From the Publisher: At thirty-seven, Jane Howe is pretty sure she has attained the perfect life: a well-paying job, fantastic friends, family close by (but not too close), and a Greenwich Village apartment that makes visitors drool with envy. But that’s before she sees the perfect child. There he sits in his stroller, angelic and beautiful, magnetic and serene—and he makes Jane question everything she has and everything she thought she wanted.

Suddenly all she can see are babies and pregnant woman everywhere. Were there always so many of them? And while there was once a man in her life—her one true love, Sam, gone from this world too soon—there is no man now. Jane must make a choice: possibly become a bitter and childless old lady, letting her biological clock tick on ’til menopause, or tend the ache in her heart now, by becoming a single mother.

As Jane struggles to make the most important decision of her life, friends and family offer no shortage of opinions. There’s Ray, her “hubstitute” and gay best friend who would be jealous of any kid who got Jane as a mom; Sheila, her sister, who went from zero to sixty when she eloped with Raoul—who had two young twin sons—and has mixed feelings about being a new mommy; her strict, Catholic father who can’t imagine what level of hell Jane would banish herself to if she becomes a single mother; and the women of Families with Children from China who are preparing to adopt orphan daughters—without a man in sight. Just as she thinks she’s made up her mind, Jane discovers one small wrench in her plans: handsome, charming, funny Peter, who just happens to be (unhappily) married.

...And Baby Makes Two is a heartbreakingly honest, wonderfully addictive, and funny novel about love and loss, family and friendship. Judy Sheehan, co-creator of the smash hit Tony n’ Tina’s Wedding, has perfectly captured the delights and dilemmas of the scariest job in the world: motherhood.

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About the Author: Judy Sheehan started her career as one of the original cast members and creators of the long-running stage hit Tony n’ Tina’s Wedding. Currently Sheehan is the playwright-in-residence at New York City’s prestigious Looking Glass Theatre, which produces her work every season. Excerpts from her plays have appeared in the popular anthologies Monologues for Women by Women and Even More Monologues for Women by Women. In 2000, Sheehan joined the growing ranks of adoptive parents when she traveled to China to adopt a ten-month-old girl. Judy and her daughter, Annie, live in New York City.

Nine-year-old Derrick is really sick and has to stay home from school. But what is supposed to be a day of rest and healing turns into a day that scars him for life when he overhears the murder of his father at the hands of his mother. With his life turned upside down, Derrick and his younger siblings are yanked from their home and thrust into one foster home after another. That is, until childless couple Bill and Chardress Hart comes along and offers them the life every child wishes to have. There’s just one problem... Derrick doesn’t want any parents but his own, while Bill and Chardress want more than anything to have the family they’ve been denied for far too long. Finally deciding to trust God after she had long since given up on Him, Chardress opens herself up to Derrick to a vulnerable degree and the beauty of what God allows to occur is nothing less than miraculous.

Aaron the Jew is, among other things, an anti-conversion novel, but it’s of a startling sort. The plot hinges on a baby switch. (No, that’s not why it’s startling.) To avoid financial disaster, Aaron Cohen, an Orthodox Jew, agrees to raise a Christian child born out of wedlock. (The mother had been forced to give the baby up as part of a deal with a would-be husband. It’s a sign of the Victorian times that the novel is not only sympathetic to the mother, but eventually lets her prosper.) But Aaron’s own child, born at nearly the same time, dies suddenly, and fearing that the shock could kill his wife, Aaron passes off the baby girl as their own. (Mrs. Cohen is blind, which enables the switch.) Flash forward many years. The girl in question, Ruth, has been raised as a Jew ... but refuses to embrace the faith.

From the Back Cover: Tisa Lewis has spent her life remembering frightening images from her childhood—a dead woman, headlights in the night, an empty highway, an abandoned girl clinging to a fence in the wind and the rain. These fleeting memories have restrained her, have pushed her to deny six fiancés, have prevented her from keeping a steady job, and have kept her from developing faith in her Church and her God.

