Download or read book Blind Date written by Selena Kitt and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2010-05-03 with total page 142 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In her attempt to escape her sisters' Valentine matchmaking, Annie meets the enigmatic Eric, who she realizes could finally be the man of her dreams. In spite of, or maybe because of, Eric's cryptic words and puzzling behavior, she finds herself immediately intrigued and drawn to him like no other man she's ever met. One night in Annie's sister's kitchen seals their fate, as the two lovers discover and explore the instant spark of heat between them. Their evening comes to an abrupt end when the mysterious Eric disappears into the night, and Annie realizes she doesn't know his last name! How is she to find him?After months of fruitless searching, Annie finally gets a dubious break when she meets Eric's eccentric mother. Dita sends Annie on a journey deep into the unknown, through an ever-twisting labyrinth of frustrating dead-ends and seemingly strange, pointless missions. Annie's life is turned upside down as she searches for the one man who can make her life feel complete.Told in the spirit of magical realism, this modern day adaptation of the Greek myth of Eros and Psyche takes Annie on each of Psyche's tasks in her quest for her lost love. Each task brings her closer to him and to realizations about herself. Will Annie find Eric and reveal to him the secret she's been keeping, even from her sisters?Warnings: This title contains erotic situations, graphic language, and sex – a fun, modern day magical-realism retelling of the Psyche and Eros myth that will leave you mythtified yet satisfied.EXCERPT:“Can we stop talking?” she whispered, leaning back and turning her face so her cheek rested against his. “I don't remember ever feeling this good.”“Do you want to just see what happens?” he asked, his fingers trailing down her chin, her throat.“No. I want to be what happens.”His mouth found hers in the darkness, a slow journey from a mislaid kiss against her ear, a wet trail over her cheek leading to her open and anticipating lips. He kissed her like she was a secret he was keeping—something precious and tender and worth protecting.Annie hesitated, waiting for him to stop her as her hand curled back to touch his cheek, expecting to find thick scars or warped flesh, but to her surprise, his skin was smooth and unmarred. She slithered her arm around his neck, slanting her mouth across his and teasing his lips with her tongue.His fingers fumbled with her buttons and she helped him, exposing her skin to the cool kitchen air. Kitchens were always so damned cold when there was no cooking going on. She suspected it was the tile, but regardless, her nipples responded immediately to the temperature change. The angle of the kiss was awkward, but she was afraid to move and break their connection. His hand drifted over the soft material of her bra, and she was glad she had worn something with a definite texture, silky and light.Annie believed she heard voices coming closer to the door and she pulled quickly away, listening intently. The conversation was muffled and unintelligible, but after a few moments, she clearly heard her sister say, “In the kitchen.” She looked at Eric, trying to keep her breath from being fast and audible. “Maybe we should go somewhere?” she whispered, ducking her head and moving to her hands and knees to crawl out from under the table. He grabbed her hips and she gasped, looking back at him as he held fast.“No, we can stay here,” he insisted, sliding his hands up her bare thighs.“Are you sure?”“Live dangerously.” His hands roamed over ass as he lifted her skirt. “What color are these panties?” He probed her crevice through the thin material and she wiggled and sighed, arching her back.“Black,” she whispered as he pushed her panties aside.

Download or read book How to Fall in Love with Anyone written by Mandy Len Catron and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-06-27 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A beautifully written and well-researched cultural criticism as well as an honest memoir” (Los Angeles Review of Books) from the author of the popular New York Times essay, “To Fall in Love with Anyone, Do This,” explores the romantic myths we create and explains how they limit our ability to achieve and sustain intimacy. What really makes love last? Does love ever work the way we say it does in movies and books and Facebook posts? Or does obsessing over those love stories hurt our real-life relationships? When her parents divorced after a twenty-eight year marriage and her own ten-year relationship ended, those were the questions that Mandy Len Catron wanted to answer. In a series of candid, vulnerable, and wise essays that takes a closer look at what it means to love someone, be loved, and how we present our love to the world, “Catron melds science and emotion beautifully into a thoughtful and thought-provoking meditation” (Bookpage). She delves back to 1944, when her grandparents met in a coal mining town in Appalachia, to her own dating life as a professor in Vancouver. She uses biologists’ research into dopamine triggers to ask whether the need to love is an innate human drive. She uses literary theory to show why we prefer certain kinds of love stories. She urges us to question the unwritten scripts we follow in relationships and looks into where those scripts come from. And she tells the story of how she decided to test an experiment that she’d read about—where the goal was to create intimacy between strangers using a list of thirty-six questions—and ended up in the surreal situation of having millions of people following her brand-new relationship. “Perfect fodder for the romantic and the cynic in all of us” (Booklist), How to Fall in Love with Anyone flips the script on love. “Clear-eyed and full of heart, it is mandatory reading for anyone coping with—or curious about—the challenges of contemporary courtship” (The Toronto Star).

