Fourteen year old Josephine is orphaned and molested in one terrifying event at her family's ranch in the 1850's. He life is saved when she is found by a passing saddle tramp who cares for her injuries and guides her through the stages of denial, guilt, and finally anger. He also teaches her how to protect herself with her fathers weapons; a lesson taught for self defense but learned with darker plans in mind. When the young girl decides she is ready, she announces she is leaving the ranch to find the killers. Six months after the attack, and now an expert with the six gun and the rifle Josephine leaves the ranch in the hands of the man who saved her life and leaves on a journey of discovery and murder. As she spends two years searching the west for the three men that attacked her familys ranch, the once spoiled little girl learns the world is not like the quiet little town she knew as a child. Disguised as a farm boy for her own safety, and earning a reputation as a gunfighter, she learns over her two-year sojourn what it takes to become a woman in the American west. Each step takes her closer to the revenge she craved. Each step takes her closer to looking into the eyes of her rapists. And each step takes her further from her home, and the boy she has fallen in love with.

Who is killing classical composers all over America? A serial killer is on the loose and Harry Grouch must find out why and catch the murderer. "Stradella's Revenge" is based on the real life conflicts of two 17th century Italian composers, Tomaso Albinoni and Alessandro Stradella. It is the third in the entertaining Harry Grouch Detective Series that includes "The Witch of Maple Park" and "Nanobe." Dr. Tomaso Albinoni, a Medical Microbiologist at Bard Memorial Hospital (and a descendant of the baroque composer with the same name) hires Harry Grouch and Associates to investigate anonymous death threats. Could they be related to an unsolved series of recent murders of other composers? Harry discovers that in Tom Albinoni's case they may be revenge threats coming from a descendant of Alessandro Stradella, a composer who was assassinated in 1682, possibly by one of Albinoni's ancestors. These were real and talented composers whose music is often heard and celebrated today. Flashbacks to 1682 reveal what really happened. Stradella was a blessed composer and a cursed personality, a cad, a womanizer, and an embezzler from the church. Some would probably say he deserved assassination. The current day Albinoni is stalked by the current day Stradella. Harry Grouch investigates using clues from the composer's music. What is driving the modern day Stradella and will Harry catch him in time?

“A powerful story of punk-rock inspiration and a great rock bio” (Rolling Stone), now in paperback. When the Ramones recorded their debut album in 1976, it heralded the true birth of punk rock. Unforgettable front man Joey Ramone gave voice to the disaffected youth of the seventies and eighties, and the band influenced the counterculture for decades to come. With honesty, humor, and grace, Joey’s brother, Mickey Leigh, shares a fascinating, intimate look at the turbulent life of one of America’s greatest—and unlikeliest—music icons. While the music lives on for new generations to discover, I Slept with Joey Ramone is the enduring portrait of a man who struggled to find his voice and of the brother who loved him.

Writing America into the Twenty-First Century: Essays on the American Novel seeks to explore an exciting period in American literary scholarship. Concentrating on novels written after 1990 and through to the new millennium and to the present day, this collection presents a refreshing and much-needed analysis of recent American fiction. Representing the work of established scholars and emerging critical voices, the essays interrogate a range of fiction including works by Philip Roth, Jeffrey Eugenides, Don DeLillo, Thomas Pynchon and Cormac McCarthy. Accessible to students, scholars and the interested reader, this invigorating collection navigates the works of several key male American authors of the last twenty years and, in so doing, offers a new way of examining the American novel. This volume’s strength lies in its careful academic focus on recent American fiction and seeks to re-acquaint the reader with well-known authors and introduce them to new literary voices such as Christopher John Farley, Anthony Giardina and Daniel Suarez. The collection is organised into four large topic areas: ‘Youth and Age,’ ‘War and Crime,’ ‘Culture’ and ‘Spaces and Patterns.’ Each essay deals with its own particular subject and author but the full impact of each section on the concept of writing the American novel into the present day can only really be understood when read in conjunction with the others. Writing America, a companion volume to Reading America: New Perspectives on the American Novel (2008) would be a valuable asset to any university or branch library. The volume will also attract strong interest from established academics, especially those researching the fields of literature, critical theory, cultural history and politics.

Read this "high-octane thriller" that "calls to mind...Jeffery Deaver and Alfred Hitchcock" and questions everything that you have ever saved on your phone (Mystery Scene Magazine). A name=_Hlk27739307In a crowded coffee shop, Zack Yellin swaps identical-looking cell phones with the businessman next to him. It's an honest mistake-and a deadly one. Because the "businessman" is actually a professional-and highly volatile-hit man named Joey Richter, and his phone is filled with bombshell evidence./aA name=_Hlk27739307 /aIf Zack takes Joey's phone to the police, will they believe his swapped cell phone story? Would they even be able to protect him? Because the hit man now has Zack's phone with the phone numbers and addresses of Zack's new girlfriend Emily, his best friend Steve, and all the texts and information from Zack's life. Whether Zack keeps the phone or ditches it, Joey will kill him for what he now knows. In cat-and-mouse twists, turns, and continually mounting terror, one thing is clear: Zack is next on the hit man's list.

College students Morgan and his girlfriend Emma plan to make love in her SUV. They're parked behind the bookstore when men in ski masks interrupt them. They drag Morgan out of the vehicle and beat him, showing no signs of stopping until Frankie drives up. The men leave quickly in the SUV taking Emma away from Morgan. Frankie Garibaldi, who used to be a paramedic, takes the injured boyfriend home with him, because Morgan recognized the tattoo on a man's wrist and knows that man is a cop. Morgan now understands that Emma's father, who's rich and powerful, had him beaten up by crooked cops. Afraid that Emma's father wants him dead, he assumes another name. "Marty" works (and lives) at Frankie's Pizzeria with Frankie, his wife, Angela, and their daughter, Isabella, until tragedy strikes five years later. When Marty's boss, Frankie, is killed in his pizzeria, homicide detective Ian Flambard is assigned to the case. The suspected killers are soon found drowned in their car at the bottom of a lake. Ian doesn't believe the only motive was vendetta. He thinks Joe, Frankie's competition in the pizza business, paid them to do it and then pushed their car into the lake. Joe's truck bumper is dented. Can Marty help Ian solve the case or does he just endanger himself by snooping around? Will he choose his past love, Emma, or his boss's daughter, Isabella? Read the 36,000 word mystery/crime novella and find out.

Canadian-Jewish literature, Greenstein argues, is characterized by the sense of homelessness and exile which dominated the writings of the father of Jewish-Canadian literature, A.M. Klein. Greenstein finds the paradigm for this sense of loss in Henry Kreisel's short story, "The Almost Meeting." Using the theme of this story as a base, Greenstein describes how the Jewish-Canadian writer is divided between life in Canada and a rich European past - between life in the New World and the strong traditions of the Old. The Jewish-Canadian writer may look for a home in both these places, but neither is fulfilling as both are necessary parts of the individual. The writer thus straddles two incompatible worlds and must expect the loss of one or the other. In the struggle to overcome these difficulties and maintain a true dialogue with others and themselves, such writers experience missed or "almost meetings" as they cope with the homelessness that characterizes diaspora and Canada's "third solitude."