Derek Revson is back in town after leaving several years ago. He misses his long-lost friends who, at this point in time, are all maturing in life's important categories. Derek still revels in old habits, living life faithless and lonely, a choice he feels a nudge to somehow change. In a divinely appointed moment, his group of friends reunite on a yachting venture out to an island to celebrate an engagement and he joins in. Derek smiles for the first time in a long time while enjoying the lavish weekend getaway. But in all its fun and camaraderie, a plan is devised and lives will change.
Five centuries ago, a Mexican peasant named Juan Diego was visited by the Virgin Mary. As a lasting sign of her presence, Diego’s cloak was marked with the image of the Holy Mother surrounded by roses—and it remains one of the most revered and priceless relics in Mexican religious culture. But now the Virgin’s Cloak has been stolen. Retired CIA agent Vincent Traeger has a history with the Vatican, and is tasked to recover the Cloak. From the border-hunting Minutemen to longtime foes of the Church, the motives are as varied as the suspects. But Traeger soon realizes that the truth is hidden within a conspiracy that could bring a country—and a faith—to its knees.
The Get Wisdom Bible Studies help women connect with Scripture in an accessible and energizing way. Teresa Swanstrom Anderson guides with a winsome style that is rich in depth, but still approachable for newer readers of the Bible. What Are You Hustling For? We glorify busyness. We hustle, hoping to gain approval and find acceptance. Yet for most of us, we simply hustle our way to burnout. But what if it's only pointless hustle that leads to burnout? What if meaningful struggle can lead us to growth and depth and even joy? The apostle Paul understood hustle--and struggle--better than most. But in prison, where we'd expect him to be burned out and depressed, he wrote a letter to his Philippian friends seeking to build them up, a letter filled with thankfulness, generosity, and joy. Focused on Jesus rather than concentrating on his own discomfort, Paul's actions brilliantly display what happens when hardship is used for the glory of God. We might feel that life is trying to bury us . . . but what we forget is that we're a seed. Philippians will show us how we can grow deep roots and blossom by finding the meaning in our struggle.
Venice, one of the world's most storied cities, has a long and remarkable history, told here in its full scope from its founding in the early Middle Ages to the present day. A place whose fortunes and livelihoods have been shaped to a large degree by its relationship with water, Venice is seen in Dennis Romano's account as a terrestrial and maritime power, whose religious, social, architectural, economic, and political histories have been determined by its unique geography.
** Holt Medallion Finalist – Novel with Strong Romantic Elements ** A painting, a panic room, a thief, and her lover … whose job is to catch her. There are three things you need to know about Anna. 1) She’s a bounty hunter with adrenaline junkie habits, 2) She’s the “awkward” twin, and 3) She’s a thief – kind of. Darius designs security systems for Cipher Security, and the strange and remarkable woman he met the night the painting was stolen is as intriguing a mystery as his hunt for the thief is. But the lady has no filter, and she knows she can’t lie to the man who looks like a Disney Prince and kisses like fairytales are true, so she runs from the one person who may actually see her as the heroine of her own story. Code of Honor is book #2 in the Cipher Security series. It is a full-length romantic suspense novel, and can be read as a standalone.
As heard on NPR's This American Life “Absorbing . . . Though it's non-fiction, The Feather Thief contains many of the elements of a classic thriller.” —Maureen Corrigan, NPR’s Fresh Air “One of the most peculiar and memorable true-crime books ever.” —Christian Science Monitor A rollicking true-crime adventure and a captivating journey into an underground world of fanatical fly-tiers and plume peddlers, for readers of The Stranger in the Woods, The Lost City of Z, and The Orchid Thief. On a cool June evening in 2009, after performing a concert at London's Royal Academy of Music, twenty-year-old American flautist Edwin Rist boarded a train for a suburban outpost of the British Museum of Natural History. Home to one of the largest ornithological collections in the world, the Tring museum was full of rare bird specimens whose gorgeous feathers were worth staggering amounts of money to the men who shared Edwin's obsession: the Victorian art of salmon fly-tying. Once inside the museum, the champion fly-tier grabbed hundreds of bird skins—some collected 150 years earlier by a contemporary of Darwin's, Alfred Russel Wallace, who'd risked everything to gather them—and escaped into the darkness. Two years later, Kirk Wallace Johnson was waist high in a river in northern New Mexico when his fly-fishing guide told him about the heist. He was soon consumed by the strange case of the feather thief. What would possess a person to steal dead birds? Had Edwin paid the price for his crime? What became of the missing skins? In his search for answers, Johnson was catapulted into a years-long, worldwide investigation. The gripping story of a bizarre and shocking crime, and one man's relentless pursuit of justice, The Feather Thief is also a fascinating exploration of obsession, and man's destructive instinct to harvest the beauty of nature.
