Tess and Lizzie are sisters, sisters as close as can be, who share a secret world filled with selkies, flying horses, and a girl who can transform into a wolf in the middle of the night. But when Lizzie is ready to grow up, Tess clings to their fantasies. As Tess sinks deeper and deeper into her delusions, she decides that she can't live in the real world any longer and leaves Lizzie and her family forever. Now, years later, Lizzie is in high school and struggling to understand what happened to her sister. With the help of a school psychologist and Tess's battered journal, Lizzie searches for a way to finally let Tess go.

AJ Withers draws on their own experiences as an organizer, extensive interviews with the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) activists and Toronto bureaucrats, and freedom of information requests to provide a detailed account of the work of OCAP. This book shows that poor people’s organizing can be effective even in periods of neoliberal retrenchment. Fight to Win tells the stories of four key OCAP homelessness campaigns: stopping the criminalization of homeless people in a public park; the fight for poor people’s access to the Housing Shelter Fund; a campaign to improve the emergency shelter system and the City’s overarching, but inadequate, Housing First policy; and the attempt by the City of Toronto to drive homeless people from encampments during the COVID pandemic. This book shows how power works at the municipal level, including the use of a multitude of demobilization tactics, devaluing poor people as sources of knowledge about their own lives, and gaslighting poor people and anti-poverty activists. AJ Withers also details OCAP’s dual activist strategy — direct-action casework coupled with mass mobilization — for both immediate need and long-term change. These campaigns demonstrate the validity of OCAP’s longstanding critiques of dominant homelessness policies and practices. Each campaign was fully or partially successful: these victories were secured by anti-poverty activists through the use of, and the threat of, direct disruptive action tactics.

This book reassesses Hardy’s fiction in the light of his prolonged engagement with the folklore and traditions of rural England. Drawing on wide research, it demonstrates the pivotal role played in the novels by such customs and beliefs as ‘overlooking’, hag-riding, skimmington-riding, sympathetic magic, mumming, bonfire nights, May Day celebrations, Midsummer divination, and the ‘Portland Custom’. This study shows how such traditions were lived out in practice in village life, and how they were represented in written texts – in literature, newspapers, county histories, folklore books, the work of the Folklore Society, archival documents, and letters. It explores tensions between Hardy’s repeated insistence on the authenticity of his accounts and his engagement with contemporary anthropologists and folklorists, and reveals how his efforts to resist their ‘excellently neat’ categories of culture open up wider questions about the nature of belief, progress, and social change.

Martin has a secret. Tonight, he's going to tell you. Once, in a small town paralyzed with fear, a sadistic human monster moved undetected, leaving a terrifying trail of bloody death … and few clues. That was twenty-five years ago. Today, two more children have just been found brutally murdered. Eleven-year-old Joely calls this town her new home. She calls the shy, strange boy named Martin her new friend. But Martin has a secret: He knows who the killer is. Because he was a victim. And unless he can stop the killings, Joely's going to be the next one. In this town, every child has a reason to be afraid. Just ask Martin …

The offer: a weekend in paradise with a multimillionaire lover. No strings attached… Tess Robertson is about to get engaged—to a man she doesn't love. But when she meets dynamic, sexy Derek Nolan, she's thrilled to take him up on his seductive proposal instead! The fantasy: a lush tropical island filled with sun, sand…and a lot of sexual exploration…. Derek can hardly believe his good fortune. Tess is uninhibited…and totally into their uncomplicated, steamy hot island romp! The reality: paradise is only temporary…. When real life crashes back in, Tess reluctantly forces herself to leave the island and go back to the uninspired life she'd planned for herself. Too bad Derek isn't ready for the fantasy to end just yet….

