After years of having a dream and having a storyline in the back of his head, Michael Furness decided to bring that dream and that story, with all those great characters from that dream, to life and into print. Michael, having a son with disabilities, would always read stories to his son and would take him to action-packed superhero movies. It was his son's favorite type of movie where the superhero would always defeat the bad guys. This association with superheroes and all the obstacles that the superheroes were up against in their daily life led Michael to decide to write a book for his son and making his son the hero with the help of the Holy Spirit, alongside his best friend, Abe. Tyler and Abe would go up against their adversaries, fighting for the good while relying upon the Lord with prayer to advise and guide them. Michael, thinking back to when his father would tell stories of how his family struggled early in their life during the Great Depression, gave Michael an era to set his story and to tell a powerful irresistible way to go up against odds while relying on God's power to make it in life. Tyler moved with his family to the Appalachian Mountains to a small country town known as Hoges Store, Virginia, where most of its townspeople worked for the mining company and lived in dismal lifestyles. Tyler, an almost twelve-year-old boy, used prayer and the belief that with God, all things are possible. This story tells how Tyler and Abe used the powers of God Almighty to take on, and possibly defeat, his foes.

“Merrie Destefano storms the world of urban fantasy…breathing new life into the vast genre of the undead.” —Tosca Lee, author of Havah and Demon: A Memoir “Merrie Destefano has made a fine start on a promising career.” —James Gunn, science fiction Grand Master With her brilliant debut novel, Afterlife, author Merrie Destefano earned herself a place of honor at the banquet table alongside today’s top authors of sf and urban fantasy. With Feast, she serves up another heaping helping of thrills, shivers, wonder, and glorious invention while spicing up the recipe with dark romance in the bestselling vein of C.L Wilson, Marjorie M. Liu, and other paranormal superstars. A spellbinding fantasy of supernatural intrigue and forbidden love, Feast blends vampire and fairy lore, with the resulting dish offering a sumptuous new take on both, as a troubled storyteller returns home to the mysterious autumn woods just prior to Halloween, to find her life and her soul captivated by a cursed immortal, the Lord of the Hunt.

Walking through the luscious Napa harvest in the fall of 1982, agricultural student Kate Bauer is inspired to grow grapes, and charismatic business major Sydney Barrett might just be the perfect person to make that dream come true. If only Kate knew what to do with her unexpected attraction to Sydney. On the threshold of the AIDS pandemic, Kate is appalled by her father’s homophobia toward her closeted uncle, Louie. When Uncle Louie dies, he leaves his potato farm on Long Island to Kate. Soon Kate and Sydney are planting thousands of baby vines, even as the unspoken desire between them grows. As the vineyard thrives, Sydney caves to family pressure and heads to Paris for a once-in-a-lifetime banking apprenticeship, leaving Kate to struggle with the feelings for Sydney that never wane. Their possibility for a shared harvest grows faint until Sydney returns, and a threat to the vineyard and their dreams forces them to confront their unresolved feelings.

"Painting is to dream," said Hundertwasser. "When the dream is over, I don"t remember anything I dreamed about. The painting, however, remains. It is the harvest of my dream." This statement is at the heart of this engaging introduction to the work of the eccentric artist, humanitarian, environmentalist, and architect who dedicated his life to the beautification of the world we live in. Dozens of activities in this book will captivate children of all ages and take them on a journey through a magical world of creativity and self-fulfillment. The projects here help young readers discover nature"s gifts, encourage exploration of what lies outside one"s doorstep, and emphasize the importance of ecological harmony as vital to living a happier life. Children and their parents will return again and again to this colorful and entertaining tribute to an artist whose legacy offers hope and inspiration for all of us.

Armed with magic and a plan... Step into a world of magic and passions.... Take a dash of spice, heat it a pinch of herbs. Soft candlelight and resonant drums. Add a flash of magic and watch the sparks fly. Toss in a killer that's targeting women... Armed with magic and a plan for the Lammas festival they are determined to stop the killer from harming anyone again. And Steven will, with a plan of his own, persuade Rachel that they are meant to be together. Will the magic allow them to start anew? Rachel is a woman that lives carefree with a buoyant recklessness. She loves being a flirt and has spent many years indulging that side of her personality. Her energy draws others; her character is to protect all those that cannot protect themselves. When she’s not riding on life, she is helping children less fortunate then herself. Steven is man that gives more than his energy usually allows. He is a highly-respected pediatrician that always goes that extra step to ensure all in his care are receiving his utmost attention. He often sacrifices sleep to spend time with his friends, and he can’t seem to help affably chasing the skirt of the one woman that breaks his easy-going charm and makes him forget he’s supposed to be the jovial. He hides his strength in body and magic, never letting others know that he is more than the carefree man with everything he needs. Armed with magic and a plan for the Lammas festival as a group they are determined to stop the killer from harming anyone again. With a plan of his own, Steven decides he’s done waiting for Rachel to see that they’re meant to be together and takes things into his own hands.

