Bøger udgivet af The Story Plant

The winter holiday season is a time for gifts and music, for snow and miracles, and for family and going home. For Jessie Malone, it's a time for sorrow. Jessie is a graduate student living in London, where she hopes to be one of the first folklorists ever to trace an urban legend back to its original source. She's also a grieving young widow unable to heal from the agony of her life-shattering loss. In the bleak midwinter, Jessie learns of an urban legend about a lonely, wandering ghost, a British sailor named Sam who promised his bride that he'd be home for Christmas. The legends say he's been trying to make it back to her since World War II. As she investigates, Jessie learns that Sam's story defies the patterns of how urban legends are supposed to work. It's a puzzle she can't let go. To solve the mystery, she must confront the impossible and, just perhaps, discover a miracle of Christmas love that survives beyond the grave. A story that will engage all your emotions, Christmas Past bursts with wonder, enigma, romance, and the unquenchable spirit that comes from promises that must be kept.

Three generations of dads, playing traditional roles in each other's lives, arrive simultaneously at significant crossroads. The decisions they make and the actions they take will directly - and eternally - affect each other. After a life of hard work and raising children, Robert is enjoying his well-deserved retirement when he discovers that he has an illness he might not be able to beat. At 19, Jonah is sprinting across the threshold of adulthood when he learns, stunningly, that he's going to become a father. And Oliver - Robert's son and Jonah's dad - has entered middle age and is paying its demanding price. While reconciling the time and effort it has taken him to reach an unfulfilling career and an even less satisfying marriage, he realizes that it's imperative that he keep it all together for the two men who mean everything to him. When different perspectives lead to misunderstandings that remain unspoken - sometimes for years - it takes great strength and even more love to travel beyond the resentment. Dad: A Novel chronicles the sacred legacy of fatherhood.

It is 2030, and America is on the brink. In the face of an ever-more-perilous environmental crisis and ever-more-tenuous global tensions, President Herbert Chase Hastings is stoking the fires of unrest as no American leader ever has before. His alignment with militias and religious extremists, his intolerance for diversity and science, and his ties to dangerous regimes and unscrupulous businesses have made him the champion of a bold, vocal, and deadly minority. Meanwhile, the remainder of America ¿ and much of the world ¿ either raises its voice in protest or quakes in fear.Journalist Jay Patterson has been following Hastings since before his election, and he knows the risks the president poses better than most. And when a secret source starts feeding Jay information that suggests that the country is in even greater peril, he chooses to risk everything to act. But even Jay has underestimated the reach of America's chief executive . . . and it may be too late for anyone to stop what Hastings has set into motion.Written with the perspective only available to a true Washington insider, AMERICAN COUP is a political thriller unlike any other. It sheds light on what really happens behind the scenes at the highest levels of government, illuminates the forces at work all across the American landscape, and tells an edge-of-your-seat story that will leave you breathless.

With every trip he makes to the dentist, Wades pain only gets worse. His smile has faded. Hes clenching his jaw and grinding his teeth more, not because of bad oral hygiene or any mishaps in orthodontics. Wades teeth dont need straightening out, but the rest of his life could use that kind of adjustment. Wade has fallen in love with handsome Dr. Emmett, and their office visits in the afternoon have become decidedly more personal than professional. And poor Wade is sure his girlfriend Jessa would punch him in the mouth if she found out.After all, Jessa did just abandon her church and her family to be with him. And she did just have Wades baby. So their relationship has already caused enough gossip in the small Georgia town of Waverly.When Wade tries to end the affair, the breakup takes a brutal turn, leaving Wade in a state of panic. His life is under threat. His secrets could be exposed, and his family may fall apart before he realizes what kind of person he wants to be.

India Butler, single and about to turn forty, travels to LA in an attempt to reinvent her life. In a world rarely illuminated by the flashbulbs of the paparazzi, she discovers the true meaning of ¿having it all."

