A funny, bittersweet, yet heartwarming novel about friendship, family, and finding love in the Facebook age—not to mention the perils, pitfalls, and dubious pleasures of life as a modern young single woman—from Erin Duffy, the author of the acclaimed Bond GirlEver since she was a little girl, Abby Wilkes dreamed of her wedding, the day when she'd wear a pretty white dress and look like a princess. . . .But that was before her life fell apart for the entire world to see. Her longtime boyfriend-turned-fiancé, Ben, unceremoniously dumped her—changing his status to single on Facebook—while she was trying on the most gorgeous Vera Wang dress for the big day. Six months and twenty pounds later, the usual remedies—cupcakes, a freezer stocked with pints of Ben and Jerry's, sweatpants, and a comfy couch—haven't worked their magic. Worried about her best friend, Grace devises the perfect plan to get Abby back on her game. The two of them are going to escape sweltering Boston and its reminders of Ben and head to Newport for the summer. In a quaint rented cottage by the sea, the girls will enjoy cool breezes, cocktails, and crowds of gorgeous men. But no matter which way they turn, Abby and Grace discover that in this era of social media—when seemingly everyone is preserving every last detail of their lives online and prying eyes are everywhere—there is no real escape. Truth to tell, dating has never been easy. But now that the rules have changed and the boundaries are blurred beyond recognition, will they ever find true loveAnd if they do, how can romance stand a chance when a girl's every word and move can go viral with a single clickAs the summer winds down to Labor Day, Abby will make some surprising discoveries—about love, men, friendship . . . and, most important, herself.

She is Nefertiti—beautiful and revered. With her husband, Akhenaten, she rules over Egypt, the most affluent, formidable, sophisticated empire in the ancient world. But an epic power struggle is afoot, brought on by the royal couple's inauguration of an enlightened new religion and the construction of a magnificent new capital. The priests are stunned by the abrupt forfeiture of their traditional wealth and influence; the people resent the loss of their gods—and the army is enraged by the growing turbulence around them. Then, just days before the festival that will celebrate the new capital, Nefertiti vanishes.Rahotep, the youngest chief detective in the Thebes division, has earned a reputation for his unorthodox yet effective methods. Entrusted by great Akhenaten himself with a most secret investigation, Rahotep has but ten days to find the missing Queen. If he succeeds, he will bask in the warmth of Akhenaten's favor. But if Rahotep fails, he and his entire family will die.

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.

Winner in 2001 of Canada's two most prestigious literary awards -- the Governor General's Award and the Giller Prize -- Richard B. Wright's celebrated novel Clara Callan is the powerful, moving story of two sisters and their life-changing experiences on the eve of World War II. It is the year 1934, and in a small town in Canada, Clara Callan reluctantly takes leave of her sister, Nora, who is bound for the show business world of New York. It's a time when people escape from reality through radio and the movies, when the Dionne Quints make headlines, when the growing threat of fascism in Europe is a constant worry, and the two sisters -- vastly different in personality yet inextricably linked by a shared past -- try to find their place within the complex web of social expectations for young women in the 1930s. While Nora embarks on a glamorous career as a radio soap opera star, Clara, a strong and independent-minded woman, struggles to observe the traditional boundaries of a small and tight-knit community without relinquishing her dreams of love, freedom, and adventure. But Nora's letters eventually begin to reveal that her life in the big city is a little less exotic than it may seem: though her career is flourishing, her free spirit is curbed by a string of fairly conventional and unsuccessful personal relationships. Meanwhile, the tranquil solitude of Clara's life is shattered by a series of unforeseeable events, turns of fate that require all of Clara's courage and strength, and that will put the seemingly unbreakable bond between the sisters to the test. Ultimately, both discover not only the joys of love and possibility, but also the darker side of life -- violence, deception, and loss -- lurking just beneath the surface of everyday experience. Clara Callan is a mesmerizing tribute to friendship and sisterhood, romance and redemption, written with such insight and passion that the characters' stories will remain with you long after you have read the last page.

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.

