Broken Places

After a fatal shooting on a rooftop, a traumatized Cassandra Raines quits the Chicago P.D. with one less black female homicide detective. But when she stumbles across the dead body of a respected member of the community, it's up to her to prove a murderer is on the loose in this first installment of the Chicago Mystery series by Chicago journalist Tracy Clark. Cops can make mistakes, even when they're not rookies. If anyone knows that it's Cass Raines, who took a bullet two years ago after an incompetent colleague screwed up a tense confrontation with an armed suspect. Deeply traumatized by the incident, Cass resigned from the Chicago PD, leaving one less female African-American on the force. Now she's the head of a one-woman private investigation agency, taking on just enough work to pay the bills. She spends the rest of her time keeping an eye on the tenants in her little Hyde Park apartment building, biking along the lakefront, and playing chess with the only father figure she's ever known, Father Ray Heaton. When Father Ray asks Cass to look into a recent spate of vandalism at his church, she readily agrees to handle the case. But only hours later she's horrified to discover his murdered body in the church confessional, a dead gangbanger sprawled out nearby. She knew Pop, as she called him, had ticked off plenty of people, from slumlords to drug dealers and even some parishioners and politicians, with his uncompromising defense of the downtrodden. But a late-night random theft doesn't seem like much of a motive at a cash-strapped parish like Saint Brendan's. The lead detective assigned to the case is all too ready to dismiss it as an interrupted burglary gone awry, just another statistic in a violent city. But Cass's instincts tell her otherwise, and badge or no badge, she intends to see justice done . . .

“An inspiring, intimate memoir about faith, resilience and the tenacity of love.”—People “In this emotional tale, a young couple see their lives changed in the blink of an eye—and learn to find love again.”—US Weekly Five months pregnant, on a flight to their “babymoon,” Allison Pataki turned to her husband when he asked if his eye looked strange and watched him suddenly lose consciousness. After an emergency landing, she discovered that Dave—a healthy thirty-year-old athlete and surgical resident—had suffered a rare and life-threatening stroke. Next thing Allison knew, she was sitting alone in the ER in Fargo, North Dakota, waiting to hear if her husband would survive the night. When Dave woke up, he could not carry memories from hour to hour, much less from one day to the next. Allison had lost the Dave she knew and loved when he lost consciousness on the plane. Within a few months, she found herself caring for both a newborn and a sick husband, struggling with the fear of what was to come. As a way to make sense of the pain and chaos of their new reality, Allison started to write daily letters to Dave. Not only would she work to make sense of the unfathomable experiences unfolding around her, but her letters would provide Dave with the memories he could not make on his own. She was writing to preserve their past, protect their present, and fight for their future. Those letters became the foundation of this beautiful, intimate memoir. And in the process, she fell in love with her husband all over again. This is a manifesto for living, an ultimately uplifting story about the transformative power of faith and resilience. It’s a tale of a man’s turbulent road to recovery, the shifting nature of marriage, and the struggle of loving through pain and finding joy in the broken places. Praise for Beauty in the Broken Places “Bold and commendable . . . A strength of this memoir is [Allison Pataki’s] scrupulous honesty.”—USA Today “A memoir about . . . determination and gratitude, and the value of putting one foot in front of another during a crisis.”—The Washington Post “Heart-wrenching.”—Women’s Health “Powerful and immersive . . . Pataki delivers an insightful look at how two people faced a life-altering test as a team ‘fighting to make the dreams of our future possible.’”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

In the third gripping crime novel in Ace Atkins’s New York Times bestselling series, small town sheriff Quinn Colson takes on deadly criminals and even deadlier weather... A year after becoming sheriff of Tibbehah County, Mississippi, Quinn Colson is faced with a pardoned killer’s return to Jericho. Jamey Dixon now preaches redemption and forgiveness, but the family of the woman he was convicted of killing isn’t buying it. They warn Quinn that his sister’s relationship with Dixon could be fatal. Others don’t think the new preacher is a changed man, either—a couple of dangerous convicts who confided in Dixon about an armored car robbery believe he’s after the money they hid. So they do the only thing they can: break out and head straight to Jericho, leaving a trail of bodies in their wake. Colson and his deputy, Lillie, have their work cut out for them. But they don’t count on one more unwelcome visitor: a tornado that causes havoc just as the manhunt heats up. Communications are down, the roads are impassable—and the rule of law is just about to snap.

A powerful journey from star athlete to sudden paralysis to creative awakening, award-winning science fiction writer Nnedi Okorafor shows that what we think are our limitations have the potential to become our greatest strengths. Nnedi Okorafor was never supposed to be paralyzed. A college track star and budding entomologist, Nnedi’s lifelong battle with scoliosis was just a bump in her plan—something a simple operation would easily correct. But when Nnedi wakes from the surgery to find she can’t move her legs, her entire sense of self begins to waver. Confined to a hospital bed for months, unusual things begin to happen. Psychedelic bugs crawl her hospital walls; strange dreams visit her nightly. Nnedi begins to put these experiences into writing, conjuring up strange, fantastical stories. What Nnedi discovers during her confinement would prove to be the key to her life as a successful science fiction author: In science fiction, when something breaks, something greater often emerges from the cracks. In Broken Places & Outer Spaces, Nnedi takes the reader on a journey from her hospital bed deep into her memories, from her painful first experiences with racism as a child in Chicago to her powerful visits to her parents’ hometown in Nigeria. From Frida Kahlo to Mary Shelly, she examines great artists and writers who have pushed through their limitations, using hardship to fuel their work. Through these compelling stories and her own, Nnedi reveals a universal truth: What we perceive as limitations have the potential to become our greatest strengths—far greater than when we were unbroken. A guidebook for anyone eager to understand how their limitations might actually be used as a creative springboard, Broken Places & Outer Spaces is an inspiring look at how to open up new windows in your mind.

