Former cemetery tour guide and reluctant medium Pepper Martin is thrilled when she gets her job back—with a promotion. But her new position is turning out to be more than she can handle, especially with the dead clamoring for her attention… As Garden View Cemetery’s new community relations manager, Pepper is feeling overwhelmed with planning the annual party to attract new sponsors. Luckily, some of the cemetery’s permanent residents have volunteered to give Pepper a ghostly hand, and she’s not about to turn away the help. But when a murdered ghost starts leaving puddles everywhere, Pepper quickly finds her newly acquired free time occupied. The dead man is her ex-boyfriend Quinn’s former partner Jack Haggarty—and he isn’t going away until Pepper figures out the real reason behind his murder. And while Quinn recently had a brush with the afterlife, he still isn’t ready to accept Pepper’s abilities—or offer his skills as a detective. Now, Pepper has to convince Quinn she’s the real deal and investigate Jack’s death—before someone else meets their end in a watery grave...
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • More than one million copies sold! A “brilliant” (Lupita Nyong’o, Time), “poignant” (Entertainment Weekly), “soul-nourishing” (USA Today) memoir about coming of age during the twilight of apartheid “Noah’s childhood stories are told with all the hilarity and intellect that characterizes his comedy, while illuminating a dark and brutal period in South Africa’s history that must never be forgotten.”—Esquire Winner of the Thurber Prize for American Humor and an NAACP Image Award • Named one of the best books of the year by The New York Time, USA Today, San Francisco Chronicle, NPR, Esquire, Newsday, and Booklist Trevor Noah’s unlikely path from apartheid South Africa to the desk of The Daily Show began with a criminal act: his birth. Trevor was born to a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother at a time when such a union was punishable by five years in prison. Living proof of his parents’ indiscretion, Trevor was kept mostly indoors for the earliest years of his life, bound by the extreme and often absurd measures his mother took to hide him from a government that could, at any moment, steal him away. Finally liberated by the end of South Africa’s tyrannical white rule, Trevor and his mother set forth on a grand adventure, living openly and freely and embracing the opportunities won by a centuries-long struggle. Born a Crime is the story of a mischievous young boy who grows into a restless young man as he struggles to find himself in a world where he was never supposed to exist. It is also the story of that young man’s relationship with his fearless, rebellious, and fervently religious mother—his teammate, a woman determined to save her son from the cycle of poverty, violence, and abuse that would ultimately threaten her own life. The stories collected here are by turns hilarious, dramatic, and deeply affecting. Whether subsisting on caterpillars for dinner during hard times, being thrown from a moving car during an attempted kidnapping, or just trying to survive the life-and-death pitfalls of dating in high school, Trevor illuminates his curious world with an incisive wit and unflinching honesty. His stories weave together to form a moving and searingly funny portrait of a boy making his way through a damaged world in a dangerous time, armed only with a keen sense of humor and a mother’s unconventional, unconditional love.
A breathtaking voyage to the frontiers of life! True stories from parents and others reveal an awe-inspiring phenomenon. Children-to-be reach out to their future parents in many ways, even giving help and guidance on the journey to birth. These illuminating stories of contact before birth-and before conception-cast a new light on everything from parenthood, soul agreements, and life planning, to the unsuspected role of grandparents in the soul world. Including accounts from people who actually remember their pre-birth existence, this book may change the way you look at yourself, your family, and life itself.
To each of us who has enjoyed a piece of birthday cake, the strains of "Happy Birthday to You" are as familiar to our ears as our own names. Yet how many people know the origin of the tune and its place in American history? In 1889 Patty and Mildred Hill, two Kentucky sisters, wrote the words and composed the melody of "Good Morning to All" for their kindergarten students. Initially written as a simple greeting and welcome, they later changed the words and birthday celebrations were forever altered. But it wasn't until 1935 that the sisters' song was fully copyrighted and their names duly credited. Margot Theis Raven, the author of such inspiring children's books as Mercedes and the Chocolate Pilot and Let Them Play, relates the story behind one of the most famous and oft-sung songs in the world.Margot Theis Raven's award-winning books are often set against powerful historical backdrops such as America's civil rights period. Her books for Sleeping Bear Press include America's White Table and Let Them Play, which was named a 2006 Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People. Chris Soentpiet's numerous books include My Brother Martin and Peacebound Trains and reflect his interest in people, history, and culture. He has won several prestigious awards such as the International Reading Association Children's Book of the Year. Chris lives in Flushing, New York.
From the legendary "Dionne quintuplets" to the phenomenon of "twin telepathy", Twin Tales explores the fascinating history and mystery of multiple birth.
