After an attempted rape of Natsume, the beautiful model from Tokyo, leads to her breaking up with Kou, a local boy with a strong aura, it is Kou’s former best friend, Otomo, who lifts Natsume out of her depression. With his support, she is able to return to the entertainment industry and decides she wants him to be her first. That’s when Natsume bumps into Kou again, setting her heart aflutter. The pair can’t help but be drawn together, even though they always end up hurting each other… Are new developments in store for these two as well?

Attracted, secretly meeting, deeply yearning—now is the pathos of teenage years, masterfully brought to life by George Asakura! Crossing far beyond the appropriate, one of Natsume's fans has stolen her away against her will. Sensing disaster, Kou-chan nobly risks himself to chase after them alone... "Kou-chan… Our light and power exist because of our love!" The unexpected rocks the two in this disastrous fourth chapter!

New love. Exotic destinations. A once-in-a-lifetime adventure. What could go wrong? City girl Torre DeRoche isn't looking for love, but a chance encounter in a San Francisco bar sparks an instant connection with a soulful Argentinean man who unexpectedly sweeps her off her feet. The problem? He's just about to cast the dock lines and voyage around the world on his small sailboat, and Torre is terrified of deep water. However, lovesick Torre determines that to keep the man of her dreams, she must embark on the voyage of her nightmares, so she waves good-bye to dry land and braces for a life-changing journey that's as exhilarating as it is terrifying. Somewhere mid-Pacific, she finds herself battling to keep the old boat, the new relationship, and her floundering sanity afloat. . . . This sometimes hilarious, often harrowing, and always poignant memoir is set against a backdrop of the world's most beautiful and remote destinations. Equal parts love story and travel memoir, Love with a Chance of Drowning is witty, charming, and proof positive that there are some risks worth taking.

After Natsume breaks up with local boy Kou in the aftermath of a man’s attempted rape of her, it is Kou’s former best friend, Otomo, who pulls Natsume out of her depression. With his support, she is able to re-enter the entertainment industry, and Natsume decides she wants Otomo to be her first. However, Natsume is still drawn to Kou, despite all the pain they cause one another, and she ends up sleeping with him. But how long can she hide it from Otomo…?

"Critical stories are narratives that recount the writer's experiences, situating those experiences in broader cultural contexts. In this volume of Critical Storytelling, marginalized, excluded, and oppressed peoples share insights from their liminality to help readers learn from their perspectives on living from behind invisible bars. Female inmates at Decatur's Correctional Center and the undergraduate Millikin University students who worked with them come together to give voice to their specific histories of living from behind invisibile bars and pose important questions to the reader about inciting change for the future. Specifically, the voices in this volume seek to expose, analyze, and challenge deeply-entrenched narratives and characterizations of incarcerated women, whose histories are often marked by sexual abuse, domestic violence, poverty, PTSD, a lack of education, housing insecurity, mental illness, and substance addiction. These silenced female inmate voices need to be heard and contextualized within the larger metanarrative of prison literature. Through telling critical stories, these writers attempt to: sustain recovery from trauma, make positive changes and informed decisions, create a real sense of empowerment, strengthen their capacity to exercise personal agency, and inspire audiences to create change far outside the reaches of physical and metaphorical bars. Contributors are: Anonymous, Soren Belle, Megan Batty, Dwight G. Brown, Jr., Sandra Brown, Kathryn Coffey, Kelly Cunningham, Paiten Hamilton, Kathlyn J. Housh, Rebekah Icenesse, Kala Keller, Jelisa Lovette, Bric Martin, Amanda Minetti, Laura Nearing, Angie Oaks, Claire Prendergast, Cara Quiett, J. M. Spence, Noah Villarreal and Alisha Walker"--

Laugh and believe in yourself. Natsume won't let this important bond disappear. Separated in their highschool life Natsume starts a new gig. She fights to develop her relationship with Otomo, but keeps getting pulled into the past. Fighting shadows at every turn, the turbulent teens cling to hope like a candle in the dark.

Recipient of the 2014 American Academy of Arts and Letters Rosenthal Foundation Award A major debut from an award-winning writer—an epic family saga set against the magic and the rhythms of the Virgin Islands. In the early 1900s, the Virgin Islands are transferred from Danish to American rule, and an important ship sinks into the Caribbean Sea. Orphaned by the shipwreck are two sisters and their half brother, now faced with an uncertain identity and future. Each of them is unusually beautiful, and each is in possession of a particular magic that will either sink or save them. Chronicling three generations of an island family from 1916 to the 1970s, Land of Love and Drowning is a novel of love and magic, set against the emergence of Saint Thomas into the modern world. Uniquely imagined, with echoes of Toni Morrison, Gabriel García Márquez, and the author’s own Caribbean family history, the story is told in a language and rhythm that evoke an entire world and way of life and love. Following the Bradshaw family through sixty years of fathers and daughters, mothers and sons, love affairs, curses, magical gifts, loyalties, births, deaths, and triumphs, Land of Love and Drowning is a gorgeous, vibrant debut by an exciting, prizewinning young writer.