Böcker utgivna av The Story Plant

Generations from now, the future of humanity is grim. To save their fate, the Time Forward Project pins their hopes on their force-of-nature time agent, Kristen Winters. She's sent on missions into the past through an unstable wormhole in deep space, attempting to change historical events. >Time Unfolded is a fascinating exploration of how the past holds the key to humanity's survival and the lengths we will go to protect it. Buckle up--this extreme adrenaline-fueled race through time will both vex and electrify you.

A chemical engineer sets in motion a horrendous explosion killing hundreds of commuters and himself.Hollywood's hottest sex symbol assassinates a sitting senator.A grandmother stages a sophisticated attack on a train causing massive damage.An airplane full of Silicon Valley's brightest is blown up while refueling.A series of deadly, unrelated events or the unlikely start of an insidious new terror network? As Science Advisor to the President, William ¿Wild Bill¿ Hiccock is tasked with assembling a team to identify and stop the threat, whether homegrown or foreign. His team ¿ a retired Navy admiral, a wise-guy computer hacker sprung from federal prison, and his ex-wife, a leading behavioral psychologist ¿ must identify and destroy their elusive adversary who always seems to be a step ahead.

"It's like . . . like a miracle. Like some kind of weird, freaky miracle." Christmas is a time when anything can happen . . . even if you think the entire idea of a holiday miracle is laughable. Janie Mason just wants to get through the season. She's under enormous pressure at work, her boss is brilliant but self-centered, and the holidays bring up a lot of memories she'd rather leave unremembered. The only thing that's making things tolerable for her right now is that she's getting to work more closely with Bill Sparks, the man she's crushing on, and Jeremy, someone who was just beginning to be a friend pre-lockdown and who has become the only person she can rely on now that everyone is back in the office. January really can't come soon enough. The last thing Janie needs is someone trying to prove to her that Christmas magic is real. So, when a guy claiming to be an elf offers to fulfill a wish for her, Janie off-handedly tells him that she wishes the makeup she just purchased actually did what it claimed to do. When she gets home, strange things begin to happen with the makeup. Blush that turns her whole face scarlet? Clarifying lotion that makes things clearer? Vanishing cream that actually causes things to vanish? And so begins an odyssey that promises to take Janie places she'd long ago stopped imagining. There's magic in the makeup. There's magic in her deepening connection with a certain co-worker. And maybe there's magic in a holiday she'd long ago abandoned. Janie Mason is getting her make-up test. And if she passes, her life will never be the same again.

It's 2052. Sergeant Juanita Carbajal of the Columbia Police Department in Missouri is assigned the job of tracking down the latest incarnation of Elvis Presley, who is haunting the local countryside. Lincoln Koufax, a pop music reporter for Philadelphia-based tabloid Deep-Fried America, has flown into the region to interview a woman claiming to have had an affair with The King. None of this should be that surprising to anyone. Out in the center of the country, belief in anything and everything is now the norm. But there might be more going on than your standard rural legend. Cecil Miller, a young paranormal scientist, hears a voice telling him to travel to Central Missouri in order to find Lucas Fancher out in the boonies. Fancher, a onetime disciple of the infamous psychedelic guru Terence McKenna, could hold the key to everything. No one's seen Fancher in years, but he's bought up thousands of acres of Missouri farmland that include numerous decommissioned intercontinental ballistic missile silos. Chit Kressel, a defense intelligence contractor seemingly on a mission from the highest levels, thinks Fancher has stumbled onto one of the most important secrets of mind control ever. Kressel needs to do something drastic in the name of national security - and he's only got a few days to do it. Sound Effect Infinity is a future paranormal mystery rolled up in puzzles about the real magic of music wrapped in questions about the power of the human mind. It is a reading experience totally off the literary grid.

"The Mozinskis experience music like no family you've ever met. Struggling musicians Vincent Mozinski and Grace Klinefelter marry in the early 1960s, drawn together by the shared ability to see the music they play. The two pass this unique skill along to their ever-growing family of musical prodigies: Clara, Ellington, Bix, Allegro, Thelonious, and Viola. After the children record a radio commercial for a local business, Vincent realizes the best chance of achieving his dream of musical stardom is with and through his children. The family is tapped as one of several amateur acts to perform on a nationally televised Bicentennial celebration, leading to a recording contract and ultimately the pinnacle of 1970s stardom, their own musical variety show. The success of The Musical Mozinskis depends on the family's ability to keep churning out talented children. There's only one problem: Viola is tone deaf. Alternately hilarious and heartbreaking, The Musical Mozinskis explores the limits of family bonds and loyalties and what it means to be an artist"--Back cover.

