Download or read book The Coffiner of Escondido written by Kirk Cummins and published by Page Publishing Inc. This book was released on 2024-04-24 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Coffiner of Escondido The Coffiner of Escondido is an enchanting narrative following the life of Lourdes Pena, a gifted artisan and clairvoyant residing on the outskirts of a devout village in nineteenth-century Mexico. Lourdes possesses a unique skill--crafting intricate coffins adorned with scenes shown to her by the spirits surrounding her. Her creative process fuses Italian Renaissance art's elegance with Mexican folk art's soulful vibrancy, resulting in coffins that transcend mere functionality. Yet Lourdes's journey is anything but ordinary. As a woman with unconventional talents, she grapples with isolation and prejudice in her tight-knit community. Her only companions are her devoted mother, a loyal dog, and an ardent suitor. When the local padre takes a keen interest in her, admiration blends with moral scrutiny, casting a complex shadow over her already challenging existence. The Coffiner of Escondido masterfully weaves a captivating tapestry of creativity, spirituality, and indomitable strength. Lourdes's tale is a timeless exploration of the human spirit's resilience against societal norms and marginalization. Cummins skillfully merges historical authenticity with engaging prose, inviting readers to experience a world where art becomes a conduit for deeper connections and personal empowerment. Lourdes Pena's journey is an inspiring reminder that the human spirit can flourish even in the face of adversity, leaving an indelible mark on our histories and our hearts. 76

Download or read book The Coffiner of Escondido written by Kirk Cummins and published by Page Publishing. This book was released on 2024-03-11 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Coffiner of Escondido The Coffiner of Escondido is an enchanting narrative following the life of Lourdes Pena, a gifted artisan and clairvoyant residing on the outskirts of a devout village in nineteenth-century Mexico. Lourdes possesses a unique skill--crafting intricate coffins adorned with scenes shown to her by the spirits surrounding her. Her creative process fuses Italian Renaissance art's elegance with Mexican folk art's soulful vibrancy, resulting in coffins that transcend mere functionality. Yet Lourdes's journey is anything but ordinary. As a woman with unconventional talents, she grapples with isolation and prejudice in her tight-knit community. Her only companions are her devoted mother, a loyal dog, and an ardent suitor. When the local padre takes a keen interest in her, admiration blends with moral scrutiny, casting a complex shadow over her already challenging existence. The Coffiner of Escondido masterfully weaves a captivating tapestry of creativity, spirituality, and indomitable strength. Lourdes's tale is a timeless exploration of the human spirit's resilience against societal norms and marginalization. Cummins skillfully merges historical authenticity with engaging prose, inviting readers to experience a world where art becomes a conduit for deeper connections and personal empowerment. Lourdes Pena's journey is an inspiring reminder that the human spirit can flourish even in the face of adversity, leaving an indelible mark on our histories and our hearts.

Download or read book The Prairie Bridesmaid written by Daria Salamon and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Just cresting her thirties, Anna Lasko is a frustrated high school teacher whose almost ex-boyfriend, Adam, is away on temporary assignment in Europe. She finds herself tricked into a break-up-with-the-bad-boyfriend intervention by her supportive but meddling girlfriends. To cope with it all, Anna starts smoking again, keeps nightly counsel with her backyard squirrel, Buddy, and starts sessions with a caring but fashion-challenged therapist. Her well-intentioned family adds to the emotional workload when her beautiful and free-spirited sister decides to move to the Middle East with her boyfriend. Luckily, Anna has her gun-toting grandmother who constantly says it like it is, refuses to conform to anyone's requests, and continues to live on her prairie farm half-blind, happy, and alone."--BOOK JACKET.

