Vera

2021-03-02
Vera
Author: Carol Edgarian
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2021-03-02
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 150115754X
GET BOOK

New York Times bestselling author Carol Edgarian delivers “an all-encompassing and enthralling” (Oprah Daily) novel featuring an unforgettable heroine coming of age in the aftermath of catastrophe, and her quest for love and reinvention. Meet Vera Johnson, fifteen-year-old illegitimate daughter of Rose, notorious proprietor of San Francisco’s most legendary bordello. Vera has grown up straddling two worlds—the madam’s alluring sphere, replete with tickets to the opera, surly henchmen, and scant morality, and the quiet domestic life of the family paid to raise her. On the morning of the great quake, Vera’s worlds collide. As the city burns and looters vie with the injured, orphaned, and starving, Vera and her guileless sister, Pie, are cast adrift. Disregarding societal norms and prejudices, Vera begins to imagine a new kind of life. She collaborates with Tan, her former rival, and forges an unlikely family of survivors, navigating through the disaster together. “A character-driven novel about family, power, and loyalty, (San Francisco Chronicle), Vera brings to life legendary characters—tenor Enrico Caruso, indicted mayor Eugene Schmitz and boss Abe Ruef, tabloid celebrity Alma Spreckels. This “brilliantly conceived and beautifully realized” (Booklist, starred review) tale of improbable outcomes and alliances takes hold from the first page, with remarkable scenes of devastation, renewal, and joy. Vera celebrates the audacious fortitude of its young heroine, who discovers an unexpected strength in unprecedented times.

Meddling Kids

2017-07-11
Meddling Kids
Author: Edgar Cantero
Publisher: Anchor
Total Pages: 357
Release: 2017-07-11
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0385542003
GET BOOK

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "Freaky pleasure...it scratches a nostalgic itch for those who grew up on Saturday morning Scooby-Doo cartoons and sugar-bombed breakfast cereal" --USA Today "Deliriously wild, funny and imaginative. Cantero is an original voice." --Charles Yu, author of How to Live in a Science Fictional Universe With raucous humor and brilliantly orchestrated mayhem, Meddling Kids subverts teen detective archetypes like the Hardy Boys, the Famous Five, and Scooby-Doo, and delivers an exuberant and wickedly entertaining celebration of horror, love, friendship, and many-tentacled, interdimensional demon spawn. SUMMER 1977. The Blyton Summer Detective Club (of Blyton Hills, a small mining town in Oregon’s Zoinx River Valley) solved their final mystery and unmasked the elusive Sleepy Lake monster—another low-life fortune hunter trying to get his dirty hands on the legendary riches hidden in Deboën Mansion. And he would have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for those meddling kids. 1990. The former detectives have grown up and apart, each haunted by disturbing memories of their final night in the old haunted house. There are too many strange, half-remembered encounters and events that cannot be dismissed or explained away by a guy in a mask. And Andy, the once intrepid tomboy now wanted in two states, is tired of running from her demons. She needs answers. To find them she will need Kerri, the one-time kid genius and budding biologist, now drinking her ghosts away in New York with Tim, an excitable Weimaraner descended from the original canine member of the club. They will also have to get Nate, the horror nerd currently residing in an asylum in Arkham, Massachusetts. Luckily Nate has not lost contact with Peter, the handsome jock turned movie star who was once their team leader . . . which is remarkable, considering Peter has been dead for years. The time has come to get the team back together, face their fears, and find out what actually happened all those years ago at Sleepy Lake. It’s their only chance to end the nightmares and, perhaps, save the world. A nostalgic and subversive trip rife with sly nods to H. P. Lovecraft and pop culture, Edgar Cantero’s Meddling Kids is a strikingly original and dazzling reminder of the fun and adventure we can discover at the heart of our favorite stories, no matter how old we get.

What's Best Next

2014-03-04
What's Best Next
Author: Matt Perman
Publisher: Zondervan
Total Pages: 375
Release: 2014-03-04
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0310494230
GET BOOK

By anchoring your understanding of productivity in God's plan, What's Best Next gives you a practical approach for increasing your effectiveness in everything you do. There are a lot of myths about productivity--what it means to get things done and how to accomplish work that really matters. In our current era of innovation and information overload, it may feel harder than ever to understand the meaning of work or to have a sense of vocation or calling. So how do you get more of the right things done without confusing mere activity for actual productivity? Matt Perman has spent his career helping people learn how to do work in a gospel-centered and effective way. What's Best Next explains his approach to unlocking productivity and fulfillment in work by showing how faith relates to work, even in our everyday grind. What's Best Next is packed with biblical and theological insight and practical counsel that you can put into practice today, such as: How to create a mission statement for your life that's actually practicable. How to delegate to people in a way that really empowers them. How to overcome time killers like procrastination, interruptions, and multitasking by turning them around and making them work for you. How to process workflow efficiently and get your email inbox to zero every day. How to have peace of mind without needing to have everything under control. How generosity is actually the key to unlocking productivity. This expanded edition includes: a new chapter on productivity in a fallen world a new appendix on being more productive with work that requires creative thinking. Productivity isn't just about getting more things done. It's about getting the right things done--the things that count, make a difference, and move the world forward. You can learn how to do work that matters and how to do it well.

