Comedy and tragedy collide in stories of family life in Soviet Russia and the complexities of the immigrant experience “We can’t stop turning the pages of this book.” —Ilya Kaminsky, New York Times Book Review From the moment of its founding, the USSR was reviled and admired, demonized and idealized. Many Jews saw the new society ushered in by the Russian Revolution as their salvation from shtetl life with its deprivations and deadly pogroms. But Soviet Russia was rife with antisemitism, and a Jewish boy growing up in Leningrad learned early, harsh, and enduring lessons. Unsparing and poignant, Mikhail Iossel’s twenty stories of Soviet childhood and adulthood, dissidence and subsequent immigration, are filled with wit and humor even as they describe the daily absurdities of a fickle and often perilous reality.

After losing her job as an inn manager, Darcy Conti goes to work for a local tour company and ends up falling for her boss's son, the man she was hired to replace.

One Spark Is All It Takes For A Chance At Forever Despite her ace matchmaking skills—four weddings to date!—Bethany Marconi and relationships don’t mix. With trust issues and a long list of ex-boyfriends, she’s an expert at dousing the spark of love before it catches fire. There’s little risk of rejection teaching yoga and looking after her grandmother who lives right next door. When freelance writer Nate Ransom returns to his hometown to settle his grandmother’s estate, his rekindled feelings for Bethany take him by surprise. Nate remembers all too well how the charismatic spitfire of a girl ignored him in middle school before his family moved away. But Nate’s far from that boy now and more determined than ever to win Bethany’s heart if she’ll give him the chance. After a family crisis pulls Bethany away from Nate, their relationship seems to be headed for the back burner. Will Nate turn into Bethany’s newest ex-boyfriend, or will her self-imposed dating rules finally go up in flames? Love Like Fire is a sweet, small-town romance with endearing characters, plenty of laughs, and an oh-so-satisfying happily ever after.

Only in the glaring light of hindsight does pediatric surgeon Kate Murphy understand that she was groomed for the path she’s taken. Raised by a widowed dad and a misshapen, sometimes comical trio of parental surrogates from Murphy’s Pub, her father’s Irish bar in San Francisco, Kate has never understood how protected she is—but when she learns that her well-meaning family has hidden bitter truths about her mother’s mental illness and death, the rest of her family history unravels. Kate is still recovering from her family’s deception when she becomes involved with Jake Bloom—a charming artist different than anyone she’s ever known. When she experiences his sculptures on Ocean Beach, she is forever changed; in the months that follow, Jake reveals beauty Kate has never noticed, and exposes her to spontaneity, sensuality, and love deeper than she’d imagined it could be. Only Mary K—Kate’s hard-edged best friend who doesn’t miss a thing and names bull when she sees it—is immune to Jake’s charms. She sees the potential for danger in Jake, and, of course, she says so. Caught between her newfound passion and her friendship, Kate dismisses her friend’s warnings. Ultimately, it isn’t until she is in too deep, with a daughter on the way, that Kate understands what Mary K feared on her behalf. Fire & Water is a story of navigating the treacherous territory of passionate love, friendship, and family devotion—and of how love is always a matter of life and death.

Chronicles five epochal years of music in the Big Apple against a backdrop of the period's high crime, limited government resources and low rents, tracing the formations of key sounds while evaluating the contributions of such artists as Willie Colón, Bruce Springsteen and Grandmaster Flash.

Learning to love is a universal message.

Two Hearts, One Tour Bus. Is There Room Enough for Love? Suddenly jobless, Darcy Conti becomes a tour guide for Sturgeon Widows Tours, a quirky family-run business on the shores of Lake Superior. As she settles into her new role narrating local history excursions, she fights an undeniable attraction to the one man she definitely can’t fall for—the owner’s son. Fresh from a relationship gone sour, Sean Stetman plans to avoid dating—and his job at his parents’ tour company—for the foreseeable future. He wants nothing more than time to fish, hike, and work on his cabin. But when the tour driver quits, he is suddenly back on board, reluctantly shuttling Darcy and the tour guests along the North Shore. Together, Darcy and Sean survive unruly tourists, meddling mothers, and even an unscrupulous developer looking to give the Stetmans’ tour company some fierce competition. Will their time on the tour bus drive them both crazy, or are they on the road to forever? Love Like Water is a sweet, small-town romance with memorable characters, plenty of laughs, and a satisfying happily ever after.