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Poison: A History and a Family Memoir
by Gail Bell"Readers with a strong stomach will enjoy this unusual memoir laced with a natural history of poison." - Publishers WeeklyYears after Dr. William Macbeth died, his ornate medicine case passed to his estranged son. Over the protests of his family, the son buried it deep in the ground, out of sight and out of reach.Then ten-years-old, Macbeth's granddaughter Gail Bell watched the mysterious case of elixirs arrive at her home. She watched her father treat it like a poison chalice. Only decades later would she understand why: the case concealed evidence of her family's deadly secret.In 1927, Macbeth was accused of poisoning two of his sons. He never stood trial. Bell, determined to discover how this "calm, warm, and caring" healer could become a cunning murderer--and evade detection--eventually uncovered the dark secrets that her father had tried to hide from the world. But as the unexpected twists of her investigation reveal, nothing is as straightforward as it seems.At the same time, she explores what the crime of poisoning reveals about humanity, through the perspectives of myth, history, fiction, and the great poison trials. A pharmacist by profession, and the granddaughter of a suspected poisoner by circumstance, she is perfectly placed to revisit the cases of Cleopatra, Emma Bovary, Napoleon's doctor, Harold Shipman, and Dr. Crippen, and she is equally well-suited to chronicle the devastating effects of poison's many forms, from hemlock and belladonna to arsenic and strychnine.Poison is at once a fascinating history of the science and sociology of poisoning, and a true, first-person account of one woman's struggle to understand its mysterious role in her own family's murderous history.
Doin' Dirty: A Novel
by Howard SwindleA year ago, Dallas Homicide Detective Jeb Quinlin went through an alcohol rehab program that was rather more intense than usual, as he double-timed his treatment with tracking a serial killer on an AA agenda. Now, sober and taking things one day at a time on the job and cautiously but successfully involved with Madeline Meggers, a woman he met in the Jitter Joint, he's fragile but surviving. Quinlin and his partner Paul McCarren's latest case involves the gruesome murder of an investigative reporter. It seems that Richard Carlisle may have found more than he bargained for while following a lead on a hush-hush story. Tracing Carlisle's steps, the case leads Quinlin back to his roots in the legendary Texas ranching country of Comanche Gap, looking into the activities of the Colters, a prominent and wealthy family. But what could Carlisle possibly have found that was threatening enough to cost him his life? The truth promises to be more far-reaching, more dangerous, and much closer to home than Quinlin can imagine, pitting him, McCarren, and a few faces from Quinlin's past against one of the Lone Star State's most powerful families.
Klara and the Sun
by Kazuo IshiguroNEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Once in a great while, a book comes along that changes our view of the world. This magnificent novel from the Nobel laureate and author of Never Let Me Go is “an intriguing take on how artificial intelligence might play a role in our futures ... a poignant meditation on love and loneliness” (The Associated Press). • A GOOD MORNING AMERICA Book Club Pick! <P> Here is the story of Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, who, from her place in the store, watches carefully the behavior of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass on the street outside. She remains hopeful that a customer will soon choose her. Klara and the Sun is a thrilling book that offers a look at our changing world through the eyes of an unforgettable narrator, and one that explores the fundamental question: what does it mean to love?
Living Life Backward: How Ecclesiastes Teaches Us to Live in Light of the End
by David GibsonWhat if it is death that teaches us how to truly live? <P> Keeping the end in mind shapes how we live our lives in the here and now. Living life backward means taking the one thing in our future that is certain—death—and letting that inform our journey before we get there. Looking to the book of Ecclesiastes for wisdom, Living Life Backward was written to shake up our expectations and priorities for what it means to live “the good life.” Considering the reality of death helps us pay attention to our limitations as human beings and receive life as a wondrous gift from God—freeing us to live wisely, generously, and faithfully for God’s glory and the good of his world.
Time for a Turning Point: Setting a Course Toward Free Markets and Limited Government for Future Generations
by Charlie KirkTurning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk shares a vision for America’s future embracing first principles, free markets, and small government. Kirk provides a roadmap on how to return to a free America, with an emphasis on reaching our youth and engaging them in the process. <P> During the 2016 Presidential election cycle, it has become clear that there is growing frustration on the part of many Americans with the general direction of the nation. There has been an abandonment of the principles of free markets and limited government upon which America was founded. We didn't get to this point over just the last eight years and it’s going to take more than one or two election cycles to reverse it. <P> In Time for a Turning Point Charlie Kirk shows exactly what needs to be done and how it needs to be done to restore America's freedom. This is a book of hope, not despair—book of action, not condolences.
