Two halves of a whole Once, long ago, Skye and Summer had looked so much alike that no one could tell the twin sisters apart. Now there was barely a trace of a resemblance. Once, the two of them had been huddled together against a world that neither one of them could deal with alone. Now they hadn’t seen each other for years. But it was time for them to get together once more—for Skye Woods and Summer Russo were on the road again. And this time they’re in search of their other sister, Jane—the piece of the puzzle that, once inserted, might finally just make their family whole. Not normal, mind you. But whole…
Every spiritual seeker knows that there are seven main chakras-also described as energy centers or wheels of light. Blocked energy in the chakras can often lead to physical illness as well as spiritual malaise. The trick is how to balance these systems in our lives, and in The Seven Chakra Sisters, spiritual psychotherapist and healer Linda Rosenthal shows us exactly that. Rosenthal takes readers on a metaphysical, metaphorical romp into the world of the 7 chakras. She offers a delightful teaching fable about the unique personalities of the 7 Chakras to help us understand the important role they play in our health and well being. Rosenthal paints a wonderfully vivid portrait of these 7 chakra “sisters” that live in all of us to teach the principles of energy healing and show readers how to bring the chakras into optimal alignment: Aneeda, the Needy One, the root chakra (red) Ivanna, the Wanting One, the sacral chakra (orange) Ahafta, the One Who Has to, the solar plexus chakra (yellow) Ahluvya, the Loving One, the heart chakra (green) Singya, the Expressive One, the throat chakra (blue) Useeme, the All-Seeing One, the third eye chakra (indigo) Iamone, the One of Oneness, the crown chakra (violet) Through her light-hearted and funny exploration of the personalities and relationships of these chakra siblings, Rosenthal seriously shows readers how to achieve optimal physical and emotional health.
How are the lives of people in former Communist countries now? As these "transitional" countries struggle from totalitarian communist to democratic capitalist are people's lives improved, if not idyllic? Before going to Armenia, a former republic Soviet Union, to teach public administration to university students, I had no idea about life there; I barely knew where the country was. Many friends and family thought I was crazy, a woman sixty years old, with a good job, leaving the relative ease of the United States and going off alone to a poor foreign country. As it turned out, joining the Civic Education Project was a wise decision, launching me on a profound journey, both inner and outer. The journey was characterized by surprise, shock, and amazement; by loss, grief and self-doubt; by wonder, laughter, love, and pleasure and ultimately by a sense of emerging wholeness and growing confidence that I can muddle through most situations that I meet in life. Such a journey isn't for everyone but for me it was a remarkable opportunity for learning more about life - and living. Each new season of the school year brought change. The city, my apartment, my work, my circle of friends changed radically, sometimes in ways that I liked, sometimes in ways I didn't. The change I experienced most keenly, though, was the internal change brought by the struggle to cope with external circumstances while at the same time keeping my sights on my true aspirations. My hope is that this account will enable the reader to glimpse the charm and quirks of Armenia at this stage, to understand some of the challenges of the transition and at the same time to experience how personal change can be fostered by throwing oneself into a foreign environment.
Fifteen-year-old Sabiha has a lot to deal with: her mother's mental health issues, her interfering aunt, her mother's new boyfriend, her live-in grandfather and his chess buddy, not to mention her arrogant cousin Adnan. They all want to marry her off, have her become a strict Muslim and speak Bosnian. And Sabiha's friends are not always friendly. She gets bullied by girlfriends and is anxious about boyfriends, when she just wants to fit in. But two boys, Brian and Jesse, become the allies of this fierce and funny girl. The Good Daughter is a coming-of-age novel written with sensitivity and humour. It confronts head-on the problems of cultural identity in the day-to-day lives of teenagers. Amra Pajalic has a wonderful ear for idiomatic dialogue and the dramatic moment.
With Exiles, Ron Hansen tells the story of a notorious shipwreck that prompted Gerard Manley Hopkins to break years of "elected silence" with an outpouring of dazzling poetry. In December 1875 the steamship Deutschland left Bremen, bound for England and then America. On board were five young nuns who, exiled by Bismarck's laws against Catholic religious orders, were going to begin their lives anew in Missouri. Early one morning, the ship ran aground in the Thames and more than sixty lives were lost—including those of the five nuns. Hopkins was a Jesuit seminarian in Wales, and he was so moved by the news of the shipwreck that he wrote a grand poem about it, his first serious work since abandoning a literary career at Oxford to become a priest. He too would die young, an exile from the literary world. But as Hansen's gorgeously written account of Hopkins's life makes clear, he fulfilled his calling. Combining a thrilling tragedy at sea with the seeming shipwreck of Hopkins's own life, Exiles joins Hansen's Mariette in Ecstasy (called "an astonishingly deft and provocative novel" by The New York Times) as a novel that dramatizes the passionate inner search of religious life and makes it accessible to us in the way that only great art can.
