Zacks Tale

After breaking up with his first love and losing his only family member, Zachary Valentino has his heart set on taking revenge on Alta Williams, the wicked queen of the Underworld, for the irreversible damage she inflicted on him. As he joins the Otherworld, however, his life is far from peaceful. The Elders mock, ridicule, and demean him for his lack of potential, with his mentor and only ally, Helen Edmunds, as an exception. One day, fortune smiles upon him and grants him a miracle that brings him and Helen closer to each other, and he develops an infatuation for her. When King Patrick and Queen Marianne send Helen on a mission to the Underworld, Zack risks his life and volunteers to accompany her through the unknown trials that await them. What neither of them are aware of is the sobering fact that this quest may determine their rise or fall in more ways than one, for their demise may not be as far away as it seems….

When Bridget the alligator arrives in the mail, she's only the size of a key chain! But after Zack soaks her in water, she grows into a real live alligator. Bridget wrestles the garden hose and swings from the monkey bars. And what other alligator can do cartwheels? Children's Books of 1989 (Library of Congress)

Have you ever felt out of place, as though you were living someone else's life? Assistant Bean Counter #1138 has only ever known a world in which numbers reign supreme, but there's a feeling he cannot shake that, deep down, he is more than an accountant. One day, he discovers a magical, mystical place that presents new and tantalizing horizons: a bookstore. For all those who have ever come face to face with their true selves within the pages of a book, this modern parable encourages the dreamers to keep on dreaming until they find the courage to tell their own story—and make it a good one.

The races and domains have created the town of Hub as a place for them to negotiate with each other. Hub sits on the border of the Elven Holding and the human Kingdom of Flint Plains. Duncan, a scribe from the human Kingdom of Salt Bay, comes to Hub to get permission to visit the Holding. His purpose is to learn more about the lands across the sea west of Salt Bay. This simple mission will have consequences for the wider world. It marks the dawn of efforts by most domains to help each other. But building peace is not on everyone’s mind. The Goblin Empire seeks to use the calm to undermine the other domains. Yet connections are being made and found between humans, elves, and dwarves. History is still being written. Who knows where the tale will go?

A ROLLICKING NARRATIVE HISTORY OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT'S EMBATTLED TENURE AS POLICE COMMISSIONER OF CORRUPT, PLEASURE-LOVING NEW YORK CITY IN THE 1880s, AND HIS DOOMED MISSION TO WIPE OUT VICE In the 1890s, New York City was America’s financial, manufacturing, and entertainment capital, and also its preferred destination for sin, teeming with 40,000 prostitutes, glittering casinos, and all-night dives packed onto the island’s two dozen square miles. Police captains took hefty bribes to see nothing while reformers writhed in frustration. In Island of Vice, bestselling author Richard Zacks paints a vivid picture of the lewd underbelly of 1890s New York, and of Theodore Roosevelt, the cocksure crusading police commissioner who resolved to clean up the bustling metropolis, where the silk top hats of Wall Street bobbed past teenage prostitutes trawling Broadway. Writing with great wit and zest, Zacks explores how Roosevelt went head-to-head with corrupt Tammany Hall, took midnight rambles with muckraker Jacob Riis, banned barroom drinking on Sundays, and tried to convince 2 million New Yorkers to enjoy wholesome family fun. In doing so, Teddy made a ruthless enemy of police captain “Big Bill” Devery, who grew up in the Irish slums and never tired of fighting “tin soldier” reformers. Roosevelt saw his mission as a battle of good versus evil; Devery saw prudery standing in the way of fun and profit. When righteous Roosevelt’s vice crackdown started to succeed all too well, many of his own supporters began to turn on him. Cynical newspapermen mocked his quixotic quest, his own political party abandoned him, and Roosevelt discovered that New York loves its sin more than its salvation. Zacks’s meticulous research and wonderful sense of narrative verve bring this disparate cast of both pious and bawdy New Yorkers to life. With cameos by Stephen Crane, J. P. Morgan, and Joseph Pulitzer, plus a horde of very angry cops, Island of Vice is an unforgettable portrait of turn-of-the-century New York in all its seedy glory, and a brilliant portrayal of the energetic, confident, and zealous Roosevelt, one of America’s most colorful public figures.

Zack Neiway was a private man who loved naval power, his family, and the quiet of the open water. His steely gaze could hold you in thrall or dismiss you into insignificance. He especially loved his daughters—much more than he should have. Zack’s Daughters is the story of a “perfect” family’s tragedies and how those tragedies are finally resolved through religion, storytelling, and music. The surface is what you see; the reality is something else. "An utterly disturbing, and often absorbing, family saga with many moving pieces" -- Kirkus Discovery Review "Mesmerizing. Kreidler seduces with poetic words to hurl us into the dark corners where abuse dwells." -- Eileen Spratt Ehlers

“An awe-inspiring, helter-skelter journey through mind-blowing SF, western dime novel, noir mystery, and near-future dystopian horror” (Publishers Weekly, starred review). The debut novel from Zack Parsons, editor of the Something Awful website and author of My Tank Is Fight!, is a mind-bending journey through time and genres. Beginning in 1874, with a blood-soaked western story of revenge, Liminal States follows a trio of characters through a 1950s noir detective story and twenty-first-century sci-fi horror. Their paths are tragically intertwined—and their choices have far-reaching consequences for the course of American history. It’s a remarkable mashup that “somehow manages to become a cohesive, thought-provoking whole . . . There’s no way a novel with this many moving parts should hold together, but it does, and even readers initially daunted by the jumble will soon be glad to go wherever Parsons takes them” (Publishers Weekly, starred review). “Parsons’s debut is a tour-de-force, a justifiably showy demonstration of the author’s chameleon-like ability to write in several genres all at once, and it emerges as one of the scariest and bleakest tales I can remember.” —Cory Doctorow

Zack struggles with being a new Christian, a new husband and a new father all at once. Will he and Kemi survive his unreal expectations and the maelstrom of their marriage?

Stories of where the normal meets the strange... From the travails of a water-carrying alien on a harsh world.... to the loss of a child by a much-too-young father touched by the were gene. From the plight of a young immigrant painter struggling to get by... to the story of a young man who has to decide whether to help when he comes across a car in the ditch and a family fighting for survival in that wrecked vehicle... And more... Twenty-one stories about the moment when someone's life took an unexpected turn, and that person was changed forever. Tales of heroes and cowards, lovers and leaders, the heartbroken and the heartless. Stories that leave you wrecked inside, while the characters on the page try desperately to pick up the pieces of their lives. Take a chance on a story from a genre you might not have ever read before, and dive headfirst into the tale of a life that appeared normal but was quickly transformed into a life less ordinary, and a life more strange and more fascinating. Michael Jasper uses genre as a weapon in these twenty-one stories. Buckle up and enjoy the ride.