It Really Happened

"We all have our own truths. Sometimes they're the same. Sometimes they're not."Erin has never really known who she is or what she wants. That is, until she meets her new University flatmate Allen.Reckless, eccentric and creative, Allen is everything Erin doesn't have the courage to be and she's immediately drawn to him. She's sure he feels it too, until he starts dating their mutual friend Charlotte.Then one night changes everything. When a drunken mistake leaves Charlotte fighting for her life, the victim of a hit-and-run, there's only one question everyone's asking: what really happened? Erin has an answer to that, more than one in fact, but running from the truth is far easier than facing up to it...

A scrambled mess . . . Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. Or--as his brother Detective Joe Dumpty thinks--was he pushed? This case isn't all it's cracked up to be. Suspects are plenty (as are the puns) in this scrambled story of nursery rhyme noir. Was it Little Miss Muffet? There's something not right about her tuffet. Or could it have been Chicken Little, who's always been a little cagey? Or was it the Big Bad Wolf, who's got a rap sheet as long as a moonless night? Joe's on the beat and determined to find the truth. Readers of all ages will delight in the word play and hilarious illustrations in this mystery of what really happened to Humpty Dumpty on that fateful day.

From New York Times bestseller Kody Keplinger comes an astonishing and thought-provoking exploration of the aftermath of tragedy, the power of narrative, and how we remember what we've lost. It's been three years since the Virgil County High School Massacre. Three years since my best friend, Sarah, was killed in a bathroom stall during the mass shooting. Everyone knows Sarah's story--that she died proclaiming her faith. But it's not true. I know because I was with her when she died. I didn't say anything then, and people got hurt because of it. Now Sarah's parents are publishing a book about her, so this might be my last chance to set the record straight . . . but I'm not the only survivor with a story to tell about what did--and didn't--happen that day. Except Sarah's martyrdom is important to a lot of people, people who don't take kindly to what I'm trying to do. And the more I learn, the less certain I am about what's right. I don't know what will be worse: the guilt of staying silent or the consequences of speaking up . . .

A provocative new interpretation of the Adam and Eve story from an expert in Biblical literature. The Garden of Eden story, one of the most famous narratives in Western history, is typically read as an ancient account of original sin and humanity’s fall from divine grace. In this highly innovative study, Ziony Zevit argues that this is not how ancient Israelites understood the early biblical text. Drawing on such diverse disciplines as biblical studies, geography, archaeology, mythology, anthropology, biology, poetics, law, linguistics, and literary theory, he clarifies the worldview of the ancient Israelite readers during the First Temple period and elucidates what the story likely meant in its original context. Most provocatively, he contends that our ideas about original sin are based upon misconceptions originating in the Second Temple period under the influence of Hellenism. He shows how, for ancient Israelites, the story was really about how humans achieved ethical discernment. He argues further that Adam was not made from dust and that Eve was not made from Adam’s rib. His study unsettles much of what has been taken for granted about the story for more than two millennia—and has far-reaching implications for both literary and theological interpreters. “Classical Hebrew in the hands of Ziony Zevit is like a cello in the hands of a master cellist. He knows all the hidden subtleties of the instrument, and he makes you hear them in this rendition of the profoundly simple story of Adam, Eve, the Serpent, and their Creator in the Garden of Eden. Zevit brings a great deal of other biblical learning to bear in a surprisingly light-hearted book.”―Jack Miles, author of God: A Biography

As a fictional work, this novel is used by the author to describe what could have or may have happened in the events of Hurricane Katrina. Daniel, the main character, is left behind in New Orleans with this three brothers and mother who all live in a poor section of the city. Like many in the Big Easy, his family does not evacuate. In the novel, Daniel appears to be smarter than the rest of his family. During the night before Katrina makes landfall, Daniel has dreams. In these dreams, certain things are revealed to the main character that really frightens him. He believes that the dreams are unreal, but then he finds logic in them. These dreams tell Daniel about his home state and the truth about what really happened in New Orleans and Louisiana. Moreover, throughout the novel, Daniel finds himself afraid of the future and the possible outcome of Katrina. He also comes to realize that certain things in his state are not what they seem. Daniel then finds out certain themes in his home state and is not pleased.

Dear readers, When I wrote What Really Happened I was still very raw from the firestorm that my life had become due to my unwise decision to have an affair with John Edwards, a married man. I realize now what I have never admitted before. I behaved badly. That may strike you as obvious, but it's taken me a long time to admit this, even to myself. I was attacked so often, and so viciously, that I felt that I was the victim. I felt hurt, and betrayed, and somehow that justified my actions. But of course all of the attacks and all of the betrayal were beside the point. The point is … I behaved badly. And the release of What Really Happened didn't help. When I look back at this book that I wrote, I want to throw it out and start again. But instead of attempting to erase my mistakes, I am now owning them. I've annotated the original book. Typos have been corrected but not a word has been changed, not even words that cause me to cringe when I reread them. Instead I have put notes throughout—notes that acknowledge what I couldn't when I wrote the book. Best, Rielle