What Price Paradise

All his life Tate McCullom has been taught to be responsible, and he is the very model of what a respectable man should be. Until the night he gets drunk and sleeps with a woman he barely knows. Now, six weeks later, she's pregnant, alone, and broke. Once again, Tate must take responsibility for his actions, and makes plans to marry his child's mother. There's only one problem...he has to tell his fiancee. Abby Grayson hasn't had an easy life. As the daughter of the town whore, people either avoid her or think she's like her mother. For Abby, it's a struggle just to fill her belly and keep a roof over her head. Loneliness and a secret yearning for this man she thought she'd never have led her to spend the night with Tate. But the last thing she needs is a baby when she can barely take care of herself. Desperate, but too proud to ask for help, she finally agrees to accept a job from Tate the job of being his wife. Now she has almost everything she's ever dreamed of. Unfortunately, only one thing will gain her Tate's love - his realization that the night he spent with her was no drunken accident. It was a last-ditch attempt to win the woman he really wanted.

'A must-read book on the most frightening phenomenon of the modern age ... Fascinating' Sunday Times 'Outstanding' New Statesman 'Provocative and timely.... highly readable' Guardian 'In an exceptional piece of work, Iain Overton subjects the suicide bomber to his seasoned investigative skills from pre-revolutionary Russia to the present day.' Jon Snow 'An informative book on a timely topic that demands critical scrutiny.' Evening Standard 'A fascinating insight into a topic that has tragically defined our times' Levison Wood 'An immensely readable and important book. Overton writes with great sensitivity and perception.' Mark Juergensmeyer, author of Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence 'Moving... Overton has gone further than most to understand the motivations of the modern-day suicide bomber.' i 'Meticulously researched history.' The National _______ We live in the age of the suicide bomber. The suicide bomb itself takes more lives than any other type of explosive weapon. Moreover, in the last 5 years more people have been killed by suicide attacks than at any other time in history. How has this descent deep into the heart of terror escalated in such a way? What drives people to blow themselves up and what are the consequences? More importantly perhaps, what can be done to combat the rising spread of this form of violence? Investigative journalist Iain Overton addresses the fundamental drivers of modern day suicide attacks in this fascinating and important book, showing how the suicide bomber has played a pivotal role in the evolution of some of the most defining forces of the modern age - from Communism and the Cold War, to the modern day War on Terror. Interviewing Russian anarchists, Japanese kamikazes, Hezbollah militants, survivors of suicide bombings and countless other sources of valuable information, while travelling to places such as Iran, Irak and Pakistan, Overton skilfully combines historical narrative, travelogue, interviews and testimonies, and brings his research alive thanks to potent facts and visceral storytelling. The result is a powerful and unforgettable read, the first non-academic attempt to chart the rise of this horrific weapon.

In a city as corrupt as it was luxurious, those who dared to dream were bound to pay the price. Havana, Cuba, 1947. Young Patricio flees impoverished Spain and steps into the sultry island paradise of Havana with only the clothes on his back and half-baked dreams of a better life. Blessed with good looks and natural charm, he lands a job as a runner at El Encanto--one of the most luxurious department stores in the world. Famous for its exquisite offerings from French haute couture to Arabian silks, El Encanto indulges the senses in opulent extravagance. It caters to visiting Hollywood stars, rising politicos, and prerevolutionary Cuba's wealthiest power players, including the notorious mobster César Valdés. Falling in love with the mobster's young wife, Gloria, is suicide. But Patricio is irresistibly drawn to the beautiful girl with sad eyes, a razor-sharp intellect, and a penchant for both Christian Dior's clothes and Einstein's theories. Within the walls of El Encanto, anything seems possible, even a love that promises to heal them and a desire that thrums with the mambo beat of the city itself. In a reckless love affair that spans half a century, Patricio's and Gloria's lives entwine time and again, challenged by every twist of fate--for in a world of murder, betrayal, and revolution, those who dare to reach for paradise seldom survive unscathed.