Download or read book Legendborn written by Tracy Deonn and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2020-09-15 with total page 544 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An Instant New York Times Bestseller! Winner of the Coretta Scott King - John Steptoe for New Talent Author Award Filled with mystery and an intriguingly rich magic system, Tracy Deonn’s YA contemporary fantasy reinvents the King Arthur legend and “braids together Southern folk traditions and Black Girl Magic into a searing modern tale of grief, power, and self-discovery” (Dhonielle Clayton, New York Times bestselling author of The Belles). After her mother dies in an accident, sixteen-year-old Bree Matthews wants nothing to do with her family memories or childhood home. A residential program for bright high schoolers at UNC–Chapel Hill seems like the perfect escape—until Bree witnesses a magical attack her very first night on campus. A flying demon feeding on human energies. A secret society of so called “Legendborn” students that hunt the creatures down. And a mysterious teenage mage who calls himself a “Merlin” and who attempts—and fails—to wipe Bree’s memory of everything she saw. The mage’s failure unlocks Bree’s own unique magic and a buried memory with a hidden connection: the night her mother died, another Merlin was at the hospital. Now that Bree knows there’s more to her mother’s death than what’s on the police report, she’ll do whatever it takes to find out the truth, even if that means infiltrating the Legendborn as one of their initiates. She recruits Nick, a self-exiled Legendborn with his own grudge against the group, and their reluctant partnership pulls them deeper into the society’s secrets—and closer to each other. But when the Legendborn reveal themselves as the descendants of King Arthur’s knights and explain that a magical war is coming, Bree has to decide how far she’ll go for the truth and whether she should use her magic to take the society down—or join the fight.

Download or read book Apple From Aphrodite written by Arizona Tape and published by Vampari Press. This book was released on 2022-11-03 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Enter the world of the Greek Gods in this sapphic paranormal romance series based on Greek mythology. The current Aphrodite has one choice - to go on her own dating show. The problem is, the matchmaker she's paired with has captured her heart... As the current Aphrodite, Anastasia has been pretty unlucky in love. When she agrees to appear on her own dating show to find that someone special, she didn't expect to make a connection with her matchmaker instead. Helena is honoured to match the Aphrodite and wants to do the best job as she can. When her own feelings get in the way, can she remain objective in finding potential candidates or will her jealousy cloud her judgement? - Apple From Aphrodite is a fantasy twist on the classic Greek mythology of Aphrodite with a sapphic romantic sub-plot. This story is a standalone.

Download or read book Be Your Own Dating Service written by Nina Atwood and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2016-03-29 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Where are all the good people to date? Why do I always end up with the wrong person? Why is love so hard to find? This upbeat and on-target book answers these questions and many more, providing today's singles with a blueprint for creating rewarding dating experiences.

Download or read book Cyberspace Romance written by Monica Whitty and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2017-09-16 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through examples of Whitty's own research on cyber-relationships, online dating, cyber-harassment, and presentation of self online, as well as drawing from other people's research, the positive and negative aspects of online relating are presented. This is an invaluable resource for anyone studying or conducting research on Internet relationships.

Download or read book Many Love written by Sophie Lucido Johnson and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2018-06-26 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A fast-paced debut… A candid, modern take on polyamory for fans of memoirs and graphic novels, and anyone interested in stories of dating, love, and romance.” —Library Journal After trying for years to emulate her boomer parents’ forty-year and still-going-strong marriage, Sophie realized that maybe the love she was looking for was down a road less traveled. In this bold, graphic memoir, she explores her sexuality, her values, and the versions of love our society accepts and practices. Along the way, she shares what it’s like to play on Tinder side-by-side with your boyfriend, encounter—and surmount—many types of jealousy, learn the power of female friendship, and other amazing things that happened when she stopped looking for “the one.” In a lot of ways, Many Love is Sophie’s love letter to everyone she has ever cared for. Witty, insightful, and complete with illustrations, this debut provides a memorable glimpse into an unconventional life.

Download or read book How to Make the Biggest Decision of Your Life written by George Blair-West and published by . This book was released on 2023-02-14 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Single, divorced or in a relationship and contemplating marriage? This is THE book you need to create lifelong love. There is no decision that will have a greater impact on our lives than who we choose to give our heart to and share our emotional, parental and financial future with. With divorce rates over 40 per cent in much of the world, it's clear many of us need some help in picking partners. In this informative and entertaining guide, unique fatherdaughter team psychiatrist Dr George Blair-West and dating coach Jiveny Blair-West unlock the science and the secrets to making the biggest decision of your life. You'll learn: How attraction works and how to understand the unconscious forces at play; How to create 'true love' that carries us through the tough times; What we can learn from arranged marriages; Why we need to avoid the nines & tens; The six specific qualities important to support a healthy long-term relationship. If you're single, this book will give you clarity and the confidence to choose a better partner. If you're in a relationship, it will help you to work out if you should stay or go. Either way, this book will empower you to take charge of your relationship destiny.

