Blythe Young—a wannabe Texas princess, a heroine as plucky, driven, and desperate as Vanity Fair’s Becky Sharp—is plummeting precipitously from up- to downstairs, banging her head on every step of the Austin social ladder as she falls. Not unlike the country as a whole, Blythe has surrendered to a multitude of dubious moral choices and is now facing the disastrous consequences: bankruptcy, public humiliation, a teensy fondness for the pharmaceuticals, and no Pap smear for ten year...

Sarah Bird’s gutsy, sharp, and touching new novel opens at full speed.Bernadette "Bernie" Root, military brat, speaks. She has never really noticed what a peculiar bunch of nomads her eight-member Air Force family is (with the exception of her Post Princess sister, Kit), until the summer after her first year of college when she joins them at their new assignment: Kadena Air Base, Okinawa.Just as Okinawa turns out to be a sorry version of the Japanese paradise Bernie knew in...

This program includes a bonus conversation with the author and is read by acclaimed narrator Bahni Turpin, whose voice listeners will recognize from The Hate U Give, Children of Blood and Bone, and The Underground Railroad.From author Sarah Bird comes the compelling, hidden story of Cathy Williams, a former slave and the only woman to ever serve with the legendary Buffalo Soldiers.“Here’s the first thing you need to know about Mis...

Set during the Great Depression, Sarah Bird's Last Dance on the Starlight Pier is a novel about one woman—and a nation—struggling to be reborn from the ashes.July 3. 1932. Shivering and in shock, Evie Grace Devlin watches the Starlite Palace burn into the sea and wonders how she became a person who would cause a man to kill himself. She’d come to Galveston to escape a dark past in vaudeville and become a good person, a nurse. When that dre...

"A laugh-out-loud 80-page personal history with heart, grit and a galaxy of stars," the perfect gift for a Texas woman or new transplant to the state ( Austin American-Statesman)What is it that distinguishes Texas women—the famous Yellow Rose and her descendants? Is it that combination of graciousness and grit that we revere in first ladies Laura Bush and Lady Bird Johnson? The rapier-sharp wit that Ann Richards and Molly Ivins used to skewer the good ole b...

Mermaid assassin. Tribe Healer. May the Queen's blood live forever.Shuli has one mission: hunt down the tribe stealing young mermaids from her Queendom until every last one is extinct.She didn't expect one to have sea-green eyes she can't stop thinking about.Pike believes his tribe is saving those mermaids. And the more time Shuli spends with him, the harder it is to believe he's wrong. But the Queen's courtiers can read her mind, and forbidden thou...

"Bloomsbury on the Mediterranean," is how Vanessa Bell described France in a letter to her sister, Virginia Woolf. Remarking on the vivifying effect of Cassis, Woolf herself said, "I will take my mind out of its iron cage and let it swim.... Complete heaven, I think it." Yet until now there has never been a book that focused on the profound influence of France on the Bloomsbury group. In Bloomsbury and France: Art and Friends, Mary Ann Caws and Sarah Bird Wright reveal the crucial...

Callie Mae McCauley knows a girl’s got to be leathery, or she’ll be tore to pieces by the weight of all her troubles and trials . . . The tragedy Callie endures will forever change her simple, yet full life in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Orphaned at age eight, she must move to her Granny Jane’s, where she soon realizes the shock of what she’s seen has stolen her voice. A new neighbor and Granny Jane’s swarm of honeybees help Callie find her tongue. She soon discovers that, altho...

After a coal mine explosion kills her father in 1922, pretty little Mary Margaret “Mame” Blackwell is not willing to accept her mother’s hardscrabble plan for farming burley tobacco in rural West Virginia, but trying to survive in a nearly deserted coal mining town without a father in the early 1900s is anything but easy. Mame yearns for a way out of the sleepy little town of Beckley.When Mame eagerly leaves home on her first trip to Charleston at age 19, she meets tobacco heir Clin...

Living in the foothills of North Carolina, Laura Carter has it all: a nice home, wonderful adoptive parents, two lovely teenage daughters, and a to-die-for handsome husband. As they celebrate freedom on the Fourth of July, shes certain that nothing could ever shatter her perfect American life: Or could it? An unexpected letter from her great-grandmother brings Laura face-to-face with her birth family. At their first, shocking meeting, she receives a stack of diaries that trace a heartbreaki...

Elf brothers Jack and George are stranded on an island. A fairy grants Jack a wish which he uses for the benefit of his brother, while George thinks only of his own comfort. George is ashamed of his behaviour, and resolves to be more thoughtful in future: both elves are flown home to safety on a magic carpet.The "journey" of the title refers to George's moral journey, learning to be less selfish in his attitude. This is a charming fable of consideration and thoughtfulness, set in t...

How to Work with People… and Enjoy It! is an invaluable, accessible, practical handbook for anyone who works with people. It includes pointers for reflection, tools for experimentation, models for analysing relational dynamics, and tables and diagrams to stimulate discovery and development.Leadership and relationship start with us as individuals - the stories we tell ourselves, about the world and our place in it - and this book takes us on a journey from the inside out. J...