Pat Nolan, an American man, is summoned to Paris to claim the body of his estranged daughter Megan, who has committed suicide. The body, however, is not Megan's, and it becomes instantly clear to Pat that Megan staged this, that she is in serious trouble, and that she is calling to him for help.This sends Pat on an odyssey that stretches across France and into the Czech Republic and that makes him the target of both the French police and a band of international terrorists. Joining Pat on his search is Catherine Laurence, a beautiful but tormented Paris detective who sees in Pat something she never thought she'd find--genuine passion and desperate need. As they look for Megan, they come closer to each other's souls and discover love when both had long given up on it.Juxtaposed against this story is Megan's story. A freelance journalist, Megan is in Morocco to do research when she meets Abdel Lahani, a Saudi businessman. They begin a torrid affair, a game Megan has played often and well in her adult life. But what she discovers about Lahani puts her in the center of a different kind of game, one with rules she can barely comprehend. Because of her relationship with Lahani, Megan has made some considerable enemies. And she has put the lives of many--maybe even millions--at risk.A World I Never Made is an atmospheric novel of suspense with brilliantly drawn characters and back-stories as compelling as the plot itself. It is the kind of novel that resonates deeply and leaves its traces long after you turn the final page.

Professional football's backstory was lost, until now. In the beginning, in 1892, pro football was born. Then it effectively died in infamy in 1906. It was resurrected nearly a decade later and soon became the American Professional Football Association in 1920 (renamed the National Football League in 1922). Few are even familiar with the basics of the historical narrative: the star players, the rivalries, and the game's brutality.After its infancy in Pennsylvania, fanatic passion and media hype started exploding around the country for the greatest teams ever assembled in what became known as the Ohio League. More suddenly, the league died because of a gambling scandal. Nobody has ever been sure who was behind it or who were the heroes who saved the game. Careers and lives were ruined, and the game's legacy was left suspended in time without resolution. As of the NFL's 100th anniversary, nobody knows the true narrative that led up to its founding. Gridiron Legacy brings the story to light for the first time with a treasure trove of new research and never-before-published photographs from the career of one of the game's early champions. It is the greatest sports story never told.Author Gregg Ficery is the great-grandson of the 1906 professional football world champion Massillon Tigers captain Bob Shiring, who was regarded by many as the greatest center of the pre-NFL professional era. Ficery grew up in a Pittsburgh suburb and learned stories about Shiring's football career from his grandmother. In the 1970s, she showed him that one of the pictures of her father's Tigers that hung in her home was featured in Robert Leckie's 1965 book The Story of Football. So Ficery knew from a young age that Shiring and his teams were vital to the game's history and that "one day" there would be much more to be learned. He could not imagine where the journey of discovery would lead and how magical it would be.In 2007, while cleaning out his grandmother's house after her death, Ficery unearthed a gold mine of pro football history by way of Shiring's photo collection, which had been hidden in storage for almost exactly a century. With help and encouragement from late Pro Football Researchers Association head Bob Carroll, he began the research process to identify its significance. With spirited diligence, Ficery learned that the images included the greatest professional teams and players at the turn of the twentieth century preceding the founding of the NFL. With improbable luck, he added rare newfound pieces to the collection and pieced together their dramatic narrative.In 2012, Ficery met with executives at the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, to share his family stories and initial research. HOF exec- utive vice president Joe Horrigan stated, "To us, this is like finding an original Constitution."Later that year, Ficery made another important find. After learning that the club in Homestead, Pennsylvania, for which Shiring had played in 1901 on its "world championship" team, still stands under a different name, he toured the facility. Unbeknownst to its staff, gathering dust on a shelf in its storage closet was a treasure that some call the Holy Grail of American professional football.The odyssey then led to Massillon, Ohio, where pro football moved west after Homestead and most other pro teams folded in Pennsylvania. There, Ficery found a town full of passionate citizens holding on to glorious football memories of Massillon Tigers high school football state championships, with a vague recollection that their beloved team's nickname came from one of pro football's first great teams. Their historians guided him to a small group of elderly Massillon boosters who keep the Tigers' flame and preserve their treasures. Through them, more hidden pieces to pro football's creation story were unveiled.Now, Ficery is introducing the dramatic story of the pre-NFL era to the world, including solving the mystery of the 1906 Canton Bulldogs-Massillon Tigers championship series game-fixing scandal that nearly killed pro football. Discover for yourself the historical revelations, fascinating characters, corruption, and intrigue, along with the blood, guts, and glory that defined the first great rivalry in pro football history and the heroes who saved what would become the country's favorite sport. Filled with hundreds of photos, so many never seen before, Gridiron Legacy is a story for the ages.

