It could be you or someone you love. Strong, silent types are everywhere, and it is their telltale silence that has kept their problems hidden until now. A silent son can come from a family that coped with violence, alcoholism, child abuse, extreme rigidity, or divorce, but all silent sons have certain common characteristics: They keep things that bother them to themselves. They deny that unpleasant events occur. They fear letting people know them. They have difficulty interacting with their parents, spouses, or children. They have a strong fear of criticism. They are often angry. In Silent Sons, Dr. Robert Ackerman, a silent son himself, examines the problems that commonly confront silent sons, keeping them from experiencing the full range of human emotions. In a compassionate and hopeful voice, the author defines the silent son and examines the impact of parents, particularly fathers, on these men and shows how their dysfunctional upbringing affects their present relationships, especially with women. By putting aside anger, finding peace with one's self, and looking for support from other silent sons, Dr. Ackerman feels every man can realize his full potential and become a well balanced, healthy survivor.

Alys’s whole world was comprised of the history project that was due, her upcoming violin audition, being held tightly in the arms of her boyfriend, Ben, and laughing with her best friend, Delilah. At least it was—until she found herself on the wrong end of a shotgun in the school library. Her suburban high school had become one of those places you hear about on the news—a place where some disaffected youth decided to end it all and take as many of his teachers and classmates with him as he could. Except, in this story, that youth was Alys’s own brother, Luke. He killed fifteen others and himself, but spared her—though she’ll never know why. Alys’s downward spiral begins instantly, and there seems to be no bottom. A heartbreaking and beautifully told story.

Silent Songs of Nursing, through short stories about the nurse-patient relationship, depict an authentic compassion for patients through the simple art of caring. These simple and heartfelt stories depict the vulnerability of patients in a healthcare institution and a nurse's journey to reach out and touch humanity. While carrying out her life's purpose, the author connected with her own spirituality. The stories are written without a focus on the science or technological side of nursing, they reveal what holistic care can be and capture the way Florence Nightingale (1868) saw and wrote about nursing: "Nursing is an art: and if it is to be made an art, it requires an exclusive devotion as hard a preparation as any painter's or sculptor's work."

Lee Mandelo's debut Summer Sons is a sweltering, queer Southern Gothic that crosses Appalachian street racing with academic intrigue, all haunted by a hungry ghost. Andrew and Eddie did everything together, best friends bonded more deeply than brothers, until Eddie left Andrew behind to start his graduate program at Vanderbilt. Six months later, only days before Andrew was to join him in Nashville, Eddie dies of an apparent suicide. He leaves Andrew a horrible inheritance: a roommate he doesn’t know, friends he never asked for, and a gruesome phantom that hungers for him. As Andrew searches for the truth of Eddie’s death, he uncovers the lies and secrets left behind by the person he trusted most, discovering a family history soaked in blood and death. Whirling between the backstabbing academic world where Eddie spent his days and the circle of hot boys, fast cars, and hard drugs that ruled Eddie’s nights, the walls Andrew has built against the world begin to crumble. And there is something awful lurking, waiting for those walls to fall. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

No longer does the threat of civil war hang over the Island of the Sixteen Gods. Edrun and his companions can relax for a while before returning to their homes. But the High Priest and Priestess complain that brigands are causing trouble in one of the more remote corners of the territory of the Lute. Edrun and his companions offer to eradicate this menace, but instead Edrun ends up stumbling in the dark with a crack on the head, lost in a storm. When he awakes, he is still in the land of Lute...or is he? Where are his friends? Where is the Inn of the Stranger Maiden? And who are these men--the sinister Brotherhood of the Sword? Edrun is forced to wonder if he is, in fact, dead, journeying on the path of the Sixth Stage, and, if so, can he ever get back again?