Now, just as she begins to settle in at a new company—just as she starts to fall in love with Cabe Evans, her foster brother’s new police partner—the past she can’t remember threatens to take everything away from her. As Peter and Cabe’s investigation of a powerful mafia family begins to uncover Tisa’s past, Tisa’s past comes looking for her.

From best-selling author Jennie Hansen comes Abandoned, a breathtaking, suspenseful new novel about a young woman’s determination to shape her own future by conquering her tragic past.

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About the Author: Jennie Hansen graduated from Ricks College in Idaho, and Westminster College in Utah. She has been a newspaper reporter, editor, and for the past twenty years has been a librarian for the Salt Lake City library system.

Her church service has included teaching in all auxiliaries and serving in stake and ward Primary presidencies. She has also served as a den mother, stake public affairs coordinator, ward chorister, education counselor in her ward Relief Society, and teacher improvement coordinator.

Jennie and her husband, Boyd, live in Salt Lake County. Their five children are all married and hve so far provided them with six grandchildren.

Abandoned is Jennie’s eleventh book for the LDS market.

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By the Same Author: Coming Home (1998), among others.

Based on a true story about the author finding her real mother in the South of France, Abandoned Love is a compulsive, emotive read. This novel is about three women, Miriam, Marjorie and Rosie. Miriam, a Lucie Clayton model, falls in love in 1960s Dublin with a South African businessman. Unable to go through with an abortion, or tell her parents, she heads to London, to consider offering her child up for a private adoption. Marjorie has let life pass her by, until in her 40s, she meets the love of her life Arthur. They marry, but cannot have children. At 44, she meets Miriam and agrees to look after her daughter with a view to adopting her. Rosie grows up in a largely dysfunctional, albeit privileged home. She daren’t tell anyone she is adopted for fear of hurting her adoptive mother. She eventually tells her fiancee when she mistakenly thinks she herself is pregnant. They agree that to contact her real mother would devastate Marjorie, so do nothing. The years pass. After successful careers Rosie and her family emigrate to the South of France where, one sunny day, they go to a restaurant in St. Paul de Vence. Bumping into an Irish couple, Rosie (who has always known the name of her birth mother) asks if they know a Miriam Sullivan-Cody—and to her surprise they do. Yet it is too late, Rosie finds out her mother died of breast cancer aged 44. Following this revelation, Rosie makes the trip to Ireland to discover her real family, and to find answers to the questions she’s always had. About the Author: Rosie Houghton lives in the South of France with her husband and three children. She was a finalist in the Cosmopolitan Woman of the Year Awards (2001) and established her own Internet Company. In 2004 she retired with her family to France. Her media appearances include, BBC 1 World in Action, GMTV, Sky, ITV, Bloomberg, Radio 4, Talk Radio, Five Live. Abandoned Love is Rosie’s first novel based on her true story. All the documents referred to in the novel are originals.

From the Back Cover: With America at war in the Pacific and Atlantic in 1942, Peter Flanigan has reason to assert his strong masculinity and pride of country by following his graduating classmates and joining the military.

His decision to march to the beat of a different drummer clashes with the euphoria of war and patriotism. Flanigan refuses to register for the draft and is sentenced to federal prison. When the United States Forestry Department develops a shortage of firefighters, Flanigan accepts the offer to leave prison punishment for the mountains of Montana and an adventure that will change his life.

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About the Author: From the Australian Broadcasting Company to the Washington Post, Jack Gilroy’s high school students were noted for their political-social activism. Now, Gilroy’s fictional characters of young men of integrity come to life in his two winning novels, Absolute Flanigan and The Wisdom Box (awarded the Peace Hope International Writing Award for 2001). Both stories of young men who refused to follow United States Government orders to go to foreign countries and kill people.

From the Dust Jacket: When the once-beautiful Bonaria Urrai adopts Maria, the unloved fourth child of a widow, she tries to shield the girl from the truth about her role as an accabadora, an angel of mercy, who acts as mid-wife to the dying. The rural community fear and revere her in equal measure, but they understand that just as only a woman can bring life into the world, only a woman should take it away.

