Xavier and Ida Magee, once college sweethearts, appear happily married. They take trips to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, eat at fancy restaurants, and enjoy the cushy lifestyle of a 1980s major league baseball star. Then, everything goes wrong. Xavier is released from his position as a New York Yankees pitcher and falls into heavy drinking. That’s not all. Xavier finds a love letter penned by Ida to the Reverend Reynaldo Tippins, a prominent and handsome Oakland, California, minister. When the situation gets worse, the couple goes to a marriage counselor, and just as things appear to be looking up, Ida makes a shocking announcement that ruins everything. Despite his pain and confusion, Xavier is now determined to cut back on the booze and make a baseball comeback, while also working to become a writer. Amid Xavier trying to save his adulterous marriage and revive his stalled career, he finds a new lease on life. He must redeem himself, but will he succeed?

A young social worker records her efforts with 4 delinquent teenage girls to break the poverty cycle.

In this eBook exclusive essay, Pulitzer Prize–winning sports journalist George Dohrmann follows a father and son separated by prison bars—but bonded by their pursuit of basketball glory. The dream of playing big-time basketball never came true for Bruce Nelson, so he passed it on to his son Roberto. His every waking moment as a father was devoted to securing Roberto a Division I scholarship. Oftentimes he worried that his son’s lack of competitive fire might put that dream in jeopardy—when in fact it was Bruce’s own actions that would do so. When Bruce is forced to monitor Roberto’s progress from behind penitentiary walls, his influence recedes—and so too does Roberto’s commitment to the aspirations they once shared. In a story that combines deep insight into family relationships with the deft storytelling that distinguished his award-winning Play Their Hearts Out, George Dohrmann follows Roberto as he addresses his life’s most difficult decisions in the absence of his best friend and most constant companion. In doing so, Dohrmann sheds new light on the larger story of basketball dreams and the pressures they place on young athletes. Includes an excerpt from George Dohrmann’s Play Their Hearts Out, winner of the PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sportswriting and the Award for Excellence in the Coverage of Youth Sports. Praise for Play Their Hearts Out “Often heartbreaking, always riveting.”—The New York Times Book Review “Tremendous.”—The Plain Dealer “Indispensable.”—The Wall Street Journal “A tour de force of reporting, filled with deft storytelling and vivid character studies.”—The Washington Post “One of the finest sports books of all time.”—Harper’s Magazine “Amazing stuff . . . the Friday Night Lights of youth basketball.”—Leigh Montville, author of The Big Bam “A landmark achievement in basketball journalism.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review) NAMED ONE OF THE BEST SPORTS BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE LOS ANGELES TIMES • THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR • KIRKUS REVIEWS

"My son the doctor! My daughter the lawyer!" Or whatever you heard while growing up. Sure, Mom and Dad are proud of what you've accomplished, but has anyone asked you (the one with the supposedly wonderful career) how you feel? If you feel trapped or disappointed in your current career or job, or if you feel you let your family's wishes, rather than your own natural talents, interests, and passions, guide your ultimate choice of career, you are living someone else's dream. If you are in this position, Mary Jacobsen's insightful wisdom, culled from her professional expertise and from her own personal life, illuminates the problems you'll encounter when you try to change this family dynamic. Then, by using her 7 Steps to Reclaim Your Career, you'll be armed with the knowledge you'll need to find the motivation and, finally, the courage to make the changes needed to fulfill your own dreams and attain success on your own terms. Over the last fifteen years, Mary H. Jacobsen has helped many people in this situation work through career transitions, and she can help you, too. You'll understand how even well-intentioned family expectations about work are passed on from one generation to the next, sometimes openly, but often in subtle and indirect ways, and how these expectations influence not only your career choice but also color your role, relationships, and values on the job.

Perhaps it’s possible to meet someone who will turn your life around for the better just by two sets of eyes meeting, a coinciding double take, where each person’s feeling the other is “the one”. Women pray for this man of their dreams, a fairy tale and knight in shining armor. Some even take these prayers that are thrown up to God without specifications about what type of man they’re looking for, and then settle for the first man who comes their way; assuming it was God that sent him. They forget that the devil is active and working overtime as well and he’s one mean S.O.B destined to have his due. Ritza prayed for a knight in shining armor for so long she was blinded by the glare she assumed came from his armor never noticing it was the glare from his mephitic and elusive sword. The man that came to set her free was cut from a cloth that would not free her from her old life, but instead, bind her captive in a new. Blaze’s swag smoked screened his interior personality. His “lady’s man” aura was nothing compared to what lied beneath. Women were pawns in the games he played. The “Pussy for Sale” game was lucrative and he was all about paper baggin’. He had his hands in anything that would lead to a profit; loan sharking, numbers running, and drug trafficking. But what he loved the most was pimpin’. It wasn’t so much the money he made from his girls but, the logic of power he had over them mentally. He could turn the most sophisticated and refined woman into a bitch with a price tag on her body simply with a flash of his unblemished smile, deep dimples and promises of love and adventure. Hmmm, and the weak, well, they were like putty in his hands. So, women beware Blaze will send the life you know up in flames and have you forever burning in his pit, he calls the good life from just a mind fuck; subliminal orgasm. But In Hand Me Downs This was not the case! Ritza may not have known better, but she learned FAST! Be careful what you pray for and skittish of those who claim to be the answers your prayers. FOR CONTESTS AND GIVEAWAYS STAY CONNECTED WWW.IAMAUTHORFBRADSHAW.COM

A Kirkus Reviews Best Fiction Book of 2012 “Hand Me Down, which recalls the gritty power of Dorothy Allison's Bastard Out of Carolina, is fiction with the ring of truth.” –San Jose Mercury News Fourteen-year-old Elizabeth Reid has spent her life protecting her sister, Jaime, from their parents’ cruel mistakes and broken promises. When their mother chooses her second husband and their new family over raising her firstborn girls, Elizabeth and Jaime are separated and risk losing the shelter of each other. Hand Me Down indelibly captures a contemporary family journey--how two young people, against incredible odds, forge lives of their own in the face of an uncertain future.

High school teacher Suzanne Bloomer has buried herself in her job at New Vision Christian School in Farmersburg, Ohio. But she’s none too pleased when widower Mitch Sanderson leaves his fields mid-harvest to fill a teacher/principal position at the school. She knows better than to trust a Sanderson, and she’s determined not to be tricked by one again. When Mitch’s persistent kindness starts to confuse Suzanne’s feelings for him, she remembers that she is even less interested in a hand-me-down husband than she is in wearing secondhand clothing. Neither has Mitch forgotten his late wife’s plea that he never remarry. His children certainly haven’t. Will their faith in God and trust in each other be enough to overcome the odds and build a life together?