I Have Five Beautiful Daughters: The Saddest Words We Ever Heard By: Gloria G. Boltz (Palmer) I Have Five Beautiful Daughters is the story of five girls being raised by alcoholic parents. Girls who were unwanted and neglected and left to fend for themselves. Girls who suffered extreme verbal abuse and often faced life-threatening dangers. It is the author’s hope that readers will realize the significance of prayers spoken over those they may suspect are living under questionable circumstances and yet feel helpless to intervene. And for the readers who have also endured a harsh childhood, may they not inflict that same abuse upon their own children.

Two unlikely people form an unexpected bond in bestselling author Karen Joy Fowler’s captivating historical novel—a New York Times Notable Book. When black cloaked Sarah Canary wanders into a Chinese labor camp in the Washington territories in 1873, Chin Ah Kin is ordered by his uncle to escort “the ugliest woman he could imagine” away. Far away. But Chin soon becomes the follower. In the first of many such instances, they are separated, both resurfacing some days later at an insane asylum. Chin has run afoul of the law and Sarah has been committed for observation. Their escape from the asylum in the company of another inmate sets into motion a series of adventures and misadventures that are at once hilarious, deeply moving, and downright terrifying. “Powerfully imagined...Drop everything and follow Sarah Canary....Humor and horror, history and myth dance cheek to cheek in this Jack London meets L. Frank Baum world....Here is a work that manages to be at the same time (and often in the same sentence) dark and deep and fun.”—The Washington Post Book World

This second book in a trilogy of high adventure and alternate history combines rousing pulp action with steampunk style, bringing epic political themes to life within a story of heartbreaking romance, sacrifice, and heroism. Princess Adele struggles with a life of marriage and obligation as her Equatorian Empire and their American Republic allies stand on the brink of war against the vampire clans of the north. However, the alliance's horrific strategy for total victory drives Adele to abandon her duty and embark on a desperate quest to keep her nation from staining its hands with genocide. Reunited with her great love, the mysterious adventurer known to the world as the Greyfriar, Adele is pursued by her own people as well as her vengeful husband, Senator Clark. With the human alliance in disarray, Prince Cesare, lord of the British vampire clan, seizes the initiative and strikes at the very heart of Equatoria. As Adele labors to bring order to her world, she learns more about the strange powers she exhibited in the north. Her teacher, Mamoru, leads a secret cabal of geomancers who believe Adele is the one who can touch the vast power of the Earth that surges through ley lines and wells up at the rifts where the lines meet. These energies are the key to defeating the enemy of mankind. If Princess Adele could ever bring this power under her command, she could be death to vampires. But such a victory would also cost the life of Adele's beloved Greyfriar. From the Trade Paperback edition.

Julie Jensen used to believe that mothering meant being on task--making homemade cupcakes for school birthday parties, chauffeuring her kids to all of their various activities, and so on. But as her Multiple Sclerosis progressed, she was no longer physically able to keep up, and she watched one role after another slip away. It forced her to look inside: Was her value just her physical body and her ability to do and be productive? Julie soon realized that these activities were far less important than she ever imagined and that the true source of her power came from within. Her children simply needed to be close to her to feel connected. Far too much emphasis is placed on doing and not enough on being. A mother's real purpose is to endow her children with a deep understanding of connection, love, self-esteem, and compassion while reinforcing the importance of human values. In her heartfelt, encouraging book, Julie shares the lessons she has learned about fostering self-reliance, taking it slow, cultivating radiance, adopting an attitude of gratitude, and being mindful.

Alicia has an adventurous side to her that was unacceptable in the 1700s, but this didn't stop her. Blessed with beauty and love of life, she met her handsome captain, Arnold. Their adventures and dreams expanded into five beautiful talented daughters. Their third daughter, Aurora, was blessed and cursed with both her parents love of life and thirst for the sea. Her story is shared here.

John Holbrook, one of the heroes of this book, once told me that he had mused his way to the conclusion that a school is to a community what the skin is to a body. “You see the rash on your arms and you might think that it’s the skin that’s sick, when actually the disease is somewhere deep inside, and it is only reflected in the skin. Or, conversely, when the skin is silky smooth - soft, and supple, and pleasant to the touch - it’s because the entire inside of the body is healthy.” It has just occurred to me that I have written a book to illustrate what John said. I must confess that at times, in order to better move the story along, two or three real-life persons have been shoved into one, or one person has been split up into two. Chronology has not been always rigorously followed, either, and real lives have been twisted to allow the sap of fiction to better flow to the heart and mind of the reader. Wait. Did I say fiction? I’ll take that back. For this is not a fictional book. The stories, all of them, without any exception, the stories, they are true. And if they sometimes seem far-fetched it’s only because many times reality is stranger than fiction - and also more pitiless, and more brutal. I have kept some of the original quizzes, essays, newspaper articles and classroom drawings to give the book its well-deserved air of authenticity. If you are a teacher, you will read the book and nod in agreement. If you are a parent, now you know – a teacher’s life is not the bowl of cherries you always thought it was. If you are a principal, or a superintendent, you will naturally want to burn the book in the public square - this book is a mirror and you will not like what you see. Some of the real names of the characters have been maintained: Marina Argueta, Elizabeth Ramirez, Franklin Sosa, Jose Alberto Ochoa and the rest of the Ochoa clan, Hector Mandujano, aka Camarón, and most of the soccer players on the KCHS varsity team have given me kind permission to use their real-life names. Only one character in the entire book is completely fabricated, and I will allow you, the reader, the investigative pleasure of discovering who that character is on your own. If you like the book, please recommend it to your friends, to that nasty brother-in-law of yours who gets drunk on Thanksgiving, to the guy sitting next to you in the carpool, or to your fellow teacher in the teacher’s lounge. But don’t lend it to him. Let him buy his own copy. You see, I live off the books I sell. Author :Saileanu, Cristian

This future she knows for certain—the great sun city will be her undoing. Amidst a power struggle between Pharaoh and the priesthood of Amun, Queen Nefertiti helps the ill-prepared new Pharaoh, Amenhotep, enact his father's plan to regain power for the throne. But what seemed a difficult task only becomes more grueling when Amenhotep loses himself in his radical obsessions. Standing alone to bear the burden of a failing country and stem the tide of a growing rebellion, Nefertiti must choose between her love for Pharaoh and her duty to Egypt in this dramatic retelling of a story forgotten by time. Salvation in the Sun is the first volume of Lauren Lee Merewether's debut family saga, The Lost Pharaoh Chronicles, a resurrection of an erased time that follows the five Kings of Egypt who were lost to history for over three millennia. The story continues in book two, Secrets in the Sand.