';A romp through the ';Mad Men' era, told from a woman's point of view' from the author of 31 Days: A Memoir of Seduction (Pamela Fiori, former editor-in-chief,Town & Country). Maddie Samuels is woman of and ahead of her time. She knows she doesn't belong in the kitchen, and she refuses to become trapped in a secretarial pool. In mid-1960s New York City, she's not only determined to succeed in a man's world, but to prove her work is as good as any man's. With ';free love' redefining relationships with head-spinning rapidity, Maddie learns how to push the accepted boundaries of established old-boy networks while refusing to accept the all-too-pervasive harassment by men in power. And yet as a woman in love, she discovers that beliefs and actions are often very different thingsespecially when it comes to a man like the seductive and charismatic Rob MacLeod. With a story as relevant now as it was then, I Love You Today portrays ';sex, lies, and advertising in the era ofMad Men. Compelling and provocative' (James Wiatt, former Chairman and CEO, William Morris Agency). Marcia Gloster paints an intimate portrait of life in 1960s Manhattan, as one young woman strives to make her way professionally and personally in the challenging art design world . . . Readers looking for a peek into the magazine publishing and advertising world of that era will be intrigued!'Marilyn Brant,New York Timesbestselling author ';A solid novel, a good read, sexually intriguing.'Jay Ingram, author ofLiving Zen ';It pulled me right in . . . An overall compelling journey.'Andrea Hurst, author of the Madrona Island series

After a car accident claims his older brothers life, Mark Murphys world is turned upside down. The silence of their shared bedroom, the memories of Mitch's guidance, and his mother's drunken spiral are constant reminders of the cost of his absence. But Mark isn't ready to grieve. He isn't ready to accept that his brother is truly gone. Despite the insistence of the adults in his life that he accept Mitchs death, Mark is undeterred. They don't know what he knows. They don't know the story of the Witch on Spook Hill.Aided by his loyal band of misfit friends, Mark's plan to carry Mitch's ashes to the witch is complicated by the pursuit of the town sheriff and the cousin responsible for his brother's death. With no time to regroup, Mark and his friends must navigate the dangerous path to Spook Hill before the sun sets, so that Mitch can be resurrected in exchange for the life of the one who took it.

Max Wendt has a family . . . but it's sliding sideways, and he has been complicit in its faltering. His wife and his daughter have pulled away from him amid his frequent absences, leaving him to bridge the distance between what he remembers and the way things are now.Max Wendt has a job . . . but it carries him away from home most of the time, and its dynamics are quickly changing. There's a surprising new hire on his pipeline crew, strife among coworkers, and a boss whose proclivities put everything in peril.Max Wendt has a friend . . . but this odd man Max meets during his travels perplexes him, prods him, pushes him, and annoys him. He sees something in Max that Max can't see in himself, and he's holding tight to his own pain.Max Wendt has a problem . . . More than one, in fact, and those problems are flying at him with increasing velocity. Can someone who has spent his life going with the flow arrest his own destructive inertia, rebuild his relationships, and find a better way?

When Surinder Kumar was growing up in post-partition India, his father, Kanshi Ram Arora, was known as Master Ji, or respected teacher. In the years that followed Britains departure and the challenges that faced a newly reconstructed nation, Kanshi Ram helped his village grow out of poverty and deprivation. He did this by imbuing his family and his community with a set of principles that set many of them on a path to success beyond their wildest dreams. Today, Surinder Kumar is an enormously successful businessperson, having served prominent roles with Wrigley, PepsiCo, and Unilever. He ties his accomplishments directly to the principles he learned from his father as a child - principles he believes apply to everyone. Now, Surinder brings the lessons of Master Ji to you in this powerful and inspiring book. Through sixteen brief chapters brimming with universal advice, he offers you the teachings that took him from the depths of poverty to a life of great professional and personal accomplishment. Filled with exercises and practical applications, Everything You Need Is Within You is a treasure of a book that will resonate within you and the generations to come.

It always starts out as routine, even when you are only doing it while your husband is deployed at sea. Even if it began as a safe, easy way to make enough cash to start a family. Even if there was no way you would ever get stuck doing it full time... after all, that's why you retired from the FBI.But then they killed off your prime witnesses all over the globe, erased all their digital fingerprints from a Wall Street hedge fund, blew up your office, tried to blow up St. Pats and, with unlimited funding from financial plays in the stock market, launched the biggest, most devastating attack ever directed against a city. One that no one saw coming. An unthinkable event that would have ramifications for the next one hundred years or more.And all you wanted to do was go home to Hawaii and coach high school soccer¿Welcome to former FBI agent, Brooke Burrell's life. Her cushy assignment turns into a countdown to mega-death and destruction, keeping her and her hand-picked group of experts guessing what, where, and when the attack will be ¿ right up until zero hour.GIVE US THIS DAY is a book with enough plausible authenticity that it will keep readers guessing what will happen next, whether they are in their living rooms or in government offices.

