The first in a sexy contemporary romance series from New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Shayla Black. BOUND BY DUTY... Bodyguard and former military man Cutter Bryant has always done his duty--no matter the cost. Now he's taking one last high-octane assignment before settling down in a new role that means sacrificing his chance at love. But he never expects to share an irresistible chemistry with his beautiful new client. ...TEMPTED BY PLEASURE As the star of a steamy television drama, Shealyn West knows fame well, but it has come at the expense of her heart. With a blackmailer watching her every move and the threat of career-ending exposure looming, Shealyn hires Cutter to shore up her security and keep her safe, never imagining their attraction will be too powerful to contain. As Shealyn and Cutter navigate the scintillating line between business and pleasure, they unravel a web of secrets that threaten their relationship and their lives. When danger strikes, Cutter must decide whether to follow his heart for the first time, or risk losing Shealyn forever.

Starting with Bad Behavior in the 1980s, Mary Gaitskill has been writing about gender relations with searing, even prophetic honesty. In This Is Pleasure, she considers our present moment through the lens of a particular #MeToo incident. The effervescent, well-dressed Quin, a successful book editor and fixture on the New York arts scene, has been accused of repeated unforgivable transgressions toward women in his orbit. But are they unforgivable? And who has the right to forgive him? To Quin’s friend Margot, the wrongdoing is less clear. Alternating Quin’s and Margot’s voices and perspectives, Gaitskill creates a nuanced tragicomedy, one that reveals her characters as whole persons—hurtful and hurting, infuriating and touching, and always deeply recognizable. Gaitskill has said that fiction is the only way that she could approach this subject because it is too emotionally faceted to treat in the more rational essay form. Her compliment to her characters—and to her readers—is that they are unvarnished and real. Her belief in our ability to understand them, even when we don’t always admire them, is a gesture of humanity from one of our greatest contemporary writers.

With a new introduction by Nick Rhodes The talent. The charisma. The videos. From their 1981 hit "Planet Earth" to their latest number-one album, All You Need Is Now, John Taylor and Duran Duran have enchanted audiences around the world. It's been a wild ride, and—for John in particular—dangerous. John recounts the story of the band's formation, their massive success, and his journey to the brink of self-destruction. Told with humor, honesty—and packed with exclusive pictures—In the Pleasure Groove is an irresistible rock-and-roll portrait of a band whose popularity has never been stronger.

Taylor is all out of options. After years of raising her beloved maternal half brother, her abusive stepfather suddenly demands custody just so he can have an heir. She tells her story to her former boss, Jackson, and he makes a startling proposal: that he and Taylor should get married as soon as possible and apply for custody of her brother. It's true that with the successful, world-famous film producer on her side, her stepfather wouldn’t be able to stand in her way?but why the offer? They were never more than boss and secretary. But Jackson soon explains it to her: "I want you to have my baby within the year."

Literary Nonfiction. California Interest. LGBT Studies. Women's Studies. Elizabeth Hall began writing I HAVE DEVOTED MY LIFE TO THE CLITORIS in the summer of 2010 after reading Thomas Laqueur's Making Sex. She was particularly struck by Laqueur's bold assertion: "More words have been shed, I suspect, about the clitoris, than about any other organ, or at least, any organ its size." How was it possible that Hall had been reading compulsively for years and never once stumbled upon this trove of prose devoted to the clit? If Lacquer's claim was correct, where were all these "words"? And more: what did size have to do with it? Hall set out to find all that had been written about the clit past and present. As she soon discovered, the history of the clitoris is no ordinary tale; rather, its history is marked by the act of forgetting. "Marvelously researched and sculpted... Bulleted points rat-tat-tatting the patriarchy, strobing with pleasure." Dodie Bellamy "Freud, terra cotta cunts, hyenas, anatomists, and Acker, mixed with a certain slant of light on a windowsill and a leg thrown open invite us... Bawdy and beautiful." Wendy C. Ortiz "Gorgeous little book about a gorgeous little organ... Mines discourses as varied as sexology, plastic surgery, literature and feminism to produce an eye-opening compendium... The 'tender button' finally gets its due." Janet Sarbanes "God this book is glorious... You will learn and laugh and wonder why it took you so long to find this book." Suzanne Scanlon "The luxury of lingering in pleasure is what Hall's book gives its readers, not only because the subject is at once sexy and scientifically compelling, but because it is rendered with graceful care, delivering in small bites an investigation of the clit that is simultaneously a meditation on the myriad ways in which smallness hides power." The Rumpus"

