From New York Times bestselling author Cynthia Hand comes a gorgeous, heart-wrenching novel of love and loss, which ALA Booklist called "both shatteringly painful and bright with life and hope" in a starred review.Since her brother, Tyler, committed suicide, Lex has been trying to keep her grief locked away, and to forget about what happened that night. But as she starts putting her life, her family, and her friendships back together, Lex is haunted by a secret she hasn't told anyone—a text Tyler sent, that could have changed everything.In the tradition of Jay Asher's Thirteen Reasons Why, Gayle Forman's If I Stay, and Lauren Oliver's Before I Fall, The Last Time We Say Goodbye is a thoughtful and deeply affecting novel that will change the way you look at life and death.

In this intricate novel of psychological suspense, a chilling discovery near the high school ignites a witch hunt in a southeast texas refinery town, unearthing communal and family secrets that threaten the lives of the town's girls.In Port Sabine, the air is thick with oil, superstition reigns, and dreams hang on making a winning play. All eyes are on Mercy Louis, the star of the championship girls' basketball team. Mercy seems destined for greatness, but the road out of town is riddled with obstacles. There is her grandmother Evelia, a strict evangelical who has visions of an imminent Rapture and sees herself as the keeper of Mercy's virtue. And then there are the cryptic letters from Charmaine, the mother who abandoned Mercy at birth.At the periphery of Mercy's world floats team manager Illa Stark, a lonely wallflower. Like the rest of the town, Illa is spellbound by Mercy's beauty and talent, but a note discovered in a gym locker reveals that Mercy's life may not be as perfect as it appears.The last day of school brings the disturbing find, and as summer unfolds and the police investigate, every girl becomes a suspect. At the opening game of the season, Mercy collapses—and Evelia prophesies that she is only the first to fall. Soon other girls are afflicted by the same mysterious condition, sending the town into a tailspin and bringing Illa and Mercy together in an unexpected way.Evocative and unsettling, The Unraveling of Mercy Louis charts the downfall of one town's golden girl while exploring the brutality and anxieties of girlhood in America.

An abandoned baby, a glorious old Newport mansion, and awakening romance swirl the glittering waters of Breakwater Bay . . . Preservationist Meri Hollis loves her latest project, restoring one of Newport's forgotten Gilded Age mansions. And with summer approaching, she'll be able to spend more time with her grandmother on the Rhode Island shore. She has a great job, a loving family, and she's pretty sure her boyfriend is going to propose on her thirtieth birthday.But everything Meri believes about family, happiness, truth, and love is shattered when her family's darkest secret is exposed. Thirty years before, Meri's neighbor and friend, Alden Corrigan, took his father's dinghy out to fish. In a sudden storm, he rushed to help a woman stranded on the breakwater. She was just a girl . . . a very pregnant girl who disappeared soon after they reached safety—but not before she left behind a special gift. Now that the truth is out, life will change for everyone in Breakwater Bay, and Meri and Alden will have to make decisions that could ensure their future together . . . or separate them for good.

When a group of friends reunite in the idyllic beach town where they grew up, they must reevaluate their loyalty to one another or lose their friendship foreverTwelve years ago, Vanessa "Van" Moran fell in love and lost her virginity—but not to the same boy. She fled Whisper Beach desperate and pregnant, never telling a soul about her secret. Now a professional Manhattan organizer, she must return home for the first time to attend the funeral of her best friend's husband. Van intends to only stay for a weekend, but her plans fall by the wayside as the troubles of this coastal town draw her in.Dorie, the owner of the pier's infamous Blue Crab Restaurant where Van and her friends worked as teenagers, enlists Van's help to save the nearly bankrupt eatery. While Van throws herself into this new task, the man she once loved reenters her life, willing to pick up where they left off.As the restaurant begins to thrive and Van reconnects with old friends, trouble comes from an unexpected source and she realizes she must face the decisions of her past or sacrifice this new life she has so carefully built.For Van, this summer will test the meaning of friendship and trust—and how far love can bend before it breaks.

The fourth fun installment in the Debutante Dropout series finds ex-debutante Andy Kendricks following a cold lead into a hot Dallas strip club.Renegade rich girl Andy Kendricks isn't the belle of any Dallas ball—and that's just the way the debutante dropout likes it! She's got a good life and a great man: her defense attorney boyfriend, Brian Malone. Brian's such a straight arrow that he had to be dragged kicking and screaming to a close friend's bachelor party at a sleazy local "gentlemen's club."So why is the groom-to-be saying that Brian left the bacchanal arm-in-arm with the hottest body in the Lone Star StateAnd what was that hot body doing stone-cold dead in the trunk of Brian's carAnd where is Brian, anywayThe cops are looking for Andy's allegedly unfaithful/possibly homicidal beau, who hasn't been seen since the party. But Andy can't believe her upstanding lover is a murdering fool, and she's determined to prove it—though she may end up with a lot more broken than just her heart.

The acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of The Most Dangerous Thing, I'd Know You Anywhere, and What the Dead Know returns with an addictive story that explores how one man's disappearance echoes through the lives of the five women he left behind—his wife, his daughters, and his mistressDead is dead. Missing is gone.When Felix Brewer meets nineteen-year-old Bernadette "Bambi" Gottschalk at a Valentine's Day dance in 1959, he charms her with wild promises, some of which he actually keeps. Thanks to his lucrative—if not all legal—businesses, she and their three little girls live in luxury. But on the Fourth of July in 1976, Bambi's comfortable world implodes when Felix, facing prison, vanishes. Though Bambi has no idea where her husband—or his money—might be, she suspects one woman does: his devoted young mistress, Julie. When Julie disappears ten years to the day after Felix went on the lam, everyone assumes she's left to join her old lover—until her remains are discovered in a secluded park.Now, twenty-six years later, Roberto "Sandy" Sanchez, a retired Baltimore detective working cold cases for some extra cash, is investigating her murder. What he discovers is a tangled web of bitterness, jealousy, resentment, greed, and longing stretching over five decades. And at its center is the man who, though long gone, has never been forgotten by the five women who loved him: the enigmatic Felix Brewer.Felix Brewer left five women behind. Now there are four. Does at least one of them know the truth?

Ferals is the first book in a dark, action-packed trilogy that’s part The Graveyard Book, part Batman, and all high-octane adventure.Blackstone was once a thriving metropolis. But that was before the Dark Summer—a wave of violence and crime that swept through the city eight years ago, orchestrated by the fearsome Spinning Man. Now the Spinning Man is on the move again, and a boy named Caw is about to be caught in his web.Caw has never questioned his ability to communicate with crows. But as the threat of a new Dark Summer looms, Caw discovers the underground world of Blackstone’s ferals—those with the power to control animals. Caw is one of them. And to save his city, he must quickly master abilities he never knew he had . . . and prepare to defeat a darkness he never could have imagined.

The author of Please Don't Come Back from the Moon and My American Unhappiness delivers his breakout novel: a deft and hilarious exploration of the simmering tensions beneath the surface of a contented marriage that explode in the bedrooms and backyards of a small town over the course of a long, hot summerIn the sweltering heat of one summer in a small Midwestern town, Claire and Don Lowry discover that married life isn't quite what they'd predicted.One night Don, a father of two, leaves his house for an evening stroll, only to wake up the next morning stoned and lying in a hammock next to a young woman he barely knows. Meanwhile, his wife, Claire, leaves the house to go on a midnight run—only to find herself bumming cigarettes and beer outside the all-night convenience store.As the summer lingers and the temperature rises, this quotidian town's adults grow wilder and more reckless while their children grow increasingly confused. Claire, Don, and their neighbors and friends find themselves on an existential odyssey, exploring the most puzzling quandaries of marriage and maturity. When does a fantasy become infidelityWhen does compromise incite resentmentWhen does routine become boring monotonyCan Claire and Don survive everything that befalls them in this one summer, forgive their mistakes, and begin again?Award-winning writer Dean Bakopoulos delivers a brutally honest and incredibly funny novel about the strange and tenuous ties that bind us, and the strange and unlikely places we find connection. Full of mirth, melancholy, and redemption, Summerlong explores what happens when life goes awry.

Jen Larsen, author of the critically acclaimed memoir Stranger Here and a subject of the Oprah Winfrey Network TV show In Deep Shift with Jonas Elrod, tells a liberating story of hard-won self-acceptance—a tale of one girl, who knows that weight is just a number, and that no one is completely perfect.This is a distinct, complex debut from a new voice in YA with an unforgettable main character whose doubts and insecurities will resonate with readers, and shed light on the dangers of taking on others' expectations instead of your own.Underscored by a fierce intelligence and a dry, disarming wit, Future Perfect will satisfy fans of such authors as Maureen Johnson.

