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“A beautiful debut, funny, tender, and animated by a willingness to confront life’s obstacles and find a way to survive. . . . It celebrates friendship, finds meaning in difficulty and lets the reader explore dark places while always allowing for the possibility of light. Lenni and Margot are fine companions for all our springtime journeys.”—Harper’s Bazaar, UK A charming, fiercely alive and disarmingly funny debut novel in the vein of John Green, Rachel Joyce, and Jojo Moyes—a brave testament to the power of living each day to the fullest, a tribute to the stories that we live, and a reminder of our unlimited capacity for friendship and love. An extraordinary friendship. A lifetime of stories. Seventeen-year-old Lenni Pettersson lives on the Terminal Ward at the Glasgow Princess Royal Hospital. Though the teenager has been told she’s dying, she still has plenty of living to do. Joining the hospital’s arts and crafts class, she meets the magnificent Margot, an 83-year-old, purple-pajama-wearing, fruitcake-eating rebel, who transforms Lenni in ways she never imagined. As their friendship blooms, a world of stories opens for these unlikely companions who, between them, have been alive for one hundred years. Though their days are dwindling, both are determined to leave their mark on the world. With the help of Lenni’s doting palliative care nurse and Father Arthur, the hospital’s patient chaplain, Lenni and Margot devise a plan to create one hundred paintings showcasing the stories of the century they have lived—stories of love and loss, of courage and kindness, of unexpected tenderness and pure joy. Though the end is near, life isn’t quite done with these unforgettable women just yet. Delightfully funny and bittersweet, heartbreaking yet ultimately uplifting, The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot reminds us of the preciousness of life as it considers the legacy we choose to leave, how we influence the lives of others even after we’re gone, and the wonder of a friendship that transcends time.
Inspired by escape rooms, Puzzling Escapes locks the reader in a rich and fascinating scenario full of riddles and clues. Grab a pencil and a group of friends-or jump in alone-and try to escape. Solve the wide variety of puzzles in any order, all in one go or in several sittings. If you get stuck, you can ask your companion David for a hint or even have him solve the puzzle for you. Everything is contained in this book, so there's no need for a special app or internet connection.In the historic part of town sits a quaint little bookstore, Athena Booksellers. You and your friend David decide to go inside when you get caught in a sudden downpour. However, only a few minutes later, everyone has left and the doors are locked. With no way of contacting anyone outside, you must solve the puzzles scattered around the bookstore in order to escape.
Four sisters face new beginnings in this heartfelt modern take on Little Women by New York Times bestselling author Virginia Kantra. Amy March is more like her older sister Jo than she’d like to admit. An up-and-coming designer in New York’s competitive fashion industry, ambitious Amy is determined to get out of her sisters’ shadows and keep her distance from their North Carolina hometown. But when Jo’s wedding forces Amy home, she must face what she really wants…and confront the One Big Mistake that could upend her life and forever change her relationship with Jo. Gentle, unassuming Beth grew up as the good girl of the family. A talented singer-songwriter, she’s overcome her painful anxiety to tour with country superstar Colt Henderson. But life on the road has taken its toll on her health and their relationship. Maybe a break to attend her sister’s wedding will get her out of her funk. But Beth realizes that what she’s looking for and what she needs are two very different things.… With the March women reunited, this time with growing careers and families, they must once again learn to lean on one another as they juggle the changes coming their way.
In a seedy hotel near Ground Zero, a woman lies face down in a pool of acid, features melted of her face, teeth missing, fingerprints gone. The room has been sprayed down with DNA-eradicating antiseptic spray. Pilgrim, the code name for a legendary, world-class segret agent, quickly realizes that all of the murderer's techniques were pulled directly from his own book, a cult classic of forensic science written under a pen name.
“Guides readers toward the road less consumptive, offering practical advice and moral support while making a convincing case that individual actions . . . do matter.” —Elizabeth Royte, author, Garbage Land and Bottlemania Like many people, Beth Terry didn’t think an individual could have much impact on the environment. But while laid up after surgery, she read an article about the staggering amount of plastic polluting the oceans, and decided then and there to kick her plastic habit. In Plastic-Free, she shows you how you can too, providing personal anecdotes, stats about the environmental and health problems related to plastic, and individual solutions and tips on how to limit your plastic footprint. Presenting both beginner and advanced steps, Terry includes handy checklists and tables for easy reference, ways to get involved in larger community actions, and profiles of individuals—Plastic-Free Heroes—who have gone beyond personal solutions to create change on a larger scale. Fully updated for the paperback edition, Plastic-Free also includes sections on letting go of eco-guilt, strategies for coping with overwhelming problems, and ways to relate to other people who aren’t as far along on the plastic-free path. Both a practical guide and the story of a personal journey from helplessness to empowerment, Plastic-Free is a must-read for those concerned about the ongoing health and happiness of themselves, their children, and the planet.
A vision from ancient Egypt and a call from an old acquaintance send Rebecca York, mystic, occult expert, and adventurer to Arizona, and then Jerusalem and the Dead Sea to prevent a horrifying attack from the annals of history. This is the first full length novel of the O.C.L.T. - the Orphic Crisis Logistical Taskforce.
“A gripping tale of what happens when an author’s world shifts 180 degrees” DAVID NIALL WILSON Bram Stoker Award Author of Deep Blue & The Parting Beth Shepherd is a forty-nine-year-old, twice-divorced, mid-list crime writer whose life is unraveling. Even though she lives in beautiful Santa Cruz, California, she can’t pull herself together. She’s past deadline on her new book, over budget, and her New York agent, Marty Schienman, is applying pressure via hysterical phone calls and emails. Meanwhile, things are bad at home, as her gay son is doing his best to reunite with his deadbeat dad—although even Beth has been feeling pretty “deadbeat” lately. Her fictional NYPD homicide detective, Katie Shields, seems to be turning on her with every new page. Finally, she finds out that her long-time champion Marty is dying of cancer, and it’s all Beth can take. That’s when something unbelievable happens. Katie, a fictional character, hijacks Beth’s mess of a manuscript. She stops existing in fiction-land and gets on the case of her creator, ultimately helping Beth face what she must face from her son’s burgeoning relationship with his dad, to Beth’s relationship with her brothers, to her dealing with Marty’s illness. As Beth gains control of her book and her life, she solves the biggest case of her career.