From the author of the #1 New York Times bestsellers Small Great Things and Mad Honey, a novel exploring the story of a young woman overcome by the demands of having a family. Paige has only a few vivid memories of her mother, who abandoned her at five years old. Now, having left her father behind in Chicago for dreams of art school and marriage to an ambitious young doctor, she finds herself with a child of her own. But her mother's absence and shameful memories of her past force her to doubt whether she could ever be capable of bringing joy and meaning into the life of her child, gifts her own mother never gave. Harvesting the Heart is written with astonishing clarity and evocative detail, convincing in its depiction of emotional pain, love, and vulnerability, and recalls the writing of Alice Hoffman and Kristin Hannah. Out of Paige's struggle to find wholeness, Jodi Picoult crafts an absorbing novel peopled by richly drawn characters, and explores motherhood with a power and depth only she is capable of. “A brilliant, moving examination of motherhood, brimming with detail and emotion.” —Richmond Times-Dispatch “Jodi Picoult explores the fragile ground of ambivalent motherhood in her lush second novel. This story belongs to… the lucky reader.” —The New York Times Book Review

After Covid-19 hits and most businesses begin to reopen, Hanan finds her family in a difficult situation. Living a humble life in a small town in Cameron Highlands, she and her mother, Puan Nafisah, grapple with the daunting task of keeping their family’s business afloat all the while trying to keep her late father’s culinary legacy alive. Her struggle only deepens as beneath all her challenges lies an unwelcoming exterior which forces her to shoulder them alone. So when an exchange student from Kuala Lumpur, Elyas, arrives in town offering help, she is not flattered and remains guarded. But little does she know that their lives intertwine more deeply than she could have guessed. Elyas’ presence blossoms as he shares with her his sentiments of desire and dreams, which find their way to nurture a seedling of hope within Hanan’s heart. This makes her question; is the seedling worth nurturing, or will it lead to more complications?

The colorful boyhood of a popular author comes to life in this personal account Imagine learning from a nosy classmate that your mother is having yet another baby. To Ralph's classmates, news of one more Fletcher baby is just "scuttlebutt." But for Ralph, the oldest of nine, being part of a large family means more kids to join in the fun—from making tripods in the woods and "snicking" up the rug, to raising chicks and even discovering a meteor (well, maybe). It doesn't feel like there's life beyond Marshfield, Massachusetts. Then one day Dad's new job moves the family to Chicago, and there's so much Ralph has to leave behind. In this humorous and captivating memoir, Ralph Fletcher traces the roots of his storytelling.

American Ginseng has a strange and perilous history. It has one of the longest germination periods of any known species, and only two environments in the world have offered the ideal growing conditions for wild ginseng. The first was the forests of northern China, which disappeared over a millennium ago, and the sole remaining habitat is the Appalachian Mountain region of eastern North America, an area now threatened by logging and mining. Chinese legend says that ginseng is the child of lightning. The two elemental forces of water and fire fight in an eternal struggle, pouring down rain and snow and blasting the earth with lightning. If that lightning happens to strike a spring of water, the water disappears and in its place grows a ginseng plant—the fusion of yin and yang, water and fire, darkness and light, and the life force that moves the universe. American ginseng has become perhaps the most treasured of all herbal medicines, promising good health and longevity to those who consume it. Fortunes have been made and lost on the plant, which was America’s first export to China—before our nation even existed. The strange, twisted, man-shaped root today commands as much as two thousand dollars a pound in the hot, noisy ginseng markets of Hong Kong, and a wealthy collector might pay as much as $10,000 for a single, perfect specimen. Ginseng Dreams: The Secret World of America’s Most Valuable Plant unfolds ginseng’s past and its future through the stories of seven people whose lives have become inextricably bound to it: a huckster, a field researcher, a farmer, a ginseng “missionary,” a criminal investigator, a broker, and a cancer researcher. Each of these individuals brings a different perspective to the elusive root—and each is consumed by a different dream. Kristin Johannsen threads her way though remote woodlands in the Appalachians to observe the fragile plants slowly putting out leaves as part of a three-year growing cycle, during which time the ginseng is vulnerable to both poachers and growing suburban sprawl. She contrasts this with the huge commercial growing fields of Marathon County, Wisconsin, where among potato fields and paper mills, ninety percent of the country’s ginseng is produced. Johannsen explores the brisk black market trade in the panacean root and the efforts to save the wild species and its native habitat, and she ends her story in the laboratory, where researchers are investigating ginseng’s anti-cancer properties. An absorbing journey into the many worlds of this mysterious and potent plant, Ginseng Dreams tells the extraordinary story of America’s little-known natural treasure and the spell it casts on those who seek it.