More than two decades ago, she was mine. Then I lost her heart, but not her friendship. Now Tessa's husband, one of the greatest men I ever knew, is gone, having sacrificed his life for their daughter. And my wife is a cheating whore, but I won't let her run off into the sunset with her senator just yet. She still has a few more months to be a mother to our son before he graduates. But Tessa ... I know her. She wants to show her grown children that she’s okay —hell, she always pretended to be all right when she wasn't— that even after a devastating loss, life can go on. Watching her grieve silently was something I did in the past, but I won't do it again. Never again. Because I fear if I can't get her to truly grieve, we all might lose her. And I can't live in a world without Tessa.
The author of the beloved Kipper series teams up with his daughter to tell the heartwarming story of a sweat-band-wearing pug who just can’t seem to do the right thing. Dog is very badly behaved—he destroys everything, chases cars, rolls in poo, and won’t stop running away! But when he finds himself lost and alone there is one person he knows he can always count on. Chloë Inkpen’s sweet illustrations bring warmth and humor to this delightful story of family and unconditional love.
Love breaks through defenses and destroys walls that divide us. Love demands more of you and me than we often want to give. It’s easy to love a lovely person, but what about...them? What about that stereotype, that race, that person or group of people in a political, cultural, or socioeconomic class who don’t behave like you, don’t believe like you, and if you are honest...make you uncomfortable? What is love in this context? We read that Jesus broke boundaries to love the people that many detested. His love was transformative because His love saw past disagreement, indifference, and offense. Loving them? Like this? That’s hard. If you consider yourself a Christian, then love should be your primary characteristic. But it seems that division defines us in our society where rage and anger abound. Today, many people see Christians as angry followers of God who are more interested in winning political arguments than loving people. If we say we follow Jesus but are not loving like Him, then what’s the point? There is a better way. Using the incredible story of how Pastor Choco chose to “love them anyway” to transform the crime-ridden community of Humboldt Park in Chicago, Love Them Anyway will inspire you to love in a way you never have. This book will pave a compelling path for you to both express and experience a truly transformative love on a deep level. It will tap into your deepest desires, expose your hesitations, connect you deeper with God’s love, and help you take bold steps to love the people around you—and your love will change lives. When you learn to Love Them Anyway, your passion will be redirected, your purpose will be refined, and you will see God use you in ways you could never have imagined. Love is hard. It’s not convenient, and it’s not always safe. But love is beautiful. Love is contagious. It breaks through defenses and destroys walls that divide us. Love is the answer. So, love them anyway. Redirect your passion, refine your purpose, and see God use you in ways you never imagined.
Television writer Tracy McMillan’s comic literary road trip into the heart and soul of her relationship with her father—a convicted pimp, drug dealer, and felon—and what it has meant for her relationships with men. Like a cross between The Glass Castle and Hypocrite in a Poufy White Dress, I Love You and I’m Leaving You Anyway is funny, inspiring, and truly unique.
Following his widely acclaimed Project X and Love and Hydrogen—“Here is the effect of these two books,” wrote the Chicago Tribune: “A reader finishes them buzzing with awe”—Jim Shepard now gives us his first entirely new collection in more than a decade. Like You’d Understand, Anyway reaches from Chernobyl to Bridgeport, with a host of narrators only Shepard could bring to pitch-perfect life. Among them: a middle-aged Aeschylus taking his place at Marathon, still vying for parental approval. A maddeningly indefatigable Victorian explorer hauling his expedition, whaleboat and all, through the Great Australian Desert in midsummer. The first woman in space and her cosmonaut lover, caught in the star-crossed orbits of their joint mission. Two Texas high school football players at the top of their food chain, soliciting their fathers’ attention by leveling everything before them on the field. And the rational and compassionate chief executioner of Paris, whose occupation, during the height of the Terror, eats away at all he holds dear. Brimming with irony, compassion, and withering humor, these eleven stories are at once eerily pertinent and dazzlingly exotic, and they showcase the work of a protean, prodigiously gifted writer at the height of his form. Reading Jim Shepard, according to Michael Chabon, “is like encountering our national literature in microcosm.”
