Named for Bernardo de Galvez and established in 1839, Galveston measures just over two hundred square miles. In early Texas history, however, it was actually the largest city in the Lone Star State, as well as a hugely important port that would become a strategic target during the Civil War. The Oleander City survived the depredations of war and flourished, a resilience it would also display in the wake of the devastating hurricane of 1900. From early cannibals and pirates to the woman suffrage movement and Nazi POWs, Galveston's amazing story continues to evolve today. Join thirteen of Texas's most noted scholars and historians as they share this remarkable island history.

A hilarious send-up of writing workshops, for-profit education, and the gulf between believers and nonbelievers Marianne is in a slump: barely able to support herself by teaching, not making progress on her poetry, about to lose her Brooklyn apartment. When her novelist ex-fiancé, Eric, and his venture capitalist brother, Mark, offer her a job directing a low-residency school for Christian writers at a motel they’ve inherited on Florida’s Gulf Coast, she can’t come up with a reason to say no. The Genesis Inspirational Writing Ranch is born, and liberal, atheist Marianne is soon knee-deep in applications from writers whose political and religious beliefs she has always opposed but whose money she’s glad to take. Janine is a schoolteacher whose heartfelt poems explore the final days of Terri Schiavo’s life. Davonte is a former R&B superstar who hopes to reboot his career with a bestselling tale of excess and redemption. Lorraine and Tom, eccentric writers in need of paying jobs, join the Ranch as instructors. Mark finds an investor in God’s Word God’s World, a business that develops for-profit schools for the Christian market, but the conditions that come along with their support become increasingly problematic, especially as Marianne grows closer to the students. As unsavory allegations mount, a hurricane bears down on the Ranch, and Marianne is faced with the consequences of her decisions. With sharp humor and deep empathy, The Gulf is a memorable debut novel in which Belle Boggs plumbs the troubled waters dividing America.

Mimi Slavitt’s three-year-old son is autistic, but if we told her, she wouldn’t listen, because she doesn’t want to know—until at last his behavior becomes so strange that even she can’t ignore it. Mimi inhabits a world nearly as isolating as her son’s—one that she shares with mothers like her, chosen against their will for lives of sacrifice and martyrdom. Searching for miracles, fighting heartless bureaucracies while arranging every minute of every day for children who can never be left alone, they exist in a state of perpetual crisis, normal life always just out of reach. In chapters told from Mimi’s point of view and theirs, we meet these mothers, each a complex character totally unsuitable for sainthood and dreaming of the day she can just she walk away. Taking its title from the 1950s reality show that made suffering housewives compete against each other for deluxe refrigerators and life-saving operations, Queen for a Day portrays a group of imperfect women under enormous pressure. Rosaler tells their story in ironic, precise and vivid prose, with dark humor and insight born of first-hand experience.

A cemetery tour goes horribly wrong--one of the guests is scared to death! And even stranger--it's not the first time this has happened. A concerned tour guide calls Midas for help, and the Gulf Coast Paranormal team prepares to investigate the potentially paranormal happenings at a cemetery in rural Eight Mile, Alabama. The GCP crew members spend a few nights getting to know the local ghosts and find themselves doing battle with the spirit of the notorious voodoo queen, Ettawa Maybee. Ghost hunters Sierra and Joshua struggle to make their marriage work. Can Joshua forgive and forget, or will ghosts from his past reappear? Will Cassidy come to terms with the information Midas gave her? Follow the most exciting Gulf Coast Paranormal investigation to date with The Legend of the Ghost Queen. This is Book 4 in the Gulf Coast Paranormal series. Gulf Coast Paranormal Series The Ghosts of Kali Oka Road The Ghosts of the Crescent Theater A Haunting on Bloodgood Row The Legend of the Ghost Queen A Haunting at Dixie House (forthcoming) The Ghost Lights of Forrest Field (forthcoming) Another haunting series: Sugar Hill Wife of the Left Hand Fire on the Ramparts Blood By Candlelight The Starlight Ball Read M.L. Bullock's classic ghost story series, Seven Sisters! Seven Sisters Moonlight Falls on Seven Shadows Stir at Seven Sisters The Stars that Fell The Stars We Walked Upon The Sun Rises Over Seven Sisters

Liaka Sikes, having learned her boyfriend is not who she thought he was, is thrown into a world of bank robberies and decides to pull her friends Lianna and Asia, who will support her with anything, into it with her, resulting in the three women dealing with violence, the authorities, revenge, and romance.