It’s not because Bel’s mother was murdered. It’s not because her father is a politician. Bel writes to a Death Row prisoner as an easy way out of an assignment. But now he’s written back. Drawn to Micah’s world inside a Thai prison, Bel finds herself falling for the boy with ragged hair, shackles and a terrible past. But is she setting herself up for more loss? And will loving him mean losing the people who mean the most to her at home?
Synopsis (JACKET) In the South, Southerners don’t think, they feel; and there’s nothing they feel more passionately about than sports—especially college football. In recent years America’s media-driven, sports-crazed culture has whetted the fan’s appetite and thereby catapulted Division I college athletics into a multibillion-dollar entertainment business that rivals the professional ranks. Today, no place is this trend more evident than at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, home of the LSU Fighting Tiger football team. Louisiana State University is part of the nation’s toughest athletic subdivision—the mighty Southeastern Conference, and as a large public institution, it is a microcosm of major competitive college football and sports across the Deep South, a region where overall athletic success is not only encouraged, but expected. Since 2005, LSU has won nearly 80 percent of its football games, three conference championships, a BCS National Championship (2007) and a College Football Playoff Naional Championship (2019). But LSU has not always been atop the college football world. Why did LSU have six straight losing seasons in football? How did LSU Athletics survive the losing years? Who is responsible? How did LSU rise from the fall? What is it that LSU and other competitive schools have done that has made them so successful in sports so fast? What sets LSU and some of the larger SEC schools apart from other football-playing schools in terms of competitiveness? Answers to these important questions can be found inside the pages of this must-read book. Written for the serious observer, alumni or fan struggling to realize how the system works, or often fails to work, Inside the Eye of the Tiger is an introspective snapshot of what it’s like to coach in a big-time athletic department where campus politics and winning are regularly at odds. Often what you see from the outside looking in to the athletic department is not always a true picture of what actually happens. Inside the Eye of the Tiger is the story of what really went on behind the scenes of the LSU Athletic Department over two tumultuous decades in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. *** Hall of Fame LSU Tennis Coach Jerry Simmons’ memoirs of 26 years of coaching is an engaging and sometimes startling read that will once and for all set the record straight on how business was conducted inside the LSU Athletic Department during its roller coaster ride from 1981 to 1998, and beyond. As told to author Chris Warner by Jerry Simmons in a straightforward, provocative style characteristic of his maverick personality, this is a must-read for anyone hoping to enter the big business of college athletics, whether coaching or administratively; as it is the tell-all sports book that will for the better forever alter the stereotype of the modern, big-time Southern athletic department. This is a politically-correct book. Jerry Simmons A native of West Texas, and a former LSU tennis player, Simmons coached LSU Men’s Tennis for 15 years. A 1964 Palo Duro High School graduate from Amarillo, he was the 1965 Globe News Male Tennis Player of the Year. Simmons played college tennis at LSU for a year and at West Texas State (Now West Texas A&M) University in Canyon, Texas from 1967-69, where he maintained the No. 1 singles position and was the Buffaloes' team captain. A self-proclaimed blend of the lives and philosophies of U.S. Army General George S. Patton, UCLA Coach John Wooden and 6th-century B.C. Chinese General Sun Tzu, before coaching LSU Tennis, he was the Men’s Head Tennis Coach at the University of Southwestern Louisiana in Lafayette for 11 years. At LSU, six years after his hiring, he was named National Tennis Coach of the Year, in 1988. Having won over 70 percent of his college matches (492–197 .714), he remains the youngest coach inducted into the United States Collegiate Tennis Hall of Fame (1998) at 52. He is a member of the West Texas State (West Texas A&M) Hall of Fame (2017) and the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame (2018). At LSU he had 13 NCAA Tournament appearances, going 278-105 in that span. Simmons reached the prestigious Elite Eight in the NCAA Tourney five times and won the SEC in 1985, while earning SEC Coach of the Year honors in 1988 and 1997. Simmons coached 37 All-SEC honorees, 24 All-Americans, 19 Academic All-Americans, one NCAA singles champion (1989) and notched a 128-42 record in NCAA play. Chris Warner is the author of over 20 books, including “A Tailgater’s Guide to SEC Football Vol. V,” the Bible of SEC Football, “The Wagon to Disaster,” with HealthSouth CFO Aaron Beam, “The Ulysses Long Story,” about Dale Brown getting four-term Louisiana Governor Edwin Edwards to pardon a black man from Angola State Penitentiary, “Bushwhacked at the Flora-Bama,” the history of the iconic beachside haunt, with patriarch Joe Gilchrist, as well as six novels, “The Tiger Among Us,” a fictional story on international terrorism with Recon Marine/Air Force Pararescue Daniel Waghelstein, set at LSU in 1990, “Professional Bone,” a novel based on the HealthSouth scandal, a campy series: “Saved at the Alabama-Florida Line”(Nominated, Best Piece of Fiction by an Alabama author, Alabama Library Association 2017), “They Met at the Alabama-Florida Line,” “Trouble at the Alabama-Florida Line,” and a novella, “Santa & Sam,“ among other titles. He has completed but not published, “The Principal of Influence,” the story of Richard Scott Rogers, a British con man and vicious pedophile hiding in plain sight as a Baton Rouge scion and talk show host for over a dozen years, whose demise in the viper pit of Louisiana politics was the Media Story of the Year in Louisiana in 2014. Chris holds a doctorate from the University of New Orleans and is a double graduate of Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. A New Iberia, Louisiana native, he lives in Perdido Key, Florida.
