Escape From Paradise

Subject: Autobiography. Escape from Paradise is a contemporary and true woman?s story set in Singapore, Brunei, Australia, England, and the United States. It involves Singapore?s famous Tiger Balm family, and a wealthy and mysterious family from Brunei?and the link between them, a young Singaporean woman, May Chu Lee. From its first paragraph, the book draws the reader into the ambiance of a cosmopolitan Asia never touched upon by any other book ?

When college sophomore Angela Birch sneaks from Texas to Mexico for Spring Break, she believes the worst that can happen is her parents finding out. Wrong. The worst is falling for the ruse of handsome, alluring Fernando. One spontaneous choice whisks Angela across the world to the pseudo paradise of Spain's Mediterranean Riviera where she has another choice to make: live cooperatively as one of billionaire Marco Ruiz's slaves, or die. * * * Colin Douglas's future was seized and choked when deliberate tragedy struck his Scottish family at the age of sixteen. He spent his remaining youthful years infiltrating the U.K.'s crime world, seeking power, control, and revenge, all leading to a position as an undercover agent. With nothing to lose, Colin accepts the seemingly impossible job of rescuing America's famous missing girl, Angela Birch. Colin knows that to enter a snake lair, one must become a snake. It turns out to be a mission which will put his desire for control to the ultimate test, and make him wish for things he never knew he wanted.

The acclaimed Nobel Prize winner challenges our most fiercely held beliefs as she weaves folklore and history, memory and myth into an unforgettable meditation on race, religion, gender, and a far-off past that is ever present—in prose that soars with the rhythms, grandeur, and tragic arc of an epic poem. “They shoot the white girl first. With the rest they can take their time.” So begins Toni Morrison’s Paradise, which opens with a horrifying scene of mass violence and chronicles its genesis in an all-black small town in rural Oklahoma. Founded by the descendants of freed slaves and survivors in exodus from a hostile world, the patriarchal community of Ruby is built on righteousness, rigidly enforced moral law, and fear. But seventeen miles away, another group of exiles has gathered in a promised land of their own. And it is upon these women in flight from death and despair that nine male citizens of Ruby will lay their pain, their terror, and their murderous rage. “A fascinating story, wonderfully detailed. . . . The town is the stage for a profound and provocative debate.” —Los Angeles Times

With a sure and profound grasp of both the Christian tradition and the postmodern situation, Sands faults mainstream and feminist theologies for failing to recognize the inescapably tragic character of life. Her work is a strong and overt challenge to theology as usual and a call to theologians of all stripes to be ruthlessly honest in their religious reflections.

An astonishing story of the mysteries, truths, and deceptions that follow the odyssey of Ahn Gil­mo, a young math savant, as he escapes from the most isolated country in the world and searches for the only family he has left An unidentified body is discovered in New York City, with numbers and symbols are written in blood near the corpse. Gil­mo, a North Korean national who interprets the world through numbers, formulas, and mathematical theories, is arrested on the spot. Angela, a CIA operative, is assigned to gain his trust and access his unique thought-process. The enigmatic Gil­mo used to have a quiet life back in Pyongyang. But when his father, a preeminent doctor is discovered to be a secret Christian, he is subsequently incarcerated along with Gilmo, in a political prison overseen by a harsh, cruel warden. There, Gilmo meets the spirited Yeong-ae, who becomes his only friend. When Yeong-­ae manages to escape, Gil­mo flees to track her down. He uses his peculiar gifts to navigate betrayal and the criminal underworld of east Asia—a world wholly alien to everything he's ever known. In The Boy Who Escaped Paradise, celebrated author J. M. Lee delves into a hidden world filled with vivid characters trapped by ideology, greed, and despair. Gil­mo's saga forces the reader to question the line between good and evil, truth and falsehood, captivity and freedom.

Few can resist the lure of pristine beaches, endless coral reefs, and blazing tropical suns. The South Pacific is still largely unspoiled for travelers willing to stray a little off the beaten path. This reference gives readers a bird's-eye view of the many island groups that make up the area.