Calling upon only the BRAVEST detectives with the STRONGEST noses--do you dare to scratch 'n' sniff and help solve this foul mystery?! There's been a robbery at the Museum of Very Bad Smells! Somebody stole the world-famous rotten egg . . . and everybody is a suspect. It's up to YOU to help sniff out the culprit and bring the prized exhibit back before the museum's grand opening. From award-winning creator Monica Arnaldo comes a hilarious and interactive mystery about a robbery at the Museum of Very Bad Smells, with five stinky scratch elements in this hilarious picture book that encourages kids to scratch, smell, and--of course--pass it along to a friend.
A hardworking sponge makes its debut in this delightful and relatable picture book perfect for fans of The Good Egg by Jory John and Pete Oswald, Lou by Breanna Carzoo, and The Creature of Habit by Jennifer E. Smith!The little sponge has a BIG job. She washes and mops and scrubs away all the messes in the kitchen.But what happens when the mess gets TOO BIG and she just CAN'T clean anymore?Find out how far friendship, self-care, and a BIIIIIIIG squeeze can go in one sponge's charming battle against total burnout.
A steamy new rom-com from the popular author of Happy Endings and Full Exposure, where two friends get the opportunity to work together on their dream project--a Cinderella rock musical with an all-Asian cast--and discover that falling in love was the easy part..."Lam is... the queen of sex-positive multiracial romance." --BooklistZoe Tran is living her best life, designing plus-size lingerie at her own award-winning clothing boutique, when suddenly her college best friend reenters her life. Derek Bui is offering a tantalizing chance to recapture a forgotten dream: designing costumes for the musical they created together years ago.Derek has loved Zoe since freshman year but never had the guts to confess his true feelings. Now he's directing the Vietnamese Cinderella rock musical they dreamed up in college. The stakes are high: it's the first production with an all-Asian cast and creative team at Washington, D.C.'s largest theatre and if they can make it work, they'll head to Broadway. But his real goal: get Zoe back in his life.A proud demisexual, Zoe only ever saw Derek as her best friend, but working on their dream production together brings them closer than ever. Sparks ignite under the hot spotlights. But when the theatre's artistic director pressures Derek to make the musical "less Asian," he and Zoe clash on whether to stay true to their vision or compromise to keep the production alive. Will Zoe and Derek finally let love take center stage or will their creative differences close the curtains on them forever?
Journalist and former Allure editor Sable Yong debuts with a sharp-toothed and hilarious essay collection about beauty and vanity, examining their stigmatization in the cultural zeitgeist, and how to shift the focus to use both for powerful tools for self-exploration, interpersonal connection, and cultural change.The beauty industry has a single mandate: be hot.In the same week that you might be encouraged to try curtain bangs, contouring, bleached eyebrows, laser facials, buccal fat removal, fillers, and "non-invasive" facelifts, you're simultaneously absorbing mantras about self-care, body positivity, empowerment, and loving yourself just as you are.Overwhelmed yet? Fear not. Die Hot with a Vengeance delves into the machinations of this multi-billion-dollar industry, offering readers an expert analysis of its inner workings with the precision of a scalpel and the humor of a stand-up comedian. Along the way, Yong sets off to answer some of the biggest questions of our time: How do you break through the noise of beauty and wellness culture's endless optimization protocols?How can you find actual authenticity in a world of performative artifice?Can the antidote to aging be found in a jar, tube, or at the end of a syringe?Do blondes really have more fun?Using Yong's many years of experience as a beauty editor to unlock the industry's myriad secrets, Die Hot with a Vengeance gives beauty and vanity a neutralizing make-over. At its best, beauty is so much more than an aesthetic; it's an inspirational mindset. It's a playfulness inherent to the practice of self-expression.And yet it's difficult to engage playfully when it feels like beauty is an ever-moving target. We're all subject to societal expectations surrounding beauty and vanity, enough so that breaking through the capitalist pressures can feel impossible. Yong argues that while the mandate may be for us to be hot, the beauty industry thrives on us absorbing its teachings so it can keep us in a constant feedback loop of appearance-based anxiety, forever perpetuating unattainable standards. Flipping that imperative, Yong's debut collection poses the most important question of all: How do you discover your value of beauty so you can free yourself from the loud and bullshitty noise of all these entities telling you that you're not good enough?Digging deep into our most pervasive and questionable beauty trends and conventions, Die Hot with a Vengeance offers an incisive yet wry dissection of one of our most enduring cultural addictions. Irreverent, side-splittingly funny, and astute, the book is as amusing as it is insightful, an instant classic for beauty-readers and aspirant hotties alike.