This second book in the acclaimed Bliss trilogy mixes the down-home heart-punch of Ingrid Law's Newbery Honor Book Savvy, the always-on-the-edge-of-chaos comedy of Cheaper by the Dozen, and a humorous magic all its own to create a thoroughly original confection to please every reader's sweet tooth!The Bliss family's magical Cookery Booke was stolen by evil Aunt Lily at the end of Bliss, the first novel in the series. Now twelve-year-old Rosemary has a chance to win it back: she challenges her aunt to an Iron Chef-style international baking competition in Paris. But the only way to beat the cheating Aunt Lily is to gather magical ingredients of her own. Together with her brothers and their talking cat and mouse, Rose races across Paris—from the Eiffel Tower to the Cathedral of Notre Dame to the Mona Lisa in the Louvre Museum—to gather what she needs to out-bake—and out-magic—her conniving aunt.If Rose wins, the cherished Cookery Booke will return to her family where it belongs. If she loses—well, the consequences are too ugly to think about. . . .

The second book of Lauren Barnholdt's exiting Moment of Truth series: three books, three girls, one life-changing senior trip.When the email arrived in Quinn Reynolds's in box on the morning of her flight to Florida, she sent it straight to her trash folder. The last thing Quinn needed was to be reminded of the pact she made with her ex–best friends—the one where she promised she would do something crazy before graduation.But that was before everything on the trip went wrong.Now, after a lifetime of playing it safe, Quinn figures that she might as well get a little wild…after all, what does she have to loseWhen Abram, a local boy she met on the beach, asks her to hang out, she says yes. But while a vacation romance could be the best way to fulfill the pact, it might be the worst thing for her heart.…Each book in this trilogy is told from the perspective of a different girl—Lyla, Aven, and Quinn—former best friends who, back in freshman year, wrote emails to their future selves about the one thing they hope to accomplish before they graduate. Over the course of the series, each girl will learn about life, love, and the truth about the fight that ended their perfect friendship.

The popular TODAY financial editor Jean Chatzky helps you navigate through the critical challenges and potential catastrophes of personal finance.You've just lost your job. You've got a baby on the way. Your parent has had a stroke. Most people seek financial help not because they're planning for the future but because they need it . . . right now! If you have money problems or are seeking immediate help to solve a dire, unanticipated financial emergency, then you need Money 911. In this invaluable guidebook, financial expert Jean Chatzky provides answers to today's most pressing financial questions and concerns, including: How do I get out of debtHow do I avoid foreclosureHow do I set up a monthly budgetHow can I improve my credit scoreHow do I get my health insurance to pay a claimWhat should I do when I lose a parentWith Money 911, you can prepare for retirement, buy or sell a home, pick up the pieces of your personal finances, and get back on your feet and stay there!

America experienced unprecedented growth and turmoil in the years between 1815 and 1848. It was an age when Andrew Jackson redefined the presidency and James K. Polk expanded the nation's territory. Bancroft Prize–winning historian and literary critic David S. Reynolds captures the turbulence of a democracy caught in the throes of the controversy over slavery, the rise of capitalism, and the birth of urbanization. He brings to life the reformers, abolitionists, and temperance advocates who struggled to correct America's worst social ills, and he reveals the shocking phenomena that marked the age: violent mobs, P. T. Barnum's freaks, all-seeing mesmerists, polygamous prophets, and rabble-rousing feminists. Meticulously researched and masterfully written, Waking Giant is a brilliant chronicle of America's vibrant and tumultuous rise.

Whether he's on Broadway or at the movies, considering a new bestseller or revisiting a literary classic, Daniel Mendelsohn's judgments over the past fifteen years have provoked and dazzled with their deep erudition, disarming emotionality, and tart wit. Now How Beautiful It Is And How Easily It Can Be Broken reveals all at once the enormous stature of Mendelsohn's achievement and demonstrates why he is considered one of our greatest critics. Writing with a lively intelligence and arresting originality, he brings his distinctive combination of scholarly rigor and conversational ease to bear across eras, cultures, and genres, from Roman games to video games.His interpretations of our most talked-about films from the work of Pedro Almodóvar to Brokeback Mountain, from United 93 and World Trade Center to 300, Marie Antoinette, and The Hours have sparked debate and changed the way we watch movies. Just as stunning and influential are his dispatches on theater and literature, from The Producers to Jeffrey Eugenides' Middlesex, from The Lovely Bones to the works of Harold Pinter. Together these thirty brilliant and engaging essays passionately articulate the themes that have made Daniel Mendelsohn a crucial voice in today's cultural conversation: the aesthetic and indeed political dangers of imposing contemporary attitudes on the great classics; the ruinous effect of sentimentality on the national consciousness in the post-9/11 world; the vital importance of the great literature of the past for a meaningful life in the present.How Beautiful It Is And How Easily It Can Be Broken makes it clear that no other contemporary thinker is as engaged with as many aspects of our culture and its influences as Mendelsohn is, and no one practices the vanishing art of popular criticism with more acuity, humor, and feeling.