Download or read book Popular Culture written by John G. Nachbar and published by Popular Press. This book was released on 1992 with total page 524 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Popular Culture: An Introductory Text provides the means for a new examination of the different faces of the American character in both its historical and contemporary identities. The text is highlighted by a series of extensive introductions to various categories of popular culture and by essays that demonstrate how the methods discussed in the introductions can be applied. This volume is an exciting beginning for the study of the materials of everyday life that define our culture and confirm our individual senses of identity.

Download or read book Parasocial Romantic Relationships written by Riva Tukachinsky Forster and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2021-05-05 with total page 171 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Parasocial Romantic Relationships: Falling in Love with Media Figures explores how, why, and to what effect individuals develop romantic feelings toward people they “know” from the media. These imaginary, one-sided relationships, dubbed parasocial romantic relationships, are both profound and pervasive, Riva Tukachinsky Forster argues. These relationships can take many forms, including adolescents who develop celebrity crushes on popular music artist, anime enthusiasts who “marry” their favorite characters, and fanfiction authors who insert themselves into narratives as romantic interests of the protagonist. Through analysis of surveys, in-depth interviews, and historical examples, this book advances our understanding of parasocial romantic relationships on both a sociocultural and a psychological level. The data and theories analyzed offer insights into how individuals can become romantically engaged with people they do not actually know, some of whom may not even exist in reality. Ultimately, Tukachinsky Forster argues that although these relationships exist only in the mind of consumers, they serve important psychological functions across different stages of life and can lead to significant consequences for individuals’ nonmediated relationships. Scholars of media studies, communication, psychology, and sociology will find this book particularly useful.

Download or read book Love Etc written by Rita Felski and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2024-10-17 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The look of love . . . through an analytic lens Long treated with skepticism in literary and cultural studies, love – as a subject of serious scholarly inquiry – is now attracting intense interest and renewed attention. Love, Etc. centers on two key themes: representations of love in literature and culture and love as a relationship to literature and culture. How are our attitudes to love changing in the wake of new technologies and social media; shifting norms around partnering, marriage, and divorce; and feminist and queer thought? Fifteen short and accessible essays cover a wide range of topics from Tinder to The Bachelor, from liking trees to loving aliens, from unrequited love to maternal love, from polyamory to new stories of female friendship, from loving physical books to theorizing love in popular music. Contributors: Carolina Bandinelli, University of Warwick * Mette Blok, Roskilde University, Denmark * Angus Connell Brown * Stephanie Burt, Harvard University * Anne-Marie S. Christensen, University of Southern Denmark * Jonathan Flatley, Wayne State University * Lily Gurton-Wachter, Smith College * Timothy Laurie, University of Technology Sydney * Hanna Meretoja, University of Turku, Finland * Kevin Ohi, Boston College * John Plotz, Brandeis University * Anna Poletti, Utrecht University, The Netherlands * Jessica Pressman, San Diego State University * Biswarup Sen, University of Oregon * Hannah Stark, University of Tasmania

Download or read book Japan s Modern Myths written by Carol Gluck and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 1985 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ideology played a momentous role in modern Japanese history. Not only did the elite of imperial Japan (1890-1945) work hard to influence the people to "yield as the grasses before the wind," but historians of modern Japan later identified these efforts as one of the underlying pathologies of World War II. Available for the first time in paperback, this study examines how this ideology evolved. Carol Gluck argues that the process of formulating and communicating new national values was less consistent than is usually supposed. By immersing the reader in the talk and thought of the late Meiji period, Professor Gluck recreates the diversity of ideological discourse experienced by Japanese of the time. The result is a new interpretation of the views of politics and the nation in imperial Japan.

