Last Known Port: A Southern Mystery By: Sue Anger 1923 was the year for boats and booze and rag and jazz. And the occasional missing sailor. Set in the seaport town of Beaufort, North Carolina at the height of Prohibition, Last Known Port has all the elements of a page-turning mystery: a waterfront setting, lawless greed, foul play and romance. Anger’s knowledge of the Carolina coast, intimate familiarity with small-town life, and detailed research into 1920s Beaufort bring this colorful tale of intrigue to life with a winningly authentic voice. - Bland and Ann Simpson, author and photographer, North Carolina: Land of Water, Land of Sky In Last Known Port, Jake Parson, a shell-shocked World War I veteran, is determined to find his missing brother, who was last seen off the waters of Beaufort, North Carolina. Jake investigates how his brother became immersed in the tangled web of rum-running and smuggling during the frenzied days of Prohibition. Racing against time as the danger of discovery piles up around him, Jake faces characters who must make hard choices when their love and loyalty are tested. Anger’s debut novel is fearless, entertaining and heartbreaking—sometimes all at once. - Alice Osborn, author of Heroes without Capes, North Carolina Writers’ Network, Board of Trustees
In this classic medical thriller filled with harrowing suspense and brilliantly crafted plot twists, Tess Gerritsen—the author of the acclaimed Rizzoli & Isles series that inspired the hit television show—delivers a pulse-pounding tale that “will make your heart skip a beat” (USA TODAY). For Dr. Abby DiMatteo, the long road to Boston’s Bayside Hospital has been anything but easy. Now, immersed in the grinding fatigue of her second year as a surgical resident, she’s elated when the hospital’s elite cardiac transplant team taps her as a potential recruit. But Abby soon makes an anguished, crucial decision that jeopardizes her entire career. A car crash victim’s healthy heart is ready to be harvested; it is immediately cross-matched to a wealthy private patient, Nina Voss. Abby hatches a bold plan to make sure that the transplant goes instead to a dying seventeen-year-old boy who is also a perfect match. The repercussions are powerful and swift and Abby is shaken but unrepentant—until she meets the frail, tormented Nina. Then a new heart for Nina Voss suddenly appears, her transplant is completed, and Abby makes a terrible discovery: Nina’s heart has not come through the proper channels. Defying Bayside Hospital’s demands for silence, Abby plunges into an investigation that reveals an intricate, and murderous, chain of deceptions. Every move Abby makes spawns a vicious backlash and, in a ship anchored in the stagnant waters of Boston Harbor, a final, grisly discovery lies waiting…
Devon Wakefield only wanted to escape the unwanted attentions of her lustful stepfather. Yet her hiding place proved to be a doorway to a new life. Having inadvertently stumbled onto a convict ship bound for New South Wales in 1787, no one would believe her when she said she didn't belong there. So, like it or not, she was on her way to a new home. On the banks of Sydney Harbor, Devon found strange new animals and people who would become her friends. She learned that she had an extraordinary talent and love for farming. And above all, she discovered the love of her life: Lieutenant Jonathan Lake of His Majesty's Navy. The first few years in Australia brought nothing more pleasant than poverty and starvation. However, as the colony grew more prosperous, so did Devon. Yet as successful as she was as a farmer, Devon's heart was broken. For Jonathan was gone, and she had been forced to marry another man. Sometimes it seemed as though Devon would never find love again-that all life promised her was work, work, and more work. Then, back in London, Jonathan makes a bizarre discovery that sets him and Devon back on the road to reunion and to true love.
A powerful tale of grief, love’s enduring bonds, and secrets of the past from #1 New York Times bestselling author and master storyteller Stephen King. Four years after the sudden death of his wife, bestselling novelist Mike Noonan is still grieving. Unable to write and plagued by vivid nightmares set at the western Maine summerhouse he calls “Sara Laughs,” Mike reluctantly returns to the lakeside getaway. There, he finds his beloved Yankee town held in the grip of a powerful millionaire, Max Devore, whose vindictive purpose is to take his three-year-old granddaughter, Kyra, away from her widowed young mother, Mattie. As Mike is drawn into Mattie’s and Kyra’s struggle—and as he falls in love with both of them—he is also drawn into the mystery of Sara Laughs…now the site of ghostly visitations and escalating terrors. What are the forces that have been unleashed here—and just what do they want of Mike Noonan?
