Showing results by narrator "A.A. Smith" in All Categories

Lovers Rock stars Jamaica: its language, its landscape, its vibe, its humor, its edge and its persistent, dogged beauty. These seven stories imagine strange, quirky, familiar and delicious encounters between people in search of romantic love in the twenty-first century. Featuring characters from of all walks of life, each story is connected by the unique vibe of Jamaican desire.

The Industrial Revolution, which took place in Great Britain between the middle of the 18th century and the middle of the 19th, transformed British industry and society and made Great Britain the most powerful nation in the world. The Industrial Revolution didn’t happen due to one, single factor but rather to a number of separate, yet, related developments which interacted to change the world profoundly and completely. Improvements in the production of iron allowed the construction of efficient, reliable steam engines.

Days before the birth of his first son, writer and academic John M. Hull started to go blind. He would lose his sight entirely, plunged into darkness, unable to distinguish any sense of light or shadow. Soon, he had forgotten what his wife and daughter looked like. In Notes on Blindness, John reveals his profound sense of loss, his altered perceptions of time and space, of waking and sleeping, love, and companionship. With astonishing lucidity of thought and no self-pity, he describes the horror of being faceless, and asks what it truly means to be a husband and father.

Axel Fairchild is the eternal outsider, both in his elite MBA program and in the world of NYC finance. Powering through on charm, swagger, and smarts has always worked for him—and it’s poised to pay off in a big way as he prepares to launch his very own finance business with his brothers after graduation. There’s only one thing left on his to-do list: prying the love of his life, Cora Margulis, away from her controlling and manipulative family.

Mick Oberon may look like just another 1930s private detective, but beneath the fedora and the overcoat, he's got pointy ears and he's packing a wand. A series of brutal murders is sweeping Chicago, baffling both the local police and the Seelie Court, who sense that an aura of corruption and death has touched Mick himself. When Mick's associates become targets, and a vampire appears in his office, Mick is drawn into his most dangerous hunt yet. A hunt that will lead him to seek answers about his mysterious past and what it could mean for those in his present.

"My name is Rylee, and I am a Tracker." But this isn't Rylee's story. It's mine. Before I lost my ability to think like an adult. Before my body became stuck between wolf and human.

Originally published in 1955, Paul Bowles’s remarkable novel set in Fez, Morocco, during the last days of the French colonial empire, is an expansive piece of writing—vintage Bowles The dilemma of the outsider in an alien society, and the gap in understanding between cultures, recurrent...

Parenting a teenager is not for the faint of heart. It is during these roller-coaster years that frustrated parents find themselves at their wits' end, barely even recognizing their offspring as they move through the teen years. Carl Pickhardt, Harvard-trained psychologist and the voice of reason behind Psychology Today's advice column, "Surviving (Your Child's) Adolescence," shares critical insights and practical tools that parents need to know along their child's rocky road toward independence and adulthood.

Lush and deceptively tranquil, with its pristine beaches and blossoming vegetation, the island basks in splendid isolation off the South Carolina coast. Here, where sudden storms unleash the murderous rage of wind and sea, stands the Devereaux mansion, a once-great plantation house now crumbling amid ancient oaks dripping with Spanish moss. Here, Marguerite Devereaux, 50 and childless, has cast off her dreams to care for her aged, demanding mother.

From adrenaline to dopamine, most of us are familiar with the chemicals that control us. They are the hormones and neurotransmitters that our brains run on, and Overloaded looks at the role they play in every aspect of our lives, from what we remember, how we make decisions and who we love to basic survival drives such as hunger, fear and sleep.

To be clear: Beatrice, Duchess of Kesgrave, does not think every dead person in London is the victim of a sinister plot. The city is large, after all, and some of its inhabitants had to have died from innocent causes. Like Peter Huzza, who was killed in a horrifying steam engine accident. It is shocking, yes, the way his body was torn apart by the explosion of his very own machine, but not entirely surprising. High-pressure steam is notoriously dangerous to harness. There is no reason to suspect foul play. Nope, none at all.

In the epic conclusion to the Cornerstone saga, the sinister forces at work in the troubled ville grow insidiously stronger, and Ryan Cawdor is the only one with first-hand knowledge of the true enemy. However, he’s trapped outside the ville, wanted for murder, and, with a hijacked Cornerstone mission team, must return to the redoubt where he and Jak Lauren nearly died, in hopes of finding the means to defeat the monster in Cornerstone’s midst.

Kofi Annan stands out as one of the most pivotal figures of the early twenty-first century. As the secretary-general of the United Nations, he became an enduring icon and a voice for peace and freedom all over the world.

Audie Murphy was a movie star, writer, and one of the most decorated soldiers who ever lived. He was barely 18 years old when he was shipped off to fight Fascists in Italy during World War II. As he himself would later liken it, he went “to hell and back” and lived to tell the tale. In this book, we will dive deeper to bring you the man behind the medals. Here is a telling of the life and legend of Audie Murphy in full.

Carving out a living in the Deathlands is no easy feat. To most, the only thing that matters is one more day spent above ground. To the man known as Trader, the only thing that matters is the bottom line. After Trader and crew offload their last haul, they set their sites on the next score. An underground military installation.

What’s Alistair’s next move? He's desperate to see Luna again. It might be the only thing keeping Alistair from giving up, because their situation looks grim. As he sits in the Captain’s seat, looking out at the vastness of space, he knows what is on its way. The Commonwealth comes to take back what is theirs…and to wipe out the rebels for good. How many will they bring? Alistiar was wracking his brain on how to get out of this dangerous spot, and then he got the word. The Primuses had escaped. And they took Thoreaux with them.

Winner of the NAACP Image Award for Fiction From the uthor of the critically acclaimed memoir Heavy, comes a “funny, astute, searching” (The Wall Street Journal) debut novel about Black teenagers that is a satirical exploration of celebrity, authorship, violence, religion, and coming of age...

It is God's year 54, many years before the Demon Wars, in the land of Corona. The roads are unsafe to travel; goblins and bloodthirsty Powries search out human prey. Two religions struggle fiercely for control. Bran Dynard, a monk of the fledgling religion of Abelle, returns from his mission in a far-off land with a book of mystical knowledge and a beautiful and mysterious new wife. But he soon realizes that the world he left behind has changed, and his dream of spreading the wisdom he learned to his fellow monks is crushed.

Rowan Headley tops the list of people I never wanted to see again. She shattered my best friend's heart, turning him into a shell of his former self. I hate her for what she did. But guess who my company's new hire is? Yep, the last person I expected - Rowan Headley. It's awkward, it's tense, but we have to put up with each other. Except the longer I'm around her, the less I feel like avoiding her.

Did you start by helping out in your partner’s trade business because he couldn’t manage the overwhelming administrative workload, then quit your career to go all in? It’s a whole new world for you. It’s a whole new world for your partner. It’s a whole new world where love, leadership, and doing the laundry has turned into a battleground. The trouble is, you’re winging it—and it isn’t working, is it? You are not alone. Women in trade businesses everywhere share a similar story.