In Desert Daughters, Desert Sons, professor Rachel Wheeler argues that a new reading of the texts of the Christian desert tradition is needed to present the (often) anonymous women who inhabit the texts. Though these women may have been included by storytellers to provide a foil to the exemplary men in the stories' foreground, Wheeler demonstrates how women's persistence in places they were not welcome witnesses to truths about where wisdom may be sought and found. In this book, Wheeler allows these women's stories to critique the desert impulse that can create a spiritual life devoid of social relationships and responsibility.

A new romantic epic from the author ofThe Blood of the Land. The author of the acclaimed fantasies The Sword of the Land and The Blood of the Land brings readers this tale of a young noblewoman and a prince whose unlikely alliance must defeat the savage magic of a dangerous land.

A venerable saguaro cactus stands like a statue in the hot desert landscape, its armlike branches reaching fifty feet into the air. From a distance it appears to be completely still and solitary--but appearances can be deceptive. In fact, this giant tree of the desert is alive with activity. Its spiny trunk and branches are home to a surprising number of animals, and its flowers and fruit feed many desert dwellers. Gila woodpeckers and miniature elf owls make their homes inside the saguaro's trunk. Long-nosed bats and fluttering white doves drink the nectar from its showy white flowers. People also play a role in the saguaro's story: each year the Tohono O'odham Indians gather its sweet fruit in a centuries-old harvest ritual. In this first volume of Sierra Club Books' Tree Tales series, a simple, easy-to-read text and appealing drawings document the life cycle of this amazing cactus tree and the creatures it helps to support. Readers will come away with a better understanding of and a lasting respect for this accomodating giant of the desert.

Loretta Bowersock and her daughter, Terri, ran a multimillion-dollar furniture store based in Tempe, Arizona, where they were well-known and admired by many. Together, these two women seemed to be living the American Dream...until one man decided to take it all away. Over the course of two decades, Taw Benderly worked his way into Loretta's heart, home, and business. Though the couple appeared to be happy, their lives behind closed doors told another story. Terri had always known that the handsome, charming, and usually unemployed Taw was manipulating her mother—but she did not know the extent of the abuse or how far he would go to defraud her. Then, just before Christmas in 2004, Loretta went missing. It would be more than a year before Terri learned the shocking truth: That, before killing himself, Taw murdered the 69-year-old Loretta and left her. Bones in the Desert is the shocking story of a devoted mother and daughter, a successful business, and the man who would do everything to destroy it all ...

Helle Amin seemed to have the perfect life on the tropical island of Bali with her husband and four children. But one day in 2002 this idyllic existence was shattered when she returned home from a shopping trip to find her children gone. It didn't take long to discover that her Saudi Arabian husband had taken them to live in his home country.With her children thousands of miles away in the totally unfamiliar surroundings of an Islamic state, Helle drew upon her remarkable courage. Enlisting the help of her friends, she set off for the desert in a desperate attempt to find her beloved boys. Her journey was filled with drama, danger, excitement and sorrow. In the astonishing struggle that followed, Helle was reduced to catching occasional glimpses of her boys as they went to and from school in Jeddah. Some women might have given up, but not Helle. In a male-dominated society, she prepared her case and demanded justice in the Saudi courts.After a long battle, Helle and her boys were reunited forever, and as a testament to her bravery she was a recent Tesco Mum of the Year winner. This gripping story cannot fail to touch any reader's heart and is packed with adventure, heartache and joy.

`Give me a word, Father', visitors to early desert monks asked. The responses of these pioneer ascetics were remembered and in the fourth century written down in Coptic, Syriac, Greek, and later Latin. Their Sayings were collected, in this case in the alphabetical order of the monks and nuns who uttered them, and read by generations of Christians as life-giving words that would help readers along the path to salvation.