Cort van Breda has won 35 death matches as a fighter in an MMA circuit so deep underground there are no rules and only the winner gets out alive.They call him the Sick Heart.They say he's a shameless monster.They say he's a ruthless killer.They say he's as twisted as the man who owns him. They say a lot of things about Cort van Breda.But in our world violence is money, and money is winning, and winning is life, and life is the only thing that matters. Except... he wasn't meant to win that last fight.And I wasn't meant to be his prize.But he did.And I am.And now his sick heart owns me.WARNING: This is a sweet love story adrift in an ocean of evil. It is about two survivors dealing with their darkest secrets while they fight to change their lives. It is for mature readers only and has descriptions of deeply disturbing situations. There will be pearl clutching.

Sir Edward Leithen is given a year to live and decides to devote his last months to seeking out and restoring to health Galliard, a young Canadian banker, who is searching for the 'River of the Sick Heart'. Braving an Arctic winter, Leithen finds the banker and then his own health returns, yet only one of the men will return to civilization ....

Heartsick unpacks the destruction of love by following the true stories of three lives altered by a major heartbreak. I wrote this book for the person who doesn’t want to be told that this too shall pass. Not yet. Who wants to sit with it. And see it for what it is. Who wants to know they’re not alone. That their pain is at once unique and universal. Belonging to them and everyone. When we’re thrown into the chaos of heartsickness, we focus so much on the end. The fact we are now unloved seems so much more important than the reality that we once were. This book was born in the hours I’ve waited for men to message me back and who never did... In the years full of almost-relationships, I thought, “I cannot handle another rejection,” and then found myself turned down by someone I wasn’t even sure I liked. I wrote this book because I know what it is to feel fundamentally unlovable. I knew when I was looking for Ana, Patrick, and Claire that their stories had to be true, because within them would be nuances I’d never noticed before and realities I couldn’t have invented. I didn’t want to be limited by what I happened to know about love and loss. I wanted to learn from people as I wrote, injecting wisdom from different places and genders and ages into this book. Weaving together these three true stories, Jessie Stephens captures the painful but wholeheartedly universal experience of heartbreak. Deeply relatable, addictive to the very last page, and powerfully human, Heartsick reminds us that emotional pain can make us as it breaks us and that storytelling has the ultimate healing power. In the solitude that reading a book demands, one is forced to reflect on one’s own life. After all, every time we explore others, we’re mostly just exploring ourselves. These are their stories—Ana’s and Patrick’s and Claire’s. But it is also my story and our story. I trust within it you will find echoes of yourself.

This shockingly frank and irreverent memoir of a young woman’s life with a heart transplant “will inspire and choke you up with tears and laughter” (Larry King). At twenty-four, Amy Silverstein was your typical type-A law student: smart, driven, and highly competitive. With a full course load and a budding romance, it seemed nothing could slow her down. Until her heart began to fail. With a grace and force reminiscent of Lucy Grealy’s Autobiography of a Face or Susanna Kaysen’s Girl, Interrupted, Amy chronicles her medical saga from the first misdiagnosis to her astonishing and ongoing recovery. Her memoir is made all the more dramatic by the deliriously romantic bedside courtship with her future husband, and her uncompromising desire to become a mother. Distrustful of her doctors and insistent in her refusal to be the “grateful heart patient” she is expected to be, Amy presents a patient’s perspective that is truly eye-opening and even controversial. Amy’s shocking honesty and irreverent humor allow the reader to live her nightmare from the inside—an unforgettable experience that is both painfully disturbing and utterly compelling.

The New York Times bestselling guide to the lifesaving diet that can both prevent and help reverse the effects of heart disease Based on the groundbreaking results of his twenty-year nutritional study, Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease by Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn illustrates that a plant-based, oil-free diet can not only prevent the progression of heart disease but can also reverse its effects. Dr. Esselstyn is an internationally known surgeon, researcher and former clinician at the Cleveland Clinic and a featured expert in the acclaimed documentary Forks Over Knives. Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease has helped thousands across the country, and is the book behind Bill Clinton’s life-changing vegan diet. The proof lies in the incredible outcomes for patients who have followed Dr. Esselstyn's program, including a number of patients in his original study who had been told by their cardiologists that they had less than a year to live. Within months of starting the program, all Dr. Esselstyn’s patients began to improve dramatically, and twenty years later, they remain free of symptoms. Complete with more than 150 delicious recipes perfect for a plant-based diet, the national bestseller Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease explains the science behind the simple plan that has drastically changed the lives of heart disease patients forever. It will empower readers and give them the tools to take control of their heart health.

Damaged Portland detective Archie Sheridan spent ten years tracking Gretchen Lowell, a beautiful serial killer, but in the end she was the one who caught him. Two years ago, Gretchen kidnapped Archie and tortured him for ten days, but instead of killing him, she mysteriously decided to let him go. She turned herself in, and now Gretchen has been locked away for the rest of her life, while Archie is in a prison of another kind---addicted to pain pills, unable to return to his old life, powerless to get those ten horrific days off his mind. Archie's a different person, his estranged wife says, and he knows she's right. He continues to visit Gretchen in prison once a week, saying that only he can get her to confess as to the whereabouts of more of her victims, but even he knows the truth---he can't stay away. When another killer begins snatching teenage girls off the streets of Portland, Archie has to pull himself together enough to lead the new task force investigating the murders. A hungry young newspaper reporter, Susan Ward, begins profiling Archie and the investigation, which sparks a deadly game between Archie, Susan, the new killer, and even Gretchen. They need to catch a killer, and maybe somehow then Archie can free himself from Gretchen, once and for all. Either way, Heartsick makes for one of the most extraordinary suspense debuts in recent memory.

This life-affirming, instructive, and thoroughly inspiring book is a must-read for anyone who is - or who might one day be - sick. It can also be the perfect gift of guidance, encouragement, and uplifting inspiration to family, friends, and loved ones struggling with the many terrifying or disheartening life changes that come so close on the heels of a diagnosis of a chronic condition or life-threatening illness. Authentic and graceful, How to be Sick reminds us of our limitless inner freedom, even under high degrees of suffering and pain. The author - who became ill while a university law professor in the prime of her career - tells the reader how she got sick and, to her and her partner's bewilderment, stayed that way. Toni had been a longtime meditator, going on long meditation retreats and spending many hours rigorously practicing, but soon discovered that she simply could no longer engage in those difficult and taxing forms. She had to learn ways to make "being sick" the heart of her spiritual practice - and through truly learning how to be sick, she learned how, even with many physical and energetic limitations, to live a life of equanimity, compassion, and joy. And whether we ourselves are ill or not, we can learn these vital arts from Bernhard's generous wisdom in How to Be Sick.