Hey White Boy, Conversations of Redemption is a profoundly authentic and moving memoir that delves into the transformative journey of Sonny Von Cleveland. Raised in a small town in Michigan, Sonny's childhood was marred by unimaginable sexual molestation, which shattered his innocence and left him grappling with profound emotional scars. Unable to cope with the devastating abuse, Sonny's once gregarious and outgoing nature gave way to anger and rebellion. By the age of seven, he faced his first felony charge, and the downward spiral continued, leading him to prison at sixteen and again at twenty-one, resulting in eighteen years behind bars. However, Sonny's path took an unexpected turn amidst the darkness of his incarceration. During 19 months in solitary confinement, he encountered a fellow inmate—a wise Muslim man—who would become his mentor. Through their profound conversations and teachings, Sonny embarked on a journey of self-examination, forgiveness, and personal accountability. Sonny shares his remarkable transformation from victimhood to self-actualization and redemption in Hey White Boy. This memoir is a testament to the power of resilience, the importance of letting go, and the capacity for personal growth.
In this brilliantly told short story collection, critically acclaimed author David Updike skillfully portrays the multi-faceted nature of love and of the heart. From a father's painful realization his son has discovered the dark heart of racism still beats, to a quiet love affair that needs an audience to bloom; from the bumbling of a professor who unwittingly falls for one of his students to the wistful memories of a bittersweet affair tinged in regret, Updike portrays the intricacies of loving someone with candor. Full of sparkling wonder and poignant melancholy alike, Old Girlfriends is a clear-eyed vision of the world we live in. Drifting from the unrequited to the secretive, the familial to the first poetic moments, this soulful collection leaves no avenue of expression untouched.
The Essence best-selling author of The Prodigal Husband and Defining Moments looks at the role and rewards of redemption as she follows the life of a woman whose desperate and fateful decisions could destroy her, in a modern-day retelling of the biblical story of Hosea and Gomer. Reprint.
Alisa Valdés-Rodríguez's vibrant, can't-put-it-down novel of six friends--each one an unforgettable Latina woman in her late '20s--and the complications and triumphs in their lives Inseparable since their days at Boston University almost ten years before, six friends form the Dirty Girls Social Club, a mutual support and (mostly) admiration society that no matter what happens to each of them (and a lot does), meets regularly to dish, dine and compare notes on the bumpy course of life and love. Las sucias are: --Lauren, the resident "caliente" columnist for the local paper, which advertises her work with the line "her casa is su casa, Boston," but whose own home life has recently involved hiding in her boyfriend's closet to catch him in the act --Sara, the perfect wife and mother who always knew exactly the life she wanted and got it, right down to the McMansion in the suburbs and two boisterious boys, but who is paying a hefty price --Amber, the most idealistic and artistic member of the club, who was raised a valley girl without a word of Spanish and whose increasing attachment to her Mexica roots coincides with a major record label's interest in her rock 'n' roll --Elizabeth, the stunning black Latina whose high profile job as a morning television anchor conflicts with her intensely private personal life, which would explain why the dates the other dirty girls set her up on never work out --Rebecca, intense and highly controlled, who flawlessly runs Ella, the magazine she created for Latinas, but who can't explain why she didn't understand the man she married and now doesn't even share a room with; and --Usnavys, irrepressible and larger than life, whose agenda to land the kind of man who can keep her in Manolo Blahniks and platanos almost prevents her seeing true love when it lands in her lap. There's a lot of catching up to do.
Hey White Boy, Conversations of Redemption is a profoundly authentic and moving memoir that delves into the transformative journey of Sonny Von Cleveland. Raised in a small town in Michigan, Sonny's childhood was marred by unimaginable sexual molestation, which shattered his innocence and left him grappling with profound emotional scars. Unable to cope with the devastating abuse, Sonny's once gregarious and outgoing nature gave way to anger and rebellion. By the age of seven, he faced his first felony charge, and the downward spiral continued, leading him to prison at sixteen and again at twenty-one, resulting in eighteen years behind bars. However, Sonny's path took an unexpected turn amidst the darkness of his incarceration. During 19 months in solitary confinement, he encountered a fellow inmate-a wise Muslim man-who would become his mentor. Through their profound conversations and teachings, Sonny embarked on a journey of self-examination, forgiveness, and personal accountability. Sonny shares his remarkable transformation from victimhood to self-actualization and redemption in Hey White Boy. This memoir is a testament to the power of resilience, the importance of letting go, and the capacity for personal growth.
