Spring is right around the corner, and families are planning their trips to the beach or taking advantage of one last good week of snow for skiing. But what do you do when you've tucked the kids in for the night, or you need something to keep them occupied during the drive home? Reading is the best activity for any spring break down time. Escape to the glamor of old Hollywood, or time travel with some tough demon hunters. You can also expand your mind with a stellar debut novel, or watch a young romance flourish through mix tapes. And don't forget about something spicy to read when everyone else is asleep. Even if you aren't going anywhere for spring break, or your holiday is over, picking up a book is the perfect excuse for adventure.
A powerful, exquisitely written tale about a charismatic yet morally ambiguous salesman
Jim can sell anything to anyone. Born into abject poverty, he uses street smarts, irresistible charms, and increasingly sophisticated schemes to pull himself up from door-to-door salesman to international mogul, the father of the pyramid scheme.
Jim becomes fabulously wealthy, owning estates and dining with royalty, but along the way he leaves an army of disillusioned customers broke and ruined in his wake. To escape his past, as well as government investigators, he leaves the country to become the leader of a lawless and predatory gold-mining operation in the Brazilian Amazon---an entirely lush, violent, dissolute life.
Worn down by age, and a lifetime of shady enterprise, his world suddenly changes when he meets Mara, a beautiful, young Israeli woman with dark ambitions of her own. In the process of their unlikely life together, Mara finds herself attracted to this ruined old man, as if his profligate history of glory and big money, and finally his weakness and proximity to death, creates an urgency and eroticism for her.
Narrated by an anonymous writer who is equally mesmerized and repulsed by Jim, Fred Waitzkin's The Dream Merchant is an unwavering look at the price of heedless ambition, the indissoluble bonds of male friendship, and the unsettling nature of love and sexuality.
A glamorous Hollywood starlet must fight for her life, her love, and her country in this epic 1930s tale.
During the golden age of Hollywood, film star Roxy Price's future shines bright -- until the fated Black Friday when it all comes crashing down. Her only hope is to join forces with Belgian duke Rolfe Van Horne, a film investor. But Rolfe is not who he seems, and his plans to support a growing unrest in Europe could break Roxy's heart and endanger her life. When her country needs her, will she have the courage to surrender her glittering world and her one true love?
Eleanor is the new girl in town, and she's never felt more alone. All mismatched clothes, mad red hair and chaotic home life, she couldn't stick out more if she tried. Then she takes the seat on the bus next to Park. Quiet, careful and - in Eleanor's eyes - impossibly cool, Park's worked out that flying under the radar is the best way to get by.
Slowly,steadily, through late-night conversations and an ever-growing stack of mixed tapes, Eleanor and Park fall in love. They fall in love the way you do the first time, when you're 16, and you have nothing and everything to lose.
Set over the course of one school year in 1986, Eleanor and Park is funny, sad, shocking and true - an exquisite nostalgia trip for anyone who has never forgotten their first love.
Her memory is blank. Her future's in question. Her power is dangerous.
Waking up in an unknown world, Rayen learns only that she's seventeen and is hunted by a sentient beast. Terrified that she may never learn who she really is or find her way back to her home, she's captured in a land that is at times familiar even if the people and the structures seem alien. When local law enforcement delivers her to a private school, she's labeled as a Native American runaway, and Rayen discovers a secret with deadly repercussions. Forced into an unlikely alliance with a computer savvy street punk and a gifted oddball girl to save their world – and the future – Rayen finds the key to an identity that no person would want.
An ambitious intern. A perfectionist executive. And a whole lot of name calling.
Whip-smart, hardworking, and on her way to an MBA, Chloe Mills has only one problem: her boss, Bennett Ryan. He's exacting, blunt, inconsiderate—and completely irresistible. A Beautiful Bastard.
Bennett has returned to Chicago from France to take a vital role in his family's massive media business. He never expected that the assistant who'd been helping him from abroad was the gorgeous, innocently provocative—completely infuriating—creature he now has to see every day. Despite the rumors, he's never been one for a workplace hookup. But Chloe's so tempting he's willing to bend the rules—or outright smash them—if it means he can have her. All over the office
As their appetites for one another increase to a breaking point, Bennett and Chloe must decide exactly what they're willing to lose in order to win each other.
Originally only available online as The Office by tby789—and garnering over 2 million reads on fanfiction sites—Beautiful Bastard has been extensively updated for re-release.