Carmen's tumultuous life is finally normal, and she's happy with Kevin, her loving, supportive husband. Everything seems to be looking up until their one-year wedding anniversary when a friend is murdered. The murder turns out to be a professional hit, and the killer mistakenly slaughtered two innocent people when the actual targets were Carmen and Kevin. To protect them both, Kevin fakes his death so he can investigate. Carmen must go on the run but not before she buries a coffin filled with two concrete blocks. She leaves her marriage home unaware if she'll ever see Kevin again as he goes undercover to prove that his stepson ordered them to be killed. Carmen assumes a new name and identity. She discovers a passion for horse training and decides to chase the Triple Crown. Her new path returns her to a thirty-minute romance she had twenty years ago, and again, destiny makes her choose between two men.

Boredom from retirement is lost on a day when two retired friends discover the horror of an auction where they have mistakenly bid on the wrong racehorse. But perhaps a hidden blessing may have been planned, unknown to these horse lovers. God allows trouble to help us grow, and with God, all things are possible. Join Jim and Norm and lady jock Vickie in the training of a wonder horse. Charlie and his trainer, Steve, take the reader on a fantastic fairy tale of an adventure.

Hear the story of the rise of one of Irish rugby's great outsiders and, ultimately, his crushing fall. As the longest-serving national coach in Irish rugby history, Eddie O'Sullivan produced a team that rose to third in the world rankings and laid down the standards for the team to fulfil its Grand Slam potential. Added to the three Triple Crowns he won in his six-year reign and the Corkman ought to enjoy legendary status in his homeland. Yet, few figures in Irish sport divide opinion quite like O'Sullivan. Ireland's abject performance at the '07 World Cup in France prompted extraordinary levels of criticism and precipitated O'Sullivan's fall. Here O'Sullivan talks candidly of the spectacular unravelling of confidence within probably the best Irish team in history; of the bizarre rumour mill that followed the Irish team through that World Cup; and takes us behind the scenes of a story that tossed an entire nation into mourning. From his relationships with his successor as Irish coach, Declan Kidney, and indeed his predecessor, Warren Gatland, to his early struggle for recognition in the Irish game when the absence of a traditional rugby background militated against him, O'Sullivan pulls no punches in this revelatory story about far more than rugby.

Certain individuals find a singular moment in life used to portray them and/or define them, if not basically brand them. In the world of sports, particularly baseball, this practice is raised to a level that is questionable at best, laughable in most instances and blatantly unfair as a rule. The sports media, along with a growing portion of the general public that refuses to form their own opinions, goes to extremes to constantly relive an individuals weak moments. Curiously, they often then close their ridiculing diatribes by mentioning that labeling a particular person is really unfair. In Never These Men, Thomas Porky McDonald, whose previous works stressed the notion that a game like baseball is there for the joy it gives to those who truly love it and understand it, takes a peek at a small collection of the most famous (or is it infamous?) of these media-fueled characters. The idea that someone who cannot possibly do something (play professional sports) might then play judge and jury on those that can (athletes) seems absurd to McDonald, who clearly feels that the ever-growing rash of media outlets, in concert with an unthinking generation of spectators, has only bloated the array of unfounded criticisms and hypocritical rhetoric within our midst. From Fred Merkle, an early media creation, through to Bill Buckner, a truly fine and underrated ballplayer, Never These Men fundamentally asks the reader to imagine how it feels to be branded for a singular moment in ones life. McDonald, foremost a poet, liberally spreads a few relevant original verses throughout this volume, which is fundamentally a call for fair play. The idea of balanced and proper reporting is considered as well, as in the cases of Ralph Branca, Mitch Williams and Ralph Terry. Though all three were solid Major Leaguers who gave up famous home runs, only the former two are constantly cited, a point of contention here. In the area of authority figures, why Charles Comiskey and Judge Landis are barely scrutinized for their truly abhorrent behavior, while a lifetime baseball man like Gene Mauch is merely brushed aside by far too many is a question that clearly haunts this writer. Never These Men asserts that working in a world with little or no accountability, while demanding total accountability from those whose skill and expertise literally creates your professional existence, is an absurdity that needs to be addressed.

From Honus Wagner to Johnny Bench, Baseball As I Have Known It covers sixty-six seasons of America’s national sport. Fred Lieb, the dean of baseball writers, tells about its heroes, rogues, controversies, and grand plays. He broke in as a sportswriter in the Polo Grounds press box in 1911. In 1933, in the midst of the Depression, Lieb was fired from the New York Post and began a freelance career writing about his beloved sport. Baseball As I Have Known It, first published in 1977 when Lieb was eighty-nine years old, remains a vital record of a glorious bygone era. In superb style, he comments on changes in baseball over the decades and tells inside stories about great events and immortal players.

As America lurched into the twentieth century, its national pastime was afflicted with the same moral malaise that was enveloping the rest of the nation. Players regularly bet on games, games were routinely fixed, and league politics were as dirty as the base paths. Against this backdrop, Hal Chase emerged as one of the game's greatest players and also as one of its most scandalous characters. With charisma and bravado that earned him the nickname The Prince, Chase charmed his way across America, spinning lies in the afternoon, dealing high-stakes poker at night, and gambling with beautiful women until dawn. Most notoriously of all, he undermined his stature as the era's greatest first baseman by conniving with gamblers to fix games and draw teammates into his diamond conspiracies. But as Donald Dewey and Nicholas Acocella reveal in their groundbreaking biography, The Black Prince of Baseball, Chase was also a scapegoat for baseball notables with hands even dirtier than his. These included league officials who ignored facts in an attempt to pin the 1919 Black Sox scandal on him and--a previously unknown twist--the fabled John McGraw, who perjured himself on a witness stand against the first baseman. Although Chase, contrary to popular belief, was never banned from the major leagues, meticulous research by the authors implicates him in other shady enterprises as well, not least an attempt to blackmail revivalist Aimee Semple McPherson. As The Black Prince of Baseball makes clear, in his protean talents and larcenies, Hal Chase personified all the excesses of Ragtime.

