The Life of a Walking Mermaid looks into the life of an angel, disguised in a 90-pound body with a smile and laugh that lit up the world. Young Vicki Thompson could have been the next Gandhi or Abraham serving as a magnet for love, kindness, and goodness. She wrote from the heart and, without knowing it, transformed peoples lives. Her memoir will open your heart and soul whether you suffer from a physical or mental illness or have perfect health. Through Vickis inspirational blogs, she gives readers a glimpse into what it felt like being forced to live with Cystic Fibrosis and the lessons she learned through her experience. Most importantly, though, Vickis blogs attest to not allowing a disease define who you are. Vicki never did and encouraged others not to do so, either. Right up to her final days, she spoke of what she was going to do after she received her new lungs, thrilled to no longer be a prisoner of Cystic Fibrosis.

This book argues that we should regard walking and talking in a single rhythmic vision. In doing so, it contributes to the theory of prosody, our understanding of respiration and looking, and, in sum, to the particular links, across the board, between the human characteristics of bipedal walking and meaningful talk. The author first introduces the philosophical, neurological, anthropological, and aesthetic aspects of the subject in historical perspective, then focuses on rhetoric and introduces a tension between the small and large issues of rhythm. He thereupon turns his attention to the roles of breathing in poetry—as a life-and-death matter, with attention to beats and walking poems. This opens onto technical concepts from the classical traditions of rhetoric and philology. Turning to the relationship between prosody and motion, he considers both animals and human beings as both ostensibly able-bodied creatures and presumptively disabled ones. Finally, he looks at dancing and writing as aspects of walking and talking, with special attention to motion in Arabic and Chinese calligraphy. The final chapters of the book provide a series of interrelated representative case studies.

After a boating accident takes her beautiful singing and speaking voice from her, Elyse d'Abreau, the youngest of six sisters, leaves her home in Tobago to stay in an Oregon seaside town where Christian Kane, a notorious playboy, challenges her to express herself and to overcome her fear of the sea.

The raucous and literal fishes-out-of-water graphic novel from prolific comic artist and writer Kat Leyh, creator of the acclaimed Snapdragon and coauthor of the Eisner and GLAAD Award–winning series Lumberjanes. Fresh out of shipwreck wine, three tipsy mermaids decide to magically masquerade as humans and sneak onto land to indulge in much more drinking and a whole lot of fun in the heart of a local seaside tourist trap. But the good times abruptly end the next morning as, through the haze of killer hangovers, the trio realizes they never actually learned how to break the spell, and are now stuck on land for the foreseeable future. Which means everything from: enlisting the aid of their I-know-we-just-met-can-we-crash-with-you bartender friend, struggling to make sense of the world around them, and even trying to get a job with no skill set…all while attempting to somehow return to the sea and making the most of their current situation with tenacity and camaraderie (especially if someone else is buying).

A young friend pulls Scotland Yard’s Richard Jury into the life—and death—of a wealthy bachelor… The once-charismatic Billy Maples was last seen in a club named Dust, before his murder in a trendy London hotel. Proving as inscrutable—and challenging—to Jury as the case is the beautiful chief inspecting officer... Before his death, Maples was a patron of London’s finest art galleries and caretaker of author Henry James’s house in Rye. It’s there where Jury installs Melrose Plant, who takes his job to heart, as Jury closes in on the dark secrets behind Maples’s friends and family…

Melanie is a newly minted mermaid on her way to visit her Uncle Arlo, hoping to help him with his marine biology research and earn her tail. Along with Melanie on the trip is her dad and her friend Ri’Anne, who Melanie hopes will follow her in her footsteps to become a mermaid like her. To teach another to be a mermaid takes magic and lots of water! Melanie’s plan is first to learn what it takes to be a mermaid, so she can teach Ri’Anne, all while doing research dives for her uncle. However, Ri’Anne is a fairy at heart, and while she wants to please Melanie, trouble can result when fairy meets water. Will Ri’Anne choose to be a mermaid and fulfill her lifelong dream, or follow her heart and become a fairy and fly free? Can Melanie still fulfill her quest for a mermaid tail?

It was the quiet after the storm. I sat up in bed - what had awakened me? I tried to sit still to listen, but my heart was pounding. Throwing off the covers I turned to look out at the rising moon shining brilliantly through the departing storm clouds, its silver lighting up my room. Goosebumps rose on my arms and I tried to rub them down. At the gym pool, I peered down from the diving board, watching as the rising moon cast its light upon the water. Moonlight trailed into the water and bubbles began to rise from the bottom, the pool thrilling to the moonlight as its water called to me. Caught up in the moonlight’s song, I dove in an arc into the still waters, shattering the moon’s reflection. Blissful waters greeted me, calling to me as one of its own. It was a thrilling experience as instead of the expected pool bottom, a sparkling undersea vista welcomed me.