Chronicles the history of human exploration, from the Silk Road travels and early exploration of the Atlantic Coastline to the age of discovery, the colonial exploration eras, and modern expeditions to the North and South Poles.
In August 2002, Mike Horn set out on a mission that bordered on the impossible: to travel 12,000 miles around the globe at the Arctic Circle - alone, against all prevailing winds and currents, and without motorized transportation. Conquering the Impossible is the gripping account of Horn's grueling 27-month expedition by sail and by foot through extreme Arctic conditions that nearly cost him his life on numerous occasions. Enduring temperatures that ranged to as low as -95 degrees Fahrenheit, Horn battled hazards including shifting and unstable ice that gave way and plunged him into frigid waters, encounters with polar bears so close that he felt their breath on his face, severe frostbite in his fingers, and a fire that destroyed all of his equipment and nearly burned him alive. Complementing the sheer adrenaline of Horn's narrative are the isolated but touching human encounters the adventurer has with the hardy individuals who inhabit one of the remotest corners of the earth. From an Inuit who teaches him how to build an igloo to an elderly Russian left behind when the Soviets evacuated his remote Arctic town, Horn finds camaraderie, kindness, and assistance to help him survive the most unforgiving conditions. This awe-inspiring account is a page-turner and an Arctic survival tale in one. Most of all, it's a testament to one man's unrelenting desire to push the boundaries of human endurance.
Two great short stories are packed into this wonderful book. Citra - Peculiar things are happening to Earth in the future. Marcus chases after bounty in uncharted international waters. What he discovers is beyond his imagination. A suspicious creature finds him in a vulnerable situation. He learns that he has more in common with this creature than he ever thought possible, but is it friend or foe? An Old Message - Martian researcher Dr. Winston Gravenstein comes across solid evidence that will rewrite human history and enshrine his name in glory. But in order to do that he must first confirm what the evidence suggests. And that means an encounter with a less than hospitable robot, interplanetary travel and some creative thinking. From inside: "Yes, yes, yes. We're all familiar with your fondness for useless linguistics. What I want to know," Winston went on, "is what is says." "...what do you say? Shall we take a trip to Earth?"
The year was 1765. Eminent botanist Philibert Commerson had just been appointed to a grand new expedition: the first French circumnavigation of the world. As the ships’ official naturalist, Commerson would seek out resources—medicines, spices, timber, food—that could give the French an edge in the ever-accelerating race for empire. Jeanne Baret, Commerson’s young mistress and collaborator, was desperate not to be left behind. She disguised herself as a teenage boy and signed on as his assistant. The journey made the twenty-six-year-old, known to her shipmates as “Jean” rather than “Jeanne,” the first woman to ever sail around the globe. Yet so little is known about this extraordinary woman, whose accomplishments were considered to be subversive, even impossible for someone of her sex and class. When the ships made landfall and the secret lovers disembarked to explore, Baret carried heavy wooden field presses and bulky optical instruments over beaches and hills, impressing observers on the ships’ decks with her obvious strength and stamina. Less obvious were the strips of linen wound tight around her upper body and the months she had spent perfecting her masculine disguise in the streets and marketplaces of Paris. Expedition commander Louis-Antoine de Bougainville recorded in his journal that curious Tahitian natives exposed Baret as a woman, eighteen months into the voyage. But the true story, it turns out, is more complicated. In The Discovery of Jeanne Baret, Glynis Ridley unravels the conflicting accounts recorded by Baret’s crewmates to piece together the real story: how Baret’s identity was in fact widely suspected within just a couple of weeks of embarking, and the painful consequences of those suspicions; the newly discovered notebook, written in Baret’s own hand, that proves her scientific acumen; and the thousands of specimens she collected, most famously the showy vine bougainvillea. Ridley also richly explores Baret’s awkward, sometimes dangerous interactions with the men on the ship, including Baret’s lover, the obsessive and sometimes prickly naturalist; a fashion-plate prince who, with his elaborate wigs and velvet garments, was often mistaken for a woman himself; the sour ship’s surgeon, who despised Baret and Commerson; even a Tahitian islander who joined the expedition and asked Baret to show him how to behave like a Frenchman. But the central character of this true story is Jeanne Baret herself, a working-class woman whose scientific contributions were quietly dismissed and written out of history—until now. Anchored in impeccable original research and bursting with unforgettable characters and exotic settings, The Discovery of Jeanne Baret offers this forgotten heroine a chance to bloom at long last.
