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A Tale of Two Cities (Classics Illustrated Notes)

Must one honorable man pay for the sins of his cruel, aristocratic family? Can an old man brutally wronged by that family find forgiveness before it's too late? And will history--the sweeping violence of the French Revolution--force father to betray child in his search for vengeance? A Tale of Two Cities is Charles Dickens's immortal story of love and ultimate sacrifice.

The Meter Maid Murders

In this comic thriller about a serial killer loose on South Beach murdering meter maids and starring Jake Bricker, the most ineffective detective ever, the first meter maid murder was thought to be an accident. The second one, a coincidence. But when a third meter maid is killed, Chief Raffy Ramirez knows he has a serial killer on his hands.

And when that meter maid, Samantha Succubus, turns out to be the sister of Sara Succubus, the lead anchor of the XYZ Network’s top-rated morning news program in New York, the story becomes an international sensation.

Stuck in a difficult re-election campaign, Miami Beach Mayor Johnny Germane leans on Chief Ramirez to solve the murders, and now! But Ramirez has every man on the Force working the case, except Jake Bricker, a cop Ramirez has labelled “The Ineffective Detective.” Finally, giving in to pressure, Ramirez puts Bricker on the case. “What harm can he do?”

When Bricker tells his high school buddy, Billy Willoughby, that he’s on the case, Billy is overjoyed. In fact, Billy (chief investigative reporter for the local XYZ affiliate, Channel 69, WHY-TV) has just developed a lead himself and he shares it with Jake.

A year earlier, Billy had covered a ceremony at which Mayor Germane presented awards to the top 12 meter maids who wrote the most tickets in the last fiscal year. These meter maids were featured in a splashy color calendar. When the meter maids started dying, some of the victims looked familiar, so Billy did a little research and discovered that the meter maid murderer was killing the meter maids in the calendar, one by one, month by month, starting with January. Jake can’t believe his good fortune. “You mean ... we know who his next fuckin’ victim will be?” “Yep,” says Billy, “Miss April.”

Billy wants to go tell Chief Ramirez the news, break the story and win an Emmy, but Jake gets him to sit on the scoop so Jake can catch the killer red-handed and take all the credit. “Billy, my career really needs this,” he begs.

Of course, even though he knows the killer’s next target, Bricker somehow misses nabbing the killer, one meter maid after another, till by Miss November, Billy is losing patience with his high school buddy.

In this comic thriller about a serial killer loose on South Beach murdering meter maids and starring Jake Bricker, the most ineffective detective ever, the first meter maid murder was thought to be an accident. The second one, a coincidence. But when a third meter maid is killed, Chief Raffy Ramirez knows he has a serial killer on his hands.

And when that meter maid, Samantha Succubus, turns out to be the sister of Sara Succubus, the lead anchor of the XYZ Network’s top-rated morning news program in New York, the story becomes an international sensation.

Stuck in a difficult re-election campaign, Miami Beach Mayor Johnny Germane leans on Chief Ramirez to solve the murders, and now! But Ramirez has every man on the Force working the case, except Jake Bricker, a cop Ramirez has labelled “The Ineffective Detective.” Finally, giving in to pressure, Ramirez puts Bricker on the case. “What harm can he do?”

When Bricker tells his high school buddy, Billy Willoughby, that he’s on the case, Billy is overjoyed. In fact, Billy (chief investigative reporter for the local XYZ affiliate, Channel 69, WHY-TV) has just developed a lead himself and he shares it with Jake.

A year earlier, Billy had covered a ceremony at which Mayor Germane presented awards to the top 12 meter maids who wrote the most tickets in the last fiscal year. These meter maids were featured in a splashy color calendar. When the meter maids started dying, some of the victims looked familiar, so Billy did a little research and discovered that the meter maid murderer was killing the meter maids in the calendar, one by one, month by month, starting with January. Jake can’t believe his good fortune. “You mean ... we know who his next fuckin’ victim will be?” “Yep,” says Billy, “Miss April.”

Billy wants to go tell Chief Ramirez the news, break the story and win an Emmy, but Jake gets him to sit on the scoop so Jake can catch the killer red-handed and take all the credit. “Billy, my career really needs this,” he begs.

Of course, even though he knows the killer’s next target, Bricker somehow misses nabbing the killer, one meter maid after another, till by Miss November, Billy is losing patience with his high school buddy.

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

Chasing Rainbows

Bernadette Murphy likes her life. Really, she does. What's wrong with carrying around an extra ten pounds from fertility treatments? Or having your dog kicked out of obedience school? Again? What's that saying about the devil you know? For Bernie, it's the devil she never expected that changes everything.

Her father's sudden death leaves a gaping void in her life and is one in a series of events that rock her world. Her husband leaves for another woman, and her best friend announces an unplanned pregnancy at the age of forty-one. Bernie's behavior goes from acting out to out-of-hand, and she finds herself in trouble at home, out of work and banned from the mall after a confrontation at the cosmetic counter.

When her mother discovers her father's book of cryptograms, Bernie realizes his encoded lessons in living might be exactly what she needs to survive. From dealing with her family's grief and bonding with her best friend's thirteen-year-old daughter, to dieting, dating and mindless almost-sex with the landscaper, Bernie discovers what her father always knew.

In life, you either choose to sing a rainbow, or you don't.

For Bernie, the singing is about to begin.

