Tears Run Dry

Recounts the author's life as the son of Rwandese Tutsi refugees living in Uganda. With his grandfather's help he explores injustices he faced at school and around the village. At the peak of a civil war between the Uganda People's Congress and the National Resistance Army, Patrick is kidnapped by a defecting NRA soldier. Believing that he is acting in the best interest of his tribe and family, Patrick joins the National Resistance Army (NRA) when he is 14 years old. Injured during training, he returns home. Realizing that he must develop both physical and mental strength he moves to Kampala, the capital city, to attend high school, living at first with an abusive, alchoholic uncle. After the sudden death of his father, Patrick is faced with the burden of functioning as the head of his family. He uses his scholarship funds to support them, but that is not enough. Deep in debt, Patrick must find a job to continue to feed his mother, siblings, and grandparent. Determined to get out of poverty, he sells all his belongs and the family's last cow and migrates to the United States. After a few years of earning his veterinary licensing, Patrick is soon thriving in his new home. He then makes a journey back to Africa to show his children their roots, to see how his success has transformed his family and the tribe.

Enka, a sentimental ballad genre, epitomizes for many the nihonjin no kokoro (heart/soul of Japanese). To older members of the Japanese public, who constitute enka's primary audience, this music--of parted lovers, long unseen rural hometowns, and self-sacrificing mothers--evokes a direct connection to the traditional roots of "Japaneseness." Overlooked in this emotional invocation of the past, however, are the powerful commercial forces that, since the 1970s, have shaped the consumption of enka and its version of national identity. Informed by theories of nostalgia, collective memory, cultural nationalism, and gender, this book draws on the author's extensive fieldwork in probing the practice of identity-making and the processes at work when Japan becomes "Japan."

Writing has been my passion for far longer than I can remember. Through all my trials and tribulations in life and relationships, it has been my relief when ever I felt there was no other resort. I've dreamt of publishing for years now, being that I write what I feel if you pick up this book and can relate to at least one poem then I'm human, normal, just like you. So with that said, allow me to embrace you through word. Move you emotionally and caress your soul. Get to know the side few people know, the lover, the mother, the fighter, survivor, the poet. Get to know me.

Keys in the River: New and Collected Stories, is a cycle of stories about life, love and spirituality, told as if the reader were sitting and listening to neighbors and friends talking about life. Some stories are tender, even comic; in others, tragedy and outrage lurk. The stories share a common thread, a noble stance in the struggle to find love, freedom, completeness, humanness and satisfaction.

Enter the financial heart of Europe – London – just before the financial crisis and meet Tristan: investment banker and celebrated playboy. Young, successful and devastatingly handsome, Tristan, one of the greatest seducers of our time, sets out to become King of the City. Men and women alike fall at his feet, captivated by his beauty. Although he has plenty of fleeting superficial attachments, ever since childhood Tristan has succeeded in keeping alive his ideal of a perfect love. On his nocturnal forays Tristan wins the heart of one beauty after another, but never has any deeper feelings for any of them. Afraid of missing the one true love, he has formed the habit of never giving a woman more than one night to cast a spell on him. But then he meets Isabella Eco and his life changes for ever...

With conversations and headlines about abuse, power, and assault, women are all looking for answers. Marlo Schalesky provides a biblical response to the tough questions these issues raise by exploring the stories of twenty women in Scripture. Women of the Bible Speak Out is a study of the biblical text with a focus on God’s responses to hurting women and how He offers freedom and wholeness. Schalesky is a trusted theologian and communicates in a way that’s relevant and easy to understand. She writes insightfully, compassionately, and hopefully, reminding us that God is extending His healing hand to women today.

The author of the “sexy, insightful, and utterly charming” (BuzzFeed) Kiss Her Once for Me returns with a new queer rom-com following once childhood best friends forced together to drive their former teacher across the country. A long time ago, Logan Maletis and Rosemary Hale used to be friends. They spent their childhood summers running through the woods, rebelling against their conservative small town, and dreaming of escaping. But then an incident the summer before high school turned them into bitter rivals. After graduation, they went ten years without speaking. Now in their thirties, Logan and Rosemary find they aren’t quite living the lives of adventure they imagined for themselves. Still in their small town and working as teachers at their alma mater, they’re both stuck in old patterns. Uptight Rosemary chooses security and stability over all else, working constantly, and her most stable relationship is with her label maker. Chaotic and impulsive Logan has a long list of misguided ex-lovers and an apathetic shrug she uses to protect herself from anything real. And as hard as they try to avoid each other—and their complicated past—they keep crashing into each other. Including with their cars. But when their beloved former English teacher and lifelong mentor tells them he has only a few months to live, they’re forced together once and for all to fulfill his last wish: a cross-country road trip. Stuffed into the gayest van west of the Mississippi, the three embark on a life-changing summer trip—from Washington state to the Grand Canyon, from the Gulf Coast to coastal Maine—that will chart a new future and perhaps lead them back to one another.

Sam receives a call from an old childhood friend, requesting she return to her childhood home to help finally put to rest a mystery which had plagued her small group of friends. The return home pulls Sam back into childhood memories and nightmares she wishes she could forget. Her memories pull her back to when she was thirteen, fourteen, fifteen and finally sixteen before she can finally figure out who she is and how shes supposed to move forward from where she is now.