In politics, finding the dirt is a multimillion-dollar business.It’s called opposition research oppo” to insiders. Few Americans are aware of its existence, yet oppo has become an integral part of the campaign process, hastening the implosion of countless office-seekers around the country.For nearly two decades, former journalists Alan Huffman and Michael Rejebian have been uncovering the buried truths about political candidates, from presidential appointees all the way down to local school-board hopefuls. We’re with Nobody is the eye-opening account of their life as opposition researchers a remarkable adventure across the American political landscape and through the often seamy underbelly of U.S. politics. From doing battle with reluctant, sometimes purposefully misleading bureaucrats to arriving in an unmarked police car for a clandestine meeting on the New Jersey waterfront, We’re with Nobody offers readers a revealing slice of national and political life: a close-up look at today’s political process, the fallible men and women we often choose to represent us and the little-understood industry of trying to bring candidates’ weaknesses to light.

Wyclef Jean is one of the most influential voices in hip-hop. He rocketed to fame in the 1990s with the Fugees, whose multiplatinum album, The Score, would prove a landmark in music history, winning two Grammys and going on to become one of the bestselling hip-hop albums of all time. In Purpose, Wyclef recounts his path to fame from his impoverished childhood in "Baby Doc" Duvalier's Haiti and the mean streets of Brooklyn and Newark to the bright lights of the world stage.The son of a pastor and grandson of a Vodou priest, Wyclef was born and raised in the slums of Haiti, moving with his family to New York when he was nine. He lived in Brooklyn's notorious Marlboro projects until his father, Gesner Jean, took them to Newark, where he converted a burnt-out funeral home into a house for his family and a church for his congregation. But life in New Jersey was no easier for Wyclef, who found it hard to shake his refugee status. Forced to act as a literal and cultural translator for his parents while still trying to master English himself, Wyclef soon learned that fitting in would be a constant struggle. He made his way by competing in "freestyle" rap battles, eventually becoming the best MC in his school. At the same time, Wyclef was singing in his father's choir and learning multiple instruments while also avidly exploring funk, rock, reggae, and jazz an experience that would forever shape his sound. When Wyclef chose to pursue a career in music over attending theological school, Gesner, who hated rap, nearly disowned him, creating a gulf between father and son that would take nearly a decade to bridge.Within a few short years, Wyclef would catapult to international renown with the Fugees. In Purpose he details for the first time ever the inside story of the group: their rise and fall, and his relationships with Pras and Lauryn Hill.Wyclef also looks back with candor at the catastrophic earthquake that struck Haiti in 2010 and his efforts to help rebuild his homeland, including the controversy surrounding Yle, his aid organization, and his exploratory bid for president of the island nation. The story revealed in Purpose is one of inspiration, full of drama and humor, told in compelling detail, about the incredible life of one of our most revered musical icons.

Will Butterfield can't believe it. His 75–year–old mother, Holly, is drunk and threatening to jump off the roof. Again. Holly and Fiona, another elderly relative, won't stop tormenting Will and his wife Elizabeth with their bizarre (though often amusing) antics. Between Will's worries about his bookstore, The Heart's Ease, and Elizabeth's troublesome high school students, dealing with "the crazies" has become just too much. But then something unexpected happens –– Henry Ward, a neighborhood handyman, meets the two old women, and he, his daughter Alison, and grandchildren are drawn into the Butterfields' lives in surprising ways. Both a comedy and a love story –– a first for Bausch –– Thanksgiving Night is about the real meaning of family, and one particular clan that has many reasons to be thankful.

In the deep mountains of Appalachia, the Flints of Leatherwood, Tennessee, spread the word of the gospels by handling deadly serpents and drinking lye in front of large gatherings of the faithful. Believing his ten-year-old son Jacob—called Toad or Spud—to be a prophet, Charles, the patriarch, takes the boy down a long and arduous path as they travel the back roads of the postwar Deep South in search of God and plumb the depths of their unorthodox brand of faith. But sudden, shocking tragedy will shatter Charles's cherished dream of building a ministry and a permanent church—and set young Jacob on a dramatically different course.