Before the sweet delight of Chocolat, before the heady concoction that is Blackberry Wine, and before the tart pleasures of Five Quarters of the Orange, bestselling author Joanne Harris wrote Sleep, Pale Sister -- a gothic tourde-force that recalls the powerfully dark sensibility of her novel Holy Fools.Originally published in 1994 -- and never before available in the United States -- Sleep, Pale Sister is a hypnotically atmospheric story set in nineteenth century London. When puritanical artist Henry Chester sees delicate child beauty Effie, he makes her his favorite model and, before long, his bride. But Henry, volatile and repressed, is in love with an ideal. Passive, docile, and asexual, the woman he projects onto Effie is far from the woman she really is. And when Effie begins to discover the murderous depths of Henry's hypocrisy, her latent passion will rise to the surface.Sleep, Pale Sister combines the ethereal beauty of a Pre-Raphaelite painting with a chilling high gothic tale and is a testament to Harris's brimming cornucopia of talents.This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.

Newly Revised and Updated—Unleash your life force with the power of cleansing!Holistic chef and cleanse expert Adina Niemerow reveals the key to de-stressing, detoxing, clearing your mind, and revitalizing your body: by tapping into the miracle benefits of a cleanse. Updated with important new information and Adina’s fantastic new Super Slim-Down Cleanse, Super Cleanse can help us reboot and rejuvenate when our stressful schedules leave us feeling physically and emotionally drained. Here are eleven comprehensive cleanse experiences for both the beginning and the veteran cleanser, including more than one hundred delicious recipes for juices, soups, smoothies, salads, main dishes, and side dishes, with full menus for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. There’s also a precleanse checklist, ways to ease the detox process, a rundown on the best juicers, tips for how to get the most out of your cleanse, and first-person success stories from Adina’s happy clients. Super Cleanse offers mini-retreats for the body, mind, and spirit and an enjoyable and effective way to jump-start your health and reenergize your life.

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.

When Jo Slater, one of the grandest of New York's grandes dames and great patron of the arts, befriends a young French countess against the warnings of her friends, she's asking for trouble. But by the time Jo discovers the truth about the mysterious newcomer, it's already too late. Abruptly dethroned and dispossessed—knocked from her pedestal by the treacherous young woman she took under her wing—Jo finds herself an outcast in the privileged world she once ruled.But she's not about to surrender her throne and her fortune so easily. Reaching back into the eighteenth century, Jo concocts an elegant and ingenious scheme involving Marie Antoinette and the greatest historical swindle of all time. In order for her plan to work, however, Jo must resort to the most desperate of all measures: murder.A compulsively readable novel that scales the heights and plumbs the depths of the New York social scene, Social Crimes also tells a riveting tale of mystery and manners, obsession and revenge.

Jo Slater, once the grandest of New York's grandes dames, has made a miraculous comeback from the brink of social obscurity—and is living the good life again.While in Barbados, as a guest at the most lavish high-society wedding of the year, Jo is contemplating a romance with a dashing British aristocrat when her old friend Russell Cole, a fabulously wealthy art collector, disappears from his yacht. Jo suspects foul play; the perfectly manicured fingers of Russell's latest wife, Carla, are all over the so-called accident.And back in Manhattan, as Carla climbs the social ladder with astonishing speed and ruthlessness, Jo discovers that a mysterious figure from her own past has resurfaced and seems hell-bent on bringing her down once and for all. But when it comes to the cunning manipulation of the Park Avenue set, crossing Jo Slater is always a very dangerous endeavor.

Based on her lauded commencement address at Sarah Lawrence College, this stirring essay by bestselling author Ann Patchett offers hope and inspiration for anyone at a crossroads, whether graduating, changing careers, or transitioning from one life stage to another. With wit and candor, Patchett tells her own story of attending college, graduating, and struggling with the inevitable question, What now?From student to line cook to teacher to waitress and eventually to award-winning author, Patchett's own life has taken many twists and turns that make her exploration genuine and resonant. As Patchett writes, "'What now?' represents our excitement and our future, the very vitality of life." She highlights the possibilities the unknown offers and reminds us that there is as much joy in the journey as there is in reaching the destination.

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.