From the former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, how to manage your business in the face of challenge, change, and potential disaster For James Lee Witt, the man who rebuilt America's emergency response system, the most inspiring and effective lessons--about responsibility, team building, planning, and taking action--have guided real-life heroes through extraordinary situations. These lessons can be applied to business to guide you through the pressures you face each week--or once in a career or a lifetime. Whether describing earthquake preparation in California, moving a Missouri town out of a floodplain, or shoring up walls and spirits after the Oklahoma City bombing, Witt captures the moments when leaders step forward, how they motivate others, and what they need to triumph over adversity. Witt's home-spun wisdom teaches us to "Tear Down the Stovepipes" to build effective teamwork by thinking horizontally, not vertically; to find energizing people who improve morale, whether a V.P.'s secretary or a key client, since "A Lightning Rod Works Both Ways"; and to establish systems for capturing what happens--what goes right and what goes wrong--to ensure that every challenge leaves you "Stronger in the Broken Places." To bring home the ten lessons in this inspiring and useful book, Witt shares examples and strategies from corporations--from Malden Mills and Intel to Swissair and Kmart--who have overcome crisis by applying the same principles to their business every day.

Quentin Vennie shouldn’t be alive―he has walked a path that many don’t live long enough to write about. Growing up in Baltimore, he was surrounded by nothing but dead ends. Statistics mapped out his future, and he grew hostile toward a world that viewed him with suspicion and disdain. He’s been shot at, sold drugs up and down the East Coast, lingered on the brink of incarceration, and stared down death more than once. Haunted by feelings of abandonment and resentment, he struggled with chronic anxiety and depression and battled a crippling prescription drug addiction. The day he contemplated taking his life was the day he rediscovered his purpose for living. Vennie’s survival depended upon his finding a new path, but he didn’t know where to turn―his doctor was concerned only with prescribing more medication. Vennie refused, and in a desperate attempt to save his own life, decided to pursue a journey of natural healing. After researching a few self-healing methods, he immediately bought a juicer from an all-night grocery store. He started juicing in the hopes that it would help him repair his body and clear his mind. He jumped headfirst into the world of wellness and started incorporating yoga and meditation into his life. This “wellness trinity” helped him cut back on and then quit the many medications he was on, overcome his addictions, and ultimately, transform his life while inspiring others to find their own unique path to wellness. Strong in the Broken Places is the harrowing story of Vennie’s life, the detours that almost ended it, and the inspiring turns that saved it. The odds were stacked against him, but he was able to defy expectations and claw his way out on his own terms. He is living proof that during our weakest moments, we have the power and ability to unlock unimaginable strength.

In this powerful, panoramic novel set in the late 1890s, in a sliver of rugged western wilderness, a fourteen-year-old girl named Davey—too young to be given a chance at creating her own life—finds herself raised by a group of eccentrics, hostile misfits who rescued her as an infant on a bloody battlefield. She roams the countryside with them, led by Reverend Brown, a charismatic false prophet, hosting revivals for unsuspecting believers while lingering on the cusp of unimaginable events. Davey tries to locate a semblance of peace in this harrowing, beautiful place, but what she finds instead is an astonishing panoply of falsehoods and depravity, a vicious world comprised of murderers, thieves, and dancing bears. And in this unforgiving landscape of craggy beauty and singular resoluteness, she wages a fight against truth while traversing the delicate line between destiny and fate as she comes to understand the role Reverend Brown plays in her life. No Man’s Land is part classic coming-of-age story, part unwavering portrait of the bloody price of power, a raw and bold novel about the search for family, and a grand story about an education in the pull of predestination and the responsibility of freewill. Haunting on every page, filled with sorrow and awe, and stunning in the tonality of its vision, No Man’s Land is an unflinching meditation on the legacy of violence, its senseless destructiveness, and the fearless dignity and tenderness required to rise above it. This publication meets the EPUB Accessibility requirements and it also meets the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG-AA). It is screen-reader friendly and is accessible to persons with disabilities. A Simple book with few images, which is defined with accessible structural markup. This book contains various accessibility features such as alternative text for images, table of contents, page-list, landmark, reading order and semantic structure.

Winner of the 2016 Paranormal Romance Guild Reviewer’s Choice Award for Best Paranormal Romance/Suspense Series! All of Cate’s problems are in her head. That may be her greatest strength. Cate Duncan is a promising young therapist, dedicated to her work. But after her mother’s suicide, she is seized by a paralyzing depression. To save her job, Cate agrees to enter a treatment program run by the mysterious Ben MacGregor and his mother. Housed in a repurposed church, the MacGregor Group is a collection of alternative healers whose unconventional approaches include crystals, aura readings, and psychics, but they need Cate’s unique powers. As her emotional struggles bring her ever closer to her own abyss, Ben will do everything in his power to protect Cate from those who wish her harm—including herself. A powerful novel of suspense and a wildly inventive start to this paranormal romance series, All the Broken Places engages readers with its striking blend of the supernatural and the psychological. “Those with an interest in parapsychology will be fascinated by this artfully written series starter.” —Publishers Weekly “With the introduction of a charismatic group of alternative healers, Eden creates a unique world that readers will find fascinating.” —RT Book Reviews “All the Broken Places is not simply an engaging paranormal romance. Peopled with broken characters the reader wants to see mended, it tackles the subjects of mental health and suicide with empathy and grace.” —Rosanna Leo, author of Covet