The extraordinary debut collection from the Guggenheim Award-winning author of the forthcoming Gold Fame Citrus Winner of the 2012 Story Prize Recipient of the American Academy of Arts and Letters 2013 Rosenthal Family Foundation Award Named one of the National Book Foundation's "5 Under 35" fiction writers of 2012 Winner of New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award NPR Best Short Story Collections of 2012 A Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, and Time Out New York Best Book of the year, and more . . . Like the work of Cormac McCarthy, Denis Johnson, Richard Ford, and Annie Proulx, Battleborn represents a near-perfect confluence of sensibility and setting, and the introduction of an exceptionally powerful and original literary voice. In each of these ten unforgettable stories, Claire Vaye Watkins writes her way fearlessly into the mythology of the American West, utterly reimagining it. Her characters orbit around the region's vast spaces, winning redemption despite - and often because of - the hardship and violence they endure. The arrival of a foreigner transforms the exchange of eroticism and emotion at a prostitution ranch. A prospecting hermit discovers the limits of his rugged individualism when he tries to rescue an abused teenager. Decades after she led her best friend into a degrading encounter in a Vegas hotel room, a woman feels the aftershock. Most bravely of all, Watkins takes on - and reinvents - her own troubled legacy in a story that emerges from the mayhem and destruction of Helter Skelter. Arcing from the sweeping and sublime to the minute and personal, from Gold Rush to ghost town to desert to brothel, the collection echoes not only in its title but also in its fierce, undefeated spirit the motto of her home state.

Don't miss the first-ever young adult fiction novel based on the megahit Halo video game series! Saskia, Dorian, Evie, and Victor aren't exactly friends at their small high school on the middle-of-nowhere colony world of Meridian. Each has their own problems, from absent parents to supporting their family, getting into a good college to making the next hit holo-film. But those problems were nothing next to the threat now facing their world: The alien alliance known as the Covenant is laying siege to Meridian, for reasons that aren't so easily explained. With their village in flames, the four teens find themselves stuck aboveground, locked out of the town shelter where the rest of the survivors are gathered. Together, Saskia, Dorian, Evie, and Victor are thrust into battle with nothing but a few scavenged weapons and an injured Spartan, one of the UNSC's super-soldiers. What's forged from the destruction will determine the fate of Meridian, and tilt the battle for humanity's survival.

Patrick McLanahan is back — and this time he faces his most difficult challenge. He must pull together a team of aggressive, maverick young pilots to face a world on the brink of massive nuclear conflict. It begins with a joint U.S.-Japanese-South Korean mock bombing raid. But the South Korean fighter pilots don't stick to the script. Instead, they race across the border into North Korea to support a massive people's revolt against the Communists. Virtually overnight, the fledgling United Korea is the world's newest nuclear power, igniting a fuse that threatens to blow Asia apart and trigger World War III. Only McLanahan has the top-secret aviation technology and the brash young heroes to stop the coming inferno — if he can get them to stop fighting each other and start fighting as a team before the world is reduced to cinders!

From the bestselling author of The White Donkey, a heartbreaking and visceral graphic novel set against the stark beauty of Afghanistan's mountain villages that examines prejudice and the military remnants of colonialism. In this hotly anticipatednew work from Maximilian Uriarte, creator of the popular Terminal Lance comics and The White Donkey, tells a "thrillingly cinematic" (Publishers Weekly) story of the personal cost of war and the power of human connection. Lapis Lazuli is a rich blue semiprecious gemstone found deep in the Sar-i-sang mountains of Afghanistan's Badakhshan province. For thousands of years it has sustained the nearby mining villages, whose inhabitants lived peacefully in the mountainous landscape--until the Taliban, known in the region as the Horsemen, came to seek the riches stored deep beneath the earth. Taliban rule has turned the stone into a conflict mineral, as they steal and sell it for their own gain. At the behest of the fledgling Afghan government, seeking to wrest back control of the province, United States Marines are sent into the mountains. A platoon led by their eager and naive commander, First Lieutenant Roberts, and a stoic, fierce squad leader, Sergeant King, must overcome barriers of language and culture in this remote region to win the locals' trust, and their freedom from Taliban rule. Along the way, they must also wrestle with their demons--and face unimaginably difficult choices. A sweeping yet intimate story about brutality, kindness, and the remnants of colonialism, Battle Born: Lapis Lazuli is an epic saga from the voice of a new generation of military veterans.

