A mother faith, a child courage, a doctor dedication a moving and thought-provoking tale of hope, love, and family He might be young, but Colm already recognizes the truth: that he sick and not getting better. His mother, Cathleen, fiercely believes her faith will protect her ailing son, but Colm is not so sure. With a wisdom far beyond his years, Colm has come to terms with his probable fate, but he does have one special wish. He wants to meet his father who abandoned his beloved mother before Colm was born. But the quest to find the dying boy missing parent soon becomes a powerful journey of emotional discovery a test of belief and an anxious search for proof of heaven. A magnificent debut novel, Mary Curran Hackett Proof of Heaven is a beautiful and unforgettable exploration of the power of love and the monumental questions of life, death, and the afterlife.

Today is Christmas Eve.Today is my birthday.Today I am fifteen.Today I buried my parents in the backyard.Neither of them were beloved.Marnie and her little sister, Nelly, are on their own now. Only they know what happened to their parents, Izzy and Gene, and they aren't telling. While life in Glasgow's Maryhill housing estate isn't grand, the girls do have each other. Besides, it's only a year until Marnie will be considered an adult and can legally take care of them both.As the New Year comes and goes, Lennie, the old man next door, realizes that his young neighbors are alone and need his help. Or does he need theirsLennie takes them in—feeds them, clothes them, protects them—and something like a family forms. But soon enough, the sisters' friends, their teachers, and the authorities start asking tougher questions. As one lie leads to another, dark secrets about the girls' family surface, creating complications that threaten to tear them apart.Written with fierce sympathy and beautiful precision, told in alternating voices, The Death of Bees is an enchanting, grimly comic tale of three lost souls who, unable to answer for themselves, can answer only for one another.

Nearly six decades ago, Hugh Marston Hefner created Playboy magazine, which effectively ignited America sexual revolution. The greatest living symbol of the Good Life, Hef created a world for himself that most men have yearned to inhabit, if only briefly, just to know what it like to be him. In Hef Little Black Book , this universally envied international icon offers a treasury of his often wry and heartfelt wisdom as it applies to the realms of romance, hedonism, ambition, business and, of course, sex. Accompanied by tantalizing never-before-seen photographs from his vast private archive, Hef Little Black Book is the gateway to Hugh Hefner irresistibly beguiling world. If you don’t swing, don’t ring lingerie and pajamas optional.

A spectacular, modern retelling of the ancient Scottish ballad of Tam Lin—a beguiling fusion of love, fantasy, and myth vividly imagined and steeped in gothic atmosphereTheir creed is "Mischief, Malevolence, and Mayhem." Serafina Sullivan, named for angels and a brave Irish prince, is haunted by dreams of her older sister, Lily Rose, a sprite, ethereal beauty who unexpectedly took her own life. A year has passed since Lily's death, and now eighteen-year-old Finn and her college-professor father have moved back to Fair Hollow, her father's pretty little hometown alongside the Hudson River. Populated with socialites, hippies, and famous dramatic artists, every corner of this quaint, bohemian community holds bright possibilities—and dark enigmas, including the alluring Jack Fata, scion of the town's most powerful family.Jack's smoldering looks and air of secrecy draw Finn into a dangerous romance . . . and plunge her into an eerie world of shadow and light ruled by the beautiful and fearsome Reiko Fata. Exciting and monstrous, the Fata family and its circle of strange, aristocratic denizens wield irresistible charm and glamorous power— a tempting and terrifying blend of good and evil, magic and mystery, that holds perilous consequences for a curious girl like Finn.As she becomes more deeply entwined with Jack, Finn discovers that their lives and those of the ones she loves, including her best friends Christie Hart and Sylvie Whitethorn, are in peril. But an unexpected ally may help her protect them: her beloved sister, Lily Rose. Within the pages of the journal that Lily left behind are clues Finn must decipher to unlock the secret of the Fatas.Yet the wrathful and deadly Reiko has diabolical plans of her own for Finn, as well as powerful allies. To save herself and to free her beloved Jack from the Fatas, Finn must stand up against the head of the family and her clever minions, including the vicious, frightening Caliban—a battle that will reveal shocking secrets about Lily Rose's death and about Finn herself . . .Evocative and spellbinding, rich with legend, myth, and folklore, filled with heroes and villains, ghosts and selkies, changelings and fairies, witches and demons, Thorn Jack is a modern fairy tale and a story of true love, set in a familiar world, where nothing is as it seems.

