A twentieth-century Faust, musician turned wine merchant, Crawford Hollander has done well from his deal with the devil. Successful, charming, surrounded by a circle of adoring women, he has cajoled, manipulated and cheated his way to riches. But Crawford has also accumulated enemies. On his return to his native New Zealand, three men are waiting for him. They have formed the Welcoming Committee, and have prepared a very special form of revenge-Crawford is the most complex and most magnificent of Imogen de la Bere's villains, and the novel through which he struts is her best yet - gripping, funny and deliciously tolerant of human frailty.

Upon his arrival, Butternut Creek Christian Church's newly-minted minister is met by a welcome committee led by Miss Birdie and her friend Mercedes, a.k.a. "the Widows." Their first order of business, to educate him on how things should be done, quickly gives way to a campaign to find him a wife. When their matchmaking efforts fizzle, the Widows turn to another new bachelor. Amputee and Afghan vet Sam simply wants to be left alone -- a desire that's as good as a red flag to the Widows! Soon they're scheming to pair him up with Willow, his beautiful physical therapist, a divorced mother of two who is afraid of commitment, Perrine's small-town tale is a big-time triumph of gentle humor, fast-paced plot, and wonderfully engaging characters.

Explaining how the planet’s myriad crises are actually the birth pangs of a new Earth, this inspired exploration is Barbara Marx Hubbard’s prophetic call for a planetary shift. It explores the aftermath of the coming planetary renaissance that she has heralded for decades, and introduces an established popular global movement to cocreate a massive transition around a symbolic “Planetary Birthday” event on December 22, 2012. This volume features 12 evolutionary pioneers’ commentary on the author’s key themes of collective birth and conscious evolution, aiming to foster the emergence of a sustainable planetary civilization. Featured contributors include Ervin Laszlo, Michael Beckwith, Jack Canfield, Jean Houston, and Neale Donald Walsch.

Nuke Spawn Everyone who lives in Deathlands must endure the hellscape of a world mutilated by nukes and madness. Survival is a grim pursuit, achieved only by the most ruthless means. Yet Ryan Cawdor and his companions remain determined to persevere by doing whatever it takes to survive. Death Infestation When a mat-trans malfunction strands Ryan Cawdor and his friends in a gutted redoubt in the West Indies, the crystal waters offer them a tantalizing glimpse of untouched splendor. But the oasis is abruptly shattered by violent and ruthless pirates, and Ryan has to barter with a young guide, a teenage boy on a blood quest against a sadistic local warlord, to navigate a land teeming with predators–mutie, human and animal. The race is on to find a second redoubt, buried deep in the inhospitable heart of Monster Island. As pirates, mutie sec men and monsters converge, the kill zone widens, blood flows…and the group rushes to escape paradise before it destroys them. Because even paradise has claws in Deathlands.

All it takes is one spark . . .

Between 1867 - the year of the Alaskan purchase - and the beginning of World War I, Russian and American dignitaries, diplomats, businessmen, writers, tourists, and entertainers crossed between the two countries in surprisingly great numbers. Concord and Conflict provides the first comprehensive investigation of this highly transformational and fateful era in Russian-American relations. Excavating previously unmined Russian and American archives, Norman Saul illuminates these fifty significant - and open - years of association between the two countries. He explores the flow and fluctuation of economic, diplomatic, social, and cultural affairs; the personal and professional conflicts and scandals; and the evolution of each nation's perception of the other.