Welcome to Harmony ...In this acclaimed inaugural volume in the Harmony series, master American storyteller Philip Gulley draws us into the charming world of minister Sam Gardner in his first year back in his hometown, capturing the essence of small-town life with humor and wisdom.

For power. For passion. For glory. The epic story of the knights templar.Born in 1150 to a noble family in the Kingdom of Western G?taland, young Arn Magnusson is marked early on by a miraculous and fateful event. When the boy inexplicably recovers after falling from the parapet of his ancestral home, his mother finds herself beholden to a promise made in a moment of prayer. Arn, second-born son of Magnus Folkesson, will live his life in the service of God—sent from his family to do holy work and to prepare for a position in the priory.At Varnhem monastery, Arn comes of age under the tutelage of Father Henri, a Cistercian monk devoted to his aristocratic pupil's education. However, grammar, math, and logic are not the only lessons: Brother Guilbert, the monastery blacksmith and former Knight Templar, finds Arn adept at training of a very different kind. Observing the boy's extraordinary talent with horse, sword, and bow, Father Henri, trusting in God's will, sends his charge into the world to fulfill a destiny that lies beyond the cloister walls.Returning home, Arn finds his monastic habits at odds with his clan's old and tested ways. Yet his family soon discovers that Arn has learned more than poetry and farm work, and he proves himself useful at a time when he is needed most. The murder of a king has brought Western G?taland into a whirlwind of intrigue, and cunning lords from East and West are vying for power. And, when Arn meets the lovely Cecilia, he discovers this new and dangerous world holds other surprises too. Before he can claim her hand, however, the headstrong and na?ve noble makes a fateful mistake that will wrench him from his love and send him to a foreign war—to the Holy Land to battle infidels for twenty years.From the frozen landscapes of Northern Europe to the bloody battlefields of the Middle East, Arn will face brave knights, powerful queens, and treacherous kings. The first book in the international bestselling Crusades Trilogy, this thrilling epic of betrayal, faith, blood, and love sets "a Shakespearian quest for power" (Corriere della Sera, Italy) against the backdrop of the Holy Wars, witnessed through a vibrant, unorthodox lens.

Renowned beauty expert Nadine Haobsh has the answers to the world's really BIG questions:How much should I tip my hair stylist (and the shampoo girl and the colorist)?How red can I go before my lips make me look too vampy?What's the best perfume for my lifestyle?What's the proper method for using that most important beauty accessory, the eyelash curler?Is it ever too early to get Botox?Forget celebrity trends and complicated how-to books. In Beauty Confidential, Nadine names names and provides the inside scoop on the products that are worth it and those to forget. In this must-have handbook for the modern girl, she offers industry secrets and insider tips on everything beauty—from how to make a dye job last to finding the ideal mascara to creating the perfect ponytail—fearlessly debunking with wit, style, and smarts the common beauty myths perpetuated by the top magazines. With Nadine's expert guidance and priceless secrets, you'll learn how to put yourself together flawlessly in under ten minutes . . . and you'll have the best skin and hair at any age!

Marcy Mallowitz has just been dumped -- big time! Marcy's orthodontist boyfriend, Neil, blew a gasket during an appearance on So You Want to Be Filthy Rich!, the stratospheric television phenomenon and top-rated quiz show of all time. When Marcy incorrectly answered his $1.75 million Lifeline question, Neil immediately broke off their preengagement, abruptly terminating their three-year relationship -- in front of twenty million people coast to coast! Suddenly Marcy isn't just Marcy anymore. The thirtysomething Barnard Phi Beta Kappa and Personal Life Coach is now the nationally renowned victim of America's "Big Brush-Off." Media hounds are clamoring for interviews. The street in front of her West Village apartment is swarming with paparazzi sharks. And everyone -- everyone -- knows her name, even if only as the punchline to late-night talk-show jokes. Marcy, who has made a career of improving other peoples's lives, could now use some serious help reclaiming her own. But where does she turnTo her lovable, meddling, marriage-oriented momTo her protective dad, who dreams of Marcy joining the family roach extermination companyTo her two decidedly oddball best girlfriendsMarcy Mallowitz's fifteen minutes of fame are lasting a lot longer than she would ever have dreamed possible. And now she'll either have to find someplace to hide from the all-seeing, unblinking media eye...or agree to expose herself to the world, à la Survivor's naked fat guy. A dazzling debut novel as winning and smart as it Is uproariously funny, Dorothy Samuels's Filthy Rich is an unprecedented delight -- a story of women, men, friends, and mothers; of fame and romance in the early twenty-first century; and of that contemporary nemesis of modern love: reality TV.

