Everyone likes Samson the sloth, and he gets lots of invitations to parties. The problem is that he's far too slow to ever get there on time. When Samson finally makes it to the celebration the cake is eaten and the party games are finished. Luckily Samson's resourceful friends have a plan!

“You are a man who has vowed to protect his family, even at the cost of your own life. So you have no other choice. . . . You must fight, Samson. You must.” The year is 1941, and Samson Abrams makes a life-or-death decision that lands him, and his entire family, in the notorious concentration camp Auschwitz. When Samson is recognized by Dr. Josef Mengele and Commandant Rudolf Höss as a former boxing champion, he is ordered box for their entertainment. A win means extra rations, but the penalty for losing is death in the gas chambers. One question haunts Samson as he and his family face one atrocity after another: Where is God in the face of such evil? An unexpected friendship between the Jewish Samson and the Polish Catholic priest Maximilian Kolbe challenges Samson to examine what little is left of his faith, but will it give him strength when he needs it most? Based on true stories, Samson: A Savior Will Rise blends Shawn Hoffman’s thorough research with a compelling narrative that provokes questions about faith, hope, and love.

“I was twenty-three and I had set off for Asia to become a writer, intrigued by lurid tales of booms, busts, drugs, sex, violence, magic. There was a wicked sorcery in Asia, in the economic profligacy of the early nineties, in the way financiers and businessmen took a rapidly wiring and developing continent and looted billions, like a titanic parlor trick converting all that wealth into abandoned office complexes and half-completed shopping malls. . . . I wanted it all—the money, the sex, the drugs. And to this day I believe that if I am honest with myself, despite all I have learned the hard way over the past decade, I would still want it all again, the fucking and the getting loaded and the scheming to get enough money to pay for that life.” In the late 1980s, not long out of college, Karl Taro Greenfeld found himself stranded in New York, a failed writer before his career had even begun. His Jewish-American father angrily cut off support; his Japanese mother suggested he go to Japan to teach English. He did, accepting a job with no more promise than he’d had before. But he stayed in Asia for the next several years, working his way through a series of journalistic posts, watching a culture erupt before his eyes and facing his own demons. Through a series of vividly imagistic stories that range from the rigidly journalistic to the deeply intimate, Standard Deviations recounts Greenfeld’s experiences—both professional and personal—during Asia’s wild ride at the end of the twentieth century. Whether drinking Japanese cough syrup to get high with other Western expatriates, visiting a free-sex ashram in Bombay, or watching a former high school pal self-destruct as an equity analyst in Jakarta, Greenfeld evokes the spirit of a continent in flux at an explosive “bubble” economy’s end—and a man confronting his own identity and aspirations. Raunchy, insightful, eloquent and moving, Standard Deviations is an uncompromising work of cultural observation and self-exploration.

Captain Parker declares war on a politically powerful traitor to England. Immediately, Parker becomes a marked man. All hell is visited upon him, but Parker has been fighting battles since he was seven years old and is not easily daunted. To survive, he fights one brutal battle after another, descending into war's inexpressible darkness. The author of this well-crafted thriller stages his war from a perspective that sheds light on our post 9/11 experiences. We observe the overextended British Empire fighting two wars amidst the corruption resulting from war's confusion and excess. This is an 18th century sea story. It is, however, more than just a sea story-in the way that Heart of War is more than a steamer trip into the Congo. For its brilliance and its honesty, it will win a place in the reader's heart. "Hal Weidner has emerged to write a spectacular yarn in the tradition of Patrick O'Brian's Master and Commander. Weidner's imagination creates a hair-raising thriller that will keep you rooted to your easy chair with the doors locked. Weidner's twists, turns and subplots keep us guessing by pitting good and evil against an uneasy grey. I could not put this book down." -Robert Sain, psychiatrist and author. "In Hal Weidner's novel, the beauty and strangeness of the past and of the sea are evoked in spare and lovely prose. This novel brings to life a fully imagined reality in all its splendor. Heart of War is suspenseful and languorous, sparse and lyrical, by a novelist fully capable of transporting the reader skillfully to its world." -Laura Kasischke, Internationally renowned poet and novelist. "Hal Weidner's vivid depiction of warfare, intrigue, treachery, and heroism among British, American and French factions during the 18th Century mirrors eerily the tensions that we see and imagine shaping the world today." -Tom Zimmerman. Editor, The Huron River Review.

In an effort to protect her child from the harsh realities of her impending death, Mary pours her heart into a diary, her legacy to her challenged ten-year-old son, Samson. After her passing, the grief-stricken child writes longingly to his lost momma, in the hopes that his fervent words might reach her in the great beyond. Born with extraordinary powers found only in the primate world, he is a mystery to the medical world. His doctors know of a progressive tumor on his thyroid, but even that can t explain his gigantism. At ten, he is 6 9 and weighs 175 pounds. Nora, his devoted nanny, loves him as if he was her own flesh and blood, and she does her best to encourage the boy. When his mental abilities also begin to grow beyond expectations, only his father believes that it is the work of Mary, his dead wife. At sixteen, 7 6, and 275 pounds, he s on the verge of harnessing his true potential. Soon, he s on his way to glory in professional sports and folk-hero status, but there s a powerful emptiness to his life. Tragedy follows him everywhere. He continues to write to his momma, desperate to know why he keeps losing the ones he loves. At nineteen, undaunted by his doctor s fears that physical exertion will kill him, he experiences a mystical transformation, with his momma and a phalanx of angels to guide him. When his body betrays him, can they or should they save him?"

A guardian’s ultimate mission Fugitive Trail by Elizabeth Goddard When a plane carrying dangerous convicts crashes in the Colorado Rockies, Deputy Sierra Young and her search-and-rescue K-9, Samson, race to help—and discover they’re after her! With one survivor vowing revenge, Sierra’s former coworker turned PI, Bryce Elliott, is determined to protect her. But can Bryce, Sierra and Samson track down the fugitive before he succeeds in taking their lives? Into Thin Air by Mary Ellen Porter When Laney Kensington tries to save a girl from being abducted, she’s shot and left for dead. FBI agent Grayson DeMarco explains she’s the only witness to a worldwide child-trafficking ring. And if the kidnappers discover she’s alive, they’ll be back to finish the job. Grayson is determined to keep his sole witness protected. Especially when evidence hints that the real threat is closer than he ever imagined…