Danny Boyle was hoping for a fresh start in Canada. With the help of his uncle Martin, he'd soon found a job and a regular gig with a bar band. And when his sweetheart, Deirdre, joined him, Danny seemed set for life.But Fate wasn't done with Danny, and when his uncle was stricken with AIDS, Deirdre did the only thing she could think of to save him from the darkness ¿ she got pregnant. Rising to the occasion, Danny became a father with enthusiasm.With the arrival of their second child, though, mortgages, day-care, and the press of the day took their toll on the young couple. Battling the voice in his head that told him he wasn't suited for this role, Danny found an ally in the bottle. Soon, drinking became the only thing that made sense to him.Deirdre, however, refused to give up without a fight. If she could only get Danny to join her, they might even win.The sequel to Born & Bred, Wandering in Exile is the second novel in the Life & Times Trilogy, a cycle of novels that charts the course of one star-crossed life. Filled with poetic prose and brimming with poignant observation, it is a work of uncommon depth and resonance.

SECRETS OF INFERNO is a reader's guide to the journey Dan Brown took us all on in INFERNO. The book gives readers the "back story" on particular plot points, Dante references, symbols, historical events, philosophy, art, music, and architectural works that Brown wrapped into his story. It is also an intellectually enriching, intriguing, fresh and fun look at Dante, THE DIVINE COMEDY, the world of ideas circulating in Florence on the cusp of the Renaissance, and the relevance of those ideas to our lives and our world today.Dan Burstein and Arne de Keijzer are the world's leading experts on Dan Brown's fiction. Beginning with their path-breaking SECRETS OF THE CODE, which spent six months on the New York Times bestseller list in 2004, and continuing through four other guidebooks to Dan Brown's fiction (as well as three film documentaries and two special editions of US News), Burstein and de Keijzer have sold more than three million copies of Dan Brown-related commentaries in more than thirty languages. In the wake of each Dan Brown title over the last decade, the media (from the History Channel to CNN to MSNBC to USA Today to the Washington Post) have turned to Burstein and de Keijzer for interpretations of Dan Brown's books, decoding of the hidden symbols and ciphers, explanations of the controversies, and thoughtful separation of fact from fiction in these supremely popular stories that somehow always manage to fascinate our culture well beyond the bounds of their pop fiction genre.The ultimate guide for any Dan Brown fan, SECRETS OF INFERNO is entertaining, thought-provoking, and will make the experience of reading INFERNO richer than you ever imagined.Contributors include: Teodolinda Barolini, Da Ponte Professor of Italian, Columbia UniversitySteven Botterill, Associate Professor of Italian Studies, University of California, BerkeleyJamais Cascio, Distinguished Fellow, Institute for the Future and Senior Fellow, Institute for Ethics and Emerging TechnologiesJoel E. Cohen, Abby Rockefeller Mauzé Professor of Populations at The Rockefeller University and Professor of Populations at the Earth Institute of Columbia UniversityWilliam Cook, Distinguished Teaching Professor of History (Emeritus), State University of New York, GeneseoAlison Cornish, Professor of Italian, Romance Languages, and Literatures department, University of MichiganPaul Ehrlich, Bing Professor of Population Studies, Stanford University, president of Stanford's Center for Conservation Biology, and author of The Population BombGlenn W. Erickson, Professor of Philosophy, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte (Brazil)Laurie Garrett, Senior Fellow for Global Health, Council on Foreign Relations and author of The Coming PlagueCheryl Helm, Dan Brown codes and puzzles expertGiuseppe Mazzotta, Sterling Professor of Humanities for Italian, Yale UniversityJulie O'Connor, Fine art photographer and photojournalistDavid Orban, Futurist, CEO of Dotsub, and former chairman of Humanity+David A. Shugarts, Investigative reporter, author of Secrets of the Widow's Son, and contributing editor to the Secrets seriesGregory Stock, Biophysicist, biotech entrepreneur, and founding director of the Program on Medicine, Technology and Society at UCLA's School of MedicineNatasha Vita-More, Chairman, Board of Directors of Humanity+ and author of the "TranshumanistManifesto"

A vacation to St. Augustine quickly turns deadly for brothers Jon and Michael Rickner as an antiquities dealer is brutally murdered in his shop just minutes after meeting with them. Moments later, the brothers discover an original Edison wax cylinder recording detailing an audacious treasure hunt.But the hunt is not as straightforward as it seems. For it is tied to a priceless relic paid for in blood.