Moved by the pleas of a young man crippled in an accident, she breaks her golden rule of familial consent, and in the recriminations that follow, Maria rejects Tzia Bonaria and flees Sardinia for Turin. Adrift in the big city, she strives to find love and acceptance, but her efforts are overshadowed by the creeping knowledge of a debt unpaid, of family ties that have nothing to do with blood, and of a destiny that must one day be hers.

A powerful and yet delicate novel set in 1950s rural Sardinia, written in a rich, limpid prose that perfectly captures the hidden ties between life, love and death.

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About the Author: Michela Murgia was born in Cabras, Sardinia, in 1972. Accabadora, her third novel, won six major literary prizes in Italy, including the prestigious Campiello and SuperMondello, and firmly establishes her alongside Marcello Fois and Davide Longo at the forefront of a recent renaissance in Italian fiction.

Silvester Mazzarella is a translator of Italian and Swedish literature, including works by Tove Jansson and Dacia Maraini. He learned English from his mother, Italian from his father, and Swedish while teaching at the University of Helsinki. He lives in Canterbury.

Grace Keller is on her way home for Christmas break. She’s got everything going for her: she’s a committed Christian; she’s graduating with her Doctorate soon; she’s about to become engaged; and her older sister (and best friend) is about to announce that she’s pregnant with twins. As Grace nears her parents’ home on a dark, rainy Christmas Eve, a terrible accident happens. Eight-year-old Scarlet Rein runs out in front of her car, gets hit, and dies a few hours later in the emergency room. Scarlet’s parents, Rick and Maxine, are not Christians. Will the accident help, or further hinder, their search for a relationship with God? Maxine’s mother, Victoria, has never been comfortable around Maxine’s husband. Maxine didn’t marry money, and Scarlet was adopted because Maxine couldn’t conceive. How will Scarlet’s death affect their relationship? Uncle Charlie is Maxine’s uncle. He adores Maxine. How does Scarlet’s death affect him? Maxine has a secret that she’s ashamed about. Victoria has a secret that she’s ashamed about. Uncle Charlie has a secret that he’s ashamed about. Will Scarlet’s death allow them to work through their shame and be able to start a relationship with Jesus Christ?

A child is born to a young girl in rural Romania and abandoned, to be adopted by an American couple totally unaware that their son’s birth origin is the throne of the gypsy people. Fifteen years later the secret is discovered and he is kidnapped in Paris while on a family vacation. His father follows the kidnappers across Europe and Northern Africa in his efforts to retrieve his son. From the farmlands of Romania to the comfort of a Florida home, through the streets of Paris, the markets of Marrakech, the museums of Cairo, then back to Eastern Europe, the story of a teenager’s life comes full circle. At stake is the future of the throne of an ancient people searching for one final hope against an innocent boy’s desire to go back to the only life he has known.

From the Back Cover: When Rennie’s parents die in a freak accident, he does what they would have wanted and buries them in Puerto Rico, their homeland. There, he’s shocked to discover that the woman who raised him was not his biological mother. A high-powered attorney, his birth mother Julia is determined to reclaim the son she gave up many years ago.

Adrift, with no family in New York and haunted by memories, Rennie is swayed by Julia’s constant pleading that he move to the island. A teaching job at a college in Puerto Rico decides it, and he finds himself flying “home” to a place and culture he knows only through his parents’ recollections. Once there, he must deal with Julia’s strong-willed nature, a department chair not thrilled to have a Nuyorican on staff, squatters living in the house he inherited, students frequently on strike and a lover anxious to settle down. Most disturbing is the rumor that numerous faculty and staff are dying from cancer because the campus, a former U.S. military base, is full of buried munitions.

Rennie soon finds himself working to expose the government’s lies, though he risks losing his job, his home and even the woman he loves. In his debut novel, J.L. Torres captures the conflict and challenges experienced by Puerto Ricans returning to their “homeland.”

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About the Author: J.L. Torres is the author of a short-story collection, The Family Terrorist and Other Stories (Arte Público Press, 2008). His stories and poetry have been published widely in anthologies and magazines. Born in Puerto Rico and raised in the South Bronx, he currently lives with his family in upstate New York, where he teaches American literature and creative writing at SUNY, Plattsburgh.

