A package lost in the mail since 1940 brings a modern couple together in a miraculous way. Bestselling author VIOLET PEARL lives a perfectly content life: she helps run The Texas Pearl, her family’s inn, lives with her sister and grandmother, and attends a great church just a block from home. She has never left her little corner of Texas and has no desire to do so now. In her spare time, Violet mentally travels to far off New York City, 1944, to solve crimes as the widow Mandalynn Clementine, the savvy sleuth in her murder mystery novels. US Army First Lieutenant CHASE ANDERSON feels like he needs a change. From his duty station in Hawaii, he receives a job offer in the civilian market at the same time he’s asked to coach a pee wee football camp hosted by his alma mater, Texas A&M. Chase decides to take leave and coach the summer camp, intending to also check out the job offer. He has no idea God has other plans for him. When a time-worn postal package arrives at the inn addressed to Chase Anderson with a 1940 postmark, Violet and Chase discover that his great-grandfather had also visited the inn as a guest all those years before. The box brings them together in a miraculous way, and their feelings for each other begin to grow. Will Chase resign his commission and live out his days in College Station? Or is Violet willing to break out of her perfectly contented shell and experience life beyond her little corner of Texas?

Leung is no rock star but he lives the life of one while following Pearl Jam on tour around the world, beginning in 2005 with a modest road trip in a beat-up van to see every Pearl Jam show across Canada. His ensuing journey continues across America, all over Europe, and around Australia during Pearl Jam's entire 2006 world tour.

From their creation in the maw of mollusks to lustrous objects of infatuation and conflict, a revealing look at pearls’ dark history. This book is a beautifully illustrated account of pearls through millennia, from fossils to contemporary jewelry. Pearls are the most human of gems, both miraculous and familiar. Uniquely organic in origin, they are as intimate as our bodies, created through the same process as we grow bones and teeth. They have long been described as an animal’s sacrifice, but until recently their retrieval often entailed the sacrifices of enslaved and indentured divers and laborers. While the shimmer of the pearl has enticed Roman noblewomen, Mughal princes, Hollywood royalty, mavericks, and renegades, encoded in its surface is a history of human endeavor, abuse, and aspiration—pain locked in the layers of a gleaming gem.

What if what you know about God just ain't so? Portals can be rather inconspicuous and elusive, but when we find one of these obscure openings, we discover that it can be a divine door that ushers us out of darkness and despair into a whole new dimension of freedom. Unfortunately, because of negative encounters we may have had with churchy people or the guilt and condemnation we may have suffered under religious teaching, we end up being driven away, and rightly so, from any further involvement with religion. A portal (for the purpose of this book) symbolizes a gateway of knowledge and understanding into God’s grace and truth intended to bring to light the gospel of Jesus Christ to lead us out from behind the iron bars of false beliefs that may be enslaving us. This book was written to display God’s prismatic promises and the biblical wisdom God has provided for us as answers and antidotes to the various problems we may encounter in life.

When a local bluegrass musician disappears and a jug of her shop’s corn liquor is implicated, moonshiner Hattie Hayes must stop further trouble from brewing in this delightful cozy mystery series. It’s August in Chattanooga, Tennessee and moonshiner Hattie Hayes has collaborated with a nearby vineyard to serve her moonshine at a Wine and 'Shine event. Not only is this an opportunity for Hattie to gain more moonshine fans, but she’s also excited to hear the Bootlegging Brothers, a popular bluegrass band. But not every attendee is looking for harmony. When one of the brothers disappears and is presumed dead, Hattie realizes her grace note gathering has suddenly turned more sour than her mash. Unearthing what happened to the missing musician is more difficult than Hattie first expected. Hattie’s moonshine is tied to the crime and there’s no time to fiddle around—she has to step up to solve the case. Luckily, Hattie’s cool head and quick mind help her understand that when investigating a musical crime, always stay sharp.

