The woman he’s never considered… Might be the only one he’ll ever need Jada Allen’s Christmas wishlist is simple: her gorgeous boss. A-list talent agent Max Moore counts on Jada to handle his life—and help him get through to his tween daughter. Yet workaholic Max never really notices her until a makeover reveals the vibrant woman he’s taken for granted. Will one hot night shatter their working relationship or lead to something far sweeter?

Countless young people in the Midwest, South, and Southwest went to dances and stage shows in the early to mid-twentieth century to hear a territory band play. Territory bands traveled from town to town, performing jazz and swing music, and Tulsa-based musician Ernie Fields (1904–97) led one of the best. In Going Back to T-Town, Ernie’s daughter, Carmen Fields, tells a story of success, disappointment, and perseverance, extending from the early jazz era to the 1960s. This is an enlightening account of how this talented musician and businessman navigated the hurdles of racial segregation during the Jim Crow era. Because few territory bands made recordings, their contributions to the development of jazz music are often overlooked. Fortunately, Ernie Fields not only recorded music but also loved telling stories. He shared his “tales from the road” with his daughter, a well-known Boston journalist, and his son, Ernie Fields Jr., who has carried on his legacy as a successful musician and music contractor. As much as possible, Carmen Fields tells her father’s story in his own voice: how he weathered the ups and downs of the music industry and maintained his optimism even while he faced entrenched racial prejudice and threats of violence. After traveling with his band all over the United States, Fields eventually caught the attention of renowned music producer John Hammond. In 1939, Hammond arranged for recording sessions and bookings that included performances in the famed Apollo Theater in New York. Ernie finally scored a top-ten hit in 1959 with his rock-and-roll rendition of “In the Mood.” At a time when most other territory bands had faded, the Ernie Fields Orchestra continued to perform. A devoted husband and family man, Ernie Fields also respected and appreciated his fellow musicians. The book includes a “Roll Call” of his organization’s members, based on notes he kept about them. Going Back to T-Town is a priceless source of information for historians of American popular music and African American history.

When reporter, Shelley Jackson, discovers the body of her friend and informant in an alley, she teams up with the dead man's brother, architect, Jason Mallory, to solve the crime. But two more murders, a couple of arsons, and whispers of unsafe building practices tell them the deaths are connected to city corruption being investigated by Shelley's newspaper. Their relationship heats up to nights of hot sex, while their search for the truth has buildings crumbling around them. But the killer is watching from the shadows of respectability and planning for the couple's demise. Can they reveal the killer before they become tomorrow’s headline?

One of the Atlantic's "Books to Get Lost in This Summer" Best Books of August 2023: New York Times Book Review, Christian Science Monitor, InsideHook, BookRiot, WNET AllArts, Arlington Magazine A trenchant reclamation of the Chinese American movie star, whose battles against cinematic exploitation and endemic racism are set against the currents of twentieth-century history. Born into the steam and starch of a Chinese laundry, Anna May Wong (1905–1961) emerged from turn-of-the-century Los Angeles to become Old Hollywood’s most famous Chinese American actress, a screen siren who captivated global audiences and signed her publicity photos—with a touch of defiance—“Orientally yours.” Now, more than a century after her birth, Yunte Huang narrates Wong’s tragic life story, retracing her journey from Chinatown to silent-era Hollywood, and from Weimar Berlin to decadent, prewar Shanghai, and capturing American television in its infancy. As Huang shows, Wong’s rendezvous with history features a remarkable parade of characters, including a smitten Walter Benjamin and (an equally smitten) Marlene Dietrich. Challenging the parodically racist perceptions of Wong as a “Dragon Lady,” “Madame Butterfly,” or “China Doll,” Huang’s biography becomes a truly resonant work of history that reflects the raging anti-Chinese xenophobia, unabashed sexism, and ageism toward women that defined both Hollywood and America in Wong’s all-too-brief fifty-six years on earth.

“A first-rate work of insider his­tory . . . A monumental accomplishment.” —National Review The election that changed everything: Craig Shirley’s masterful account of the 1980 presidential campaign reveals how a race judged “too close to call” as late as Election Day became a Reagan landslide—and altered the course of history. To write Rendezvous with Destiny, Shirley gained unprecedented access to 1980 campaign files and interviewed more than 150 insiders—from Reagan’s closest advisers and family members to Jimmy Carter himself. His gripping account follows Reagan’s unlikely path from his bitter defeat on the floor of the 1976 Republican convention, through his underreported “wilderness years,” through grueling primary fights in which he knocked out several Republican heavyweights, through an often-nasty general election campaign complicated by the presence of a third-party candidate (not to mention the looming shadow of Ted Kennedy), to Reagan’s astounding victory on Election Night in 1980. Shirley’s years of intensive research have enabled him to relate countless untold stories—including, at long last, the solution to one of the most enduring mysteries in politics: just how Reagan’s campaign got hold of Carter’s debate briefing books.

Winter of 1993 — Alaska State Park Ranger Clay Blakely leaves the court house in Palmer, Alaska a single man. His divorce is final. His thoughts turn to his son Kevin and what the future may hold. What’s a single, middle aged man with a 4 year old son going to do? His funds are low because as a park ranger he works only seasonally. Many jobs in Alaska are seasonal, it’s the nature of the state. As he drives home he notices the winter white of Alaska around him. He thinks of Mexico and Puerto Vallarta where he and Debbie had yearned to go on a vacation as soon as they could afford it. The winter wind whistles across the road hurling bursts of snow in front of his truck. The sound of snow crunching under the truck’s tires brings him back to reality. He glances out the driver’s side window as he slows the truck to a stop at the last intersection in town before entering the Palmer/Wasilla highway to home. His eye catches the sign in the “Round the World” travel agency window, “Vacation in Mexico, reasonable air fares, and lodging available.” Once in Mexico he meets someone whose company he really enjoys. His dating skills are clumsy as he has been out of the dating scene for quite some time. But, fearing that a 6,000 plus mile relationship would never work he and Kevin leave Puerto Vallarta without even saying goodbye. Or, so Clay thinks as he and Kevin board their flight back to Anchorage, Alaska.

Erasing the boundaries between author, reader, & text in the electronic environment.

"Frightening and believable … great story line … and a little romance … in an end of the world as we know it book " — Amazon review. The Rendezvous, volume two of the Planets Shaken series, ramps up the action while it continues the story of the Rogue, a planet-sized comet which threatens to unleash the nightmare prophesied in Luke 21:26, "the powers of the heavens shall be shaken." Christian apocalyptic fiction with a scientific whallop. Irina is detained in FEMA 286 on Homeland Security charges. Ariele eludes the authorities and makes her way to the Compound, a preppers' redoubt near Two Dot, Montana. Her new friends mastermind a plan to break Irina out.