From the Dust Jacket: Like True Grit and Little Big Man, Addie Pray is one of those rare and magic novels that bring to life a whole era in the person of a central character and in the form of a story so convincing, human and entertaining as to be worthy of Mark Twain.

The heroine of Joe David Brown’s new novel is Miss Addie Pray, an eleven-year-old orphan (“My mama, Miss Essie Mae Loggins, was the wildest girl in Marengo County, Alabama”) of monumental shrewdness, who becomes the willing and imaginative confederate of her conman companion Long Boy (“To this day I don’t know whether Long Boy was my daddy or not”) in the darkest days of the Depression (“I don’t think times were nearly so bad as some people put on. ... Folks in small places were accustomed to being poor and didn’t expect to get rich, like they do now”).

Together, they embark on a series of confidence tricks that take them from one end of the South to the other, beginning with the selling of gold-initialed Bibles, moving on to the more rewarding businesses of hawking pictures of Franklin D. Roosevelt (two dollars with frame), basic and refined wallet switching, trading in nonexistent cotton crops and taking a risky flier in bootleg whiskey ... until they meet Major Carter E. Lee (alias Colonel Culpepper), who not only introduces them to a far more ambitious kind of swindle but sets Addie up for a million-dollar scheme as the heiress to a great fortune, and almost, almost (but not quite) makes her a respectable young lady.

Addie Pray is one of the most engaging pieces of fiction to come down the pike in a long, long time, as warm, funny, hard-edged and no-nonsense as its remarkable young heroine—and destined, we believe, to become a permanent piece of fictional Americana.

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About the Author: Joe David Brown is the author of Stars in My Crown and Kings Go Forth (both made into major motion pictures), as well as of a number of other novels and nonfiction books. His short stories and articles have appeared in most of the major national magazines.

In a wide-ranging career he has also distinguished himself as a newspaperman and as a foreign correspondent for Time-Life.

Mr. Brown served with the paratroopers in World War Two and was awarded a battlefield commission, the Purple Heart, and the French Croix de Guerre with palm. He now lives in Atlanta, Georgia.

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Compiler’s Note: Basis for the 1973 Peter Bogdanovich film Paper Moon, starring Ryan and his daughter, Tatum O’Neal, the latter making her film debut, for which she won the Supporting Actress Oscar.

From the Dust Jacket: “Admissions. Admission. Aren’t there two sides to the word? And two opposing sides ... It’s what we let in, but it’s also what we let out.”

For years, thirty-eight-year-old Portia Nathan has avoided the past, hiding behind her busy (and sometimes punishing) career as a Princeton University admissions officer and her dependable domestic life. Her reluctance to confront the truth is suddenly overwhelmed by the resurfacing of a life-altering decision, and Portia is faced with an extraordinary test. Just as thousands of the nation’s brightest students await her decision regarding their academic admission, so too must Portia decide whether to make her own ultimate admission.

Admission is at once a fascinating look at the complex college admissions process and an emotional examination of what happens when the secrets of the past return and shake a woman’s life to its core.

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About the Author: Jean Hanff Koretitz was born and raised in New York City and graduated from Dartmouth College and Clare College, Cambridge. She is the author of three previous novels, The White Rose, The Sabbathday River, and A Jury of Her Peers, as well as a novel for children, Interference Powder, and a collection of poems, The Properties of Breath. She lives in Princeton, NJ, with her husband, the poet and Princeton professor Paul Muldoon, and their children. Korelitz was a part-time reader for Princeton’s Office of Admission during the 2006 and 2007 admissions seasons.

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Complier’s Note: The book served as the basis for an eponymous motion picture, a romantic comedy, starring Tina Fey and Paul Rudd, with Lily Tomlin, Wallace Shawn and Michael Sheen in supporting roles, directed by Paul Weitz, with a screenplay by Karen Croner.

How do staff members at a selective college near Boston decide which applicants to admit? Forced to cut costs, Max Danker, Dean of Admissions, and Psychology Professor Marina Dubrova decide to apply her theory that people will rise to others’ expectations of them. Theory becomes practice when Max and his staff admit some of their applicants randomly, while those admitted the traditional way have their recommendations and achievements outside of the classroom carefully screened. What group will Katie Lorko, an applicant uniquely connected to one Admissions staffer fall into? Can Max and Marina implement and evaluate their experiment before the Administration finds out? Written by a retired MIT Associate Director of Admissions, this book explains how and why colleges admit applicants.