Author of an extraordinary string of New York Times bestselling novels, Dale Brown is the undisputed master of the aerial techno-thriller. Filled with explosive adventure, unforgettable characters, and authentic technology set against political scenarios so real they often anticipate world events, each of Dale Brown's novels is a major event. Now he returns to the airspace only he can truly call his own, in a blockbuster novel about a world on the brink of World War III and a new generation of brash young heroes... Patrick McLanahan is back. The veteran navigator-bombardier and brigadier general in the U.S. Air Force has been sent to a B-1B Lancer unit in Nevada to develop and train a tactical strike unit designed to seek out and destroy enemy missiles. He has his pick of the most aggressive Type A personalities in the flying game, though it may take years to pull this bunch of mavericks together to fight as a team. Then time runs out. The fragile peace in Asia is shattered when what was supposed to be a joint U.S.-Japan-South Korea mock bombing raid turns lethal. Instead of hewing to the script, South Korean fighter-bombers streak north to destroy several North Korean command-and-control, special forces, and secret police centers in support of a massive people's revolt against the Communist regime. To the world's surprise, the raids are a complete success. The North Korean military surrenders. The borders are thrown wide open and the United Republic of Korea is born. But this United Korea is also the world's newest nuclear power. It refuses to destroy thousands of captured nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, which it sees as potent protection against the massive threat of China to its north. Vowing never again to be anyone's puppet, it is ready to defy the United States and even attack China in order to preserve its sovereignty. Thus begins a conflict that threatens to embroil all of Asia. Enter McLanahan's raw, audacious team. Sent into the fray both to protect United Korea and to stop it from touching off World War III, Patrick's small but potent hunter-killer bomber force has the world's newest, most powerful nonnuclear weapon at its disposal--if its aces ever stop fighting each other long enough to start fighting the enemy.... Relentlessly paced, filled with the you-are-there feel of supersonic flight, Battle Born delivers the technology, action, and drama that Brown fans savor. It is this marvelous storyteller's most exciting and satisfying novel yet.

In a truly loving manner, Fr. John Waiss tackles the major issues on homosexual attraction and relationships what the Bible says?Ǫ the Catholic Church says?Ǫ what science says?Ǫ etc. facing head-on the difficult challenges put to Christians, such as:Is it a sin to be born gay? Is homosexuality an intrinsic disorder ?Is gay-marriage a civil right, like interracial marriage?Born to Love offers HOPE for developing a solid, peace-filled personal identity based on relationships not sexual attraction applying Pope John Paul IIs personalism and Theology of the Body to present the full Christian teaching in an attractive manner.Homosexuality and HopeSunday Night Live with Father Benedict Groeschel on E.W.T.N.