Deirdre and Sam, mother and daughter, have been stuck in individual grief cycles since husband and father Niall died less than a year earlier. Now it is time for a change. For Deirdre, this means hiring a life coach, rediscovering long-dormant parts of herself, and putting the family home on the market. For Sam, it's jettisoning an abusive employer, re-evaluating her strengths, allowing for the possibility of love, and maybe even moving home for a while. They come to their decisions an ocean apart, but when they find themselves under the same roof, their lives begin moving in unexpected directions. But progress through grief is never linear...and heartache isn't entirely done with them yet. At once a deeply felt story of two people not just ready to move on and an inspirational call for finding oneself, Let it Shine is a profound, touching, and ultimately stirring work of fiction.

Welcome to Blackthorne Faire, a place of wild music and unbridled, boisterous dance! Of theatre and pageantry! Of deadly duels and rapier-fast quips! Of roasting turkey legs and boisterous drinking bouts!Welcome to Blackthorne Faire, a place of whispered rumors of unexplained disappearances. Of mystery, intrigue, and murder.Welcome to Blackthorne Faire, a modern Renaissance Festival where nothing is what it seems. It is a place where a lost tune rediscovered in The Hidden Book of Secret Knowledge stirs long forgotten magic, and where never-before-seen tarot cards foretell unexpected futures that always, always come true.Welcome to Blackthorne Faire, where true love is found and lost and lost again in the shadow of a coming war between the mob and the Courts of Faerie.Beware, mortal, oh, beware the sounds that echo over the hills, across the bluffs, and through the winding pathways, for no one can hear the horns of Elfland and remain unchanged.

Based on true events, here is a thriller that exposes a little-known story: how a small handful of corporations manipulate your choices at the supermarket and control the food that is meant to nourish you. >Concealed industry memos, fraudulent scientific tests, kidnappings, bombings, eavesdropping, burglaries, hacking, and assassinations don't normally accompany legal disputes over ice cream, but in today's world, no one is safe. Hurtling through a conspiracy that reaches deep into the government, the search for Bobby's missing food radical best friend, and a trial with an explosive conclusion, The Food Mafia is both edge-of-your-seat fiction and a bracing cautionary tale about what food corporations are doing to us . . . and what they are willing to commit to keep doing it.

Scarlett is a university graduate with a master's in biophysics and a chip on her shoulder. Artie is a retired professor of art history. They've been hired by a wealthy collector to authenticate a cache of paintings discovered under the floorboards of an Italian townhouse. And they've taken an instant-and intense-dislike to each other. The calculus shifts when they stumble on something unexpected-a manuscript written by Leonardo da Vinci's last pupil. It's an astonishing firsthand account of the great master as he grapples with a murder at the prestigious Aldine Press. It's a mystery Leonardo is compelled to solve, or else his notebooks may never be published. Scarlett and Artie fear a similar fate might await the manuscript if their client gets his acquisitive hands on it. He'll bury it deep in his vault, and the world will once again be deprived of Leonardo's genius. They put aside their differences and make a pact: they'll steal the manuscript. They land a publisher, change their names, disguise their looks, and set off across northern Italy in a frantic race to publish the story and disappear for good. But have they underestimated the deadly resolve of their client?Carefully researched and faithfully rendered, Octavo is a breathtaking historical mystery, a pulse-pounding modern thriller, and a loving evocation of Leonardo's times, penned with indelible characters and studded with wondrous discoveries.