The immortal Spenlove reappears in a well-drawn story about a 25-year-old orphan who seeks—and finds—the sister he cannot remember.

This is the second volume of the African Quatuor of Albert Russo’s award-winning novels on the Belgian Congo and Rwanda-Urundi. “This is a must-read text book, I exclaimed after reading the first pages of this fascinating novel. And the more I read, the more I was convinced, as a former Professor in several universities and a former Director of the Israeli School of Diplomats, that this great novel should be in the hands of students of History, of Africa, of Developing Countries and of Diplomacy. Any student interested in the history of Africa at the turn of this continent from colonial times to freedom and independence, would greatly benefit from reading this book. This intense, passionate novel, teaches us so much about Congo-Léopoldville, the present Congo-Kinshasa, also known as Zaire.” (Moshe Liba Ambassador to 8 African countries and South America) and Professor, artist, essayist and poet) About the Author: Albert Russo has published worldwide over 80 books of poetry, fiction and photography, in both English and French; his two mother tongues (Italian being his “paternal” tongue; he also speaks Spanish and German and still has notions of Swahili), is the recipient of many awards, such as The New York Poetry Forum and Amelia (CA) Awards, The American Society of Writers Fiction Award, The British Diversity Short Story Award, The AZsacra international Poetry Award (Taj Mahal Review), the Books & Authors Award, several Writer’s Digest poetry and fiction Awards (winner and finalist), Aquillrelle Awards, the Prix Colette, and the Unicef First Prize in narrative poetry, for the protection of childhood, among others. His work has been translated into a dozen languages in 25 countries.

It is no easy task to adopt a child, especially across different races, nor is it easy to be adopted. Jake and Nkanyiso have to work much harder than either of them probably expected to become a family of two. Just as they are becoming settled after some trials, Nkanyiso informs his adopted father that a male teacher has been sexually harassing him at school. Jake does his best to protect his adopted son, but neither of them is really prepared for the onslaught when Jake complains to the school. Each of them has to deal with the other’s different world view. Jake’s respect for Zulu customs does not extend to funding Nkanyiso’s mother’s training to become an isangoma; money is too tight. Nkanyiso wants to believe that no spirit can harm him, as Jake says; but the dark sorcerer hounds him continually, and he starts to despair. It is a story of bad things happening to ordinary people. An adopted father and an adopted son against the background of a country still coming to terms with democracy.

Compiler’s Note: I was looking for a description of this book online and happened upon the following, which is probably as good a description as any I might find elsewhere, given that it apparently reflects the author’s own words, as well as the opinion of someone who appears to have read the book. A user on a site called livejournal.com calling herself Lara7 was commenting about the quality—or lack thereof—of self-published books she’d found on an apparently now-defunct website called www.1stBooks.com, and after delivering a few bon mots regarding some selected volumes, she ends on this note:

But the crown jewel thus far, and how I came to be aware of the site, is from a local author who wants my library to buy his book. I’m not even sure if it’s supposed to be fiction or memoir. Some details about this book (no doubt blurbed by the author): This double manuscript details the past life of this affluent and renowned preacher by the name of Calvin C. Steppingwolfe. He had planned on marrying his adopted daughter, Venice McClaim, because her pulchritudinous appearance brought her great fame; until one Sunday morning a stranger drove into their world, causing Venice to fall in love with him. This stranger’s name was Mack James. He told Venice the truth about her adopted father’s past life, serving as a pimp, and how one of his ladies of the street went astray on him, causing him casualty to interfere with his pimping skill. ....The death of Nessie filled Steppingwolfe with so much remorse and grief, he began to preach while walking up and down the street influencing people. ...he inherited a town and affluent fame as a preacher. .... it tore this place apart, and the spirit of this preacher haunted these people involved, until each deceased. ..... From the beginning to the end, the author of this book recommends it to be read throughout its entirety. And what about the author, Mr. Bobby R. Wilson? ...As a teenager, he began to indulge with different girls, astounding their world. After joining the military, his outlook on life made him wise, touring the world with the U.S. Navy, gave him the experience he needed to enhance his mentality, indulging with women of different nationalities. He was there to please them sexually. After his military experience, he began to seek intellectual knowledge, so he enrolled in college. .... When it comes to the existence of people, he could be a teacher, but writing words to read is his expertise. Indeed. Writing words to read is his expertise. Reading from the beginning to the end, to be read throughout its entirety is my expertise. —Lara7, [Jul. 20th, 2002|11:51 pm]

