The Lifeguard

“A book that is at once riveting and relevant as it unpeels the various meanings of motherhood, family, and loyalty. I tore through it.”—Miranda Cowley Heller, author of The Paper Palace The bonds between three picture-perfect—but viciously protective—mothers and their close-knit sons are tested during one unforgettable summer in a gripping novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Jetsetters. Austin’s Zilker Park neighborhood is a wonderland of greenbelt trails, live music, and moms who drink a few too many margaritas. Whitney, Annette, and Liza have grown thick as thieves as they have raised their children together for fifteen years, believing that they can shelter them their children from an increasingly dangerous world. Their friendship is unbreakable—as safe as the neighborhood where they've raised their sweet little boys. Or so they think. One night, the three women have been enjoying happy hour when their boys, lifeguards for the summer, come back on bicycles from a late-night dip in their favorite swimming hole. The boys share a secret—news that will shatter the perfect world their mothers have so painstakingly created. Combining three mothers’ points of view in a powerful narrative tale with commentary from entertaining neighborhood listservs, secret text messages, and police reports, The Lifeguards is both a story about the secrets we tell to protect the ones we love and a riveting novel of suspense filled with half-truths and betrayals, fierce love and complicated friendships, and the loss of innocence on one hot summer night.

High risk, high reward: a $5 million heist is the perfect job for Ned Kelly. But when it all goes horribly wrong, he discovers a world of secrets and sabotage. Working as a lifeguard at a luxurious Florida resort, Ned Kelly meets the woman of his dreams. It feels perfect in every way-except that she's used to caviar and Manolo Blahniks, and he's used to burgers and flip-flops. So when Ned's cousin offers to cut him in on a fast break-and-enter job, he can't turn it down. The risk is high, and the reward is even greater-$5 million. But the robbery goes devastatingly wrong. Forced to run away from his town and the woman he's fallen in love with, Ned knows that only distance and secrecy can save his life. But who is pursuing him? The FBI? Whoever sabotaged the heist? Or is it all somehow tied in to his new love-and his oldest enemies? Discover a vivid and nail-biting crime thriller from "one of America's most influential authors" (New York Times). You won't be able to put it down.

DIVDIVWhom do you trust with your life?/divDIV Kelsey’s summer vacation will be perfect—a holiday on Beverly Island, where she’ll get to know her mom’s new boyfriend, Eric, and enjoy the perks of a sun-drenched beach and gorgeous lifeguards./divDIV But Kelsey’s dream holiday quickly turns into a nightmare when Eric’s daughter, Beth, goes missing. When Kelsey finds a mysterious note from Beth, she doesn’t know whom to believe. Also terrifying is the number of suspicious drownings and the creepy fisherman . . . at least she has the lifeguards around to protect her, right? But what Kelsey doesn’t know is that these lifeguards don’t come to the rescue—they have other plans./divDIV This ebook features an illustrated biography of Richie Tankersley Cusick including rare photos and never-before-seen documents from the author’s personal collection./div/div

Are you afraid to walk down Fear Street? maybe you should be. They say that weird things always happen on that dark and twisting road. They say it's a place to be frightened of--that those who go there never return the same. And some never return at all...

A stylish and sexy celebration of the bronzed Adonises who patrol the beach. Matt Albiani built his reputation shooting celebrity portraits and fashion spreads for the likes of Elle and Vanity Fair. For his first book, however, he trained his lens on a different class of beautiful people, one more rugged, less glamorous and yet unassailably iconic: the American lifeguard. Albiani's searing hot images are perfectly displayed under the direction of Sam Shahid, the art director for some of powerHouse Books' most lavish titles.

Ian Wedde's latest collection of poems are a complex mix of rhapsody, fear, and humor, and the prose explore the contradictions between life's pool-side surfaces and frightening undertows. Opening with a major new series of poems &“The Lifeguard,&” it concludes with another long sequence, &“Shadow Stands Up,&” in which a world of Platonic memory and tidal recurrence is observed from a window-seat in Auckland's conspicuously green-branded Link bus. Bringing together work from the past five years by one of New Zealand's most outstanding contemporary poets, this collection shows a master of the are at his thoughtful and surprising best.

It was with her stories that Mary Morris first won attention and acclaim: her first collection, Vanishing Animals, received the prestigious Rome Prize, and her second, The Bus of Dreams, was widely hailed. In this new collection, Mary Morris once again shows her great sensitivity to men and women at moments of turbulence, uncertainty and crisis in their lives-and how they can reach for the unexpected and the spiritual at such times. In the title story, a lifeguard sees his teenage mystique among the girls on the beach dissolve in a panicked moment when he cannot save a child. In "The Wall," a woman confronts her husband's first marriage, in the form of a mural on a kitchen wall that he is strangely unable to contemplate painting over. In "The Glass-Bottom Boat," a mother on her first trip abroad learns about trust through a solicitous stranger. In "The Snowmaker's Wife," a housewife left alone while her husband works long hours at a mountaintop ski resort starts to suspect his betrayal-as well as her own perceptions. In addition to these stories, which have appeared in The Boston Globe Magazine, Vogue, and other magazines, are two brand-new stories: "Vital Signs" tells of the consequences of a doctor bringing back to life a young woman, half-dead on the side of the road; and "Cross Word" is a wonderfully funny play on those puzzles and the people who do them. Combining Mary Morris's consummate craft as a storyteller with her gift for dramatic travel writing, The Lifeguard is a powerful and haunting collection.

Warm, funny and moving; the perfect summer read. For fans of Arthur, Finding Gobi and Damien Lewis' A Dog Called Hope. When Steve Jamieson met Bilbo, a chocolate Newfoundland puppy, little did he know that the small bundle of fluff would grow to take up a huge space in his heart and change his life forever. The pair were inseparable, with Bilbo accompanying Steve to his job as head lifeguard of Sennen beach in Cornwall every day. With his webbed paws and thick, double layer of fur, Bilbo was an excellent swimmer and he was soon promoted to honorary lifeguard. He was even credited with saving the lives of three people. Word about Bilbo spread and fans flocked from miles around to meet the friendly giant. But Bilbo and Steve couldn't have foreseen the obstacles that life would throw at them. Together, they would have to gather every bit of their strength to fight for their livelihood. Warm, heartfelt and moving, Bilbo the Lifeguard Dog is a tale of heroism and friendship, and is one man's tribute to his extraordinary dog.