Knives Out meets The Guest List in international bestselling author S. C. Lalli's next thrilling novel, where two business moguls were set to be married in the biggest event of the year--until they're both found murdered the day before the wedding--and a social outsider must unravel the mystery before her own hidden agenda is revealed.The wedding of Radhika Singh and Raj Joshi, a weeklong affair at a luxury resort in Cabos, isn't just going to be the event of the season--it will also mark the union of two highly influential and wealthy Indian-American families. No expense will be spared for what Radhika and Raj have coined "R&R," a week of rest, relaxation, and celebrating their love. Shaylee "Shay" Kapoor is just an outsider, but she just so happens to be dating Raj's best friend, Caleb Prescott III, and is sucked into this world of wealth and excess. But on the morning the wedding festivities are supposed to begin, the resort's wedding coordinator Daniela makes a frightening discovery: Raj and Radhika are dead, gunshots to the head.Chaos descends on the hotel as the guests are turned away or sent home. Shay stays by Caleb's side as the investigation starts to unfold, family and close friends grieve, and accusations run wild. The police believe the murders are a drug cartel hit.But even if it was a cartel hit, even if the murderer somehow got past the resort's security, the hotel room doors have state-of-the-art locks. There was no way for the murderer to slip into the room without a key. And only the sister of the bride, Zara; the best men, Caleb and Sean; and the wedding coordinator, Daniela, have keys.Shay may be an outsider--and she definitely has secrets of her own--but she may be the only person with enough perspective to untangle everyone's lies, and discover why anyone would want the bride and groom dead. . .
The Edgar Award-winning author of A Dreadful Splendor blends mystery and spooky thrills with friendship and romance in this delicious love letter to Gothic fiction, featuring two brides who must band together to unravel the ghostly secrets at the heart of a crumbling island manor. 'Til death do us part...November 1816: Restless but naïve Emeline Fitzpatrick is desperate to escape her stifling life in foggy Halifax. Her guardian is lining up repugnant suitors, but Emeline has her eyes set on a handsome lieutenant in the British navy. She just needs to persuade him to propose, or her one chance at happiness will be gone forever.But when Emeline's hopes end in scandal, she finds herself with only one suitor left: the wealthy and enigmatic Captain Graves. Having already lost two wives to tragic circumstances, the unfortunate widower is seeking a new companion in his cloistered seaside manor, Faraday House. Or at least that is what Emeline had been told, because when she arrives, she is horrified to discover that the second Mrs. Graves, Georgina, has not yet died.Emeline is only certain of two things: something ghastly is afoot at Faraday House, and no one is going to save her. She will have to rely on her own courage, her burgeoning bond with the ill but strong-willed Georgina, and the aid of a handsome reverend with a mysterious past to unravel the secrets at the heart of the manor and forge her own destiny.
A moving and provocative graphic memoir exploring inherited trauma, family history, and the ever-shifting understanding of our own identities, for readers of Gender Queer and I Was Their American Dream.Solomon Brager grew up with accounts of their great-grandparents' escape from Nazi Germany, told over and over until their understanding of self was bound up with the heroic details of their ancestors' exploits. Their great-grandmother related how her husband, a boxing champion, thrashed Joseph Goebbels and cleared beer halls of Nazis with his fists, how she broke him out of an internment camp and carried their children over the Pyrenees mountains. But that story was never the whole picture; zooming out, everything becomes more complicated.Alongside the Levis' propulsive journey across Europe and to the United States, Brager distills fascinating research about the Holocaust and connected periods of colonial history. Heavyweight asks us to consider how the patterns of history emerge and reverberate, not as a simple chain of events but in haunting layers. Confronting the specters of violence as both historian and descendent, this book is an exploration of family mythology, intergenerational memory, and the mark the past makes on the present.In conversation with works by Rebecca Hall, Nora Krug, Rutu Modan, and Leela Corman, Heavyweight will contribute to the collective work of Holocaust studies and the chronicle of woven human stories.