FROM THE ACCLAIMED AUTHOR OF THE CAPTAIN'S DAUGHTER AND DANCING AT THE VICTORY CAFE, this is a beautiful novel about one magnificent gem, and three lives bound together by fate ... 1879, York.Greta Costello must rely on her wits to survive. She finds refuge as a Saturday girl for an old jeweller, Saul Abrahams, and her eye for detail, her long fingers and appreciation of beauty persuade Saul to train her as a pearl stringer. This skill will lead her through hardship and pain towards a new life. 1879, Scotland. Jem Baillie knows the immense power of a perfect pearl. His father was a fisher on a tributary of the Tay river in Perthshire, Scotland, and together they found the rarest of pearls, a great white pearl they call Queenie. When this is stolen from them, Eben vows revenge. Spanning generations and continents, tracing the rivers of Scotland and the Mississippi, The Last Pearl is a sweeping novel of desire and revenge, of family and freedom, and of one woman's journey to open the shell she has built around herself to reveal the true beauty within. Praise for Leah Fleming 'I enjoyed it enormously.It's a moving and compelling story about a lifetime's journey in search of the truth' RACHEL HORE 'A born storyteller' KATE ATKINSON

Pearl and Wilbur are lucky mice to have a kind owner like Jay. They are a happy threesome until a bicycle accident sends Jay to the hospital. For a while it looks as if things are going to take a turn for the better; but then disaster strikes again. Trapped in a crate, Pearl and Wilbur are loaded aboard an ocean liner bound for France. If only they could launch the captain's model pirate ship. Wilbur has a plan, but do they have the courage to go through with it? As this lively and humorous story unfolds we meet our favorite friends from Pearl's Promise and many new characters, such as Old Bill, the lovesick sailor, and Wamba, the young mouse from Frog Island. Once again Frank Asch has written and illustrated a heartwarming tale of love and adventure.

Would Stan’s eccentric, fun-loving disposition continue to be subdued by low self-esteem and personal insecurities? A timid child who had grown into a slightly less troubled young man, Stan was approaching his nineteenth birthday with a pledge to continue the plan he had embarked upon nine years earlier. Signs of success were emerging. Happily, Stan believed his recent experiences in both his personal and working life were far less daunting and withdrawn than he had once imagined at the age of ten. He seemed to be on the cusp of nurturing a more confident demeanour, with the potential to enrich his life in myriad ways. With perseverance, self-control, and the support of friends and family, Stan sensed his future could develop into something beyond his wildest dreams. His destiny, however, would be shaped by how he responded to the inevitable challenges along the bumpy road of his life. While he acknowledged that some unfortunate or distressing events might strike and later haunt him, his increased confidence gave him hope that such occurrences would be short-lived and interspersed with moments of humour and excitement. Ever the optimist, he dreamed of love and happiness and possibly even forming an affectionate relationship with a lifelong partner. Illustrated through separate linked novellas, narratives of Stan’s late teenage years and early adult life can be read as one continuous novel or enjoyed as individual short stories.

Its a Sin to Be Boring is a biographical-historical fiction that unravels the complexity of a family, where the actions of one touch the lives of others. The main character, Rebelle Palatine, born in Ohio, marries her high school sweetheart during World War II. While she yearns for the war to be over, she achieves her perfect jobmodeling at a major department store in New York City. Only one thing throws a roadblock to her happinessspecifically the Battle of the Bulge. The contemporary political influences that constrain and mold the environment burrow like worms into the everyday workings of life. The family story unfolds. The Progressive movement, a political cancer that eats away at the American dream of liberty and freedom, runs parallel to the actions of those individuals who understand and protect the Constitution. Through the shadows of destruction rises a life of success, self-reliance, responsibility, and love. Its a Sin to Be Boring opens a window on history and a reminder that actions have consequences.

Philip Pearl, a Jewish poet from Manhattan comes to Pickett State University in Mississippi to teach. But he is the one who gets the education.