The Widows' Adventures by Charles Dickinson has de*ive copy which is not yet available from the Publisher.

Twenty-five-year-old Ivy Rowan rises from her sickbed after being struck by the great influenza epidemic of 1918, only to discover that the world has been torn apart in just a few short days.But Ivy's lifelong gift—or curse—remains. She sees the uninvited ones—ghosts of loved ones who appear to her, unasked for and unwelcomed, for they always herald impending death. On that October evening in 1918, Ivy sees the spirit of her grandmother, rocking in her mother's chair. An hour later, she learns her younger brother and father have killed a young German out of retaliation for the death in the Great War of Ivy's other brother, Billy.Horrified, she leaves home and soon realizes that the flu has caused utter panic and the rules governing society have broken down. Ivy is drawn into this new world of jazz, passion, and freedom, where people live for today, because they could be stricken by nightfall. She even enters into a relationship with the murdered German man's brother, Daniel Schendel. But as her "uninvited guests" begin to appear to her more often, she knows her life will be torn apart once again, and terrifying secrets will unfold.

Jonah's Gourd Vine, Zora Neale Hurston's first novel, originally published in 1934, tells the story of John Buddy Pearson, "a living exultation" of a young man who loves too many women for his own good. Lucy, his long-suffering wife, is his true love, but there's also Mehaley and Big 'Oman, as well as the scheming Hattie, who conjures hoodoo spells to ensure his attentions. Even after becoming the popular pastor of Zion Hope, where his sermons and prayers for cleansing rouse the congregation's fervor, John has to confess that though he is a preacher on Sundays, he is a "natchel man" the rest of the week. And so in this sympathetic portrait of a man and his community, Zora Neale Hurston shows that faith, tolerance, and good intentions cannot resolve the tension between the spiritual and the physical. That she makes this age-old dilemma come so alive is a tribute to her understanding of the vagaries of human nature.

New York Times bestselling author Cecelia Ahern's charming new novel explores what happens when "what if" becomes a reality for two strangers whose lives are at a crossroads.How can you know someone you've never metThat's the question haunting Joyce Conway these days. Recovering from a terrible accident and with her marriage in pieces, Joyce is suddenly plagued by an overwhelming sense of déjà vu that makes her feel as if the life she's living is not her own. During the day she has vivid memories of things she's never seen—such as cobblestoned Parisian streets she's never visited—and at night she dreams of a little girl she's sure she's never met. Joyce is convinced she's lost her mind . . . until a series of coincidences leads her on a journey to meet the one person who may hold the answer she needs.Someone's life could be depending on you right now. . . . That's the pitch that finally persuades Justin Hitchcock to donate blood—the first thing to come straight from his heart in a long time.Restless and lonely, Justin chased his ex-wife and daughter from Chicago to London, and now he's in Dublin, guest-lecturing to bored college students. When he receives a basket of muffins with a thank-you note attached, he's sure someone's playing a joke on him, but then the presents keep coming. Intrigued, Justin is determined to solve the mystery—a quest that will change his life forever.Thanks for the Memories is a heartwarming story of hope, love, and second chances—Cecelia Ahern's most magical novel yet.