Rosie the Riveter meets A League of Their Own in New York Times bestselling novelist Jennifer Chiaverini's lively and illuminating novel about the "munitionettes" who built bombs in Britain's arsenals during World War I, risking their lives for the war effort and discovering camaraderie and courage on the soccer pitch. Early in the Great War, men left Britain's factories in droves to enlist. Struggling to keep up production, arsenals hired women to build the weapons the military urgently needed. "Be the Girl Behind the Man Behind the Gun," the recruitment posters beckoned.Thousands of women--cooks, maids, shopgirls, and housewives--answered their nation's call. These "munitionettes" worked grueling shifts often seven days a week, handling TNT and other explosives with little protective gear.Among them is nineteen-year-old former housemaid April Tipton. Impressed by her friend Marjorie's descriptions of higher wages, plentiful meals, and comfortable lodgings, she takes a job at Thornshire Arsenal near London, filling shells in the Danger Building--difficult, dangerous, and absolutely essential work. Joining them is Lucy Dempsey, wife of Daniel Dempsey, Olympic gold medalist and star forward of Tottenham Hotspur. With Daniel away serving in the Footballers' Battalion, Lucy resolves to do her bit to hasten the end of the war. When her coworkers learn she is a footballer's wife, they invite her to join the arsenal ladies' football club, the Thornshire Canaries.The Canaries soon acquire an unexpected fan in the boss's wife, Helen Purcell, who is deeply troubled by reports that Danger Building workers suffer from serious, unexplained illnesses. One common symptom, the lurid yellow hue of their skin, earns them the nickname "canary girls." Suspecting a connection between the canary girls' maladies and the chemicals they handle, Helen joins the arsenal administration as their staunchest, though often unappreciated, advocate. The football pitch is the one place where class distinctions and fears for their men fall away. As the war grinds on and tragedy takes its toll, the Canary Girls persist despite the dangers, proud to serve, determined to outlive the war and rejoice in victory and peace.
?This book is as engrossing as anything by Agatha Christie, as unsettling as a novel by Stephen King, and reported with a vigorous empathy that leaves Truman Capote in the dust. Scott Johnson's courage, his relentless quest for the truth behind a set of brilliantly obscured cruelties, and his examination of the very fabric of psychopathy ultimately lead him to question how the appalling lies spat out by the Con Queen relate to the daily untruths required of us all. His narrative is further deepened by breathtakingly honest reportage about himself and his family, which led him to this radical investigation of a deformed mind. I cannot remember the last time I read anything with such breathless fascination.??Andrew SolomonThe spellbinding tale of an epic international manhunt for a psychopathic con artist who exploited the dreams of creators to steal dozens of identities and millions of dollars.Blending years of deep reporting with distinctive, powerful prose, Scott C. Johnson's unique true crime narrative recounts the tale of the brilliantly cunning imposter who carved a path of financial and emotional destruction across the world. Gifted with a diabolical flair for impersonation, manipulation, and deception, the Con Queen used their skill with accents and deft psychological insight to sweep through the entertainment industry. Johnson traces the origins of this mastermind and follows the years-long investigation of a singularly determined private detective who helped deliver them to the FBI. Described by one victim as a ?crazy, evil genius,? the Con Queen enacted one of the most elaborate scams ever to hit Hollywood?the perfect criminal, committing the perfect crime for our time. But for what purpose? And with what motive? Johnson's unparalleled access to sources?including exclusive interviews with victims and never-before-heard recordings of the Con Queen?brought global attention to the scam, spurred law enforcement to act, and led Johnson himself to venture in search of the Con Queen. Journeying from Los Angeles to the United Kingdom to Jakarta, Johnson eventually came face-to-face with one of the most disturbing criminal minds in recent history, only to realize what chasing the Con Queen revealed about himself and his own troubled family history.