Enter into the worlds of fifteen young women who, despite their vastly different circumstances, seem to negotiate an eerily similar and unavoidably dangerous emotional terrain. With a visceral bite or a surreal edge, each electrically charged story in Circling the Drain presents women trying to understand the nature of loss--of leaving or being left--and discovering that in the throes of feverish conflict, things are rarely what they seem. By turns dark and lyrical, ferocious and playful, these stories are precise, startling, and undeniably original. Reading them is a cathartic, mesmerizing literary experience.

Meet The Saving Graces, Four Of The Best Friends A Woman Can Ever Have.For ten years, Emma, Rudy, Lee, and Isabel have shared a deep affection that has helped them deal with the ebb and flow of expectations and disappointments common to us all. Calling themselves the Saving Graces, the quartet is united by understanding, honesty, and acceptance—a connection that has grown stronger as the years go by . . .Though these sisters of the heart and soul have seen it all, talked through it all, Emma, Rudy, Lee, and Isabel will not be prepared for a crisis of astounding proportions that will put their love and courage to the ultimate test.

As far as her family and friends are concerned, Frieda has been the grieving widow for long enough. At 35, she's still (relatively) young, still (adequately) attractive. Her sex drive is very much alive; even Frieda admits she'd like to put it to use again. Besides, she has a son who certainly needs a father figure. With visions of the perfect second husband in mind, Frieda's sisters start to send eligible males in her direction.Big sister Ilene -- herself substantially married -- has found the ultimate unattached catch: a gorgeous, independently wealthy, successful, divorced father, pillar of society and paragon of potential. What more could a single mom ask forApparently a lot more than loved ones realize. Frieda's own efforts bear very tasty fruit. Sam is young, talented, devoted, and incredibly sexy -- though broke, only sporadically employed, and clueless about kids. But he makes Frieda feel brand-spanking-new, in a most wonderfully wanton way. When all is said and done, does Frieda really need the "perfect man" ... or the far-from-ideal man who's perfect for her?

To Mia, the devastating proof is right there on her boyfriend's cell phone. In the dead of night she discovers Pete—her lover, her soul mate, her future—is having an affair. Instead of waking him with accusations, Mia begins to look for answers. What woman wouldn't want to know everything, after allBut her desperate search only begins a frightening series of lies and deceptions. Everything important to Mia may be on the line, but she's also about to cross it. Desperation, obsession, and heartache can only lead to catastrophe, and if the cold, hard truth is not what Mia imagines, pursuing it could be the worst mistake she has ever made. Just how far is too far?

For eight hundred years Nicolas Montfaucon has dedicated his life to preventing the rebirth of an immortal evil. But now a terrible storm has assaulted unsuspecting New Orleans—and the beast walks the earth once more. "The Devourer" has been awakened, and there is only one in the besieged city who can help Nicolas defeat the foul creature—a mysterious and beautiful enigma who haunts the handsome Revenant's erotic waking dreams and enflames his passionate obsessions. Chessa Tomas is not an ordinary policewoman. A vampire, she works only at night, patrolling a seamy and unseen underworld of roiling chaos. Though Nicolas is sensuality incarnate, Chessa wants no part of him or his kind—but she cannot close her eyes to the unholy malevolence that would consume their world. And Nicolas has uncovered the secret lust that rules her—a steaming, uncontrollable desire he intends to unleash, bending Chessa to his will by making her most forbidden fantasies real.

Rue Shaw has everything--a much loved child, a solid marriage, and a job she loves. Saying Grace takes place in Rue's mid-life, when her daughter is leaving home, her parents are failing, her husband is restless and the school she has built is being buffeted by changes in society that affect us all. Funny, rich in detail and finally stunning, this novel presents a portrait of a tight-knit community in jeopardy, and of a charming woman whose most human failing is that she wants things to stay the same. Saying Grace is about the fragility of human happiness and the strength of convictions, about keeping faith as a couple whether it keeps one safe or not. Beth Gutcheon has a gift for creating a world in microcosm and capturing the grace in the rhythms of everyday life.

New York, 1943: Aspiring actress Rosie Winter has been marooned in New York throughout the war. Now, faced with the news that her ex-boyfriend Jack might not be coming home again, she's desperate to leave the home front and head for the war front. So when Rosie and her best pal Jayne get an offer to go to the South Pacific to perform with USO Camp Shows, they jump at the chance.But being a greasepaint soldier isn't as easy as they had hoped. Not only are the cast members surly, the schedules inhumane, and the housing conditions primitive but they also have to travel with a major—and majorly difficult—Hollywood star. But none of that is as bad as living in a war zone, and when tragedy strikes, Rosie and Jayne are left wondering if they are being targeted by the enemy or if something far more sinister is afoot.

