Hook Shot

A deeply emotional standalone romance set in the worlds of professional basketball and high fashion. Divorced. Single dad. Traded to a losing squad. Cheated on, betrayed, exposed. My perfect life blew up in my face and I'm still picking up the pieces. The last thing I need is her. A wildflower. A storm. A woman I can't resist. Lotus DuPree is a kick to my gut and a wrench in my plans from the moment our eyes meet. I promised myself I wouldn't trust a woman again, but I've never wanted anyone the way I want Lo. She's not the plan I made, but she's the risk I have to take. A warrior. A baller. The one they call Gladiator. Kenan Ross charged into my life smelling all good, looking even better and snatching my breath from the moment we met. The last thing I need is him. I'm working on me. Facing my pain and conquering my demons. I've seen what trusting a man gets you. I. Don't. Have. Time. For. This. But he just keeps coming for me. Keeps knocking down my defenses and stealing my excuses one by one. He never gives up, and now...I'm not sure I want him to.

Tim Daniels is back at Camp Wikasaukee with rest of the gang from Nothin' But Net, serving as a mentor to three young rookies, and he's got his hands full! He's still working on keeping his height from getting in the way of his game--he's shorter than most of the guys. Plus, he's got a bully on his hands, and he's got to find a way to inspire his campers. Good thing NCAA pro Dick Dunbar is there to help Tim with a super-cool shot that gives him the confidence to make his mark at camp. Packed with on the court action and useful lessons about the game, this is story that gets to the heart of what team sports are all about--and because it comes from Matt Christopher, young readers know they're getting the best sports writing on the shelf.

From award-winning author Kennedy Ryan comes the soul-gripping, unforgettable first installment of the Hoops trilogy. Iris DuPree meets August West in a sports bar during her last semester of college. It's the conversation of a lifetime and sends sparks flying in every direction. The connection is undeniable...but the timing is all wrong. August is poised for the NBA draft, and Iris belongs to another man--basketball's "golden boy" and August's long-time rival. The two go their separate ways, but they often recall that electric night and what could have been. While August has embarked on his all-star life, studded with wealth and fame, Iris's perfect public relationship has become a nightmare behind closed doors. A tarnished dream of fool's gold. When August re-enters her life, the world seems briefly bright again, but Iris's darkest nights are not over yet. To survive, she must build her own strength and trust that her bond with August can endure after all this time. Even when her fraudulent prince has vowed never to let her go.

From award-winning author Kennedy Ryan comes the steamy, powerful second installment of the Hoops trilogy. If Jared Foster had a dollar for every time Banner Morales made his heart skip a beat-the heart everyone assumes is frozen over-he'd be richer than he already is. He's found success as a sports agent by always assuming "no" means "I'll think about it." And he knows Banner's thinking about him. Her simmering anger? The way she puts him in his place? Foreplay. She thinks she's won the game, but they're just getting started. If Banner had a dollar for every time Jared broke her heart, she'd have exactly one dollar. One epic failure of a night. After parting on such bad terms, Banner has no intention of ever giving Jared a second chance. She's found success in a field ruled by men like him. She's learned to call the shots and block them when she has to. So she'll ignore the way he makes her heart pound. Sure, he seems carved from her most private fantasies, but she can get past that. She's got her one dollar, and Jared won't have her.

New York Times bestselling author and social media expert Gary Vaynerchuk shares hard-won advice on how to connect with customers and beat the competition. A mash-up of the best elements of Crush It! and The Thank You Economy with a fresh spin, Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook is a blueprint to social media marketing strategies that really works. When managers and marketers outline their social media strategies, they plan for the “right hook”—their next sale or campaign that’s going to knock out the competition. Even companies committed to jabbing—patiently engaging with customers to build the relationships crucial to successful social media campaigns—want to land the punch that will take down their opponent or their customer’s resistance in one blow. Right hooks convert traffic to sales and easily show results. Except when they don’t. Thanks to massive change and proliferation in social media platforms, the winning combination of jabs and right hooks is different now. Vaynerchuk shows that while communication is still key, context matters more than ever. It’s not just about developing high-quality content, but developing high-quality content perfectly adapted to specific social media platforms and mobile devices—content tailor-made for Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, and Tumblr.

Growing up on the hardscrabble streets of LA in the late 1950s, Billy McGill stood out. At eleven he was dunking. At fifteen he was playing in pickup games against Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain--and holding his own, in part because he invented the jump hook shot, which no one could defend. How he went from college phenom, well on his way to becoming the greatest player Los Angeles ever produced, to sleeping in abandoned houses and washing up in a Laundromat sink is the story Billy "the Hill" McGill recounts here. The first African American to play basketball for the University of Utah and the highest scoring big man in NCAA history, McGill was the first pick of the 1962 NBA draft. But the injury that would undo him--a knee injury in his junior year of high school--had already occurred, and it would worsen year after year until his career faded away. From college star (whose scoring record is still unbroken) to troubled player, bouncing around the NBA and the ABA, McGill takes us from the heights to his precipitous fall--and the slow recovery of a life he had never prepared for. A cautionary tale, written with a candor and authenticity rarely seen in pro athletes, his book is also the incredible story of one of the greatest unknown basketball players of all time.

Carnegie Medal Nonfiction Longlist 2023 The Washington Post Best Non-Fiction Books of 2022 Publishers Weekly Best Books 2022 Kirkus Best Non-Fiction Books of 2022 Slate Best Books 2022 Chicago Tribune Best Books 2022 Los Angeles Times Best Books 2022 Based on hundreds of hours of research, interviews, and access to exclusive sources and materials, Sandy Hook is Elizabeth Williamson’s landmark investigation of the aftermath of a school shooting, the work of Sandy Hook parents who fought to defend themselves, and the truth of their children’s fate against the frenzied distortions of online deniers and conspiracy theorists. On December 14, 2012, a gunman killed twenty first-graders and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Ten years later, Sandy Hook has become a foundational story of how false conspiracy narratives and malicious misinformation have gained traction in society. One of the nation’s most devastating mass shootings, Sandy Hook was used to create destructive and painful myths. Driven by ideology or profit, or for no sound reason at all, some people insisted it never occurred, or was staged by the federal government as a pretext for seizing Americans’ firearms. They tormented the victims’ relatives online, accosted them on the street and at memorial events, accusing them of faking their loved ones’ murders. Some family members have been stalked and forced into hiding. A gun was fired into the home of one parent. Present at the creation of this terrible crusade was Alex Jones’s Infowars, a far-right outlet that aired noxious Sandy Hook theories to millions and raised money for the conspiracy theorists’ quest to “prove” the shooting didn’t happen. Enabled by Facebook, YouTube, and other social media companies’ failure to curb harmful content, the conspiracists’ questions grew into suspicion, suspicion grew into demands for more proof, and unanswered demands turned into rage. This pattern of denial and attack would come to characterize some Americans’ response to almost every major event, from mass shootings to the coronavirus pandemic to the 2020 presidential election, in which President Trump’s false claims of a rigged result prompted the January 6, 2021, assault on a bastion of democracy, the U.S. Capitol. The Sandy Hook families, led by the father of the youngest victim, refused to accept this. Sandy Hook is the story of their battle to preserve their loved ones’ legacies even in the face of threats to their own lives. Through exhaustive reporting, narrative storytelling, and intimate portraits, Sandy Hook is the definitive book on one of the most shocking cultural ruptures of the internet era.

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