Californian Rich and his Mexican wife Amanda quit cushy jobs and said goodbye to lives that felt just a little too sealed-for-their-own-protection. Stuffing their VW camper bus full, they drove more than 60,000 miles through Mexico, Central America, South America and Southern Africa while witnessing first hand how others find happiness. Peeling away deeply ingrained inhibitions, they opened themselves up to whatever came along.--From publisher description.
Paula Brandon’s acclaimed fantasy trilogy comes to a triumphant conclusion in an unforgettable collision of magic, intrigue, and romance. Time is running out. Falaste Rione is imprisoned, sentenced to death. And even though the magical balance of the Source is slipping and the fabric of reality itself has begun to tear, Jianna Belandor can think only of freeing the man she loves. But to do so, she must join a revolution she once despised—and risk reunion with a husband she has ample reason to fear. Meanwhile, undead creatures terrorize the land, slaves of the Overmind—a relentless consciousness determined to bring everything that lives under its sway. All that stands in the way is a motley group of arcanists whose combined powers will barely suffice to restore balance to the Source. But when Jianna’s father, the Magnifico Aureste Belandor, murders one of them, the group begins to fracture under the pressures of suspicion and mutual hatred. Now humanity’s hope rests with an unexpected soul: a misanthropic hermit whose next move may turn the tide and save the world. “[An] ambitiously creative story . . . Brandon’s character development is exceptional, as is her ability to interweave numerous story lines into a briskly paced narrative. . . . Fantasy and romance fans looking for something unusual will find this amalgamation wildly entertaining.”—Publishers Weekly, on The Ruined City
We live in a golden age of information and idea sharing, yet the information communicated by and about Black people is often simply wrong or, at best, fundamentally fl awed. The public, therefore - including Black people - has a distorted view of nearly everything, including most notably: self, family, society, political ideology, love, morality, and God. Frequently, bad information and preposterous ideas about Black people drive the decisions, attitudes and opinions of the information-consuming public, reinforcing negative stereotypes, prejudices and baseless assumptions. Martin Shepherd compiled Black Against The Wall in response to those increasingly inaccurate representations of Black people. This collection of poetry captures his thought-provoking and thoroughly enjoyable perspective on a variety of topics and themes. His personal observations and experiences blend with the unique breadth of his imagination and poetic talent to present a reading experience that is honest, seductive and entertaining at the same time. The topics and themes he explores in this collection are breathtaking in range; he touches on life and existence, the nuances of love, the complexities of relationships, spirituality, politics and the entropy of world events. Whatever the subject matter- a stranger on a plane, the battles fought by the working class, the plight of tsunami victims, or yearnings for love and pleasure- all of his poetic pieces are animated by unique personality, mood and metaphor. Black Against the Wall is a brilliant collection of masterful poetry. It will inspire you to think differently of yourself and others. Most of all, it will encourage you to get Black off of the wall!
Laysa Coralla has it made. As the daughter of one of the wealthiest men on her planet, her future has been carefully planned: a wealthy husband, a beautiful home, the perfect ending. Then Laysa's life is altered drastically when she learns a terrible secret: she is the descendent of a race of evil warlords, a people long ago banned from the safe planets. Declared unfit for her home, Laysa is banished to outer space. She is thrown into an alien world of shimmering ships and constant battle, where gem-laden gang lords wield electrical weaponry and animals are engineered to kill. Many are lost among the stars, their souls sold for a sacred but evil name. Desperately lost, Laysa has no choice but to join the people she has always believed are monsters, to seek refuge as the servant of a frightening warrior and, inevitably, to wonder if she herself is good or evil.
Tyler McKenzie Johns is an excellent story creator. He is a true man of genius. He created this story with monsters and villains that he made up in his past like somebody evil killing the purple dinosaur on TV, Barney, evil knights fighting the dragons of the PBS Kids show Dragon Tales, and monsters abducting the puppet lions of another PBS Kids show called Between the Lions. For this story, he created characters as animals only he would know things about, like prehistoric therapsids (half mammal, half reptile) and cassowaries, which are large black-feathered-bodied birds with blue heads with bony crests on top; those birds are related to ostriches and emus (ratites).
