SUGARPLUMS AND SCANDAL brings together the best of romance and mystery in one delightful collection of Christmas tales. In the expert hands of six of Avon's best storytellers, the holiday season takes on an air of love and scandalous surprises! Filled with Christmas miracles, romance, and suspense, this will make the perfect gift for both romance and mystery fans. Each author brings their own unique voice and characters to the collection, as well as their fan followings. All I Want For Christmas is My Two Front Teeth – Lori Avocato The Lords of Misrule – Dana Cameron The Ghost of Christmas Passed – Mary Daheim Partners in Crime – Cait London Holly Go Lightly – Suzanne Macpherson A Very Vampy Christmas – Kerrelyn Sparks

A novel which conveys the invigorating spirit that has been infused into the life of Russia by her first Revolution.

“This is a book about how Italian artists of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance interpreted the life, teachings, and miracles of Jesus in their paintings—how they saw Jesus.” Robert Kiely goes through major sections of the Gospels, pausing with the Italian painters to consider Jesus, how he looks, how he stands or sits, how he interacts with other figures and the viewer, how his actions and teachings are interpreted and translated by artists into forms without words. Though seasoned with comments by theologians, and references to poetry and music, painters and their paintings are the guides to Kiely’s text—beguiling, challenging, consoling, instructing—displaying their colors, skill, and perspective while beckoning the viewer back to scripture and to the Jesus “who accepted to be seen.”

There was a time between Be-Bop and Hip-Hop, when a new generation of teenagers created rock 'n' roll. Cole was one of those teenagers and was host of his own Saturday night, pop music TV show. "Sh-Boom!"! is the pop-culture chronicle of that exciting time when teenagers created their own music.

Bikers and Pearls by Vicki Wilkerson Who said tempting a sweet Southern belle would be easy? When rebel biker Bullworth Clayton gets tangled up with pastel-and-pearls-clad April Church, sparks fly. Sure, April would clearly rather work with anyone else, but if teaming up with Bull means a successful charity event for a sick little boy they both care about, then so be it. April is baffled at how drawn she is to the leather-wearing, tattooed Bull—he just doesn't fit with her simple, safe, country-club life. And as much as the handsomely rugged man tempts her, she still can't shake the images of the tragic motorcycle accident from her past, which left her scarred and her father broken. Bull tempts her to don a pair of leather pants and go for a ride with him, while April desperately tries to resist her attraction to the wild side and keep her exploits hidden from her small town. Will they be able to navigate their differences and find a middle road to love?

In late 1980s rural Kansas, Mara finds herself taking on more than she can chew. Mara’s mother is a woman arguably ahead of her own time when it comes to the investigative day job she holds, and her own progressive take and unwanted oversharing of her thoughts on the day’s larger social justice issues. Mara’s story allows the reader to start their journey following her mother’s divorce from Mara’s abusive stepfather, and make the move with Mara, her two youngest sisters, and her mother from city life to the rural awakenings that seem to only exacerbate her mother’s own baby boomer inclination towards double standards. Sprinkle in three know-it-all rural town biddies to ensure that The Greatest Generation has their say, and it’s no wonder Xer children are now all referred to as “survivors.” Mara is determined to show her mother, and an entire town of rural Kansans, that the only parties in need of a clue are they themselves. As long as Mara remains convinced that she will win in the battle of wills against her seasoned mother, absolutely nothing at all will go sidewise in this book for any of the characters. An authentic throwdown between the baby boomer and Xer generations, delving into everything from childhood abuse, racism, abortion, religion, higher education, and ensuring those familial elitists who we all believe we know (and either love or hate) are well set for the next generation of epic failure and loss. Sure to infuriate all comers, keep everyone laughing and crying in equal measures. Mara and her mother prove that simply being human, and a product of one’s own generational time, cultural norms, and familial expectations is more than sufficient to ensure offensiveness for generations to come. The challenge lies in learning to love and find the best in each other during times when the last thing in the world any of us wants to do is love or find the best in each other. This book comes with every trigger warning known to mankind. If you are a survivor of childhood sexual or physical abuse and trauma, post-abortion trauma, or racial-related childhood or adult traumas, the author of this book cautions the reader. This book is intended for mature audiences over the age of twenty-five. Parents are not advised to purchase this book for young teenage readers.

A must-read for parents and teachers, this major bestseller reveals how cultural literacy is the hidden key to effective education and presents 5000 facts that every literate American should know. In this forceful manifesto Professor E. D. Hirsch, Jr., argues that children in the United States are being deprived of the basic knowledge that would enable them to function in contemporary society. They lack cultural literacy: a grasp of background information that writers and speakers assume their audience already has. Even if a student has a basic competence in the English language, he or she has little chance of entering the American mainstream without knowing what a silicon chip is, or when the Civil War was fought. An important work that has engendered a nationwide debate on our educational standards, Cultural Literacy is a required reading for anyone concerned with our future as a literate nation.