Showing results by author "Jean" in All Categories

There are some days when being the Garda Sergeant of a small Irish town really tests me. Having to police my family and friends is a necessary evil, but when I’m faced with arresting half the children in the town, and discovering someone close to me among the offenders, well, those days I really wish I’d chosen a different career. Irate parents are not my only problem unfortunately, as I’m then called to manage a baying mob of strangers, bearing placards and demanding change. I’m all for peaceful protest, but these people were threatening the vulnerable, and I’m just not having that.

Jacob Finch Bonner was once a promising young novelist with a respectably published first book. Today, he’s teaching in a third-rate MFA program and struggling to maintain what’s left of his self-respect; he hasn’t written - let alone published - anything decent in years. When Evan Parker, his most arrogant student, announces he doesn’t need Jake’s help because the plot of his book in progress is a sure thing, Jake is prepared to dismiss the boast as typical amateur narcissism. But then...he hears the plot.

The forest of Broceliande, with its picturesque lakes and castles, is the last remnant of the fairy kingdom, if Breton lore is to be believed. Innumerable legends spanning thousands of years are set here, including the tale of King Arthur and the Round Table. It seems to be an appropriate destination for Commissaire Dupin and his team to take a late summer field trip. But when the body of a historian turns up, Dupin is called upon to investigate in the brutal murder case. Before too long, there are more victims.

He's the hot college quarterback all the girls want. She's the smart girl he loves to pick on. And now that they're all grown up, things are about to get geekin' ugly. My name is Tass. I'm smart, I'm driven, and I am determined not to let prankster Hunter Johnson continue raining on my parade. When we were little, he'd pull my hair and call me names. When we were teenagers, he'd throw food and tease me for being a flat-chested virgin. But now that we've ended up at the same college, he's out of his hot head if he thinks he can keep messing with my life.

In Bush, Jean Edward Smith demonstrates that it was not Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, or Condoleezza Rice, but President Bush himself who took personal control of foreign policy. Bush drew on his deep religious conviction that important foreign-policy decisions were simply a matter of good versus evil. Domestically, he overreacted to 9/11 and endangered Americans' civil liberties.

The sequel to Daddy-Long-Legs finds Judy Abbott's best friend, Sallie McBride, taking total control over the John Grier Home, the orphanage where Judy grew up. Chronicling her hilarious yet heartfelt day-to-day interactions with the permanent residents of the John Grier Home, Sallie spills her heart out in letter after letter to multiple recipients, including the doctor of the JGH - one Robin MacRae, whom she has deemed her enemy and refers to him as such in her letters.

Published four years after Rousseau's death, Confessions is a remarkably frank and honest self-portrait, described by Rousseau as "the history of my soul". From his idyllic youth in the Swiss mountains, to his career as a composer in Paris and his abandonment of his children, Rousseau lays bare his entire life with preternatural honesty.

Most political origin stories reinforce the feeling that politics is a closed system: If you weren’t participating in debate club, the Young Democrats, and Model UN, you have no chance. Karine Jean-Pierre’s story breaks the mold. Karine Jean-Pierre’s story breaks the mold. In Moving Forward, she tells how she got involved, showing how politics can be accessible to anyone, no matter their background. In today’s political climate, the need for all of us to participate has never been more crucial.

Each night, when the hours of painting and drawing were over, Vincent van Gogh put pen to paper and poured out his heart through letters to his beloved brother Theo, his confidant and companion. No thought was too small, no element of his craft too insignificant, no happening too trivial. It was all scrupulously recorded and shared. In these letters, Van Gogh reveals himself as artist and man. Even more than if he had purposely intended to tell his life story, Van Gogh’s letters lay bare his deepest feelings, as well as his everyday concerns and his views of the world of art.

Life as manager of the magnificent resort of Castle Dysert on Ireland’s wild Atlantic coast is never dull, and Conor O’Shea’s life to date has taught him to be prepared for the unexpected. Even he however, is not ready for the gang from Bubbles O’Leary’s bar in New York. A motley crew, from spinster sisters of a certain age, to exhausted social workers, they are all in Ireland for one reason. The fact that this bunch of unusual people arrive during Ireland’s biggest matchmaking festival just adds to the intrigue.