Baseball Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson earned the nickname "Mr. October" for the crucial clutch hitting that led his teams to the World Series six times and won him two series MVP awards, and this skill at the plate is perhaps what he is best remembered for. But behind the bat was a man many don't know a man struggling to find his place in the world, at home, and in the sport that made him a star. Now, in the first biography of Jackson in more than twenty-five years and the first to cover his entire career as a player FOXSports.com columnist Dayn Perry provides an intimate, honest, and never-before-seen glimpse into the life and times of one of baseball's all-time greats. A cantankerous man full of swagger with a fearsome talent to match, Jackson was an outspoken iconoclast as a player a gift that made him friends and enemies of some of the most colorful characters in the game. As large a presence on the field as he was outside the ballpark, Jackson backed up his talk by establishing himself as one of the best sluggers the sport has ever seen.Yet Jackson's story is about more than sports prowess. His life reflects a time, between Jackie Robinson and Ken Griffey, Jr., when black ballplayers were accepted but still considered inferior to their white teammates. There were unspoken rules to keep the racial waters still; Jackson not only ignored such conventions, he demolished them paving the way for true equality for all black players.From his childhood in a predominantly white neighborhood to heroics at the plate, from relationships with legendary players such as "Catfish" Hunter and Thurman Munson to battles with some of the sport's most powerful figures, including notoriously cheap Oakland A's owner Charlie Finley and the irascible George Steinbrenner, Reggie Jackson tells the full story of the man who was one of the first black baseball superstars and one of the greatest players of all time.

At nineteen, Michael Dell started his company as a freshman at the University of Texas with $1,000 and has since built an industry powerhouse. As Dell journeys through his childhood adventures, ups and downs, and mistakes made along the way, he reflects on invaluable lessons learned.Michael Dell's revolutionary insight has allowed him to persevere against all odds, and Direct from Dell contains valuable information for any business leader. His strategies will show you effective ways to grow your business and will help you save time on costly mistakes by following his direct model for success.

For Tony Hawk, it wasn't enough to skate for two decades, to invent more than eighty tricks, and to win more than twice as many professional contests as any other skater.It wasn't enough to knock himself unconscious more than ten times, fracture several ribs, break his elbow, knock out his teeth twice, compress the vertebrae in his back, pop his bursa sack, get more than fifty stitches laced into his shins, rip apart the cartilage in his knee, bruise his tailbone, sprain his ankles, and tear his ligaments too many times to count.No.He had to land the 900. And after thirteen years of failed attempts, he nailed it. It had never been done before. Growing up in Sierra Mesa, California, Tony was a hyperactive demon child with an I44 IQ. He threw tantrums, terrorized the nanny until she quit, exploded with rage whenever he lost a game; this was a kid who was expelled from preschool. When his brother, Steve, gave him a blue plastic hand-me-down skateboard and his father built a skate ramp in the driveway, Tony finally found his outlet--while skating, he could be as hard on himself as he was on everyone around him. But it wasn't an easy ride to the top of the skating game. Fellow skaters mocked his skating style and dubbed him a circus skater. He was so skinny he had to wear elbow pads on his knees, and so light he had to ollie just to catch air off a ramp. He was so desperate to be accepted by young skating legends like Steve Caballero, Mike McGill, and Christian Hosoi that he ate gum from between Steve's toes. But a few years of determination and hard work paid off in multiple professional wins, and the skaters who once had mocked him were now trying to learn his tricks. Tony had created a new style of skating. In Hawk Tony goes behind the scenes of competitions, demos, and movies and shares the less glamorous demands of being a skateboarder--from skating on Italian TV wearing see-through plastic shorts to doing a demo in Brazil after throwing up for five days straight from food poisoning. He's dealt with teammates who lit themselves and other subjects on fire, driving down a freeway as the dashboard of their van burned. He's gone through the unpredictable ride of the skateboard industry during which, in the span of a few years, his annual income shrank to what he had made in a single month and then rebounded into seven figures. But Tony's greatest difficulty was dealing with the loss of his number one fan and supporter--his dad, Frank Hawk. With brutal honesty, Tony recalls the stories of love, loss, bad hairdos, embarrassing '80s clothes, and his determination that had shaped his life. As he takes a look back at his experiences with the skateboarding legends of the '70s, '80s, and '90s, including Stacy Peralta, Eddie Elguera, Lance Mountain, Mark Gonzalez, Bob Burnquist, and Colin Mckay, he tells the real history of skateboarding--and also what the future has in store for the sport and for him.