It was an explosion that reverberated across the country—and into the very heart of early-twentieth-century America. On the morning of October 1, 1910, the walls of the Los Angeles Times Building buckled as a thunderous detonation sent men, machinery, and mortar rocketing into the night air. When at last the wreckage had been sifted and the hospital triage units consulted, twenty-one people were declared dead and dozens more injured. But as it turned out, this was just a prelude to the devastation that was to come. In American Lightning, acclaimed author Howard Blum masterfully evokes the incredible circumstances that led to the original “crime of the century”—and an aftermath more dramatic than even the crime itself. With smoke still wafting up from the charred ruins, the city’s mayor reacts with undisguised excitement when he learns of the arrival, only that morning, of America’s greatest detective, William J. Burns, a former Secret Service man who has been likened to Sherlock Holmes. Surely Burns, already world famous for cracking unsolvable crimes and for his elaborate disguises, can run the perpetrators to ground. Through the work of many months, snowbound stakeouts, and brilliant forensic sleuthing, the great investigator finally identifies the men he believes are responsible for so much destruction. Stunningly, Burns accuses the men—labor activists with an apparent grudge against the Los Angeles Times’s fiercely anti-union owner—of not just one heinous deed but of being part of a terror wave involving hundreds of bombings. While preparation is laid for America’s highest profile trial ever—and the forces of labor and capital wage hand-to-hand combat in the streets—two other notable figures are swept into the drama: industry-shaping filmmaker D.W. Griffith, who perceives in these events the possibility of great art and who will go on to alchemize his observations into the landmark film The Birth of a Nation; and crusading lawyer Clarence Darrow, committed to lend his eloquence to the defendants, though he will be driven to thoughts of suicide before events have fully played out. Simultaneously offering the absorbing reading experience of a can’t-put-it-down thriller and the perception-altering resonance of a story whose reverberations continue even today, American Lightning is a masterpiece of narrative nonfiction.
The host of The Daily Show, Trevor Noah, shares his personal story and the injustices he faced while growing up half black, half white in South Africa under and after apartheid in this New York Times bestselling young readers' adaptation of his adult memoir. “A piercing reminder that every mad life--even yours--could end up a masterpiece." --JASON REYNOLDS, New York Times bestselling author We do horrible things to one another because we don’t see the person it affects. . . . We don’t see them as people. Trevor Noah, host of The Daily Show on Comedy Central, shares his remarkable story of growing up in South Africa with a black South African mother and a white European father at a time when it was against the law for a mixed-race child to exist. But he did exist--and from the beginning, the often-misbehaved Trevor used his keen smarts and humor to navigate a harsh life under a racist government. In a country where racism barred blacks from social, educational, and economic opportunity, Trevor surmounted staggering obstacles and created a promising future for himself thanks to his mom’s unwavering love and indomitable will. This honest and poignant memoir adapted from the #1 New York Times bestseller Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood will astound and inspire readers as well as offer a fascinating perspective on South Africa’s tumultuous racial history. BORN A CRIME IS SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING OSCAR WINNER LUPITA NYONG'O!
International bestseller and master storyteller Jeffrey Archer returns with a tale of fate and fortune, redemption and revenge with A Prisoner of Birth. Danny Cartwright and Spencer Craig never should have met. One evening, Danny, an East End cockney who works as a garage mechanic, takes his fianceé up to the West End to celebrate their engagement. He crosses the path of Spencer Craig, a West End barrister posed to be the youngest Queen's Counsel of his generation. A few hours later Danny is arrested for murder and later is sentenced to twenty-two years in prison, thanks to irrefutable testimony from Spencer, the prosecution's main witness. Danny spends the next few years in a high-security prison while Spencer Craig's career as a lawyer goes straight up. All the while Danny plans to escape and wreak his revenge. Thus begins Jeffrey Archer's poignant novel of deception, hatred and vengeance, in which only one of them can finally triumph while the other will spend the rest of his days in jail. But which one will triumph? This suspenseful novel takes the listener through so many twists and turns that no one will guess the ending, even the most ardent of Archer's many, many fans.
'Who was Marie Corelli?' shrieked the news headlines after she died in 1924, but no-one really knew. Her past was obscured by such a fog of lies and concealment that it was impossible to unravel.In the 1890s her novels were eagerly devoured by millions around the world, her readers ranging from Queen Victoria and Gladstone to the lowest of shop girls. It was known that the famous authoress had dined with the Prince of Wales, entertained Sarah Bernhardt and Ellen Terry, and even managed to split Stratford-upon-Avon into warring factions.In all she wrote thirty-one books, the majority of which were phenomenal bestsellers, in which she dealt intriguingly with the popular themes of the day, spiritualism, science, romance, transcendentalism and religion. At the height of her success Corelli was reputedly one of the most highly paid, and undoubtedly the best selling author in England. Yet the critics generally ignored her or belittled her work.Setting Corelli's story against the context of her time, it tells how she blazed into fame from nothing to become the bestselling novelist of her generation. Born around 1855, Marie, desperate to escape the shame of illegitimacy, had fabricated several different pasts, changed her name from Minnie Mackay to Marie Corelli and knocked fourteen years off her age. In 1886 she published her first novel, A Romance of Two Worlds and rapidly achieved success.In 1899, after a serious illness she moved to Stratford-upon-Avon with her devoted companion, Bertha Vyver. Here she became one of the first conservationists. She bestowed money on many worthy causes, but was constantly at war with the local council for her insistence on the preservation of the town's old houses. When she died in 1924 crowds gathered outside her home. The press - capitalising on her outstanding popularity - invented fantastic stories about her origins. The mystery of Marie Corelli, however, has never been solved. After her death she faded from public memory, but today she is once again being recognised for her extraordinary place in Victorian society and her remarkable ability to captivate the reading public of her era.
