A schoolmarm, a sugar baron, and a soldier... It is 1902 and Georgina Potter has followed her fiancé to the Philippines, the most remote outpost of America's fledgling empire. But Georgina has a purpose in mind beyond marriage: her real mission is to find her brother Ben, who has disappeared into the abyss of the Philippine-American War. To navigate the Islands' troubled waters, Georgina enlists the aid of local sugar baron Javier Altarejos. But nothing is as it seems, and the price of Javier's help may be more than Georgina can bear.
Wise-cracking Wiley Cantrell is loud and roaringly outrageous -- and he needs to be to keep his deeply religious neighbors and family in the Deep South at bay. A failed writer on food stamps, Wiley works a minimum wage job and barely manages to keep himself and his deaf son, Noah, more than a stone’s throw away from Dumpster-diving. Noah was a meth baby and has the birth defects to prove it. He sees how lonely his father is and tries to help him find a boyfriend while Wiley struggles to help Noah have a relationship with his incarcerated mother, who believes the best way to feed a child is with a slingshot. No wonder Noah becomes Wiley’s biggest supporter when Boston nurse Jackson Ledbetter walks past Wiley’s cash register and sets his sugar tree on fire. Jackson falls like a wet mule wearing concrete boots for Wiley’s sense of humor. And while Wiley represents much of the best of the South, Jackson is hiding a secret that could threaten this new family in the making. When North meets South, the cultural misunderstandings are many, but so are the laughs, and the tears, but, as they say down in Dixie, it’s all good.
"A powerful, revealing story of hope, love, justice, and the power of reading by a man who spent thirty years on death row for a crime he didn't commit"--
A Time Best YA Book of All Time (2021) In this “searing work of historical fiction” (Booklist), Coretta Scott King Award-winning author Sharon M. Draper tells the epic story of a young girl torn from her African village, sold into slavery, and stripped of everything she has ever known—except hope. Amari's life was once perfect. Engaged to the handsomest man in her tribe, adored by her family, and fortunate enough to live in a beautiful village, it never occurred to her that it could all be taken away in an instant. But that was what happened when her village was invaded by slave traders. Her family was brutally murdered as she was dragged away to a slave ship and sent to be sold in the Carolinas. There she was bought by a plantation owner and given to his son as a "birthday present". Now, survival is all Amari can dream about. As she struggles to hold on to her memories, she also begins to learn English and make friends with a white indentured servant named Molly. When an opportunity to escape presents itself, Amari and Molly seize it, fleeing South to the Spanish colony in Florida at Fort Mose. Along the way, their strength is tested like never before as they struggle against hunger, cold, wild animals, hurricanes, and people eager to turn them in for reward money. The hope of a new life is all that keeps them going, but Florida feels so far away and sometimes Amari wonders how far hopes and dreams can really take her.
Using Harlem's cultural institutions and memorable characters as her backdrop, Mulligan writes joyously about weathering adolescence while history unfolds around her. This feel-good story resonates with humor and warmth as she chronicles her life among evangelists, curly-haired doo wop boys, snuff-dipppers, Fidel Castro's entourage, interracial marriage, chitlin' parties and testy interactions between West Indians and Southern blacks. Meet Mr. Big B, the neighborhood numbers banker; join her at the Apollo for Thursday matinees and visit Smalls Paradise and the Hot Cha, when she and her father go bar-hopping on Sunday mornings. She befriends baseball's Willie Mays in the shoeshine parlor, paints posters for the 1957 March on Washington, and tries, but fails to ingratiate herself into junior black society. This book is a living document of mid 20th-Century Harlem with appeal for all America.
Sugar Work chronicles the complexities of womanhood, race, and gender that arose from growing up around sex work in Atlanta, Georgia in the late 1990s. Poems investigate beauty and whiteness, the aftermath of sexual trauma on the female body, divorce, desire, and art itself.