Bored country girl Grace Felice decides to add some thrills to her life and dives into the world of black magic. Against the advice of her true love, Joe Criss, she all too quickly gets tangled up with some Wicca promising more thrills than she can handle. This initiation into a guaranteed wicked good time cemetery sance exposes her to an ancient Egyptian pharaoh named Hatchetsup Hatasu. Suddenly the dark arts get as real, and as dark, as it gets, as she witnesses the power of life and death. It shakes her up so badly that she decides she's done with black magic and tries to go back to her boring, small-town life. Unfortunately, Hatasu isn't done with her. He sees real potential in Grace and decides to violently show her just how serious he is about her and the consequences of saying no! Meet Grace, a new kind of heroine, battling her way back to "good" from the insidious fringe where she thought she always wanted to be, back to normal, where she never thought she would want so desperately to return. Along the way, she finds out who she really is, who her friends really are, and ultimately the only one who can really save her.
A silly prank turns into a serious nightmare! An extremely beautiful fresh graduate joins a software firm and is offered a helping hand by quite a few fascinated colleagues. They also wish to see, if they can try winning her love. She comes to a party with the one who wins, only to find out that her admirers at office are not so happy about her decision and preference. Fortuitously, they try a prank -some sort of occult black magic-on him and his soul is off. A topic, not of any interest all along, suddenly is not so to the girl who had just then started fancying love and marriage. She has to decide what to do with this person with a new soul, whether to save him at any cost or give up on this impossible and unknown task and wait for what future has in store. Meanwhile, the Fiancée’s body with the new soul has taken over with a different agenda. Admirers at office want to see if they still have any chance of winning her. She now has new offers of love which she can’t assimilate. This is an unusual story, where the lover looks the same, but his soul has changed. All of the important transition seems to happen within a wink of time. The different person with the body of her lover is worried about solving a murder mystery which is not of the fiancées interest. An out of the ordinary lover seems to have come back after his own death to help his wife in the previous life and his child. He is out to prove that ‘Love can’t end, but life may!’ His wife on the other hand is shocked to see how this unknown person could give all the details about her which is very private to her and her dead husband. Yes, this is a tale of love beyond life and death. Why and how does the Guy come back to life after being killed? What does the Fiancée chooses to do? Why so? How does the widow react to a new person who claims to be her husband? Find out in this story of an interesting age old Indian occult magic happening in the most advanced IT industry! This is a multi-angled romantic thriller! Verifying whether death matters love! A sweet love story, with intellectual fights and mysterious twists, it sounds beyond belief but can happen to anyone, anytime! Check out for yourself!
Our culture is self-obsessed – in our schedules, relationships, and especially online. (Can you say selfie?) But in this near-narcissism, people are less content than in decades past. Why? Because we forgot the joy that comes from putting others first. Doing so requires us to live alert, listening for “heart drops,” hints from those in our lives who need a helping hand or a generous dose of encouragement. Living alert lifts our own spirits, showing us that blessing others blesses us even more. Listen, Love, Repeat offers biblical teaching and suggests doable actions that are simple, heart-tugging, sentimental, even sneaky and hilarious. This message: • Presents scriptural examples of those who lived alert, including Jesus, who noticed those who least expected to be seen. • Explains the role of good works for followers of Christ. They aren’t our ticket to heaven but they are our marching orders on earth. • Gives creative ideas for showing love to friends and family, and suggests practical ways to reach out to the lonely, the marginalized, the outcast, and the odd duck. Additionally, it helps you comfort the grieving, showing what you can do when you don’t know what to say. • Provides inspiration for blessing the “necessary people” in your life, those often-overlooked souls who help you get life done every day, and teaches you how to hug a porcupine by genuinely loving the hard-to-love. As we scatter love, we create a safe space where we can openly share the gospel. We get to see lives changed right before our eyes. Most importantly, Listen, Love, Repeat will enable you to live a life that is full of kind deeds, not to selfishly shout, “Hey! Look at me!” but to humbly implore, “Will you look at Him?”
When Lucas Links finds out his wife has been cheating on him his world is rocked. Ashley, his wife, blames him for her nearly five year affair with Senator Robert Robertson. Ashley says she has lived for twenty years knowing her husband is in love with his high school sweetheart Tessa Ross. Tessa Ross Abrahams, husband Collin, was murdered in an attempt to save their daughters life. She grieved silently. She wanted to show her grown children that she was alright and that even after a devastating loss life can go on. Secretly it was something she doubted. When Lucas lends his support will the passion they once shared resurface? Can Tessa forgive the sins of the past and take a chance on the boy who once shattered her heart? Their strong sexual desires makes ignoring each other difficult but maybe comfort can be found in each others arms...and beds.
