Even if it was only this one last day, it was as if time stood still, the clock broken years earlier. This was our history, our family and identity. The lucky few among us had been bestowed another round, another chance. Our parting shots insinuated insults to those who listened through unknowing ears, but words of love from brothers of the heart. Set in the shady world of illegal gambling and based on true events spanning three decades, Keepers of the Book presents an insightful, behind-the-scenes memoir of lifelong friends caught up in a high-stakes bookie operation gone awry. One is a pathological gambler with a deep-seated inferiority complex who is recognized as an easy mark; another has a sadistic bent and a bad habit of not paying his customers. Undesirable traits for those who hang a shingle advertising themselves as Bookies, and the reason their scheme to manipulate the Las Vegas point spreads is doomed from the start. Some get away with it, and a few get caught-others aren't so lucky.

Experience the fantastic adventure filled with magical objects, secret sects, and life as we know it on the line! Mixing magic and physics, Ted Sanders has created an epic story that has the feel of classic fantasy but twists it into something new and innovative. From the moment Horace F. Andrews sees the sign from the bus—a sign with his own name on it—everything changes. The sighting leads him underground, to the House of Answers, a hidden warehouse full of mysterious objects. But there, he finds only questions. What is this curious place? Who are the strange, secretive people who entrust him with a rare and immensely powerful gift? And what is he to do with it? When Horace finds the Box of Promises in the curio shop, he quickly discovers that ordinary-looking objects can hold extraordinary power. From the enormous, sinister man shadowing him to the gradual mastery of his newfound abilities to his encounters with Chloe—a girl who has an astonishing talent of her own—Horace follows a path that puts the pair in the middle of a centuries-old conflict between two warring factions in which every decision they make could have disastrous consequences.

In a memoir that’s equal parts love story, investigation, and racial reckoning, Munemo unravels and interrogates her whiteness, a shocking secret, and her family’s history. When interracial romance novels written by her long-dead father landed on Julia McKenzie Munemo’s kitchen table, she—a white woman—had been married to a black man for six years and their first son was a toddler. Out of shame about her father’s secret career as a writer of “slavery porn,” she hid the books from herself, and from her growing mixed-race family, for more than a decade. But then, with police shootings of African American men more and more in the public eye, she realized that understanding her own legacy was the only way to begin to understand her country.

Jeffrey B. Burton's The Keepers is the next installment of the Mace Reid K-9 series, featuring golden retriever cadaver dog Vira and her handler, Mason Reid. Mason “Mace” Reid lives on the outskirts of Chicago and specializes in human remains detection—that is, he trains dogs to hunt for dead bodies. He calls his pack of cadaver dogs The Finders, and his prize pupil is a golden retriever named Vira. When Mace Reid and Vira are called in to search Washington Park at three o'clock in the morning, what they find has them running for their very lives. The trail of murder and mayhem Mace and CPD Officer Kippy Gimm have been following leads them to uncover treachery and corruption at the highest level, and their discoveries do not bode well for them . . . nor for the Windy City itself. The Keepers is an exciting, fast-paced mystery filled with courageous dogs you'll want to root for.

This interdisciplinary curriculum in botany and plant ecology focuses on environmental and stewardship issues using the framework of Native American stories as an introduction to the topics.

“A rare triumph” (The New York Times Book Review), this powerful memoir about the divergent paths taken by two brothers is a classic work from one of the greatest figures in American literature: a reflection on John Edgar Wideman’s family and his brother’s incarceration—a classic that is as relevant now as when originally published in 1984. A “brave and brilliant” (The Philadelphia Inquirer) portrait of lives arriving at different destinies, the classic John Edgar Wideman memoir, Brothers and Keepers, is a haunting portrait of two brothers—one an award-winning writer, the other a fugitive wanted for a robbery that resulted in a murder. Wideman recalls the capture of his younger brother, Robby, details the subsequent trials that resulted in a sentence of life in prison, and provides vivid views of the American prison system. A gripping, unsettling account, Brothers and Keepers weighs the bonds of blood, affection, and guilt that connect Wideman and his brother and measures the distance that lies between them. “If you care at all about brotherhood and dignity…this is a must-read book” (The Denver Post). With a new afterword by his brother Robert Wideman, recently released after more than fifty years in prison.

A riveting story of heroism, heartache, and the power of love to heal all wounds by bestselling author Charles Martin. Murphy Shepherd is a man with many secrets. He lives alone on an island, tending the grounds of a church with no parishioners, and he’s dedicated his life to rescuing those in peril. But as he mourns the loss of his mentor and friend, Murph himself may be more lost than he realizes. When he pulls a beautiful woman named Summer out of Florida’s Intracoastal Waterway, Murph’s mission to lay his mentor to rest at the end of the world takes a dangerous turn. Drawn to Summer, and desperate to find her missing daughter, Murph is pulled deeper and deeper into the dark and dangerous world of modern-day slavery. With help from some unexpected new friends, including a faithful Labrador he plucks from the ocean and an ex-convict named Clay, Murph must race against the clock to locate the girl before he is consumed by the secrets of his past—and the ghosts who tried to bury them. With Charles Martin’s trademark lyricism and poignant prose, The Water Keeper is at once a tender love story and a heartrending search for freedom. Praise for The Water Keeper: “I’m telling you, it’s an action-packed, classic Charles Martin romance novel unlike anything I’ve ever read. And remember . . . the day you pick up this book is the day you become temporarily unavailable to the world.” —Charlie Martin, son of Charles Martin “Charles Martin fans rejoice, because he’s done it again . . . a multilayered story woven together with grace and redemption, and packed tight with tension and achingly real characters.” —Lauren Denton, USA TODAY bestselling author of The Hideaway Part of The Murphy Shepherd novels: Book 1: The Water Keeper Book 2: The Letter Keeper Book 3: The Record Keeper Coming July 2022!) Full-length novel (110,000 words) Includes discussion questions for book clubs Also by Charles Martin: The Mountain Between Us, Send Down the Rain, Long Way Gone, When Crickets Cry, Chasing Fireflies