It didn’t matter to Victor Kincaid which twin son he kept and which one he gave away. But it mattered very much to the tiny infant who was left near the altar of the church in the middle of that cold and moonless November night . . . Chase Carlton has been alone all his life. Yes, there have been women, many women, with whom he has shared the smoldering passion that comes from the dark danger that lies deep within him. But he has never known love, and with every case, every solitary journey into the unspeakably evil minds of the killers he pursues, his heart becomes ever colder. When he makes the stunning discovery that he has a twin who may have been murdered by his wife, he sets out to entrap the murderess, never imagining that it will be he who becomes entrapped, enchanted, by the most daring illusion of all . . . In the beginning, Jillian’s marriage to celebrated filmmaker Victor Kincaid was picture perfect. But over time everything changed. And on a fateful night he is lost at sea, presumed dead in a sailing accident. Then the news comes that he has miraculously survived. The man who returns to her looks like the husband who was lost, but there is something very different about him, and she finds herself falling in love again. But there is such danger for her heart with this man . . . and there’s another danger, a lethal one, a psychopath who chooses as his victims women who look like her. Praise for the novels of Katherine Stone: “Katherine Stone never fails to touch the heart. Her books brim with glowing warmth and satisfying emotion. She delivers richly textured tales of the search for a true bond and renews the reader’s sense of the healing power of love.” — Jayne Ann Krentz Katherine Stone's "high quality romance ranks right up there with Nora Roberts." — Booklist “Remarkably romantic and thoroughly enchanting.” — Rendezvous on Pearl Moon “The Stone magic makes these books such a pleasure to read and share.” — Rendezvous Katherine Stone writes “in the vein of Danielle Steel and Sandra Brown.” — Library Journal “A hauntingly beautiful story set against the splendor of California’s Napa Valley. An intriguing, multilayered tale filled with such deep emotions and vivid descriptions that it’s nearly impossible to put down.” — Rendezvous on Bed of Roses “Heart-tugging contemporary . . . few romance fans will remain unmoved.” — Publishers Weekly on Thief of Hearts “Poignant . . . Cass is an intrepid heroine, but it is Chase who wins our hearts when he refuses to allow Cass’s seeming betrayal to stop him from protecting his beloved.” — Midwest Book Review on Bed of Roses “Fairytale elements mix with those of a present day romance for . . . thoroughly enjoyable results.” — Kirkus Reviews on Rainbows “Sweeping drama . . . Her most emotionally charged and intricate story of love yet.” — Romantic Times on Imagine Love “Alluring . . . Fascinating . . . Each page brings a new adventure, every plot twist another question begging to be answered.” — Rendezvous on Imagine Love

The world's leading endurance athletes are not only some of the fittest people on the planet, they are also among the toughest mentally. To train and race at the highest level of competition over hundreds – and sometimes thousands – of miles takes preparation, dedication and the ability to push the body and mind beyond conventional limits. Ultra Performance offers an insight into the psychology of these athletes. Having interviewed fourteen ultra athletes, Paul Moore distils the dynamics of the mental toughness they required – the motivation, focus and ability to keep the mind positive deep in the heart of fatigue. What did it take, for instance, for Rachel Cadman to 'eat the elephant' of the Arch to Arc (running from London to Dover, swimming the Channel, then cycling to Paris)? And to win? That takes steeliness beyond all mere effort, pushing through and improvising when necessary. The stories of these hard-fought wins feature strongly in the contributions from Brett Sutton, world-renowned triathlon coach, and Craig Alexander, one of the greatest athletes in the history of Ironman. Others, like Dee Cafari, the first woman to circumnavigate the world solo in both directions, required the resilience to overcome challenges they had set themselves. With working examples of the implementation of their mental strategies, Ultra Performance not only gives an insight into the toughest moments these professional athletes have ever faced, but also offers advice to readers on how they can adapt and employ these techniques for themselves, often to the non-sporting pursuits of everyday life.

“In crisp, elegant prose, Drape captures his subjects and their sport as they wind through a wildly eventful season of racing.” —Laura Hillenbrand, #1 New York Times–bestselling author of Seabiscuit Rich in detail and crackling with wit, The Race for the Triple Crown is a personal narrative that captures the affecting stories of the Thoroughbred racing world. From ostentatious owners, to radiant unrivaled horses, to young trainers trying to make a name for themselves, everyone has a gripping story, and all are in search of the sport’s Holy Grail. How they get to and through the enormously famous races is a tale of action, high-stakes finance, and impossible odds. Told in the compelling voice of the award-winning New York Times sportswriter Joe Drape, The Race for the Triple Crown is a vivid portrait of a year in the life of the oldest, most majestic sport in the world. “If you ever wondered how it is that horse racing grabs people and then never lets them go, you’ll find out when you read this book. I loved it!” —Jane Smiley, New York Times–bestselling author of Horse Heaven “A first-rate and absorbing account by one who knows his material—a wonderful book that leads the field from starting gate to finish line. A delight for both aficionado and novice.” —George Plimpton “[Drape] opens up a magical, mysterious world—and he does it with equal parts humor, affection and wisdom.” —Bill Minutaglio, The Dallas Morning News