Cora Sledge is horrified when her children, who doubt her ability to take care of herself, plot to remove her from her home. So what if her house is in shambles? Who cares when she last changed her clothes? If an eighty-two-year-old widow wants to live on junk food, pills, and cigarettes, hasn’t she earned the right? When her kids force her into The Palisades, an assisted living facility, Cora takes to her bed, planning to die as soon as possible. But life isn’t finished with her yet, not by a long shot. Deciding that truth is the best revenge, Cora begins to write a tell-all journal that reveals once and for all the secret she has guarded since she was a young woman. In entries that are profane, profound, and gossipy, she chronicles her childhood in rural Missouri, her shotgun wedding, and the terrible event that changed the course of her life. Intermingled with her reminiscences is an account of the day-to-day dramas at The Palisades—her budding romance with a suave new resident, feuds with her tablemates, her rollicking camaraderie with the man who oversees her health care, and the sinister cloud of suspicion that descends as a series of petty crimes sets everyone on edge. The story builds to a powerful climax as Cora’s revelations about her past mesh with the unraveling intrigue in the present. Cora is by turns outrageous, irreverent, and wickedly funny. Despite a life with more than its share of disappointment and struggle, she refuses to go gently into her twilight years, remaining intensely curious, disinclined to play it safe, and willing to start over. Breaking Out of Bedlam captures the loneliness and secrets that lurk within families, the hardscrabble reality facing women with limited resources, and the resilience of a woman who survives, despite all the odds, through an unlikely combination of passion, humor, and faith. “Tough-edged Cora Sledge, 82, is a reluctant resident of The Palisades nursing home—a ‘prison [where] your only crime is you lived too long.’ Her tell-all journal, recounting dramas at the home (thefts, love affairs, rivalries) and a tragedy buried in her past, is profane, harrowing, comical—and Cora’s voice is spot-on.”—AARP Magazine

Now in an annual, treasury-sized book, Baby Blues brings you another year of life with the MacPhersons. Often-befuddled Darryl and always-overworked Wanda manage to parent precocious Zoe, ornery Hammie, and Baby Wren while still keeping their senses of humor and sometimes even sweetness. In this collection, Zoe decides it's time for her to take karate lessons, Wanda declares she needs some time for herself and joins a book (wine?) club, and Hammie discovers the joys of a zip line. Mostly calm Wanda finally reaches her breaking point of asking the kids to clean up, unleashing a new force of nature to the comic strip: the Tsumommy!

From the editorial head of MTV International and the author of the acclaimed first novel A&R comes a hugely entertaining black comedy about a big time NYC network television exec whose sudden firing forces him into a season in the wilderness as the head of a sorry family-run New England cable TV empire in the fictional town of New Bedlam, RI. Both wicked and big-hearted and often spit-take-level laugh-out-loud funny, New Bedlam is a wonderfully sharp, fun entertainment with real bite. Bobby Kahn fired people. It was the only bad part of a job he loved. If you asked him about it he would say the same five words each of the other 24 network vice presidents said when you asked any of them: “It comes with the turf.” That’s how they talked. They were proudly unoriginal. It’s why they made good television executives. But then one day 36-year-old network golden boy Bobby Kahn of Massapequa Long Island gets the ax himself, the scapegoat for a programming scandal. As he falls from his perch, he grasps for any branch to cling to, but the only lifeline within reach is the once-unthinkably-ignominious opportunity to relocate to the Rhode Island seaside town of New Bedlam and assume the reins of a family-run cable business with a local pipeline monopoly and three small vanity stations.

It all starts at Cambridge, in the rooms of Dr John Bentley, an eccentric don famous for his book-burning parties. Mike Smith is handsome, clever but untalented; Gregory Collins is unprepossessing of face and form, but, it will transpire, a novelist of enormous promise. When Gregory¿s first novel is published, he persuades Smith to take his place on the book jacket, on the grounds that nobody would buy a novel by an ugly novelist, however talented. Thus is set in train a chain of events which leads to Mike Smith becoming writer-in-residence in a mental hospital. The therapy of the charismatic but possibly fraudulent Dr Kincaid is based on the theory that people are driven mad by an overload of images; all such are banned in the hospital, but words are encouraged, hence Smith¿s job. It is only when a book of the patients¿ writings, teased out of them by Mike, is published and becomes a literary succes d¿estime that this comedy of errors of judgement threatens to become a tragedy ¿

Not long ago, John Shirting--quiet young Chicagoan, wizard of self-medication--held down a beloved job as a barista at Capo Coffee Family, a coffee chain and global business powerhouse. When he is deemed "too passionate" about his job, he is let go. Shirting makes it his mission to return to the frothy Capo's fold by singlehandedly breaking into a new market and making freshly post-communist Prague safe for free-market capitalism. Unfortunately, his college nemesis, Theodore Mizen, a certified socialist, has also moved there, and is determined to reverse the Velvet Revolution, one folk song at a time. After Shirting experiences the loss of his sole "new-hire" -- a sad, arcade game-obsessed prostitute -- it is not long before his grasp on his mission and, indeed, his sanity, comes undone, leaving him at the mercy of two-bit Mafiosi, a pair of Golem trackers, and his own disgruntled phantom. A dazzling combination of Everything is Illuminated and Don Quixote, with a jigger of Confederacy of Dunces, and Lord of the Barnyard, Keeping Bedlam at Bay in the Prague Café is the first novel to so exquisitely capture the ambiance of expat Prague. Poised to be an underground classic, it asks: what does it mean to be sane in a fast-changing world? From the Trade Paperback edition.

In 1859, ex-East India Company smuggler Merrick Tremayne is trapped at home in Cornwall after sustaining an injury that almost cost him his leg. When the India Office recruits Merrick for an expedition to fetch quinine--essential for the treatment of malaria--from deep within Peru, he knows it's a terrible idea. Nearly every able-bodied expeditionary who's made the attempt has died, and he can barely walk. But Merrick is desperate to escape the strange events plaguing his family's crumbling estate, so he sets off, against his better judgment, for the edge of the Amazon. There he meets Raphael, a priest around whom the villagers spin unsettling stories of impossible disappearances, cursed woods, and living stone. Merrick must separate truth from fairy tale, and gradually he realizes that Raphael is the key to a secret which will prove more valuable than quinine.

Enjoy this young adult urban fantasy series by USA Today bestselling author Nicole Zoltack where a fairy is willing to go to any issue to save her sister from a magical prison. It wasn’t easy, but I did it. I broke into Magical Prison. Now, I need to get my sister and break us out of here. Only that proves so much harder than I ever anticipated. Harder and much more painful. People are out to get me—guards and outsiders too. They’re out to get Sophie too. Breaking out just might spell doom for the Aldercross’ twins. KEYWORDS: mayhem of magic, fairy, monsters, werewolf, demons, urban fantasy, supernatural suspense, fairytale fantasy, fantasy romance, romantic fantasy, slow burn romance, supernatural powers, magic, come into powers, dark fantasy romance, clean fantasy, academy, young adult paranormal romance, young adult academy, paranormal romance, dark paranormal romance, war, urban fantasy, Free Royal, Raven Kennedy, Kelly St. Clare, Caroline Peckham, Susanne Valenti, C.N Crawford, Elise Kova, Robin D. Mahle, Elle Madison, D.K. Holmberg, Cordelia Castel, Kay L Moody, Alisha Klaphe