The case of a lost little girl forces a child services worker to confront her own past in the New York Times bestselling author’s “compelling page-turner” (Publishers Weekly). Though she loves her job at Portland, Maine’s child services agency, Delia Lamont is feeling burned out. In fact, it’s gotten bad enough that she’s ready to leave the job and start a seaside bakery with her sister. But then a call comes in: a five-year-old girl has been found at the side of the road. The girl reveals that her first name is Hayley, but little more. The only clues to her family lead to a shadowy web of danger that reaches unsettlingly close to Delia’s own life. As she seeks to discover where Hayley belongs, Delia is forced to reexamine her own painful history. With no guide but her own flawed instincts, Delia must decide how deeply she can afford to venture into Hayley’s case as it threatens to lead her into dark corners of her own soul. “The Tiger in the House is teeming with excitement and heart-stirring emotion. A natural storyteller, Sheehan will draw you in with her finely crafted characters and hold you tight until the very end.” —Heather Gudenkauf
It's December 1997 and a man-eating tiger is on the prowl outside a remote village in Russia's Far East. The tiger isn't just killing people, it's annihilating them, and a team of men and their dogs must hunt it on foot through the forest in the brutal cold. To their horrified astonishment it emerges that the attacks are not random: the tiger is engaged in a vendetta. Injured and starving, it must be found before it strikes again, and the story becomes a battle for survival between the two main characters: Yuri Trush, the lead tracker, and the tiger itself. As John Vaillant vividly recreates the extraordinary events of that winter, he also gives us an unforgettable portrait of a spectacularly beautiful region where plants and animals exist that are found nowhere else on earth, and where the once great Siberian Tiger - the largest of its species, which can weigh over 600 lbs at more than 10 feet long - ranges daily over vast territories of forest and mountain, its numbers diminished to a fraction of what they once were. We meet the native tribes who for centuries have worshipped and lived alongside tigers - even sharing their kills with them - in a natural balance. We witness the first arrival of settlers, soldiers and hunters in the tiger's territory in the 19th century and 20th century, many fleeing Stalinism. And we come to know the Russians of today - such as the poacher Vladimir Markov - who, crushed by poverty, have turned to poaching for the corrupt, high-paying Chinese markets. Throughout we encounter surprising theories of how humans and tigers may have evolved to coexist, how we may have developed as scavengers rather than hunters and how early Homo sapiens may have once fit seamlessly into the tiger's ecosystem. Above all, we come to understand the endangered Siberian tiger, a highly intelligent super-predator, and the grave threat it faces as logging and poaching reduce its habitat and numbers - and force it to turn at bay. Beautifully written and deeply informative, The Tiger is a gripping tale of man and nature in collision, that leads inexorably to a final showdown in a clearing deep in the Siberian forest.
The death of high school basketball star Rob Washington in an automobile accident affects the lives of his close friend Andy, who was driving the car, and many others in the school.
Set in the turbulent years around World War Two, this gripping novel--based on a true story--has it all: adventure, romance, and international suspense. Nona Orlov, a refugee in colonial Penang, falls in love with an Englishman who catapults her into a life of luxury. But his dark secrets put Nona in danger, facing treachery, violence, and death. Has she the courage it takes to survive?
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • The instant classic debut novel from the author of Inland and The Morningside, hailed as “a thrilling beginning to what will certainly be a great literary career” (Elle) “Spectacular . . . [Téa Obreht] spins a tale of such marvel and magic in a literary voice so enchanting that the mesmerized reader wants her never to stop.”—Entertainment Weekly “Not since Zadie Smith has a young writer arrived with such power and grace.”—Time ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times; Entertainment Weekly; The Christian Science Monitor; The Kansas City Star; Library Journal In a Balkan country mending from war, Natalia, a young doctor, is compelled to unravel the mysterious circumstances surrounding her beloved grandfather’s recent death. Searching for clues, she turns to his worn copy of The Jungle Book and the stories he told her of his encounters over the years with “the deathless man.” But most extraordinary of all is the story her grandfather never told her—the legend of the tiger’s wife. Weaving a brilliant latticework of family legend, loss, and love, Téa Obreht, hailed by Colum McCann as “the most thrilling literary discovery in years,” has spun a timeless novel that will establish her as one of the most vibrant, original authors of her generation. ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Wall Street Journal, O: The Oprah Magazine, The Economist, Vogue, Slate, Chicago Tribune, The Seattle Times, Dayton Daily News, Publishers Weekly, Alan Cheuse, NPR’s All Things Considered
