The Rooftop Christmas Tree

Inspired by a true story, this Christmas romance ends with a miracle you will never forget. No one in the small southern town of Rosedale knows why reclusive Mr. Landis places a lit Christmas tree on the roof of his deteriorating home. But, he has hauled it up there for as long as anyone can remember, landing him in Judge Conner's courtroom every year and earning jail time just in time for Christmas. Having grown up on his street, defense attorney Sarah Wright remembers the troubled household and reaches out to help the man, but he refuses. When former best friend and law school mate, John Rivera reappears in Rosedale after a long and mysterious absence, things get interesting. Refusing to admit romantic feelings for him or to forgive him for his unexplained departure, the two are at odds until Judge Conner takes matters into his own hands. With only a few days until Christmas, the Judge imposes the task of rectifying the Landis case for good. Their deadline is Christmas Day, an impossible feat that pushes them to the limits. Forced to pull their resources together, the young attorneys must set differences aside and soon discover that not all is as it seems in their world or their troubled Mr. Landis's. Inspired by a true story, the life changing and shocking ending is a testament to unwavering faith, hope, romance, and miracles . . . just in time for Christmas.

Film plays a vital role in the celebration of Christmas. For decades, it has taught audiences about what the celebration of the season looks like – from the decorations to the costumes and to the expected snowy weather – as well as mirrors our own festivities back to us. Films like It’s a Wonderful Life and Home Alone have come to play key roles in real-life domestic celebrations: watching such titles has become, for many families, every bit as important as tree-trimming and leaving cookies out for Santa. These films have exported the American take on the holiday far and wide and helped us conjure an image of the perfect holiday. Rather than settling the ‘what is a Christmas film?’ debate – indeed, Die Hard and Lethal Weapon are discussed within – Analyzing Christmas in Film: Santa to the Supernatural focuses on the how Christmas is presented on the deluge of occasions when it appears. While most Christmas films are secular, religion makes many cameos, appearing through Nativity references, storylines involving spiritual rebirth, the framing of Santa as a Christ-like figure and the all-importance of family, be it the Holy family or just those gathered around the dining table. Also explored are popular narratives involving battles with stress and melancholy, single parents and Christmas martyrs, visits from ghosts and angels, big cities and small towns, break-ups and make-ups and the ticking clock of mortality. Nearly 1000 films are analyzed in this volume to determine what the portrayal of Christmas reveals about culture, society and faith as well as sex roles, consumerism, aesthetics and aspiration.

In a rundown apartment building, in an unnamed city in Uruguay, a father and daughter close themselves off from the world. "The world is this house," says Clara, and the rooftop becomes their last recess of freedom. A pet canary is their only witness. As Clara’s connection to the outside is stripped away—the neighbor who stops coming by, the lover whose existence is only known by a pregnancy—desperation and paranoia take hold. It's a stifling embrace, and we are there with her, our narrator, dreading what we know the future holds.

Many counselors learn about ethics in graduate school by applying formal, step-by-step ethical decision-making models that require counselors to be aware of their values and refrain from imposing personal values that might harm clients. However, in the real world, counselors often make split-second ethical decisions based upon personal values. Values and Ethics in Counseling illustrates the ways in which ethical decisions are values—but more than that, it guides counselors through the process of examining their own values and analyzing how these values impact ethical decision making. Each chapter presents ethical decision making as what it is: a very personal, values-laden process, one that is most effectively illustrated through the real-life stories of counselors at various stages of professional development—from interns to seasoned clinicians—who made value-based decisions. Each story is followed by commentary from the author as well as analysis from the editors to contextualize the material and encourage reflection.

An unexpected holiday encounter leads to two people to question what truly matters in life and love. This holiday season, Molly Foster thinks she finally has her future planned out. After four years of running the family inn, she is ready to pursue her dreams in the city. The last thing she expects is a fascinating stranger to check in and turn her quiet world upside down. Zach Moreton has worked hard to become a successful New York real estate mogul. With his latest deal, he’s attained every goal he ever set. But when he arrives at the Christmas Tree Inn for a ski weekend, he discovers something that prompts him to question his priorities. As a gentle snow falls on the Christmas Tree Inn, Zach and Molly discover an undeniable connection. But with complicated pasts and conflicting futures, could their holiday encounter become something more? Or will they go their separate ways, always to wonder “what if”? Find out in the heartwarming holiday tale. Get your copy today!

For the major broadcast networks, the heyday of made-for-TV movies was 20th Century programming like The ABC Movie of the Week and NBC Sunday Night at the Movies. But with changing economic times and the race for ratings, the networks gradually dropped made-for-TV movies while basic cable embraced the format, especially the Hallmark Channel (with its numerous Christmas-themed movies) and the Syfy Channel (with its array of shark attack movies and other things that go bump in the night). From the waning days of the broadcast networks to the influx of basic cable TV movies, this encyclopedia covers 1,370 films produced during the period 2000-2020. For each film entry, the reader is presented with an informative storyline, cast and character lists, technical credits (producer, director, writer), air dates, and networks. It covers the networks (ABC, CBS, Fox, Ion, and NBC) and such basic cable channels as ABC Family, Disney, Fox Family, Freeform, Hallmark, INSP, Lifetime, Nickelodeon, Syfy, TBS and TNT. There is also an appendix of "Announced but Never Produced" TV movies and a performer's index.

The New York Times–bestselling author of Black Hawk Down delivers a “suspenseful and inspiring” account of the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979 (The Wall Street Journal). On November 4, 1979, a group of radical Islamist students, inspired by the revolutionary Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini, stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran. They took fifty-two Americans captive, and kept nearly all of them hostage for 444 days. In Guests of the Ayatollah, Mark Bowden tells this sweeping story through the eyes of the hostages, the soldiers in a new special forces unit sent to free them, their radical, naïve captors, and the diplomats working to end the crisis. Bowden takes us inside the hostages’ cells and inside the Oval Office for meetings with President Carter and his exhausted team. We travel to international capitals where shadowy figures held clandestine negotiations, and to the deserts of Iran, where a courageous, desperate attempt to rescue the hostages exploded into tragic failure. Bowden dedicated five years to this research, including numerous trips to Iran and countless interviews with those involved on both sides. Guests of the Ayatollah is a detailed, brilliantly recreated, and suspenseful account of a crisis that gripped and ultimately changed the world. “The passions of the moment still reverberate . . . you can feel them on every page.” —Time “A complex story full of cruelty, heroism, foolishness and tragic misunderstandings.” —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette “Essential reading . . . A.” —Entertainment Weekly

To save her sister, she’ll need to become her The Twins Separated at Birth series continues After discovering she’s a twin, FBI special agent Kendra Parker tracks down her birth mother—and faces a barrage of bullets. Now armed with the knowledge that her mother’s a spy, Kendra must go undercover as her sister to protect her family. But can she and FBI analyst Joe Rose expose a government mole…before they all end up dead?