Question: What do Amy, the new mom; Meriel, the West-Indian housekeeper; Claude and Naomi, the alternative couple; Faith, the elegant widow; and Talia, the super-skinny ballerina have in commonAnswer: Abso-freakin'-lutely-nothing! Except that they all live lives of not-so-quiet desperation on the Upper West Side of New York City. What gets them throughTheir unusual therapy sessions with supershrink Susan Lederer, held in the depths of the laundry room. Susan knows that all of life's problems eventually come out in the wash, but while the washers keep breaking down, she helps her female friends take control. But Susan's life has become an agitated mess. Her teenage daughter seems destined for a fast-food future; her son's adolescence hasn't quite hit yet . . . and her perfect husband is hiding something. Susan could use a really good shrink. Instead, her dirty linen exposed, she finds that it's her friends who rally 'round her, and by the final spin, she realizes that while it might not take a whole village, it does sometimes take a laundry room to get rid of the nastier wrinkles in life. Now if only she could find the formula for getting rid of that ring around the collar.

A woman is faced with the past she's tried to put behind her only to find that what transpired in her childhood has never been further away than her own shadow.The year is 1941. Rooted in the lonely outreaches of the Allegheny Mountains lies the town of Hyde Bend. Its heart: a steel mill; its bones: the tight community of Polish immigrants who inhabit it; and its blood: their fierce Catholic faith. But buried in the town's soul is a dangerous secret surrounding the death of a revered priest.Upon returning to Hyde Bend, a young woman accidentally uncovers the truth behind this crime, which leads to a second murder. The town quickly erupts in fear and finger pointing. The girl is forced to unravel the now-intertwined mysteries and discovers her own family at the center. Now she must confront all she holds sacred if she is to save her family and herself in this story of lost innocence, transgression, faith, and forgiveness.

Toby Maytree first sees Lou Bigelow on her bicycle in postwar Provincetown, Massachusetts. Her laughter and loveliness catch his breath. Maytree is a Provincetown native, an educated poet of thirty. As he courts Lou, just out of college, her stillness draws him. Hands-off, he hides his serious wooing, and idly shows her his poems. In spare, elegant prose, Dillard traces the Maytrees' decades of loving and longing. They live cheaply among the nonconformist artists and writers that the bare tip of Cape Cod attracts. When their son Petie appears, their innocent Bohemian friend Deary helps care for him. But years later it is Deary who causes the town to talk.In this moving novel, Dillard intimately depicts willed bonds of loyalty, friendship, and abiding love. She presents nature's vastness and nearness. Warm and hopeful, The Maytrees is the surprising capstone of Dillard's original body of work.

For years, painter Isabel Raven has made an almost-living forging Impressionist masterpieces to decorate the McMansions of the not-quite-Sotheby's-auction rich. But when she serendipitously hits on an idea that turns her into the "It Girl" of the L.A. art scene, her career takes off just as the rest of her life heads south. Her personal-chef boyfriend is having a wild sexual dalliance with the teenage self-styled "Latina Britney Spears." If Isabel refuses to participate in an excruciatingly humiliating ad campaign, her sociopathic art dealer is threatening to "gut her like an emu." And her reclusive physicist father has conclusively proven that the end of the world is just around the corner. Now, with the Apocalypse looming—and with only a disaffected Dutch-Eskimo billionaire philanthropist and his dissolute thirteen-year-old adopted daughter to guide her—there's barely enough time remaining for Isabel to reexamine her fragile delusional existence . . . and the delusional reality of her schizophrenic native city.

Caroline Clemens comes to a scandalous arrangement with Dominic Savage. Penniless and responsible for four younger siblings following the death of their debt-ridden father, she agrees to become the willing plaything of this darkly dangerous man who has saved her family from the workhouse and in repayment, she will fulfill his every physical need. . . eagerly and without hesitation.Rather than feel shamed by her long fall from innocence, Caroline finds her new life exhilarating for Savage is a remarkably skilled lover who knows the secret places to enter, taste, and touch that will drive a woman to new heights of ecstasy. He would never falsely promise her a wedding unlike her faithless fiance, who betrayed, insulted, and abandoned her. And she will repay his honesty with night after torrid night of delicious erotic games, taking their passion further than either of them ever dreamed possible.But Dominic will not be satisfied with owning Caroline's ripe and luscious body, for he secretly desires the one thing that she dares not surrender to him. Dominic wants Caroline's heart. . . and he will not rest until she succumbs.

Still unattached and childless at fifty-nine, world-renowned anthropologist Gray Kaiser is seemingly invincible—and untouchable. Returning to make a documentary at the site of her first great triumph in Kenya, she is accompanied by her faithful middle-aged assistant, Errol McEchern, who has loved her for years in silence. When sexy young graduate assistant Raphael Sarasola arrives on the scene, Gray is captivated and falls hopelessly in love—before an amazed and injured Errol's eyes. As he follows the progress of their affair with jealous fascination, Errol watches helplessly from the sidelines as a proud and fierce woman is reduced to miserable dependence through subtle, cruel, and calculating manipulation.