When it comes to cooking and eating outdoors, I take it to the extreme. I'm a huge fan of monster-size camping trips and full-tilt backyard parties. Whether you're hosting a poolside barbecue, relaxing around the campfire, or tailgating on game day, my favorite outdoor recipes are guaranteed to get your grill going. Deliver a taste of Flavortown in your own backyard with Bacon Wrapped Hot Dogs with Spicy Fruit Relish or Crispy Zucchini Planks with Parmesan and Aioli. Take your tailgating party to the extreme with Asian-Style Fried Chicken and Spicy Cracked Chile Crab. Turn up the heat at the lake with Chorizo and Polenta Casserole and Chipotle Corn Salad with Grilled Bacon. Rock the campground with Smoked Salmon Hash and Old School Baked Beans with Molasses. And celebrate the holidays with Fire-Roasted Margherita Pizza and Brandied Green Peppercorn Hanger Steak.

The Wasteland is a world beyond our own. It is a rough and ragged landscape under a two-moon sky, inhabited by monsters and creatures that could almost pass for human. Into this alternate world unwitting people are brought, from both past and present, for reasons none of them know.Chloe Mattison goes to sleep, drunk and heartbroken, in Washington, D.C., and wakes up in the Wasteland. Chloe is welcomed by Jack and Kitty, brother and sister from a Wild West frontier town. "You're one of us," they tell her, yet neither Jack nor Kitty, nor any of their companions, know why they were chosen.Two questions loom large in all of their minds: Why are we hereIs there a way out of this corrupt, demon-filled worldEqual parts The Matrix and The Wizard of Oz, The Arrivals is a page-turning adventure set in a world you will not soon forget.

When Alexander Cold's mother falls ill, the fifteen-year-old is sent to stay with his eccentric grandmother in New York. A tough and prickly magazine reporter, Kate Cold takes Alex along with her on an expedition to the Amazon to verify the existence of the fierce, gigantic, legendary creature known as the Beast. Joining them on their adventure are a celebrated anthropologist; a local guide and his daughter, Nadia; a doctor; and a local entrepreneur. But not everyone's intentions are pure—and dangerous discoveries await Alex and Nadia as they embark, with the aid of a jungle shaman, on an epic journey into the realm of the mythical Beasts of the Amazon.City of the Beasts is the first book in an extraordinary trilogy by Isabel Allende, one of the world's most acclaimed authors.

Fatigue; weight gain; depression; arthritis; high cholestrol; low sex drive; skin, digestive, and female problems; abnormal blood pressure -- all may be symptoms of low thyroid, one of the most misdiagnosed disorders in America. Thyroid Power can help you determine whether you're one of the millions who suffer from low thyroid. It discusses food, vitamins, and natural remedies that support thyroid health;explains how to avoid environmental and emotional triggers; and offers tips from thyroid support groups. By following this clear 10-step program and working with your health practitioner, you can channel the incredible power of your thyroid into greater health and well-being.

A poignant and satisfying story of hope, Kimberla Lawson Roby's One in a Million beautifully shows us the difference between what we think we want and what we actually need to be truly happy. Kennedi Mason thinks she's the luckiest woman on earth. She loves her job, she has a wonderful best friend, and she's been married for ten years to her soul mate. There's nothing she can think of that could make her life any better.Then one fateful day Kennedi receives a piece of news that will turn her world upside down. She's excited about it, and she knows that her husband, Blake, will be over the moon. He has always dreamed of this one thing happening, and she can't wait until he comes home so she can tell him.But when she sees Blake that evening, he has a special announcement of his own. It shocks Kennedi into silence and wipes the admission she was planning to make right out of her mind. In an instant, her life and her marriage have changed, but not at all in the way that she had expected.

A quiet, haunted man, Paul Cable walked away from a lost cause hoping to pick up where he left off. But things have changed in Arizona since he first rode out to go fight for the Confederacy. Two brothers—Union men—have claimed his spread and they're not about to give it back, leaving Cable and his family no place to settle in peace. It seems this war is not yet over for Paul Cable. But no one's going to take away his land and his future—not with their laws, their lies, or their guns.