Multi-award winning and USA Today bestselling crime writer Lou Berney returns to his critically acclaimed thriller series starring former mob wheelman Shake Bouchon, who finds himself dragged into a high-stakes hostage rescue, among the mighty temples and shadowy underground of Cambodia. During his years as a wheelman for the Armenian mob in Los Angeles, Shake Bouchon didn't think of himself as the settling-down type. But now he's happily married to Gina, the love of his life-and former adversary-in Indiana, of all places. The great thing about Bloomington, for two people with checkered pasts, is that everyone is nice and no one knows them. Until the day a brutal Armenian thug who has always hated Shake shows up in his backyard. He demands that Shake help him find his missing mob boss, the pakhan-the dangerous and beautiful Alexandra "Lexy" Ilandryan, who also happens to be Shake's ex-girlfriend. Shake's got a lot of history with Lexy, so he reluctantly agrees to travel to Siem Reap, Cambodia, where she was last seen. Once there, he finds himself tangled in an underworld of Cambodian gangsters, mob politics, and opportunistic expats, where the stakes aren't clear and everyone is looking to score. With only the help of a clairvoyant hippie and the Armenian thug, Shake becomes involved in a high-stakes negotiation for Lexy that might cost him his own life. But perhaps most threatening of all is Gina's wrath when she arrives in Cambodia intent on saving Shake from himself-and from all the people trying to kill him. With Lou Berney's trademark wit, flawless plotting, vibrant locale, and memorable characters, Double Barrel Bluff is another unputdownable, globe-trotting adventure.
"Every Where Alien is a book that asks for interaction and understanding. . . . Brad Walrond defies aesthetic boundaries to write the poems that only he could write, poems that travel time and space for a truth that is sometimes painful and always necessary."--Jericho Brown, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The TraditionIn this dazzling collection, the poet, author, and conceptual/performance artist traces blackness, queerness, and desire through the legacy of 1990s and early 2000s New York City underground art movements, illuminating how their roots and undertold histories inspire today's culture.Every Where Alien is Brad Walrond's dazzling afro-futuristic, afro-surrealist journey through New York City's underground art movements, including the New Black Arts Movement, Black Rock Coalition, the Underground House Music-Dance community, the HIV/AIDS Black Queer Artivists, and the House Ballroom Scene.Every Where Alien catapults us to New York City mid-1990s, early-2000s to rebroadcast the black queer creative genius of marginalized communities. Walrond questions narrow conceptions of "alien" as outsider, to explore how feelings of alienation also call us toward our shared humanity. In holographic odes, he pays homage to creative forces both living and dead. Giants like James Baldwin, Nina Simone, Octavia Butler, Ntozake Shange, Amiri Baraka, belong to the same space-time as Larry Levan, Erykah Badu, Vernon Reid, Yasiin Bey, Greg Tate. Here Patti Smith, Kendrick Lamar, Kalief Browder, Willi Ninja, Jeff Mills, Sarah Jones, share the same air. Featuring gorgeous, black-and-white illustrations, Every Where Alien traces our common and conflicting identities to vindicate why human beings are always greater than the sums of our parts. Walrond is a rebellious virtuoso wielding empathy, grief, anger, and grit in equal measure. This triumphant collection is a passionate reminder that through our dreams and determination, we create our own utopias.
Inspired by the allergy-friendly movement, this board book can be displayed on your doorstep in place of a teal-painted pumpkin to signal that you're offering non-food trinkets for trick-or-treaters on Halloween.Friends dressed in snazzy costumes jump, hop, and skip from trunk to trunk collecting all kinds of treats--from the farmer's sticky-delicious caramel apples to the local librarian's scary and not-so-scary stories. Older Halloween fans take the chance to eat their own fair share of the candy, but everyone agrees that the sweetest treat of all is belonging to the community! This cheerful and celebratory board book shows kids visiting teal pumpkin homes and receiving trinkets such as stickers, little toys, and more for an allergy-inclusive Halloween night!
Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults FinalistA graphic novel chronicling the immediate aftermath and rippling effects of one of the most impactful days in modern history: September 11, 2001. From the Sibert Honor- and YALSA Award-winning creator behind The Unwanted and Drowned City. The consequences of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York City, both political and personal, were vast, and continue to reverberate today. Don Brown brings his journalistic eye and attention to moving individual stories to help teens contextualize what they already know about the day, as well as broaden their understanding of the chain of events that occurred in the attack's wake.Profound, troubling, and deeply moving, In the Shadow of the Fallen Towers bears witness to our history--and the ways it shapes our future.Read more books by Don Brown: 83 Days in Mariupol: A War DiaryRun and Hide: How Jewish Youth Escaped the Holocaust Fever Year: The Killer Flu of 1918The Unwanted: Stories of the Syrian Refugees
A raw, gripping, authentic, and boldly original novel about a fifteen-year-old Texas girl set to stand trial for murder--and the one person who might be able to help her clear her name.A wealthy businessman is dead, and fifteen-year-old Ruby Monroe is in a Dallas jail awaiting trial for his murder. Ruby has no one she can count on--no one, except her state-appointed caseworker, a woman named Cadence Ware. In Ruby's experience, that's not anyone she can trust.Cadence is familiar with the cold reality of Ruby's situation, even before Ruby was arrested. Angry and alone, homeless and hungry, breaking the law just to survive, she is the kind of girl no one wants to listen to, especially not the prosecutor who wants to put her away for life. But no one knows the story--the real story--of what happened the day Ruby met the man who would end up dead. As the layers of truth are peeled away and time is running out, Ruby and Cadence will both have desperate choices to make--choices that could mean the difference between Ruby spending her life in prison or her name being cleared.Told through a collection of letters, meeting notes, news articles, court transcripts, and more, Girls Like Her is a riveting and unflinching tale of the truths so often lost in the American justice system, and one girl's fight to be heard.
Euphoria meets Girl in Pieces in this coming-of-age story of a girl trying to put a grief-stricken past behind her, only to be startled by the discovery of a long-lost sister who puts into question everything she thought she knew.Amélie Coeur has never known what it truly means to be happy.She thought she'd found happiness once, in a love that ended in tragedy and nearly sent her over the edge. Now, at seventeen, Mel is beginning to piece her life back together. Under the supervision of Laurelle Child Services, the exclusive foster care agency that raised her, Mel is sober and living with a new family among Manhattan's elite. It's her last chance at adoption before she ages out of the system, and she promised, this time, she'll try.But a casual relationship with a boy is turning into something she never intended for it to be, causing small cracks in her carefully constructed walls. Then the sister she has no memory of contacts Mel, unearthing complicated feelings about the past and what could have been.As the anniversary of the worst day of her life approaches, Mel must weather the rising tides of grief and depression before she loses herself, and those close to her, all over again.
New York Times investigative reporter Kenneth P. Vogel takes us inside Washington's murky foreign influence industry, providing an unsparing look at the politically connected and morally flexible Americans who get rich working to shape public policy and popular opinion on behalf of brutal dictators, corrupt oligarchs, and pitiless arms dealers.It has been the source of the some of the most explosive scandals in American politics over the last century, quietly shaping U.S. foreign policy while producing lucrative paydays for some of the biggest names in Washington. But the foreign influence industry has remained shrouded in mystery, defying understanding and explanation--until now.Selling America shines a harsh light on the shadowy intersection of U.S. government diplomacy and private dealmaking. It is a billion-dollar business with a fundamentally undemocratic goal--wielding huge sums of often ill-gotten cash to help shape the exercise of American power around the world on behalf of foreign interests that are often anathema to American values about human rights and democracy.The beneficiaries include African dictators and Serbian arms dealers, as well as the families of American presidents, "America's mayor," and a major lobbyist who burst onto the scene under Trump. The losers include impoverished people living under oppressive regimes around the world, and American taxpayers, whose money is spent propping up the regimes.Kenneth P. Vogel has broken some of the biggest stories about foreign influence in American politics. Using his expansive source network, thousands of documents, and on-the-ground reporting, he takes readers from an oligarch's wooded compound outside Kyiv and a South American presidential palace to Washington, DC, and the C.I.A., revealing the stories of the people, places and deals behind the selling of America.
