Welcome! Benvenuti! It’s summertime in northern Minnesota and a bus full of kids is about to arrive at the Italian Concordia Language Village, better known as camp. Inexplicably the chief lifeguard has chosen this moment to conduct a “missing villager drill,” prompting staff to strip to their underwear in a simulated rush to search the lake. It’s an inopportune time for a surprise visit from the Health Inspector, but there he is—just as an Italian counselor calls through the walkie-talkie, “My God, there’s blood everywhere!” He’s finally clobbered the chipmunk that’s been stealing his candy. When at age six he had to be hauled kicking and screaming on the bus bound for camp, Eric Dregni could not have imagined this moment. But all the days and weeks of summer camp since then have shown him the abundant pleasures of this uniquely American experience—and given him plenty of stories to tell. In You’re Sending Me Where? Dregni takes us back to those boyhood days of running head-on into nature with his fellow campers and learning a few valuable lessons, such as don’t let the van driver leave you and your canoe until you’re sure there’s actually water in the “flowage.” From discouraging summer love to soothing homesick campers to—Oh no! Bats!—taking everyone to town for their rabies shots, to the difficulty of saying goodbye, Eric Dregni’s wise, funny book reassures us that there’s still a place in the woods where, unplugged from devices and screens, children of all ages can connect with the natural world—and with each other.

The author, a computer science professor diagnosed with terminal cancer, explores his life, the lessons that he has learned, how he has worked to achieve his childhood dreams, and the effect of his diagnosis on him and his family.

Superstitious before being diagnosed with leukemia, Mia becomes irrationally dependent on horoscopes, good luck charms, and the like when her life shifts from cheerleading and parties to chemotherapy and platelets.

FOREWORD FOREWoRD You can mess with most of the people most of the time! You can mess with all of the people some of the time, but you cannot mess with all of the people all of the time... this is what I get from I AM SENT ME.

Patrick Ryan’s first work of fiction is written with such authority, grace, and wisdom, it might be the capstone of a distinguished literary career. In the Florida of NASA launches, ranch houses, and sudden hurricanes, Teresa Kerrigan, ungrounded by two divorces, tries to hold her life together. But her ex-husbands linger in the background while her four children spin away to their own separate futures, each carrying the baggage of a complex family history. Matt serves as caretaker to the ailing father who abandoned him as a child, while his wild teenage sister, Karen, hides herself in marriage to a born-again salesman. Joe, a perpetual outsider, struggles with a private sibling rivalry that nearly derails him. And then there’s the youngest, Frankie, an endearing, eccentric sci-fi freak who’s been searching since childhood for intelligent life in the universe–and finds it. Written with wry affection, and with compassion for every character in its pages, Send Me is a wholly original, haunting evocation of family love, loss, and, ultimately, forgiveness.

A story inspired by true events. Nicky, a pushy young radio presenter with a dark past, lands her first big job on a struggling provincial radio station in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire. Marc, a world-weary advertising man, takes pity when no-one responds to her pleas for listeners to text her show. He falls for her and invents a whole cast of characters, a total of 18, and assigns a second-hand mobile to each. The station's fortunes change dramatically as a result of all the messages they receive from these individuals, not having a clue that they are fictitious. Marc and Nicky, whose ambition has driven her from executive bed to bed, finally make out - but his texts have been so convincing she's fallen for one of his characters! Nicky then discovers Marc's deception, and flees. Mortified, Marc is shocked to find how she has been deceiving him all along. Finally he is rescued by one of her broadcasting colleagues. They fall in love, marry, settle down... and Nicky, meanwhile, lands the job of her dreams.