This was supposed to be paradise That’s why Tim Wainwright moved his three children to Williamston, Tennessee, population 123. It was to be a refuge from the tragedy that had fractured their lives, a place where Tim could forget his mistakes. That’s what the place meant to Nancy Mayfield. The veterinary technician thought she had finally achieved balance and peace in her life, and had put her past behind her. Except no one and no place is perfect—not even Williamston. But maybe two imperfect people make one whole lot of sense.

Lexie Webster needs a fling—badly. She's not looking for a relationship—her former fiancé, a daredevil with a death wish, cured her of that! But that doesn't mean she has to live like a nun, either. Especially since her newest client, sexy Josh Maynard, is inspiring some very impure thoughts.... Rodeo star Josh Maynard is hanging up his spurs to fulfill his lifelong dream—learning to sail. Only, he never dreams he'll end up in over his head before he even starts! Because it's obvious his new sailing instructor, Lexie Webster, has an agenda—to seduce him right out of his swimsuit and Stetson! And he's more than willing to go along with her. Especially when he realizes that he wants more than just a quick dip....

His duty was to deliver heartbreaking news, but when he heard her song it brought him back to life. Corporal Brandon Lucas has one goal, tell the family of his brother in arms that their son won’t be coming home. Survivor’s guilt has been keeping him up all day and night, but he hopes shedding his burden and getting some R&R on the Purple Heart Ranch, a rehabilitation retreat for veterans, will get him back in fighting shape so he can re-enlist. Love was not in the plan… until he heard the voice of an angel. Reegan Cartwright loves her small town life, especially singing each week in her church choir. It’s been lonely with her parents gone and her twin brother serving overseas, but she still feels deeply connected to him. So when a handsome soldier tells her that her brother is missing and presumed dead, Reegan refuses to believe it. She’s determined to convince Brandon to think with his heart more than his head. When tragedy strikes again and the Cartwright family home burns to the ground, Brandon proposes a marriage of convenience to keep Reegan from having to move away from the town she loves. Reegan can’t deny the connection she feels between her and the dutiful corporal. She also can’t help but wonder if his proposal is only due to his guilt? Can the two forge a real relationship or will she be forever singing solo? Find out if love can truly heal all wounds in this light-hearted, sweet romance of convenient arrangements that unfold into lasting love. In Over His Head is the sixth in a continuing series of marriage of convenience tales featuring Wounded Warriors who are healed with the power of love.

The flirt who hits on her even during work is... a former yakuza!? Azusa is a doctor working as an occupational physician who takes her job seriously. Itsuki Sakuma, a handsome but suspicious guy who constantly annoys her during his evaluations! He’s frivolous, aggressive, and mysterious... But then, he was the only one who noticed Azusa being terrified of her ex-fianc?, who now stalks her. He said, “I’ll protect you. I don’t want you to be alone.” He suddenly started looking so serious! She tries to discipline herself by telling herself to not get spoiled, but as he shows his gentlemen like personality, she can’t help relying on him.... And that’s when she saw the vivid traditional tattoos on him, and...!? He’s a (former) yakuza who never let his prey escape from him, and now he goes all out for the love of his life. Let the show begin☆

Linked by an unlikely accident, four strangers characters grapple with loneliness, memory, and the mysteries of art. Ray Eccles is a man who dislikes unpredictability and the messiness of social interaction, to such extent that his co-workers’ habit of gathering around the Xerox machine it’s his job to run makes even that regular task unbearable. When a misunderstanding leads to unexpected time off from work, Ray takes a day trip to nearby East Beach on what happens to be his fortieth birthday. As he gazes at the sea, a distant woman turns to face him—and a seagull falls from the sky, knocking him unconscious. He awakens compelled to paint her image, using whatever materials come to hand: jam, ketchup, even the walls of his home. Enter George and Grace Zoob, collectors of Outsider Art, whose endorsement rockets Ray to fame in the art world and beyond. Soon even small-town newspapers are covering his work—which is how Jennifer, the woman on the beach, discovers she’s the sole subject of the paintings that have set the world on fire, leading her to wonder if a man she’s never met is the only person who has ever really seen her. Lyrical, elegant and quietly profound, Harriet Paige’s Man With a Seagull on His Head captures the small, shared moments where our lives overlap, making artistry out of the everyday.

Shy fifth-grader Stanley Krakow spends his time trying not to be noticed and pretending to be a superhero or a record-breaking athlete, until one day he meets someone who really needs him to be a hero.

The Llama Who Had A Hole Through His Head heralds an exciting new voice in the world of comic writing. Filled with quirky surrealism and inspired buffoonery, this debut collection of fantastical tales takes lives on the fringe of the familiar and, with an inventive and inimitable brand of humour, pushes them to the brink of the absurdly ridiculous and beyond. A young Peruvian sheep laments his unhappiness. A thespian experiences the highs and lows of Tinseltown. A bullied boy is granted three wishes by a fallen star. A famous detective is called upon to solve a curious and colourful case. A manicurist confronts a biblical colossus. A squirrel receives taxation advice from an unexpected source. And an infamous athlete seeks to have history rewritten. Each of the thirteen stories in this book shows that when the uncanny and the real collide, the world can be a truly weird, wonderful and exceedingly funny place.

A dazzling work of personal travelogue and cultural criticism that ranges from the primitive to the postmodern in a quest for the promise and meaning of the psychedelic experience. While psychedelics of all sorts are demonized in America today, the visionary compounds found in plants are the spiritual sacraments of tribal cultures around the world. From the iboga of the Bwiti in Gabon, to the Mazatecs of Mexico, these plants are sacred because they awaken the mind to other levels of awareness--to a holographic vision of the universe. Breaking Open the Head is a passionate, multilayered, and sometimes rashly personal inquiry into this deep division. On one level, Daniel Pinchbeck tells the story of the encounters between the modern consciousness of the West and these sacramental substances, including such thinkers as Allen Ginsberg, Antonin Artaud, Walter Benjamin, and Terence McKenna, and a new underground of present-day ethnobotanists, chemists, psychonauts, and philosophers. It is also a scrupulous recording of the author's wide-ranging investigation with these outlaw compounds, including a thirty-hour tribal initiation in West Africa; an all-night encounter with the master shamans of the South American rain forest; and a report from a psychedelic utopia in the Black Rock Desert that is the Burning Man Festival. Breaking Open the Head is brave participatory journalism at its best, a vivid account of psychic and intellectual experiences that opened doors in the wall of Western rationalism and completed Daniel Pinchbeck's personal transformation from a jaded Manhattan journalist to shamanic initiate and grateful citizen of the cosmos.

“Hillbrow, 1967. The New York of Africa. Someone wrote that the place would soon have more people per square kilometre than Tokyo. Everyone quoted that article to everyone. Some even cut it out and kept it folded in their wallets.” While other boys daydream about racing cars and football, eleven-year-old stutterer Phen sits reading to his father. In number four Duchess Court, Phen’s dad looks like a Spitfire pilot behind his oxygen mask. But real life is different from the daring adventures in the books Phen reads and he is forced to grow up faster than other boys his age. This is until Heb Thirteen Two shows up: in his pinstriped suit pants and tie-dyed psychedelic top, the stranger could be any old bum, or a boy’s special angel come to live among men. Poignant, witty and wise, John Hunt’s The Boy Who Could Keep a Swan in His Head is a meditation on being alive and shows us the power of books when we need them the most.

The author, a computer science professor diagnosed with terminal cancer, explores his life, the lessons that he has learned, how he has worked to achieve his childhood dreams, and the effect of his diagnosis on him and his family.