“An interesting storyline. If you love cozies you really should try this series!”—from the USA Today bestselling author of Thread and Gone (Books, Movies, Reviews! Oh My!). The Mainely Needlepointers are about to learn that no man is an island—especially when greedy developers want his land . . . Hermit Jesse Lockhart lives alone on King’s Island, three miles east of Haven Harbor, Maine, where he’s created a private sanctuary for the endangered Great Cormorants. But when a wealthy family wants to buy the island and Jesse’s cousin petitions for power of attorney to force him to sell, Jesse is the one who becomes endangered. Mainely Needlepointer Dave Perry, who befriended Jesse in the VA hospital, rallies the group to his defense. Angie Curtis and the ravelers stitch “Save the King’s Island Cormorants” pillows and sell T-shirts to pay for Jesse’s legal counsel. But tragically, on a visit to the island, Angie finds Jesse dead. Now the search is on for a common thread that can tie the murdered man to his killer . . . Praise for the Mainely Needlepoint mysteries “Offers a wonderful sense of place and characters right from the very beginning. Highly recommended.” —Suspense Magazine “A cozy debut that hits all the sweet spots: small town, family ties, and a crew of intriguing personalities.” —Library Journal “Deep atmosphere, secrets from the past and a mystery interview with sharp plotting and well-developed, sympathetic characters create another winner in the second of the Mainly Needlepoint Mysteries.” —RT Book Reviews

Sam Wells reflects on the challenges to our understanding of Christ's crucifixion that arise today. Exploring contemporary ideas in history, biblical studies and philosophy, he reflects on six biblical stories and discovers that in the face of these challenges, the cross has an enduring power to shape how we live.

You can take the girl out of Queens… Or can you? Because for five years, fashion assistant Ellie Levine was taking a halfhearted stab at it, commuting to Manhattan by day, trying desperately to keep secret her outerborough existence—that accent, that hair…that daughter. Until the day fate landed her back in her Richmond Hill neighborhood 24/7, the very place she'd sworn to escape. Now she has a business to run there—not the business she had in mind, perhaps, but a business nonetheless. And the boy next door, who for years had been the married-man-next-door, is suddenly available. And interested? Maybe there really is no place like home. So even if you can take the girl out of Queens, would you?

Nicole Treadwell has a secret. If she reveals it, she will surely die. Of course, she knows it´s true because certain death is what he promised her after the "incident" in the deep woods years ago. Her fate ever in his hands, keeping the secret guts her on the inside as she struggles to make ends meet, serving as a law clerk to a dangerously ambitious judge in the Nation’s Capitol with secrets of her own. Nicole is tired--exhausted--toying with thoughts (she´s afraid to own) of letting life go. Her life is unraveling, her sound mind frayed. At the end of herself, she knows she can’t save herself, but who can? Worse, does she want to be saved? A swift reply to both questions comes in the way of a still, small voice at an unlikely time that ushers her onto a path few dare to tread or openly discuss. In contrast, Nicole´s former law school chumb and classmate, Timothy Grue, is a hotshot, private attorney who blazes notorious trails in and out of the courtroom. Both handsome and brash (owing to his kinship with privilege and social standing of a “fine” Philadelphia family), he seems to have the world on a string, every creature comfort easily within his reach, including an overabundance of company from the “fairer sex.” Despite his privilege and pedigree, Tim later learns that it came at a very high price. By a stroke of legal fortune (or misfortune), their paths collide professionally, as Tim is handpicked to represent an "A-List" Hollywood client in a lawsuit over which Nicole´s boss is the presiding judge. Not so secretly, the judge relishes the prospect of having her “fifteen seconds of fame” before the world press. Her staff knows that the attention from the paparazzi may prove to be her professional undoing--and theirs. Her job potentially on the line, Nicole contacts Tim Grue for a clandestine meeting of the minds, but will Tim take the bait and “sign on” to Nicole’s “harmless” solution? Their former friendship (on course to self-ignite or implode) sets in motion a chain of events that blast open the door to Nicole´s secret past and their bitter-sweet history; and where crises of identity, spirituality, and morality intersect, conflicting issues of race and class deepen already murky waters, as Nicole is black, and Timothy is white. Yet, as between the two, they want to know why race is still an issue at all? On the road from hell to higher ground, both learn that anything worth having is always tried by fires of a faith that asks, simply, what do you really believe? And more, can redemption ever come too late?

One heroic schoolteacher has saved hundreds of lives with unconditional love and zero tolerance for rule-breakers. His students are the worst of the worst—drug addicts, gang members, and violent criminal offenders. They have flunked out or been thrown out of every other school they’ve attended. They may be the children of addicts, of abusers, or even of good parents, but they have one thing in common: they have been rejected by everyone except Paul White. With ten simple rules, he has helped hundreds of kids turn their lives around. “I can’t remember when I’ve been this happy. Since I came here I’m getting right with my family and friends, I’m off the drugs and staying out of trouble. I’m doing really well in school and I’ve got a job.” —Kathy, fifteen, West Valley student, former crystal meth user “He never gives up on you.” —Roger, seventeen Among students, they’re the worst of the worst: chronic truants, drunks, drug addicts, even violent criminals. Some haven’t been to school for months, even years. Some have spent a year or more locked up for gang-related offenses and felony assaults. All of them, it seems, are on the short list of life’s early losers. Enter Paul White, the teacher whose combination of unconditional love and unbreakable rules has changed, and sometimes saved, the lives of the most troubled students in Detroit, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Los Angeles. When they walk through the door of his one-room high school, the West Valley Leadership Academy in Canoga Park, California, White treats them like his own children: loving them, protecting them, and requiring them to become men and women of moral courage, integrity, and high achievement. Sometimes it only takes one person to turn the tide. During his twenty-five-year career as a teacher, Paul White has saved hundreds of students from falling through the cracks. Veritable miracles have taken place in his classroom: ?The reading skills of a fourteen-year-old recovering crystal meth addict climbed from a seventh- to a tenth-grade level in six months. She finished high school at age sixteen and went on to complete a nursing program. A fifteen-year-old girl was flunking out of school—and so violent that the safety of the people around her couldn’t be guaranteed. After joining Paul’s class, she not only brought her grades up enough to graduate from high school at sixteen, but has gone on to finish several semesters at a local community college. A seventeen-year-old boy who had been a neo-Nazi asked a Holocaust survivor to forgive him for his disrespectful behavior. White’s Rules is a lesson to parents and educators who can’t control their kids or their classrooms. For Americans who truly want to stop the violence, end the apathy, and improve academic performance, White poses a challenge: Try his rules. The ten-rule list that he developed covers everything from character values to schoolwork, from getting off drugs to learning personal finance skills. By enforcing these rules, parents and educators can attack both the causes and the effects of the crisis in our schools. This is the moving story of how the program evolved and what we can all do to save our youth, one kid at a time.