Rachel held the letter in her hand as she watched the banker come up the lane. He was taking the farm. Wasn't it enough she'd been widowed 2 years ago. Worse, good meaning townspeople wanted her to disperse her ten children to families who needed them. She had to keep her family together. The letter from the judge in Montana. Her only hope of keeping her family together was to go west to Montana as a mail order bride.Judge Solomon Taggart groaned at having to referee a dispute between the two feuding families. That even their children were at each other made him doubt the wisdom of sending that letter to the widow in Minnesota. She had children. She didn't say how many, and he hadn't asked. He grabbed his rifle and swung up in the saddle, praying there'd be no bloodshed. And then he prayed he'd been wise to send that letter.

How to Listen to God "In the stillness of our lives God whispers His greatest thoughts. Don't be discouraged when life stands still and the unknown is staring you in the face. He never leaves us, even in the most quiet of moments, He is there." We often hear God best in the face of uncertainty. It is when we can't predict the future, when we take risks that God teaches and grows us the most. He is with you, whether that be in the midst of changing jobs or undertaking a new creative project. As reflections of Christ, we have the ability to create something that didn't exist before, and God delights in guiding us through the process.

Revision of author's thesis (doctoral)--University of Oxford, 2010.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Investigator Lacy Stoltz follows the trail of a serial killer, and closes in on a shocking suspect—a sitting judge—in “one of the best crime reads of the year.... Bristling with high-tech detail and shivering with suspense.... Worth staying up all night to finish” (Wall Street Journal). In The Whistler, Lacy Stoltz investigated a corrupt judge who was taking millions in bribes from a crime syndicate. She put the criminals away, but only after being attacked and nearly killed. Three years later, and approaching forty, she is tired of her work for the Florida Board on Judicial Conduct and ready for a change. Then she meets a mysterious woman who is so frightened she uses a number of aliases. Jeri Crosby’s father was murdered twenty years earlier in a case that remains unsolved and that has grown stone cold. But Jeri has a suspect whom she has become obsessed with and has stalked for two decades. Along the way, she has discovered other victims. Suspicions are easy enough, but proof seems impossible. The man is brilliant, patient, and always one step ahead of law enforcement. He is the most cunning of all serial killers. He knows forensics, police procedure, and most important: he knows the law. He is a judge, in Florida—under Lacy’s jurisdiction. He has a list, with the names of his victims and targets, all unsuspecting people unlucky enough to have crossed his path and wronged him in some way. How can Lacy pursue him, without becoming the next name on his list? The Judge’s List is by any measure John Grisham’s most surprising, chilling novel yet. Don’t miss John Grisham’s new book, THE EXCHANGE: AFTER THE FIRM!

Friendship with the Judge came at a pivotal time in Doc's life; he quickly became the closest, truest, most generous brother Doc ever knew. They were a chemical reaction when they came together with a thought, an idea or a plan to pull off another coup. As the saying goes, "There's synergy creating energy that's stronger than the sum of its parts." That was Doc and the Judge, the Judge was fire, Doc was water. The Judge was all reaction and Doc was all control. Doc and the Judge redefined "business as usual." They didn't just "break on through to the other side" as Jim Morrison urged in his hypnotic sixties reverie they crashed and crashed on through! They made tons of money for the grey suits that supported and funded them, and a tidy pile of cash for themselves along the way. Though it was truly not about the money for them, it was about being "dudes." They defined themselves, daring the world to defy their ability to turn cultural trends into big money returns for the true believers who backed them. They never compromised, never shrank from a battle and never feared losing it all. Their business acumen and inherent credibility was inextricably linked to their integrity and musical and business authenticity. Doc watched over the Judge for his own good and the Judge knew and respected his faith. The Judge was a searing, shooting star flashing blindingly across the night sky and defiantly demanding acceptance on his own terms. The Doc executed the business and kept it real. They took on the world, bought and sold it many times over laughing ALL THE WAY TO THE BANK. They were inseparable during the decade of the 70's, Butch and the Kid many called them. The Judge always swore he ruled his court. Doc smiles at these memories suspecting that even now he's hanging out with God and is slipping a wickedly powerful toke or perhaps a St. Pauli's girl to the Apostles when the big "G" isn't looking.

