Author Aideen T. Finnola’s life has consisted of a series of trials and obstacles. She was raised by abusive parents who joined a Christian cult when she was eight. She left the cult at twenty-three only to go straight into a twenty-year marriage with an abusive husband who, as a closeted gay man, had falsely represented himself from the start. In My Exquisite Purple Life, Finnola offers a collection of stories from her life that share the many challenges she’s faced and the wisdom she’s gained through healing her pain. She tells how, by her middle thirties, after having suffered decades of abuse, neglect, and rejection from even before she was born, she was a broken woman. Finnola was a pack-a-day smoker, a daily drinker, chronically overweight, had had two extramarital affairs, and was on a high dose of antidepressants because she seriously contemplated suicide more than once. By all rights and reasons, she never should have made it, but she did. In My Exquisite Purple Life, Finnola offers a collection of stories from her life that share the many challenges she’s faced and the wisdom she’s gained through healing her pain. It reveals the techniques and realizations that aided her tramsformation, offering others encouragement, hope, and inspiration.

A fresh perspective on the art of being alive and essential insight into how we can minimize what stands between us and an authentic experience of life, in the spirit of works by Deepak Chopra and Ram Dass “Once again, Mark Nepo draws us to the heart of what matters. He illuminates love with the light of his own understanding.”—Marianne Williamson In these fast-paced times, the exquisite risk facing each of us every day is to slow down so that we may experience life rather than simply manage it. In The Exquisite Risk, poet and teacher Mark Nepo encourages readers to become quiet enough and open enough to listen to what truly matters—our own hearts, our loved ones, the wonders of nature—in order to live a life with nothing held back. In rich, lyrical prose, Nepo shares his own spiritual path, including a battle with illness that helped him understand how daring to embrace all that life has to offer can bring us to a deeper appreciation of its meaning and beauty.

Book One in the bestselling Iron Horse MC seriesBefore I met Smoke I'd never been kissed, really kissed, by a man, let alone a biker sex god bent on taking my virginity and my heart. I got dragged into the deadly world of the Iron Horse MC by my crazy twin sister who is engaged to the club's President and even crazier mom who only cares about herself. Smoke has been assigned by the club to keep me safe even though he's everything that I should be afraid of.He's the kind of man who lives by his own rules and does whatever he wants whenever he wants, but he treats me like I'm something rare and precious, not a socially dysfunctional basket case who has no idea how to love, but needs him more than her next breath.Not that my feelings matter, because if we don't find my mother soon, the only thing I'll have to be worried about is who is going to kill me first.Note- This is Part One of Two for Smoke and Swan's story. The second book, Exquisite Danger, is out now and is the conclusion of Smoke and Swan's story within the Iron Horse MC series.

Sarah Life as the old lady of Carlos 'Beach' Rodriguez, National President of the Iron Horse MC, was everything I never knew I wanted. Not only did I have a good man who treated me like a queen and loved me like crazy, I also had a vast-extended family of rough and tumble bikers who accepted and welcomed me into their world without judgement. Unfortunately, good things don't last for a girl like me and just when I finally felt like I'd found my happily ever after my psychopath of a mother had to show up and destroy it. She betrayed me, betrayed the club, and put everyone I've ever loved in mortal danger. Our only chance of surviving this is for me to find her and recover the weapons that Iron Horse was moving for the Russian and Israeli mafia that she helped steal. I can only hope that Beach can forgive me for her sins. Beach I should have known Sarah would never betray me, would never work with her junkie mom to steal from the club, but I let my temper run my mouth and now my woman's gone. Normally I'd go after her, but the Russian and Israeli mafias want their merchandise back and if we don't find it they'll wipe us off the face of the earth. To make matters worse, there are traitors in the Iron Horse MC that are feeding our every move to our enemies, kidnapping our women and children, and killing our men. I have to stay here in Austin and try to save our people while Sarah is out there, somewhere, alone, hunting down some of the most dangerous men in the world. I can only pray that God takes mercy on my wicked soul and protects my baby girl from those seeking to cash in on the massive bounty on her head before I can find her. 'Cause if they find her first death would be a mercy compared to the nightmare her life will become.

From the acclaimed author of Lost Souls, Drawing Blood, and Wormwood comes the provocative and thrilling serial killer novel that #1 New York Times bestselling author Peter Straub calls “a guidebook to hell.” To serial slayer Andrew Compton, murder is an art, the most intimate art. After feigning his own death to escape from prison, Compton makes his way to the United States with the ambition of bringing his art to new heights. Tortured by his own perverse desires and drawn to possess and destroy young boys, Compton inadvertently joins forces with Jay Byrne, a dissolute playboy who has pushed his own art to limits even Compton hadn’t previously imagined. Together, Compton and Byrne set their sights on an exquisite young Vietnamese American runaway, Tran, whom they deem to be the perfect victim. Swiftly moving from the grimy streets of London’s Piccadilly Circus to the decadence of New Orleans’s French Quarter, Poppy Z. Brite dissects the landscape of torture and invites us into the mind of a killer. With “intelligence, sweep, nerve, knowledge, and deeply unsettling erotic power” (Dennis Cooper, author of Frisk), Exquisite Corpse is a novel for those who dare trespass where the sacred and profane become one.

"Johnson is clearly striding in the footsteps of authors like Geraldine Brooks and Diana Gabaldon in her juxtaposition of the modern and historical."—New York Journal of Books Three men are trapped in time. One woman could save them all. Historian Lia Carrer has finally returned to southern France, determined to rebuild her life after the death of her husband. If nothing else, her trip could grant her perspective on the region's traditional reincarnation beliefs and resurrect her dying thesis. But instead of finding solace and insight in the region's quiet hills and medieval ruins, Lia falls in love. Raoul's very existence challenges everything she knows about life, history, and her husband's death. As Raoul reveals the story of his past to Lia, she's caught up in the echoes of a historic murder, resulting in a haunting and suspenseful journey through the romantic landscape of the Languedoc region. A remarkable and richly-developed novel, in the tradition of time-travel romances by Susanna Kearsley and Diana Gabaldon, In Another Life masterfully blends historical fiction with a love that conquers time.

A picture-book biography of celebrated poet Gwendolyn Brooks, the first Black person to win the Pulitzer Prize A 2021 Coretta Scott King Book Award Illustrator Honor Book A 2021 Robert F. Sibert Informational Honor Book A 2021 Association of Library Service to Children Notable Children's Book Gwendolyn Brooks (1917–2000) is known for her poems about “real life.” She wrote about love, loneliness, family, and poverty—showing readers how just about anything could become a beautiful poem. Exquisite follows Gwendolyn from early girlhood into her adult life, showcasing her desire to write poetry from a very young age. This picture-book biography explores the intersections of race, gender, and the ubiquitous poverty of the Great Depression—all with a lyrical touch worthy of the subject. Gwendolyn Brooks was the first Black person to win the Pulitzer Prize, receiving the award for poetry in 1950. And in 1958, she was named the poet laureate of Illinois. A bold artist who from a very young age dared to dream, Brooks will inspire young readers to create poetry from their own lives.