Two friends discover that life doesn't always turn out as one would expect in this absorbing family saga. It's not always easy living in a close-knit community where everyone knows everyone else's business. Growing up in a quiet West Country village, butcher's daughter Rebecca Peterson and her best friend Cindy Mason are keen to expand their horizons and see more of the world. On leaving school, Rebecca heads off to university in Cardiff, while Cindy gets a job at the new local supermarket - but dreams of becoming a model or actress. The two friends promise to keep in touch. But when tragedy strikes, rumours and suspicion engulf the village, and the longstanding friendship between the Peterson and Mason families looks set to be torn apart. Will Rebecca and Cindy's friendship survive? Will Rebecca ever see Cindy again?

From the translator of the bestselling Poetic Edda (Hackett, 2015) comes a gripping new rendering of two of the greatest sagas of Old Norse literature. Together the two sagas recount the story of seven generations of a single legendary heroic family and comprise our best source of traditional lore about its members-including, among others, the dragon-slayer Sigurd, Brynhild the Valkyrie, and the Viking chieftain Ragnar Lothbrok.

Not since Margaret Mitchell's Scarlett O'Hara has there been a more talked about literary character than Glory Anne Grimes. When she was good, she was very very good. When she was bad, she was sleaze. The saga begins when our heroine is ten years old and naive. Forty-three years later, Glory Anne Grimes is still naive and proved to be a slow learner. Angel Peters and Michele Dionne, being at opposite ends of the spiritual and moral spectrum, have a polarizing effect on Glory Anne. She considers herself somewhere between them, and throughout these years is pulled from one extreme to the other searching for a deeper relationship with God, while yielding to lust amid her Catholic fidelity instilled in childhood. Mushrooms of Autumn is one person's journey in search of happiness only to realize it was there all along. The years recall the closeted shame, guilt, and frustration that come with growing up in the 50's and 60's and leads into the redemptive years of the 80's. Two themes run throughout the novel: (1) in spite of seemingly insignificant events of childhood that influence us toward success or failure, we are a product of our life's experiences; and (2) God will wait for as long as it takes to get our lives together. The Mushrooms of Autumn could be anyone's story because it's about values: the rise, the fall and the journey back, while embracing a shadow-side often cloaked in mystery even to one's self. A MUST READ for anyone who remembers coming of age whether at fourteen or forty-two.

Many families are comprised of the good and the bad, the cherished and the reprehensible, some change, others never intend to. This is the generational saga of the ups and downs of one such family.In Stanoli, author Dr. Vincent M.M. Galici Sr. narrates the story of generations of the Stanoli's, an Italian family involved in organized crime. It journeys through the lives of key figures in the clan and traces their lifestyles, ideals, purposes, successes, failures, and the will to march on despite heartbreaking setbacks and sometimes inhuman decisions.Filled with colorful characters, Stanoli provides insight into one Mafia family where the will to correct poor choices and make a better life for their progeny is the hope and dream. Some achieve it while others fall short perpetuating a seemingly insurmountable cycle. Yet with each generational attempt, courage abides and promise of a better posterity is cultivated. Some will never change, leaving a legacy of gloom and doom, while others become the better person, paying whatever price to attain the dream and leave a bright and happy trail.