Exploring ties of life in story and experience, Bullhorn High Wire winds its poems with varying rhythm and structure, unhindered or refined for natural need, to capture moment and expectation. The poems elevate conversation into higher realms of hope and purpose like highlighting the wonder of the bedtime routines of the author’s children and witnessing the beauty and grace of growing up on the high plains. Bullhorn High Wire celebrates poetry and invites readers to have fun with it, especially if you think you don’t like poetry. The poems are accessible and dense with deeper meaning and often echo the wisdom of great voices while beckoning to true importance. In dealing with abstract themes, many of the poems employ narrative vision to highlight nature and structure in metaphor for the intangible. The throughline of it all is the author’s faith.

Prankster twins Edgar and Ellen think they have found kindred spirits when they join the circus to escape from their mysterious caretaker and the one-eyed creature Pet, but they soon discover that it is hard to tell friend from foe.

A dazzling, spellbinding novel set in a mythical Jewish community by the acclaimed author of the New York Times Notable Book The Book of Mischief It's the late 1960s. The Pinch, once a thriving Jewish community centered on North Main Street in Memphis, has been reduced to a single tenant. Lenny Sklarew awaits the draft by peddling drugs and shelving books—until he learns he is a character in a book about the rise and fall of this very Pinch. Muni Pinsker, who authored the book in an enchanted day containing years, arrived in the neighborhood at its height and was smitten by an alluring tightrope walker. Muni's own story is dovetailed by that of his uncle Pinchas Pin, whose epic journey to North Main Street forms the book's spine. Steve Stern interweaves these tales with an ingenious structure that merges past with present, and his wildly inventive fabulism surpasses everything he's done before. Together, these intersecting stories transform the real-world experience of Lenny, whose fate determines the future of the Pinch, in this brilliant, unforgettable novel.

Irene grew up traveling around Germany with her family’s circus, surrounded by her loved ones and thrilling the crowds with her performance on the high wire...until one day, the audience boos. The Lorch family is Jewish, and the increasing power of Adolf Hitler’s Nazis has put them all in grave danger. When the circus is forced to shut down and Irene’s father is taken away, Irene and her mother must go into hiding with another circus. Every day is a frightening new kind of balancing act, caught between the desire to perform and the need to hide—even in plain sight.

After a suspicious accident occurs at the circus, Shelby is determined to find out who's been clowning around.

Denver's newest detective. A garden's deadly secrets. On a lovely June night in 1924, amateur detective Annalee Spain is mingling bravely at a high-class political fundraiser in the lush backyard garden of famed political fixer Cooper Coates, one of the wealthiest men in Denver's Black neighborhood of Five Points. When Coates's young daughter discovers a pretty stranger dead in her father's garden shed, Annalee is thrust onto the baffling new case just as she's reeling from another recent discovery--a handwritten letter, found buried in her own garden, that reveals the identity of her mother. Not ready to face the truth about her hidden past, Annalee throws herself into solving the mystery of the young woman's demise. With the help of her pastor boyfriend Jack Blake, her orphaned buddy Eddie, and her trustworthy church friends, Annalee follows the clues to three seemingly disconnected settings--a traveling carnival set up downtown, a Black civic club, and a prestigious white seminary on the outskirts of Denver. Intriguing advice also comes from a famous, real-life Denver visitor. But is Annalee on the right track or just running in circles, fleeing from conflicts racing in her heart? In a taut, heart-gripping narrative driven by secrets, romance, and lies, Annalee must unravel a case with higher stakes than she imagined--one where answers about a lovely woman's death point to truths and tensions still throbbing today. A clean historical mystery featuring an amateur female detective, from the Christy Award-winning author of All That Is Secret Third installment in the Annalee Spain series Includes discussion questions for book groups

Dale E. Basye's most over-the-top (the Big Top, that is) adventure yet is now available in paperback. When Marlo Fauster claims she has switched souls with her brother, she gets sent straight to Fibble, the circle of Heck reserved for liars. But it's true—Milton and Marlo have switched places, and Marlo finds herself trapped in Milton's gross, gangly body. She also finds herself trapped in Fibble, a three-ring media circus run by none other than P. T. Barnum, an insane ringmaster with grandiose plans and giant, flaming pants. Meanwhile Milton, as Marlo, is working at the devil's new television network, T.H.E.E.N.D. But there's something strange about these new shows. Why do they all air at the same time? And are they really broadcasting to the Surface? Soon Milton and Marlo realize that they need each other to sort through the lies and possibly prevent the end of the world—if Bea "Elsa" Bubb doesn't catch them first.

A revealing look at how today’s bureaucrats are finding their public voice in the era of 24-hour media Once relegated to the anonymous back rooms of democratic debate, our bureaucratic leaders are increasingly having to govern under the scrutiny of a 24-hour news cycle, hyperpartisan political oversight, and a restless populace that is increasingly distrustful of the people who govern them. Megaphone Bureaucracy reveals how today’s civil servants are finding a voice of their own as they join elected politicians on the public stage and jockey for advantage in the persuasion game of modern governance. In this timely and incisive book, Dennis Grube draws on in-depth interviews and compelling case studies from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand to describe how senior bureaucrats are finding themselves drawn into political debates they could once avoid. Faced with a political climate where polarization and media spin are at an all-time high, these modern mandarins negotiate blame games and manage contradictory expectations in the glare of an unforgiving spotlight. Grube argues that in this fiercely divided public square a new style of bureaucratic leadership is emerging, one that marries the robust independence of Washington agency heads with the prudent political neutrality of Westminster civil servants. These “Washminster” leaders do not avoid the public gaze, nor do they overtly court political controversy. Rather, they use their increasingly public pulpits to exert their own brand of persuasive power. Megaphone Bureaucracy shows how today’s senior bureaucrats are making their voices heard by embracing a new style of communication that brings with it great danger but also great opportunity.

An ecological hellfire threatens the west coast of North America in this international thriller from the bestselling author of the WWIII novels. In the early dawn fog off the coast of Southern Alaska, two million-ton tankers collide. Both are fully loaded: the American Kodiak with crude oil; the Russian Sakhalin with high octane. It’s a nightmare scenario that becomes an international disaster of epic proportions when a single match ignites nearly two thousand square miles of ocean. As the firespill expands, threatening thousands of lives, everyone—from rescue teams to world leaders—are at the mercy of the currents. Bestselling author Ian Slater’s debut thriller is a gripping shockwave of a novel that “wrap[s] pure terror in a very readable package” (The Washington Post). “As impelling a storyteller as you’re likely to encounter.” —Clive Cussler, New York Times–bestselling author of Havana Storm “Slater deals effectively with social overtones and small human details (riots in Tokyo; the destruction of a rose garden) as with the progress of the flames.” —The Washington Post