Pairing extensive research with a brilliance for reviving the past in gripping narrative, Spur Award-winning author Mike Blakely has penned an epic, historical novelization of the Mexican-American War in A Sinister Splendor 1845. Texas joins the union. Mexico threatens war over the disputed Texas border. But much more than the Rio Grande Valley lies at stake—expansionists dream of an America that sprawls all the way to the Pacific Coast. Can a conflict with an already war-torn Mexico satisfy this lust for territory? President James K. Polk sends troops the Texas border to test Mexico’s appetite for war. General Zachary Taylor, known as “Old Rough and Ready,” leads the invasion south. A 24-year-old lieutenant named Ulysses S. Grant gets his first taste of battle. Texas Rangers John Coffee Hays and Sam Walker expand their reputations as fearless fighting men. An Irishman, John Riley, quits the U.S. Army—along with hundreds of other mistreated immigrant soldiers—and forms a Mexican battalion of U.S. deserters. Army laundress Sarah Bowman is celebrated as a heroine on her way to becoming a frontier legend. The infamous Mexican warlord, General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, returns to power through intrigue and political persuasion. The Mexican-American war becomes the heroic proving ground for future Civil War generals and presidents of the United States, Mexico and the Confederacy. But the glories of victory are tempered by the horrors of war—lives lost, bodies battered, souls shattered, dreams crushed, whole cities razed and innocence forever dashed. With a sinister splendor two very different cultures clash in an epic adventure of duty, patriotism and courage to the death. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Street Cop is the exciting story of one man's career in Law Enforcement. David Spell joined the Gwinnett County Police Department in 1984 at the tender age of twenty-one. This fast moving narrative takes the reader inside the squad car with David as he patrols some of the most dangerous areas and neighborhoods in Metro Atlanta. If you like the TV show Cops, you will love Street Cop. Get ready for your tour of duty. Strap into the passenger seat of David's squad car and enjoy the car chases, foot chases, fights, murder investigations, and other assorted crazy calls. You are about to see first-hand what it is really like on America's mean streets!

Can love last beyond the grave? Sylvie Davis is a ballerina who can’t dance. A broken leg ended her career, but Sylvie’s pain runs deeper. What broke her heart was her father’s death, and what’s breaking her spirit is her mother’s remarriage—a union that’s only driven an even deeper wedge into their already tenuous relationship. Uprooting her from her Manhattan apartment and shipping her to Alabama is her mother’ s solution for Sylvie’s unhappiness. Her father’s cousin is restoring a family home in a town rich with her family’s history. And that’s where things start to get shady. As it turns out, her family has a lot more history than Sylvie ever knew. More unnerving, though, are the two guys that she can’t stop thinking about. Shawn Maddox, the resident golden boy, seems to be perfect in every way. But Rhys—a handsome, mysterious foreign guest of her cousin’s—has a hold on her that she doesn’t quite understand. Then she starts seeing things. Sylvie’s lost nearly everything—is she starting to lose her mind as well? "Lush with Southern atmosphere, The Splendor Falls expertly weaves together romance, tension, and mystery. Haunting and unforgettable!" --Carrie Ryan, bestselling author of The Forest of Hands and Teeth "Sylvie's voice is sharp and articulate, and Clement-Moore . . . anchors the story in actual locations and history. . . . Her ear for both adolescent bitchery and sweetness remains sure, and her ability to write realistic, edgy dialogue without relying on obscenity or stereotype is a pleasure."-Publishers Weekly "Long, satisfying and just chilling enough, this will please a wide audience and leave readers hoping for more."-Kirkus Reviews