American communities are facing chronic problems: fiscal stress, urban decline, environmental sprawl, mass incarceration, political isolation, disproportionate foreclosures and severe public health risks. In The Price of Paradise, David Troutt argues that it is a lack of mutuality in our local decision making that has led to this looming crisis facing cities and local governments. Arguing that there are structural flaws in the American dream, Troutt investigates the role that place plays in our thinking and how we have organized our communities to create or deny opportunity. Legal rules and policies that promoted mobility for most citizens simultaneously stifled and segregated a growing minority by race, class and—most importantly—place. A conversation about America at the crossroads, The Price of Paradise is a multilayered exploration of the legal, economic and cultural forces that contribute to the squeeze on the middle class, the hidden dangers of growing income and wealth inequality and the literature on how growth and consumption patterns are environmentally unsustainable.

The acclaimed Nobel Prize winner challenges our most fiercely held beliefs as she weaves folklore and history, memory and myth into an unforgettable meditation on race, religion, gender, and a far-off past that is ever present—in prose that soars with the rhythms, grandeur, and tragic arc of an epic poem. “They shoot the white girl first. With the rest they can take their time.” So begins Toni Morrison’s Paradise, which opens with a horrifying scene of mass violence and chronicles its genesis in an all-black small town in rural Oklahoma. Founded by the descendants of freed slaves and survivors in exodus from a hostile world, the patriarchal community of Ruby is built on righteousness, rigidly enforced moral law, and fear. But seventeen miles away, another group of exiles has gathered in a promised land of their own. And it is upon these women in flight from death and despair that nine male citizens of Ruby will lay their pain, their terror, and their murderous rage. “A fascinating story, wonderfully detailed. . . . The town is the stage for a profound and provocative debate.” —Los Angeles Times

Fans of Bones and Coroner will love Dr. Zol Szabo, a doctor who is out to solve medical mysteries before it’s too late After weeks of torture at the hands of Syria’s secret police, the bombing of his villa in the ancient city of Aleppo, and the murder of his daughter, trauma surgeon Dr. Hosam Khousa flees his fractured homeland with his wife and son. They make their way to Canada as refugees, where Hosam is forced to trade his prestigious scalpel for a barber’s humble clippers. Though he aches to regain his once- prominent surgical career, cutting hair in Hamilton, Ontario, seems a safe way to make a living, until a fellow Syrian is slashed to death in the barbershop. The ensuing gangland vendetta entangles Hosam and threatens his family. At the same time, epidemic investigators Dr. Zol Szabo and Natasha Sharma are battling an outbreak of vaccine-resistant polio that has struck the city with terrifying fury. When Hosam visits a friend clinging to life in the intensive care unit, he spots something that might help the investigation but will ruin his chance of retaking his place in the operating theater. The Great White North is not the sanctuary he expected, but it’s a bitter paradise he must learn to navigate.

A husband's secret life, a wife's new beginning: escape to the Caribbean with #1 New York Times bestselling author Elin Hilderbrand. Irene Steele shares her idyllic life in a beautiful Iowa City Victorian house with a husband who loves her to sky-writing, sentimental extremes. But as she rings in the new year one cold and snowy night, everything she thought she knew falls to pieces with a shocking phone call: her beloved husband, away on business, has been killed in a helicopter crash. Before Irene can even process the news, she must first confront the perplexing details of her husband's death on the distant Caribbean island of St. John. After Irene and her sons arrive at this faraway paradise, they make yet another shocking discovery: her husband had been living a secret life. As Irene untangles a web of intrigue and deceit, and as she and her sons find themselves drawn into the vibrant island culture, they have to face the truth about their family, and about their own futures. Rich with the lush beauty of the tropics and the drama, romance, and intrigue only Elin Hilderbrand can deliver, Winter in Paradise is a truly transporting novel, and the exciting start to a new series. "I will just say that, 24 hours after I started this book, I purchased its sequel, What Happens in Paradise, and I did not leave either book to be enjoyed by strangers at the end of my vacation." —Elisabeth Egan, New York Times

Secret lives and new loves emerge in the bright Caribbean sunlight . . . A year ago, Irene Steele had the shock of her life: her loving husband, father to their grown sons and successful businessman, was killed in a plane crash. But that wasn't Irene's only shattering news: he'd also been leading a double life on the island of St. John, where another woman loved him, too. Now Irene and her sons are back on St. John, determined to learn the truth about the mysterious life - and death - of a man they thought they knew. Along the way, they're about to learn some surprising truths about their own lives, and their futures. Lush with the tropical details, romance and drama, What Happens in Paradise is another immensely satisfying page-turner from one of the world's most beloved and engaging storytellers.