Growing up in the lap of luxury, in the sunshine state, Sophie soon finds that there is a thin line between love and hate. Between her overbearing stepfather and his desires to be more than her stepfather, and her overprotective uncles, it seems that murder and mayhem are the only thing that are keeping her sane. When the murder of a friend's father bring the police knocking on Sophie's door, it brings new enemies into her life, as well as an unsuspecting ally. The investigation into the murder leads Sophie half way around the world in pursuit of revenge and down a road full of deceit, and disaster. Love seems to keep eluding Sophie, and murder keeps finding its way to her doorstep. But when she meets the man of her dreams, it doesn't matter that he is already taken. . Her stepfather is determined to keep her in his life. If it means the murder of every man who shows Sophie affection. His one and only desire in life is to have Sophie by his side and murder is a small price to pay.
What is it in us that drive's us to the very thing that we should be running from? That is a question that Sophie has been trying to answer for years. Her feelings for Taryn are still haunting and confusing her, causing her to doubt her own sanity. Sophie has found out the hard way that working against Taryn and fighting his love for her, can and will lead to death and destruction. After recuperating from a gunshot wound that nearly cost her the life of her unborn child she's right back into the arms of Taryn Brownstone. Taryn is anxious for a fresh start with Sophie and will do everything in his power to keep her. His love for Sophie and his kids has driven him to forgiving her for murdering both of his brothers and his aunt. When all hell breaks loose, Sophie has to face some difficult decisions. Murdering the man that she can't admit to loving so that she can find her way back home and into Ronin's arms or remaining with the her captor.
Sophie has spent two years under armed guard. Now the walls are beginning to close in. Her life and the lives of her children are at risk. She still hasn't gotten over the brutal murder of her husband and those recurring nightmares that replay that awful moment, night after night, are driving her insane. She's itching at the bud to pay the men who murdered her husband a visit, but her love and respect for Jack is holding those desires at bay. Jack has given up too much for the safety of Sophie and her sons, for her to foolishly go off and risk her life, while seeking revenge. A string of midnight phone calls forces her to face that Taryn won't give up on having her, and their son. When Taryn murders another of Sophie's loved ones just to prove a point, it brings out the bad girl that she tried to control, and now that she has been unleashed, murder and revenge are the name of the game, and no amount of coaxing from Jack can keep Sophie from acting impulsively.
'Arresting and vivid, raw and breathtaking...told with stunning originality' DOLLY ALDERTON 'Annie Lord tells us a story at once both specific and universal' SHON FAYE 'An electrifying debut' CAROLINE O'DONOGHUE Dark, fierce and raw, Notes on Heartbreak is a love story told in reverse... Reeling from a broken heart, Annie Lord revisits the past - from the moment she first fell in love, the shared in-jokes and intertwining of a long-term relationship, to the months that saw the slow erosion of a bond five years in the making. Charting her attempts to move on, Annie explores the ups and downs of being newly single, from disastrous rebound sex to sending ill-advised nudes, stalking your ex's new girlfriend on Instagram and the sharp indignity of being ghosted. This stunning exploration of love and heartbreak from cult journalist and Vogue columnist Annie Lord, is so much more than a book about one singular break-up. it is an unflinchingly honest account of the simultaneous joy and pain of being in love that will resonate with anyone who has ever nursed a broken heart. It's a book about the best and worst of love: the euphoric and the painful, the beautiful and the messy. Perfect for fans of Everything I Know About Love, Conversations on Love and Three Women.
"Sorry, John Green fans, but McDaniel's been making us cry . . . for decades." --Bustle.com An inspirational story about love, tragedy, heartbreak, and renewal as a young woman deals with her serious health issues, a fractured family life, and the prospect of romantic love while trying to remain focused on her studies and a lifelong dream. Kenzie Caine is enrolled at Vanderbilt University, with the goal of becoming a veterinarian. When she lands a summer job caring for and helping to rehabilitate abused horses at the Bellmeade Estate stables, she is over-the-moon happy. One place she does not want to be is at home with her parents. Since the tragic death of Kenzie's younger sister, her mother has unraveled and her father has lost Kenzie's trust. At the stables, Kenzie is in her element. But a serious heart condition limits her ability to complete the more physical aspects of the job, so her employers have tasked the charming Austin Boyd with helping her. But Austin has secrets. And as Kenzie and Austin become closer, those secrets threaten to harm their relationship, as well as reveal other startling truths. Once again Lurlene McDaniel delivers the type of story for which she is famous--and readers everywhere will be reaching for their tissues.