A historical novel about the most unlikely of lovers, interwoven with the mysticism of the Jewish occult. Frances Sherwood brings to life the experience of the Jewish community during a period of oppression and rebirth. Set in seventeenth-century Prague, The Book of Splendor is an adventure-filled romance stocked with court intrigue and political tension, including the machinations of the rival Ottoman Empire, the religious controversies of Protestantism, and the constant threat of violence to the Jewish community. At the heart of the novel is Rochel, a bastard seamstress who escapes poverty through an arranged marriage to the tailor Zev, but falls in love with Yossel, the Golem created by Rabbi Loew to protect the Jewish community. Meanwhile, Emperor Rudolph II puts the safety of all Prague at risk in his mad bid for an elixir of immortality. The Book of Splendor is an epic tale reminiscent of Anita Diamant's The Red Tent, and a love story as unlikely as Tracy Chevalier's Girl with a Pearl Earring. Reading group guide included.

In this brutal dissection of guilt, victimhood, self-hatred, betrayal, and atrocities both political and domestic, Antunes proves once more that he is the foremost stylist of his generation, a fearless investigator of the worst excesses of the human animal.

Having grown up under the threat of the Cuban Missile Crisis and annihilation through nuclear war, the author set out on a lifelong journey to discover why a nearly godly race known as human beings seems doomed to destroy the world. To solve this great dilemma, he tried to find a new way of living that he calls splendor. He pursued this elusive quality, like many of his time, through knowledge, adventure, spirituality, success and love. (And, of course, through sex, drugs and Rock 'n Roll). His quest would take him from the terror of death in the Grand Tetons to the wonder of life in the birth of his daughters to writing visionary fiction in celebration of both. Along the way, meetings with Robin Williams, Timothy Leary, Ken Wilber, and others famous, infamous and unknown, helped to shape him in different ways. This is the story of how a writer seeks experience and how that is translated into literature - and how writing itself can be an expression of splendor. It also tells how his work has been a dialogue with all the hopes, conceits, frustrations, failures and glories of the true Greatest Generation that some call the Baby Boomers. Whatever one thinks of the millions born beneath the shadow of the atomic blasts of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the author argues, the fate of the earth now lies in their hands - and in those who come after them. For their uncompleted task of overcoming the destructive forces of power, pride, wealth and war holds a lesson for all of us: that only through returning to the great dream of our youth and reclaiming our essential splendor will we fulfil our destiny to lead the way into an almost unimaginably brilliant future. "SPLENDOR is a simply remarkable, passionate, transcendent book which shines a light on our times, and on all of us. I absolutely loved it." - Jane Johnson, author of The Sultan's Wife "David Zindell's Splendor features many of the characteristics of courageous confessional autobiography, with much of the intelligent spiritual uplift of Thomas Merton's classic autobiography, The Seven-Storey Mountain. It also reads like compelling speculative anthropology, sociology, and history. All the while, its structuring theme - the life-affirming concept of splendor - gives it a philosophical touchstone that centers and unites all of Zindell's major concerns, from love to the recurrent inhumanity of our species, from the death of spirit in raw material pursuits to the star-driven quest for ultimate meaning. I can't say enough about the honesty, the thoughtfulness, or the power of this rare book. -Michael Bishop, author of No Enemy But Time

BIG DIE COUNTRY Joanna Sutton can cope with the fierce winter storm bearing down on the small rural community of Centennial Valley, Montana; the popular romance writer has survived much worse in life. Haunted by the loss of her husband and child, Jo has found refuge at her family’s secluded lodge, but her haven soon becomes a hell. During the ferocious blizzard, a local Boy Scout troop is stranded in the wilderness, compelling Jo to spearhead a desperate rescue mission, aided by a newly arrived stranger with an unknown agenda. Meanwhile, Sheriff Tyler McBride hears that three escaped convicts are fast approaching Big Sky Country. Hoping to warn Jo, he faxes over the men’s mug shots. But they never reach their intended recipient. Then Tyler makes a shocking discovery: Two people are dead, and a killer is among the group, along with the woman Tyler loves, searching for his lost son. More than one innocent life is at stake. For the sake of those Jo cares about most, and for her own survival, she’ll need all the cunning, courage, and passion she can muster to survive the mounting terror.