Tranquility Lost

In 1983, the BC provincial government announced plans to close Tranquille, a large residential institution for persons with intellectual disabilities located outside Kamloops. The announcement was made with no community placement plans for residents. The nearly six hundred employees of Tranquille, members of the BC Government Employees Union and the Union of Psychiatric Nurses, were alarmed by the lack of any Ministry of Human Resources planning for the future of the residents and the ministry’s stated intention to use newly tabled legislation to terminate Tranquille employees without cause and avoid any other collective agreement obligations to employees. Consequently, BCGEU members decided to sit-in and occupy the institution by expelling management, running the institution themselves and publicly advocating for quality community care for people with intellectual disabilities. They did so for nearly a month. Tranquility Lost chronicles the political and public policy conditions leading up to the occupation, the day-to-day activities of the occupation itself, the challenges faced by the workers and negotiations leading to an agreement. Steeves’s account profiles the courage of Tranquille employees and their unprecedented use of collective bargaining as a tool to address conditions faced by government clients as well as government employees themselves.

This is a short-story, fiction/horror novel that will open your eyes to the way some things are and how some things should be on this rock we live on. You will read about those who take advantage of others and those who evolve into someone or [haha] something that just won't tolerate their personal misfortune anymore. It's a book about perspective while entertaining the reader to the fullest of my ability, a real page-turner, if you will. This is my first book and I truly hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing these stories for you.

Deep within the Forest of Angor, near an old elven village, there lives a young man named Cyrus and his mother, Belen, trying desperately to avoid the seemingly endless conflict that plagues their world and hold tight to some measure of tranquility. At least, that is what Cyrus believes. He could not have known that his mother, a former amazon warrior, had other plans for him. Neither could he have known that the world had no intention of leaving him alone. And then, just as Cyrus comes of age, the merciless Dark Lord, Takeo Karaoshi, comes looking for him. Despite his best efforts, Cyrus is thrust into a decades' long conflict that spans the world and plunges towards a dramatic conclusion. One of either ultimate salvation or tyrannical destruction.

Nastya is a former piano prodigy carrying a brutal secret, while Josh is completely alone, an emancipated minor who has lost everyone he loves. Stumbling upon each other the first day of school, the two discover the miracle of second chances and the beauty of unexpected friendships

Its now 2078, and the Arikhan fleet has finally arrived determined on conquest. Opposing them is Grey Waters, the young Governor-General of the United Alliance, and a rag-tag fleet of warships lacking the technology to challenge the invaders but challenge them they must; from Jupiter space through the Asteroid Belt, on the red sands of Mars, and finally in the skies above Earth. The chances of defeating the Arikhan arent good, but if the price of victory is high, the brave youngsters rallied to the cause are willing to pay it. Tranquilitys Last Stand is the 9th is final book of the Waters of the Moon series. After eight books and twenty-nine years of adventures, the young man born on the moon and raised by computers faces the challenge he was destined for, and win or lose, you can be sure the world weve known will never be the same again.

Praise for Child of the Sword: "...a magical world of witches, wizards and war in this high-energy first installment of an epic-fantasy series...A fine fantasy novel that will provide readers with a good weekend escape from reality" — Kirkus Reviews Kindle Book Review Editor's Pick "This book grabbed from the start. I finished it and had to pick up the 2nd one right away."—A. C. Rat is no ordinary Thief A small feral child, he steals what he can to feed the gnawing hunger in his gut, though nothing can satisfy the hunger in his soul. But he has a special talent that the wizards and witches of the clans covet, so Clan Elhiyne abducts him and gives him the name Morgin. Can he escape the scheming of the clan's calculating and manipulative leader, the matriarchal old witch Olivia? And as he grows into manhood, can he survive the inter-clan rivalries, and the hatred that smolders between Olivia and her arch-enemy Valso, leader of Clan Decouix? A can't-put-it-down read. Pick it up today!

From the internationally bestselling author of Moondust Lake comes an emotional and enriching novel of family, forgiveness, self-acceptance, and self-discovery . . . When the darkness seems too hard to bear, there’s only one thing left to do. Six years ago, Daniel was a Los Angeles financial analyst who was too handsome for his own good. Too smart for his anchor job on the nightly news. And too enamored with the heady addictions of the high life. That man died in a tragic accident with his fiancée. With grief and guilt battling for control, Daniel moved to the quiet California seaside town of Miramar Bay with his best friend—a rescue Labradoodle who still sees him through rough times. Daniel’s a different man now. Clean, sober, and taking things one day at a time with no commitments to anyone except himself. And just as his solitude begins to chafe, two souls in need of fresh starts unexpectedly enter Daniel’s life . . . Realize that it’s time to wake up. Daniel’s self-centered sister has dissolved several longtime relationships. Theirs included. The latest? Her restless teenage daughter, Nicole, whom she’s dropped off in Miramar Bay without a backward glance. For Nicole, who’s never felt at home in the world, it only confirms the disconnect she’s always had with her mother. Now, left with an uncle she barely knows, Nicole is more adrift than ever. Yet to Daniel’s surprise, playing surrogate father is forging a bond that he needs, too. More difficult for Daniel is the possibility of romance with lovely and fragile Stella Dalley. Struggling with a trauma of her own, the single mother is as cautious about love as Daniel is—no matter how healing it could be. But for Daniel, Stella, and Nicole there’s still hope for a tomorrow they can call their own. All they have do is to learn to trust in each other, and in themselves. A powerful novel of new beginnings, chances taken, and hearts lost and found, Tranquility Falls is a timeless love story to treasure.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER NATIONAL BESTSELLER “One of [Mandel’s] finest novels and one of her most satisfying forays into the arena of speculative fiction yet.” —The New York Times “Mandel’s sensational sixth novel offers immense pleasures of puzzle box plotting and high-flying imagination. . . . Masterfully plotted and deeply moving, this visionary novel folds back on itself like a hall of mirrors to explore just what connects us to one another, and how many extraordinary contingencies bring us to each ordinary day of our lives.” —Esquire From the acclaimed, bestselling author of Station Eleven and The Glass Hotel, a “bold and exciting” (The Economist) and “transcendent” (Wall Street Journal) novel filled with “puncturing emotional truths” (Glamour) In this captivating tale of imagination and ambition, a seemingly disparate array of people come into contact with a time traveller who must resist the pull to change the past and the future. The cast includes a British exile on the west coast of Canada in the early 1900s; the author of a bestselling novel about a fictional pandemic who embarks on a galaxy-spanning book tour during the outbreak of an actual pandemic; a resident of a moon colony almost 300 years in the future; and a lonely girl who films an old-growth forest and experiences a disruption in the recording. Blurring the lines between reality and fantasy, Emily St. John Mandel’s dazzling story follows these engrossing characters across space and time as their lives ultimately intersect. Sea of Tranquility is a breathtaking and wondrous examination of the ties that bind us together, by a master storyteller.