Brynn Escape. That was my sole focus. Forget the headlines, forget the threats. Forgetting what I've done? Never. To disappear, I needed money. I fled the big city in the desert to hide in a small town amongst the pines. The plan? Blend in, work until I have what I need, and then vanish. The problem? Connor Vale ruined everything. Falling for him would be easy, if it weren't for one inescapable truth: For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, and nobody around me is safe. Connor Brynn Montgomery slammed into my life like a category five hurricane. She stepped in front of my truck, and everything changed. One second to swerve, one second to jump from my vehicle, one second to never be the same. I gave her a job. It wasn't a smart idea. She's guarded, withdrawn, and aloof. She wears shirts with snarky sayings and won't let me get within a foot of her. She doesn't talk much, so I watch her move. Unspoken pain pours from her eyes, emotion moves with each twist of her lips. Hidden behind her prickly exterior is a tenderness that mesmerizes me. Every day she reveals a piece of herself. Every day I get closer to learning about the fear that grips her. Every day I fall a little more in love with her.

The glamorous world of a silent film star’s wife abruptly crumbles when she’s forcibly quarantined at the Carville Lepers Home in this page-turning story of courage, resilience, and reinvention set in 1920s Louisiana and Los Angeles. Based on little-known history, this timely book will strike a chord with readers of Fiona Davis, Tracey Lange, and Marie Benedict. Based on the true story of America’s only leper colony, The Second Life of Mirielle West brings vividly to life the Louisiana institution known as Carville, where thousands of people were stripped of their civil rights, branded as lepers, and forcibly quarantined throughout the entire 20th century. For Mirielle West, a 1920’s socialite married to a silent film star, the isolation and powerlessness of the Louisiana Leper Home is an unimaginable fall from her intoxicatingly chic life of bootlegged champagne and the star-studded parties of Hollywood’s Golden Age. When a doctor notices a pale patch of skin on her hand, she’s immediately branded a leper and carted hundreds of miles from home to Carville, taking a new name to spare her family and famous husband the shame that accompanies the disease. At first she hopes her exile will be brief, but those sent to Carville are more prisoners than patients and their disease has no cure. Instead she must find community and purpose within its walls, struggling to redefine her self-worth while fighting an unchosen fate. As a registered nurse, Amanda Skenandore’s medical background adds layers of detail and authenticity to the experiences of patients and medical professionals at Carville – the isolation, stigma, experimental treatments, and disparate community. A tale of repulsion, resilience, and the Roaring ‘20s, The Second Life of Mirielle West is also the story of a health crisis in America’s past, made all the more poignant by the author’s experiences during another, all-too-recent crisis. PRAISE FOR AMANDA SKENANDORE’S BETWEEN EARTH AND SKY “Intensely emotional…Skenandore’s deeply introspective and moving novel will appeal to readers of American history.” —Publishers Weekly

From the New York Times bestselling author of Before I Go to Sleep, a sensational new psychological thriller about a woman with a secret identity that threatens to destroy her. How well can you really know another person? How far would you go to find the truth about someone you love? When Julia learns that her sister has been violently murdered, she must uncover why. But Julia's quest quickly evolves into an alluring exploration of own darkest sensual desires. Becoming involved with a dangerous stranger online, she's losing herself . . . losing control . . . perhaps losing everything. Her search for answers will jeopardize her marriage, her family, and her life. A tense and unrelenting novel that explores the secret lives people lead—and the dark places in which they can find themselves—Second Life is a masterwork of suspense from the acclaimed S. J. Watson.

Ember I was eighteen when Noah Sutton entered my life. He was destined for greatness, and I could barely scrape enough money together to help my mother pay our rent. We fell in love. A summer of pushing limits, breaking rules, and living in moments I thought would last forever. None of that stopped him from leaving. Noah All my life I had one passion, one goal, a singular pursuit. Then Ember happened. A free spirit, a girl who didn't need music to dance. She filled my rigid world with the very thing I didn't know it was missing. I've always regretted leaving her. What's the point of realizing a dream if she isn't there to share it with? Getting her back won't be easy. She's moved on. My whole life has been one big competition, and it just so happens I've never accepted defeat. Game on.

What does it really mean to be a grown up in today’s world? We assume that once we “get it together” with the right job, marry the right person, have children, and buy a home, all is settled and well. But adulthood presents varying levels of growth, and is rarely the respite of stability we expected. Turbulent emotional shifts can take place anywhere between the age of thirty-five and seventy when we question the choices we’ve made, realize our limitations, and feel stuck—commonly known as the “midlife crisis.” Jungian psycho-analyst James Hollis believes it is only in the second half of life that we can truly come to know who we are and thus create a life that has meaning. In Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life, Hollis explores the ways we can grow and evolve to fully become ourselves when the traditional roles of adulthood aren’t quite working for us, revealing a new way of uncovering and embracing our authentic selves. Offering wisdom to anyone facing a career that no longer seems fulfilling, a long-term relationship that has shifted, or family transitions that raise issues of aging and mortality, Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life provides a reassuring message and a crucial bridge across this critical passage of adult development.

Trees can live a very long time, but what happens when they die? This unusual book describes, in lyrical prose accompanied by colorful and graphic illustrations, that trees have a whole long second life, continuing to contribute to their habitat, the environment, and the cycle of life.

When you find the courage to change at midlife, Angeles Arrien teaches, a miracle happens. Your character is opened, deepened, strengthened, softened. You return to your souls highest values. You are now prepared to create your legacy: an imprint of your dream for our world - a dream that can fully come true in The Second Half of Life. Worki...

Whoever you are at this moment, you have a choice. You can believe menopause signals the end or you can make a few small changes to finally become the person you always thought you could be. In her groundbreaking book, Jill Shaw Ruddock offers answers to the questions women think and care about at this time of their life. 'The change' is not just physical but cerebral as well. Although a woman can no longer create life, this is the time when she can give birth to herself. Drawing on her extensive experience, research and interviews, Jill Shaw Ruddock scrutinises what could be holding you back and provides practical, hands-on advice on how to harness the new-found focus that menopause brings. From money to the mind, dating to divorce, exercise to eating and separation to self-expression, Ruddock's inspiring book sets out a game plan to prepare and guide you to make the second half of your life the best half.

A personal guide for implementing the principles of 'Halftime, ' and thus making the journey from success to significance

Millions of people around the world today spend portions of their lives in online virtual worlds. Second Life is one of the largest of these virtual worlds. The residents of Second Life create communities, buy property and build homes, go to concerts, meet in bars, attend weddings and religious services, buy and sell virtual goods and services, find friendship, fall in love--the possibilities are endless, and all encountered through a computer screen. At the time of its initial publication in 2008, Coming of Age in Second Life was the first book of anthropology to examine this thriving alternate universe. Tom Boellstorff conducted more than two years of fieldwork in Second Life, living among and observing its residents in exactly the same way anthropologists traditionally have done to learn about cultures and social groups in the so-called real world. He conducted his research as the avatar "Tom Bukowski," and applied the rigorous methods of anthropology to study many facets of this new frontier of human life, including issues of gender, race, sex, money, conflict and antisocial behavior, the construction of place and time, and the interplay of self and group. Coming of Age in Second Life shows how virtual worlds can change ideas about identity and society. Bringing anthropology into territory never before studied, this book demonstrates that in some ways humans have always been virtual, and that virtual worlds in all their rich complexity build upon a human capacity for culture that is as old as humanity itself. Now with a new preface in which the author places his book in light of the most recent transformations in online culture, Coming of Age in Second Life remains the classic ethnography of virtual worlds.