Download or read book The Abundance written by Annie Dillard and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2016-03-15 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author In recognition of her long and lauded career as a master essayist, a landmark collection including her most beloved pieces and some rarely seen work, rigorously curated by the author herself “Annie Dillard’s books are like comets, like celestial events that remind us that the reality we inhabit is itself a celestial event.”—Marilynne Robinson, Washington Post Book World “Annie Dillard is, was, and will always be the very best at describing the landscapes in which we find ourselves.”—Minneapolis Star Tribune “Annie Dillard is a writer of unusual range, generosity, and ambition. . . . Her prose is bracingly intelligent, lovely, and human. ”—Margot Livesey, Boston Globe “A writer who never seems tired, who has never plodded her way through a page or sentence, Dillard can only be enjoyed by a wide-awake reader,” warns Geoff Dyer in his introduction to this stellar collection. Carefully culled from her past work, The Abundance is quintessential Annie Dillard, delivered in her fierce and undeniably singular voice, filled with fascinating detail and metaphysical fact. The pieces within will exhilarate both admiring fans and a new generation of readers, having been “re-framed and re-hung,” with fresh editing and reordering by the author, to situate these now seminal works within her larger canon. The Abundance reminds us that Dillard’s brand of “novelized nonfiction” pioneered the form long before it came to be widely appreciated. Intense, vivid, and fearless, her work endows the true and seemingly ordinary aspects of life—a commuter chases snowball-throwing children through neighborhood streets, a teenager memorizes Rimbaud’s poetry—with beauty and irony, inviting readers onto sweeping landscapes, to join her in exploring the complexities of time and death, with a sense of humor: on one page, an eagle falls from the sky with a weasel attached to its throat; on another, a man walks into a bar. Reminding us of the indelible contributions of this formative figure in contemporary nonfiction, The Abundance exquisitely showcases Annie Dillard’s enigmatic, enduring genius, as Dillard herself wishes it to be marked.

Download or read book Bear Necessity written by James Gould-Bourn and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2020-08-04 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A “refreshing,” (Kirkus Reviews) unpretentious, and uplifting story about a father and son reconnecting and finding happiness in the most unlikely circumstances—for fans of Nick Hornby and The Rosie Project. Danny’s life is falling apart. His eleven-year-old son, Will, hasn’t spoken since the death of his mother in a car crash a year earlier, and Danny has just been fired from his construction job. He’s behind on the rent and his nasty landlord is threatening to break his legs if he doesn’t pay soon. Danny needs money, and fast. After observing street performers in a local park, Danny spends his last few dollars on a tattered panda costume, impulsively deciding to become a dancing bear. While performing one day, Danny spots his son being taunted by a group of older boys. Danny chases them off, and Will opens up for the first time since his mom died, unaware that the man in the panda costume is his father. Afraid of disclosing his true identity, Danny comforts his son. But will Danny lose Will’s trust once he reveals who he is? And will he be able to dance his way out of despair? Filled with a delightful cast of characters, Bear Necessity is “a moving, sensitive story that is also very funny, and a perfect literary antidote to anxious, troubled times” (Shelf Awareness).

Download or read book Fall of a Sparrow written by Mitchell Ryan and published by Page Publishing Inc. This book was released on 2021-10-12 with total page 383 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: But they were dead, and he still had a chance to live. It was years since he had gone from one great part to the next, but life had merely...shifted. Why couldn’t he accept this? He was an actor, plain and simple: “an abstract and brief chronicle of the time.” He had always done his job. By now he’d spent more time in Hollywood than in New York and had done more films than plays. Susan was right, he had been lucky, blessed even, to have had a chance to do the work he’d done. True, his life on the stage was gone, “melted into thin air,” and would never come back, the way of things and something to be faced. Whether he was in a play or film or soap opera or now a sitcom, he would just do the best he knew how. He was an actor, and an actor acts. As he looked out to the brilliant green sea and up to the sky he glowed with contentment that, somehow, he was able also to accommodate the melancholy that would always be part of him. A seagull glided by on the wind right in front of him, and he heard the voice of his first teacher, Doug Ramey, across the years: “The only thing that counts is the work. As with life, it’s a process, and nothing matters but the doing.”

Download or read book The Dividing of America written by Lee McGarr and published by Page Publishing Inc. This book was released on 2020-12-04 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Dividing of America is a true story taken from volumes of court transcripts, depositions, news articles, video news presentations, felony booking warrants, and voluminous personal notes that all became public documents with the fraudulent arrest of an Oklahoma contractor and businessman. What began as nothing more than the bidding of a construction project led down a path of corruption, shady lawyers, corrupt public servants, and judges who hide the truth from the juries and hire criminal hitmen as special process servers!

Download or read book Number Two Hearn written by Beverly Mimms George and published by Page Publishing Inc. This book was released on 2022-02-14 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Julie Sullivan is a young women’s historian who loves her life in Charleston, South Carolina. She has just completed her graduate studies and is a respected member of the local university family. Meriwether MacDonnel was a carefree teenager living in eighteenth century Scotland until she was traded to a total stranger and forced to accompany him to America. A chance visit to a ghostly period tavern binds Julie and Meriwether on a journey as one reaches out to the other from the grave. Allow yourself to be transported from modern day Charleston to the hills of Scotland and back. Number Two Hearn is the story of two women who lived two worlds and two centuries apart, and the house which brought them together.

