Harry Pierpont and John Dillinger were die-hard and deadly partners who made national headlines with their daring bank hold-ups and gun battles -- and they had a lot of laughs while they were at it. They were known as the Dillinger Gang but at its heart was "Handsome Harry" Pierpont -- tough, fearless, intelligent, and sworn to live by no law but his own. Presented as his intimate "confessions," Harry's story takes us from his teenage days as a small-time crook to his fateful meeting with the equally young Dillinger to the pinnacle of his notoriety, and to his final hours in the penitentiary death house.Crafted in James Carlos Blake's signature style of fast-paced violence, sizzling sex, and darkly raucous humor, Handsome Harry re-creates a thrilling chapter from the chronicles of American crime.

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.

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.

There Was An Old Woman by Hallie Ephron is a compelling novel of psychological suspense in which a young woman becomes entangled in a terrifying web of deception and madness involving an elderly neighbor.When Evie Ferrante learns that her mother has been hospitalized, she finds her mother's house in chaos. Sorting through her mother's belongings, Evie discovers objects that don't quite belong there, and begins to raise questions.Evie renews a friendship with Mina, an elderly neighbor who might know more about her mother's recent activities, but Mina is having her own set of problems: Her nephew Brian is trying to persuade her to move to a senior care community. As Evie investigates her mother's actions, a darker story of deception and madness involving Mina emerges.In There Was an Old Woman, award-winning mystery author Hallie Ephron delivers another work of domestic noir with truly unforgettable characters that will keep you riveted.

Gripping, suspenseful, magical, and richly atmospheric . . . Ilie Ruby's haunting debut novel, The Language of Trees, is exhilarating fiction that announces the arrival of a truly extraordinary storyteller.Echo O'Connell knows that the summer holds its secrets. They are whispered in the rustling trees, in the lush scent of the lilacs, in the flurry of the mayflies batting against the screen door, and in the restless spirits that seem to clamor in the scant breezes on hot evenings. It is in summer that she returns home to Canandaigua, to confront these spirits, both living and not, and to share a secret with her first love, Grant Shongo—a secret that will forever change the lives of many people in the town and put to rest the mysterious disappearance of a little boy more than a decade earlier. Grant, a descendant of the Seneca Indians who call this place "The Chosen Spot," has also come back to face his past. After a broken marriage, he has moved into his childhood home, a lake house that has withstood happiness and tragedy. He knows the spirits of the past must be dealt with—that of the little boy who disappeared all those years ago; the boy's sister, who never overcame the loss; and the love Grant still has for Echo. But before the healing must come the forgiveness. . . .

Eve has had it—she's no "wicked stepmonster" in the making. She absolutely adores Ian, the new man in her life, and she's more than willing to open her heart to his kids. But nothing she does is right in their eyes, and she just can't take it anymore. At her wit's end, she decides it's time for stepmothers to stick together, so, with a little prodding from her best friend, Clare, she decides to join a support system for other women in the same boat. There's stay-at-home mom Mandy, high-achiever Mel, and even young and in love Chloe. And as cups of coffee give way to wine, and their get-togethers become a regular fixture, the women share their love, lives, ambitions, and true feelings about their new families.

Everything counts . . .Grace Lisa Vandenburg orders her world with numbers: how many bananas she buys, how many steps she takes to the café, where she chooses to sit, how many poppy seeds are in her daily piece of orange cake. Every morning she uses 100 strokes to brush her hair, 160 strokes to brush her teeth. She remembers the day she started to count, how she used numbers to organize her adolescence, her career, even the men she dated. But something went wrong. Grace used to be a teacher, but now she's surviving on disability checks. According to the parents of one of her former students, "she's mad." Most people don't understand that numbers rule, not just the world in a macro way but their world, their own world. Their lives. They don't really understand that everything and everybody are connected by a mathematical formula. Counting is what defines us . . . the only thing that gives our lives meaning is the knowledge that eventually we all will die. That's what makes each minute important. Without the ability to count our days, our hours, our loved ones . . . there's no meaning. Our lives would have no meaning. Without counting, our lives are unexamined. Not valued. Not precious. This consciousness, this ability to rejoice when we gain something and grieve when we lose something—this is what separates us from other animals. Counting, adding, measuring, timing. It's what makes us human.Grace's father is dead and her mother is a mystery to her. Her sister wants to sympathize but she really doesn't understand. Only Hilary, her favorite niece, connects with her. And Grace can only connect with Nikola Tesla, the turn-of-the-twentieth-century inventor whose portrait sits on her bedside table and who rescues her in her dreams. Then one day all the tables at her regular café are full, and as she hesitates in the doorway a stranger—Seamus Joseph O'Reilly (19 letters in his name, just like Grace's)—invites her to sit with him. Grace is not the least bit sentimental. But she understands that no matter how organized you are, how many systems you put in place, you can't plan for people. They are unpredictable and full of possibilities—like life itself, a series of maybes and what-ifs. And suddenly, Grace may be about to lose count of the number of ways she can fall in love.