THE NATIONAL BESTSELLER NEWLY REVISED AND EXPANDEDChris Astor is a man in his early forties who is going through the toughest stretch of his life. Becky is Chris's fourteen-year-old daughter, a person who overcame enormous challenges to become a vibrant, vital young woman - and now faces her greatest obstacle yet. Miea is the young queen of a fantasy land that Becky and Chris created when Becky was little, a fantasy land that has developed a life of its own and now finds itself in terrible, maybe fatal trouble. Together, Chris, Becky, and Miea need to uncover a secret. The secret to why their worlds have joined at this moment. The secret to their purpose. The secret to the future. It is a secret that, when discovered, will redefine imagination for all of them. BLUE is a novel of trial and hope, invention, and rediscovery. It might very well take you someplace you never knew existed.

For sixteen-year-old Nate Alexander, music is more than sound. It's a symphony of color, vibrant and beautiful, a blessing and a curse. For all that he may love about living with Chromesthesia, however, the added weight of undiagnosed autism clutters his life daily, turning school into a trial of his oddness, social encounters into a jumble of confusion, and leaving him on uneven footing with a father determined to make him more "normal." The arrival of Julian Mack, an openly gay new student quickly gaining the attention of bullies, draws Nate into a friendship that tests the limits of what he can endure. Absorbed by the need to please Julian, Nate is quickly at odds with his best friend Michelle and her efforts to protect him. As Nate struggles to find what meaning music has in his life, rumors about him swirl around school, leaving him to decide between defending Julian and his reputation or the safety and comfort of his haven of music and color. Written with deep sensitivity and the rare ability to bring the little-understood to life, Perfectly Normal is a resounding work of fiction that might bring new color to your world.

After losing his grandfather, the last male role model in his life, 12 year-old Mike finds himself the the lone male in a house full of women - an absent mother, a financially-strapped grandmother, and a doting great-grandmother. Without his hero around to guide him, Mike struggles to find his place in this first generation Italian-American family. That is, until he runs into his grandfather's former business partner and Connecticut's most prominent crime lord, Frank. Mike is immediately drawn to "Uncle Frank" and is thrilled when his grandmother arranges for them to spend more time together despite his mother's arguments. Frank takes Mike under his wing, teaching him how to win a fight and how to take care of his family while sharing stories he never knew about his grandfather. As tensions rise between the two crime families in Connecticut, Mike begins to question if Frank was telling him the truth about his relationship with his grandfather. When Mike learns that Frank and his grandmother share a secret that spans decades and even his mother doesn't know, Mike must decide whether or not to pursue a truth that threatens to not only tarnish his image of his grandfather, but also unravel everything about his family as he knows it.

From the author of the acclaimed short story collection The Ascent of Eli Israel, and the warm, funny and heart-wrenching novel I Am My Beloveds, here are 14 searing, deeply-immersive stories that will forever change the way you look at the human experience. Profound and magical, dark and disturbing, Papernick's stories are always challenging and brave. Whether he is writing stiletto-sharp flash fiction or a novella-length historical drama, Papernick's characters are rendered with the greatest empathy, presenting beauty and understanding amid stark brutality. From the opening story "Displaced Person," to the sexy and shocking "The Cinq à Sept Girl," Papernick returns to the themes of love and longing and desire. "Adam Number Three," provides a golem revenge story for the 21st century, while "When the Rains Came," a brief but devastating parable, takes on the eternal great flood myth in which only innocent children remain to carry on. Masterful storytelling, by a writer working at peak power, Gallery of the Disappeared Men will remain with you long after you have closed the book.

From acclaimed author Craig Lancaster comes a story of family violence, dysfunction, and, perhaps, redemption, told across four timelines.More than a decade into the 21st century, Nate Ray is down and in the final throes before he's out for good. He has burned through jobs and the goodwill of others, including his son, Brandon. When Nate's dad, Ronnie, summons him for a trip from Texas to Montana to bury Ronnie's sister, Nate's self-destruction is put on hold, but new and long-buried issues arise.Forty years earlier, in Wyoming, Electra Ray plots an escape to an uncertain future for herself and her five-year-old son. A new friend awaits on the other end, three states away, but first Electra must break cleanly away from the bonds of a neglectful present.In 2002, recent high school graduate Cherie Bowden is helping her mother settle her grandma's estate in Billings, Montana and is already deferring her own dreams. She discovers information that makes her question everything she thinks she knows about the people she comes from.And in early 1950s Montana, Ronnie Ray, sixteen years old and estranged from the father he barely knows and on the run from an abusive home life, reaches faithfully toward a connection.In his latest novel, Lancaster, who has been hailed as "one of Montana's most important writers," goes deep into how history shapes and confines us and how hope sometimes stubbornly abides.