From the author of The Littlest Library--a heartwarming novel about a widowed children's book author who moves into a cottage in the English countryside and finds herself face-to-face with the handsome and brooding blacksmith who lives next door.In her books she can write "happily ever after"--but real life? That's another matter...For children's book author Imogen, an idyllic life in the English countryside seems like the perfect fit for her and her husband. But when tragedy strikes, Imogen is left widowed, and finds herself moving into Storybook Cottage alone with only her monstrously narcissistic cat for company.After discovering she is pregnant, Imogen grows determined to embrace a new start in Middlemass, with its duckpond, cricket matches and village fêtes. The only thing Imogen can't seem to shake is her neighbor--a brooding, artisan blacksmith named Zach--who she can't quite decide is friend or foe. That is until she realizes, thanks to an arcane clause in her deeds, that Zach is not just an artist, but lord of the local manor house.He has the power to take her home and leave her completely broke. Devastatingly--he seems keen to do exactly that. Yet, Imogen finds herself drawn to him nonetheless. And in her darkest hour, Zach may just be the bright spot to save Imogen in more ways than one.
Georgie Blalock, the acclaimed author of The Other Windsor Girl, delivers an enchantingly reimagined fictional portrait of Wallis Simpson through the lens of her cousin who is engaged to spy on the Duchess of Windsor for her alleged Nazi sympathies and finds much more than she bargained for!American Amelia Montague defied her family five years ago to marry the man she loved, but that decision cost her everything. Disowned by her family, and left a penniless widow after her husband's death, Amelia becomes her cousin Wallis Simpson's private secretary in France. With no other prospects available, Amelia has no choice but to succeed, and under their Aunt Bessie's direction, hopes to have a positive influence on Wallis and the Duke of Windsor.During the next two years, Amelia realizes that not everything with the Windsors is glittering happiness. Beneath the façade of the besotted couple simmers Wallis's rage at her stunted ambition, and the couple soon reveal themselves to be self-centered Nazi supporters who pursue their own interests at any cost.When the Germans invade France, and the Windsors leave Amelia to escape the Gestapo on her own, Amelia finds herself in position to work for the most unlikely of employers: MI5 and the FBI. Convinced to work undercover, Amelia joins the Windsors in Nassau and soon realizes that Wallis's treachery extends far deeper than the US and British government even knows...Richly imaginative, Georgie Blalock's novel stuns as it explores two women, opposites in every way, and the choices they make to survive both war and each other. . .
A revolutionary and much-needed exploration of Alzheimer's, how it is a complex disease that requires a complex approach, how the vast majority of dementia research overlooks this fundamental truth, and how patients and their caregivers can simplify this complexity and take back control from this insidious disease. An estimated 6.7 million Americans aged 65 and older are living with Alzheimer's dementia today. The toll is stunning: it is the fifth-leading cause of death among older Americans, and in 2023 alone, the cost of health care, long-term care, and hospice services for people with dementia has been estimated at $345 billion.But that doesn't mean most of us are doomed to develop Alzheimer's. Research in neuroplasticity has proven that our brains have the capacity to keep changing, learning, and growing even into our later years. Few know better about what Alzheimer's does to people--to their brains, their bodies, their families, their lives--than Dr. Heather Sandison, one of the foremost Alzheimer's dementia-care clinicians. In Reversing Alzheimer's, she shows how we can alleviate the factors that nudge the brain into decline, add more of the things that contribute to brain regeneration, and either make significant improvements in cognitive function or prevent cognitive decline from happening in the first place.Hers is an individualized, step-by-step, whole-body approach: Dr. Sandison systematically guides the reader through addressing the factors that contribute both positively and negatively to our cognitive health--from the biological and the physical (toxins, nutrition, hormones, infections, exercise) to the psychological (negative self-talk, trauma); from the social (personal engagement with our community, loneliness and relationships); to the cultural (ageism, stress). She provides patients and caregivers with an evidence-based approach to reversing and preventing cognitive decline--and distills a multi-factorial approach to treating this complex disease into a doable, step-by-step, customizable program.Reversing Alzheimer's aims to help people suffering from dementia return to themselves, to give families their loved ones back, and to help those who are living in fear of developing dementia the confidence of knowing they are taking good care of their current and future brain health.