The nights were their secret. The papers back home call Ben Potter a hero of the Philippine-American War, but he knows the truth. When his estranged brother-in-law offers him work slashing sugarcane, Ben seizes the opportunity to atone--one acre at a time. At the hacienda Ben meets schoolteacher Allegra Alazas. While Allegra bristles at her family's traditional expectations, the one man who appreciates her intelligence and independence seems to be the very worst marriage prospect on the island. Neither Ben nor Allegra fit easily in their separate worlds, so together they must build one of their own. But when Ben's wartime past crashes down upon them, it threatens to break their elusive peace.
As the star of the award-winning BBC series The Apprentice, Alan Sugar has won millions of fans who tune in to watch his mix of business wisdom, witty putdowns and ability to cut straight through bullshit. But how did the famously straight-talking entrepreneur end up fronting one of our most successful and long-running shows, and why were some of his biggest challenges during his ten years in television to be found outside the boardroom and off camera? In Unscripted, Alan Sugar reveals all this and more as he embarks on a new and sometimes bewildering career. He describes how he lost patience with some of the luvvies, wafflers and wannabes he encountered along the way, and tells us what he really thought of some of the tasks and candidates he came across during the making of The Apprentice, giving his reaction to the egos and the backbiting as well as the genuine talent that shone through. He explains how he brought on board Nick Hewer, Margaret Mountford and Karren Brady, what became of the winners when the cameras stopped rolling - and how working on the show has inspired him and many others. As with his previous books, What You See Is What You Get and The Way I See It, there is no ghostwriter; this is written by the man himself. And, as ever, it is honest, funny and outspoken - Alan Sugar at his entertaining best.
The Routledge Companion to Romantic Love is a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary reference work essential for students and researchers interested in the field of love, romance and popular romance fiction. This first-of-its-kind volume illustrates the broad and interdisciplinary nature of love studies. International contributors, including leaders in their field, reflect a range of perspectives from cultural studies, history, literature, popular romance studies, American studies, sociology and gender studies. Comprising over 30 chapters by a team of international contributors the Companion is divided into 12 parts: Love, romance and historical and social change Love and feminist discourses Love and popular romance fiction Love, gender and sexuality Romancing Australia South and Southeast Asian romance communities Nation, place and identity in US popular romance novels Romantic love and national identity in Chinese and Taiwanese discourses of love Muslim and Middle Eastern romances Discourses of romance fiction and technologies of power Writing love and romance Legal and theological fiction and sexual politics This is an important and unique collection aimed at researchers and students across cultural studies, women and gender studies, literature studies and sociology.
A timely and timeless picture book about immigration that demonstrates the power of diversity, acceptance, and tolerance from a gifted storyteller. An ALSC Notable Children's Book of 2021 A Kirkus Best Books of 2020 A School Library Journal Best Books of 2020 Winner of the 2021 Ohioana Book Award An Anne Izard Storytellers' Choice Award, 2022 "An engaging, beautiful, and memorable book." --Kirkus Reviews, starred review "Lush illustrations and a strong message of hope and perseverance make this a standout title." --School Library Journal, starred review When I first came to this country, I felt so alone. A young immigrant girl joins her aunt and uncle in a new country that is unfamiliar to her. She struggles with loneliness, with a fierce longing for the culture and familiarity of home, until one day, her aunt takes her on a walk. As the duo strolls through their city park, the girl's aunt begins to tell her an old myth, and a story within the story begins. A long time ago, a group of refugees arrived on a foreign shore. The local king met them, determined to refuse their request for refuge. But there was a language barrier, so the king filled a glass with milk and pointed to it as a way of saying that the land was full and couldn't accommodate the strangers. Then, the leader of the refugees dissolved sugar in the glass of milk. His message was clear: Like sugar in milk, our presence in your country will sweeten your lives. The king embraced the refugee, welcoming him and his people. The folktale depicted in this book was a part of author Thrity Umrigar's Zoroastrian upbringing as a Parsi child in India, but resonates for children of all backgrounds, especially those coming to a new homeland.
