Download or read book Gifted written by H. A. Swain and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2016-06-14 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An entitled boy whose talents are bought meets a girl whose gifts are natural in this futuristic thriller from the author of Hungry.

Download or read book The Green Man written by Kingsley Amis and published by New York Review of Books. This book was released on 2013-05-07 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The owner of a haunted country inn contends with death, fatherhood, romantic woes, and alcoholism in this humorous and “rattling good ghost story” from a Booker Prize–winning author (The New York Times) Maurice Allington has reached middle age and is haunted by death. As he says, “I honestly can’t see why everybody who isn’t a child, everybody who’s theoretically old enough to have understood what death means, doesn’t spend all his time thinking about it. It’s a pretty arresting thought.” He also happens to own and run a country inn that is haunted. The Green Man opens as Maurice’s father drops dead (had he seen something in the room?) and continues as friends and family convene for the funeral. Maurice’s problems are many and increasing: How to deal with his own declining health? How to reach out to a teenage daughter who watches TV all the time? How to get his best friend’s wife in the sack? How to find another drink? (And another.) And then there is always death. The Green Man is a ghost story that hits a live nerve, a very black comedy with an uncannily happy ending: in other words, Kingsley Amis at his best.

Download or read book You Lucky Dog written by Julia London and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2020-08-25 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An accidental dog swap unleashes an unexpected love match in this new romantic comedy from New York Times bestselling author Julia London. Carly Kennedy's life is in a spiral. She is drowning in work, her divorced parents are going through their midlife crises, and somehow Carly's sister convinces her to foster Baxter--a basset hound rescue with a bad case of the blues. When Carly comes home late from work one day to discover that the dog walker has accidentally switched out Baxter for another perkier, friendlier basset hound, she has reached the end of her leash. When Max Sheffington finds a depressed male basset hound in place of his cheerful Hazel, he is bewildered. But when cute, fiery Carly arrives on his doorstep, he is intrigued. He was expecting the dog walker, not a pretty woman with firm ideas about dog discipline. And Carly was not expecting a handsome, bespectacled man to be feeding her dog mac and cheese. Baxter is besotted with Hazel, and Carly realizes she may have found the key to her puppy’s happiness. For his sake, she starts to spend more time with Hazel and Max, until she begins to understand the appeal of falling for your polar opposite.

Download or read book Darius written by Grace Burrowes and published by Grace Burrowes Publishing. This book was released on 2020-05-16 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Though there are lines he will not cross, Darius Lindesy has become the favored plaything of bored, wealthy society ladies. He contracts one final engagement with the pretty, sweet, Lady Vivian Longstreet, in hopes that meeting his obligations to Vivian will free him from the financial constraints making his life hell. Darius finds that the bargain he thought would cost him the last of his self-respect instead resurrects both his honor and his heart

Download or read book Prince of Shadows written by Rachel Caine and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2015-02-03 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the Houses of Montague and Capulet, there is only one goal: power. The boys are born to fight and die for honor and—if they survive—marry for influence and money, not love. The girls are assets, to be spent wisely. Their wishes are of no import. Their fates are written on the day they are born. Benvolio Montague, cousin to Romeo, knows all this. He expects to die for his cousin, for his house, but a spark of rebellion still lives inside him. At night, he is the Prince of Shadows, the greatest thief in Verona—and he risks all as he steals from House Capulet. In doing so, he sets eyes on convent-bound Rosaline, and a terrible curse begins that will claim the lives of many in Verona… …And will rewrite all their fates, forever.

Download or read book Chronic City written by Jonathan Lethem and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2009-10-13 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Book Review Best Book of the Year. A searing and wildly entertaining love letter to New York City from the bestselling author of Motherless Brooklyn and Fortress of Solitude. Chase Insteadman, former child television star, has a new role in life—permanent guest on the Upper East Side dinner party circuit, where he is consigned to talk about his astronaut fiancée, Janice Trumbull, who is trapped on a circling Space Station. A chance encounter collides Chase with Perkus Tooth, a wily pop culture guru with a vicious conspiratorial streak and the best marijuana in town. Despite their disparate backgrounds and trajectories Chase and Perkus discover they have a lot in common, including a cast of friends from all walks of life in Manhattan. Together and separately they attempt to define the indefinable, and enter into a quest for the most elusive of things: truth and authenticity in a city where everything has a price. "Full of dark humor and dazzling writing" --Entertainment Weekly

