Walking After Midnight

Many people who have been harmed or wronged often feel that to respond with non-violence and forgiveness is to be weak. As Katy Hutchison reveals here, to forgive and seek reconciliation not only requires even more strength than a resort to force or retaliation, but also ensures deeper, more far-reaching beneficial consequences for all concerned. I am sure her remarkable story will serve as an inspiration to others by beset by grief and loss as she was. -The Dalai Lama On New Year's Eve, 1997, Bob McIntosh left his family and friends at the dinner table to check on a disturbance at a neighbor's house. He never came home. Savagely beaten by an unknown assailant, McIntosh died that night at a local hospital, leaving behind his wife and twin four-year olds. While authorities searched for McIntosh's killer, his wife, author Katy Hutchison, began the slow process of rebuilding a life for her children and herself. Refusing to be defined by her husband's murder, she moved to a different town, pursued a new career, and eventually remarried--but, with questions about her husband's death still unanswered, the healing Hutchison longed for was slow in coming. In the spring of 2002, authorities arrested a young man named Ryan Aldrigde for the murder of Bob McIntosh. On hearing the news, Hutchison startled investigators by asking to meet the man who had killed her husband. She didn't take satisfaction in seeing Aldridge in custody, nor did she want to rail against him for the harm he had inflicted on her and her family. Instead, she wanted to learn from him why he had attacked McIntosh and what she could do to help stop incidents like it from happening again. In a letter she sent to Aldridge after his arrest, Hutchison offered this remarkable sentiment: All I want for you is what you took from Bob--a happy and productive life. Walking After Midnight tells a story at turns devastating and triumphant, a unique exploration of one woman's courageous response to tragedy that challenges our expectations about grief and loss. It's an inspiring account of the power of forgiveness, compassion, and a different kind of justice. An excellent primer for handling loss with intelligence and dignity…an antidote to the endless cycles of violence that consume too many lives and too many countries. -Frederic Luskin, Ph.D., author of Forgive for Good and director of the Stanford University Forgiveness Projects A remarkable story of tragedy and transcendence. Not everyone who walks this road will make the choices Hutchison did, but all will recognize the intersections and obstacles she encounters along the way. And no one who reads this story can dismiss the authenticity and passion with which it is told. -Howard Zehr, founding theorist of restorative justice, professor of restorative justice at the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding of Eastern Mennonite University and author of Changing Lenses

The nude male body lay on the embalming table, battered beyond recognition. Gingerly, Summer McAfee, chairman, CEO, and sole employee of Daisy Fresh cleaning service, reached out to touch an arm to reassure herself that she hadn't just seen the corpse move. Suddenly, shockingly, her hand was in the viselike grip of a man very much alive and desperate enough to take her captive on a no-holds-barred run from cops, killers, and his own decidedly complicated past... Summer's former life as a New York lingerie model had gone south with her marriage, leaving her, at thirty-six, single and back home in Tennessee, on her hands and knees scrubbing other people's bathrooms. But the drab present vanishes in a flash as she's forced to flee into the Tennessee wilds with the stranger she calls Frankenstein, first as his captive, then his companion, as they run from the enemies determined to destroy them both--straight into a raging passion that could only be the last laugh of fate...

Katy Hutchison waited five years to confront her husband's killer--and when she finally got her chance, she forgave him. This gripping page-turner tells the story of Hutchison's remarkable journey out of tragedy and into forgiveness, redemption, and hope.

Goosebumps now on Disney+! Jodie loves visiting her grandparents' farm. Okay, so it's not the most exciting place in the world. Still, Grandpa tells great scary stories. And Grandma's chocolate chip cookies are the best.But this summer the farm has really changed. The cornfields are sparse. Grandma and Grandpa seem worn out. And the single scarecrow has been replaced by twelve evil-looking ones.Then one night Jodie sees something really odd. The scarecrows seem to be moving. Twitching on their stakes. Coming alive . . .

You are indestructible. Three whispered words transfer an astonishing power to Jacob Fielding that changes everything. At first, Jacob is hesitant to use the power, unsure of its implications. But there's something addictive about testing the limits of fear. Then Ophelia James, the beautiful and daring new girl in town, suggests that they use the power to do good, to save others. But with every heroic act, the power grows into the specter of a curse. How to decide who lives and who dies? In this nail-biting novel of mystery and dark intrigue, Jacob must walk the razor thin line between right and wrong, good and evil, and life and death. And time is running out. Because the Grim Reaper doesn't disappear. . . . He catches up.

Felicia Pearson, who starred of the acclaimed television series The Wire, reveals her incredible, hard-knock life story, one that dramatically parallels her television character. While Felicia is a brilliant actor who played a truly chilling role, what's most remarkable about "Snoop" is what she has overcome in her life. Snoop was born a three-pound cross-eyed crack baby in East Baltimore. Those streets are among the toughest in the world, but Snoop was tougher. The runt of the ghetto showed an early aptitude for drug slinging and violence and thrived as a baby gangsta until she landed in Jessup state penitentiary after killing a woman in self-defense. There she rebelled violently against the system, and it was only through the cosmic intervention of her mentor, Uncle Loney, that she turned her life around. Eventually, Snoop was discovered in a nightclub by one of The Wire's cast members and quickly recruited to be one of television's most frightening and intriguing villains. While the story of coming up from the hood has been told by Antwone Fisher and Chris Gardner, among others, Snoop's tale goes far deeper into The Life than any previous books. And like Mary Karr's story, Snoop's is a woman's story from a fresh point of view. She defied traditional conventions of gender and sexual preference on the hardest streets in America and in front of millions of viewers on TV.