From perennially popular historical novelist Christine Wells, the delightful tale of three young women in 1950s Paris who share a single dazzling Christian Dior gown.1957: Three friends--Margot, Gina, and Charlotte--share an apartment above a bookstore in Paris.Margot is a twenty-two-year-old Australian having the time of her life. Having been sent to the City of Light to be "finished" before her debut, Margot falls in love with Paris all over again. In her mind, all she needs to complete her transformation into "Une Parisienne" is a gown from the spectacular designer Monsieur Dior, particularly if she wants to catch the eye of Peter Mountbatten, a distant cousin of the Queen.Gina is an American blueblood whose family has fallen on hard times. She's run away to Paris and is now working in a bookstore while writing a novel at night. But then she receives an invitation to a high society ball at the American Embassy where the man who once jilted her will also attend...with his new wife. Gina must have a knockout gown to wear.French chef Charlotte is the lone girl in a family of boys and one of the very few women working in the stubbornly sexist restaurant business. She's always thought herself homely compared with her conventionally pretty mother and is more interested in her work than fashion. But that is about to change...One night, Margot proposes to share the cost and the gown with her two best friends and roommates. Each will put in some of her savings, and they'll each get to wear the gown in turn.Gorgeous, perfectly tailored, lustrous and luxurious, the Dior gown has the power to change lives--as these three remarkable women are about to discover...
A brilliantly provocative and entertaining essay collection about the Y2K era, the generation-defining period that birthed everything from AOL Instant Messenger, the Hummer H2, bling-era rap, and low-rise jeans, to McMansions, anti-Bush chain emails, Abu Ghraib, and the subprime mortgage crisis. The early 2000s conjures images of dial-up internet connections, inflatable furniture, Hummer H2s, blinged out rap videos, and the feeling that the stock market would go up forever. The arrival of the new millennium was marked by a sense of both unbridled optimism and existential dread. For many it felt like the end of history; we'd solved all the big problems. No more wars, no more racism, no more sexism. But then history kept happening.In Y2K, one of our most incisive young essayists Colette Shade offers a darkly funny meditation, unpacking everything from the pop culture to the political economy of the period. By zooming in on Y2K cultural artifacts like celebrity tabloids, Starbucks, TRL, and the rise of internet porn, Shade produces an affectionate yet searing critique of an era that started with a boom and ended with a crash.In one essay Colette unpacks how hearing Ludacris's hit song "What's Your Fantasy" shaped the course of a generation's sexual awakening; in another she interrogates how her eating disorder developed as rail-thin models from the collapsed USSR flooded the pages of Vogue; in another, she explores how post-9/11 hysteria curdled into a kitschy patriotic consumerism that warps our politics to this day.Perfect for fans of Joan Didion, Jia Tolentino, and Chuck Klosterman, Y2K is a perfectly timed and deeply personal exploration of the final days of millennial optimism.
A gripping historical novel set in Norway and Sweden in 1940, based on true events, which follows one of the first female US Ministers, Daisy Harriman, and her fictional niece as the two are unexpectedly caught up in the German invasion of Norway.Cleo Jaffray was an American. A war in Europe had nothing to do with her. She told herself that right up until the man she loved went missing in Poland and Cleo was forced to turn to the only person who might be able to help--her aunt Daisy, the US Minister to Norway.Daisy Harriman has never shied away from a challenge, be it canvassing for women's suffrage or driving Red Cross ambulances in WWI, so as only the second woman ambassador, she is determined to prove the naysayers wrong and succeed in her post. When her disgraced niece Cleo lands on her doorstep, penniless and demanding help to find her lost lover, Daisy must balance her responsibilities as a diplomat with her desire to help her family.Their search for answers is interrupted when Germany invades Norway and the two of them find themselves on the run in a countryside that is quickly becoming a battleground. Then as Daisy is given the task of escorting the Norwegian Crown Princess and her young children to America, Cleo's lover resurfaces with a story that doesn't add up and dangerous enemies on his trail. This riveting historical novel, based on the astounding life of Daisy Harriman and a real-life royal rescue, vividly captures a desperate time and a fearless heroine.
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