Marlena de Blasi, the acclaimed author of such delectable memoirs as A Thousand Days in Venice and That Summer in Sicily, now brings her luminous prose to the world of fiction with this remarkable debut novel. Set against the backdrop of Europe as it moves inexorably toward World War II, Amandine follows a young orphan’s journey in search of her heritage. The story opens in Krakow in 1931, as a baby girl is conceived out of wedlock, the byproduct of a foolish heart and a tragic inheritance. The child’s grandmother, a countess, believes that she is protecting her daughter when she claims that the baby didn’t survive. In truth, however, she deposits the infant at a remote convent in the French countryside, leaving her with a great sum of money and in the care of a young governess named Solange. Solange takes it upon herself to give the child a distinctive name, Amandine, and the two form a special bond. But even Solange’s unconditional love cannot protect her charge. Mistrusted by both the abbess and the convent girls, the unusually astute and curious Amandine finds her childhood filled with challenges and questions: Who is she? Where does she come from? Eventually, Solange is forced to choose between the terrors of the convent and those of a global war looming outside its doors. Thus, with a purseful of worthless francs and a sack of provisions, the two flee north toward Solange’s childhood home. But what should have been a two-day journey by train becomes a perilous, years-long odyssey across Occupied France—and deeper into the treacheries of war. Tracing the flight of Amandine and Solange while peering into the lives of the countess and her daughter, Amandine’s mother, who still mourns and dreams of the child she thinks she lost forever, Marlena de Blasi’s epic novel winds its way toward a dramatic and compelling conclusion, as mother and daughter draw ever nearer. Amandine is a sumptuous tale of identity and survival, persistent hope and unexpected love.

In this fourth installment of the Switch series, we find Felicia Culbertson Guthrie now a university graduate, a published author, and a Licensed Associate Counselor under her Master’s degree faculty advisor. Her husband Joe and their friends have built her an office, from which she offers professional counseling services to patients both online and in person. Plus, she’s the mother of an adorable young son. As if that is not enough, she’s also assumed the role of spanking therapist for those who feel the need for impact play in their lives, but are too hesitant to engage the services of a professional Dominatrix. Can she safely and successfully balance all the hats she’s now wearing: wife, mother, and behavioral counselor, in roles both submissive and Dominant for her husband and her clients? Among those clients is a thirty-something female Memphis aristocrat who’s come across the Mississippi to see her for tension release, but has fallen into hot lust with her. Then there’s a malevolent self-proclaimed Dominant ready to take advantage of any naive submissive girl he can brainwash into following his lead. And, of course, there is her spouse, who is increasingly uncertain of his own place in her heart and her life—mostly because of a young, handsome, student preacher with a spanking kink he’s trying desperately to cope with. He wants Felicia to let him practice on her own bottom… Who knows how she’ll manage it all. Or if she actually can! Whatever else you can say about Felicia, she’s hardly boring. Just ask her husband.

Girls’ Feminist Blogging in a Postfeminist Age explores the practices of U.S.-based teenage girls who actively maintain feminist blogs and participate in the feminist blogosphere as readers, writers, and commenters on platforms including Blogspot, Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr. Drawing on interviews with bloggers between the ages of fifteen and twenty-one, as well as discursive textual analyses of feminist blogs and social networking postings authored by teenage girls, Keller addresses how these girls use blogging as a practice to articulate contemporary feminisms and craft their own identities as feminists and activists. In this sense, feminist girl bloggers defy hegemonic postfeminist and neoliberal girlhood subjectivities, a finding that Keller uses to complicate both academic and popular assertions that suggest teenage girls are uninterested in feminism. Instead, Keller maintains that these young bloggers employ digital media production to educate their peers about feminism, connect with like-minded activists, write feminist history, and make feminism visible within popular culture, practices that build upon and continue a lengthy tradition of American feminism into the twenty-first century. Girls’ Feminist Bloggers in a Postfeminist Age challenges readers to not only reconsider teenage girls’ online practices as politically and culturally significant, but to better understand their crucial role in a thriving contemporary feminism.

Nineteen-year-old Ara has always known what to expect. Being a royal and the second child of the late king, she knows that she was never meant to rule–however, her older brother, Bodhi, was born and bred for it. Abner is a city without a king and soon Bodhi will take his place upon the throne. But Ara’s world is suddenly turned upside down when her godfather, Lord Erryl, plots to seize the throne for himself. This ultimate betrayal forces the royal siblings apart as they flee the city. Now in exile, Ara is determined to find her brother and help him reclaim his rightful place on the throne. Twenty-year-old Hoefler has been on his own for as long as he can remember. After years of searching the kingdom for his long-lost family, he finds himself imprisoned in the city of Abner. Fate brings Hoefler and Ara together as they make unlikely friends, loyal allies and travel the kingdom in search of her lost brother, Prince Bodhi. The two young runaways and their companions must put their trust in one another in order to survive. But when curious events unfold and a mysterious crown is discovered in the Woods, questions and secrets are brought to the surface.

Teenage is that time of life when you are too old for comics and too young for romantic stories. This set of 23 short stories will gladden a teenager’s heart and delight anyone whatever their age may be. Contains a mix of short, medium and long stories to suit the spare time you have. 23 stories strung together with finesse, grace and joy to bring fragrance, cheer, joy and hope back into your lives.