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These sixteen stories remind readers how family is at the core of human experience and how relationships, especially those between parent and child, rely on the power of love to overcome challenges.Five stories feature historical content from 1897 through 1971. Eleven contemporary stories pose challenging situations.Throughout these tales, the pull of family, the power of love, and unshakeable human decency prevail.

"Reminiscent of another fine Pennsylvania novel, John Updike's The Centaur."-J. Michael Lennon, author of Norman Mailer: A Double LifeMade to Break Your Heart is a family saga, set in a gossipy suburb, that explores the complexities of raising a child, holding a marriage together, and maintaining your sanity in the cutthroat world of Little League baseball.It's 2008, and Nick Marhoffer is a stressed-out dad who finds himself flirting with thoughts of infidelity. While his job is being threatened by a crumbling economy, he's fraught with anxiety over his only son's well-being. So when his son starts playing baseball, Nick becomes a rabid Little League dad who loses sight of what's good in his life. After developing a crush on a gorgeous team mom, he can't decide between her and his wife, then finds himself at risk of losing everything that's most important to him.This is a smart, sexy, and funny novel about bad breaks, bad decisions, and the long road of life.

This is the story of Satan's many struggles, across the history of Human existence, to unshackle the Human mind, and open the gates to forbidden knowledge.From the moment of his first emergence as a single spark in the dimness of prehistory, to the more enlightening force into which he evolves across the full span of human existence, Satan, as he now clearly illustrates, has been urging human beings to open their eyes to the world around them, and to continue seeking, with unfettered minds, for ultimate answers, yet to be found. To do so he must struggle against the persistent attempts to stifle that urge by the "spoon feeders," as he calls them, individuals who have insisted, within every age, and often with a bloody fist, that they, and they alone, are the possessors of the only beliefs that every human being should accept and live by, without question. As Satan traces the history of their many attempts to stop human beings from thinking for themselves, he also takes his readers on a search for the ultimate source of all evil in this world. Readers will obviously enter the book with the standard concept of Satan as a supernatural figure of evil. They will leave the book, however, with a better understanding of how such mind-twisting concepts have been used to keep people away from the "forbidden" knowledge that lies beyond the borders of entrenched beliefs.

An unnamed city, in which crime families flourish and the police pinch pennies from those with most power...Black Sails, Disco Inferno is a retelling of the classic medieval romance of Tristan and Isolde, turning things on their head by reversing the sex of the chief protagonists and placing them in a '70's pulp/noir world.Andrez Bergen's latest novel exposes layers of the bullet-riddled pulp/noir world of Trista and Issy amidst a sensual, disco-infused narrative overflowing with shady schemes, double dealings, cruel brutality and spellbinding mystery.

In Justice and Vengeance, Arwen Bicknell offers the first full account of the events leading up to the shooting of James Clark by Lucien Fewell and the sensational, headline-grabbing murder trial that followed. Set against the backdrop of Reconstruction, tumultuous Virginia politics, and the presidential election of 1872 featuring Ulysses Grant, Horace Greeley, and protofeminist Victoria Woodhull, the first female presidential candidate, Bicknell paints a vivid picture of the evolving South as she traces the families and fortunes of Lucien Fewell, a hellraiser with a passion for drink and for abusing Yankees and scalawags, and James Clark, a rising legal and political star with a wife, a daughter, and a baby on the way.A marvelous work of historical re-creation, Justice and Vengeance is sure to fascinate anyone interested in crime drama, the Civil War and its aftermath, and the history of Virginia and the politics of the American South.