Download or read book One of Ours written by Willa Cather and published by IndyPublish.com. This book was released on 1922 with total page 484 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Claude has an intuitive faith in something splendid and feels at odds with his contemporaries. The war offers him the opportunity to forget his farm and his marriage of compromise; he enlists and discovers that he has lacked. But while war demands altruism, its essence is destructive

Download or read book The Night Circus written by Erin Morgenstern and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2011-09-13 with total page 389 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Two starcrossed magicians engage in a deadly game of cunning in the spellbinding novel that captured the world's imagination. • "Part love story, part fable ... defies both genres and expectations." —The Boston Globe The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night. But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway: a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them both, this is a game in which only one can be left standing. Despite the high stakes, Celia and Marco soon tumble headfirst into love, setting off a domino effect of dangerous consequences, and leaving the lives of everyone, from the performers to the patrons, hanging in the balance.

Download or read book Heir of Fire written by Sarah J. Maas and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2014-09-02 with total page 596 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The heir of ash and fire bows to no one. A new threat rises in the third book in the #1 bestselling Throne of Glass series by Sarah J. Maas. Celaena Sardothien has survived deadly contests and shattering heartbreak, but now she must travel to a new land to confront her darkest truth. That truth could change her life-and her future-forever. Meanwhile, monstrous forces are gathering on the horizon, intent on enslaving her world. To defeat them, Celaena will need the strength not only to fight the evil that is about to be unleashed but also to harness her inner demons. If she is to win this battle, she must find the courage to face her destiny-and burn brighter than ever before. The third book in the #1 New York Times bestselling Throne of Glass series continues Celaena's epic journey from woman to warrior.

Download or read book Wicked written by Gregory Maguire and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-10-13 with total page 430 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times bestseller and basis for the Tony-winning hit musical, soon to be a major motion picture starring Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande With millions of copies in print around the world, Gregory Maguire’s Wicked is established not only as a commentary on our time but as a novel to revisit for years to come. Wicked relishes the inspired inventions of L. Frank Baum’s 1900 novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, while playing sleight of hand with our collective memories of the 1939 MGM film starring Margaret Hamilton (and Judy Garland). In this fast-paced, fantastically real, and supremely entertaining novel, Maguire has populated the largely unknown world of Oz with the power of his own imagination. Years before Dorothy and her dog crash-land, another little girl makes her presence known in Oz. This girl, Elphaba, is born with emerald-green skin—no easy burden in a land as mean and poor as Oz, where superstition and magic are not strong enough to explain or overcome the natural disasters of flood and famine. Still, Elphaba is smart, and by the time she enters Shiz University, she becomes a member of a charmed circle of Oz’s most promising young citizens. But Elphaba’s Oz is no utopia. The Wizard’s secret police are everywhere. Animals—those creatures with voices, souls, and minds—are threatened with exile. Young Elphaba, green and wild and misunderstood, is determined to protect the Animals—even if it means combating the mysterious Wizard, even if it means risking her single chance at romance. Ever wiser in guilt and sorrow, she can find herself grateful when the world declares her a witch. And she can even make herself glad for that young girl from Kansas. Recognized as an iconoclastic tour de force on its initial publication, the novel has inspired the blockbuster musical of the same name—one of the longest-running plays in Broadway history. Popular, indeed. But while the novel’s distant cousins hail from the traditions of magical realism, mythopoeic fantasy, and sprawling nineteenth-century sagas of moral urgency, Maguire’s Wicked is as unique as its green-skinned witch.

Download or read book Eve of Eternal Night written by AMber Lynn Natusch and published by Amber Lynn Natusch. This book was released on 2018-02 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE ZODIAC CURSE is an enticing new reverse harem urban fantasy world featuring two tandem series - Harem of Shadows by Amber Lynn Natusch and Harem of Light by C.N. Crawford.Eve Carmichael can't wait to graduate from college and move on with her life. Loner, outcast, and enemy of the dean, she tried her best to fit in, but all the money in the world can't buy genuine friends-or anonymity.Then things take an unexpected turn when she witnesses a murder on campus. Especially because there's no evidence a crime ever happened the next day, and the five men responsible disappeared into thin air.As she tries to unravel the mystery behind the phantom homicide, she finds herself on a dark and familiar path. With no-one else to trust, she seeks the help of an unlikely-but alluring-group of men. A group of men with one thing in common-an undying interest in her.For better or worse, the rocker, the wanderer, the student, the therapist, and the adviser all have a part to play in fulfilling her destiny. Hopefully they can awaken her to the danger closing in before Eve gets herself killed.