From Lauren Kelly, "a writer of formidable talent" (Scott Turow), comes the page-turning story of Merilee Graf, whose past and present mysteries converge in a revelation too painful, and too shocking, for her to accept. Sixteen years ago, a vivacious fifth-grade classmate of Merilee Graf was abducted from a park in Mt. Olive, New York. Haunted by the memory of the eleven-year-old "gypsy-looking" girl whose disappearance has never been explained, Merilee returns home to keep a vigil at the bedside of her dying father, a prosperous importer of exotic goods and a former, popular mayor of the upstate New York town on the Chautauqua River. After Mr. Graf's death, Merilee finds herself an "heiress" in more ways than one as she becomes involved, with both dread and fascination, with two very different men from her Mt. Olive past -- the elusive older brother of her missing classmate and her own seductive "Uncle Jedah," executor of her father's estate. Past and present mysteries converge in a revelation too painful, and too shocking, for Merilee to accept, and in a sudden act of reckless courage she frees herself of the terrifying obsessions of the past.

As a world-class equestrian and Olympic contender, Annemarie Zimmer lived for the thrill of flight atop a strong, graceful animal. Then, at eighteen, a tragic accident destroyed her riding career and Harry, the beautiful horse she cherished.Now, twenty years later, Annemarie is coming home to her dying father's New Hampshire horse farm. Jobless and abandoned, she is bringing her troubled teenage daughter to this place of pain and memory, where ghosts of an unresolved youth still haunt the fields and stables—and where hope lives in the eyes of the handsome, gentle veterinarian Annemarie loved as a girl . . . and in the seductive allure of a trainer with a magic touch. But everything will change yet again with one glimpse of a white striped gelding startlingly similar to the one Annemarie lost in another lifetime. And an obsession is born that could shatter her fragile world.

From the beloved author of Necklace of Kisses comes a modern-day fairy tale of a willful and intuitive heroine and a world of shocking realism and transcendent magic. Francesca Lia Block, this time with co-writer Carmen Staton, introduces readers to Ruby, a Midwestern girl named for the jewel that is believed to ward off evil spirits. Ruby's special gift is a sixth sense that makes her at one with nature and gives her the ability to know her own destiny. After growing up in an abusive family, Ruby escapes to Los Angeles and learns of her soulmate -- Orion -- a British actor. She travels to England, where she works at a potions and herbs shop, and through a series of coincidental circumstances, ends up nursing Orion back to health without confessing that she has been on a quest to find him all along. But just when she thinks her dream is becoming a reality, Ruby is stopped in her tracks by the violent demons of her past. Only by facing the darkness together can she and Orion finally fulfill their destiny. As with Necklace of Kisses, Block, here with Staton, breaks the mold. In Ruby, readers will find a story about the power of our minds to overcome the past and ultimately change the course of our lives.

From patient advocate Mary Shomon, author of Living Well With Hypothyroidism, here is the first book to tackle the weight factors specific to thyroid patients and detail a conventional and alternative plan for lasting weight loss.An estimated 10 million Americans have been diagnosed with thyroid disease—most of them women—and for the majority of them, losing weight is mentioned time and time again as a primary concern and chief frustration—a challenge made more difficult due to the metabolic slowdown of a malfunctioning thyroid gland. For these thyroid patients, treatment alone doesn't seem to resolve weight problems. Further, they may struggle with raising basic metabolism, resolving underlying nutritional deficiencies, treating depression and correcting brain chemistry imbalances, reducing stress, and combating insulin resistance.The Thyroid Diet will identify these factors that inhibit a thyroid patient's ability to lose weight, and offer solutions—both conventional and alternative—to help. It will discuss optimal dietary changes, including how a thyroid sufferer should focus on a low-glycemic, high-fibre, low-calorie diet, eaten as smaller, more frequent meals to balance blood sugar. The Thyroid Diet addresses the use of various herbs, nutritional supplements, and pre*ion weight loss drugs, outlining the necessity of exercise, and drawing together all information into an integrated diet and exercise plan. It contains several different eating plans, food lists, and a set of delicious and healthy gourmet recipes. With handy worksheets to use in weight loss tracking, and a special resource section featuring websites, books, and support groups, here is vital help for the millions of thyroid patients dealing with weight problems.Mary Shomon has been praised by doctors around the country for her medical knowledge and sensitivity to patients' needs. She will be receiving similar blurbs for this new book. There are no other books on controlling your weight problems if you have a thyroid condition, yet over 40% of overweight people have evidence of a thyroid condition, and the weight loss problems facing them are unique and need a specific approach.