Love Matters: A Book of Lesbian Romance and Relationships is a collection of advice columns and personal reflections that will help lesbian couples validate and appreciate their unique relationships. With excerpts taken from the author’s “Love Matters” column in the lesbian newspaper New Phazes, this book explores real-life questions and issues that lesbians have about dating, sex, love, and relationship longevity. From Love Matters, you’ll receive honest, informative advice that can help you and your partner share a more open and fulfilling relationship. Offering support, care, and understanding for lesbian couples, Love Matters seeks to recognize the “new female role” for lesbian women. Using her 15-year long relationship as a basis for many of the responses, the author provides you with suggestions and insight into topics relating to lesbian relationships, such as: keeping sex alive in a long-term relationship handling finances fairly and successfully supporting your partner through the physical, emotional, and spiritual changes caused by menopause identifying the difficulties of dating and what lesbians look for on a date questioning the purpose of and emotions caused by a long-distance relationship realizing how homophobia affects love and relationships While focusing on the joys and experiences of couples, this book also addresses depression and loneliness felt by single lesbians, break-ups, and the death of a partner. You’ll find that Love Matters offers comfort, hope, and humor that will help you understand the difficulties and rewards of your lesbian relationship.

Anger, fear, and uncertainty power the first day this horse and woman meet. The horse, six-months old, the woman, barely out of her teens, are to bond for life. But how is this going to happen? You Come Too is a compelling invitation to all animal lovers who appreciate the depth of feeling and meaning pets bring into our lives. The author of this true story, Susan Schroder, artfully describes behaviors her equine heroine exhibits, giving the reader an intimate view of their relationship. This unique story focuses on the horse and her adaptation to the human world including her strong need to belong, to learn, to love, to heal, to play, and to get what she wants. It is heartwarming and inspirational. Beware. It may even change the reader’s idea about how this majestic species interplays with life. New York Times bestselling author (The Good Good Pig) and naturalist Sy Montgomery writes, “You Come Too is riveting, beautifully crafted, full of love and insight, and has a powerful narrative arc. Everyone who has ever loved an animal will relate to this book – and even those who have known horses for years will learn something new from it.” Best Selling author (The Dog Who Loved Too Much), world renown animal behaviorist, and founding member of Veterinarians for Equine Welfare Nicholas Dodman, DVM writes; “You Come Too is a beautifully written saga of a 28-year relationship between the author and her horse in which both came to deeply understand and trust the other. The connection between them was almost spiritual. The end of the story is very moving and testifies to the powerful and eternal bond of love that a person can have with an animal.”

Tess Noncoiré, bestselling fantasy writer turned martial arts demon hunter, is back for another rollicking adventure. Trouble has followed Tess to her own doorstep, and now she and her sidekick Scrap must protect her mother from a demon she’s fallen in love with while at the same time fighting off an invasion led by the king of the Trolls—who bears far too close a resemblance to a garden gnome...

From the author of the acclaimed debut THE LEGACY comes a compelling tale of love, deception and illusion. England, 1911. When a free-spirited young woman arrives in a sleepy Berkshire village to work as a maid in the household of The Reverend and Mrs Canning, she sets in motion a chain of events which changes all their lives. For Cat has a past - a past her new mistress is willing to overlook, but will never understand . . . Then her husband invites a young man into their home, he brings with him a dangerous obsession . . . During the long, oppressive summer, the rectory becomes charged with ambition, love and jealousy - with the most devastating consequences. Your favourite authors love Katherine Webb's sweeping historical dramas: 'An enormously talented writer' Santa Montefiore 'Webb have a true gift for uncovering the mysteries of the human heart and exploring the truth of love' Kate Williams 'Katherine Webb's writing is beautiful' Elizabeth Fremantle 'A truly gifted writer of historical fiction' Lucinda Riley 'Katherine's writing is rich, vivid and evocative' Iona Grey

Redstone, Inc., pilot Tess Machado is awaiting her boss when two armed men muscle their way onto her plane in the middle of the California wilderness. It's Josh Redstone—of the Redstone empire—they want. But Tess isn't giving up the man she secretly loves—not without a fight. Josh always knew this day would come. Being the head of Redstone put a giant target on his back. The kidnappers on board the Hawk V are armed and dangerous, but they're forgetting one glaring detail. No one—no one—puts his Tess in harm's way and gets away with it. Will Tess and Josh admit what's been so obvious to others…before they're silenced forever?