♥A Christmas in July Romance ♥ She inherited a Bed & Breakfast. He’s the contractor hired to fix up the old building. They can’t stand each other, but they have to get married or lose the Inn. Ruby Rossi found an unexpected friend in the late Sandy Leblanc, owner of the Sandy Shore Inn who left it to her after passing away. She’s determined to prove herself worthy of the legacy. However, she’s not too fond of the carpenter Sandy appointed in her will to do repairs. Trent Cabot was estranged from his grandmother and is shocked when he learns of her passing. Even more surprising is the fact that she left her inn to a stranger but stipulated he remodel the place. The new owner is as stubborn as she is pretty, but he’s not the kind to settle down. However, Sandy’s will also requires the two get married by Christmas in July, a major event in the small town, or the Inn will be sold and the money donated to a resort investment firm that threatens Blue Bay Beach. Will Ruby and Trent make the arranged marriage work and get married in time to save the Inn? This is book 5 in the Blue Bay Beach Reads Romance series. Each story stands alone but reading them in order provides a deeper, richer experience. It is a sweet, small town, “clean and wholesome” romance, is faith-friendly, and contains a happily ever after.

In this gripping, atmospheric family drama, a young woman investigates the forty--year--old murder that inspired her mother's bestselling novel, and uncovers devastating truths--and dangerous lies. Reformed party girl Meg Ashley leads a life of privilege, thanks to a bestselling horror novel her mother wrote decades ago. But Meg knows that the glow of their very public life hides a darker reality of lies, manipulation, and the heartbreak of her own solitary childhood. Desperate to break free of her mother, Meg accepts a proposal to write a scandalous, tell-all memoir. Digging into the past--and her mother's cult classic--draws Meg to Bonny Island, Georgia, and an unusual woman said to be the inspiration for the book. At first island life seems idyllic, but as Meg starts to ask tough questions, disturbing revelations come to light...including some about her mother. Soon Meg's search leads her to question the facts of a decades-old murder. She's warned to leave it alone, but as the lies pile up, Meg knows she's getting close to finding a murderer. When her own life is threatened, Meg realizes the darkness found in her mother's book is nothing compared to the chilling truth that lurks off the page.

In the '60s and '70s, America's music scene was marked by raucous excess, reflected in the tragic overdoses of young superstars such as Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin. At the same time, the uplifting harmonies and sunny lyrics that propelled Karen Carpenter and her brother, Richard, to international fame belied a different sort of tragedy—the underconsumption that led to Karen's death at age thirty-two from the effects of an eating disorder. In Why Karen Carpenter Matters, Karen Tongson (whose Filipino musician parents named her after the pop icon) interweaves the story of the singer’s rise to fame with her own trans-Pacific journey between the Philippines—where imitations of American pop styles flourished—and Karen Carpenter’s home ground of Southern California. Tongson reveals why the Carpenters' chart-topping, seemingly whitewashed musical fantasies of "normal love" can now have profound significance for her—as well as for other people of color, LGBT+ communities, and anyone outside the mainstream culture usually associated with Karen Carpenter’s legacy. This hybrid of memoir and biography excavates the destructive perfectionism at the root of the Carpenters’ sound, while finding the beauty in the singer's all too brief life.

This pioneering work of political history recovers the central and largely forgotten role that petitioning played in the formative years of North American democracy. Known as the age of democracy, the nineteenth century witnessed the extension of the franchise and the rise of party politics. As Daniel Carpenter shows, however, democracy in America emerged not merely through elections and parties, but through the transformation of an ancient political tool: the petition. A statement of grievance accompanied by a list of signatures, the petition afforded women and men excluded from formal politics the chance to make their voices heard and to reshape the landscape of political possibility. Democracy by Petition traces the explosion and expansion of petitioning across the North American continent. Indigenous tribes in Canada, free Blacks from Boston to the British West Indies, Irish canal workers in Indiana, and Hispanic settlers in territorial New Mexico all used petitions to make claims on those in power. Petitions facilitated the extension of suffrage, the decline of feudal land tenure, and advances in liberty for women, African Americans, and Indigenous peoples. Even where petitioners failed in their immediate aims, their campaigns advanced democracy by setting agendas, recruiting people into political causes, and fostering aspirations of equality. Far more than periodic elections, petitions provided an everyday current of communication between officeholders and the people. The coming of democracy in America owes much to the unprecedented energy with which the petition was employed in the antebellum period. By uncovering this neglected yet vital strand of nineteenth-century life, Democracy by Petition will forever change how we understand our political history.

As summer ends and they get ready to go back to school, two young girls try to deal with the news that the grandparents they love are getting a divorce.

Another first for Bruce Lansky: the first funny poetry book about summer vacation! It will entertain kids all summer, whether they’re away at camp, traveling cross country in a hybrid or staying home with a bookshelf full of good summer reading. What I Did on My Summer Vacation contains over 40 sidesplitting poems about summer vacation that cover everything from the much-anticipated last day of school to family road trips, wacky days at summer camp, learning how to swim, dizzying roller coaster rides at amusement parks, fun-filled days at the beach, and finally, the dreaded first day of school. These hilarious poems written by Bruce Lansky, “The King of Giggle Poetry,” and his all-star gang of Giggle Poets are sure to make you count the days until summer vacation begins!

The cult classic fantasy of manners, now with three bonus stories “Swordspoint has an unforgettable opening and just gets better from there.”—George R. R. Martin Hailed by critics as “a bravura performance” (Locus) and “witty, sharp-eyed, [and] full of interesting people” (Newsday), this acclaimed novel, filled with remarkable plot twists and unexpected humor, takes fantasy to an unprecedented level of elegant writing and scintillating wit. Award-winning author Ellen Kushner has created a world of unforgettable characters whose political ambitions, passionate love affairs, and age-old rivalries collide with deadly results. On the treacherous streets of Riverside, a man lives and dies by the sword. Even the nobles on the Hill turn to duels to settle their disputes. Within this elite, dangerous world, Richard St. Vier is the undisputed master, as skilled as he is ruthless—until a death by the sword is met with outrage instead of awe, and the city discovers that the line between hero and villain can be altered in the blink of an eye.