Download or read book Good Strategy Bad Strategy written by Richard Rumelt and published by Currency. This book was released on 2011-07-19 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Good Strategy/Bad Strategy clarifies the muddled thinking underlying too many strategies and provides a clear way to create and implement a powerful action-oriented strategy for the real world. Developing and implementing a strategy is the central task of a leader. A good strategy is a specific and coherent response to—and approach for—overcoming the obstacles to progress. A good strategy works by harnessing and applying power where it will have the greatest effect. Yet, Rumelt shows that there has been a growing and unfortunate tendency to equate Mom-and-apple-pie values, fluffy packages of buzzwords, motivational slogans, and financial goals with “strategy.” In Good Strategy/Bad Strategy, he debunks these elements of “bad strategy” and awakens an understanding of the power of a “good strategy.” He introduces nine sources of power—ranging from using leverage to effectively focusing on growth—that are eye-opening yet pragmatic tools that can easily be put to work on Monday morning, and uses fascinating examples from business, nonprofit, and military affairs to bring its original and pragmatic ideas to life. The detailed examples range from Apple to General Motors, from the two Iraq wars to Afghanistan, from a small local market to Wal-Mart, from Nvidia to Silicon Graphics, from the Getty Trust to the Los Angeles Unified School District, from Cisco Systems to Paccar, and from Global Crossing to the 2007–08 financial crisis. Reflecting an astonishing grasp and integration of economics, finance, technology, history, and the brilliance and foibles of the human character, Good Strategy/Bad Strategy stems from Rumelt’s decades of digging beyond the superficial to address hard questions with honesty and integrity.

Download or read book A Nordic King written by and published by Nordic Royals. This book was released on 2021-08-30 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A widowed father of two little girls. The beautiful nanny he's hired to raise them. A forbidden romance unlike any other. A Nordic King is the newest standalone royal romance from the New York Times Bestselling author of The Royals Next Door and The Swedish Prince. When I first applied for the job I thought it would be like all the others: working as a nanny for an aristocratic family. Then I got the job and found out how wrong I was. Now I'm the new nanny for two adorable little girls who happen to be princesses. Their father is the widowed King of Denmark. And my new home? The royal palace in Copenhagen. Adjusting to my new life isn't easy but the hardest part hasn't been the girls who still grieve over the loss of their mother. It's their father. Cold, mysterious and moody, with an icy stare that seems to penetrate your soul, King Aksel may have hired me to take care of his daughters but he wants as little to do with me as possible. Yet the longer I share these palace walls with this man, the more that I'm drawn to him. His chiseled face and sexual swagger are only part of the package. It's in the long, intense glances at the dinner table, the way we'll brush up against each other in the halls, the rare glimpses of the man deep inside, like the sun passing through clouds. But no matter how I feel about him, we can never be together. You think it's bad enough being in love with your boss? Try falling in love with a king. A Nordic King is a 100% complete standalone story and a spinoff of The Swedish Prince and The Wild Heir. This book contains GRAPHIC SEX SCENES AND FOUL LANGUAGE - reader discretion is advised

Download or read book Before She Sleeps written by Bina Shah and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2020-08-06 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fascinating angle on "emotional work"' MARGARET ATWOOD on Twitter In modern, beautiful Green City, the capital of South West Asia, gender selection, war and a virus outbreak have brought the ratio of men to women to alarmingly low levels. The government uses terror and technological surveillance to control its people, and women must take multiple husbands to have children as quickly as possible. Yet there are women who resist, women who live in an underground collective and refuse to be part of the system. Secretly protected by the highest echelons of power, they emerge only at night, to provide to the rich and elite of Green City a type of commodity that nobody can buy: intimacy without sex. As it turns out, not even the most influential men can shield them from discovery and the dangers of ruthless punishment. This dystopian novel from one of Pakistan’s most talented writers is a modern-day parable. It takes the patriarchal practices of female seclusion, gender selection and control over women’s bodies, and recasts them to imagine a terrifying world of post-religious authoritarianism.

