The classic children’s novel of a teenage girl and her special needs brother is “quite simply, a wonderfully moving story about the power of love” (Times Educational Supplement). Twelve-year-old Anna Peacock is looking forward to the birth of her baby brother. But when Ben is born with a rare condition, it is clear that he will never be like other children. Though Anna loves him immensely, she finds herself unable to tell her friends the truth about Ben’s disability. Over the years of Ben’s tragically short life, Anna’s perspective matures and changes. When the truth does come out, it leads not to the ridicule she once expected, but to sympathy and understanding. Highly commended for the Carnegie Medal, Elizabeth Laird’s Red Sky in the Morning is a heartfelt tale of love, loss, family and friendship. “A wry first-person narrative . . . . Discussion of handicaps, death and bereavement, and religious belief are carefully integrated into the story.” —School Library Journal
EPPIE AWARD Finalist, Contemporary Romance What is it they say about the best laid plans? Katherine MacCrae is about to find out that you just can't plan love in LOVING BEN. She's forced to face her demons, one in the shape of a very irritating wildlife photographer and ex-photojournalist named Ben Forrester, the man who left her high and dry six months earlier. Ben Forrester has his life completely under control and he doesn't need Kat MacCrae messing it up. He's not happy when he's forced to share space with the annoying journalist with a caustic tongue. Especially when said journalist has already thrown him out of her life once. She won't get a second chance!
In Loving Meg, Book Two of The Camerons of Tide's Way series, Meg and Ben Cameron struggle with the post-traumatic stress she suffers after a tour of duty in the middle east. Their love for each other is tested as Meg can't stop blaming herself for a tragedy and a battlefield temptation she never expected. Trying to adjust to a quiet life as a wife and mother to two small boys in laidback Tide's Way, North Carolina, feels impossible. And when Ben takes a traumatized police dog into his kennel's training program, it brings back even more painful memories of the incident that haunts Meg. Maybe her only hope of finding herself is to re-enlist and go back to the brotherhood of warriors. It's up to Ben to change her mind. In Loving Ben, eighteen-year-old Meg decides it's time to let Ben know that she's not a kid anymore and that she's loved him as long as she's known him. She could swear the attractive college man--her brother's best friend--has been looking at her in a different way lately, but she may be letting her imagination run wild. This future Marine is going to put on makeup and a dress, step into some sparkly sandals, and let Ben Cameron know he shouldn't treat her like a kid sister anymore. Skye Taylor is a former Peace Corps Volunteer. She writes The Camerons of Tide's Way series, published by Bell Bridge Books. Visit her at skye-writer.com.
In a city known for powerful business leaders, Ben Love towers as one of the most influential. Serving as CEO of Texas Commerce Bancshares in the 1980s, during the collapse of the Texas banking industry, Love had an inside view of the debacle. His story, told here in detail for the first time, provides an insightful perspective on the Texas banking industry’s evolution after World War II, its decline, and its subsequent recovery. It also offers a glimpse into of the kind of character that creates men of power. Love grew up with his family during the Great Depression. Their farm outside Paris, Texas, taught him hard lessons about opportunity and financial security lessons that would serve him well in the future. After Americas entry into war in 1941, Love flew 8th Air Force B-17 combat missions over Europe, then settled in Houston with his business degree in the late 1940s. His entrance into the world of banking began as a member of the board of directors for River Oaks Bank & Trust. Houston was rapidly growing into a metropolis, and he accepted an offer to leave River Oaks to join Texas Commerce Bank in 1967. As president of Texas Commerce Bank (TCB) in 1969 and CEO in 197289, Love cultivated change from single banks to holding companies, garnering a national reputation for his banking organization. In 1984, Texas Commerce was the twenty-first-largest bank in the country. Under his competent management, TCB was the only Big Five Texas bank to survive the economic downturn. One reason for its continued success lies with Loves successful merger in 1987 with the Chemical Bank of New York, now J. P. Morgan Chase. When he retired at the close of the decade, he turned his formidable energies to full-time civic and humanitarian work. Ben F. Love’s memoir is one of only a few available in financial literature and history. Not only does it reveal an inside look at the evolution of banking in Texas, but it will serve as an instructional guide to future business leaders and managers. The final chapter summarizes the experiences and lessons sprinkled throughout eighty years of a powerful and productive life.
My Boy, Ben is the true and touching story of David Wheaton's close companionship with an unforgettable yellow Lab named Ben. The journey begins with David pursuing his dream on the professional tennis tour yet facing the reality that his desire to get a dog will not be possible with being on the road for months on end. A surprising letter received under his hotel room door in a faraway country changed everything. And soon David returned home to meet an unexpected puppy who would have an unimaginable impact on his life. From the years of joy with his beloved Ben to the crushing grief David experienced upon losing him, My Boy, Ben is a moving story that culminates with the uplifting message of God's grace---a grace that offers comfort and hope in our darkest of days.
Sadie Christ is my redeemer, the drive behind my moral compass, he leads me down every road-the righteous road. My heart full of love, my body pure and untouched, my words clean, my body modest. I do all things because I believe in my Christian faith and I believe that my life has been planned out for me. I will meet the perfect man of God, one who will give me a family and a wholesome life. There is no room for anything less, no room for speed bumps or road blocks. Except for the one man who threw a wrench in my spinning tire. The one man who made me question my faith and what true faith really is. Ben Cooper-my very own sinner. Ben Each blow to the face feels glorious, I crave the pain of each punch from my back alley opponent. The high I get from each fight that I antagonize is the same high I get when I strum my guitar and hit the high notes in the microphone. That rush is just like the pain I feel with the blows I take. Violence is my decadence and music is my redemption. I love beautiful women, the taste of whiskey on my tongue, and the smell of tobacco on my breath. I'm a man with no morals and no plan to my madness. I'm a man with only the promise of the day I'm in. Until I find the most beautiful melody, dressed in full clothes and a cross around her neck. Sadie McCallister-my very own saint.
Ben and Bear do everything together. After breakfast, they play hide-and-seek and do tricks to make each other laugh. At night, Ben tells Bear a bedtime story and Bear snuggles with Ben until he falls asleep. The youngest readers will relate to the loving bond between a little boy and his favorite stuffed animal and how this sweet friendship makes each day special, from morning till night.
"The Christian faith is mysterious not because it is so complicated but because it is so simple. A person does not start with baptism and then advance to higher mysteries. In baptism each believer already possesses the faith in its fullness. ... In the same way, it takes considerable effort to begin to comprehend all that we have received in Christ. Theological thinking does not add a single thing to what we have received. The inheritance remains the same whether we grasp its magnitude or not. But the better we grasp it, the happier we are. So this small book is an invitation to happiness. I have written it with a glad heart, and I hope it will be helpful for others who want to comprehend the mystery of faith in all its 'breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love Christ that surpasses knowledge' (Eph 3:18-19)."--Preface, pages xv-xvi