Download or read book Modern Luck written by Robert S. C. Gordon and published by UCL Press. This book was released on 2023-01-16 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beliefs, superstitions and tales about luck are present across all human cultures, according to anthropologists. We are perennially fascinated by luck and by its association with happiness and danger, uncertainty and aspiration. Yet it remains an elusive, ungraspable idea, one that slips and slides over time: all cultures reimagine what luck is and how to tame it at different stages in their history, and the modernity of the ‘long twentieth century’ is no exception to the rule. Apparently overshadowed by more conceptually tight, scientific and characteristically modern notions such as chance, contingency, probability or randomness, luck nevertheless persists in all its messiness and vitality, used in our everyday language and the subject of studies by everyone from philosophers to psychologists, economists to self-help gurus. Modern Luck sets out to explore the enigma of luck’s presence in modernity, examining the hybrid forms it has taken on in the modern imagination, and in particular in the field of modern stories. Indeed, it argues that modern luck is constituted through narrative, through modern luck stories. Analysing a rich and unusually eclectic range of narrative taken from literature, film, music, television and theatre – from Dostoevsky to Philip K. Dick, from Pinocchio to Cimino, from Curtiz to Kieślowski – it lays out first the usages and meanings of the language of luck, and then the key figures, patterns and motifs that govern the stories told about it, from the late nineteenth century to the present day.

Download or read book The Darcy Myth written by Rachel Feder and published by Quirk Books. This book was released on 2023-11-07 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A wildly entertaining read.”—The Washington Post What if we've been reading Jane Austen and romantic classics all wrong? A literary scholar offers a funny, brainy, eye-opening take on how our contemporary love stories are actually terrifying. Covering cultural touchstones ranging from Normal People to Taylor Swift and from Lord Byron to The Bachelor, The Darcy Myth is a book for anyone who loves thinking deeply about literature and culture—whether it’s Jane Austen or not. You already know Mr. Darcy—at least you think you do! The brooding, rude, standoffish romantic hero of Pride and Prejudice, Darcy initially insults and ignores the witty heroine, but eventually succumbs to her charms. It’s a classic enemies-to-lovers plot, and one that has profoundly influenced our cultural ideas about courtship. But what if this classic isn’t just a grand romance, but a horror novel about how scary love and marriage can be for women? In The Darcy Myth, literature scholar Rachel Feder unpacks Austen’s Gothic influences and how they’ve led us to a romantic ideal that’s halfway to being a monster story. Why is our culture so obsessed with cruel, indifferent romantic heroes (and sometimes heroines)? How much of that is Darcy’s fault? And, now that we know, what do we do about it?

Download or read book Romance written by Dr. Romance and published by Alpha. This book was released on 1999-12-15 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No relationship is truly alive without romance, and Dr. Fagan (aka Dr. Romance) is prepped to teach her readers everything they need to know to keep the romance alive in their relationships. From romantic e-mails, faxes, and phone calls to writing love letters, watching romantic movies, or initiating the perfect romantic seduction, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Romance is bound to help every reader obtain romantic fulfillment.

Download or read book Being the Person Your Dog Thinks You Are written by Jim Davies and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-02-02 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A crisp and sparkling blend of cognitive science and human behavior that offers meaningful and attainable pathways towards becoming our best selves. Why do we feel like in order to be productive, happy, or good, we must sacrifice everything else? Is it possible to feel all three at once? Without even knowing it, we’re doing things everyday to sabotage ourselves and our societies, habits that prevent us from optimizing long term happiness. Where most books imagine solutions that, when enacted, fail to fundamentally improve our lives, Jim Davies grounds his research in cognitive science to show you not only what works, but how much it works. Being the Person Your Dog Thinks You Are shows us how we can use science to become our best selves, using resources we already have within our own brains. Davies's book challenges and inspires us to approach the big picture while also staying mindful of the everyday details in real life. Davies proves why multitasking is bad for you, when a little unmindfulness can be good for you, how to best justify which charities to donate to, and how to hack your brain. The most surprising truth Davies offers us spreads across these pages like wildfire: you too can lead an optimally good life, not through uprooting your life from the ground up, but from adapting your mentality to your given present. A better life doesn’t need to look like a massive change—like our beloved dogs who already view us as our best selves, it’s already much closer than you think.

Download or read book Taylor Swift by the Book written by Rachel Feder and published by Quirk Books. This book was released on 2024-11-26 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From a Robert Frost poem on her debut album to the myth of Cassandra on The Tortured Poets Department, Taylor Swift’s lyrics are filled with literary connections. Make sure you're catching them all with this expert guide to the novels, poems, and plays that influence her songwriting. Let a literature professor and a musical theater artist guide you through the Taylor Swift canon—from Shakespeare to the Brontë sisters to Daphne du Maurier! Learn what "New Romantics" has to do with the old Romantics Get to know the Gothic monsters haunting Midnights Spot Taylor's many Great Gatsby references Discover what Taylor Swift and Emily Dickinson have in common And find your new favorite tortured poet! Packed with fun facts, entertaining analysis, and literary-themed playlists that fans will love, Taylor Swift by the Book will turn anyone from a Taylor Swift lover into a Taylor Swift scholar. With full-color illustrations highlighting the literary eras of Dr. Swift (yes, she has an honorary PhD), it’s a perfect gift for the Swiftie in your life.