Written with heartbreaking insight and wicked humor, "Leaving Dirty Jersey" chronicles Salant's descent from wealth and privilege into a year of crystal meth addiction and crime.

When seventeen-year-old T. J. Parsell held up the local Photo Mat with a toy gun, he was sentenced to four and a half to fifteen years in prison. The first night of his term, four older inmates drugged Parsell and took turns raping him. When they were through, they flipped a coin to decide who would "own" him. Forced to remain silent about his rape by a convict code among inmates (one in which informers are murdered), Parsell's experience that first night haunted him throughout the rest of his sentence. In an effort to silence the guilt and pain of its victims, the issue of prisoner rape is a story that has not been told. For the first time Parsell, one of America's leading spokespeople for prison reform, shares the story of his coming of age behind bars. He gives voice to countless others who have been exposed to an incarceration system that turns a blind eye to the abuse of the prisoners in its charge. Since life behind bars is so often exploited by television and movie re-enactments, the real story has yet to be told. Fish is the first breakout story to do that.

This candid memoir of addiction and recovery shares an intimate chronicle of life from Midwestern childhood to NYC's drug-fueled underground. Patrick Moore's account of life as a crystal meth addict combines heartbreaking honesty with rare insight and surprising humor. It chronicles a twenty-year trip stretching from Moore's lonely childhood in Iowa to the day he sits, naked, in a Los Angeles rental, hallucinating about psycho-robbers while talking to a possum he's sure is God. Along the way, there are acid trips at the V.F.W., Dexetrim study halls, teeth-grinding nights of dancing and anonymous sex in New York City's hottest eighties clubs. He takes pictures of Andy Warhol, loses friends and lovers, and navigates a Byzantine underworld of cookers, users, club kids, dealers, and colorful characters as intense as the drug itself. Through Patrick's vivid retelling, you'll meet Lee, the glamorous bad boy with a taste for danger; Tony, the tweaker who likes to remove his eyebrows; Ding-Dong, the Depends-wearing, nearly blind housemate; Hisako, the artist and squatter with a fondness for hot plate cooking; "Mother" Judy, the tough, butch rehab counselor who takes no prisoners, and countless others on the road from crystal meth hell to eventual sobriety.

Jasmine Taveras is the reason Sarge Purcell grabbed his six-string and bailed the hell out of New Jersey four years ago. She's the fuel for every song he's ever written-each one laced with bitter, hard-edged, hungry lust. Now, with his hugely successful band on temporary hiatus, Sarge is determined to prove to Jasmine that he's turned into every inch the man she's always needed... Men are slim pickings for a single factory girl in Hook, New Jersey...until tall, broad-shouldered hotness walks—or rather storms—into Jasmine's life. Sarge's return shouldn't affect her this way. He's her best friend's much younger brother, and the kind of rough, gritty, sexiness Jasmine has no right to taste for herself. Even if he lets her. But lust is a blinding, insatiable force. And when it crashes, it will take both Sarge and Jasmine down with it... Each book in the Made in Jersey series is STANDALONE: * Crashed Out * Thrown Down * Worked Up * Wound Tight

During his early teens, Jeff Bratton started using drugs. At first, alcohol and pot, but quickly he spiraled into using cocaine, ketamine, crystal meth and eventually heroin. How could this wonderful son, loving brother, and star athlete lose himself to drugs? How could his parents be so clueless? How could his mother, the long-term head of a private school, be so blind? "Stagli vicino", an Italian recovering addict told the author. "Stay close—never leave him, even when he is most unlovable." This is not a book about saving a child. It is a book about what it means to stay close to a loved one gripped by addiction. It is about one son who came home and one mother who never gave up hope. Stay Close is one mother's tough, honest, and intimate tale that chronicles her son's severe drug addiction, as it corroded all relationships from the inside out. It is a story of deep trauma and deep despair, but also of deep hope—and healing. Here is Libby Cataldi's story about dealing with addiction without withdrawing love, learning to trust again while remaining attuned to lies, and the cautious triumph of staying clean one day at a time. He told her, "Mom, never quit believing." And she didn't.

Julie grew up in the heart of Dublin’s north inner city, in Sheriff Street. Living in this tough area, she was exposed to crime and drugs. She started using heroin when she was 16. By the time she was 18 she was a chronic addict. This story details how she spent the next four years living on the streets of Dublin; dealing drugs and stealing to feed her habit. It is a snapshot of how a young girl became a victim of circumstances. It happened in Dublin, but it could have happened anywhere in the world. Her life was saved by a chance encounter with a drugs counsellor who brought her to first to London, and then to America where she de-toxed and slowly began to rebuild her life.

Overachiever River Purcell was never supposed to be a struggling single mom working double shifts just to make ends meet. Nor was she supposed to be abandoned by her high school sweetheart. Now, Vaughn De Matteo is back in town, with his sights set on her...and River is in danger of drowning a second time. No one believed Hook’s resident bad boy was good enough for River. Not even Vaughn himself. But he’ll fight like hell to win back the woman he never stopped loving, to keep the daughter he never expected, and convince himself he’s worth their love in the process––even if he has to rely on the fierce and undeniable sexual chemistry between him and River. But even as River’s body arches under his hungered touch, the demons of the past lurk in the shadows. Waiting for Vaughn to repeat his mistakes one last time... Each book in the Made in Jersey series is STANDALONE: * Crashed Out * Thrown Down * Worked Up * Wound Tight