Honey Height learned early in life that her beauty and bedroom prowess are powerful, almost beyond her control. Forced by events that leave her to fend for herself as a teenager, she evolves into a money-hungry vixen as an adult. Using her physical attributes to lead a suspect lifestyle, Honey treats men like toys—good for a while, but always disposable.That is until she meets handsome and charismatic Khalil Graves, an up-and-coming filmmaker who's desperately trying to escape the demons of his painful childhood. Already engaged, Khalil can't seem to shake his attraction to Honey. What he doesn't realize is that he's a pawn in Honey's plan for revenge. Honey's attempt at vengeance quickly unravels, complicated by her possible involvement in a murder and a devious plot to score a payday lucrative enough to free her from her unsavory lifestyle. In A Taste of Honey, Essence bestselling author Darren Coleman delivers another sizzling, drama-filled tale that is sure to take his reputation for delivering page-turners to another level.

What if your mother were hit by a bus?And what if your father disappeared one day through a hole in the bathroom wall?Is there a way to change the course of your life's history?What if time movedIn this dazzling debut novel, Jason Cockcroft has crafted a mind-bending adventure with a startlingly original narrative structure.

There's undead and then there's . . . living dead!Private Investigator Felix Gomez thought he had seen it all since becoming a vampire: horny aliens, maniacal nymphos. But now he's facing everyone's worst nightmare.As far as being undead goes, vampires are indisputably the more civilized—intelligent, rational (on occasion), good conversationalists. Zombies, on the other hand, are just violent, walking, rotting, flesh-eating meat with no redeeming qualities. And now there's a ravenous army of them heading this way.So it's vamps versus zombies, round one. And Felix's only hope of stopping the stinking, hungry horde is a pre-cocious and much-too-hot-for-her-britches teenager with clairvoyant powers. But she's not going to help unless Felix agrees to make her immortal.

Lisa EdwardsThis Prada-wearing magazine editor thinks her life is over when her "fabulous" new job turns out to be a deportation to Dublin to launch Colleen magazine. The only saving grace is that her friends aren't there to witness her downward spiral. Might her new boss, the disheveled and moody Jack Devine, save her from a fate worse than hell?Ashling KennedyAshling, Colleen's assistant editor, is an award-winning worrier, increasinglyaware that something fundamental is missing from her life -- apart from a boyfriendand a waistline.Clodagh "Princess" KellyAshling's best friend, Clodagh, lives the domestic dream in a suburban castle.So why, lately, has she had the recurring urge to kiss a frog -- or sleep with afrog, if truth be told?As these three women search for love, success, and happiness, they willdiscover that if you let things simmer under the surface for too long, sooneror later they'll boil over.Discover the Keyes to a Great Read!

To save two kingdoms from a despot's rule, one man must journey into the unknown, seeking answers to the strange and powerful secret that so plagues him.Wyl Thirsk, loyal soldier of Morgravia, has seen his best friend slain, his sister tortured, and his mentor sent to certain death, all at the hands of his sovereign, the cruel and manipulative King Celimus. Now Celimus, believing himself to be rid of the "moral constraints" of the Thirsk influence, has turned his greedy eye to expansion ... and Morgravia's neighboring kingdom, ruled by the spirited but inexperienced Queen Valentyna. As Celimus pressures Valentyna into a doomed political marriage, Wyl endeavors desperately to preserve both the honor of his country and the freedom of the woman he loves.But fate has other plans for him. Despite his friends and loved ones becoming increasingly tangled in the evil machinations of King Celimus, though war with the dread Northern Kingdom appears imminent and Valentyna is poised to succumb to Morgravia's oily rule, Wyl must leave behind all he knows and cares about and travel into the land from which none return, seeking out the bestower of Myrren's sinister gift.

From the #1 London Times bestselling author Josephine Cox comes a powerful story of a love shrouded in darkness and shocking secrets, and plagued by malignant forces.All Jack's life, his nightmares have haunted him, dragging him back to a place where it was always midnight. . . . Molly and Jack are deeply in love. But Jack's night terrors are tearing their relationship apart. Taunted by eyes in the gloom of night, Jack is finding it harder and harder to free himself from the haunting visions, even once daylight comes. In his dreams, he knows exactly what's demanded of him, but when he wakes he can make no sense of what they mean. With Molly urging him to seek help, frightened that her adored one is being driven too close to the edge, Jack begins to hunt for answers—a search that is taking him back through the shadows of his own past and toward the one person he could turn to throughout his troubled youth. But the revelations waiting there could prove too terrible for Jack or Molly to endure. . . .

