Relationships. It all boils down to relationships.Everyone wants strong, positive, mutually beneficial relationships. So why are they so hard to develop? Why do so many spouses have such a hard time communicating with each other? Why would so many employees prefer to pull out their own molar teeth with a pair of rusty pliers than have lunch with their supervisors?
When Stick rescues Stone from a prickly situation with a Pinecone, the pair becomes fast friends. But when Stick gets stuck, can Stone return the favor? Author Beth Ferry makes a memorable debut with a warm, rhyming text that includes a subtle anti-bullying message even the youngest reader will understand. New York Times bestselling illustrator Tom Lichtenheld imbues Stick and Stone with energy, emotion, and personality to spare. In this funny story about kindness and friendship, Stick and Stone join George and Martha, Frog and Toad, and Elephant and Piggie, as some of the best friend duos in children's literature.
For Lou it was always Dylan. She loved him from the moment they first met across a cadaver in the dissection room at medical school. The most gorgeous man she'd ever laid eyes on, with more Welsh charm than you could shake a stick at; she was a goner. But Lou, despite her beauty, was just too extrovert to interest Dylan, who was convinced that a quiet, shy girl, like Lou's best friend Frankie, was much more his style. 'Have at it mate but I've got two words for you: high maintenance.' 'Don't think I'd mind putting in the hard yards maintaining that piece of arse, ' one of Dylan's more disgusting rugby mates replied. 'Well good luck to you, ' Dylan returned, looking completely relaxed now that they were discussing Lou and not his precious Frankie. 'I like mine heavy on the sweet and light on the ball-breaking bitch, but each to his own.' After overhearing that exchange, Lou buries her pain and pines for him in private, but she can't give up their friendship. One night, eleven years later, she finally gets what she has been longing for, but the next morning realizes he was too drunk to even remember. For Dylan it was always anyone but Lou. A born surgeon, Dylan resents having to down his orthopaedic power tools for a six-month spell in Elderly Care. He thought that at least working with Lou would make his skiving easier; after all she's always helped him out before. And so what if he's been having these weird dreams about her since he woke up in her flat? It's not like he'd ever actually go there. So when he mistakenly believes that she's put his career in jeopardy he loses control and his vicious insults, publicly made, cut Lou to the bone. It's only after he loses Lou's warm smiles, dry wit, boundless energy and outrageous banter from his life that he realizes the extent of his stupidity. Maybe sticks and stones can break bones, and that's something Dylan's surgical skills can deal with. But when it's a heart he's broken... This book is a full-length contemporary romance/romantic comedy/medical romance of approximately 80,000 words. It involves characters from 'Broken Heart Syndrome', but is a stand-alone novel with its own HEA and no cliffhanger. About The Author Susie Tate is a general practitioner and when she's not working she's looking after her four yummy boys under six (okay well one is actually over thirty-six but it's the mental age that counts!). Maybe it's a bit strange for a doctor to be writing contemporary romance/romantic comedy, but she thought she could use her experience to write what she hopes are funny, occasionally bittersweet stories that give people a behind the scenes look at hospital medicine. She can only apologize to her orthopaedic friends for the way she has brutally stereotyped them in this book but she just couldn't resist!
The girls make their final stand in this third and final novel in the thrilling, subversive near-future series from New York Times bestselling author Suzanne Young about a girls-only private school that is far more than it appears to be. There is no one who can save your rebel soul… The girls of Innovations Academy escaped the confines of their unethical school, fought against the system protecting predators who targeted girls for harassment, and they’re not done yet. They’re still not free. Reeling from one revelation after the next, Mena and her friends begin to unwind the truth of their existence and, as a result, their destiny. The men from Innovations Corporation still hunt them, the woman who created them still wants control over them, and worst of all, Mena realizes that through all her pain, all her tears, the world of men has not changed. There is no more time to hope for the best. The girls know they are in a battle for their lives, a war for their very existence. The girls of Innovations Academy have sharpened their sticks to fight back, they have fought for justice with blood from their razor hearts. And now, the girls will choose their true nature…and how they define their rebel souls.
A leader is anyone who has influence. Take a look at any group of kindergartners on the playground. Not one of those little stinkers has a title, but there is definitely someone in charge, influencing what s going on. While most people traditionally look to the top of an organization or department for leadership (in theory, that is!), the highest performing groups in companies, schools, clubs, or sports teams have members who demonstrate leadership at every level. These leaders without the title have latched on to the profound reality that because they have influence, THEY LEAD.
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me...or can they? In the third thrilling installment of this award winning series from New York Times bestseller Rebecca Cantrell, tortured genius Joe Tesla is on the trail of a sadistic serial killer who charms his victims into the bowels of the Manhattan subway system--and who holds the keys to Joe's crippling condition. Can Joe stop the murderous rampage of this silver-tongued killer, or will he become the next victim?
A book of loss, looking back, and what binds us to life, by a towering poetic talent, called "one of the poetry stars of his generation" (Los Angeles Times). "We sleep long, / if not sound," Kevin Young writes early on in this exquisite gathering of poems, "Till the end/ we sing / into the wind." In scenes and settings that circle family and the generations in the American South--one poem, "Kith," exploring that strange bedfellow of "kin"--the speaker and his young son wander among the stones of their ancestors. "Like heat he seeks them, / my son, thirsting / to learn those / he don't know / are his dead." Whether it's the fireflies of a Louisiana summer caught in a mason jar (doomed by their collection), or his grandmother, Mama Annie, who latches the screen door when someone steps out for just a moment, all that makes up our flickering precarious joy, all that we want to protect, is lifted into the light in this moving book. Stones becomes an ode to Young's home places and his dear departed, and to what of them—of us—poetry can save.
The consequences of incendiary rhetoric are predictable. This is what author Helio Fred Garcia argues and warns us about in Words on Fire. The El Paso terrorist attack finally brought to the forefront broader public recognition that leaders who dehumanize and demonize groups, rivals, or critics create conditions where citizens begin to accept, condone, and even commit acts of violence. Leaders of all kinds use language to move people, and this book is about how they do it. The Work focuses on Donald Trump’s use of language that dehumanizes others, and how his use of dehumanizing language can provoke “lone wolves” to commit acts of violence, a type of violent extremism known as stochastic terrorism. Garcia’s goal is to sound the alarm about this insidious spur to violence by spelling out the mechanisms by which it works so that leaders, citizens, journalists, and others can recognize it when it occurs and hold leaders accountable. The Work is a timely analysis of leadership communication applied to the current political and social climate that will find a long-term audience with engaged citizens, civic leaders, and in the business, military, academic, and religious communities with which the author has deep ties. Garcia provides responsible leaders not just with techniques to recognize when they are using language in ways that may lead to negative consequences, but with ways to stop, redirect their focus, and stay on the high ground. And he provides citizens, civic leaders, journalists, and others with a framework to recognize potentially violence-provoking rhetoric so they can hold leaders accountable for it with twelve warning signs that rhetoric may provoke violence.