A National Bestseller! Start living the life of your dreams today with the help of this inspiring guidebook from the Associate Pastor at Lakewood Church as he shows how to stop delaying and start enjoying the life you have right now. Everyone has dreams. Usually, they look like a set of achievements: a dream house, a dream job, a dream family, a dream vacation… However, in pursuing them, we often become disgruntled and disheartened as challenges, setbacks, and opposition come our way. We get stuck focusing on what we don’t have and where we want to be. Nick Nilson, Associate Pastor at Lakewood Church, offers a different approach to overcome these challenges: a change of perspective. What if we stopped focusing on what we lack, and instead focused on what we do have, and the possibilities our life currently offers us? What would change if you truly believed that God was in the middle of your troubles, disappointment and heartache and actually working all things out for your good!? Imagine if your dream wasn’t a destination you chased , but a mindset you chose? You Can Live the Dream outlines how readers can harness the power of perspective in every aspect of their lives. Recognizing that you don’t have to wait to live the dream, you can live your dream now.
A concise introduction to the genre about that one last big score, The Heist Film: Stealing With Style traces this crime thriller's development as both a dramatic and comic vehicle growing out of film noir (Criss Cross, The Killers, The Asphalt Jungle), mutating into sleek capers in the 1960s (Ocean's Eleven, Gambit, How to Steal a Million) and splashing across screens in the 2000s in remake after remake (The Thomas Crown Affair, The Italian Job, The Good Thief). Built around a series of case studies (Rififi, Bob le Flambeur, The Killing, The Lavender Hill Mob, The Getaway, the Ocean's trilogy), this volume explores why directors of such varied backgrounds, from studio regulars (Siodmak, Crichton, Siegel, Walsh and Wise) to independents (Anderson, Fuller, Kubrick, Ritchie and Soderbergh), are so drawn to this popular genre.
Grandmama and the Church of the People Inspired by Psalm 78 v. 1-4, this engaging series of lesson-laden vignettes, set in a fictitious, small-town, Negro church in South Carolina over the course of 20 years between 1945 and 1965, serves as a pretext for Grandmama to teach her passel of unnamed grandchildren about the curious ways of the "Good Lord God"...Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Through the telling of her stories, Grandmama unfurls fables about the forms and fashions as well as the fun foibles of faith fellowship at The Church of the People, and shows us all that in our human-ness, we will surely fall short of God's perfect ways sometimes, even Grandmama, her own self. The stories are related in the conversational Ebonics of that era. Grandmama is a woman with a formal education that only reached sixth grade, yet she has the Master's degree in Christian life learning, as taught by the Holy Spirit. Most of the stories are light and some are "fall out" funny, but others tackle subjects that challenge Christian communities to eschew the worship of denominations, individual churches or charismatic leaders in favor of a real personal relationship with God, the Holy Father of all Creation...God, the Son, who sacrificed everything for the undeserving...and God, the Person of Holy Spirit, who walks and talks with us through the signposts of life, and who can get His feelings hurt when we disobey, in the name of God.
The small, dusty town of Ranipur, not distinguished for anything in particular, is shaken out of its somnolent pace by a series of apparently mysterious events. Trees bear fruit out of season; the teenage bride of the aged temple priest disappears without trace from a moving train. Twin sisters wake with heavy facial growth after gorging on a chicken dinner. A guard dog appears to have robbed the local branch of a bank. Bewildered and fearful, seeking the cause of the strange events, some take refuge in their faith, the anger of the gods, or simply the coming end of the world. The authorities, unable to offer a plausible explanation, merely declare the happenings intolerable. The Mysteries of Ranipur, the second part of Krish Day’s Indian trilogy, offers both entertainment and an underlying reflection on the persistence of superstition and the irrational, in an age dominated by science and technology. Flowing at a brisk pace through events farcical and whimsical, the narrative is peopled with a colourful cast: a police inspector, mild and modest, harassed by a querulous wife; a hormonal specialist who delights in altering the physical contours of his patients; a bank manager in flight from an overly lascivious wife; a decrepit merchant’s tragic attempt to impregnate his young wife by proxy; a holy man, expert in emptying pockets and seducing the innocent, overplaying his hand, to come to a sad end. Moving across a panorama comic, absurd and melancholy, unravelling the simpler mysteries of the natural world, the narrative gradually illuminates the greatest mystery of all: the human heart! The Mysteries of Ranipur is a beguiling and intriguing work, combining the contrasts and comedy of modern India, that will appeal to readers of cultural fiction. It will also be enjoyed by fans of Krish's previous novels.