Futabatei Shimei (February 28, 1864-May 10, 1909) was a Japanese author, translator, and literary critic. Born Hasegawa Tatsunosuke in Edo (now Tokyo), Futabatei’s works are in the realist style popular in the mid- to late-19th century. This is the first modern Japanese novel to appear in English. A beautifully written, absorbing and poignant work, it is based on the ancient Japanese tradition of the “adopted husband”; to prevent the family name becoming extinct, the father of an only daughter adopts needy young man to marry daughter and continue family name.

from the Back Cover: A strange twist of fate alters Naomi’s world after she is abandoned by her mother and adopted by a mining family in the South Wales valleys. Suspense, drama, clairvoyance and illicit affairs are ever present in the main character’s life. It seems that a deliberate effort has been made to conceal her true identity but despite being led a merry dance she is determined to find out about the mystery that surrounds her birth mother’s secret past.

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About the Author: Heather Rogers lives in Newport, South Wales with her cats, Mr. Buttons, Ginger Joe. and her toy poodle, Molly. This is the second of three books she has written about a subject close to her heart--she is an adoption researcher and has given many talks on the subject.

The invasion has begun.

An invasion not from the stars but from within our wombs. All over the world children are being born ... different. Their features are alien, their DNA isn’t human, their loyalties are unknown. As scientists, spies, and regular citizens race to make sense of this new disease, they find themselves asking the same question: Is this the first wave of an alien assault on Earth?

Celebrated fiction author and bioterrorism expert Dominic Peloso weaves a complex tale of alien invasion, environmental catastrophe, and societal upheaval, in a world not too removed from our own. Adopted Son perfectly blends hard sci-fi with biting political and social commentary to create a truly modern literary masterpiece that transcends genres.

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About the Author: Christopher Dominic Peloso has tried a number of methods to make people cry over the years—pulling their pigtails, putting spiders in their lunch, waterboarding, and telling them that he loves them when he knows in his heart it isn’t true; but he’s recently found that the most effective way by far is by writing disarmingly dumb sonnets about time machines and zombies and unrequited love.

The life of Moses written in the form of a story.

From the Back Cover: Jane Ransome, mother of three children, is married to a man who adores her and she knows she has every reason to be happy. But she longs for another child. When nature fails her, Jane and her husband take the decision to adopt.

Three-year-old Jody arrives at the household, nervous and withdrawn, but the family also find themselves exposed to a new world of uncertainty. How do you care for someone who has been abandoned by the people who should have loved her most? Or uncover love in the dark reaches of neglect? And is Jane in danger of forgetting her own family in her desire to repair this damaged child?

Dave Hill has written a deeply moving, perceptive, sometimes funny novel about the bitter-sweetness of childhood, growing up and the family ties that make us who we are.

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About the Author: Dave Hill has been a journalist and author for twenty-five years, writing on family matters, the sexes, sport, politics and popular culture. He lives in east London, is married and has six children. This is his fourth novel.