Winner of the 2023 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award A Five Books "Best Literary Science Writing" Book of 2023 • A Smithsonian Best Science Book of 2022 • A Prospect Magazine Top Memoir of 2022 • A KCRW Life Examined Best Book of 2022 "Keen observer [and] deft writer" (David Quammen) Florence Williams explores the fascinating, cutting-edge science of heartbreak while seeking creative ways to mend her own. When her twenty-five-year marriage suddenly falls apart, journalist Florence Williams expects the loss to hurt. But when she starts feeling physically sick, losing weight and sleep, she sets out in pursuit of rational explanation. She travels to the frontiers of the science of "social pain" to learn why heartbreak hurts so much—and why so much of the conventional wisdom about it is wrong. Soon Williams finds herself on a surprising path that leads her from neurogenomic research laboratories to trying MDMA in a Portland therapist’s living room, from divorce workshops to the mountains and rivers that restore her. She tests her blood for genetic markers of grief, undergoes electrical shocks while looking at pictures of her ex, and discovers that our immune cells listen to loneliness. Searching for insight as well as personal strategies to game her way back to health, she seeks out new relationships and ventures into the wilderness in search of an extraordinary antidote: awe. With warmth, daring, wit, and candor, Williams offers a gripping account of grief and healing. Heartbreak is a remarkable merging of science and self-discovery that will change the way we think about loneliness, health, and what it means to fall in and out of love.
“Thrash has so carefully and skillfully captured a universal moment. . . . A luminescent memoir not to be missed.”— Kirkus Reviews (starred review) All-girl camp. First love. First heartbreak. At once romantic and devastating, brutally honest and full of humor, this graphic-novel memoir is a debut of the rarest sort.
"Country Girl is Edna O'Brien's exquisite account of her dashing, barrier-busting, up-and-down life."-National Public Radio When Edna O'Brien's first novel, The Country Girls, was published in 1960, it so scandalized the O'Briens' local parish that the book was burned by its priest. O'Brien was undeterred and has since created a body of work that bears comparison with the best writing of the twentieth century. Country Girl brings us face-to-face with a life of high drama and contemplation. Starting with O'Brien's birth in a grand but deteriorating house in Ireland, her story moves through convent school to elopement, divorce, single-motherhood, the wild parties of the '60s in London, and encounters with Hollywood giants, pop stars, and literary titans. There is love and unrequited love, and the glamour of trips to America as a celebrated writer and the guest of Jackie Onassis and Hillary Clinton. Country Girl is a rich and heady accounting of the events, people, emotions, and landscape that have imprinted upon and enhanced one lifetime.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The critically acclaimed singer-songwriter, producer, and six-time Grammy winner opens up about faith, sexuality, parenthood, and a life shaped by music in “one of the great memoirs of our time” (Glennon Doyle, author of Untamed). NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR AND AUTOSTRADDLE • “The best-written, most engaging rock autobiography since her childhood hero, Elton John, published Me.”—Variety Brandi Carlile was born into a musically gifted, impoverished family on the outskirts of Seattle and grew up in a constant state of change, moving from house to house, trailer to trailer, fourteen times in as many years. Though imperfect in every way, her dysfunctional childhood was as beautiful as it was strange, and as nurturing as it was difficult. At the age of five, Brandi contracted bacterial meningitis, which almost took her life, leaving an indelible mark on her formative years and altering her journey into young adulthood. As an openly gay teenager, Brandi grappled with the tension between her sexuality and her faith when her pastor publicly refused to baptize her on the day of the ceremony. Shockingly, her small town rallied around Brandi in support and set her on a path to salvation where the rest of the misfits and rejects find it: through twisted, joyful, weird, and wonderful music. In Broken Horses, Brandi Carlile takes readers through the events of her life that shaped her very raw art—from her start at a local singing competition where she performed Elton John’s “Honky Cat” in a bedazzled white polyester suit, to her first break opening for Dave Matthews Band, to many sleepless tours over fifteen years and six studio albums, all while raising two children with her wife, Catherine Shepherd. This hard-won success led her to collaborations with personal heroes like Elton John, Dolly Parton, Mavis Staples, Pearl Jam, Tanya Tucker, and Joni Mitchell, as well as her peers in the supergroup The Highwomen, and ultimately to the Grammy stage, where she converted millions of viewers into instant fans. Evocative and piercingly honest, Broken Horses is at once an examination of faith through the eyes of a person rejected by the church’s basic tenets and a meditation on the moments and lyrics that have shaped the life of a creative mind, a brilliant artist, and a genuine empath on a mission to give back.