The Campus Battlefield
by Charlie KirkCampus Battlefield takes that fight to our nation’s college campuses, where the left’s decades-long campaign to transform our universities into radical re-education camps is working, and now we are seeing the disastrous results. Free speech, intellectually rigorous debate, and the simple concepts of tolerance and fairness are routinely being corrupted and weaponized to promote radical leftist ideologies, enforce groupthink, and marginalize or eliminate any student, professor, and dean who gets in their way. All the while, these hothouses of close-mindedness are staffed by blame-America, anti-free market, victimology professors who are twisting the minds of tomorrow’s leaders.
Death of a Model
by Clifford L. Linedecker***Please note: This ebook edition does not contain the photos found in the print edition.***A stunning actress-model disappears without a word...A frantic search ends in tragedy...A slick photographer accused of her murder...It seemed as if all of Linda Sobek's dreams of stardom were coming true. But on the day the sexy calendar model and former NFL cheerleader missed a fitting for her first TV role, her family knew something terrible had happened to their golden girl.For eight days, police held out little hope of finding the 27-year-old beauty alive. Then the crucial clues came: photographs of Linda along with a crumpled page from her appointment book were discovered in a highway dumpster. Hours later, they were led to Linda's shallow grave deep in California's Angeles Forest.The clues near the crime scene linked the murder to Charles Rathbun, a talented, sought-after commercial photographer, who claimed he'd accidentally run Linda over in a car during a photo shoot. Police speculated that Linda may not have been the first pretty woman the strapping Rathbun had taken into Angeles Forest who didn't come out alive. But he has not been charged in any of those cases.Clifford L. Linedecker's Death of a Model tells the heartbreaking story of a promising young star.
Absence: A Novel
by Peter HandkeA “challenging and rewarding novel”* from Nobel Prize-winning author Peter Handke.The time is an unspecified modernity, the place possibly Europe. Absence follows four nameless people -- the old man, the woman, the soldier, and the gambler -- as they journey to a desolate wasteland beyond the limits of an unnamed city.“In this smoothly written fable, Handke forcefully summons readers to the recognition that the essence of human life lies in the striving for self-expression even though its perfect realization must always remain elusive.”—*Publishers Weekly
Democracy: A Play
by Michael FraynA brilliant exploration of character and conscience from the author of COPENHAGEN, set amid the tensions of 1960s BerlinIn Democracy, Michael Frayn once again creates out of the known events of twentieth-century history a drama of extraordinary urgency and subtlety, reimagining the interactions and motivations of Willy Brandt as he became chancellor of West Germany in 1966 and those of his political circle, including Günter Guillaume, a functionary who became Brandt's personal assistant-and who was eventually exposed as an East German spy in a discovery that helped force Brandt from office. But what circumstances allowed Brandt to become the first left-wing chancellor in forty years? And why, given his progressive policies, did the East German secret police feel it necessary to plant a spy in his office and risk bringing down his government? Michael Frayn writes in his postscript to the play, "Complexity is what the play is about: the complexity of human arrangements and of human beings themselves, and the difficulties that this creates in both shaping and understanding our actions."
The Earl Next Door (First Comes Love #1)
by Amelia GreyWhat does a fiercely independent young widow really want? One determined suitor is about to find out. . .When Adeline, Dowager Countess of Wake, learns of her husband’s sudden death, she realizes she’s free. At last, she can do, go, and be as she pleases. Finally, she can have the life she has always dreamed of. She doesn’t need, or want, to remarry. Especially not the supremely dashing future Marquis of Marksworth, who makes Adeline yearn for his desire. . . Lord Lyonwood, son of a philandering marquis, will not be like his father. He wants to run his estates and watch them flourish—and find a wife who brings love to his life. When he meets spirited and self-reliant Adeline in a case of near-scandalous mistaken identity, Lyon feels he’s met his match. But Adeline isn’t interested in a marriage proposal. She will only accept becoming his lover—and Lyon finds it hard to refuse. Unless the fire of his passion can melt Adeline’s resolve. . .“A master storyteller.”—Affaire de Coeur
Before the Ruins: A Novel
by Victoria GoslingNamed a Best New Book of 2021 (so far) by Real SimpleNamed a Most Anticipated Book of 2021 by Lit Hub and Bustle A gripping, multilayered debut in the tradition of Tana French and Donna Tartt about four friends, an empty manor, and a night that will follow them for the rest of their livesIt's the summer of 1996 and school's out forever for Andy, her boyfriend Marcus, her best friend Peter, and Em. When Andy's alcoholic mother predicts the apocalypse, the four teenagers decide to see out the end of the world at a deserted manor house, the site of a historic unsolved mystery. There they meet David—charming and unreliable, he seems to have appeared out of nowhere. David presents an irresistible lure for both Andy and Peter and complicates the dynamics of their lifelong friendship. When the group learns that a diamond necklace, stolen fifty years ago, might still be somewhere on the manor grounds, the Game—half treasure hunt, half friendly deception—begins. But the Game becomes much bigger than the necklace, growing to encompass years of secrets, lies, and, ultimately, one terrible betrayal.Meticulously plotted and gorgeously written, Before the Ruins is a page-turner of the highest order about the sealed-off places in our pasts and the parts of ourselves waiting to be retrieved from them.
