A girl with a darkness ... He comes to my room every night. Whispers sweet violence in my ear, one hand wrapped tight around my throat as we do things we shouldn't. Maybe it's wrong when my knees fall open, and his mouth drowns my moans, but I'll take the wrong. I'll take whatever he gives me, because without him, I'm nothing.Not every girl wants a happy ever after. Some of us just want to survive.* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *Gun Shy is a standalone dark romance from USA Today bestselling author Lili St. Germain.

Nestled in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains, Hanover County draws tourists every fall to leaf-look and hike. But unlike them, Michelle White came to die. The cops don’t know if it was suicide, but for days, her body has lain in a cabin, her wheelchair toppled, her hand around a shotgun—and her terrified dog starving. So they call in Raine Stockton, known among these parts for her canny way with canines… Busy with a thriving kennel business, an annoying new neighbor, four dogs, and an estranged husband looking to reunite, Raine hardly has time for the poor dog she’s named Hero. But as she falls for him, questions surface: Why were there no groceries, luggage, or dog food in the cabin? And if Michelle was paralyzed on her right side, why was the gun in her right hand? Only Hero knows…and it’s up to Raine to find out.

Poems that seek stability in family and community while coping with a country full of conflict and change. The poems in Gun/Shy deal with the emotional weight of making do. Tinged with both the regrets and wisdom of aging, Jim Daniels's poems measure the wages of love in a changing world with its vanishing currency. He explores the effects of family work—putting children to bed, leading parents to their final resting places—and what is lost and gained in those exertions. Childhood and adolescence are examined, through both looking back on his own childhood and on that of his children. While his personal death count rises, Daniels reflects on his own mortality. He finds solace in small miracles—his mother stretching the budget to feed five children with "hamburger surprise" and potato skins, his children collecting stones and crabapples as if they were gold coins. Daniels, as he always has, carries the anchor of Detroit with him, the weight both a comfort and a burden. He explores race, white privilege, and factory work. Eight Mile Road, a fraught border, pulses with division, and the echoes of music, singing through Detroit's soiled but solid heart, resonate in these poems. His first long poem in many years, "Gun/Shy," centers the book. Through the personas of several characters, Daniels dives into America's gun culture and the violent gulf between the fearful and the feared. Throughout, he seeks connection in likely and unlikely places: a river rising after spring rain and searchlights crossing the night sky. Comets and cloudy skies. Cement ponds and the Garden of Eden. Adolescence and death. Wounds physical and psychic. Disguises and more disguises. These are the myths we memorize to help us sleep at night, those that keep us awake and trembling. Daniels's accessible language, subtlety, and deftness make this collection one that belongs on every poetry reader's shelf.

Vidar, the army search dog, has spent half his life sniffing out enemy weapons and bombs on the front line of the war in Afghanistan. His keen nose saved the lives of hundreds of soldiers, finding roadside bombs which could have killed British troops. But after two years of loyal service, Vidar became ‘Gun Shy’ – a term used to describe dogs who are frightened of loud noises. Whenever he heard bombs exploding or even the sound of helicopters flying above, he would curl up in the corner, shaking with fear. His army days were numbered... and his future looked uncertain. Until Angie, an army medic who befriended him during her tour of Afghanistan, made it her duty to give him a safe haven at her Welsh home.

In 1894, Eleanor L. Pray left her New England home to move with her merchant husband to Vladivostok in the Russian Far East. Over the next thirty-six years — from the time of Tsar Alexander III to the early years of Stalin’s rule — she wrote more than 2,000 letters chronicling her family life and the tumultuous social and political events she witnessed. Vladivostok, 5,600 miles east of Moscow, was shaped by a rich intersection of Asian cultures, and Pray’s witty and observant writing paints a vivid picture of the city and its denizens during a period of momentous social change. The book offers highlights from Pray’s letters along with illuminating historical and biographical information.

It's 1882 and Oliver Redcastle, an ex-Pinkerton detective and a former Union Army sharpshooter, has inherited a house in Baltimore and a new daughter. Oliver dreams of putting his violent past behind him. When John D. Rockefeller forces him to investigate a railway explosion Oliver finds himself plunged into mayhem once again. The plot thickens when a Civil War encampment in the city digs up old betrayals, triggers death and breeds a fresh murder plot that Oliver must foil to prevent his future from becoming as bloody as his past.