Everlasting Threads

An amazing book of unique poems

GLAAQN Everlasting Threads joins the cannon of documenting the stitching history of Michigan Black Women. In 1887, Mrs. Delia Barrier founded the Willing Workers Club in Detroit. Affiliated with the Needlework Guild of America, this group of fifty members raised funds through the sewing and selling of quilts for at least forty years. The 1915 Michigan Manual of Freedmen's Progress included mention of quilters Miss Fannie Anderson (Detroit) and Mrs. Dennison Graine (Kalamazoo). In the 1990s, the late Carolyn Lucille Warfield documented Michigan African American quilting guild activities and shared her articles in community and regional publications. In 1997, Michigan State University published African American Quiltmaking in Michigan, the first comprehensive study of Black American quilts by any US state. Today, longtime Detroit News columnist Jocelynn Brown continues to promote crafters, needle artists and quilters, through her "Homemade" articles. Now and 50 or 100 years in the future, we'll know about GLAAQN and its members when other guilds may be forgotten.

Ivy should be ecstatic that her formerly-dead boyfriend Tristan is back on earth with her, but the life of a fallen angel is never easy. Tristan has been cast down from heaven and is now trapped in the body of a murderer. With the police hot on his trail, Tristan and Ivy realise that the only way for them to be together is if they can somehow clear Tristan of the murder he didn't commit. But when it becomes clear that there are darker forces at work, Tristan and Ivy discover they are paying a high price for Ivy's miraculous survival of the car crash. There is more at stake than ever before for Tristan and Ivy, and it seems that one of them may not be alive much longer…

Each morning as the sun brightens the West African sky, mother and child prepare to start their day. They spend it bound together, the child riding on the mother’s back watching their world go past. Pounding millet, drawing water from the well, visiting friends, shopping at the outdoor market—days are shared in perfect step with one another. And even when the child grows big enough to go off and explore their world, the everlasting embrace endures. Illustrated with E.B. Lewis’s stunning watercolors that bring to life the land and people of Mali, Gabrielle Emanuel’s tender story celebrates the universal bond between mother and child.

A battle of vampires and werewolves will be decided by one woman’s desire in this supernatural romance by the New York Times bestselling author. Darcy Smith never knew about the secret she possesses within her, one powerful enough to end an entire race of demons. But now, as an unwitting pawn in an epic battle of vampires and werewolves, she’s about to discover the truth—and enter a dangerous world of ecstasy and dark passions. Consumed with lust for Darcy, the vampire leader Styx will do anything to keep her out of the lair of Salvatore Giuliani, the deadly ruler of the weres. But Salvatore is every bit as desperate to make Darcy his ultimate conquest and queen. With his kind pushed to the brink of extinction, she alone holds the key to survival. Now Darcy will have to decide which of these two men she can truly trust. Because all it takes is one bite to plunge her into a lifetime of servitude—or a lifetime of pleasure.

Camille must save Orleans in this high-stakes sequel to the instant New York Times bestseller.

"Whispers of Enchantment" is a contemporary exploration of magic seamlessly interwoven into the fabric of everyday life. The novel introduces Everwood and its diverse cast of characters, each leading seemingly ordinary lives before the introduction of magical elements reshapes their destinies. As the story unfolds, the town becomes a canvas for magical occurrences, inviting readers to question the limits of what is possible. Characters, once bound by the mundane, grapple with surreal experiences that challenge their perceptions, emotions, and connections with one another. The ordinary becomes extraordinary, and Everwood emerges as a place where profound insights are gained through unexpected magical encounters. At the heart of the narrative is the mysterious Whisperer, a catalyst for change and self-discovery. The novel follows a group of characters on a quest to find the Whisperer, unraveling the central mystery while exploring the transformative power of magic on their lives. Along their journey, the characters form unexpected connections, and the novel delves into the profound insights gained through the interplay of the surreal and the mundane. As the story builds towards a climactic confrontation with the source of enchantment, characters evolve, and resolutions are found. The novel concludes with an epilogue that paints a picture of Everwood's new normal—an altered town where the infusion of magic has forever changed the landscape, relationships, and the understanding of what is possible. "Whispers of Enchantment" invites readers to embark on a journey where the ordinary becomes extraordinary, and the threads of magic intertwine with the everyday, leaving an indelible mark on the town of Everwood.

Disintegrating Empire examines the entangled histories of three threads of decolonization: the French welfare state, family migration from Algeria, and the French social workers who mediated between the state and their Algerian clients. After World War II, social work teams, midlevel bureaucrats, and government ministries stitched specialized social services for Algerians into the structure of the midcentury welfare state. Once the Algerian Revolution began in 1954, many successive administrations and eventually two independent states—France and Algeria—continuously tailored welfare to support social aid services for Algerian families migrating across the Mediterranean. Disintegrating Empire reveals the belated collapse of specialized services more than a decade after Algerian independence. The welfare state’s story, Elise Franklin argues, was not one merely of rise and fall but of winnowing services to “deserving” clients. Defunding social services—long associated with the neoliberal turn in the 1980s and beyond—has a much longer history defined by exacting controls on colonial citizens and migrants of newly independent countries. Disintegrating Empire explores the dynamic, conflicting, and often messy nature of these relationships, which show how Algerian family migration prompted by decolonization ultimately exposed the limits of the French welfare state.

Elise Franklin considers how and why the slow process of decolonization reshaped the welfare state and the meaning of the family in postwar France.