Helena’s life had always been quiet. In fact, she liked it that way. When her childhood friend returns home and tells her that she is the prophesied ruler of the Chosen, those blessed with the gift of magic, her quiet life goes up in flames.

Suddenly Helena finds herself surrounded by a circle of protectors, each having sworn their loyalty to her since her birth. All except for one: her Mate.

It’s not enough that she learn how to use her magic and undergo a trial to prove her worthiness; in order to claim her title, Helena must also find the man who carries the other half of her soul.

Studies have shown that marriages typically thrive the most in the months after the wedding, a period known as “the honeymoon period.”

Not these marriages.

Spousal murder is never acceptable, but newlywed murder seems to be on a completely different level. It is unconscionable to think someone could stand in front of his family and friends, pledging to honor and cherish another person for the rest of his life, and then kill his spouse in cold blood just months, weeks, or even days later. It happens more than you’d think–and, contrary to popular belief, it’s not always the husband who acts as the aggressor.

Six years with my knight in shining armor.

Four years with my knight in dented armor.

Two years with my knight in rusted armor.

It is time to make a change. Time to find myself, even if it scares the hell out of me.

I, Makenzie Mayfair, am leaving my husband.

This is my chance to begin again, to rip my backbone out and yell, “I’ve found it.” It may take time, it may take new friends, a job and even a jerk of a boss who is annoyingly handsome, but I will get there.

Being head cheerleader doesn’t exactly prepare you for life during the apocalypse, and it’s a dangerous learning curve…

Sixteen-year-old Jane wakes up to a desperate text from her best friend—the dead are walking around outside her window. Jane’s parents are in New York for the weekend, and Jane is completely alone.

After a gruesome personal tragedy, Abby rescues Jane, and the girls flee the town they grew up in, hoping to find a place unaffected by the dead. Abby’s family lake house seems like the only choice, but their beacon of hope is three States away, separated by a sea of reanimated death. Reaching it will be anything but easy.

Dodging minefields in Cambodia, diving into the icy waters outside a Russian bath, Chef Bourdain travels the world over in search of the ultimate meal. The only thing Anthony Bourdain loves as much as cooking is traveling, and A Cook’s Tour is the shotgun marriage of his two greatest passions. Inspired by the question, ‘What would be the perfect meal?’, Anthony sets out on a quest for his culinary holy grail. Our adventurous chef starts out in Japan, where he eats traditional Fugu, a poisonous blowfish which can be prepared only by specially licensed chefs. He then travels to Cambodia, up the mine-studded road to Pailin into autonomous Khmer Rouge territory and to Phnom Penh’s Gun Club, where local fare is served up alongside a menu of available firearms.

Twelve-year-old William Eng, a Chinese American boy, has lived at Seattle’s Sacred Heart Orphanage ever since his mother’s listless body was carried away from their small apartment five years ago. On his birthday—or rather, the day the nuns designate as his birthday—William and the other orphans are taken to the historical Moore Theatre, where William glimpses an actress on the silver screen who goes by the name of Willow Frost. Struck by her features, William is convinced that the movie star is his mother, Liu Song.

Determined to find Willow and prove that his mother is still alive, William escapes from Sacred Heart with his friend Charlotte.

We know whole grain breads are better for us, but will we actually eat them, much less take time to bake them?

Yes, says beloved baking instructor Peter Reinhart, but only if they are very, very good. So Reinhart, with his decades of experience crafting amazing artisanal breads, has made it his mission to create whole grain breads that are nothing short of incredible.

And because his approach is also simpler and less labor intensive than conventional techniques, you’ll choose to make and eat these breads. His fifty-five recipes for whole grain sandwich, hearth, and specialty breads, plus bagels, crackers, and more, incorporate widely available whole wheat flour as well as other flours and grains such as rye, barley, steel-cut oats, cornmeal, and quinoa. Each is so rich with flavor and satisfying texture that white-flour counterparts pale in comparison.

Doug Parker is a widower at age twenty-nine, and in his quiet suburban town, that makes him something of a celebrity—the object of sympathy, curiosity, and, in some cases, unbridled desire. But Doug has other things on his mind. First there’s his sixteen year-old stepson, Russ: a once-sweet kid who now is getting into increasingly serious trouble on a daily basis. Then there are Doug’s sisters: his bossy twin, Clair, who’s just left he husband and moved in with Doug, determined to rouse him from his Grieving stupor. And Debbie, who’s engaged to Doug’s ex-best friend and manically determined to pull off the perfect wedding at any cost.

In his first work of nonfiction, bestselling novelist James Webb tells the epic story of the Scots-Irish, a people whose lives and worldview were dictated by resistance, conflict, and struggle, and who, in turn, profoundly influenced the social, political, and cultural landscape of America from its beginnings through the present day.

More than 27 million Americans today can trace their lineage to the Scots, whose bloodline was stained by centuries of continuous warfare along the border between England and Scotland, and later in the bitter settlements of England’s Ulster Plantation in Northern Ireland. Between 250,000 and 400,000 Scots-Irish migrated to America in the eighteenth century, traveling in groups of families and bringing with them not only long experience as rebels and outcasts but also unparalleled skills as frontiersmen and guerrilla fighters.

On a bitter November evening, young Mary Yellan journeys across the rainswept moors to Jamaica Inn in honor of her mother’s dying request. When she arrives, the warning of the coachman begins to echo in her memory, for her aunt Patience cowers before hulking Uncle Joss Merlyn. Terrified of the inn’s brooding power, Mary gradually finds herself ensnared in the dark schemes being enacted behind its crumbling walls — and tempted to love a man she dares not trust.