Merrick Albright, a former military officer, is now a salty sheriff’s deputy who is frustrated and sickened by the current state of the United States and its ongoing political soap opera. He feels helpless to effect change on a national level and focuses on bettering his community by putting one bad guy behind bars at a time. After a series of coordinated nationwide terrorist attacks, the United States drifts into chaos. Police and other first responders scramble to keep control, but the divided and frustrated nation sinks lower as cities riot to the point that crime can’t be contained. What can Merrick do when law and order are a thing of the past? He must fight to keep those he cares about alive, but he cannot do it alone. “This story will disturb and inspire readers, and open their eyes to the world around us through the safety of a fictional character who seems so real.” Deirdra Eden, Best Selling Author of The Watchers Series.
I have not written these memoirs entirely for the amusement or instruction of my contemporaries; but I shall feel rewarded if I elicit thereby the interest and sympathy which follows an honest effort to tell the truth in the recollections of one’s life—for, after all, truth is the chief virtue of history. My ancestry may be of as little importance in itself as this book is likely to be after the lapse of a few years; yet it is satisfactory to know that your family is respectable,—even if you cannot prove it to be so ancient that it has no beginning, and so worthy that it ought to have no end. I am willing, however, that my genealogy should be investigated; there are books giving the whole history; and it is surely an innocent and praiseworthy pride—that of good pedigree. I was born November 24th, 1825, at our plantation home, called Cottage Hall, in the parish of East Feliciana, in the State of Louisiana. My father was a man of firmness and of courage amounting to stoicism. He appeared calm and self-possessed under all circumstances. He ruled his own house, but so judicious was his management that even his slaves loved him. Though I was very young when my mother died, I can remember her and the great affection manifested for her by the entire family. While not realizing the importance of my loss, I knew enough to resent the coming of another to fill her place. My father said he wanted a good woman who could see that his family of six children were properly brought up and educated. His nephew, Dr. James Thomas, introduced him to Miss Susan Brewer, who he thought would fill all these requirements. The marriage was soon arranged, and I was brought home, to Cottage Hall, by my eldest sister, with whom I had been living. The other children had laid aside their mourning and I was informed that I also had new dresses; but I declined to wear them or to call the new mistress of the household by the name of “Mother,” which had been freely given her by the rest of the family. When my father lifted me from the carriage he said: “My child, I will now take you to your new mother.” As he kissed me affectionately I turned away and said: “I am not your child, and I have no mother now.” I have never forgotten the sad look he gave me nor the tenderness he manifested toward my waywardness as he took me in his arms and carried me into the house. I was a troublesome little girl with an impetuous temper; perhaps it was on this account that he often said: “This golden-haired darling is the dearest little one in the house—and the most exacting.” My father had a vein of quaint humor and abounded in proverbial wisdom. I have heard him say, “Yes, I have a very bad memory—I remember what should be forgotten.”
#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER! Justice Anthony Kennedy slipped out of the Supreme Court building on June 27, 2018, and traveled incognito to the White House to inform President Donald Trump that he was retiring, setting in motion a political process that his successor, Brett Kavanaugh, would denounce three months later as a “national disgrace” and a “circus.” Justice on Trial, the definitive insider’s account of Kavanaugh’s appointment to the Supreme Court, is based on extraordinary access to more than one hundred key figures—including the president, justices, and senators—in that ferocious political drama. The Trump presidency opened with the appointment of Neil Gorsuch to succeed the late Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court. But the following year, when Trump drew from the same list of candidates for his nomination of Brett Kavanaugh, the justice being replaced was the swing vote on abortion, and all hell broke loose. The judicial confirmation process, on the point of breakdown for thirty years, now proved utterly dysfunctional. Unverified accusations of sexual assault became weapons in a ruthless campaign of personal destruction, culminating in the melodramatic hearings in which Kavanaugh’s impassioned defense resuscitated a nomination that seemed beyond saving. The Supreme Court has become the arbiter of our nation’s most vexing and divisive disputes. With the stakes of each vacancy incalculably high, the incentive to destroy a nominee is nearly irresistible. The next time a nomination promises to change the balance of the Court, Hemingway and Severino warn, the confirmation fight will be even uglier than Kavanaugh’s. A good person might accept that nomination in the naïve belief that what happened to Kavanaugh won’t happen to him because he is a good person. But it can happen, it does happen, and it just happened. The question is whether America will let it happen again.
Chuck Lawless loves the local church. He also loves the Great Commission. And one of his passions is to see every member of the body of Christ become a Great Commission member. The concept of Nobodies for Jesus is simple but profound: take 14 days and develop a Great Commission lifestyle. The book weaves through numerous New Testament narratives to show how "regular" people, "nobodies," became somebody for the sake of the gospel. This book, if taken seriously, has the ability to transform individuals, groups, and even entire churches. The 14-day study guide is excellent for use in multiple settings.
#1 New York Times Bestselling author - Surrender to fiction's greatest creature of the night - Book II of the Vampire Chronicles The vampire hero of Anne Rice’s enthralling novel is a creature of the darkest and richest imagination. Once an aristocrat in the heady days of pre-revolutionary France, now a rock star in the demonic, shimmering 1980s, he rushes through the centuries in search of others like him, seeking answers to the mystery of his eternal, terrifying exsitence. His is a mesmerizing story—passionate, complex, and thrilling. Praise for The Vampire Lestat “Frightening, sensual . . . Anne Rice will live on through the ages of literature. . . . To read her is to become giddy as if spinning through the mind of time, to become lightheaded as if our blood is slowly being drained away.”—San Francisco Chronicle “Fiercely ambitious, nothing less than a complete unnatural history of vampires.”—The Village Voice “Brilliant . . . its undead characters are utterly alive.”—The New York Times Book Review “Luxuriantly created and richly told.”—The Cleveland Plain Dealer