The Sentence

2021-11-09
The Sentence
Author: Louise Erdrich
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 299
Release: 2021-11-09
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0062671146
GET BOOK

"Dazzling. . . . A hard-won love letter to readers and to booksellers, as well as a compelling story about how we cope with pain and fear, injustice and illness. One good way is to press a beloved book into another's hands. Read The Sentence and then do just that."—USA Today, Four Stars In this New York Times bestselling novel, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award–winning author Louise Erdrich creates a wickedly funny ghost story, a tale of passion, of a complex marriage, and of a woman's relentless errors. Louise Erdrich's latest novel, The Sentence, asks what we owe to the living, the dead, to the reader and to the book. A small independent bookstore in Minneapolis is haunted from November 2019 to November 2020 by the store's most annoying customer. Flora dies on All Souls' Day, but she simply won't leave the store. Tookie, who has landed a job selling books after years of incarceration that she survived by reading "with murderous attention," must solve the mystery of this haunting while at the same time trying to understand all that occurs in Minneapolis during a year of grief, astonishment, isolation, and furious reckoning. The Sentence begins on All Souls' Day 2019 and ends on All Souls' Day 2020. Its mystery and proliferating ghost stories during this one year propel a narrative as rich, emotional, and profound as anything Louise Erdrich has written.

Turn the Next Page

2020-06-10
Turn the Next Page
Author: Carlette White
Publisher:
Total Pages: 168
Release: 2020-06-10
Genre:
ISBN:
GET BOOK

This book, "Turn the Next Page" , is my testimony about me turning the next page of my journey of loving and knowing Him more. It is a power packed revelation designed to bring clarity and structure to the seeker. The seeker is one who understands that God is the captain of our ship, and that it is He alone that mends the broken pieces of our lives. The seeker does not want to get stuck on the pages of life but wants to turn the next page to their victory! The seeker understands that every test comes to build up their confidence and complete their faith in the one true God.

One Italian Summer

2022-03-01
One Italian Summer
Author: Rebecca Serle
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2022-03-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1982166819
GET BOOK

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER In this “magical trip worth taking” (Associated Press), the New York Times bestselling author of In Five Years returns with a powerful novel about the transformational love between mothers and daughters set on the breathtaking Amalfi Coast. When Katy’s mother dies, she is left reeling. Carol wasn’t just Katy’s mom, but her best friend and first phone call. She had all the answers and now, when Katy needs her the most, she is gone. To make matters worse, their planned mother-daughter trip of a lifetime looms: to Positano, the magical town where Carol spent the summer right before she met Katy’s father. Katy has been waiting years for Carol to take her, and now she is faced with embarking on the adventure alone. But as soon as she steps foot on the Amalfi Coast, Katy begins to feel her mother’s spirit. Buoyed by the stunning waters, beautiful cliffsides, delightful residents, and, of course, delectable food, Katy feels herself coming back to life. And then Carol appears—in the flesh, healthy, sun-tanned, and thirty years old. Katy doesn’t understand what is happening, or how—all she can focus on is that she has somehow, impossibly, gotten her mother back. Over the course of one Italian summer, Katy gets to know Carol, not as her mother, but as the young woman before her. She is not exactly who Katy imagined she might be, however, and soon Katy must reconcile the mother who knew everything with the young woman who does not yet have a clue. “Rebecca Serle is known for her powerful stories that tug at the heartstrings—and her latest is just as unforgettable” (Woman’s World) as it effortlessly shows us how to move on after loss, and how the people we love never truly leave us.