An Instant New York Times Bestseller! Winner of the Coretta Scott King - John Steptoe for New Talent Author Award Filled with mystery and an intriguingly rich magic system, Tracy Deonn’s YA contemporary fantasy reinvents the King Arthur legend and “braids together Southern folk traditions and Black Girl Magic into a searing modern tale of grief, power, and self-discovery” (Dhonielle Clayton, New York Times bestselling author of The Belles). After her mother dies in an accident, sixteen-year-old Bree Matthews wants nothing to do with her family memories or childhood home. A residential program for bright high schoolers at UNC–Chapel Hill seems like the perfect escape—until Bree witnesses a magical attack her very first night on campus. A flying demon feeding on human energies. A secret society of so called “Legendborn” students that hunt the creatures down. And a mysterious teenage mage who calls himself a “Merlin” and who attempts—and fails—to wipe Bree’s memory of everything she saw. The mage’s failure unlocks Bree’s own unique magic and a buried memory with a hidden connection: the night her mother died, another Merlin was at the hospital. Now that Bree knows there’s more to her mother’s death than what’s on the police report, she’ll do whatever it takes to find out the truth, even if that means infiltrating the Legendborn as one of their initiates. She recruits Nick, a self-exiled Legendborn with his own grudge against the group, and their reluctant partnership pulls them deeper into the society’s secrets—and closer to each other. But when the Legendborn reveal themselves as the descendants of King Arthur’s knights and explain that a magical war is coming, Bree has to decide how far she’ll go for the truth and whether she should use her magic to take the society down—or join the fight.

It is 1910 and Philadelphia is burning. The last place Spring wants to be is in the run-down, colored section of a hospital surrounded by the groans of sick people and the ghost of her dead sister. But as her son Edward lays dying, she has no other choice. There are whispers that Edward drove a streetcar into a shop window. Some people think it was an accident, others claim that it was his fault, the police are certain that he was part of a darker agenda. Is he guilty? Can they find the truth? All Spring knows is that time is running out. She has to tell him the story of how he came to be. With the help of her dead sister, newspaper clippings, and reconstructed memories, she must find a way to get through to him. To shatter the silences that governed her life, she will do everything she can to lead Edward home.

THE FIRST NOVEL IN THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING ELDER RACES SERIES! Half-human and half-wyr, Pia Giovanni spent her life keeping a low profile among the wyrkind and avoiding the continuing conflict between them and their Dark Fae enemies. But after being blackmailed into stealing a coin from the hoard of a dragon, Pia finds herself targeted by one of the most powerful—and passionate—of the Elder races. As the most feared and respected of the wyrkind, Dragos Cuelebre cannot believe someone had the audacity to steal from him, much less succeed. And when he catches the thief, Dragos spares her life, claiming her as his own to further explore the desire they’ve ignited in each other. Pia knows she must repay Dragos for her trespass, but refuses to become his slave—although she cannot deny wanting him, body and soul...

The much-anticipated finale to Amie Kaufman's epic middle-grade trilogy Though Anders and his friends have delayed a war between the ice wolves and scorch dragons, their mission isn't over. With adults on both sides looking for them, they've sought refuge in Cloudhaven, a forbidden stronghold created by the first dragonsmiths. The ancient text covering Cloudhaven's walls could be the key to saving their home -- if only the young elementals could decipher it. To make matters worse, Holbard is in ruins and its citizens are reeling. Many have been forced into bleak camps outside the city, and food is running short. To rebuild Vallen, Anders, Rayna, and their allies must find a way to unite humans, ice wolves, and scorch dragons before they lose their last chance. In the final book of international bestselling author Amie Kaufman's sensational adventure series, Anders and Rayna must put everything on the line -- and the price of peace may hit closer to home than they could've ever imagined. AWARDS Shortlisted - 2021 Sara Douglass Book Series Award PRAISE FOR SCORCH DRAGONS: 'I found a satisfying fantasy world like none I have read before - one in which dragons and wolves take human form and have magical powers. One of the strengths of this book is the exploration of the idea that truth is a matter of perspective - that there are two (or more) sides to every story. There is no clear enemy, the conflict arises from the tension between the dragons and the wolves, and the reader can empathise with both sides, even though many of the adults in the story cannot ... This is a great book for middle-grade readers 8-12.' - Reading Time PRAISE FOR ICE WOLVES: 'An engaging world and cliffhanger ending leave readers wanting more' -- Kirkus, starred review 'Engaging to the end' -- Books+Publishing 'you'll wind up on the edge of your seat, unable to put it down' -- New York Times bestseller Meagan Spooner 'A thrilling, nonstop adventure' -- New York Times bestseller Shannon Messenger