Our daughter Grace is a special needs child, and her life is full of challenges. Because of her illness, her intellectual development was hindered, and there is a certain amount of stubbornness as well. Yet the Lord blesses her, using her stubbornness as a positive trait. She has a warrior spirit, never giving up and always facing her illness fearlessly. Grace was on an extremely restricted diet, but she seldom complained or whined for the food that she could not take. She never complained about doing blood work, because she wanted to be a brave example to the other children around. I admire Grace because she made up her own story, "The Return of Frollo and Sarousch" a continuance of the Hunchback of Notre Dame story ten years later. It is my good intention to publish Grace's story, not just to encourage her but to share with you our testimony and how Grace touched our lives. I want people to see that behind the special needs, these kids are capable of making a difference in their own lives and others'. There are many trials and challenges in life, but only God knows and He is in total control.

TEN YEARS AGO, Harvard professor James Kugel was diagnosed with an aggressive, likely fatal, form of cancer. “I was, of course, disturbed and worried. But the main change in my state of mind was that the background music had suddenly stopped—the music of daily life that’s constantly going, the music of infinite time and possibilities. Now suddenly it was gone, replaced by nothing, just silence. There you are, one little person, sitting in the late summer sun, with only a few things left to do.” Despite his illness, Kugel was intrigued by this new state of mind and especially the uncanny feeling of human smallness that came with it. There seemed to be something overwhelmingly true about it—and its starkness reminded him of certain themes and motifs he had encountered in his years of studying ancient religions. “This, I remember thinking, was something I should really look into further—if ever I got the chance.” In the Valley of the Shadow is the result of that search. In this wide-ranging exploration of different aspects of religion—interspersed with his personal reflections on the course of his own illness—Kugel seeks to uncover what he calls “the starting point of religious consciousness,” an ancient “sense of self” and a way of fitting into the world that is quite at odds with the usual one. He tracks these down in accounts written long ago of human meetings with gods and angels, anthropologists’ descriptions of the lives of hunter-gatherers, the role of witchcraft in African societies, first-person narratives of religious conversions, as well as the experimental data assembled by contemporary neuroscientists and evolutionary biologists. Though this different sense of how we fit into the world has largely disappeared from our own societies, it can still come back to us as a fleeting state of mind, “when you are just sitting on some park bench somewhere; or at a wedding, while everyone else is dancing and jumping around; or else one day standing in your backyard, as the sun streams down through the trees . . . ” Experienced in its fullness, this different way of seeing opens onto a stark, new landscape ordinarily hidden from human eyes. Kugel’s look at the whole phenomenon of religious beliefs is a rigorously honest, sometimes skeptical, but ultimately deeply moving affirmation of faith in God. One of our generation’s leading biblical scholars has created a powerful meditation on humanity’s place in the world and all that matters most in our lives. Believers and doubters alike will be struck by its combination of objective scholarship and poetic insight, which makes for a single, beautifully crafted consideration of life’s greatest mystery.

Several years after a global ecological catastrophe the majority of humanity has morally regressed. Violence and corruption have escalated. This new era has come to be called The Neo Dark Age. Nero, a resident of a valley community, daily documents the transpiring madness as he battles feelings of guilt over the death of a young girl. In his log he recounts the schemes of a madman named Mondo, a gang of menacing youths, and an enigmatic Native American with a dark secret. Discover what lurks in the looming shadow of a damaged world in book one of this horrifying trilogy.