Sasha Whiskey is done being the good girl. She’s ready to wrangle in the single dad not looking to be caught and give him a taste of Whiskey. With any luck, one taste won’t be nearly enough. Come along for the steamy, emotional ride in this friends-to-lovers, forbidden romance. Equine rehabilitation therapist Sasha Whiskey has everything she needs right there on Redemption Ranch—a job she’s passionate about, a loving family, and Ezra Moore, the sexy single father who went from trying to nail her as a belligerent teen to keeping his distance as a successful therapist and the person to whom she compares every other man. She’s done with comparisons. She wants the real thing. But going after what she wants means risking everything they’ve both worked so hard to achieve. If only dating co-workers weren’t forbidden. From New York Times bestselling author Melissa Foster comes The Whiskeys: Dark Knights at Redemption Ranch, a small-town, big-family series of standalone romance novels featuring fiercely loyal, insanely sexy bikers who give horses—and people—a second chance. Buckle up for a wild ride in Hope Ridge, Colorado, as these big-hearted badasses and their sassy sisters wrangle in their forever loves. No cliffhangers, no cheating, and always a happily ever after. The Whiskeys: Dark Knights at Redemption Ranch The Trouble with Whiskey Freeing Sully (Prequel to For the Love of Whiskey) For the Love of Whiskey A Taste of Whiskey More coming soon… ** While you’re waiting for more Dark Knights at Redemption Ranch, get to know their cousins. The Whiskeys: Dark Knights at Peaceful Harbor. Tru Blue Truly Madly Whiskey Driving Whiskey Wild Wicked Whiskey Love Mad About Moon Taming My Whiskey The Gritty Truth In for A Penny Running on Diesel The Wickeds: Dark Knights at Bayside A Little Bit Wicked The Wicked Aftermath Crazy, Wicked Love The Wicked Truth **Don't miss River of Love (The Bradens at Peaceful Harbor), the first story in which the Whiskeys at Peaceful Harbor were introduced, and Searching for Love (The Bradens & Montgomerys), the first story in which the Whiskeys at Redemption Ranch were introduced. Read the entire Love in Bloom big-family romance collection. Characters from each sub-series appear in future books/series. Snow Sisters The Bradens at Weston The Bradens at Trusty The Bradens at Peaceful Harbor The Bradens & The Montgomerys The Remingtons The Ryders Seaside Summers Bayside Summers The Steeles at Silver Island Sugar Lake (Kindle Unlimited) Harmony Pointe (Kindle Unlimited) Silver Harbor (Kindle Unlimited) Wild Billionaires After Dark Bad Billionaires After Dark Harborside Nights Tru Blue and The Whiskeys: Dark Knights at Peaceful Harbor The Wickeds: Dark Knights at Bayside "Melissa Foster writes worlds that draw you in, with strong heroes and brave heroines surrounded by a community that makes you want to crawl right on through the page and live there. - NYT bestselling author Julia Kent "With her wonderful characters and resonating emotions, Melissa Foster is a must-read author!" NYT Bestseller Julie Kenner "You can always rely on Melissa Foster to deliver a story that's fresh, emotional and entertaining. Make sure you have all night, because once you start you won't want to stop reading. Every book's a winner!" NYT Bestselling Author Brenda Novak "Melissa Foster is synonymous with sexy, swoony, heartfelt romance!" NYT Bestseller Lauren Blakely What Readers Are Saying About the Whiskeys: "The Whiskey series has become my happy place...As a matter of fact this book is one of the best out of the entire series." - Britt, Red Hatter Book Blog "The journey to Jed and Josie's HEA was all kinds of sweet, smexy and even ovary exploding goodness...Their bantering was fun, their heart to hearts made mine melt and the smexy was HAWT." - Kahea, Evermore Books "I don't even have words on how spellbinding Jed's book is!!! Melissa Foster just brought the Whiskey series to a whole new level of excellence!" - Heather, Audio Loves "From heartache to heartwarming, these bad boy bikers will cast a spell on your heart." - Isha, Hopeless Romantic "This story captured my emotions and my heart from the first page, and kept me enthralled until the end. I was emotionally wrung out at the end!" - Pam, Goodreads "Bikers, steamy sex, a strong woman, and a man who loves her and her little boy. There are some parts that'll bring tears to your eyes. I always thought TRU BLUE would always be my favorite but this one is right up there with it." - Whispers from Mountains "I really loved the way (Foster) conveyed the sense of family throughout the entire story and the fact that family isn't just blood, it's so much more than that." - Janeen, Goodreads "Melissa Foster always digs deep into her characters and brings out all the raw emotions. I would expect nothing less." - Helene, Goodreads Foster's love stories are perfect steamy romance beach reads for fans of big-family, small-town romance. The characters are romantic and loyal, some are billionaires, others are not, and you're always guaranteed a happily ever after. 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In this emotional debut, a New York executive, restless in his success, is sent to West Virginia where a small-town girl and her son open his eyes to a richer life than he could have imagined.