This evocative, moving, and gorgeously detailed novel is the story of Alex Soberano, a contemporary man in crisis. A tremendously successful New York businessman, Alex finds it difficult to embrace joy and accept love. When his life threatens to boil over, he escapes for a brief respite on the West Coast. What waits for him there is something he never could have imagined.Intertwined with Alex's story are the stories of three people from different times and places whose lives affect him in surprising ways:A woman from the South American city of Anhelo in 1928 that everyone knows as ¿Vidente.¿ For decades, Vidente, has been one of Anhelo's most celebrated citizens because she has the ability to read colors that speak of a person's fate. However, during one such reading, she sees her own future ¿ a future that includes her imminent death.A man named Khaled who left his home in Bethlehem in 1920 to seek fortune in the South American town of Joya de la Costa. He has barely begun to gain a foothold when he learns that the wife and three children he left behind have been murdered. When a magical woman enters his life, he believes that destiny has smiled on him. However, destiny has only just begun to deal with Khaled.A nineteen-year-old student named Dro who flies from the South American country of Legado to Boston in 1985 and walks onto the campus of MIT expecting immediate admission. Dro's skills at mastering complex, ever-changing differential equations intrigues the associate admissions director. However, the person he intrigues the most is the celebrated US ambassador from his country, and his relationship with her will define his life.How the stories of these four people merge is the central mystery of this arresting work of imagination. THE EDGE OF THE WORLD is a story that will sweep you up in its magic, enrich you with its wisdom, and compel you with its deep humanity.

Dani, Meg, and Charlotte have bonded over babies, barbeques, and backyards, but when they escape for a girls weekend away, they can't bring themselves to return to lives that don't seem to fit anymore.Harried Dani can't explain why she feels so discontented until she meets a young gallery owner who inspires her to rediscover the art that once made her happy.Dependable Meg faces up to a grief that threatens to swallow her whole and confronts a marriage built on expectations.Flamboyant Charlotte, frustrated with her stagnated life and marriage, pursues a playboy Irish singer and beachside business opportunities.All three of these women thought they would be different. None of them thought they'd be facing down forty and still wondering when life starts. What they do when they realize where they're headed is both inspiring and wildly entertaining. GIRLS' WEEKEND is a fun, yet poignant romp through the universal search of who we are, why we love, and what makes us happy by an author who is quickly emerging as one of our most incisive storytellers.

What if some of our nation's architects set into motion a series of acts so treasonous that we are still feeling their effects nearly two-and-a-half centuries later? That is the question at the heart of this stunning, provocative thriller. When newly minted doctor of history Jonathan Rickner stumbles across an old film canister in the National Archives, he sets off an explosive chain of events that leaves dozens dead and himself on the run. The contents of that canister, revealing long-buried evidence about the Kennedy assassination, is just the first piece of a centuries-old puzzle stretching from the Civil War to the Constitutional Convention and back to modern day.Joined by Chloe Harper, a conspiracy devotee desperate to clear her disgraced FBI agent father's name, Jon becomes entangled in a web of deception dating to the American Revolution. Going toe-to-toe with a powerful secret aristocracy formed by a rogue faction of Founding Fathers, Jon and Chloe are forced into a desperate race to discover the incredible truth behind a conspiracy theory older than the United States itself.From the streets of Dallas to the colonial meeting halls of Boston to the palatial mansions of Embassy Row to a secret complex deep beneath the American heartland, through celebrated museums, forgotten chambers, and presidential tombs, Jon and Chloe must expose those responsible before it's too late. For another attack is imminent, and if they fail in their quest, America may never recover.Propelled by puzzles and mysteries that demand to be solved and brimming with exhaustively researched details from America's past, THE FOUNDING TREASON is a singularly immersive thriller, one that will leave you questioning who is really calling the shots.

Their attraction is immediate.Their passion is overwhelming.Their love is undeniable.Their future is eternal . . . or eternally doomed.This is the story of Cia Reynolds, a rising young professional from New York, and Will Jamieson, an internationally acclaimed artist. They meet, supposedly by chance, at an exhibition in London. Immediately aware of a powerful connection, they soon begin to realize that otherworldly forces are circling - forces that emanate from an ancient sapphire set in a Celtic ring, a ring that eventually draws them to a mysterious stone circle on a bleak, windswept island in Scotland where the two lovers must confront a primordial entity that seeks to destroy them.Caught between the promise of eternal love and the threat of infinite evil, Cia and Will are at the center of a story as old as civilization itself. But if their love is truly fated to survive, it will need to rise above a timeless challenge. VOICES FROM A DISTANT ROOM is breathtaking fiction, at once deeply romantic, magical, and endlessly engaging.