Blue Boy

Valerie Foretarcheologist and heir to a terrifying task returns in a powerful desert adventure set in Egypt and Jerusalem, in both modern and medieval times.

On the eve of the release of Valerie Forets great chronicle, Valerie learns that hers is not the 100th generation of the prophecy at all. In grappling with a mysterious and lethal opponent, Valerie witnesses the horrors of the first Crusade in which her ancestors, both innocent and malevolent, have carried out a drama identical to her own. The weapon that succeeded then and now threatens once again is the terrible power of faith. Will the outcome be the same?

In the course of fleeing the forces of violent fundamentalism, Valerie, a westerner, and Najya Khoury, an AraIsraeli, fall in love and find out just how dangerous it is to challenge accepted truth.

Eula, Idaho, is a cluster of steeples, oak trees, and boxlike homes sandwiched between golden fields and a wide-open sky. It freezes in the winter and bakes in the summer, but the air is so dry that neither extreme gets under your skin. It has never seen a battle, or an earthquake, or a Democrat in City Hall.

Still, life in Eula is anything but simple.

Lina and Connie are single mothers, neighbors in Eula's trailer park. Lina, the daughter of migrant Mexican farm workers, is trying to cope with her angry teenage son Jesús, newly returned after living with wealthy white foster parents. Connie, long abandoned, struggles with her literal reading of Old Testament laws against remarriage, especially when a handsome missionary visits her congregation. The women's younger sons, Enrique and Gene, are misfits whose mutual love of science offers stability and respite from schoolyard cruelties.

Determined to win the statewide science fair, Enrique and Gene devise an experiment involving "lake overturn," a real scientific phenomenon in which deadly gases collect and eventually erupt from a lake's depths. In their quest to discover if Eula could suffer from such an event, the boys come into contact with an odd assortment of locals, including the frail-hearted school principal with grand ambitions, a rich but lonely lawyer who finds love outside his marriage just as his wife is succumbing to cancer, and a woman tortured by a past of abuse and addiction who decides to turn things around by offering herself as a surrogate mother.

With sweeping perspective and a Victorian wealth of character, Lake Overturn exposes small-town America in all its beauty and treachery, sunshine and secrets.

In Classical Greece, apprentice sculptor Philon has chosen the ideal horse to model for his masterpiece. Sadly, the rider falls well short of the ideal of beauty, but scarred and tattered Hilarion, with his brilliant, imperfect smile, draws Philon in a way that mere perfection cannot.

After years of living among the free and easy tribes of the north, Hillarion has no patience with Athenian formality. He knows what he wants--and what he wants is Philon. Society, friends and family threaten their growing relationship, but perhaps a scarred soldier and a lover of beauty are more alike than they appear.

"Give me a reason to let you live…"

Beached after losing his ship and crew, and with England finally at peace, Lt Christopher Penrose will take whatever work he can get. A valet? Why not? Escorting an elderly diplomat to the Leeward Islands seems like an easy job, but when their ship is boarded by pirates, Kit's world is turned upside down. Forced aboard the pirate ship, Kit finds himself juggling his honor with his desire to staying alive among the crew, not to mention the alarming--yet enticing--captain, known as Le Griffe.

Kit has always obeyed the rules, but as the pirates plunder their way across the Caribbean, he finds much to admire in their freedom. He deplores their lawlessness but is drawn to their way of life, and begins to think he might just have found a purpose. Dare he dream of finding love too? Or would loving a pirate take him too far down the road to ruin?

Though his death garnered media attention, the mysteries before and after his death were never shared. Brian foresaw his future, gave himself a going away party, and left good-bye gifts and a note telling his parents not to worry about him. After his death, Brian?s influence persisted. His father?a rational physician who did not believe in metaphysical phenomena?embarked on a mystical journey through grief into a creative world he did not know existed. What he learned by healing stretched the capabilities of his reasonable mind. For anyone who wants to know how grieving can become a journey of wonder and hope, Beyond Reason can guide you.