In this fascinating memoir, the author says goodbye to a mundane existence in America and, given a free air ticket and apartment, ventures to teach English on a remote island off the coast of South Korea. Dubbed The Island of Fantasy by its inhabitants, Koje-do is a mixture of charm and peaceful beauty. But in its city center sits Wonder School, a place of frantic chaos and disorganization. Treated like an English-speaking slave by the school's owners, Matthews struggles to teach students unlike anything his recruiter, the unscrupulous Mr. Wong, had depicted. Outside the job he meets a cast of memorable characters including the mysterious Choi and two-timing Natasha. Eye-popping and downright hilarious, the chronicle spins into a whirlwind that leaves the reader either stunned or laughing on the floor. For a review of this book visit Korea Life Blog: http: //korealife.blogspot.co
The modern-day Hadassah, introduced to readers in the previous novel, is the wife of Israel's Prime Minister, with all its reflected power but also its isolation. The inner pain she feels as her beloved land and people are terrorized by political strife and bombings is made even more personal as her own father comes under attack. And then she learns of information that could have tragic repercussions on Jews living in Iraq, where Queen Esther had laid her own life on the line to save her people. The successor to Xerxes has no love for the Jews, and when he discovers the Star of David medallion on Leah (the young queen's candidate Esther wrote to in Hadassah), he is outraged. Leah is delegated to the "rejected" category, virtually a prisoner for life in the king's palace, with no hope and no future.Will Queen Esther and Mordecai be able to rescue Leah from the "ash heap" of Persian royal tradition? And even if they can, will Leah ever be able to truly love someone after all she has been through?
Tall and bronzed by a western sun and wind, Donald Morrison was no one’s fool and he liked it that way. He was a gun-slinging hero back in the 1880’s who honed his skill as a cowboy riding the Chisholm and Shawnee Trails. But his life changes when he is summoned home to the Eastern Townships of Quebec, just up from Vermont. His family was in danger of losing the precious homestead, and they knew Donald was the one to set it right. In trying to wrest back the farm, Donald is drawn into a series of turns that ultimately lead to a dramatic western-style gunfight in the sleepy town of Megantic. He is forced to shoot first to save his own life, an act of self-defense, which becomes a charge of murder. This is the true story of one young man's fight against greed perpetuated by the moneylenders. Against those in high places who took advantage of immigrants coming to a new land to find peace, but finding only anguish and hardship. WANTED is a remarkable story of courage, of love, greed and betrayal, of fiery passions and a man willing to face life on its own terms.
How do you go from dreaming about becoming a nun to devouring three young men in one weekend? How do you go from living behind the Iron Curtain, in a country hermetically sealed from the world, to making love on four continents? Maneater is a coming-of-age story of one woman who decides to live life on her own terms. Her journey will take you through dilemmas, struggles, and heartache, but it will also walk you through exotic places, such as the Phra Nang cave in Thailand, filled with carved dildos, and the golden palaces, floating markets, and the red-light district of Bangkok. You will take in the view from the shadow of the Christ the Savior statue in Rio de Janeiro. You will feel the heat of New Orleans and walk into a quaint wedding chapel in Lake Tahoe. Her stories will take you back in time to an island at the tip of the Great Lakes, where time stood still, and it will take you on a road trip across Transylvania, right up to Dracula's Castle. You will walk down the street with Romanian revolutionaries and with the leather-clad men at the Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco. You will dance at the Carnival in Rio, and you will join in on the water fight at the Songkran festival in Bangkok. You'll also meet the men she encountered along the way: the blond street musician from Vienna; the dimpled bellman from San Francisco; the blue-eyed surfer from Texas; the handsome, tuxedoed bouncer, off spring of Afghani warriors; the green-eyed salsa dancer from San Salvador; and many, many more. And you will fall in love with Moon, her young prince, whose sexual coming-of-age begins where her journey ends.
