From the bestselling social commentator and cultural historian, a fascinating exploration of one of humanity's oldest traditions: the celebration of communal joyIn the acclaimed Blood Rites, Barbara Ehrenreich delved into the origins of our species' attraction to war. Here, she explores the opposite impulse, one that has been so effectively suppressed that we lack even a term for it: the desire for collective joy, historically expressed in ecstatic revels of feasting, costuming, and dancing.Ehrenreich uncovers the origins of communal celebration in human biology and culture. Although sixteenth-century Europeans viewed mass festivities as foreign and "savage," Ehrenreich shows that they were indigenous to the West, from the ancient Greeks' worship of Dionysus to the medieval practice of Christianity as a "danced religion." Ultimately, church officials drove the festivities into the streets, the prelude to widespread reformation:...

Her man. Their Hero. What happens when you pray for death and you’re ignored? You have to live. You have to survive. But what if the last thing you want is to take your next breath? To the world, Ryan is a hero, an ex-marine, brother, son and protector. He has devoted his life to keeping others safe. He will do anything and everything to ensure his loved ones are protected, even if that means destroying his very own soul. After an explosion on the battlefield ends his career in the Marine’s, Ryan is sent home with an honorable discharge. But the war hasn’t ended for him. He is home, he is free and he’s breathing, but he’s dead inside. He wants nothing more than peace, but the nightmares in his mind will not grant him that. They taunt him, tease him and torture his waking moments. The darkness within him is slowly consuming him, blackness has seeped into his veins and is rotting his core. Ryan is a man on the edge of destruction. For once he is the one in need of saving. He needs a saviour. He needs her. Ryan is commissioned as a bodyguard to Aloura Cavendish. When he initially meets her, he believes her to be a spoiled rich brat, wasting his time. But the fire inside her astounds him. When he pushes, he never expects her to push back. When he runs, she chases. For the first time in his life, Ryan has a protector willing to fight his demons. The only problem – he is too afraid to release them. **

When Harvard medical student Alexa Albert conducted a public-health study as the Mustang Ranch brothel in Nevada, the only state in the union where prostitution is legal, neither she nor the brothel could have predicted the end result. Having worked with homeless prostitutes in Times Square, Albert was intimate with human devastation cause by the sex trade, and curious to see if Nevada's brothels offered a less harmful model for a business that will always be with us. The Mustang Ranch has never before given an outsider such access, but fear of AIDS was hurting the business, and the Ranch was eager to get publicity for its rigorous standards of sexual hygiene. Albert was drawn into the lives of the women of the Mustang Ranch, and what began as a public-health project evolved into something more intimate and ambitious, a six-year study of the brothel ecosystem, its lessons and significance. The women of the Mustang Ranch poured their stories out to Albert: how they...

Our sharpest and most original social critic goes "undercover" as an unskilled worker to reveal the dark side of American prosperity.Millions of Americans work full time, year round, for poverty-level wages. In 1998, Barbara Ehrenreich decided to join them. She was inspired in part by the rhetoric surrounding welfare reform, which promised that a job -- any job -- can be the ticket to a better life. But how does anyone survive, let alone prosper, on $6 an hour? To find out, Ehrenreich left her home, took the cheapest lodgings she could find, and accepted whatever jobs she was offered. Moving from Florida to Maine to Minnesota, she worked as a waitress, a hotel maid, a cleaning woman, a nursing-home aide, and a Wal-Mart sales clerk. She lived in trailer parks and crumbling residential motels. Very quickly, she discovered that no job is truly "unskilled," that even the lowliest occupations require exhausting mental and muscular effort. She also learned that one job is...

Underneath these gang tattoos beats a heart three times a year. I’m a slow puncture death, a murderer, a rapist, and a number. I killed my best friend. Death doesn’t stalk me, it walks ahead of me by twenty-eight paces. I went home after I sold my soul to the devils. I thought life would begin, I was a free man, instead within days the bullets fly and my last hope dies with the slain. There is nothing left to live for in this world. I belong to the 28s, I’ll always belong to the 28s. The woman across the road judges me, she hates me, and takes every opportunity to let me know it. Yet, somehow, when grief etched our names down in the book of the dead, we dared be bold enough to find love. I’m not a good man, and I’m not pretty. I come from the Cape Flats where my life was reduced to a prison cell number. In all this ugliness I found beauty, innocence, and forgiveness. I can’t forgive myself for the crimes I’ve committed, but I’ll die trying to earn hers. In a world where nothing matters, she does. **

The bestselling author of Nickel and Dimed goes back undercover to do for America's ailing middle class what she did for the working poorBarbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed explored the lives of low-wage workers. Now, in Bait and Switch, she enters another hidden realm of the economy: the shadowy world of the white-collar unemployed. Armed with a plausible résumé of a professional "in transition," she attempts to land a middle-class job—undergoing career coaching and personality testing, then trawling a series of EST-like boot camps, job fairs, networking events, and evangelical job-search ministries. She gets an image makeover, works to project a winning attitude, yet is proselytized, scammed, lectured, and—again and again—rejected.Bait and Switch highlights the people who've done everything right—gotten college degrees, developed marketable skills, and built up impressive...

I am a villain, a monster and I have come here with a plan to execute. She is not part of my plan. She is poison and she is going to kill me. I will let her because my broken black heart beats with love for her. ~ Callum Death follows me like a shadow creeping silently after me, tethered to my blackened soul. I am cursed to carry it with me everywhere I go. It is never far away from me, and I am perfectly happy with that. The dark shadow of death keeps me alive in this rotten world of villains. Then a light through the grey shadow changes everything It changes me. He took my madness and broke me. I am going to kill him. ~ Shannon Are you ready to love and let die with Callum and Shannon?

When Erin Cerise steps off her plane in Christchurch, New Zealand, she is focused intently on her mission: do something unique that will erase the mess she made of her life on her 17th birthday. She's already lost her swim team captainship, her boyfriend Ben, and her reputation. Her mother is certain studying abroad will regain Erin's chances of a good future. Once Erin sees her uninspiring host family and city, though, she's not so sure. Before Christchurch, Erin wasn't always intense and focused. Years ago, a mission sounded like a fun adventure, and the only ivy she cared about was the stuff growing around her grandparents' back porch at their peaceful Upper Peninsula home. When had her priorities gone upside down? Now Erin balks at NZ's itchy school uniforms, cold houses, and her hosts' utter inability to pronounce her name correctly. Christchurch does boast amazing rock climbing, gorgeous scenery, and at least one guy who could make her forget...

At a time when six-year-old Abbie needs love and security, her mother goes to the hospital and never returns. Still distraught, Abbie is passed to whoever will have her. Her new step mother subjects her to unimaginable physical, sexual and psychological torture and delivers her to local paedophiles in the entertainment business. During her single minded pursuit of fame Abbie's step mother stops at nothing, beating and prostituting her own children.This is the story of Abbie's struggle to survive, the grim details of child abuse of the worst kind all told from the perspective of a little girl.As a teenager Abbie is uncontrollable. A Modette during the 80's revival, she finds a love of scooters, rebellion and gang life on the wild side. Dulling her pain with alcohol, drugs and promiscuity at a very young age, Abbie loses control and becomes well known to the local police. Not one person can get through to her because she has no fear, no self respect, no morals or self...

Collection of novels:E.K. Blair: Fading Ilsa Madden-Mills: Very Bad Things K.A. Robinson: Shattered Ties Lexi Buchanan: Sizzle Missy Johnson: Always You Sandi Lynn: Love in Between S.E. Hall: Emerge Tijan: Fallen Crest High