Download or read book Morrigan s Daughter written by Patrick Fitch and published by Page Publishing, Inc. This book was released on 2020-03-23 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Morrigan is the fierce goddess of war and seductress from Celtic mythology who could morph into an eel, a heifer, a wolf, or, most often a raven, the omen of dread. Spurned by the Celtic warrior, Cuchulainn, his rejection precursed the trap of slow, deliberate revenge—the dish best served cold. She then appeared as the raven and foretold his impending death in combat. The myth describes her having flaming red hair and being dressed in a red cloak, intent on the imposition of wrath. She is the inspiration for the protagonist within.

Download or read book American Dental Directory written by and published by . This book was released on 1991 with total page 1816 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Hemlocks written by Ben Schulz and published by Page Publishing Inc. This book was released on 2021-09-21 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: War. Families are torn apart, estates are plundered, farms are torched, and the war lays bare the dilemmas of mankind--the struggle, boredom, treachery, and fear. Brothers Jacob and Aaron Abbott serve His Majesty's Army nobly, but circumstance and fate violently disrupt their lives, removing them from a peaceful war to a dangerous peace. They embark on a thrilling journey across the great state of Pennsylvania, a wilderness, in 1778. From Swatara Creek to Chambers Gate, they guard against the elements, befriend some unlikely locals, and display courage and good sense to combat the danger and confusion that lurk inside the dense gray foliage that engulfs them. One thing is for sure: the sun sets in the west, and that is where the adventure will send them.

Download or read book The Archer s Thread written by Noel Zamot and published by Atabey Press. This book was released on 2022-01-24 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Simon Lyons can see seconds into the future. The condition is useful at work: quiet negotiations with the worst people in the world. His employers think he's quite valuable. They tolerate his abrasive personality, the result of an ability to produce everyone and everything. Simon tries hard to hide the truth from everyone: the condition is driving him insane. In desperation he runs away to Boston, the last place he remembers as home. He spends his days drinking to excess, brutalizing street punks, and failing to kill himself. That’s when he meets a young mathematics professor with an unexpected gift: around Doctor Kelly Austin, the chaos of a thousand possibilities dies away, leaving behind clarity, presence, and peace. Rediscovering this sense of normalcy is intoxicating, and rekindles his hope for cure. Simon uses all of his skill to enter's Kelly’s life, find the secret, and leave. That’s when someone from his past returns, stopping at nothing to bury his identity, the truth about his accident, and the extent of his “skill.” When shadowy figures discover that Kelly Austin may be the key to controlling the most dangerous person on earth, Simon must choose: return to a short and brutal life of violence, or risk everything for the terror of redemption. Even if you can see the future, you can never escape your past. Readers who imagine how VE Schwab would’ve written a Jack Reacher novel will devour this genre-bending thriller about sacrifice, secrets, and redemption.

Download or read book Another Man s Shoes written by D. C. Page and published by . This book was released on 2022-02-03 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on a true story, this emotionally rich sharing of friendship brings you into the bond! David, who lives outside Philadelphia, receives a call from his best friend's doctor in California. Gordon is suffering major organ failure and is on the brink of death! Gordon, an unmarried quadriplegic, has been in a wheelchair since he was twenty-two. His life is one of isolation, fear, and relative silence, except when David visits with stories of the world. David hikes internationally, motorcycles cross-country regularly, has a wife and three sons, works a full-time job, and is a nationally known speaker. To save Gordon's life, the doctor induces a coma to promote rest and healing. Unable to reserve a flight, David leaves his family to drive cross-country, hoping to arrive before Gordon wakes, or dies. As Gordon fades in and out of consciousness, David struggles to stay awake and imagines Gordon into the passenger seat where the stories of their lives are recalled in three dimension. There are 2,700 miles of road to drive. The author invites the reader into the car to experience flashbacks that transport them into all ages of the main character's lives and all over the world. It's a wild ride of death-defying uphill battles, duty, arguments, friendship, humor, and love. The clock is ticking as each call to the doctor reveals Gordon's touch-and-go status with life while every mile marker finds David fighting exhaustion and the fear that he might be too late. The reader comes face-to-face with experiences and people of influence surrounding David's and Gordon's lives. They witness what made these men who they are and why these contrasting characters see themselves as brothers. Slip into their shoes. Walk their different paths. Discover their common ground. Experience their brotherhood!

