She vowed never to forgive him…Once upon a time, Adria Rojas had it all―a budding romance, her music, and a whole family. Then, in one year, her bandmate was murdered, her sister vanished, and the man she trusted humiliated her beyond forgiveness. Now, the only way she keeps her head above water is by losing herself in her drums.One stupid mistake led to the nightmare Ronan Hawk has spent years trying to rectify. Just when he's given up on ever making thing...

Lions rule the savanna kingdom and are taught to hate hyenas, who compete for the same resources. Then Mya the Lion and Asia the Hyena both get caught by a trapper and have to work together to escape. When they return home, they have to deal with protests and a face-off between their two species, and Mya has to make a tough decision: Should she rest easy in her lion power or speak up for her new hyena friend?The authors of this story are part of an innovative program run by Reach I...

Allen Barnett saw this collection of short stories published in 1991, the same year as his death due to AIDS-related illness at the age of 36. The Body and Its Dangers and Other Stories won a Ferro-Grumley Award and a Lambda Literary Award and is widely regarded as a classic of American literature."Allen Barnett knew how to plait the somber and the sardonic. His work is as light as it is dark, as funny as it is heart-breaking. I met him only once at a gay literary conference in San...

Forbidden is another word for having everything to lose.As the Vice President's daughter and his current assignment, Leya Singh is completely off-limits to Special Agent Holden Kent. He refuses to let his desire for the Painted Daisies singer and sitar player cost him the future he's worked his entire life to achieve. Not when his goal of working on the Presidential detail is finally within his grasp.Leya always believed great passion wasn't in the cards fo...

I pledge allegiance to her and only her.Singer and lead guitarist Nikki Rani will do whatever it takes to keep her mom and her band safe, even if it means keeping secrets about her friend's murder. She failed her loved ones once and won't be taken in again by a ridiculous story.There are no fairy tales in her future—especially not with a broody stranger who's more likely to offer heartache and pain than redemption.D'Angelo Castelli has been raised f...

Bringing together 34 flash fiction stories from 14 authors, SPARK offers a host of stories to thrill, move, and challenge fans of short-short fiction. A woman physically at war with her mother's legacy inside her own body, a young girl given a vision of a utopic past at the end of the world, a man psychically bonded to the living weapon for which he is the failsafe, a harem of "female" androids newly capable of questioning their subservient status—these are a few of the characters you'll m...

"You make me forget to be anxious. You make me feel like I'm enough.""You're not just enough. You're everything."Nineteen-year-old never-been-kissed keyboardist Paisley Kim has gotten good at hiding things, including the panic attacks she experiences before she steps on stage with her high-profile band, The Painted Daisies.To her bandmates, she's still the baby, the one who needs protecting. But to troubled bad boy Jonas Riccoli, sh...

How to find peace and happiness in your own way — even if anxiety and depression have made joy feel out of reach.Do you long to bring greater fulfillment, peace, and purpose into your everyday life? Do you struggle to choose joy while facing anxiety and depression each day? Or are you simply looking for a straightforward way to be happier and more compassionate?The teachings of Buddhism have guided spiritual seekers for over 2,500 years, and in our modern...

How to bring real fulfillment and purpose into your life with Buddhist principles — even if you've only ever heard the words "karma" and "meditation" in passing.Are you curious about the philosophy behind yoga and meditation? Do you want to be calm and content no matter what happens around you? Are you ready to discover the power of applying Buddhist principles to your life?If you answered yes, keep reading. Most people outside of Asia still know very lit...

Through a series of penetrating conversations originally published in the New York Times and the Los Angeles Review of Books, Brad Evans and Natasha Lennard talk with a wide range of cutting edge thinkers--including Oliver Stone, Simon Critchley, and Elaine Scarry--to explore the problem of violence in everyday life, politics, culture, media, language, memory, and the environment. "To bring out the best of us," writes Evans, "we have to c...

Across these fever-bright memoir fragments runs one restless life: a boy raised amid Florida dust, bruising humor, stubborn kin, and animal chaos grows into a young drifter chasing freedom through outlaw scrapes, broken loyalties, and the false glitter of Hollywood. Farm mischief ripens into roadside danger, cheap schemes, nightclubs, violence, and hard lessons, yet the voice remains alive to absurdity, tenderness, and sudden grace. Gritty, darkly comic, and deeply human, the story becomes...

A memoir of one academic's lifelong fascination with China, examining China's history as well as its relationship with Canada.Brian Evans blends memoir and history to draw a vivid picture of China and its cultural outreach over the past three decades. His historical and sociological insights as student, scholar, and administrator form an authentic commentary as he discusses China and the Cold War; the Cultural Revolution; the post-Mao transformation of China; Canada...