Thomas Connor, through horrendous tragedy, hones his body and mind to accomplish the incredible. American Mutant follows the course of Connor’s journey to attain a violent and unrelenting brand of justice. On the way, he assembles a cast of characters, who join him on his quest to reshape a treacherous world into his vision of the future. Washington D.C. becomes a backdrop for Connor’s rise from incarcerated enforcer in a branch of the National Security Agency, to the head of a complex intelligence network, owing allegiance to Connor alone. An old friend from his CIA past assists him in his goal to make a difference. Connor gathers a cadre of inner city young black men capable of turning their lives around to build a business front and house his intelligence gathering aspirations. With the help of Nate Johnson, a CIA assassin, Connor takes on a web of Russian Mafia and Red Chinese intelligence gangs, to break a slave ring kidnapping young girls for foreign sources. With his growing extraordinary powers, Connor takes the murder capitol of the country to a new level of violence, frightening in its scope. After meeting Connor, his unruly band learns fear, discipline, and a terrifying way to make dreams come true. In return for their loyalty, Connor provides them with an escape hatch from oblivion.

"What a debut! Early Work is one of the wittiest, wisest (sometimes silliest, in the best sense), and bravest novels about wrestling with the early stages of life and love, of creative and destructive urges, I’ve read in a while. The angst of the young and reasonably comfortable isn’t always pretty, but Andrew Martin possesses the prose magic to make it hilarious, illuminating, moving." ―Sam Lipsyte, author of The Ask and *The Fun Parts* For young writers of a certain temperament―if they haven’t had such notions beaten out of them by MFA programs and the Internet―the delusion persists that great writing must be sought in what W. B. Yeats once called the “foul rag and bone shop of the heart.” That’s where Peter Cunningham has been looking for inspiration for his novel―that is, when he isn’t teaching at the local women’s prison, walking his dog, getting high, and wondering whether it’s time to tie the knot with his college girlfriend, a medical student whose night shifts have become a standing rebuke to his own lack of direction. When Peter meets Leslie, a sexual adventurer taking a break from her fiancé, he gets a glimpse of what he wishes and imagines himself to be: a writer of talent and nerve. Her rag-and-bone shop may be as squalid as his own, but at least she knows her way around the shelves. Over the course of a Virginia summer, their charged, increasingly intimate friendship opens the door to difficult questions about love and literary ambition. With a keen irony reminiscent of Sam Lipsyte or Lorrie Moore, and a romantic streak as wide as Roberto Bolaño’s, Andrew Martin’s Early Work marks the debut of a writer as funny and attentive as any novelist of his generation. “Beautifully executed and very funny, Early Work is a sharp-eyed, sharp-voiced debut that I didn’t want to put down.” ―Julia Pierpont, author of Among the Ten Thousand Things and *The Little Book of Feminist Saints* **

Against a backdrop of racial tensions and spanning four decades, Joshua: A Brooklyn Tale explores the entanglements of three lives: Joshua Eubanks, a young black man struggling to overcome the crime, drugs, and despair of the streets; Rachel Weissman, daughter of a Hassidic rabbi, wrestling pangs of rebelliousness against the insular and restrictive practices of her religion; and Paul Sims, the product of a privileged Long Island Jewish family, yearning to escape his troubled past. Joshua first encounters Rachel in the local synagogue, where he works as an assistant to the custodian. Over the years their bond intensifies, though their lives diverge. Rachel aspires to be a doctor, but surrenders to a strict Hasidic life, thus leaving her unfulfilled. Paul leaves his home to find solace in the Hasidic enclave of Crown Heights.

The Cricket on the Hearth is a novella by Charles Dickens, written in 1845. It is the third of Dickens' five Christmas books, the others being A Christmas Carol (1843), The Chimes (1844), The Battle of Life (1846), and The Haunted Man (1847).

The Circle Trilogy by Nora Roberts “Roberts's Celtic-flavored Circle trilogy features superbly crafted characters, three passionate romances, and a bewitching blend of magic and myth” (Booklist).All three novels are included in this collection from the #1 New York Times bestseller and “America’s favorite writer” (The New Yorker). Morrigan’s Cross Dance of the Gods Valley of Silence

No Description Available

the gas line is leaking, the bird is gone from the cage, the skyline is dotted with vultures;Benny finally got off the stuff and Betty now has a jobas a waitress; andthe chimney sweep was quite delicate as hegiggled up through the soot.I walked miles through the city and recognizednothing as a giant claw ate at my stomach while the inside of my head felt airy as if I was about to go mad.it's not so much that nothing means anything but more that it keeps meaningnothing,there's no release, just gurus and self-appointed gods and hucksters.the more people say, the less there is to say.even the best books are dry sawdust.—from "fingernails; nostrils; shoelaces"

"Til death do us part," Aria and her husband swore. But death came much too soon.When tragedy strikes one summer night, everything is taken from Aria: her family, her future. Desperate to find meaning in life after loss, she and her beloved mare leave their home in search of something—anything. It feels like the end of her life. It is the beginning.If she can find her way through the forest of grief, she will discover an incredible adventure waiting on the other side. Hers is no ordinary journey—it is a journey into the nature of the soul. Each step takes her further into uncharted lands. The cave of darkness. The lake of time. The human heart. Each place she goes and each person she meets has a new lesson to teach her, and soon she comes to learn the most astounding one of all: her loved ones have never left her. They are with her throughout the lifetimes. They are eternal and immortal...