It's the Rounders' last season together, and they want to go out with a bang. Especially Slingshot Slocum, the team's star pitcher. So why has he just walked three batters in a rowSlingshot's obsessed with mastering the forkball—a dangerous split-finger curveball that everyone knows should never be attempted by anyone under the age of seventeen. It could wreck his arm forever!And he's not making it over the plate. Just like the torrential weather, Slingshot is all wet! The rain won't stop pouring down, and the Rounders' season is starting to feel like an airport during the holidays: nothing but delays and cancellations.At least they have their team rafting trip to look forward to. Until a flash flood sends them careening straight into the middle of a real-life ghost tale.Can the Rounders pull themselves out of peril—and their pitcher out of his funk—before their final showdown with archrivals the HaymakersAnd will the weird weather let up or rain on their parade?Looking for hilarity, high stakes, high jinks, extreme weather, and some spooky spelunkingCatch this action-packed baseball adventure!

Journalist Alex Dyer made his name covering the bloody horrors of the European trenches. Yet even after the Great War is over, he cannot shake the guilt he feels for not serving on the front lines like his dearest childhood friend, Ted Eden. Worse still, Alex cannot put to rest the emotions that gnaw at him from the inside: his feelings for Clare, Ted's wife—a woman they both have loved more A masterful debut novel from the acclaimed author of The Hidden Life of Otto Frank, Carol Ann Lee's Winter of the World combines fascinating historical detail and color with breathtaking invention. Recalling the fire of the battlefield and the nightmare of the trenches, it brilliantly evokes a volatile time when life was frozen in the present tense and looking forward was the only thing more painful than looking back.

Henry Bay has his own America going. If there's an offbeat interest or extreme sport that's poised to sweep the nation, chances are there's a magazine for its enthusiasts, and chances are also good that Henry has worked there. He's a modern nomad, associate-editing his way from state to state, exploring the small worlds that make up modern America from Spelunk to Ice Climbing, to Cozy, The Magazine of Tea.But those are other people's interests—Henry's still looking for his own enthusiasm. He ends up finding more than he ever imagined in this energetic, hilarious debut novel from a surprising and promising new voice.

An enthralling literary debut that tells the story of a young girl’s coming of age in the cutthroat world of New York City ballet—a story of obsession and the quest for perfection, trust and betrayal, beauty and lost innocence.In the roiling summer of 1977, eleven-year-old Mira is an aspiring ballerina in the romantic, highly competitive world of New York City ballet. Enduring the mess of her parent’s divorce, she finds escape in dance—the rigorous hours of practice, the exquisite beauty, the precision of movement, the obsessive perfectionism. Ballet offers her control, power, and the promise of glory. It also introduces her to forty-seven-year-old Maurice DuPont, a reclusive, charismatic balletomane who becomes her mentor.Over the course of three years, Mira is accepted into the prestigious School of American Ballet run by the legendary George Balanchine, and eventually becomes one of “Mr. B’s girls”—a dancer of rare talent chosen for greatness. As she ascends higher in the ballet world, her relationship with Maurice intensifies, touching dark places within herself and sparking unexpected desires that will upend both their lives.In the present day, Kate, a professor of dance at a Midwestern college, embarks on a risky affair with a student that threatens to obliterate her career and capsizes the new life she has painstakingly created for her reinvented self. When she receives a letter from a man she’s long thought dead, Kate is hurled back into the dramas of a past she thought she had left behind.Told in interweaving narratives that move between past and present, Girl Through Glass illuminates the costs of ambition, secrets, and the desire for beauty, and reveals how the sacrifices we make for an ideal can destroy—or save—us.

