Sunset Hill was a tiny, quiet town with an aerial view of all the surrounding cities. It was peaceful. Bad things just didnt happen there. On those summer evenings when the sky was lit up in striking colors of gold, pink, and orange, folks were sure that God must live there, too. And when the lilac trees were in full bloom and that heavenly scent was carried by a breeze, you knew you had found paradise. Was it a homicide or a suicide? Jennifer asked her friend, Alice, whose neighborhood had just been rocked by the news of a dreadful death. A woman in her early thirties, Katie Percival, had been found lifeless lying in a pool of blood in her basement. It was Alice, herself, that had discovered the grizzly scene. This book is so much more than just another murder mystery. Its so much more than just entering a world of fantasy where you become the detective. Instead, it is the story of some ordinary people who found some extraordinary grace in the midst of some very tragic mistakes. Isaiah 55:7: Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

Home to ancient burial grounds, unsolved murders, economic depression and a water crisis, Flint emits an unholy energy rife with ghostly encounters. Colonel Thomas Stockton's ever-vigilant ghost keeps a watchful eye over his family home at Spring Grove, where guests occasionally hear the thump of his heavy boots. Restless spirits long separated from their graves lurk among the ancient stones at Avondale Cemetery. Carriage maker W.A. Paterson's spirit continuously wanders the halls of the Dryden Building, and something sinister and unnamed resides in a Knob Hill mansion waiting to prey on impressionable young men. Join authors Roxanne Rhoads and Joe Schipani on a chilling tour of Flint's most haunted locations.

This early work by James Oliver Curwood was originally published in 1926 and we are now republishing it with a brand new introductory biography. "The Black Hunter" is filled with adventure and romance, and is set in Quebec in the 1750's. James Oliver 'Jim' Curwood was an American action-adventure writer and conservationist. He was born on 12th June, 1878, in Owosso, Michigan, USA. In 1900, Curwood sold his first story while working for the Detroit News-Tribune, and after this, his career in writing was made. By 1909 he had saved enough money to travel to the Canadian northwest, a trip that provided the inspiration for his wilderness adventure stories. The success of his novels afforded him the opportunity to return to the Yukon and Alaska for several months each year - allowing Curwood to write more than thirty such books. Curwood's adventure writing followed in the tradition of Jack London. Like London, Curwood set many of his works in the wilds of the Great Northwest and often used animals as lead characters (Kazan, Baree; Son of Kazan, The Grizzly King and Nomads of the North). Many of Curwood's adventure novels also feature romance as primary or secondary plot consideration. This approach gave his work broad commercial appeal and helped drive his appearance on several best-seller lists in the early 1920s. His most successful work was his 1920 novel, The River's End. The book sold more than 100,000 copies and was the fourth best-selling title of the year in the United States, according to Publisher's Weekly. He contributed to various literary and popular magazines throughout his career, and his bibliography includes more than 200 such articles, short stories and serializations. Curwood was an avid hunter in his youth; however, as he grew older, he became an advocate of environmentalism and was appointed to the 'Michigan Conservation Commission' in 1926. The change in his attitude toward wildlife can be best expressed by a quote he gave in The Grizzly King: that 'The greatest thrill is not to kill but to let live.' Despite this change in attitude, Curwood did not have an ultimately fruitful relationship with nature. In 1927, while on a fishing trip in Florida, Curwood was bitten on the thigh by what was believed to have been a spider and he had an immediate allergic reaction. Health problems related to the bite escalated over the next few months as an infection set in. He died soon after in his nearby home on Williams Street, on 13th August 1927. He was aged just forty-nine, and was interred in Oak Hill Cemetery (Owosso), in a family plot. Curwood's legacy lives on however, and his home of Curwood Castle is now a museum.

A rousing epic tale of adventure and romance in Quebec in the 1750's, about ladies and gentlemen, about Indians and woodsmen, pre-Revolutionary days in old Quebec and Fort William Henry, and the French & Indian War. The book begins with a 3-page list of the characters and brief sketches for each. James Oliver Curwood lived most of his life in Owosso, Michigan, where he was born on June 12, 1878. His first novel was The Courage of Captain Plum (1908) and he published one or two novels each year thereafter, until his death on August 13, 1927. Owosso residents honor his name to this day, and Curwood Castle (built in 1922) is the town's main tourist attraction. During the 1920s Curwood became one of America's best selling and most highly paid authors. This was the decade of his lasting classics The Valley of Silent Men (1920) and The Flaming Forest (1921). He and his wife Ethel were outdoors fanatics and active conservationists.

This Norton Critical Edition includes four stories—two set on stormy seas, two on calm seas, all four based on the same incident—that speak to each other in interesting ways. The stories in this Norton Critical Edition maintain the connection and sequencing that Joseph Conrad saw among them. In his “Author’s Note” to ‘Twixt Land and Sea, Conrad writes of his two “Calm-pieces” (“The Secret Sharer” and The Shadow-Line) and his two “Storm-pieces” (The Nigger of the “Narcissus” and “Typhoon”). This edition is based on the first English book edition for the stories and the first American edition for the “Author’s Note” for The Shadow-Line, “Typhoon,” and “The Secret Sharer.” The stories are accompanied by explanatory annotations, a note on the texts (including a list of textual emendations), and a preface. “Backgrounds and Contexts” brings together relevant correspondence and contemporary reviews from both British and American sources. Also included are documents related to Conrad’s sources for the stories, among them Charles Arthur Sankey’s “Ordeal of the Cutty Sark: A True Story of Mutiny, Murder on the High Seas.” To help readers navigate, the editor includes a glossary of nautical terms as well as diagrams of the kinds of ships that appear in the stories. “Criticism” includes fifteen essays representing both new and established voices. The essays are arranged by story, with the focus on Conrad’s major themes—colonialism, narrative, gender, and race. Albert J. Guerard, Lillian Nayder, Mark D. Larabee, Fredric Jameson, F. R. Leavis, and John G. Peters are among the contributors. A chronology of Conrad’s life and work and a selected bibliography are also included.