Mining a mountain of folklore publications, North American Monsters unearths decades of notable monster research. Nineteen folkloristic case studies from the last half-century examine legendary monsters in their native habitats, focusing on ostensibly living creatures bound to specific geographic locales. A diverse cast of scholars contemplate these alluring creatures, feared and beloved by the communities that host them—the Jersey Devil gliding over the Pine Barrens, Lieby wriggling through Lake Lieberman, Char-Man stalking the Ojai Valley, and many, many more. Embracing local stories, beliefs, and traditions while neither promoting nor debunking, North American Monsters aspires to revive scholarly interest in local legendary monsters and creatures and to encourage folkloristic monster legend sleuthing.

From Superman, created in 1938, to the transmedia DC and Marvel universes of today, superheroes have always been sexy. And their sexiness has always been controversial, inspiring censorship and moral panic. Yet though it has inspired jokes and innuendos, accusations of moral depravity, and sporadic academic discourse, the topic of superhero sexuality is like superhero sexuality itself—seemingly obvious yet conspicuously absent. Supersex: Sexuality, Fantasy, and the Superhero is the first scholarly book specifically devoted to unpacking the superhero genre’s complicated relationship with sexuality. Exploring sexual themes and imagery within mainstream comic books, television shows, and films as well as independent and explicitly pornographic productions catering to various orientations and kinks, Supersex offers a fresh—and lascivious—perspective on the superhero genre’s historical and contemporary popularity. Across fourteen essays touching on Superman, Batman, the X-Men, and many others, Anna F. Peppard and her contributors present superhero sexuality as both dangerously exciting and excitingly dangerous, encapsulating the superhero genre’s worst impulses and its most productively rebellious ones. Supersex argues that sex is at the heart of our fascination with superheroes, even—and sometimes especially—when the capes and tights stay on.

After the disastrous end of another dead-end relationship, all Jessica Hart wants is solitude and time to heal at her grandfather's mountain retreat. Instead she finds Zach Rawlings. Zach has made himself at home at the cabin. He's house-sitting while the owner is away, and the temporary nature of the job suits him perfectly. For Jessica, Zach is everything she wants to escape. As she gets to know him better, she realizes there's more to him than meets the eye. His patience and tender concern begin to heal something deep inside of her. But can she trust her heart to a man like Zach?

Sometimes love is worth risking everything. A New York Times bestseller. "What a beautiful book! Readers will be haunted, as I am, by the characters who become so real and come to matter so much. I loved it." - Danielle Steel, author of First Sight and Matters of the Heart "I fell in love with Sharlie. I laughed with her, cried with her, and rooted for her. A lovely, tender story, moving and well told." - Barbara Taylor Bradford, author of Secrets from the Past and A Woman of Substance Sharlie Converse is twenty-six with a vivid and romantic interior life. Born with a heart defect that has defeated an army of specialists, she has lived her short life from moment to moment. Everything that matters most to her–color, excitement, adventure–is forbidden except in her imaginings and in the secret yearningss that she has long accepted will never be made real. Until, on a cross town bus packed with Christmas shoppers, she falls into Brian Morgan’s arms. And Sharlie, whom love can kill, must make the agonizing choice: to risk her life by loving or never really to live at all. "A heartbreaker. Sally Mandel manages to say a good deal about love and loss and courage." - Publisher's Weekly "Takes off where Helen Van Slyke left off: wealthy Manhattan setting...sophisticated characters...an emotionally intense story line." - Library Journal "A book that seizes the heart. CHANGE OF HEART has all the ingredients of a good yarn, the sort we long for: I loved it." - Nancy Milford, author of Zelda

Reproduction of the original: The Missing Link by Edward Dyson