There's something cheesy going on around here...Thirty-year-old Amalia Kis just opened a new bistro that specializes in selling mouth-watering platters of cheeses, salamis, artisan breads and wines with quirky names like Broke Ass, Well Hung and The Accomplice. But when she's greeted by the body of the local town hoarder hanging from the coat hooks at her bistro, she finds herself in the midst of an unsavory murder investigation, and her plans for success are quickly thwarted. After a second body turns up in her stairway, the list of suspects steadily grows, as does Amalia's desperation when her Hungarian parents decide to visit for a few days. To further complicate her life, Matt, an ex-cop who now owns his own private investigating firm, takes a sudden interest in her, but getting cozy with him proves to be difficult amidst concussions, break-ins, and her overprotective parents.Amalia's savings are quickly dwindling, as are the customers at the bistro amidst all the scandal. Desperate not to lose her bistro, and since the police don't seem to be making much headway, Amalia starts investigating on her own.Without a clue as to what she's doing, will she end up pasteurized or live to Whine another day?

The cycle of life as seen through the eyes of "Eve A. Floriste" is full of contradictions: beauty and decay, sensuality, violence, desire, and anguish. Haunted by memories of abuse, she expresses herself through passion, promiscuity, and even self-harm.Fresh Cut is the true story of a wild young woman with a dark past who finds refuge in the colorful world of the floral industry. Author E. J. Bouinatchova looks at Eve's life without delicacy or apology. Self-mockery and gallows humor abound; readers will shudder one moment, laugh the next, and ultimately will find a seed of inspiration in Eve's story.

When two legal interns uncover the case of a drug dealer wrongly convicted of murder, their simple intent is to free an innocent man and bring the guilty to justice, however their effort is complicated by a crooked cop, a mobster, his ambitious attorney and a secret alliance.

A mother, her son, and mania.In this fictionalized memoir, a mother recounts the emotional journey she and her son take when he becomes mentally ill.Jack is known as the Sun King because as a child he resembled the illustrated boy in his mother's deck of tarot cards. Already on the verge of madness, Jack leaves for college in Ohio but secretly decides not to take his medicine. When Jack becomes manic, his mother must retrieve him from a psychiatric hospital and bring him home to Oklahoma. She and Jack spend the next year dealing with court hearings, doctor appointments, and counseling sessions precipitated by his bipolar disorder and resultant psychosis.Guiding Jack back to sanity leads his mother to a fateful decision-one that brings about her own emotional unraveling. In the end, it is the Sun King who must save his mother.

The Ballet Lover exposes the beauty and cruelty of ballet, the performances, the back stage moments, and the personal dramas of the famous ballet dancers Rudolf Nureyev and Natalia Makarova as seen through the eyes of an American female journalist.Paris, 1970s: the orchestra plays the first ominous note of Swan Lake. In the audience sits Geneva, an American journalist and ballet lover, waiting for the heart-stopping beauty and seduction of the romantic duet to start, but instead she witnesses Rudolf Nureyev failing to catch his Russian partner Natalia Makarova, allowing her to fall with a crash upon the stage.Geneva interprets the fall as an act of cruelty, a man with all the fame and power in the world brutally letting fall his delicate, wraith-like artistic partner. When other critics defend Nureyev and accuse Makarova of causing her own tumble, Geneva vows revenge on the page, creating havoc in her own career and discovering surprising parallels between herself and the fallen ballerina.The Ballet Lover is a refined, mesmerizing, fictional account of two of the most celebrated dancers in the dance world, how one compromised the other, and how the drama on the stage often mirrors those played out in real life.

Nothing we think we know - NOTHING - is likely to be correct.If Ignorance is Bliss, We Should All Be Ecstatic explores the limitations of knowledge and argues that neither reasoning nor direct observation can be trusted. Not only are they unreliable sources, but they do not even justify assigning probabilities to claims about what we can know. This position, called radical skepticism, has intrigued philosophers since before the birth of Christ, yet nobody has been able to refute it. Fred Leavitt uses two unique methods of presentation. First, he supports abstract arguments with summaries of real-life examples from many and varied fields, which make the arguments much more convincing and compelling. He cites more than 200 studies from psychology, mathematics, chaos theory, quantum mechanics, evolutionary theory, history, the corporate world, politics, the military, and current news reporting. Second, Leavitt's writing is user-friendly, even when dealing with complex issues.Whether answering the telephone, turning on the TV, talking with friends, or munching on an apple, we expect things to happen predictably. These expectations, paired with radical skepticism, exemplify cognitive dissonance at the highest level.

