Download or read book Last Dance on the Starlight Pier written by Sarah Bird and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2022-04-12 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Set during the Great Depression, Sarah Bird's Last Dance on the Starlight Pier is a novel about one woman—and a nation—struggling to be reborn from the ashes. July 3. 1932. Shivering and in shock, Evie Grace Devlin watches the Starlite Palace burn into the sea and wonders how she became a person who would cause a man to kill himself. She’d come to Galveston to escape a dark past in vaudeville and become a good person, a nurse. When that dream is cruelly thwarted, Evie is swept into the alien world of dance marathons. All that she has been denied—a family, a purpose, even love—waits for her there in the place she dreads most: the spotlight. Last Dance on the Starlight Pier is a sweeping novel that brings to spectacular life the enthralling worlds of both dance marathons and the family-run empire of vice that was Galveston in the Thirties. Unforgettable characters tell a story that is still deeply resonant today as America learns what Evie learns, that there truly isn’t anything this country can’t do when we do it together. That indomitable spirit powers a story that is a testament to the deep well of resilience in us all that allows us to not only survive the hardest of hard times, but to find joy, friends, and even family, in them.
Download or read book Daughter of a Daughter of a Queen written by Sarah Bird and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2018-09-04 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "You'll be swept away by the passion and power of this remarkable, trailblazing woman who risked everything to follow her own heart." – Kristin Hannah, #1 New York Times bestselling author "An epic page-turner." – Christina Baker Kline Named Best Fiction Writer in the Austin Chronicle's "Austin's Best 2018" Named one of Lone Star Literary Life's "Top 20 Texas Books of 2018" The compelling, hidden story of Cathy Williams, a former slave and the only woman to ever serve with the legendary Buffalo Soldiers. “Here’s the first thing you need to know about Miss Cathy Williams: I am the daughter of a daughter of a queen and my mama never let me forget it.” Though born into bondage on a “miserable tobacco farm” in Little Dixie, Missouri, Cathy Williams was never allowed to consider herself a slave. According to her mother, she was a captive, destined by her noble warrior blood to escape the enemy. Her chance at freedom presents itself with the arrival of Union general Phillip Henry “Smash ‘em Up” Sheridan, the outcast of West Point who takes the rawboned, prideful young woman into service. At war’s end, having tasted freedom, Cathy refuses to return to servitude and makes the monumental decision to disguise herself as a man and join the Army’s legendary Buffalo Soldiers. Alone now in the ultimate man’s world, Cathy must fight not only for her survival and freedom, but she also vows to never give up on finding her mother, her little sister, and the love of the only man strong enough to win her heart. Inspired by the stunning, true story of Private Williams, this American heroine comes to vivid life in a sweeping and magnificent tale about one woman’s fight for freedom, respect and independence.
Download or read book Above the East China Sea written by Sarah Bird and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2015-04-28 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Seattle Times Best Book of the Year Okinawa, present day: Luz, a teenage military brat, has moved to the island’s U.S. Air Force base with her mother, a no-nonsense sergeant. Luz’s mother hopes that the move will reconnect them with the Okinawan branch of their family—and help them heal from the death of Luz’s beloved older sister. This is an island where departed spirits mingle with the living, and interwoven with Luz’s narrative is the story of an Okinawan girl, Tamiko Kokuba, who in 1945 was plucked from her high school and trained to work in the Imperial Army’s horrific cave hospitals. Both of these extraordinary young women are seeking peace, and as Luz digs deeper and deeper into her past, their quests will intersect. Above the East China Sea tells the entwined stories of two lives connected across time by the shared experience of loss, the strength of an ancient culture, and the power of family love.
Download or read book Flight of the B n Monks written by Harvey Rice and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2024-02-27 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An inside account of the Chinese invasion of Tibet told through the voices of three persecuted monks • Shares the true story of three monks’ heroic escape from occupied Tibet and the subsequent rebirth of the Bön religion in exile • Introduces Bön, Tibet’s oldest religion, and a traditional way of life extinguished by foreign occupation • Reveals details of the 1950 Chinese invasion of Tibet and the exodus of thousands of Tibetans to neighboring countries Providing an inside view into the Chinese occupation of Tibet and the tenets of Bön, one of the world’s oldest but least known religions, this book chronicles the true story of three Bön monks who heroically escaped occupied Tibet and went on to rebuild their culture through incredible resilience, determination, and passion. After taking his vows to become a Bön monk and completing a pilgrimage around 22,000-foot Mt. Kailash, the holiest mountain in Tibet, Tenzin Namdak envisions a life of quiet contemplation at Menri, Bön’s mother monastery. Instead, he finds himself fleeing for his life across the highest and most difficult terrain on the planet. After being joined by a CIA-backed warlord, Tenzin’s escape party is ambushed and he is severely wounded. Narrowly escaping execution by Chinese soldiers, the dying Tenzin is taken to a concentration camp, where he is afforded special consideration because of his status as a monk. He overcomes his nearly fatal wound and makes an arduous escape from Tibet over the daunting Himalayas. The other monks, life-long friends Samten Karmay and Sangye Tenzin, witness Tibet’s capital explode in a violent insurrection against Chinese rule. Escaping to Nepal, they worry about the survival of the Bön religion and begin collecting scattered works of Bön scripture. A chance meeting with British scholar David Snellgrove brings the three monks together again and dramatically changes their lives. Snellgrove invites Sangye, Samten, and Tenzin to spend three years in London on a Rockefeller Foundation grant. There, they hone their English and forge influential relationships, enabling Tenzin to answer the pleas for help from the Bön community by founding a settlement in exile in India. Sangye is chosen as the 33rd Menri Trizen, Bön’s highest office, and together the three monks help rebuild the nearly extinct Bön religion. Aside from the escape of the Dalai Lama, no other Tibetan escape has been so consequential for so many.