Ricochet Script

2022-04
Ricochet Script
Author: Alexandra van de Kamp
Publisher:
Total Pages: 86
Release: 2022-04
Genre:
ISBN: 9781736672112
GET BOOK

Alexandra van de Kamp's Ricochet Script examines life as a plot slipping from our hands, veering in unexpected directions as years coalesce behind us. These poems bargain with time as a foreign, surreal, and elusive entity, where whole days can feel as if they were "written/in someone else's script." In vivid, at times playful musings, van de Kamp grapples with midlife, loss, and the strangeness of the body, while never forgetting the unrelenting beauty of being alive. These poems invoke a wide range of storylines, from Hitchcock's Lifeboat and spy thrillers to aging parents, to confront the unpredictable and ricocheting world. Alexandra van de Kamp tells us "I want to make sense of abundance." In her beautifully wrought poems, we experience the sheer delight of all the sights, smells, and sounds of this world. Yet few poets are as deft at simultaneously evoking the precarity and consequent tenderness of existence. Van de Kamp's is a world made magical through art. She is canny, funny, filmic, but she can also stop your heart with the sudden apprehension of how time moves through us, "coaxing us / to bear something so much larger than ourselves." --Sheila Black, co-editor of Beauty is a Verb, author of Iron Ardent

The Next Page: A Fiction Sampler for Book Clubs

2015-05-04
The Next Page: A Fiction Sampler for Book Clubs
Author: Shona Patel
Publisher: MIRA
Total Pages: 537
Release: 2015-05-04
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 146039125X
GET BOOK

"Thrilling and illuminating."—LA Times "A hypnotic psychological thriller." —People A chance encounter sparks an unrelenting web of lies in this new gripping and complex psychological thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of The Good Girl and the upcoming page-turner Don't You Cry, Mary Kubica She sees the teenage girl on the train platform, standing in the pouring rain, clutching an infant in her arms. She boards a train and is whisked away. But she can't get the girl out of her head… Heidi Wood has always been a charitable woman: she works for a nonprofit, takes in stray cats. Still, her husband and daughter are horrified when Heidi returns home one day with a young woman named Willow and her four-month-old baby in tow. Disheveled and apparently homeless, this girl could be a criminal—or worse. But despite her family's objections, Heidi invites Willow and the baby to take refuge in their home. Heidi spends the next few days helping Willow get back on her feet, but as clues into Willow's past begin to surface, Heidi is forced to decide how far she's willing to go to help a stranger. What starts as an act of kindness quickly spirals into a story far more twisted than anyone could have anticipated. More Praise: "Hypnotic and anything but predictable." —Kirkus, starred review "A superb psychological thriller…stunning."—Publishers Weekly, starred review Read the New York Times bestselling novel that everyone is talking about, The Good Girl, by Mary Kubica! Look for Mary's latest complex and addictive tale of deceit and obsession, Don't You Cry. Order your copies today!

Gallant

2022-03-01
Gallant
Author: V. E. Schwab
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 352
Release: 2022-03-01
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 0062835793
GET BOOK

AN INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A USA TODAY BESTSELLER A NATIONAL INDIE BESTSELLER “A bone-chilling standalone . . . which fuses Shirley Jackson’s gothic horror sensibilities with the warmth and dark whimsy of Neil Gaiman.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review “Gripping worldbuilding, well-rounded characters, and fantastic horror.”—Kirkus Reviews, starred review “Unsettling and intriguing.”—Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, starred review Everything casts a shadow. Even the world we live in. And as with every shadow, there is a place where it must touch. A seam, where the shadow meets its source. #1 New York Times–bestselling author V. E. Schwab weaves a dark and original tale about the place where the world meets its shadow, and the young woman beckoned by both sides. The Secret Garden meets Crimson Peak in this stand-alone novel perfect for readers of Holly Black and Neil Gaiman. Olivia Prior has grown up in Merilance School for Girls, and all she has of her past is her mother’s journal—which seems to unravel into madness. Then, a letter invites Olivia to come home to Gallant. Yet when Olivia arrives, no one is expecting her. But Olivia is not about to leave the first place that feels like home; it doesn’t matter if her cousin Matthew is hostile, or if she sees half-formed ghouls haunting the hallways. Olivia knows that Gallant is hiding secrets, and she is determined to uncover them. When she crosses a ruined wall at just the right moment, Olivia finds herself in a place that is Gallant—but not. The manor is crumbling, the ghouls are solid, and a mysterious figure rules over all. Now Olivia sees what has unraveled generations of her family, and where her father may have come from. Olivia has always wanted to belong somewhere, but will she take her place as a Prior, protecting our world against the Master of the House? Or will she take her place beside him? New York Times–bestselling author V. E. Schwab crafts a vivid and lush novel that grapples with the demons that are often locked behind closed doors. An eerie, stand-alone saga about life, death, and the young woman beckoned by both. Readers of Neil Gaiman, Holly Black, Melissa Albert, and Garth Nix will quickly lose themselves in this novel with crossover appeal for all ages.