Emmanuel, a young man with spinal tuberculosis and confined to a sanatorium outside Paris, narrates his and his fellow patients' attempts to live life to the fullest as their bodies slowly atrophy and die. Blending dark humor and pathos, Scarred Hearts was hailed as a masterpiece on publication in Romanian in 1939, and was more recently compared to Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain and the fiction of Franz Kafka. Like Emmanuel, Max Blecher suffered from tuberculosis of the spine, and spent the last year of his life in a full body cast and wheelchair, before dying at age twenty-nine with two novels completed.
Healing Scarred Hearts follows the story of Hayden Hoemke, who died at age twenty two due to a serious drug addiction, and his devastated family in the years following his passing. Emotional, raw and gripping, this family memoir serves as a wake-up call to America about the opioid epidemic sweeping the country, and as a symbol of hope to others experiencing loss like this. Finding your light again is possible, no matter how dark the days seem now.
Meg Thurgood, former society girl, took the blame for her friend and paid a steep price. Now all she wants is solitude and a chance to rebuild her life. She thinks she's found that in an isolated house she rents from a mysterious stranger. Simon McAlter has hidden in his house on the coast of Maine since a fire left him scarred. A successful landscape architect who conducts his business and teaches his classes remotely, he's lost his inspiration and is trying to pretend he's not lonely. Simon's new neighbor is more than he bargained for. When he learns Meg's secret, will he retreat into the shadows or will he learn to see past the surface and trust in Meg's love?
She's Shattered... Ashton Granger is a perfect wife to her husband. She has to be, if she's not, he will find a way to correct any perceived imperfections. Such is life, and so it has been for a very long time, eroding Ashton's sense of self, cracking her sense of worth until she lays in a million pieces on the side of a stretch of lonely highway. He's Scarred... Ethan "Trigger man" Howard is the Sergeant of Arms for The Sacred Hearts Motorcycle club. After several tours as a Marine Corps sniper overseas, he's seen and done enough damage for a man three times his age. He's out. Done. So over it, and home to nurse his wounds, physical, emotional and psychological with the help of his MC brothers. Now he simply deals with the scars that life handed him. Was it more than just luck for he and Ashton both that he was the only other soul traveling that isolated stretch of highway that night? **Mature Audiences Only (18+)** **Language, Violence, and Sexual Content including one very hot MFM threesome!**
Relatable, heartbreaking, and real, this is a story of resilience--the perfect novel for readers of powerful contemporary fiction like Girl in Pieces and Every Last Word. Before, I was a million things. Now I'm only one. The Burned Girl. Ava Lee has lost everything there is to lose: Her parents. Her best friend. Her home. Even her face. She doesn't need a mirror to know what she looks like--she can see her reflection in the eyes of everyone around her. A year after the fire that destroyed her world, her aunt and uncle have decided she should go back to high school. Be "normal" again. Whatever that is. Ava knows better. There is no normal for someone like her. And forget making friends--no one wants to be seen with the Burned Girl, now or ever. But when Ava meets a fellow survivor named Piper, she begins to feel like maybe she doesn't have to face the nightmare alone. Sarcastic and blunt, Piper isn't afraid to push Ava out of her comfort zone. Piper introduces Ava to Asad, a boy who loves theater just as much as she does, and slowly, Ava tries to create a life again. Yet Piper is fighting her own battle, and soon Ava must decide if she's going to fade back into her scars . . . or let the people by her side help her fly. "A heartfelt and unflinching look at the reality of being a burn survivor and at the scars we all carry. This book is for everyone, burned or not, who has ever searched for a light in the darkness." --Stephanie Nielson, New York Times bestselling author of Heaven Is Here and a burn survivor
Emma Cooper is determined to fulfill her mother's dying wish to scatter her ashes with Aiden Sheffield in Linx, Texas. Just one problem. Why Texas and who the hell is Aiden Sheffield? The only clue is a faded piece of her mother's stationary. Emma imagines Aiden is a former love of her mother's, but when she meets the beautiful, damaged stranger, she realizes her assumptions couldn't be more wrong. He's hot and young. And Emma is as confused as ever. Aiden Sheffield would rather go to hell than Linx. Who does Emma think she is disrupting his carefully built life? The last thing the Marine needs is to slice open the sealed wounds of his painful past. Yet, as he gets to know the lovely Emma, a woman who manages to smile even though she's lost everything, he changes his mind. He will not let her go to hell alone. But neither is prepared for the devastating evil waiting for them at the end of the road. It might just destroy them.
Often called “the Kafka of Romania,” Max Blecher died young but not before creating this incandescent novel. Adventures in Immediate Irreality, the masterwork of the Romanian writer Max Blecher, vividly paints the crises of "irreality" that plagued him in his youth: eerie and unsettling mirages wherein he would glimpse future events. In gliding chapters that move with a peculiar dream logic of their own, this memoiristic novel sketches the tremulous, frightening, and exhilarating awakenings of a young man.
In the highly-anticipated next installment of the Serafina series, Serafina must confront the darkest threat she's ever encountered at Biltmore Estate. She knows she can face anything with her best friend and closest ally, Braeden Vanderbilt, by her side. But when a sinister force tears them apart, Serafina scrambles to uncover the mystery of her most formidable challenge yet...and about herself and the destiny that awaits her.
Beauty and shame, jail and forgiveness. Andrea Smith was by all appearances living the perfect life, yet in an instant it all changed. Now, shame is her only company as she leaves her husband and children to check into the Pima County Jail of Tucson, Arizona, bringing to the forefront all the emotional and physical scars she has been hiding. From her first strip search to her final release, Andrea's honest, touching memoir offers a rare look into the lives of those who are behind bars. Scarred Beautiful eloquently chronicles her journey to find forgiveness and discover the good in tragedy and the beauty in her flaws as she learns to overcome shame and allow God to comfort her through the most unexpected people. And although her incarceration threatens to break her spirit, Andrea Smith emerges with a new perspective about what is most precious and cherished in her life. Her story is one of courage and faith...and the unlikely gift of adversity.
She's a wanderlust who is always dreaming of her next adventure! So, when Kelsey gets the experience of a lifetime to go to Hollywood, she was sure to go out with a bang! Literally!! What started off as a red-carpet treatment down the streets of Hollywood Boulevard, would end in the emergency room, filled with fear, regret, and anxiety. Yet, this was just the beginning of a new adventure that Kelsey wasn't ready for, and one that would take her through twists and turns, for sure! Join her on the journey as she hopes to inspire someone on a similar path to navigate using their best guide, their heart!