The Beautiful Bureaucrat: A Novel
by Helen PhillipsA NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2015NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR by Time Out, Bustle, The Atlantic, Electric Literature, Kobo, Kirkus and more..."Riveting... thrillerlike...drolly surreal...Ultimately, The Beautiful Bureaucrat succeeds because it isn't afraid to ask the deepest questions." The New York Times Book Review, Editor's Choice"A joyride..." -Karen RussellNAMED A MUST READ OF THE SUMMER by the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Bustle, The Huffington Post, Buzzfeed, HelloGiggles and more...A young wife's new job pits her against the unfeeling machinations of the universe in a first novel Ursula K. Le Guin hails as "funny, sad, scary, beautiful. I love it."In a windowless building in a remote part of town, the newly employed Josephine inputs an endless string of numbers into something known only as The Database. After a long period of joblessness, she's not inclined to question her fortune, but as the days inch by and the files stack up, Josephine feels increasingly anxious in her surroundings-the office's scarred pinkish walls take on a living quality, the drone of keyboards echoes eerily down the long halls. When one evening her husband Joseph disappears and then returns, offering no explanation as to his whereabouts, her creeping unease shifts decidedly to dread.As other strange events build to a crescendo, the haunting truth about Josephine's work begins to take shape in her mind, even as something powerful is gathering its own form within her. She realizes that in order to save those she holds most dear, she must penetrate an institution whose tentacles seem to extend to every corner of the city and beyond. Both chilling and poignant, The Beautiful Bureaucrat is a novel of rare restraint and imagination. With it, Helen Phillips enters the company of Murakami, Bender, and Atwood as she twists the world we know and shows it back to us full of meaning and wonder-luminous and new.
Shadow of the Moon
by M. M. KayeM. M. Kaye, author of The Far Pavilions, sweeps her readers back to the vast, glittering, sunbaked continent of India. Shadow of the Moon is the story of Winter de Ballesteros, a beautiful English heiress who has come to India to be married. It is also the tale of Captain Alex Randall, her escort and protector, who knows that Winter's husband to be has become a debauched wreck of a man. When India bursts into flaming hatreds and bitter bloodshed during the dark days of the Mutiny, Alex and Winter are thrown unwillingly together in the brutal and urgent struggle for survival.
Spider Trap: A Brock and Kolla Mystery (Brock and Kolla Mysteries)
by Barry MaitlandWhen human bones are discovered in Cockpit Lane, a poor area of inner south London, D.C.I. David Brock and D.S. Kathy Kolla of Scotland Yard are called in to investigate. The first twist in the case comes when Brock and Kolla learn that the victims died over twenty years ago, during the Brixton riots, information that leads the two of them on a dangerous journey into the heart of the West Indian community in London. Making matters worse, a formidable old antagonist, Spider Roach, returns, weaving together past and present in an intricate web of deception and intrigue. Now the two have to uncover the truth of those long ago deaths, and be able to prove it with a crucial piece of evidence, in order to prevent the violence of the past from revisiting itself on them.