An absorbing and compelling work of literary historical fiction, set in colonial Philadelphia, that brings to life a little-known chapter of the American Revolution—the story of Benjamin Franklin and his bastard son, and the women who loved themSixteen-year-old Anne is an uneducated serving girl at the Penny Pot tavern when she first meets the commanding Benjamin Franklin. The time she spends with the brilliant young printer teases her curious mind, and the money he provides keeps her family from starving. But the ambitious Franklin is committed to someone else, a proper but infatuated woman named Deborah Read who becomes his common-law wife. At least Anne has William, her cherished infant son, to remind her of his father and to soften some of life's bleakness.But growing up a bastard amid the squalor of Eades Alley isn't the life Anne wants for her only son. Acutely aware of the challenges facing them, she makes a heartbreaking sacrifice. She will give up William forever, allowing Benjamin and Deborah Franklin to raise him as their own.Though she cannot be with him, Anne secretly watches out for her beloved child, daring to be close to him without revealing the truth about herself or his birth, and standing guard as Deborah Franklin struggles to accept her husband's bastard son as her own.As the years pass, the bustling colonies grow and prosper, offering opportunities for wealth and power for a talented man like William's father. Benjamin's growing fame and connections as a scientist, writer, philosopher, businessman, and political genius open doors for the astute William as well, and eventually King George III appoints Benjamin's bastard son to the new position of Royal Governor of New Jersey. Anne's fortunes also rise. A shrewd woman of many talents, she builds a comfortable life of her own—yet nothing fills her with more joy or pride than her son's success and happiness.But all that her accomplished son has achieved is threatened when the colonies—led by influential men, including his own father—begin the fight for independence. A steadfast, loyal subject of the British Crown, William cannot accept his father's passionate defense of the patriots' cause, and the enduring bond they share fractures, a heart-wrenching break that will forever haunt them and those they love.A poignant tale of passion, family, love, and war, Benjamin Franklin's Bastard skillfully brings into focus a cast of remarkable characters drawn from real life, and vividly re-creates one of the most remarkable and thrilling periods of history—the birth of the American nation.

After a decade of elegant pleasures and luxe living with the Atlanta brothers and sisters with the best clothes and biggest dreams, Ava Johnson has temporarily returned home to Idlewild—her fabulous career and power plans smashed to bits by cold reality. But what she imagines to be the end is, instead, a beginning. Because, in the ten-plus years since Ava left, all the problems of the big city have come to roost in the sleepy North Michigan community whose ordinariness once drove her away; and she cannot turn her back on friends and family who sorely need her in the face of impending trouble and tragedy. Besides which, that one unthinkable, unmistakable thing is now happening to her: Ava Johnson is falling in love.Acclaimed playwright, essayist, New York Times bestselling author, and columnist Pearl Cleage has created a world rich in character, human drama, and deep, compassionate understanding, in a remarkable novel that sizzles with sensuality, hums with gritty truth, and sings and crackles with life-affirming energy.

Cornelia Brown surprised herself when she was gripped by the sudden, inescapable desire to move to the suburbs with her husband. Her mettle is quickly tested by her impeccably dressed, overly judgmental neighbor Piper Truitt—the embodiment of everything Cornelia feared she'd find in suburbia. With Lake, another recent arrival, Cornelia shares a love of literature and old movies—as she forms an instant bond with this warm yet elusive woman and her perceptive, brilliant young son Dev. Acclaimed bestselling author Marisa de los Santos's literary talents shine in the complex interactions she creates between three unforgettable women, deftly entangling her characters in a web of trust, betrayal, love, and loss that challenges them in ways they never imagined.