Rosie "Aunty" Lee, the feisty widow and amateur sleuth and proprietor of Singapore's best-loved home-cooking restaurant, is back in another delectable, witty mystery involving scandal and murder among the city's eliteFew know more about what goes on in Singapore than Aunty Lee. When a scandal over illegal organ donation makes news, she already has a list of suspects. There's no time to snoop, though—Aunty Lee's Delights is catering a brunch for local socialites Henry and Mabel Sung. Rumor has it that the Sungs' fortune is in trouble, and Aunty Lee wonders if the gossip is true. But soon after arriving at the Sungs', her curiosity turns to suspicion. Why is the guesthouse in the garden locked up—and what's insideWhere is the missing guest of honorThen Mabel Sung and her son, Leonard, are found dead. The authorities blame it on Aunty Lee's special stewed chicken with buah keluak, a local black nut that can be poisonous if cooked improperly. She's certain the deaths are murder—and that they're somehow linked to the organ donor scandal. To save her business and her reputation, she's got to prove it—and unmask a dangerous killer.

Ingrid Betancourt, a senator and a presidential candidate in Colombia, grew up among diplomats, literati, and artists who congregated at her parents' elegant home in Paris, France. Her father served as Colombia's ambassador to UNESCO and her mother, a political activist, continued her work on behalf of the country's countless children whose lives were being destroyed by extreme poverty and institutional neglect. Intellectually, Ingrid was influenced by Pablo Neruda and other Latin American writers like Gabriel García Márquez, who frequented her parents' social circle. She studied at ?cole de Sciences Politiques de Paris, a prestigious academy in France. From this charmed life, Ingrid Betancourt -- not yet thirty, happily married to a French diplomat, and a mother of two children -- returned to her native country in the late 1980s. On what was initially just a visit, she found her country under internal siege from the drug cartels and the corrupt government that had allowed them to flourish. After seeing what had become of Colombia's democracy, she didn't feel she could leave. Until Death Do Us Part is the deeply personal story of a woman who gave up a life of comfort and safety to become a political leader in a country being slowly demolished by terrorism, violence, fear, and a pervasive sense of hopelessness. It is a country where democracy has been sacrificed for the well-being of the few, where international criminals determine policy, and where political assassinations are a way of life. Now forty, Ingrid Betancourt has been elected and reelected as a representative and as a senator in Colombia's national legislature. She has founded a political party that has openly confronted Colombia's leaders and has earned the respect of a nation. And now she has become a target of the establishment and the drug cartels behind it. Forced to move her children out of Colombia for protection against death threats, Ingrid Betancourt remained and continued to fight the political structure that has crumbled under the destructive power of the paramilitary forces, the financial omnipotence of the drug cartels, and the passivity of governmentfor-sale. Here is a political cocktail that has destroyed countless lives in Colombia and has spread to countries beyond its borders. A memoir of a life in politics that reads like a fastpaced political thriller, Until Death Do Us Part -- already an international bestseller -- is a hair-raising account of one woman's fight against the establishment. It is a story of a woman whose love for her country and faith in democracy gave her the courage to stand up to the power that has subjugated, intimidated, or corrupted all those who opposed it. A chilling account of the dangerous, byzantine machine that runs Colombia, it is also an inspiring story of privilege, sacrifice, and true patriotism.

A hilarious and touching new installment of Armistead Maupin's beloved Tales of the City seriesTwenty years have passed since Mary Ann Singleton left her husband and child in San Francisco to pursue her dream of a television career in New York. Now a pair of personal calamities has driven her back to the city of her youth and into the arms of her oldest friend, Michael "Mouse" Tolliver, a gardener happily ensconced with his much-younger husband.Mary Ann finds temporary refuge in the couple's backyard cottage, where, at the unnerving age of fifty-seven, she licks her wounds and takes stock of her mistakes. Soon, with the help of Facebook and a few old friends, she begins to reengage with life, only to confront fresh terrors when her checkered past comes back to haunt her in a way she could never have imagined.After the intimate first-person narrative of Maupin's last novel, Michael Tolliver Lives, Mary Ann in Autumn marks the author's return to the multicharacter plotlines and darkly comic themes of his earlier work. Among those caught in Mary Ann's orbit are her estranged daughter, Shawna, a popular sex blogger; Jake Greenleaf, Michael's transgendered gardening assistant; socialite DeDe Halcyon-Wilson; and the indefatigable Anna Madrigal, Mary Ann's former landlady at 28 Barbary Lane.More than three decades in the making, Armistead Maupin's legendary Tales of the City series rolls into a new age, still sassy, irreverent, and curious, and still exploring the boundaries of the human experience with insight, compassion, and mordant wit.