Soul
by Tobsha LearnerLearner's The Witch of Cologne is an erotically-charged novel of people swept inexorably along by events they could not control. In Soul, Learner relates the story of Lavinia and Julia Huntington, passionate women trapped in emotional whirlpools that threaten to drown them and everyone they love. In 19th century Britain, Lavinia is married to an older man who seems to appreciate her lively curiosity. Lavinia proves to be an apt pupil in both the study and the bedroom, glorying in the pleasures of the physical. In 21st century Los Angeles, geneticist Julia is trying to identify people who can kill without remorse. Stunned to discover that she seems to possess the trait she is looking for, Julia is reassured of her emotions by her intense passion for her husband and her delight in her pregnancy. In the past, Lavinia's desire for her husband grows, but his cools as he becomes fascinated with another. In the present, Julia's love overwhelms her husband, who leaves her. Lavinia and Julia feel the tortures of passion unspent. Cold logic tells them that the deaths of their tormentors will bring them peace. Separated by a hundred years, two Huntington women face the same decision. Their choices will echo far into the future.At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Cat in an Ultramarine Scheme: A Midnight Louie Mystery (Midnight Louie Mysteries)
by Carole Nelson DouglasTemple Barr, publicist extraordinaire, is itching to bring off her most dangerous and exciting assignment, helping to launch an endeavor that many a Vegas showmen have dreamed of: a Las Vegas mob museum/casino. While city powers-that-be hem and haw over doing an official project on the subject, the Family Fontana plans to connect two hotels with a "Chunnel of Crime" featuring an underground speakeasy, a fast "ride" through Vegas crime history by Gangsters custom limo sevice, and other fun attractions. Temple's grand scheme to do a live "opening Bugsy Siegel's vault" media event built around a huge safe found buried underground produces a two-day-old body wearing white tie and tails. With Temple's magician-counterterrorist ex-lover, Max, gone missing and her new fiance, radio shrink Matt Devine, in Chicago for week-long media gig, Temple must depend on "the Vegas Strip Irregulars," a posse of cats, to solve murders old and new that smack of mobs vintage and all too contemporary. Success, or failure, could cost Temple her life, and all nine of Louie's. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Trance Zero: The Psychology of Maximum Experience
by Adam CrabtreePsychotherapist Adam Crabtree shows how we live our lives caught up in a series of trances. For example, when we read we become less aware of the sounds around us, temporarily losing touch with our environment and sense of time. The same kind of effect occurs when we are deeply engaged in a conversation, lost in our own thoughts, enthralled in a creative moment, or immersed in lovemaking.While trances are necessary, enabling us to function at our jobs and in relationships with others, we can become trapped by them, and thus lose our ability to fully experience our lives and surroundings. In Trance Zero, Crabtree shows how to transcend the trance states that limit our everyday lives. He explains how to access a higher intuitive state, Trance Zero, which is characterized by being fully awake to the real condition of our existence.
Partners In Play: Creative Homemade Toys For Toddlers
by Rita Anderson Linda NeumannPartners in Play is a book by written by author Rita Anderson.
The Only Words That Are Worth Remembering: A Novel
by Jeffrey RotterA darkly comic, wildly original novel of a family in flight from the law, set in a near-future American dystopia.In an America of the semi-distant future, human knowledge has reverted to a pre-Copernican state. Science and religion are diminished to fairy tales, and Earth once again occupies the lonely center of the universe, the stars and planets mere etchings on the glass globe that encases it. But when an ancient bunker containing a perfectly preserved space vehicle is discovered beneath the ruins of Cape Canaveral, it has the power to turn this retrograde world inside out.Enter the miscreant Van Zandt clan, whose run-ins with the law leave them with a no-win choice: test-pilot the spacecraft together as a family, or be sent separately to prison for life. Their decision leads to some freakish slapstick, one nasty bonfire, and a dissolute trek across the ass-end of an all-too-familiar America.As told to his daughter by Rowan, the Van Zandt son who flees the ashes of his family in search of a new one, the story is a darkly comic road trip that pits the simple hell of solitude against the messy consolations of togetherness.Jeffrey Rotter's The Only Words That Are Worth Remembering is an indelible vision of a future in which we might one day live.
Last Night with the Duke: The Rakes of St. James (The Rakes of St. James #1)
by Amelia GreyCould finding love be his greatest scandal of all? The Duke of Griffin has never lived down his reputation as one of the Rakes of St. James. Now rumors are swirling around London that his twin sisters may bear the brunt of his past follies. Hiring a competent chaperone is the only thing Griffin has on his mind--until he meets the lovely and intriguing Miss Esmeralda Swift. In ways he could never have expected, she arouses more than just his curiosity. Esmeralda Swift considered herself too sensible to ever fall for a scoundrel, but that was before she met the irresistibly seductive Duke of Griffin. His employment offer proves too tempting for her to resist. She can’t afford to be distracted by his devilish charms because the stakes are so high for his sisters’ debut Season. . .unless one of London’s most notorious rakes has had a change of heart and is ready to make Esmeralda his bride in Last Night with the Duke, the first novel in the brand-new Regency Rakes of St. James series by New York Times bestselling author Amelia Grey.