As he did in the Edgar-nominated and Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity Awards winning Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks, Christie expert and archivist John Curran once again examines the unpublished notebooks of the world's bestselling author to explore the techniques she used to surprise and entertain generations of readers.Drawing on Christie's personal papers and letters, he reveals how more than twenty of her novels, as well as stage *s, short stories, and some more personal items, evolved. Here are wonderful gems, including Christie's essay on her famous detective, Hercule Poirot, written for a British national newspaper in the 1930s; a previously unseen version of a "Miss Marple" short story; and a courtroom chapter from her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, which was edited out of the published version in 1920; plus an insightful, well-reasoned analysis of her final unfinished novel, based on the author's notes and Curran's own deep knowledge of Christie and her work.A must-read for every Christie aficionado, Agatha Christie: Murder in the Making is a fascinating look into the mind and craft of one of the world's most prolific and beloved authors.

An honest, deeply American story of the power of faith, family, and music from one of America's most beloved bluegrass and country artists.Unlike other farm boys growing up in the small town of Cordell, Kentucky, Ricky Skaggs learned to play the mandolin at five years old. Sure, plenty of other mountain boys plucked guitars or fiddles, or learned the old songs their grandparents taught them. But few tried and fewer still mastered the mandolin. By the time he was six years old, Ricky Skaggs's talent was clear enough that his daddy knew he had to get that boy onstage. When bluegrass master and mandolin virtuoso Bill Monroe rolled into a nearby small town, Ricky was there. As the crowd cheered, Let little Ricky sing one! so began a storied life in music.With Bill Monroe as a mentor and with a family who supported him at every turn, Ricky joined the Clinch Mountain Boys band and became a professional musician at age fifteen. By twenty-one he was already considered a star in the bluegrass world. Yet, following the advice of music industry executives, Skaggs moved away from his roots into the world of mainstream country music and in doing so, became a country legend and a household name.Despite the hit singles, gold records, and successful tours, Ricky knew there was more to his mission. With a failed marriage and a sometimes strained relationship with his children, Ricky had to make a choice. He would follow God's plan, and rededicate his life to Christ, to his family, and to the music that made him. He would carry the torch lit by his musical heroes Ralph Stanley, Earl Scruggs, and Bill Monroe and, most important, live the life and play the music that would make his mom and dad proud. Telling the intimate stories of a successful career built on passion, drive, and faith, sharing tales of his influences, and fondly recalling the instruments that have shaped his sound over the years and the friendships that have shaped his life, Skaggs paints a unique insider look at the evolution of bluegrass.

Neil Strauss can uncover the naked truth like nobody else. With his groundbreaking book The Game, Strauss penetrated the secret society of pickup artists. Now, in Everyone Loves You When You're Dead, the Rolling Stone journalist collects the greatest moments from the most insane music interviews of all time. Join Neil Strauss, "The Mike Tyson of interviewers," (Dave Pirner, Soul Asylum), as he Makes Lady Gaga cry, tries to keep Mtley Cre out of jail is asked to smoke Kurt Cobain's ashes by Courtney Love Shoots guns with Ludacris, takes a ride with Neil Young goes to church with Tom Cruise and his mother Spends the night with Trent Reznor, reads the mind of Britney Spears finds religion with Stephen Colbert Gets picked on by Led Zeppelin, threatened by the mafia serenaded by Leonard Cohen Picks up psychic clues with the CIA, diapers with Snoop Dog prison survival tips from Rick James Goes drinking with Bruce Springsteen, dining with Gwen Stefani hot tubbing with Marilyn Manson Talks glam with David Bowie, drugs with Madonna, death with Johnny Cash sex with Chuck Berry Gets molested by the Strokes, in trouble with Prince in bed with . . . you'll find out who inside. Enjoy many, many more awkward moments and accidental adventures with the world's number one stars in Everyone Love You When You're Dead.

Inner bonding is the process of connecting our adult thoughts with our instinctual, gut feelings the feelings of the inner child so that we can minimize painful conflict within ourselves. Free of inner conflict, we feel peaceful, open to joy, and open to giving and receiving love.Margaret Paul, coauthor of Healing Your Aloneness, explores how abandonment of the inner child leads to increasingly negative and destructive feelings of low self-worth, codepenclence, addiction, shame, powerlessness, and withdrawal from relationships. Her breakthrough inner bonding process teaches us to heal past wounds through reparenting and clearly demonstrates how we can learn to parent in the present. Real-life examples illustrate the dynamics of the healing process and show the benefits we can expect in every facet of our lives and in all our relationships.Inner Bonding provides the tools we need to forge and maintain the inner unity that makes our family, sexual, work, and social relationships productive, honest, and joyful.