Bestselling author Lori Copeland weaves together elements of a wonderful, classic Western romance with themes of forgiveness and grace. Falsely convicted of bank robbery, drifter Johnny McAllister is sent to a rehabilitation program in the home of a California judge. When he goes to Judge McMann’s home, his aim is to be a model prisoner, hoping to be released early and return to his life's mission: to kill the man who wiped out his family 15 years before. He’s planned for everything...except his encounter with Ragan, the beautiful and kind housekeeper, and with the generous folks of Barren Flats. But can Johnny let go of his anger and embrace a new life? One that would include Ragan as his bride? This tender story reveals how even the hard law of the land doesn’t stand a chance when God’s mercy and true love come to reside in a heart. Formerly titled The Bride of Johnny McAllister, rewritten for the inspirational market.

Set in towns along the Mississippi River, The Judge's Daughter is a mid-nineteenth century romance novel. Fanny Britton, headstrong but resilient is dominated by her widowed father, the Judge. To gain independence, she must marry and meets the "perfect" man, Joshua Devlin, who claims to read law. She is seduced and learns too late that he is a riverboat deckhand with ambition toward wealth operating gambling casinos. Now pregnant, she must marry him, satisfied she can coerce him into law. Judge Britton annuls their marriage. They remarry. Devlin wrongly believes Fanny's cousin, Alex, fathered her second child. He leaves, accepts money from her rival, BEATY, who becomes his casino business partner. He still loves Fanny and seeks solace in alcohol. The Judge attempts to have Devlin assassinated. Beaty saves him, ships another body, made unrecognizable, to Fanny as Devlin. Fanny, "a widow," is again dependent on the Judge. He is caught in bank fraud and flees with Fanny and her children. Devlin returns reformed and wealthy, locates Fanny and suspects the Judge is his assassin. Fanny protects her father. Devlin finally turns to a rich widow. Fanny then tries to win him back and at the same time save her father.

This work investigates Rabbi David ibn Abi Zimra (Radbaz), a leading 16th century rabbinic authority who assumed the role of rendering 'just' decisions, which were occasionally at the expense of conventional law. The author explores Radbaz's decision-making in terms of his insight into the broader purposes of codified law, sensitivity, and overall rationality.

In The Wedding Complex Elizabeth Freeman explores the significance of the wedding ceremony by asking what the wedding becomes when you separate it from the idea of marriage. Freeman finds that weddings—as performances, fantasies, and rituals of transformation—are sites for imagining and enacting forms of social intimacy other than monogamous heterosexuality. Looking at the history of Anglo-American weddings and their depictions in American literature and popular culture from the antebellum era to the present, she reveals the cluster of queer desires at the heart of the "wedding complex"—longings not for marriage necessarily but for public forms of attachment, ceremony, pageantry, and celebration. Freeman draws on queer theory and social history to focus on a range of texts where weddings do not necessarily lead to legal marriage but instead reflect yearnings for intimate arrangements other than long-term, state-sanctioned, domestic couplehood. Beginning with a look at the debates over gay marriage, she proceeds to consider literary works by Nathaniel Hawthorne, William Faulkner, Carson McCullers, Vladimir Nabokov, and Edgar Allan Poe, along with such Hollywood films as Father of the Bride, The Graduate, and The Godfather. She also discusses less well-known texts such as Su Friedrich’s experimental film First Comes Love and the off-Broadway, interactive dinner play Tony ‘n’ Tina’s Wedding. Offering bold new ways to imagine attachment and belonging, and the public performance and recognition of social intimacy, The Wedding Complex is a major contribution to American studies, queer theory, and cultural studies.