For several years, Wally Lamb, the author of two of the most beloved novels of our time, has run a writing workshop at the York Correctional Institution, Connecticut's only maximum-security prison for women. Writing, Lamb discovered, was a way for these women to face their fears and failures and begin to imagine better lives. Couldn't Keep It to Myself, a collection of their essays, was published in 2003 to great critical acclaim. With I'll Fly Away, Lamb offers readers a new volume of intimate pieces from the York workshop. Startling, heartbreaking, and inspiring, these stories are as varied as the individuals who wrote them, but each illuminates an important core truth: that a life can be altered through self-awareness and the power of the written word.

Part love story, part murder mystery, set on the cusp of the Second World War, Russell Banks's sharp-witted and deeply engaging new novel raises dangerous questions about class, politics, art, love, and madness—and explores what happens when two powerful personalities, trapped at opposite ends of a social divide, begin to break the rules.Twenty-nine-year-old Vanessa Cole is a wild, stunningly beautiful heiress, the adopted only child of a highly regarded New York brain surgeon and his socialite wife. Twice married, Vanessa has been scandalously linked to any number of rich and famous men. But on the night of July 4, 1936, at her parents' country home in a remote Adirondack Mountain enclave known as The Reserve, two events coincide to permanently alter the course of Vanessa's callow life: her father dies suddenly of a heart attack, and a mysteriously seductive local artist, Jordan Groves, blithely lands his Waco biplane in the pristine waters of the forbidden Upper Lake. . . .Jordan's reputation has preceded him; he is internationally known as much for his exploits and conquests as for his paintings themselves, and, here in the midst of the Great Depression, his leftist loyalties seem suspiciously undercut by his wealth and elite clientele. But for all his worldly swagger, Jordan is as staggered by Vanessa's beauty and charm as she is by his defiant independence. He falls easy prey to her electrifying personality, but it is not long before he discovers that the heiress carries a dark, deeply scarring family secret. Emotionally unstable from the start, and further unhinged by her father's unexpected death, Vanessa begins to spin wildly out of control, manipulating and destroying the lives of all who cross her path.Moving from the secluded beauty of the Adirondack wilderness to the skies above war-torn Spain and Fascist Germany, The Reserve is a clever, incisive, and passionately romantic novel of suspense that adds a new dimension to this acclaimed author's extraordinary repertoire.

From beloved mystery writer Tamar Myers comes an enthralling tale of duty, greed, danger, and miracles in equatorial Africa.The Congo beckons to young Amanda Brown in 1958, as she follows her missionary calling to the mysterious "dark continent" far from her South Carolina home. But her enthusiasm cannot cushion her from the shock of a very foreign culture—where competing missionaries are as plentiful as flies, and oppressive European overlords are busy stripping the land of its most valuable resource: diamonds. Little by little, Amanda is drawn into the lives of the villagers in tiny Belle Vue—and she is touched by the plight of the local witch doctor, a man known as Their Death, who has been forced to take a second job as a yardman to support his two wives. But when First Wife stumbles upon an impossibly enormous uncut gem, events are set in motion that threaten to devastate the lives of these people Amanda has come to admire and love—events that could lead to nothing less than murder.Richly evocative, written with warmth and humor, and based on the author's own experiences, Tamar Myers's The Witch Doctor's Wife is an unforgettable African journey with a spellbinding mystery at its heart.

Sam Gardner never dreamed he would be thanking God for Harmony's self-appointed general of the religious Right, Dale Hinshaw. God does indeed work in mysterious ways. Amanda Hodge, who has been living with her Uncle Ellis and Aunt Miriam since her parents abandoned her years ago, now faces their return and their desire to be a part of her life again. Dale Hinshaw hovers on the brink of death, in dire need of a heart transplant The whole town is abuzz as the beautiful Deena Morrison marries the town's most eligible bachelor, Dr. Pierce. And in the midst of these triumphs and tragedies, Pastor Sam Gardner helps the people of Harmony negotiate the sometimes rocky road of family life, faith, and forgiveness. Although Harmony's characters develop and grow with each novel, one thing remains constant -- Philip Gulley's ability to capture both the flavor of small-town America and the paradoxical beauty of our own humanity.