The title of this book reflects a time in my life when I was surrounded by death and the possibility of not making the return journey home from combat in Iraq in 2005–2006. I felt a deep obligation to tell my two-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Chrisraine, about the boy that I was and the soldier that I became should I not make it back home to tell her in person. This book chronicles my childhood beginning with my first indelible memory at age four, describing the people, places, and events that molded me into the man and soldier that I became until my son, Christophe, turned four years old. Valley of the Shadow was an easy choice as the title for me because of the biblical and literal connection to me as I experienced combat and lived in a space and time defined by death and the will to overcome that fear. That shadow was ever present, and I fought hard and willed myself not to be engulfed by it. I was much more to my family than a soldier, and I wanted my daughter to know the boy that I was and what made me into the soldier that I became. This journey was filled with periods of joy and great happiness as well as uncertainty and sadness as a boy and much the same as a soldier. I excelled at the things that I applied myself to but was always challenged to perform in order to continue receiving the pleasures of everyday life or to survive a day in combat. So both my childhood and my profession were valleys oftentimes reflecting low points and high points with a sense of duty to survive and overcome the day at hand.

This book is a compelling and true story, a must read story about a man who died, then slipped into a coma, and by a miracle came back to life and back from the other side of death. About being given a second chance in life, and what I have learned from it. That is; a choice between spending eternity in either Heaven or Hell. To tell everyone what awaits all of us upon death. This could be one of the most important books you ever read, I hope to encourage all who believe in Jesus, and if these words could just reach one lost soul, then my purpose is fulfilled. This is real events: It is riveting and encouraging yet fearful. The answer to what everyone seeks is revealed in this book. What happens when we die, what will we see, where will we go?

"I found her in the closet; that is how the nightmare began . . ." The nightmare is suicide, teen suicide by overdose. Valley of the Shadow provides a rare and intimate window on one family's life thrown into a tailspin by their daughter's suicide attempt. Written with candor, hope, and even some humor, the authors share their story of grief, crisis, recovery and renewal from both the family's and victim's perspectives. Walk with Elizabeth and Erin Stone and their family through this valley to find hope and healing.

King David in the Valley of the Shadow of Middle Age tells the story of the life of David of the Old Testament. David was a poet, a warrior, a politician, and a polygamist. His life story is one of the world’s great sagas, full of action and adventure, love and lust, and it holds many psychological and religious lessons, particularly for those in the midst of the messy dilemmas and responsibilities of middle age.

In Ireland of A.D. 666, Sister Fidelma is sent by her brother, Colgu of Cashel, the king of Muman, to the remote valley of Gleann Geis, whose inhabitants still adhere to the ancient Druidic ways. Her mission is to negotiate with the chieftain Laisre for permission to build a Christian church and school in his territory. Fidelma's task won't be an easy one, though, as Laisre's clan is known for its hostility to the new religion and fierce adherence to the old. Approaching the valley, Fidelma and her companion, Brother Eadulf, come upon a particularly grisly scene--the slain bodies of thirty-three young men, placed in a sunwise circle and bearing the marks of the ancient threefold death of pagan times. As an emissary of her brother the king, as well as her position as a dalaigh--an advocate of the Brehon courts--it is Fidelma's responsibility to uncover the truth behind the gruesome murders. Within the forbidden valley, Fidelma embarks upon an inquiry that not only places her in the gravest personal danger but upon which rests the continuing peace of her brother's kingdom.

Valley of the Shadows is a duet of two novels, concerning the fickleness of pursuing fame in a society that measures success by media adoration. In the title novel, Marya Brooks, an experienced poet in her seventies, decides to practice amateur obeah (voodoo) to cast negative spells on her favorite top five poets, the thriving competition. Only when each poet begins to die mysteriously does she develop guilt for her actions. Her former student, H.D., believes her research can dispute Marya's fallacious theories. Surrender, the second poem-novel, alternates between viewpoints of Rory Pole, an aspiring songwriter, and her idol, country music rising star, Maggie Moore. Also set in the southeast, primarily on both coasts of southern Florida, Rory is bitter when she receives no response from Maggie but notices that lines of her poems begin appearing in the singer's songs. In both novels, all characters eventually give up illusions and false patterns of behavior in these chilling stories, regarding the relevance of mass recognition and inordinate acclaim and adulation. They are novels-of-the-future, in accord with Anais Nin's tenets that commingle art with moral issues for compelling psychological literature.