Nnenna Delahaye, a fearsome pirate captain with a particular taste for Fleet ships, lives according to no law except her own until she discovers a most unusual treasure in the belly of her most recent Fleet capture: a young girl. Against her better judgment (and the wishes of her first mate), she takes the girl on as a passenger. When Nnenna learns the girl has an artifact that the Fleet is desperate to get their hands on, she vows to do everything in her power to stop them.

Kilteegan Bridge, Ireland. 1975. Despite the best efforts to the older generation to maintain standards, short skirts, long hair and loud music are all the rage in Kilteegan Bridge. Emmet Kogan has set his sights on an education at the prestigious Stanford University in California, while his cousin Nellie also longs to get away, but for very different reasons. If she’s to escape too, it will mean wrapping herself in a web of lies, but it’s a price she’s willing to pay.

When Kimberly Chang and her mother emigrate from Hong Kong to Brooklyn squalor, she quickly begins a secret double life: exceptional schoolgirl during the day, Chinatown sweatshop worker in the evenings. Disguising the more difficult truths of her life-like the staggering degree of her poverty, the weight of her family's future resting on her shoulders, or her secret love for a factory boy who shares none of her talent or ambition-Kimberly learns to constantly translate not just her language but herself back and forth between the worlds she straddles.

How much is an act of betrayal worth? Worth the price of a soul? Dhamon Grimwulf and his band of mercenaries greedily eye a long-forgotten treasure concealed beneath a grassy plain. Legends promise riches too numerous to count, wealth too grand to be believed. But in a shifting world of secrets and deception, such fortune comes at a high price, higher even than the searing agony Dhamon suffers under the curse of a dragon's scale. High enough to cost Dhamon his life.

On a scorching day in August 1954, 13-year-old Jubie Watts leaves Charlotte, North Carolina, with her family for a Florida vacation. Crammed into the Packard along with Jubie are her three siblings, her mother, and the family’s black maid, Mary Luther. For as long as Jubie can remember, Mary has been there - cooking, cleaning, compensating for her father’s rages and her mother’s benign neglect, and loving Jubie unconditionally.

Tras ser expulsada del Clan del Oso Cavernario, la joven Ayla decide buscar a los que son como ella, los cromañones, y emprende un viaje lleno de peligros y aventuras hasta que encuentra una cueva donde refugiarse durante un tiempo. Su extraordinario instinto de supervivencia y su mente inquieta la conducirán a grandes descubrimientos, como hacer fuego "de piedra" y domesticar animales; entre otros a la yegua Whinney, que se convertirá en su fiel compañera. Además, tendrá que combatir la soledad y el dolor por ese hijo de "espíritus mezclados" que tuvo que dejar atrás.

Ellen Lambright mourned when her best friend, Mandy, moved from Indiana to Hawaii. But now Ellen has received the Amish church’s permission to go to Hawaii and help Mandy through challenging times. Rob Smith works on the Williams family’s organic farm, far from his past mistakes and burning regrets. When Ellen befriends Rob, the attraction is mutual, but her commitment to the Amish faith stands between them.

En la quinta parte de esta serie de la prehistoria los protagonistas, Ayla y Jondalar, llegan finalmente a un hogar. Tras un difícil viaje a través de Europa, Ayla y su compañero llegan finalmente a la Novena Caverna de los zelandonii, el hogar de Jondalar, hoy día en el valle de la Dordoña francesa. Los zelandonii sienten fascinación por las nuevas ideas que aporta la joven pareja pero también se muestran recelosos. Les llaman especialmente la atención el lanzavenablos, una nueva arma de caza muy eficaz, así como el rápido método de encender fuego con pedernal y pirita de hierro.

Leaving the valley of horses with Jondalar, the handsome man she has nursed back to health and come to love, Ayla embarks on a journey that will lead her to the Mamutoi; the Mammoth Hunters. But as she settles into this new life among a people at first strange and disturbingly different, Ayla finds herself irresistibly drawn to Ranec, their master-carver. Ultimately, she is compelled to make a fateful choice between the two men.

Ayla y Jondalar se despiden de los cazadores de mamuts y emprenden un viaje de más de un año a través de Europa hacia las tierras de Jondalar, territorio de los zelandonii, lo que hoy en día es el sur de Francia.

La pareja, acompañada de dos caballos y un lobo amaestrado, se expone a grandes peligros al atravesar ríos, glaciares y desiertos. Pero también compartirá habilidades y descubrimientos con los diversos clanes que se encontrará a lo largo del camino...