Download or read book The Thorn Birds written by Colleen McCullough and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2010-05-11 with total page 689 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the most beloved novels of all time, Colleen McCullough's magnificent saga of dreams, struggles, dark passions, and forbidden love in the Australian outback has enthralled readers the world over. The Thorn Birds is a chronicle of three generations of Clearys—an indomitable clan of ranchers carving lives from a beautiful, hard land while contending with the bitterness, frailty, and secrets that penetrate their family. It is a poignant love story, a powerful epic of struggle and sacrifice, a celebration of individuality and spirit. Most of all, it is the story of the Clearys' only daughter, Meggie, and the haunted priest, Father Ralph de Bricassart—and the intense joining of two hearts and souls over a lifetime, a relationship that dangerously oversteps sacred boundaries of ethics and dogma.

Download or read book The Billionaire Boss s Obsession 1 BWWM Interracial Romance Short Stories written by Viola Black and published by Viola Black. This book was released on 2016-09-14 with total page 47 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: My name is Lisa Simone Williamson, and I used to be the luckiest girl in the world. For starters, I was rich. Even better, I was actually born into money. My parents were once the proud owners of Simone Cosmetics, one of the largest and most successful African-American owned and operated cosmetic companies in the world. My parents both came from very hard-working families. But their families worked hard for other people, which was a concept that neither my mother nor father ever understood. My parents believed that if they were going to work hard, then they would work hard for themselves. So when they met one another and realized just how like-minded they were, the twosome joined forces both personally and professionally, got married, and created what eventually became Simone Cosmetics. After they had been married for a while and their company was up and running, my parents decided that they were ready to start a family. Not long after, I came along. I must admit, I had quite a charmed childhood. I lived in the most beautiful home that was located in the nicest part of town, attended the best schools, and had the greatest friends. My parents also got me involved in their business early on, because they had every intention on passing it down to me one day. So I knew everything that there was to know about running Simone Cosmetics. However, my favorite aspect of the company was its dynamic marketing department. I always loved watching the dapper men and glamorous women who worked in that area come up with creative and artistic ways to package and promote the wonderful products that my parents had created. Once I graduated from high school and went off to attend one of the top universities in the country, I decided to major in marketing. Those college years were wonderful. I met a lot of incredible people, was taught by some of the best instructors, and still remain close to the women I met when I pledged one of the top African-American sororities in the country, Alpha Kappa Kappa. During the summers, I would go home and intern at my parents’ company, in the marketing department of course. Those essential internships helped guide and motivate me and kept me focused. Ultimately, I always knew I would return to my parent’s company upon graduation, join the marketing team, and work my way up until I was running the show. But one of the most exciting experiences I had during college was meeting the man of my dreams, David James. David was the star of the basketball team, and I was his biggest fan. My sorority sisters and I were considered celebrities on our college campus, and we always hosted the biggest parties and turned heads everywhere we went. The basketball players were regular party-goers, and David and I would always flirt whenever we’d see one another. So I wasn’t surprised when one of David’s teammates, who just so happened to be dating my best friend Janice, passed a message along saying that David was interested in me. WARNING: Mature readers only. Search Terms: free romance books for young adults, free alpha male billionaire romance books, free bad boy romance books, free romance short stories, free second chance romance, free steamy romance books, free contemporary romance books, free hot romance books, women freebies, free fiction books for young adults, free love story and romance books, free office romance books, boss romance books free, beach reads, new adult, free romantic fiction, romance fiction books free, bwwm free, bwwm romance, bwwm interracial romance books, african american romance free, black authors free books, interracial romance books free, black women books free, african american books free, billionaire romance books, contemporary romance books, romance stories, fiction books, romance novels steamy, romance novel, books romance, romance, adult romance novels, romance books hot, alpha male romance books, steamy romance books, books romance hot, romance novels to read, love story books

Download or read book Just One Night A Friends to Lovers Romance written by Jami Rogers and published by Jami Rogers. This book was released on 2016-02-16 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Romance author Jami Rogers brings you a steamy friends-to-lovers romance that tests just how far love can reach. Running away doesn’t help. Trust me, I would know. I tried it last year and yeah, nope, everything I was trying to get away from was waiting for me when I got back. *lets out a breath* Girl boss goals have been my entire life and now that I'm about to open my own bar, that goal is closer than ever. And yet, the guy, THE GUY, is about to be hundreds of miles away from me after I move. *groans* This would happen this way, you know? We finally had it right. The feelings, the timing, the … kissing. Everything was just perfect. Till it wasn’t. Distance makes the heart grow fonder. Boo! No, no it doesn't. It makes the heart hurt. More specifically, it makes mine hurt. *curls up on bed* Maybe … *wipes away tears* We weren’t meant to be. Fall in love with Sara and Logan in this captivating new adult romance!