The Parlor Book

Includes an excerpt from Overcoming rejection.

Set in a world of glamorous, gifted, intelligent people, the novel is a psychosexual drama about the close and sinister relationship between Maggie Newman and Peter and Gail, brother and sister, whose love, when threatened, degenerates into possessiveness and then darkest evil.

The Parlor is a futuristic novel that explores a world in which males and females live completely separated in order to achieve permanent peace and prosperity. Readers dive into this progressive society through the eyes of Andrea, an eighteen-year-old girl who is about to come face to face with a man for the first time in a mandatory meeting. Once Andrea meets a male, she discovers that this civilization isn't as perfect as it seems from his point of view. In a struggle to find the truth, Andrea must choose if she wants to forget all that she has learned or act on the humanity that she feels inside.

Sent to San Francisco to live with her beloved aunt and uncle, newly orphaned Emily expectantly enters their once-happy mansion only to find unimaginable horrors.

A man and puppy exhumed from a 12,000-year-old grave sends a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer on a journey to the dogs Of all the things hidden in plain sight, dogs are one of the most enigmatic. They are everywhere but how much do we really know about where they came from and what the implications are of their place in our world? Jon Franklin set out to find out and ended up spending a decade studying the origins and significance of the dog and its peculiar attachment to humans. As the intellectual pursuit of his subject began to take over Franklin's life, he married a dog lover and was quickly introduced to the ancient and powerful law of nature, to wit: Love me, love my dog. Soon Franklin was sharing hearth and home with a soulful and clever poodle named Charlie. And so began one man's journey to the dogs, an odyssey that would take him from a 12,000-year-old grave to a conclusion so remarkable as to change our perception of ourselves. Building on evolutionary science, archaeology, behavioral science, and the firsthand experience of watching his own dog evolve from puppy to family member, Franklin posits that man and dog are more than just inseparable; they are part and parcel of the same creature. Along the way, The Wolf in the Parlor imparts a substantial yet painless education on subjects as far ranging as psychological evolution and neurochemistry. In this groundbreaking book, master storyteller Franklin shatters the lens through which we see the world and shows us an unexpected, enthralling picture of the human/canine relationship.

Emily Luccock is looking forward to living at Sugar Hill Hall....She remembers her aunt and uncle's grand old mansion well, with its enormous, elegant parlor, marble fireplace, and white china cups filled with hot chocolate. But this time things are different. Her aunt's once bright and lively home is now dead with silence. Evil lurks in every corner, and the dark, shadowed walls watch and whisper late at night. And no one ever speaks. Everything's changed at Sugar Hill Hall, and Emily knows something awful is happening there. What's become of Uncle Twice? Why is Aunt Twice a prisoner in her own home? Emily is desperate to uncover the truth. Time is running out, and she must find a way to save the people and home she cares so much about.

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY PAUL THEROUX Somerset Maugham's success as a writer enabled him to indulge his adventurous love of travel, and he recorded the sights and sounds of his wide-ranging journeys with an urbane, wry style all his own. The Gentleman in the Parlour is an account of the author's trip through what was then Burma and Siam, ending in Haiphong, Vietnam. Whether by river to Mandalay, on horse through the mountains and forests of the Shan States to Bangkok, or onwards by sea, Maugham's vivid descriptions bring a lost world to life.