RISKED: Serena McClain’s father has been kidnapped by the mob, and she’s determined to rescue him. Except her only attempt fails when her PI is gunned down, and she barely escapes amidst a hail of bullets, thanks to FBI Agent Mark Riley. Forced to take her and her son into protective custody because of her meddling, Mark is not happy. He’s more than a glorified babysitter. Still, he can’t help being drawn to the feisty blonde and her cute kid. They’re evoking feelings in him he’d rather ignore. Even though agents promise to make finding her father a priority, Serena doesn’t quite trust them, especially Mark, yet the more time they spend together, the deeper their connection grows. Will they find her father alive, and is real love worth the risk of Serena’s Web?
Miss Serena Calvert, owner of Anse Chatelet on the West Indian island of St. Just, was determined to give her young niece Lucy a London Season, whatever the financial privations. But their aunt's health would not permit her to launch Lucy herself, and Serena was forced to go, too, as chaperon. Once in England, Serena met a delightful gentleman in slightly scandalous circumstances, and both looked forward to meeting again more formally in London. But that meeting resulted in a massively public snub for Serena, and only then did she become aware that she was the target of revenge….
Rienberg describes the fascinating behind the scenes events that occurred during his seven years as hitting coach for the invincible Williams sisters. of photos.
"I THINK ONE OF DADDY'S LITTLE GIRLS KILLED HIM." For the four glamorous daughters of Lord Oswald Balcon, money can buy anything. From Fendi handbags to Ivy League educations, they live in a world of designer labels and unrestricted opulence -- their father's money and aristocratic status, coupled with their dazzling good looks, bought them every opportunity and advantage. They are beautiful, blond, and barely thirty, and the world is their luxury playground. Venetia, the sophisticated interior designer, has booming professional success but is desperate for a child and an escape from a loveless marriage. Camilla, the rising political star, is too brilliant and ambitious for any of her unworthy lovers to handle. Sweet yet savvy Cate is living out her ultimate dream, launching her own magazine, with an all-too-handsome business partner. The baby of the family, Serena, is one of the country's most beautiful actresses, on the cusp of international stardom, but her party-girl lifestyle is bringing about more scandal than success. The girls are the darlings of the London paparazzi, but when Lord Balcon turns up dead, the shadow of suspicion falls on his four daughters. A jealous tyrant, Daddy has tried to bring his daughters down all their lives. These four women -- at the top of their careers in show business, publishing, interior design, and politics -- must face an awful accusation, and each other, as they try to discover the truth that lies beneath the glossy surface of their lives. The facade of the Balcon family hides a web of deceit and betrayal, in which a thirty-year-old secret lurks, threatening to destroy them all. From the sun-drenched beaches of the Caribbean to Manhattan's elite society circuit, from the exclusive fashion houses of Milan to the star-studded streets of Cannes, the Balcon sisters play out their lives in a whirl of glitz and the ultra chic. But as tragedy and danger stalk every one of them, the scene is set for a stunning climax.
"This one's a winner." --Chicago Tribune A 2019 ILA Teacher's Choices Reading List Selection! An inspiring picture book sports biography about two of the greatest female tennis players of all-time! Venus and Serena Williams: Best friends. Sisters. Champions. Everyone knows the names Venus & Serena Williams. They've become synonymous with championships, hard work, and with shaking up the tennis world. This inspirational true story, written by award-winning sports journalist, Howard Bryant, and brought to beautiful life by Coretta Scott Kind Award and Honor winner, Floyd Cooper, details the sisters' journey from a barely-there tennis court in Compton, CA, to Olympic gold medals and becoming the #1 ranked women in the sport of tennis. Here is a worthy ode to Venus and Serena Williams, the incredible sister duo who will go down in history as two of the greatest athletes of all time. "Alive with warmth and movement, these luminous, soft-edged scenes portray the sisters gradually growing into strong, capable women. A handsome sports biography." --Booklist "There is a sharp focus in the book on the two sisters' special bond and friendship; it lies at the heart of this biography, and the women's stories are remarkable. It's high time they had their own picture book tribute."--Kirkus
Playing the Odds begins the family saga of The MacGregors, the beloved and passionate series from #1 New York Times bestselling author Nora Roberts, introducing an adventurous spirit who takes a risk on embracing life’s possibilities outside her familiar world—and encounters a chance for love she may never find again. Raised in wealth and luxury, Serena MacGregor wanted something money couldn’t buy, an independent experience she can get only by living it. Working as a blackjack dealer on a cruise ship, she keeps her elite privilege a secret. Then gambler Justin Blade appears and drops big bucks on her table. He’s a mystery who keeps his cards close to his chest—but finds himself desiring to prove to Serena that together they’ve hit the jackpot.