By the author of Pilgrimage to Paris.There's more to see and experience in Paris than just the Eiffel Tower, Notre-Dame, and the Louvre.In the second book of the Cheapo Snob series, Paris and Parisians guides visitors to remarkable must-see sites in the City of Light including the Opéra Garnier, the Panthéon, the homes of Balzac and Victor Hugo, plus l'Église Saint-Sulpice, which figures prominently in Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, the longtime royal residence at Fontainebleau southeast of the city, and several unique museums.In addition, this guidebook uncovers authentic French culture by revealing short biographies and addresses of scores of diverse and extraordinary one-time French residents from actors including Sarah Bernhardt and Brigitte Bardot to authors Sartre, Camus, Colette, Flaubert, and Zola, to name just a few, plus artists like Monet and Renoir, fashion designers such as Chanel, Givenchy, and Saint-Laurent, not to mention architects, chefs, directors, sculptors, and many more.

"In the winter of 1942, Jasmine Bai survives the freezing wilderness and decides to keep her baby, even though he is the product of a gang-rape by Japanese soldiers. In 1947, her quiet life in a remote cabin is disrupted by the news of her loved one's death. In the following four decades, Jasmine desperately searches for her family and for Danny Hardy, the American pilot she loves"--Back cover.

Lucke's ability to move his personal encounters and experiences into broader social and political inspection, especially the injection of changing diplomatic efforts in different nations, contributes strength to a story that draws in readers with its promise of travel and adventure, but ultimately provides so much more.-Diane Donovan, Senior Reviewer, Midwest Book ReviewWhile spending thirty years overseas in the US Foreign Service, and living in eleven countries and working in many more, Ambassador Lucke accumulated many stories that would never have happened "at home." His work took him to Timbuktu (twice), to places in West Africa where kids ran away in fear at their first glimpse of a person with white skin, to the scary run up to Gulf War I in North Africa, to the jungles of Bolivia and Lake Titicaca in the Andes, the fall of Communism in the old Czechoslovakia, biblical sites of Jerusalem, the passing of King Hussein in Jordan, to interaction with a few US Presidents and many members of Congress. He was thrust into the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake, deployed into the war zone of Iraq, and finally served as US Ambassador to the last absolute monarchy in Africa. His take on a thirty-year career abroad: "It was never boring."

"Rodell writes about America the way Sinatra sings about New York, unflinching about the gritty realities, but with abiding affection and relentless positivity about the future." -Pennsylvania Governor Tom RidgeEver wonder how old you'll be in heaven? Why couples always sleep on the same side of the bed? How to respond when a stranger mistakes you for an old friend? What happens when you get tick bit in a "sensitive" place? Or how you will feel when your daughter tells you she doesn't want to dress up for Halloween anymore? And, gee, if marriage is so great then how come there's no Mrs. God?Chris Rodell wonders about stuff like that all the time.He wonders about holidays, occupations, traffic, marriage and if refrigerating your deodorant adds zing to your morning.Yes, it's a wonder-full life.It's a complicated world out there and it takes a nimble mind to sort it all out. Rodell does it with style, warmth, an engaging euphoria and undaunted optimism that lets every reader know he enjoys being human and enjoys human beings.

Heaven and Other Zip Codes follows the complicated relationships between lonely, thirty-something-year-old mother Searcy, her awkward preadolescent son Theo, cheating husband and disingenuous stepfather Hoit, and young, attractive, painter-turned-after-school-tutor Emerson.When anonymous letters accusing Hoit of infidelity start to arrive on the doorstep, Searcy takes her flirtation with her son's tutor to the next level, and the family begins to fracture in the sunny Southern California suburb they call home.Will Searcy and Emerson act upon their feelings? Will Hoit's adulterous exploits come back to haunt him? Will the boys at school stop bullying Theo? Who is writing the mysterious letters? And where exactly is the location of Heaven and Other Zip Codes?This contemporary novel explores family, guilt, manipulation, betrayal, and love.