The daughter of James I, the Princess Elizabeth would not be merely her father's pawn in the royal marriage market.The court of James I is a dangerous place, with factions led by warring cousins Robert Cecil and Francis Bacon. While Europe seethes with conflict between Protestants and Catholics, James sees himself as a grand peacemaker—and wants to make his mark by trading his children for political treaties.Henry, Prince of Wales, and his sister, Elizabeth, find themselves far more popular than their distrusted father, a perilous position for a child of a jealous king. When Elizabeth is introduced to one suitor, Frederick, the Elector Palatine, she feels the unexpected possibility of happiness. But her fate is not her own to choose—and when her parents brutally withdraw their support for the union, Elizabeth must take command of her own future, with the help of an unexpected ally, the slave girl Tallie, who seeks her own, very different freedom.

Susan McBride, author of Little Black Dress and The Cougar Club, gives us her most unforgettable novel to date with this deliciously emotional story of family, forgiveness, love, and magic.As far as Gretchen Brink is concerned, the tornado that just ripped through her land has nothing on the storms of a different sort happening all around her. Her grown daughter, Abby, has returned home with news that she's pregnant, and no, she's not sure whether she's going to marry the father. A man with no memory has been dropped practically on her doorstep. And the not-so-little white lie she's been telling for years is about to catch up with her. Abby is sure that the mysterious man is her long-lost father, Sam, who has finally returned just when she needs him most. As Abby, Gretchen, and the Man Who Might Be Sam get closer, the lie Gretchen told all those years ago begins to haunt her. When her secrets come out, and Sam's past is finally revealed, will it tear down this fragile life they've built—or will the truth bring them all closer together?

You May Not Have Tried Everything! Today, many couples who experience problems getting pregnant look to the miracles of modern science for help. Yet for the more than five million Americans of childbearing age who have failed to conceive within a year or more, the good news is that as many as half go on to get pregnant and have healthy babies. Getting Pregnant Naturally is filled with dozens of little-known tips for increasing the odds of conceiving and offers the essential information any couple should have before they resort to expensive, invasive, high-tech fertility treatments -- The most common causes of infertility or subfertility in both men and women How the age factor relates to ability to conceiveWhy fertility and infertility can flutuate from month to monthHow to recognize and test for the signs that ovulation is taking placeHow to change your lovemaking to increase the likelihood of conception How men and women can increase their their chances of conception through nutritional supplementsAge-old herbal remedies that have been shown to increase fertilityHomeopathic therapies that can workThe mind-body connection:fertile ideas to boost your fertilityAnd Much More, Including:Resource information on fertility centers, natural medicine, and adoption

A novel of how family happens—whether you like it or notElaine and Carson Forsyth have returned to the tree house—Elaine's childhood home, a cabin nestled high in the branches of two oaks beside a North Carolina lake—where forty-nine-year-old Carson has chosen to spend the waning days of his life. As Elaine prepares for a future without her beloved husband, their solace is interrupted. Carson's mother, Greta, has set loose a neighbor's herd of alpacas and landed herself in police custody. While Carson, remarkably, sees humor in the situation, Elaine can only question what her obligations are—and will be—to a woman who hasn't spoken to her in more than twenty years.In the wake of Carson's death, Elaine and their grown son, Mick, are thrust into the maelstrom of Greta, the mother-in-law and grandmother who never accepted either of them. Just as they are trying to figure out their new roles in the family, Mick uncovers unexpected questions of his own. A long-ago teenage relationship with a local girl may have left him with more than just memories, and he must get to the bottom of Greta's surprising accusations that he's not Carson's son at all.

One Sunday morning four women at a bridge party in the elegant Gramercy Park Hotel see a beautiful young woman whom they all know leaving a nearby hotel with a man who is not her husband. The sight of twenty-year-old Lizzie Carswell with Billy Holmes is shocking and potentially ruinous. And though the ladies do not know the whole story -- and despite their mutual promise to keep what they've seen to themselves -- it is only a matter of time before one of them talks . . . with heartbreaking consequences for them all.In One Sunday Morning, author Amy Ephron brilliantly navigates the social contradictions of Jazz Age New York society and brings a remarkable time and place to glorious life with a riveting drama of gossip, indiscretion, secrets, and betrayal.

Surrounded by misfits, rednecks, and counterculture burnouts, John Gibson—the reluctant heir of an alcoholic grandmother—and Sarah McKay—a commune-reared "hippie-by-association"—search for self and community in the hole-of-a-town Boonville. As they try to assemble from the late-twentieth-century jumble of life the facts of sexuality, love, and death, and face the possibility of an existence without God, John and Sarah learn what happens when they dare to try to make art from their lives.