On a dark street, what began as a private moment between a citizen and the police became a national outrage. Rodney Glen King grew up in the Altadena Pasadena section of Los Angeles with four siblings, a loving mother, and an alcoholic father. Soon young Rodney followed in Dad's stumbling steps, beginning a lifetime of alcohol abuse. King had been drinking the night of March 3, 1991, when he engaged in a high-speed chase with the LAPD, who finally pulled him over. What happened next shocked the nation. A group of officers brutally beat King with their metal batons, Tasered and kicked him into submission—all caught on videotape by a nearby resident. The infamous Rodney King Incident was born when this first instance of citizen surveillance revealed a shocking moment of police brutality, a horrific scene that stunned and riveted the nation via the evening news. Racial tensions long smoldering in L.A. ignited into a firestorm thirteen months later when four white officers were acquitted by a mostly white jury. Los Angeles was engulfed in flames as people rioted in the streets. More than fifty people were dead, hundreds were hospitalized, and countless homes and businesses were destroyed. King's plaintive question, "Can we all just get along?" became a sincere but haunting plea for reconciliation that reflected the heartbreak and despair caused by America's racial discord in the early 1990s. While Rodney King is now an icon, he is by no means an angel. King has had run-ins with the law and continues a lifelong struggle with alcohol addiction. But King refuses to be bitter about the crippling emotional and physical damage that was inflicted upon him that night in 1991. While this nation has made strides during those twenty years to heal, so has Rodney King, and his inspiring story can teach us all lessons about forgiveness, redemption, and renewal, both as individuals and as a nation.
Deslocado is Portuguese for ‘displaced’. This is a story of redemption set in Zimbabwe, Zambia and Mozambique in the mid-1990s, a time of nervous energy, opportunity and fear, in a region that has only recently emerged from bitter colonial wars of independence and subsequent civil wars. The peace is delicate and rancorous, racial attitudes coagulate and retribution is borne on the wind of change. Mike, a white Zimbabwean in his mid-thirties, a former Rhodesian soldier who fought against Robert Mugabe’s guerrilla armies, is struggling to find his place in the world. His marriage is crumbling against a backdrop of PTSD, alcohol and self-recrimination. Phoebe, a black Zimbabwean, grew up in Mugabe’s guerilla camps of central Mozambique. Her mother, a guerrilla herself, was killed in a Rhodesian raid in 1977. Unbeknown to Phoebe, her father is Norman Mubvunduku, the Zimbabwean minister for state security who controls the sinister Central Intelligence Organization (CIO). Salim, a member of Frelimo, the Marxist party that holds power in Mozambique, manages the state-owned hotel in the central Mozambican port city of Beira, from where he runs the city’s prostitution ring. Norman Mubvunduku, on his many official, and unofficial, visits to Mozambique is counted among Salim’s most valued clients. Salim’s star performer is Phoebe whom he ‘rescued’ from the UNHCR camps in the mid-1980s. Mike does business in Beira—where the disfigured street urchin, João, ‘adopts’ Mike as his patrão, his patron, guarding Mike’s pick-up truck being among his many self-appointed duties—a city that Mike visits more than is necessary to escape his atrophying marriage and the stifling racial attitudes of Zimbabwe. He meets Phoebe—emerging from a brutal sexual assault by one of Salim’s clients Norman Mubvunduku)—at a local club and they fall in love, just as a violent cyclone sweeps up the Mozambique Channel. An irresistible train of events is set in motion: Phoebe walks out on Salim; Mike is fired from his job in Harare and leaves his marriage; Salim has João picked up and cruelly tortured in an effort to find out where Phoebe is; Mubvunduku sets his CIO onto Phoebe’s trail in an effort to establish her identity, at the same time inculpating Mike in her disappearance; and Mike and Phoebe flee to Lusaka, Zambia when it becomes clear that their lives are at stake. In Beira, Mubvunduku and Salim are killed in a grenade explosion as João takes his revenge—with João presumed dead—which clears the way for Phoebe and Mike to return to Mozambique. UNHCR documents come to light, proving Phoebe’s father was Mubvunduku. It also emerges that Mike, as a soldier on the 1977 raid, witnessed Phoebe’s mother’s death and in fact ordered the troops not to shoot the girl. Phoebe remembers his voice. However, it is all too much for Phoebe to absorb and her final parting from Mike is acrimonious. But separation is transient: João, now an amputee, returns from the dead several months later to announce to Mike that he has been sent by Phoebe to find him and bring him back to her.
This book is more than just a reflection on my life, I recognized that many people are struggling with the same burning questions and are making the same mistakes in their lives as what I did. I needed to find out what my purpose on earth was, why I have been unhappy for many years, The idea came to write this book, maybe, I could help somebody discover themselves the way I have and understand that I have already paid for my mistakes, no need to make the same mistakes again, If this book can help to turn just one to God with love, then all was worth it for me. I truly discovered what I have been missing all my life and the fool I have become. I discovered happiness, acceptance and true peace and attempts to show the way here. This is not a quick fix it book, however, if my words resonates in your heart, you will follow the word of God because you want to and come to understand your purpose on this earth. The story includes the future of South Africa, although Britain and America is just mentioned in passing, their respective futures are the same.
