Magic breeds misery Augusta fails to hold her family together, despite her magical gift for binding. Her cracked world breaks wide open the day her father decides to declare her vanished mother dead. Retracing the steps her mother took before fleeing promises to heal Augusta . . . or reveal the wrongness at the heart of her magic. Luella loves her home of farms and fields amid swamps—but her magic ensures she finds every lost thing. One too many careless words of items lost in the wrong place, and her clan elders send her off to learn to control her magic . . . except truly grasping her power requires giving up hope of returning home. Cheng speaks to the air and the earth, and they reply, ensuring he never walks alone. Until the day his work on the railroad upsets the elemental balance within him—and bit by bit he loses the ability to communicate with other humans. The pages of Sanctuary Hall practically turn themselves in a moving tale of people facing their worst enemy: their own magic.

Winner of a Books for a Better Life Award! Gene Baur, the cofounder and president of Farm Sanctuary, the nation's leading farm animal protection organization, knows that the key to happiness lies in aligning your beliefs with your actions. In this definitive vegan and animal-friendly lifestyle guide, he and Gene Stone, author of Forks Over Knives, explore the deeply transformative experience of visiting the sanctuary and its profound effects on people's lives. The book covers the basic tenets of Farm Sanctuary life—such as eating in harmony with your values, connecting with nature wherever you are, and reducing stress—and offers readers simple ways to incorporate these principles into their lives. Living the Farm Sanctuary Life also teaches readers how to cook and eat the Farm Sanctuary way, with 100 extraordinarily delicious recipes selected by some of the organization's greatest fans—chefs and celebrities such as Chef AJ, Chloe Coscarelli, Emily Deschanel, and Moby. Coupled with heartwarming stories of the animals that Farm Sanctuary has saved over the years, as well as advice and ideas from some of the organization's biggest supporters, Living the Farm Sanctuary Life is an inspiring, practical book for readers looking to improve their whole lives and the lives of those around them—both two- and four-legged.

Lee Shai Weissbach's innovative study sheds light on the functioning of smaller Jewish communities in a state representative of many in the Midwest and South. The synagogue buildings of Kentucky tell much about the experience of Kentucky Jewry. Synagogues, especially in smaller towns, have often served as the only setting available for a wide variety of communal activities. Weissbach outlines the history of every congregation established in Kentucky and every house of worship that has served Kentucky Jewry over the last 150 years, considering such issues as the financing of construction, the selection of architects, the way synagogue buildings reveal congregational attitudes, and the way local synagogue design reflects national trends. Eighty-two photographs show every one of Kentucky's synagogues, including buildings that are no longer standing or have been converted to other uses. This pictorial record documents the variety, distinctiveness, and significance of these buildings as a part of the Commonwealth's architectural, cultural, and religious landscape.

Michael Archer is a Social Worker from Murphy, NC. His boss recruits him for a moonlight stint interviewing the hapless denizens of a nearby cluster of tumbledown shacks at the request of a pharmaceutical company in Atlanta. It seems the firm has found a cure for Alzheimer's and the ingredients they need to manufacture the drug are buried deep beneath Lucas Ridge. The job seems straight-forward at first but when a co-worker ends up dead in a mosquito-infested swamp, Michael begins to wonder whose calloused hands are tugging on his personal puppet strings.