When six-year-old Mary’s mother dies unexpectedly, she is “adopted” by her neighbors, Val and David. But nothing about Mary or her adoption is normal. She’s a giant—nearly seven feet tall, brilliant and beautiful, the result of her mother’s in vitro fertilization at a clinic in Vermilion, Louisiana. What happened? Did something go wrong? Or was it planned by doctors experimenting on humans? And if so, is it still happening in other fertility clinics in the United States, Russia, and North Korea? Val, a reluctant mother and professor of biology, becomes detective and protector. Her own research on the genetics of polyploid plants that have multiple sets of chromosomes give her insights and sympathy for this super, but outnumbered, new race of humans. A new race that is threatened by a fearful government and public, who want to eliminate them (and their differences) at any cost. Murder, mystery, speculative science, and a mother’s love blend in a novel that asks us to consider what would happen if life were just a little bit different. About the Author: Victoria I. Sullivan is a writer and botanist. She studied biology at the University of Miami and has a Ph.D. in biology from Florida State University. She has published poetry, flash fiction, numerous botanical papers, and nonfiction articles. She held a faculty position in the Department of Biology, University of Louisiana at Lafayette for 20 years. Sullivan is a resident of Sewanee, Tennessee. She winters in New Iberia, LA.

The Adoption is a work of fiction, but is based upon the author’s work to help abused and molested boys. All events in this book have happened in someone’s life. About the Author: R. G. Lewis Converse has studied music at Central Michigan before it was a University. He went to Cincinnati Bible Seminary for four years, and was ordained to the ministry of the Church of Christ. He has worked in prison ministry writing hundreds of letters to prisoners. During the prison ministry he was led to research the Constitution of the U.S. through the 1800s until now spending more than eight years in that research.

The Adoption, is the story of a new born girl baby born in rural China. Because of her gender, and for no other reason, with the umbilical cord still attached, she is thrown down a well,” the well of lost children” by her father, the insane son of the last emperor, but she survives. This story explores the social consequences of the Chinese one child policy established in 1979. Since then it has been estimated that more than 15,000,000 new born girl babies have disappeared, most through infanticide and even some through cannibalism. China has the world’s highest rate of suicides among women of child bearing age. The pressure to produce that first born male is enormous. When it doesn’t happen the woman gets the blame. “A son takes care of his parents, but a daughter takes care of her husband’s parents.” The baby is immediately rescued by a corrupt police chief associated with a crime syndicate involved in human trafficking, and eventually is placed in their orphanage and prepared for adoption. The baby has a secret that makes her a very valuable commodity in the adoption market. She is the granddaughter of the last emperor of China, Pu Yi of the Ching Dynasty. There are wealthy people throughout the world who would pay enormous amounts for a child of that status. The crime syndicate negotiates the sale of the child to a rich Russian oligarch who accumulated her wealth in construction, and thinks she can penetrate the booming Chinese construction economy with a Chinese child of royal status. She believes being the mother of the heir to the Ching Dynasty would afford her much influence. There is a mistake at the orphanage and the baby is given up for adoption to an American couple, who had no knowledge of the baby’s royal status. When the mistake is discovered the crime syndicate attempts to buy her back. When the American couple refuses the crime syndicate kidnaps her. The crime syndicate didn’t know that the American father who claimed on the adoption application to be a building contractor, was instead a paramilitary operative for the CIA who has a reputation as a “problem solver, using whatever means it takes to get the job done.” He tracks his adopted daughter to Shanghai and then to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, eliminating a few members of the crime syndicate along the way, and recovers his adopted daughter. In the epilogue the child as an adult reflects on her past and visits the village of her birth, including the cemetery, and forgives her father while standing over his grave.

From the Publisher: The sound of far off sleigh bells drifted into her consciousness, and as Marne tried to remember where she was, she realized that a dark form was hovering above her. Marne struggled to scream as she saw the jagged edge of an unbent hanger as it descended toward her heart. Ken and Marne had been delighted to open their home to a beautiful baby boy in need of a loving family; little did they know that their adopted son had come with a hidden time bomb. Mark Tyler has known the heartbreaking loss of two members of his own family. Life with a child of severe behavior disorders was one of extreme challenges, but nothing could have prepared him for the way his own family story would tragically end. Study lessons of life from this grieving father; learn his most important truth and the family motto forged in pain that continues to give him strength to go on. Mark is hopeful that those who read this book will have a better understanding of hurting children and their families, providing a safe place where their fears are heard and their tears are understood.

From the Publisher: Some say a hero will come to save the world from destruction, hopelessness and haywire weather; from powerful forces of evil—political, spiritual, or perhaps personal. Is The Pisco Kid that hero, or merely a literary instrument satirically skewering rapture-theorist conservatives, libidinous liberals, and many groups in between? In a surreal post-flood fantasy-scape, maybe it’s all a wash.