CJ has returned from war. But she has not left the war behind. The one bright spot in her life is her nine-year-old sister, Amazing Gracie, or Mazey, as CJ knows her. Mazey is brilliant, curious, and innocent, but she's carrying burdens of her own, including a deep desire to meet the father she's never known. When CJ heads off on a cross-country motorcycle trip to visit the homes of her fallen friends, Mazey somehow convinces CJ to let her tag along. It isn't the journey CJ expected, but it is the journey she needs. Contending with her demons, confronting her past, and facing her future, CJ comes to terms with choices she couldn't have anticipated. And when Mazey's quest takes a surprising turn, both CJ and Mazey discover that this road trip has been headed to an undisclosed destination all along.A story of family in all its incarnations, Amazing Gracie is a deeply felt excursion presented by a writer of rare warmth.

Ben Seidel wasn't sure how serious they were when he and his wife, Shira, discussed having an open marriage. But when Shira announces that she is going on a date with Liz, any ambiguity evaporates. Suddenly, every day is new terrain for Ben, navigating between keeping things t...

The quest for the secrets of Atlantis begins on the Moon. Uprooted after the disappearance of his parents, Charlie Thomas moves to the Moon to live with his Uncle Merl-only to discover that "Merl" is actually Merlin the Magician . . . and that Charlie is an heir to Atlantis. ...

Allegra Gordon knew there was much she could learn from Faith Hale. From the moment she met the esteemed writer and feminist icon, Allegra understood that Faith would be a force in her life, one that would wrench the best work from her and encourage her to lay her soul bare. The relationship would simultaneously be the most liberating and most shattering Allegra ever encountered. And it would change both women in profound ways.

After a car accident claims his older brother Mitch's life, Mark Murphy's world is turned upside down. Despite the insistence of the adults in his life that he accept Mitch's death, Mark is undeterred. They don't know what he knows. They don't know the story of the Witch on Spook Hill.

It''s the summer of 2013 and 15-year-old Ivy Scattergood has traveled with her family to their vacation home in Maine. The Scattergoods are a blended, mixed-race family with old Philadelphia area Quaker roots. Ivy loves the Red Sox, one single music group at a time (this year it''s Johnnyswim), helping make dinner every night, and this guy in Maine named Bailey Cooper. Ivy also has no interest in makeup, heels, dresses, and most of the basic assumptions people make about what it means to be a teenage girl ΓÇö but don''t call her a Tomboy, at least to her face. Then her cousin Robert from San Diego (also 15) comes to visit -- as a beautiful, glamorous young woman who has re-named herself Rita Gomez.Thus begins a summer where Ivy''s worldview will expand, where she will discover new layers to herself and those around her, and where stepping forward into the unknown will emerge as a bold adventure.Lyrically written and brimming with spirit, OLD MUSIC FOR NEW PEOPLE is a luminous work of fiction.

A holocaust survivor faces the ghosts of his past as he hunts a Nazi through 1970s Munich in this ';tautly plotted and gripping' thriller (Crystal Book Reviews). Detroit, 1971. Holocaust survivor Harry Levin is living a quiet life until he gets a late-night phone call informing him that his daughter was killed in a car accident. Traveling to Washington, DC, to claim the body, he learns that the accident was caused by a German diplomat who was driving drunk. And thanks to diplomatic immunity, there will be no charges. Enraged and aggrieved, Harry decides to take justice into his own hands. He finds the diplomat's nameErnst Hessand follows him to Munich where he plans to hunt him down. But Ernst is far more dangerous than Harry can imagine. A dedicated Nazi, he has plans to finish the work he once oversaw at Dachau. And Harry may just be playing into his hands. ';If you haven't read Leonard beforeand you mustthis is a great place to start.' The Guardian

Recent retiree Ruth Singer is reflecting on her life and wondering what direction it might have taken if she'd made different choices. What if she'd learned to ski? What if she'd had her tubes tied before her difficult youngest child was born? What if she hadn't quit her rock band to attend college? What if she'd run off with Danny Fortuna when she'd had the chance? Not only does Ruth ponder these questions, she lives those what-if lives in her imagination. As the chaos of her real life swirls around her, she contemplates the roads she never took, the choices she never made, and comes to understand how she became the woman she is ¿ and why. A novel that will resonate with every reader, If Only is at once a poignant excursion into one woman's life and a guided tour through every internal conversation we've ever had.