The Frenemy Mistake

We should have started, and ended, with sex. Hindsight is 20/20 and all that crap. Instead of being a fun stress relief, rock climber Grant turned out to be the most boring date in the history of the universe. I wanted to scratch that itch, not bore it to death. Lesson learned. If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s taking life lessons to heart. One problem remains: His best friend and my best friend are engaged. It’s why we waited as long as we did for that awful date. Now we need to team up to help plan a quickie wedding, because when your bestie needs a favor, you come prepared, no matter who you have to team up with. If only the attraction didn’t spark back to life, making this planning business a whole lot more fun than expected. It’s hot as hell, and Grant’s climbing all my walls, right into my heart, until I discover the addiction in his past. I’m not sure of the details, but my parents were addicts, teenage addicts at that, and I can’t afford any more of that in my life. Only he’s gotten under my skin, and ending as friends no longer looks like an option. **Mistaken Hearts is a standalone series. Each book can be read out of order, though may encounter spoilers for previous books**

One night changed everything. I’m not one for one-night stands, but from the moment I met Cam and those caramel eyes filled with such sadness, I can’t resist. How was I supposed to know he’s the one man I shouldn’t have had the hottest night of my life with? As a social worker I know better than to bring home my client’s grandson, but that tiny fact doesn’t help me now. I need to stay away, but he’s Deaf, as is his dying grandmother, and I’m the only one at my agency who knows ASL. I’ll keep this a secret until his grandmother’s out of my care. My plans to keep Cam out of my bed crumble when his grandmother dies. His grief is my kryptonite, my body his salve. Her dying wish was for us to be together, but not everyone in his family agrees. Someone makes a formal complaint to my boss, putting my job at risk. It’s my heart or my career, and I’m afraid I’m going to lose both.

She’s on top… When superstar actress Claire Jordan researched her role for the Fierce Trilogy movies, she never expected the bond she feels with the author and her romance book club aka The Happy Endings Book Club. Soon Claire finds herself confessing her secret longing for a regular guy—no more egocentric wealthy players—and the book club is all too ready to help. In disguise as a regular girl, she’s all set for a date with book-club-approved Josh Campbell. He’s on top… Billionaire tech CEO Jake Campbell is weary of gold-digging women, especially the glamorous superficial types. So when his identical twin, Josh, calls in a favor, asking Jake to step in as him on a date, Jake figures one of Josh’s cute girl-next-door types might be just what he needs. One night of passion with the sweet girl next door leaves Jake wanting more, except she seems to have vanished. Sometimes a Happy Ending is just the beginning.

Alise in Cuckooland is a semi-autobiographical novel of a girl in her twenties facing the most confused, helpless and desperate stage in her life when she entered a mental hospital in Singapore. The question is besides whether she is suffering from a mental illness or not. When fiction becomes fact, and fact becomes fiction, what is real and what is not? How is she going to survive this period? What she did not realise, is how her hallucination, as in the case of Dr. Lie, and the nurses and patients in Looney Hospital, helped her battle with her surroundings and showed her love, compassion and empathy in the highest degree possible, sometimes even more so than her so-called family kin. Author's Note: My purpose in writing this novel, besides a reflection of my own experiences and with some crafting of my imagination, was also for the people in their twenties who might be feeling a little confused in Life. This novel was aimed to make my readers laugh and cry with the protagonist, and also realize that it would be okay to laugh and cry in their own lives. This novel was written not to educate or establish opinions of any sort, but to realize its mission of making us all feel a little more human.

An intimate and profound reckoning with the changes buffeting the $2 trillion global advertising and marketing business from the perspective of its most powerful players, by the bestselling author of Googled Advertising and marketing touches on every corner of our lives, and is the invisible fuel powering almost all media. Complain about it though we might, without it the world would be a darker place. And of all the industries wracked by change in the digital age, few have been turned on its head as dramatically as this one has. We are a long way from the days of Don Draper; as Mad Men is turned into Math Men (and women--though too few), as an instinctual art is transformed into a science, the old lions and their kingdoms are feeling real fear, however bravely they might roar. Frenemies is Ken Auletta's reckoning with an industry under existential assault. He enters the rooms of the ad world's most important players, some of them business partners, some adversaries, many "frenemies," a term whose ubiquitous use in this industry reveals the level of anxiety, as former allies become competitors, and accusations of kickbacks and corruption swirl. We meet the old guard, including Sir Martin Sorrell, the legendary former head of WPP, the world's largest ad agency holding company; while others play nice with Facebook and Google, he rants, some say Lear-like, out on the heath. There is Irwin Gotlieb, maestro of the media agency GroupM, the most powerful media agency, but like all media agencies it is staring into the headlights as ad buying is more and more done by machine in the age of Oracle and IBM. We see the world from the vantage of its new powers, like Carolyn Everson, Facebook's head of Sales, and other brash and scrappy creatives who are driving change, as millennials and others who disdain ads as an interruption employ technology to zap them. We also peer into the future, looking at what is replacing traditional advertising. And throughout we follow the industry's peerless matchmaker, Michael Kassan, whose company, MediaLink, connects all these players together, serving as the industry's foremost power broker, a position which feasts on times of fear and change. Frenemies is essential reading, not simply because of what it says about this world, but because of the potential consequences: the survival of media as we know it depends on the money generated by advertising and marketing--revenue that is in peril in the face of technological changes and the fraying trust between the industry's key players.

When a knee injury and a subsequent mistake threaten to end her basketball career, athletically driven Cassidy finds support in the most unlikely places--including a room filled with juvenile delinquents and the pages of an old book labeled "RL."

“This is a best friend in book form.”—Andrew Kaufman, author of All My Friends Are Superheroes Today, Carrie Hope Fletcher is living her dream as an actress and YouTube star. But not long ago, she was trying to survive the many perils of the Teen Age . . . The Rumor Mill: The more a rumor is spread, the farther it gets from the truth. It’s like a giant taffy pull. The Disgusting Business of Falling in Love: I’ve never known something to be so gleefully wonderful and soul-crushingly exhausting. The Twitter-Sphere: If the Internet is starting to crush your soul . . . close the laptop! Bears: Self-explanatory. Thankfully, she made it through! And although memories of her struggles, woes, and foibles stick around (as Soul Shrapnel, if you will), they look a little different today, thanks to The Amazing Goggles of Hindsight. So, in All I Know Now, Carrie shares, well, exactly that—heartfelt advice and hopeful thoughts on growing up. She just did it herself. She has the stuffed animals to prove it!

Frenemies features fictional narratives paired with firsthand advice from a licensed psychologist to help preteen and teen girls manage conflicts and recognize the qualities of a good friend. Topics include making new friends, trash talking, gossiping and spreading rumors, jealousy, and questioning feelings for a guy friend. Also covered are family situations such as strict versus loose parents, financial stress, and suspecting a friend is being abused. Throughout the book, Talk About It questions encourage discussion. Additional resources, a glossary, and an index are also included. Frenemies will leave readers feeling confident to make smart, healthy decisions when it comes to friendships and conflict. Strong, Beautiful Girls is a series in Essential Library, an imprint of ABDO Publishing Company.