Download or read book The City Beautiful written by Aden Polydoros and published by Harlequin. This book was released on 2021-10-05 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "An achingly rendered exploration of queer desire, grief, and the inexorable scars of the past." —Katy Rose Pool, author of There Will Come A Darkness Death lurks around every corner in this unforgettable Jewish historical fantasy about a city, a boy, and the shadows of the past that bind them both together. Chicago, 1893. For Alter Rosen, this is the land of opportunity, and he dreams of the day he’ll have enough money to bring his mother and sisters to America, freeing them from the oppression they face in his native Romania. But when Alter’s best friend, Yakov, becomes the latest victim in a long line of murdered Jewish boys, his dream begins to slip away. While the rest of the city is busy celebrating the World’s Fair, Alter is now living a nightmare: possessed by Yakov’s dybbuk, he is plunged into a world of corruption and deceit, and thrown back into the arms of a dangerous boy from his past. A boy who means more to Alter than anyone knows. Now, with only days to spare until the dybbuk takes over Alter’s body completely, the two boys must race to track down the killer—before the killer claims them next. "Chillingly sinister, warmly familiar, and breathtakingly transportive, The City Beautiful is the haunting, queer Jewish historical thriller of my darkest dreams."—Dahlia Adler, creator of LGBTQreads and editor of That Way Madness Lies A New York Public Library Best Book for Teens 2021

Download or read book Beneath the Veil of Smoke and Ash written by Tammy Pasterick and published by She Writes Press. This book was released on 2021-09-21 with total page 379 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It’s Pittsburgh, 1910—the golden age of steel in the land of opportunity. Eastern European immigrants Janos and Karina Kovac should be prospering, but their American dream is fading faster than the colors on the sun-drenched flag of their adopted country. Janos is exhausted from a decade of twelve-hour shifts, seven days per week, at the local mill. Karina, meanwhile, thinks she has found an escape from their run-down ethnic neighborhood in the modern home of a mill manager—until she discovers she is expected to perform the duties of both housekeeper and mistress. Though she resents her employer’s advances, they are more tolerable than being groped by drunks at the town’s boarding house. When Janos witnesses a gruesome accident at his furnace on the same day Karina learns she will lose her job, the Kovac family begins to unravel. Janos learns there are people at the mill who pose a greater risk to his life than the work itself, while Karina—panicked by the thought of returning to work at the boarding house—becomes unhinged and wreaks a path of destruction so wide that her children are swept up in the storm. In the aftermath, Janos must rebuild his shattered family with the help of an unlikely ally. Impeccably researched and deeply human, Beneath the Veil of Smoke and Ash delivers a timeless message about mental illness while paying tribute to the sacrifices America’s immigrant ancestors made.

Download or read book The Monster Hypothesis written by Romily Bernard and published by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. This book was released on 2019-12-04 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Welcome to Bohring-home to 453 people, 2,053 alligators, and one monster curse. Correction: home to 454 people, now that Kick Winter is living in the swamp Hollows with her Grandma Missouri, the town (fake) psychic. Bohring is anything but boring for Kick who has already blown a hole through the kitchen floor, befriended a chicken-eating gator, and discovered that the town's hundred-year curse is upon them. It's the Bohring curse and all the kids are about to become monsters-or so the legend goes. People are worried-except for Kick. She knows there's a scientific explanation for everything, especially curses and monsters. But Kick is the new kid in school and she's determined to make a name for herself . . . by pretending to be psychic. According to her calculations: one teeny-tiny life + (fake) psychic skills = popularity. But when kids start disappearing and glowing creatures start showing up, Kick's theory quickly evaporates in a puff of foul-smelling swamp gas. Can Kick use her (real) science smarts to prove the curse is a hoax? Or is it just-maybe-sort of-somehow possible the curse is here? Author Romily Bernard weaves a fast-paced middle-grade mystery filled with humor and scientific intrigue, set in a perfectly eerie Southern town.

Download or read book The Lockhart Women written by Mary Camarillo and published by She Writes Press. This book was released on 2021-06-01 with total page 347 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Brenda Lockhart’s family has been living well beyond their means for too long when Brenda’s husband leaves them—for an older and less attractive woman than Brenda, no less. Brenda’s never worked outside the home, and the family’s economic situation quickly declines. Oldest daughter Peggy is certain she’s heading off to a university, until her father offers her a job sorting mail while she attends community college instead. Younger daughter Allison, a high school senior, can’t believe her luck that California golden boy Kevin has fallen in love with her. Meanwhile, the chatter about the O. J. Simpson murder investigations is always on in the background, a media frenzy that underscores domestic violence against women and race and class divisions in Southern California. Brenda, increasingly obsessed with the case, is convinced O. J. is innocent and has been framed by the LAPD. Both daughters are more interested in their own lives—that is, until Peggy starts noticing bruises Allison can’t explain. For a while, it feels to everyone as if the family is falling apart; but in the end, they all come together again in unexpected ways.