A fond, funny Southern-fried memoir about growing up a proper young lady...or not.How does a North Carolina native go from being a tomboy with catfish guts on her overalls to becoming the next Scarlett O'Hara? Turns out, it's not so easy. Too smart, too tall, too fat, too different...Anna Fields was a dud at debbing.From tea parties to teased hair to where to hide mini bottles of liquor inside poufy crinoline ballgowns, Anna reveals all-in a hilarious, behi...

The Skolian Empire rules a third of the civilized galaxy through its mastery of faster-than-light communication. But war with the rival empire of the Traders seems imminent, a war that can only lead to slavery for the Skolians or the destruction of both sides. Destructive skirmishes have already occurred, and a desperate attempt must be made to avert total disaster.When Sauscony Valdoria, linked to the powerful Skolian Web, and the Aristo heir to the evil Trader Empire of Tarnth li...

She’s a fashion model who has everything: a boyfriend, a career, a loyal best friend. But when a sudden freeway "accident" leaves her disfigured and incapable of speech, she goes from being the beautiful center of attention to being aninvisible monster, so hideous that no one will acknowledge she exists. Enter Brandy Alexander, Queen Supreme, one operation away from becoming a real woman, who will teach her that reinventing yourself means erasing your past andmaking up someth...

Injected with new material, Invisible Monsters Remix fulfills Chuck Palahniuk’s original vision for his 1999 novel, turning a daring satire on beauty and the fashion industry into an even more wildly unique listening experience.Palahniuk’s fashion-model protagonist has it all - boyfriend, career, loyal best friend—until an accident destroys her face, her ability to speak, and her self-esteem. Enter Brandy Alexander, Queen Supreme, one operation away from becoming a bona fide woman....

Elsie Dinsmore is an endearing eight-year-old girl with several bewildering problems. She has never known her mother, who died when Elsie was a baby, and she longs for a close, loving relationship with her father. He, however, has sent her off to be raised at Roselands, his brothers’ Southern plantation, where her teacher, Miss Day, harshly criticizes her and her cousins tease her relentlessly.As Elsie learns to handle her problems, she begins to learn more about herself. And as he...

In the prettiest part of Kentucky, an old Southern family is torn apart by tragedy. When his beloved daughter married a Yankee, the Old Colonel disowned her and has not spoken a word to her or even laid eyes on his granddaughter. The old man’s heart turned hard as stone and children fear him. Hard times have befallen his daughter, and there is talk of her “goin’ to the the poorhouse.” But she would rather die than go to him for help.One day, by accident, he meets a little girl who ...

Winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award • Winner of the Orange Prize • National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist • New York Times Readers’ Pick: Top 100 Books of the 21****st Century""Bel Canto is its own universe. A marvel of a book."" —Washington Post Book WorldNew York Times bestselling author Ann Patchett’s spellbinding novel about love and opera, and the unifying ways people learn...

Set in New York in the 1920s, The Glimpses of the Moon details the romantic misadventures of Nick Lansing and Susy Branch, two high-society hangers-on with the right connections but a lack of funds. To maintain their status, they decide to marry and spend a year or so sponging off their wealthy friends, honeymooning in their mansions and villas. Both agree that they're free to dissolve the marriage if either one of them meets someone who can advance them socially. How their scheme...

Madame de Treymes follows the fortunes of two innocents abroad: Fanny Frisbee of New York, unhappily married to the dissolute Marquis de Malrive, scion of a great house of the Faubourg St. Germain; and John Durham, her childhood friend, who arrives in Paris intent on persuading Fanny to divorce her husband and marry him instead. A scintillating picture of American and French society at the turn of the century, it is also a subtle investigation of the clash of cultures and the role...

Catherine Asaro, a physicist who combines believable hard science with first-rate storytelling, exploded onto the science fiction scene with her stellar debut novel, Primary Inversion. Now, she brings us the third tale of the Skolian Empire, which AudioFile calls "a classic tale of power and conflict, with a twist."When Kelric, a scion of the imperial family of Skolia, crash-lands his fighter on the off-limits planet of Coba, he figures it will be only a short tim...

In the continuing saga that began with the acclaimed Primary Inversion, star-crossed lovers Sauscony and Jaibriol, each the heir to an interstellar empire, become entangled again in the machinations of the Skolian Empire. Having faked their own deaths and secretly married, they are beginning to pick up what’s left of their lives in exile on a deserted planet with their children. But when interstellar war erupts, Jaibriol is snatched away to be the unwilling ruler of the Highton Ar...

When a young girl from Earth falls in love with a handsome stranger, she becomes a pawn in an interstellar war.In the distant future, the Skolian Empire rules one third of the human galaxy, and is the most powerful of all. For the ruling family has the power of telepathy, and through it, the ability to communicate faster than light, across interstellar space. But their most determined enemy, the traders, who thrive on human pain, need to interbreed with a Skolian to gain their powe...