Wisdom and Humor from the Front PorchMaster storyteller Philip Gulley shares tender and hilarious real-life moments that capture the important truths of everyday life.When Philip Gulley began writing newsletter essays for the twelve members of his Quaker meeting in Indiana, he had no idea one of them would find its way to radio commentator Paul Harvey Jr. and be read on the air to 24 million people. Fourteen books later, with more than a million books in print, Gulley still entertains as well as inspires from his small-town front porch.

Girls are disappearing in Botswana. The rumor is they're being harvested for muti, a witch doctor's potion traditionally derived from plants and animals—and which, some believe, can be made more potent by adding human remains. Detective David "Kubu" Bengu joins the investigation with the police force's newest detective—and only woman—Samantha Khama, for whom the case is personal.Soon one girl's father, convinced that his daughter's death is linked to the recent popularity of a political candidate, takes the law into his own hands. After the father flees, what Kubu and Samantha find in the politician's home confirms their worst fears: muti containing human DNA is real.Now Kubu and Samantha are thrust into a harrowing race to stop a serial killer or killers—and those who would pay for their special, lethal muti.

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.

Sweeping across centuries and into the Aleutian Islands of Alaska's Bering Sea, And She Was begins with a decision and a broken taboo when three starving Aleut mothers decide to take their fate into their own hands. Two hundred and fifty years later, by the time Brandy, a floundering, trashy, Latin-spewing cocktail waitress, steps ashore in the 1980s, Unalaska Island has absorbed their dark secret—a secret that is both salvation and shame. In a tense interplay between past and present, And She Was explores Aleut history, mummies, conquest, survival, and the seamy side of the 1980s in a fishing boomtown at the edge of the world, where a lost woman struggles to understand the gray shades between heroism and evil, and between freedom and bondage.

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.

Master storyteller Philip Gulley returns to the winsome ways of Harmony, Indiana, the small Midwestern town that captured the hearts of readers in his acclaimed debut novel, Home to Harmony. Just Shy of Harmony follows the happenings of an eventful year spanning two Easters, in which Quaker pastor Sam Gardner and the members of his flock discover surprising answers to life's challenging mysteries. Sam has an unexpected crisis of faith -- will he overcome itDoes the future of the church really lie with Pastor Jimmy of the Harmony Worship Center and sermons like "Ten Mutual Funds Jesus Would Die For"Will Wayne Fleming resolve his conflicted love for the beautiful lawyer Deena Morrison, owner of The Legal Grounds Coffee Shop, where ten dollars buys you a cup of coffee and the answer to any two legal questionsAll the lovable Harmony characters are here, with all their homely charms. Readers will discover a secret illness, learn of a surprise lottery recipient, and laugh at the progress of Dale Hinshaw's ill-hatched Scripture-egg ministry. When Easter dawns, all will expect a miracle in Harmony.

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.

Lizzie Nichols is back, pounding the New York City pavement and looking for a job, a place to live, and her proper place in the universe (not necessarily in that order). When "Summer Fling" Luke uses the L word (Living Together), Lizzie is only too happy to give up her plan of being postgrad roomies with best friend, Shari, in a one-room walk-up in exchange for cohabitation with the love of her life in his mother's Fifth Avenue pied-à-terre, complete with doorman and resident Renoir. But Lizzie's not as lucky in her employment search. As Shari finds the perfect job, Lizzie struggles through one humiliating interview after another, being judged overqualified for the jobs in her chosen field—vintage-gown rehab—and underqualified for everything else. It's Shari's boyfriend Chaz to the rescue when he recommends Lizzie for a receptionist's position at his father's posh law firm. The nonpaying gig at a local wedding-gown shop Lizzie manages to land all on her own. But Lizzie's notoriously big mouth begins to get her into trouble at work and at home almost at once—first at the law firm, where she becomes too chummy with Jill Higgins, a New York society bride with a troublesome future mother-in-law, and then back on Fifth Avenue, when she makes the mistake of bringing up the M word (Marriage) with commitment-shy Luke. Soon Lizzie finds herself jobless as well as homeless all over again. Can Lizzie save herself—and the hapless Jill—and find career security (not to mention a mutually satisfying committed relationship) at last?

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.