There are tremendous benefits to discussing the subject of sexual and emotional pleasure with clients, and this book addresses the challenges and misconceptions of doing just that. Laura Rademacher and Lindsey Hoskins teach the skills necessary for mental health professionals and sex educators to build competence in this work with their clients. Readers get techniques to implement in therapeutic, clinical, and educational settings, and learn how to examine pleasure in ways that are currently lacking from academic work on sexual health. This book covers skills for working with populations of all orientations and gender expressions. Language and phrasing for addressing pleasure issues in a wide variety of educational or therapeutic settings is also provided. Information about sexual lubrication and sex toys that is rarely taught in professional training programs is included, as well as how to appropriately incorporate information about these important sexual tools into your work. Issues such as abstinence, sexual orientation, couple therapy, and sexual education will be discussed outside of the standard medical model of sex therapy. The Principles of Pleasure will help you feel relaxed and confident while moving clients and students closer to their pleasure goals, and provides the evidence to back up the importance of talking and teaching about pleasure, should you need to justify this work.

One Beauty. Two Friends. Shattering Secrets. In the aftermath of danger and death, Seth Cooper blurts his darkest secret to Dr. Kenneth “Beck” Beckman and Heavenly Young. Fearing he’s shocked them, he disguises the tragic details, but it’s impossible to close the Pandora’s box he opened so recklessly. After that night, Seth wages a one-man war against his ghosts while avoiding Heavenly’s well-meaning comfort and Beck’s probing questions. The change in Seth’s demeanor makes the other two fear that their dreams of shared tomorrows are crumbling. As weeks spill into months, the strain between Beck, who’s impatient to start their future, and Seth, who’s doing everything to avoid it, intensifies—leaving Heavenly squarely in the middle. If she follows her white-picket-fence dreams, will Seth’s refusal to give them more than half-truths break their hearts and separate them for good? Or will he finally risk confessing all so they can embrace their forever? The Unbroken Series: Heavenly Rising The Choice The Chase The Confession The Commitment (coming 2023)

In recent years, cultural commentators have sounded the alarm about the dire state of reading in America. Americans are not reading enough, they say, or reading the right books, in the right way. In this book, Alan Jacobs argues that, contrary to the doomsayers, reading is alive and well in America. There are millions of devoted readers supporting hundreds of enormous bookstores and online booksellers. Oprah's Book Club is hugely influential, and a recent NEA survey reveals an actual uptick in the reading of literary fiction. Jacobs's interactions with his students and the readers of his own books, however, suggest that many readers lack confidence; they wonder whether they are reading well, with proper focus and attentiveness, with due discretion and discernment. Many have absorbed the puritanical message that reading is, first and foremost, good for you--the intellectual equivalent of eating your Brussels sprouts. For such people, indeed for all readers, Jacobs offers some simple, powerful, and much needed advice: read at whim, read what gives you delight, and do so without shame, whether it be Stephen King or the King James Version of the Bible. In contrast to the more methodical approach of Mortimer Adler's classic How to Read a Book (1940), Jacobs offers an insightful, accessible, and playfully irreverent guide for aspiring readers. Each chapter focuses on one aspect of approaching literary fiction, poetry, or nonfiction, and the book explores everything from the invention of silent reading, reading responsively, rereading, and reading on electronic devices. Invitingly written, with equal measures of wit and erudition, The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction will appeal to all readers, whether they be novices looking for direction or old hands seeking to recapture the pleasures of reading they first experienced as children.