Almost No Memory: Stories
by Lydia DavisLydia Davis's collection Almost No Memory is richly inventive array of playful philosophical investigations, involuted domestic disputes, and fables of the dark fantastic. With wittily restrained intensity, she again portrays the contemplative self caught in the paradoxical world. In 'Pastor Elaine's Newsletter,' a harried mother studies a Bible passage; in 'Foucault and Pencil,' a troubled analyst on her way home from a session attempts to distract herself with a difficult French text; in 'Glenn Gould,' a former pianist tries to justify her dependence on a certain television show. The stories in Almost No Memory reveal an empathic, sometimes shattering understanding of human relations, as Davis, in a spare but resonant prose all her own, explores the limits of identity, of logic, and of the known and the knowable.
Deadbeat: An Angela Mattelli Mystery (Angela Matelli Mysteries)
by Wendi LeeIn Deadbeat by Wendi Lee, Boston P.I. Angela Matelli returns to solve a mystery involving a stolen identity...but the person responsible is dead, and now her own client is the prime suspect in the crime.Angela Matelli has a brownstone (and mortgage) in East Boston, a large, somewhat eccentric, extended Italian family, and a mother who wants nothing more than for her daughter to find the right man, settle down, and shut down her business. In her late twenties, having recently left the Marines, Angela is now scratching out a living as a private investigator on Boston's mean streets. Cynthia MacDonald wants Angela to find the person who is using her identity to run up fraudulent credit card bills, and ruining her credit rating in the process. Angela finds it surprisingly easy to track the woman responsible for the "true-name" fraud of Cynthia MacDonald. Lisa Browning, however, is a single mother trapped in a financial bind, and Angela can't help but take pity on her. Instead of turning her in, Angela decides to give her a chance to roll over on the people above her in the fraud ring. But then Lisa Browning is murdered. Feeling responsible, maybe a bit guilty, and definitely angry, Angela decides to go after the person who murdered Lisa Browning. The only problem is that it may well have been the person who hired Angela to find her in the first place.
War Cry
by Brian McClellanA brand new novella from the author of the acclaimed Powder Mage series.Teado is a Changer, a shape-shifting military asset trained to win wars. His platoon has been stationed in the Bavares high plains for years, stranded. As they ration supplies and scan the airwaves for news, any news, their numbers dwindle. He's not sure how much time they have left.Desperate and starving, armed with aging, faulting equipment, the team jumps at the chance for a risky resupply mission, even if it means not all of them might come. What they discover could change the course of the war.At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
The Kept Woman
by Susan DonovanWHEN A GOOD-GIRL DIVORCÉE Playing by the rules has left Samantha Monroe with an AWOL ex-husband, maxed out credit cards, and the task of raising three children on a hairstylist's salary. It's time for a new game plan. When Sam learns that politician Jack Tolliver needs someone to play the part of his fiancée for six months in return for a generous paycheck, she's ready to sign up on the spot.MEETS A BAD-BOY POLITICIANJack needs Sam and her kids to help tone down his image from womanizing cad to dependable dad. But he was expecting Sam to be a frumpy single mom, not a wickedly smart, sexy redhead. Keeping nosey newshounds from discovering that his engagement is a charade is going to be a tough job, but one mind-blowing kiss from Sam and suddenly Jack is ready to put in all the overtime necessary…LOVE WINS IN A LANDSLIDE…Now, with scheming opponents itching to bring Jack down, Sam's ex returning to stir up trouble, one stubborn pre-schooler, two squabbling teenagers, a crazy dog, and some out-of-this-world sex, Jack and Sam are discovering that playing make-believe can be complicated—but not nearly as much as falling in love…
Seal Island
by Kate BrallierCecil Hargrave lives in a cramped apartment in New York City, hates her job, and has no close friends. She yearns for something more, but what? When Cecil inherits a beachfront house and a thriving business on picturesque Seal Island in Maine, she jumps at the opportunity to kickstart her life, despite her reservations about moving to New England. But even if stereotypes hold true and New Englanders are standoffish, she'll have a new career and a gorgeous home.Much to her delight and surprise, Cecil settles rapidly into small-town life. She makes real friends, plays with the seals who live on the beach outside her house, and meets two very different men. Tom, a darkly sexy novelist, has returned to his hometown to write. He and Cecil hit it off almost immediately, and their chemistry is explosive -- but Cecil can't seem to stay away from the handsome drifter, Ronan, despite his secretive ways. It's like she's under a spell...At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.