Download or read book Into the Soul of the World written by Brad Wetzler and published by Hachette Go. This book was released on 2023-03-21 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This powerful memoir shares an adventure journalist’s story of a decade-long, round-the-world quest to overcome his drug addiction and to understand and heal from past traumas. Suffering from PTSD and severe depression from past trauma, battling an addiction to overprescribed psychiatric medication, and at the rock bottom of his career, journalist Brad Wetzler had nowhere to go. So he set out on a journey to wander and hopefully find himself—and the world—again. Into the Soul of the World is Wetzler’s thrilling, impactful, and heartrending memoir of healing—physically, emotionally, and spiritually. An adventure journalist at heart, Wetzler mixes travelogue with empowering insights about his inner journey to better care for his own mental health. Journey with him as he travels across Israel and the West Bank, before moving on to India, a candle-lit cave on a mountaintop in the Himalayan foothills, and a life-changing encounter with a 100-year-old yogi. Wetzler's writing is full of the poignant, amusing, and occasionally heart‑breaking situations that unfold when we finally decide to confront depression (or any mental health struggle) and declare ourselves ready to heal: How do we heal our past and thrive again? What does it mean to live a good life? How can we transform our suffering and serve others? His answer: live to tell the story and find the humility and courage to be the best human you can be.
Download or read book Ghostoria Vintage Romantic Tales of Fright written by Tam Francis and published by Plum Creek Publishing. This book was released on 2014-09-24 with total page 116 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Do you like scary stories with a little romance and a vintage twist? Welcome to Ghostoria. What happens when a WWII secretary is trapped in the office with a ghost and the only way out is to make an unwelcome choice? Drive-in movies, hot rods, and jitterbugs populate Long Way Home; can one young man survive a bloody night in a historic cemetery with his girlfriend? Young residents of a cursed Texas town grapple with what they’re willing to sacrifice in order to save their crops, animals and loved ones? Can a kindergarten teacher silence the talking doll that has frightened her students by solving a fifty year old mystery? A lone lady hitchhiker hops a ride in a 1959 El Dorado Cadillac by a roadside grave. Who will be alive at the end of the drive? Find out what happens when college coed gets more than she bargained for with her vintage swing dance dress. A turn of the century jail that housed murderers, liars, and thieves for over a hundred years is taken over by six teenagers on Halloween. What happens when a childhood chant turns deadly? Those are just a few haunts and haints that populate this world of unrequited love, woe and mystery. Ghostoria will gnaw the corners of your mind and challenge your ideas about life, love and death long after you leave.
Download or read book Wildflower written by Mark Seal and published by Random House. This book was released on 2009-05-26 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With compassion and an unswerving regard for the truth, veteran journalist Mark Seal lays bare the deeply moving, inspirational story of Joan Root, a dedicated environmentalist and Oscar-nominated wildlife filmmaker. He covers her early days in Kenya as a shy young woman with an almost uncanny ability to connect to animals; her whirlwind courtship with the dashing Alan Root, their marriage, and the twenty years of nonstop adventure and passionate romance that followed, both in Africa and around the world; the shattering disintegration of the marriage and partnership; and Joan’s triumphant struggle to reinvent herself as the protector of her lakeshore community’s fragile ecosystem—a struggle that would lead to her tragic death in January 2006. Joan Root dreamed of a bright future for Kenya, a country blessed with unmatched beauty but scarred by decades of colonization and a culture of corruption. She spent her life fighting to make that dream a reality. Her life ended too soon, but “thanks to Seal’s meticulous re-creation, her extraordinary life lives on.” (People, four-star review)
Download or read book The Last Dance written by Julie Richard and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2011-11 with total page 80 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beatrice had finally found people with whom she could spend boring nights. People who needed to get out, socialize, and have fun, just like her! She needed that. She needed kids like her who could teach her how to have a good time in a village that had nothing but woods, deserted streets, and a huge beach. Beatrice had grown fond of that beach. So close to home, that place could go from a paradise in the daytime where one could bathe in the sun, swim, breathe in fresh air, and relax to a play area at night where one could meet up with friends, express, and experiment. A gang like the one Beatrice was in would intimidate most, but fortunately for Beatrice, her cousin Claudette was part of it and a very good friend now. Besides, that gang had introduced her to the best part of her life now. This thing was better than world peace; this was sacred, and everyone in her gang was doing it: weed. Based on a true story, The Last Dance is about Beatrice Orchard: a teenager trapped in a dysfunctional family searching in her small conventional village back in the late 1960s for a way to forget her problems at home.