Tidewater Sisters : "Tandi Reese and her sister, Gina, have complicated ties. Faced with legal papers for a fraud she didn't commit, Tandi heads to the North Carolina Tidewater for a reckoning. But to unravel lies from truth, she must first confront strained sibling bonds and uncover a dark family secret."--Page 4 of cover.
A young woman in a vaudeville sister act must learn to forge her own path after her twin runs away to Hollywood in this “elegant, immersive . . . exploration of sisterhood, identity, ambition and betrayal” (The New York Times). “A beautifully told coming-of-age story that embraces life with a galloping energy and irresistible curiosity.”—Maggie Shipstead, bestselling author of Great Circle Leaving was my sister’s choice. I would have to make my own. All Harriet Szász has ever known is life onstage with her sister, Josie. As “The Sisters Sweet,” they pose as conjoined twins in a vaudeville act conceived of by their ambitious parents, who were once themselves theatrical stars. But after Josie exposes the family’s fraud and runs away to Hollywood, Harriet must learn to live out of the spotlight—and her sister’s shadow. As Josie’s star rises in California, the Szászes fall on hard times. Striving to keep her struggling family afloat, Harriet molds herself into the perfect daughter. She also tentatively forms her first relationships outside her family and begins to imagine a life for herself beyond the role of dutiful daughter that she has played for so long. Finally, Harriet must decide whether to honor her mother, her father, or the self she’s only beginning to get to know. Full of long-simmering tensions, buried secrets, questionable saviors, and broken promises, this is a story about how much we are beholden to others and what we owe ourselves. Layered and intimate, The Sisters Sweet heralds the arrival of an accomplished new voice in fiction.
On Damon Styles's eighteenth birthday, he is expelled from school. But it's what happens afterwards that changes everything. Now Damon must come up with a plan. It's the only way he can think straight. First, get his firearms licence. Then, see if the Pigman will give him a job - pig hunting will teach Damon what he needs to know. And he?d better get a lock for his wardrobe so his mother won't find what he's hiding. Damon?s taking matters into his own hands - but so is the town of Strathven. A confronting, powerful story for young adults in the vein of J.C. Burke?s CBCA award-winner THE STORY OF TOM BRENNAN.
New York Times bestselling author Luanne Rice explores the complex emotional equations of love and loyalty that hold together three pairs of remarkable sisters, in an unforgettable story of loss, redemption, and forgiveness The storm off Mackinac Island that engulfed Maura Shaw’s husband and elder daughter,Carrie, also swept away the illusion of her life as the perfect midwestern wife and mother. Now, after years away, Maura has returned to Rhode Island to teach English at the fabled Newport Academy and to seek a new beginning. Newport has never failed to infuse Maura with a sense of mystery and hope, but ever since the accident, her younger daughter, fourteen-year-old Beck, has retreated into the safe, predictable world of mathematics. Without Carrie, Beck has lost half of herself—the half that would have fit into the elite private school she and her brother, Travis, will attend. The half that made things right. Sixteen-year-old Travis is also struggling to adjust—juggling a long-distance first love and an attraction to a girl with a wicked sparkle in her eye. And for Maura, ghosts linger here—an unresolved breach with her own beloved sister and a long-ago secret that may now have the power to set her free. . . .
Jess was born into an Australian family in the late 1940s. She had two older sisters and a brother until she was eight, when another brother was born. Her mother, May, was also the youngest in her family, which was dominated by her mother. May did as she was told and was the dutiful daughter and wife, but resentment built up in her life, which she unknowingly took out on her children. Jess spent her lonely childhood in a dysfunctional household, with the only relief being her vivid imagination and a love of the sea. Her sisters teased her and called her the baby, but Jess knew she had something quite special: her world of words. Without the words and the sea, Jess may not have come through life, but her adult world reflects her strength and determination. This is a story of one woman’s journey and survival, despite the emotional vacuum that surrounded her early years.