A dangerous alliance between a Vampyre bride and an Alpha Werewolf becomes a love deep enough to sink your teeth into in this new paranormal romance from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Love, Theoretically and The Love Hypothesis. Misery Lark, the only daughter of the most powerful Vampyre councilman of the Southwest, is an outcast—again. Her days of living in anonymity among the Humans are over: she has been called upon to uphold a historic peacekeeping alliance between the Vampyres and their mortal enemies, the Weres, and she sees little choice but to surrender herself in the exchange—again... Weres are ruthless and unpredictable, and their Alpha, Lowe Moreland, is no exception. He rules his pack with absolute authority, but not without justice. And, unlike the Vampyre Council, not without feeling. It’s clear from the way he tracks Misery’s every movement that he doesn’t trust her. If only he knew how right he was…. Because Misery has her own reasons to agree to this marriage of convenience, reasons that have nothing to do with politics or alliances, and everything to do with the only thing she's ever cared about. And she is willing to do whatever it takes to get back what’s hers, even if it means a life alone in Were territory…alone with the wolf.
The Quintessence of Quick continues the Saga of Jack Mason, which began with 2002 s The Rough English Equivalent. The saga unfolds from 1946, but its beginning is in the year 4231. Jack, age 2285, is truly bored. Earth s population is less than a million, and there are very few challenges left on humanity's home planet. Elected to Phi Beta Kappa in 1957, he s been a motorcyclist, a carrier pilot, a hurricane hunter, owner of a jet charter service, a hugely successful investor, a galactic explorer and a felon. A lifelong risk-taker, he was an accessory to fraud and murder in support of Moses, his boyhood mentor and ex-Luftwaffe pilot. Investing millions left to him through Moses faked-death plot, Jack was rich by the end of the 20th century. He s much more so by the 43rd. Migrating in stages over two centuries from human to a fully-synthetic entity, Jack succeeds in becoming an essentially massless life form, the first to be produced by a superset of teleportation. Testing his new capabilities, he finds that he can move freely in spacetime, and decides to intervene in the crucifixion of Jesus. Succeeding in that, Jack then explores his youth, taking the form of a Northern Goshawk. Jack dubs the bird Flx, after the FLXible bus in which he and his mother Serena flee Los Alamos, where his father was working on the Manhattan Project. Scorning the suburbia of her peers, Serena elects to manage the Bisque Hotel, the property of her father, Lawton J. "Pap" Redding, a cotton broker and real estate investor. Flx lingers to observe Jack's growth to young manhood in Bisque, her Georgia hometown, pronounced BIS-kew by its natives. In 1946, nine-year-old Jack and his friend Ricky meet stranded traveler Moses Kubielski in Ricky's granddad's radiator repair shop. His Buick limousine has blown its radiator, and the boys volunteer to walk to the hotel with him. Seeing Serena convinces Moses, a former member of the Abwehr, the Nazi intelligence organization, that he should stay on in Bisque for awhile. He can afford it, having taken flight in mid-1941 with $3 million earmarked as a down payment to the Irish Republican Army for the assassination of President Roosevelt and Winston Churchill. His Bisque sojourn lasts for several years, during which time he becomes Serena's lover, Jack's mentor and Pap Redding's partner in a beer distributorship that prospers under his direction. The appearance of an old Abwehr associate, now with the Soviet KGB, makes an immediate exit from Bisque necessary. Sharing his plan to have himself and the KGB man picked up at sea after a faked crash, he wills the beer distributorship, in which he has since acquired 100% ownership, to Jack. Moses will contact him, he promises, when it's safe to do so. When Jack enters college, Serena returns to New York, where they'd lived before Los Alamos, to pursue her career as a sculptor. Visiting her, he meets her new client, Clare Boothe Luce, noted writer, editor, Congresswoman and Ambassador. Their affair begins the same day in the Luces' Waldorf-Astoria suite. Her penchant for powerful men attracts her to Jack as if she foresees his incredible destiny. Later, Jack introduces her to his sometime partners in crime, Moses and Linda, the woman who's been both his and Moses' lover. The three are now partners in a Miami-based air taxi service. Intrigued, Mrs. Luce calls her friend William Pawley, an Allen Dulles crony, and soon Moses and Linda are flying CIA-directed missions into Castro's Cuba. Jack, now in the Navy, is caught up in the maelstrom of the JFK assassination. Both Moses and his old friend Rick, a Special Forces officer, kill figures in the plot. Jack's primary reason for wanting to relive this crucial part of his early life was to save them from the plotters' retribution. Jack flies the men to refuge on an offshore starship, where they join Jesus ("Call me Naz.") over breakfast pork chops...
A stirring picture book biography of Venus and Serena Williams that celebrates their achievements...and their sisterhood. This is the story of two sisters... who took the tennis world by storm, who achieved everything possible in the sport...and then some, and who stood by one another through thick and thin. Featuring illustrations by Ebony Glenn, Jay Leslie's Game, Set, Sisters! The Story of Venus and Serena Williams tells the inspirational story of two of the most beloved athletes in history. It takes us from their beginnings on a crumbling Compton tennis court to their shining achievements on the most prestigious stages and shows us that despite being served the most challenging hardships in life—illness, family, loss, racism—Venus and Serena always continued to swing back stronger.
