. When the Tuna Went Down to Texas details the saga of how this unlikely partnership of men "too brittle for tango lessons, but not yet blind enough for assisted living" amazed the sports world and serves as absolute proof that while the truth is not always stranger than fiction, it's usually a lot funnier.