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About the Author: Michael Standaert is a writer and journalist based in Shenzhen, China. Currently contributing to Bloomberg Environment, MIT Technology Review, Al Jazeera, Quartz and several other outlets. He is the author of the novel The Adventures of the Pisco Kid and the non-fiction work Skipping Towards Armageddon.

From the Dust Jacket: No one forgets Cath Fox in a hurry. From her scorpion tattoo to her more worldly charms, she’s a woman determined to get what she wants.

A job at one of the country’s most exclusive boarding schools gives Cath the start that she needs. Never mind that she’s folding knickers and name-taping socks, Cath has her eye on better things and a plan to ensure that hey happen...

Trading upwards at every turn, Cath’s journey takes her form grimy backstreets to to stately homes to the boardrooms of global empires, cutting a dash through celebrity culture to the very pinnacle of of British society—a royal wedding.

Spanning four decades, Coleridge’s delicious social comedy introduces a remarkable, ruthless, irresistible chancer, a Becky Sharp for our times. The Adventuress is a wickedly funny and utterly addictive tale of money, sex, power and having it all.

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About the Author: Nicholas Coleridge’s acclaimed novels include Godchildren, Deadly Sins, A Much Married Man and With Friends Like These. He is also the author of two non-fiction bestsellers, The Fashion Conspiracy and Paper Tigers, and his books have been published in fourteen languages. Having worked as a newspaper columnist and magazine editor, he joined the Condé Nast magazine company in London as Editorial Director, has been Managing Director since 1992, and President of Condé Nast International since 2012. He has been Chairman of the British Fashion Council, Chairman of the Professional Publishers Association and is Vice Chairman of the Campaign for Wool.

He became CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours 2009. His enthusiasms include long walks, sunshine and India, ideally simultaneously. He lives in London and Worcestershire with his wife, Georgia, and their four children.

From the Back Cover: This novel is a fictional narration of three generations of an Afghan family, spanning from the invasion and subsequent occupation by the then superpower USSR, the coming to power of the Taliban government, to American peace keeping forces and then a hope of future withdrawal of foreign forces, leaving behind shattered, war torn but a free Afghanistan.

The narration follows a prominent Afghan family’s escapades throughout those tumultuous times. From valiantly fighting against Soviet Russia while being part of the resistance movement, to helping Taliban, to indulging in gun-running and the vicious drug trade. This sweeping epic follows these influential pashtoon to a gripping climax.

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About the Author: Nadeem Akbar is fully able to convey the feelings and aspirations of fellow Afghans with candor and style, being an Afghan herself. Her family migrated from Afghanistan in the nineteenth century.

She has written books for children that have been published in Pakistan and, in some institutions, has formed part of the curriculum of certain schools there.

Positive reviews of her books can be seen in the literary section of the English newspaper Dawn, which currently has the widest readership and circulation within Pakistan.

Aaron Saturn, 16, is an emotional zombie—stuck in grief for his little brother, Isaac, who died. Aaron longs for an escape, and thinks he’s found one when he meets Kim, a girl living on the streets of New York City’s East Village. But the real upheaval in his life hits closer to home. When his parents reveal a startling plan to change their family, Aaron goes into a tailspin. He needs to learn that running away won’t heal him. For that to happen, Aaron must be willing to let love back into his life. Love that may lead him to a real adventure. About the Author: Avra Wing is the author of the novel Angie, I Says, which was made into the movie Angie starring Geena Davis and James Gandolfini. She is also a poet: her poetry collection, Recurring Dream, won the 2011 Pecan Grove Press Chapbook Competition, and she’s published poems in numerous literary magazines. Her essays have appeared in The New York Times, and her memoir, Doorway on the Mountain, is available at OnlineOriginals.com. Avra’s work teaching creative writing for the New York Writers Coalition was recognized with a grant from Poets and Writers. She also taught for 10 years as an adjunct professor of English at Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn, NY. She lives in Brooklyn, where she and her husband raised three (wonderful) children.