Though her (biological) clock is furiously ticking away, entertainment publicity pro extraordinaire Emily Sanders didn't hear the starting bell. Hitting thirty and watching her best friends settle down, she too wants to have the life that once upon a time ... wished upon a star ... she dreamed she'd have: the house, the kids, the perfect man. But in L.A., where image is everything, "where every beauty pageant winner is an eight in a sea of nines all wishing they were Julia Roberts," finding true love isn't easy. Especially when boyfriend material includes a beautiful young surfer god, an aging music executive, the boss's boss's boss, and a baseball player with two cell phones (one of which Emily doesn't have the number to).With her confidence heading due south like everything else on her body, Emily turns to a smart, sharp-eyed psychotherapist who helps her get past the "flutter, flutter," her old time-tested method for picking the wrong guy. Soon she finds herself able to spot "the reasons," the previously invisible flags of a destined-to-fail relationship, and narrow her focus to stop looking for Mr. Right and learn how to start looking out for Mr. Wrong.Emily's Reasons Why Not is for everyone who has ever wasted her time chasing down the wrong guy for the right reasons, wondering "why" and "when is it going to happen for me?" With the edge of an insider, but the heart of a dreamer, the disarming and unflappable Emily meshes her views on the entertainment industry she works in, the men she's dated, the therapy sessions she mulled over, and "the one" she knows is out there for every woman ... including herself.

An elegant and haunting novel of love and family, The Tell demands that we reconsider our notions of marriage—duty, compromise, betrayal, and the choice to stand by or leave the ones we love.Mira and Owen's marriage is less stable than they know when Wilton Deere, an aging, no longer famous TV star moves in to the grand house next door. With plenty of money and plenty of time to kill, Wilton is charming but ruthless as he inserts himself into the couple's life in a quest for distraction, friendship—and most urgently—a connection with Anya, the daughter he abandoned years earlier. Facing stresses at home and work, Mira begins to accompany Wilton to a casino and is drawn to the slot machines. Escapism soon turns to full-on addiction and a growing tangle of lies and shame that threatens her fraying marriage and home. Betrayed and confused, Owen turns to the mysterious Anya, who is testing her own ability to trust her father after many years apart.The Tell is a finely-wrought novel about risk: of dependence, of responsibility, of addiction, of trust, of violence. Told with equal parts suspense, sympathy, and psychological complexity, it shows us the intimate and shifting ways in which we reveal ourselves before we act, and what we assume but don’t know about those closest to us.

Family secrets can bind and destroyKate is ready to put her nomadic, city-dwelling past behind her when she marries Joe Krause and moves with him to the Iowa farm that has been in his family for more than 140 years. But life on the farm isn't quite as idyllic as she'd hoped. It's filled with chores, judgmental neighbors, and her mother-in-law, who—unbeknownst to Kate until after the wedding—will be living with them.As Kate struggles to find her place in the small farming community, she begins to realize that her husband and his family are not who she thought they were. According to town gossip, the Krause family harbors a long-kept secret about a mysterious death that haunts Kate as a dangerous, unexplainable chain of events begins.

A searing novel of love and war, betrayal and redemption.Having grown up in an exclusive circle of wealthy British ex-pats in Florence in the 1920s, Alice Orsini shocks everyone when she marries the son of a minor Italian landowner and begins restoring San Martino, a crumbling villa in Tuscany, to its former glory. But after years of hard work, filling the acres with orchards, livestock, and farmhands, Alice's growing restlessness pulls her into the heady social swirl of wartime Rome and a reckless affair that will have devastating consequences. Her indiscretion is noticed by careful eyes—those of Robert Marshall, a renowned dealer of renaissance art. In exchange for his silence, he demands Alice hide a priceless Caravaggio, a national treasure that he has sold to the Germans, at San Martino. As the front creeps toward Tuscany, sending a wave of orphans, refugees, and wounded Allies to San Martino, Alice trusts that the painting she's hiding will keep the Germans at bay. What she doesn't know is the truth about a brilliant young artist she harbors named Kristín, a prodigy who can restore any painting, and whose secrets may ruin them all. Trapped between loyalists and resistors, cruel German forces and Allied troops, Alice and Kristín must withstand the destruction of everything around them while painfully confronting the consequences of their past mistakes.In this sweeping story of passion and betrayal, Olafsson works his profound magic once again, creating a novel that grapples with the moral abyss of war while rendering the psychological portraits of those living through it with masterful strokes.

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

The latest entry in Mitchell Symons's trivia trifecta is chock-full of more obscure scientific facts, sporting stats, celebrity gossip, and pure trivia than ever! Did you know that: Polar bears cover their black noses with their paws for better camouflageJohn Steinbeck had to rewrite Of Mice and Men because his dog ate the first draftWayne Newton is a descendant of PocahontasOscars given out during World War II were made of wood because metal was in short supplyBrooke Shields and Glenn Close are cousinsDiet Coke was invented in 1982. However, in 1379, a Mr. and Mrs. Coke of Yorkshire, England, named their daughter Diot(a diminutive of Dionisia, the predecessor of the modern-day name Denise)Male monkeys go bald in much the same way that men doJames Gandolfini was voted Best Looking by his high school classIf you are titillated by trivia or fascinated by facts, The Other Book . . . of the Most Perfectly Useless Information will keep you entertained for hours!