From the acclaimed writer whose first novel , Private Altars,, comes a story of driving lyrical force set in Manhattan in the 1950s.When he is expelled from boarding school, Gabriel Gibbs is sent to live with his older brother Spencer in New York. Rather than a punishment, this becomes an exhilarating invitation to a dazzling world, from smoking cigars at the Plaza Hotel to weekend house parties filled with tennis and cocktails. It is in this heady atmosphere—from white-gloved Park Avenue to literary Greenwich Village—that Gabriel first glimpses the elusive Lillian Dawes. Free-spirited and mysterious, Lillian captures the imaginations of those in "all the best circles," including both brothers. As their lives entwine, so begins the powerful and poignant unraveling of innocence. "There is, in most lives, a defining moment, a point dividing time into before and after...." Mosby beautifully traces the trajectory of consequence that will change all three lives. The Season of Lillian Dawes is a wondrous novel that chronicles a young man's first tour of the adult world.

For the uninitiated, the quincea era celebrates the passage of a fifteen-year-old girl into adulthood: It's a bit bat mitzvah with a dash of debutante ball, and loaded with the same potential for hilarity and adolescent angst. In this original anthology, fifteen of the brightest and funniest Latino writers, men and women alike, share their own memories of these moving and often absurd extravaganzas tales of that unique form of familial humiliation that is borne of the best intentions, fierce love, and the infectious joy of parents finally allowing their little girl to grow up.

Austin Murphy knows a thing or two about football. His twenty-three years at Sports Illustrated include six covering the NFL and a decade chronicling the college game. In Saturday Rules, Murphy leaves no doubt as to which beat he preferred. Does the NFL have better athletesYes. Does it entail more direct flightsUndoubtedly. Which game is better, more entertaining, less predictableIt's not even close college football wins by two touchdowns. With rich traditions and deep passions marching bands and menageries of living, breathing animal mascots; arm-long lists of ancient blood grudges college football is far more captivating, fan-friendly, and, frankly, more fun than the corporate, clinical, risk-averse, imitation-intensive, hermetically sealed game they play on Sunday.No two programs are more storied than Notre Dame and USC, headed by those ex-NFL rivals and philosophical (and physiological) opposites Charlie Weis and Pete Carroll, perhaps the biggest names in the college game. With the inside scoop on these top-ranked teams, Murphy closely follows their arcs through the 2006 season, up to their late-November showdown in the L.A. Coliseum. He puts you in the field, in the meeting room, and in the huddle as both teams fight to keep alive their national title ambitions.Between trips to South Bend and Los Angeles, Murphy ranges repeatedly into Big Ten country, hooking up with Michigan and Ohio State, whose November 17 collision in Columbus constitutes one of the book's most memorable chapters. He ventures into the proud SEC, bearing witness to Florida's single loss of the season (and the ensuing "rolling" of Toomer's Corner). He is in the Rose Bowl for the season's most stunning upset (UCLA 13, USC, 9), and is in that grand old bowl a month later, as the Trojans are born anew. Murphy is on the field after the national title game, asking the Gators how they pulled off the upset. ("This is a fast . . . ass . . . team!" replies linebacker Brian Crum.) And he makes it his business to drop in on the Boise State Broncos after their miraculous, trick-play-intensive upset of Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl.Whether hanging out with members of the Ohio State marching band (including the senior sousaphonist, who will "dot the i" in the Buckeyes' famed cursive Ohio), or sampling the frighteningly potent "Gator-Killer punch" at TGFKATWLOCP (The Game Formerly Known as the World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party), or staying up past his bedtime to witness Notre Dame's midnight drum circle, Murphy is the perfect guide for this rich and raucous celebration of the pageantry and tradition, the talismans and rituals, that prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that when it comes to football, Saturday rules.

An ideal gift book with personality and charm, Bertha Venation is a legendary editor's lifetime collection of the amazing names of actual people, with his own inimitable wit, commentary, and stories.Roger Gotobed . . . Ida Slaptor . . . Formica Dinette . . . Honeysuckle Weeks . . . Gay Beach . . . Sappho Clissit . . . Dimple MysteryThis colorful collection of extraordinary names, sure to please every lover of miscellany, features: Celebrity Children, Weirdest Names in Sports, Aptly Named Professionals, Literary Highlights, Funny Name Marriages, Places and Houses with Strange Names, Long and Meaningless Names, and Pets.Barbara Fatt Heine . . . P. Enis . . . Razzle and Dazzle . . . Moondog . . . Casa Enima . . . Phydeaux . . . Phat Ho . . . Fitz Funfrock . . . Mone't Elysea Ann . . . and Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg