The first collection focused on the writing of provocative author and performance artist Sapphire, including her groundbreaking novel PUSH that has since become the Academy-award-winning film Precious.

In this compelling memoir, Brooke Shields talks candidly about her experience with postpartum depression after the birth of her daughter, and provides millions of women with an inspiring example of recovery. When Brooke Shields welcomed her newborn daughter, Rowan Francis, into the world, something unexpected followed--a crippling depression. Now, for the first time ever, in Down Came the Rain, Brooke talks about the trials, tribulations, and finally the triumphs that occurred before, during, and after the birth of her daughter.

Left in the dark all her life. 18 year old, Sapphire Green discovers she attracts blood craving, soul consuming parasites, called Nerriphs, otherworldly creatures. With the Glow she possesses, her Aunt Paulina, best friend, Courtney McCall and new mysterious crush, Damien Ashton all help to keep her from harm. On the run to somewhere safer, Sapphire and Damien declare their feelings for one another. But is it true or just false attraction he has from the Nerriph in him? And will everything go completely wrong for Sapphire?

“Packed with thrills and chills, carnage and couture. Serial killer hunter Sapphire Dubois is like a ‘Dexter’ of the debutante set” (Francine LaSala, author of A Comfortable Madness). While the young and obscenely wealthy of Beverly Hills spend their nights surrounded by trendy celebs and drugs at the hottest clubs, twenty-two-year-old Sapphire Dubois has a different hobby: She hunts serial killers. Luring, trapping, and anonymously handing over So-Cal’s most wanted to the police is a better high than any drug. But Sapphire’s secret may not be so safe, as one of the very people she hunts is watching her every move. Aware of her true identity and her unconventional activities, he’s determined to put an end to Sapphire once and for all. Paired up with her involuntary crush Det. Aston Ridder for her own protection, Sapphire now has to rethink her strategy not only to keep Aston in the dark, but to figure out how to capture a killer who already knows she’s coming. “[Sapphire Dubois] kicks butt and takes names. You wouldn’t expect that from a spoiled, rich girl. . . . I loved this book.” —Ionia Martin, author of Plundering the Romance Novel

Praise for Ujjain Steffen Horstmanns book Ujjain is a remarkable collection of Ghazals in Eng-lish. Steffen uses an ancient form of poetry to express the sensibility of a modern day poet, and by doing so, he crosses the boundaries of languages, cultures, and traditions. Agha Shahid Ali couldnt have been more proud of his Shagird Steffen Horstmann, who has kept the torch burning, that he passed on to him after writing Call Me Ishmael Tonight. Kalpna Singh-Chitnis, author of Bare Soul The meditative and sublime states in Steffen Horstmanns radiant collection Ujjain render sonorous arias of cautionary tales for our time-those places of beauty, loss and pain collide into a longing for a vanished world. In these astute ghazals, myth and life and after-life send this poet on a path to claim where the self fits in: Of a world that vanished before I existed. Horstmanns luminous voice guides us to where beauty resides, Through the dark like a train there, These evocations torque into epiphanies rich with awe to light our way-And we are so much richer for this journey. Cynthia Atkins, author of In the Event of Full Disclosure Steffen Horstmann is a worthy student of Agha Shahid Ali in this collection of ghazals which embrace the East and West, as much at ease on Arjunas chariot as among the sacred tombs of Ithaka, or the very real foothills of Qhar. The natural world is incandescent: Bass glisten in rock pools like slick knives / With silver light glinting in their fast shadows, but it is The Diva of Jalsaghar that elegantly soars on melody as Air is scriptured by the syllabic flight / Of the voice of Begum Akhtar. A thoughtful and lyrical collection of ghazals written in English. Dipika Mukherjee, author of Shambala Junction

The debut of a major new talent, SAPPHIRE'S GRAVE tells the stories of several generations of African-American women, bringing their spirit and their sorrow to life with a power, sensitivity, and immediacy. In 1749 in Sierra Leone, a woman of fierce dignity is captured and forced onto a slave ship. On the harrowing voyage to the Americas, she is beaten for her unrelenting will and staunch pride. When she arrives, she gives birth to a daughter who is called Sapphire because of the "black-blue-black" complexion she shares with her mother. Sapphire has also inherited her mother's strength and defiant spirit, and despite a life of poverty and opression, she grows up to mother several daughters of her own. Even when tragedy strikes and part of Sapphire dies, her strength gives rise to a legend that will sustain the women who follow her, "each carrying something of her mother, her grandmother, her aunts; each passing on to her own daughters blessing and cursing, the consequences of her own choosing. Through the lives of Sapphire and her descendants, Hilda Gurley-Highgate not only creates a poignant and engrossing saga of black women in America, she brilliantly illuminates the meaning of roots and the links between women and their female ancestors, a tie that often appears tenuous, undefined, and distant, but is strong, palpable, and much closer than we imagine. Written in luminous prose, SAPPHIRE'S GRAVE is an astonishing work by an author poised to take the literary world by storm.

In 1683 Samuel Pepys accompanied George Legge, Lord Dartmouth, to Tangier as his secretary. During the voyage Pepys kept another brief diary and miscellaneous notes which contain valuable information about the navy. He recorded his concerns, as well as the views of the sea officers and others with him. Richard Leake, master gunner, was criticised by Pepys for not being able to hit the side of the target, and for not being able to get the charges correct to blow up the forts. He recorded that Captain David Lloyd, a sea officer, was also a painter with a good reputation. Pepys records his views about the merits of gentleman captains and their behaviour compared to ‘tarpaulin captains’. He also collected in these Papers every story he could, about the alleged immorality and corruptness of Arthur Herbert, the commander-in-chief of the English Mediterranean fleet, in order to discredit him with the king. Herbert had, in fact, returned to England before Pepys had arrived in Tangier. The source of the stories about Herbert’s behaviour, in the Tangier Papers, came from old friends of Pepys and Herbert’s enemies, and are not to be trusted, or accepted as a true account of what Herbert achieved; this can only be traced through Herbert’s own letters and the unpublished admiralty papers in the Public Record Office.