Download or read book You ll Never Find Us written by Jeanne Baker Guy and published by She Writes Press. This book was released on 2021-08-15 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1977, Jeanne’s German nationalist ex-husband, Klaus, tells her he’s gotten a new job and wants to take their three-year-old daughter and six-year-old son away for a long weekend to celebrate. Jeanne relents. But Klaus never returns and instead sends Jeanne a letter, delivered by a mutual friend, in which he declares that he has fled to Germany and she will never see him, or her children, again. The next four months are filled with agony, despair, and anger as Jeanne seeks legal support but quickly learns that federal parental kidnapping laws will offer her little help. She reflects on her tumultuous ten-year marriage to Klaus and the unsettling events that followed their divorce. A product of the patriarchal culture of the 1950s, Jeanne’s nice-girl mentality is being tested and reshaped by the feminist movement of the 1970s, and she finds that the kidnapping ultimately becomes a doorway to unexpected strength. You’ll Never Find Us is the story of a young mother coming into her own power, regardless of past mistakes, bad judgment, and fears; the story of a woman who realizes she must tap into her newfound resilience and courage to find her stolen children—and steal them back.
Download or read book Silent Melody written by Mary Balogh and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2015-08-04 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the legendary New York Times bestselling author of Heartless comes an exquisite Georgian romance of a transcendent love, “without doubt, one of the most romantic novels ever written.”* Lady Emily Marlowe is beautiful, independent, and unspoiled. Deaf since childhood, she appreciates her family’s efforts to nurture her spirit, but the man they’ve chosen for her betrothal can never fulfill her. The only one Emily has ever desired is bold and reckless Lord Ashley Kendrick. Her childhood amour inspired her fantasies and vowed never to forget her—even as he left her for a new life in India and a new love. Seven years and countless dreams later, Ashley has returned a desolate widower to Bowden Abbey and, true to his promise, to Emily. Yet his heedless proposal of marriage has left her unexpectedly conflicted. Though the heat of passion still burns, Emily fears that it’s only a sense of duty—not love—that has brought him to bended knee. And what is she to make of those seven lost years clouded in secrets too dark for Ashley to share? For Emily, her greatest and only love now becomes one worth fighting for, one of startling revelations and second chances, and one, like a melody, too beautiful for words....
Download or read book Last Dance written by Lurlene N McDaniel and published by Darby Creek ™. This book was released on 2013-08-01 with total page 85 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rachel Deering has her eyes on her toes: she wants to become a world-class ballerina. As a 14-year-old, she is already one of the best dancers in the country. Just as she prepares for an audition for an opening with a prestigious dance troupe, Rachel starts having some very disturbing symptoms. After collapsing at school, she has many tests and her doctor tells her the news: She has diabetes. Now her world consists of blood tests, insulin shots, a controlled diet, and constant fear that she will have a reaction and end up unable to dance—or worse.
Download or read book The Gap Year written by Sarah Bird and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-07-17 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A single mom and her seventeen-year-old daughter learn how to let go in that precarious moment before college empties the nest.
Download or read book The Percy Jackson and the Olympians Book Three Titan s Curse written by Rick Riordan and published by Disney-Hyperion. This book was released on 2007-05 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this third book of the acclaimed series, Percy and his friends are escorting two new half-bloods safely to camp when they are intercepted by a manticore and learn that the goddess Artemis has been kidnapped.
Download or read book Once and for All written by Sarah Dessen and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018-05-22 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beloved author Sarah Dessen's latest novel set in the exciting and romantic world of wedding planning is now in paperback. A #1 New York Times bestseller. Is it really better to have loved and lost? Louna's summer job is to help brides plan their perfect day, even though she stopped believing in happily-ever-after when her first love ended tragically. But charming girl-magnet Ambrose isn't about to be discouraged now that he's met the one he really wants. Maybe Louna's second chance is standing right in front of her. Sarah Dessen’s many fans will adore this latest novel, a richly satisfying, enormously entertaining story with humor, romance, and an ending that is so much more than happily-ever-after.
Download or read book This Side of Paradise written by F. Scott Fitzgerald and published by The Floating Press. This book was released on 2009-04-01 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Side of Paradise is a novel about post-World War I youth and their morality. Amory Blaine is a young Princeton University student with an attractive face and an interest in literature. His greed and desire for social status warp the theme of love weaving through the story.
Download or read book Becoming Duchess Goldblatt written by Anonymous and published by Houghton Mifflin. This book was released on 2020 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Part memoir and part joyful romp through the fields of imagination, the story behind a beloved pseudonymous Twitter personality reveals how a writer deep in grief rebuilt a life worth living.
Download or read book The Second Jungle Book written by Rudyard Kipling and published by Castrovilli Giuseppe. This book was released on 1897 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents the further adventures of Mowgli, a boy reared by a pack of wolves, and the wild animals of the jungle. Also includes other short stories set in India.
