Dear Departed

YA. FANTASY & MAGICAL REALISM. This is a sharp, slick, blisteringly paced debut novel, with an unconventional but tender love story at its heart. I parted the curtains. A skeletal face peered back at me, blackened eyes rolling in sockets seemingly unsupported by flesh. It smiled ... It should be game over for Nora Dearly when she is ambushed and dragged off into the night by the living dead. But this crack unit of teen zombies are the good guys, sent to protect Nora from the real monsters roaming the country and zeroing in on cities to swell their ranks. Can Nora find a way to kill off the evil undead once and for all? Can she trust her protectors to resist their hunger for human flesh? And can she stop herself falling for the noble, sweet, surprisingly attractive, definitely-no-longer-breathing Bram ...? Ages 12+.

(Book). If you attended public school in the United States between 1973 and today, odds are you've heard Dave Frishberg's songs just see if any of these Schoolhouse Rock classics ring a bell: "The Number Cruncher," "Seven Fifty Once a Week," "Dollars and Sense," "Walking on Wall Street," "Hardware," and, of course, the classic "I'm Just a Bill." Of, course, Frishberg is much more than the writer of beloved civics-minded ditties he's also the brilliant lyricist and composer behind well-known songs including "Peel Me a Grape," "I'm Hip," "My Attorney Bernie," "Blizzard of Lies," and "Van Lingle Mungo," a top-flight jazz pianist, and, sardonic wit in tow, an exemplar of American ideals. From his boyhood and university days in St. Paul, Minnesota, to his Air Force service in Salt Lake City, and then on to his life as a pianist and songwriter in New York City and Los Angeles, My Dear Departed Past is a pointed, poignant, sagacious look back on a fascinating career in music at the height of the jazz scene and a storied life flush with wit, imagination, and good humor. For Frishberg, an internationally-known jazz pianist, songwriter, and lyricist, it all began in his WWII elementary school days. Mentored by his brother, Mort, seven years his senior, Dave discovered the music of Count Basie, Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, and Bing Crosby while listening to Mort's 78-rpm records. For good measure, Mort also taught Dave how to play boogie-woogie and blues on the piano a musical indoctrination that perfectly sharpened the younger Frishberg's musical tastes and laid the foundation for a lifelong love of music and the camaraderie of musicians. In this book populated with colorful characters especially the brilliant jazzmen and women he played with in iconic clubs and studios during the scene's heyday Dave brings his stories of being on the road and his experiences in the music business vividly to life. While My Dear Departed Past is a must-read for jazz aficionados, it's just as suitable for anybody who ever wondered about the composer behind those classic tunes singing the praises of active citizenship and financial security. This book includes online access to recordings of 20 Frishberg classics.

Grace Frick introduced English-language readers all over the world to the distinguished French author Marguerite Yourcenar with her award-winning translation of Yourcenar’s novel Memoirs of Hadrian in 1954. European biographies of Yourcenar have often disparaged Frick and her relationship with Yourcenar, however. This work shows Frick as a person of substance in her own right, and paints a portrait of both women that is at once intimate and scrupulously documented. It contains a great deal of new information that will disrupt long-held beliefs about Yourcenar and may even shock some of her scholars and fans.

'An outstanding series' NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW A Bill Slider Mystery It looks as though Inspector Bill Slider has a serial killer on his hands: 'the Park Killer', as the media so innovatively label him, attacks his victims in London's public parks, and when Chattie Cornfield is murdered while out jogging, the pattern fits. But as Slider and Atherton investigate, it is Chattie's life rather than the killer's that poses questions. There's a startling anomaly between her ritzy lifestyle and her modest income. There are friends who loved her, a sister who hated her, men who thought they knew her, and a mysterious package that poses more questions than it answers. Who was the real Chattie? Where was she on the last day of her life? And was it love, hate or avarice that drove the hooded figure to kill her? Praise for the Bill Slider series: 'Slider and his creator are real discoveries' Daily Mail 'Sharp, witty and well-plotted' Times 'Harrod-Eagles and her detective hero form a class act. The style is fast, funny and furious - the plotting crisply devious' Irish Times

You're never too dead to fall in love. Clare Holmes died once.No one bothered to tell her. It worked out well in the end, as the powers-that-be sent her back to Earth. No one bothered to tell her that, either. It might have come in handy when she started seeing dead people, handier yet when they demanded she set up a dating service for them. Now she has ghosts clambering at her door looking for their soul mates, a million dollar inheritance, and a couple of wacky sisters who are after her pot of gold. She can handle them. It's the handsome lawyer who's administrating her bequest who keeps her up at night.

Joy had it all: a promising medical career, a handsome and kind fiancé, a bright future. Until it all came crashing down in one shattering moment. Two years later, nothing is the same. Joy has a mountain of debt, a boss with the barest hold on reality, and a complicated—to put it mildly—private life. The arrogant young surgeon she reviles and the pack of well-meaning but misguided ghosts don't help. Still, her idea for a new business just might be crazy enough to work...

A classic romance, suspense thriller, rip-roaring adventure, and macabre comedy all at once, Dearly, Departed redefines the concept of undying love. CAN A PROPER YOUNG VICTORIAN LADY FIND TRUE LOVE IN THE ARMS OF A DASHING ZOMBIE? The year is 2195. The place is New Victoria—a high-tech nation modeled on the mores of an antique era. Sixteen-year-old Nora Dearly is far more interested in her country’s political unrest than in silly debutante balls. But the death of her beloved parents leaves Nora at the mercy of a social-climbing aunt who plans to marry off her niece for money. To Nora, no fate could be more horrible—until she’s nearly kidnapped by an army of walking corpses. Now she’s suddenly gunning down ravenous zombies alongside mysterious black-clad commandos and confronting a fatal virus that raises the dead. Then Nora meets Bram Griswold, a young soldier who is brave, handsome, noble . . . and thoroughly deceased. But like the rest of his special undead unit, Bram has been enabled by luck and modern science to hold on to his mind, his manners, and his body parts. And when his bond of trust with Nora turns to tenderness, there’s no turning back. Eventually, they know, the disease will win, separating the star-crossed lovers forever. But until then, beating or not, their hearts will have what they desire. “Heart-pounding . . . Nora and Bram’s touching and tender relationship, with its emphasis on equality and living in the moment, feels particularly special.”—Publishers Weekly “Absolutely spellbinding . . . full of ingenious inventions and dynamic characters.”—RT Book Reviews “A zombie romance? You bet.”—Library Journal