Bernadette Murphy likes her life. Really, she does. What's wrong with carrying around an extra ten pounds from fertility treatments? Or having your dog kicked out of obedience school? Again? What's that saying about the devil you know? For Bernie, it's the devil she never expected that changes everything.

Her father's sudden death leaves a gaping void in her life and is one in a series of events that rock her world. Her husband leaves for another woman, and her best friend announces an unplanned pregnancy at the age of forty-one. Bernie's behavior goes from acting out to out-of-hand, and she finds herself in trouble at home, out of work and banned from the mall after a confrontation at the cosmetic counter.

When her mother discovers her father's book of cryptograms, Bernie realizes his encoded lessons in living might be exactly what she needs to survive. From dealing with her family's grief and bonding with her best friend's thirteen-year-old daughter, to dieting, dating and mindless almost-sex with the landscaper, Bernie discovers what her father always knew.

In life, you either choose to sing a rainbow, or you don't.

For Bernie, the singing is about to begin.

Is it Just Me or Is Everyone a Little Nuts?

A humorous set of short stories and snippets of life that will make you think, smile and full-on laugh out-loud! Daily events such as the discovery of a dreaded chin hair, or choosing a halloween costume take on new meaning through the honest and quirky view of the author. Marriage, parenting, aging and small town living are addressed through the filter of laughter, often at the author's own expense.

Northanger Abbey and Angels and Dragons

From the author of Mansfield Park and Mummies...

NORTHANGER ABBEY AND ANGELS AND DRAGONS

Dragons in the skies of Regency England!

Gothic horrors collide with high satire in this elegant, hilarious, witty, insane, and unexpectedly romantic supernatural parody of Jane Austen's classic novel.

Young and naive Catherine Morland is constantly surrounded by angels only she alone can see. Leaving her country home for the first time, to embark on a grand adventure that begins in fashionable Bath, our romantic heroine must not only decrypt the mystery of the Udolpho Code but win her true love Henry Tilney.

Meanwhile she is beset by all the Gothic horrors known to Impressionable Young Ladies -- odious demons, Regency balls, elusive ghosts, pleasure excursions, temperature-changing nephilim, secret clues, ogre suitors, and a terrifying ancient Dragon who has very likely hidden a secret treasure hoard somewhere in the depths of Northanger Abbey.

Gentle Reader -- this Delightful Illustrated Edition includes Scholarly Footnotes and Appendices.

From the author of Mansfield Park and Mummies...

NORTHANGER ABBEY AND ANGELS AND DRAGONS

Dragons in the skies of Regency England!

Gothic horrors collide with high satire in this elegant, hilarious, witty, insane, and unexpectedly romantic supernatural parody of Jane Austen's classic novel.

Young and naive Catherine Morland is constantly surrounded by angels only she alone can see. Leaving her country home for the first time, to embark on a grand adventure that begins in fashionable Bath, our romantic heroine must not only decrypt the mystery of the Udolpho Code but win her true love Henry Tilney.

Meanwhile she is beset by all the Gothic horrors known to Impressionable Young Ladies -- odious demons, Regency balls, elusive ghosts, pleasure excursions, temperature-changing nephilim, secret clues, ogre suitors, and a terrifying ancient Dragon who has very likely hidden a secret treasure hoard somewhere in the depths of Northanger Abbey.

Gentle Reader -- this Delightful Illustrated Edition includes Scholarly Footnotes and Appendices.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Classics Illustrated Notes)

Mark Twain's story of a mischievous Missouri schoolboy combines humor, terror, and astute social criticism in a delightful tale of life on the Mississippi. Written in 1876, Tom Sawyer became the model for an ideal of American boyhood in the 19th century.

Wife by Wednesday

Blake Harrison:
Rich, titled, and charming… And in need of a wife by Wednesday so he turns to Sam Elliot who isn’t the business man he expected. Instead, Blake is faced with Samantha Elliot, engaging and spunky with a voice men call 900 numbers to hear.

Samantha Elliot:
Owner of Alliance, her matchmaking firm, and not on the marital menu... That is until Blake offers her ten million dollars for a one-year contract. All she needs to do is keep her attraction to her husband to herself and avoid his bed. But Blake’s toe-curling kisses and charm prove too difficult to combat. Now she needs to protect her heart so she can walk away when their mercenary life together is over.

Blake Harrison:
Rich, titled, and charming… And in need of a wife by Wednesday so he turns to Sam Elliot who isn’t the business man he expected. Instead, Blake is faced with Samantha Elliot, engaging and spunky with a voice men call 900 numbers to hear.

Samantha Elliot:
Owner of Alliance, her matchmaking firm, and not on the marital menu... That is until Blake offers her ten million dollars for a one-year contract. All she needs to do is keep her attraction to her husband to herself and avoid his bed. But Blake’s toe-curling kisses and charm prove too difficult to combat. Now she needs to protect her heart so she can walk away when their mercenary life together is over.

Uncle Tom's Cabin (Classic Illustrated)

Uncle Tom's Cabin is an American classic written by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Harriet Beecher Stowe was appalled by slavery, and she took one of the few options open to nineteenth-century women who wanted to affect public opinion: she wrote a novel, a huge, enthralling narrative that claimed the heart, soul, and politics of pre-Civil War Americans. An overtly moralistic work of unabashed propaganda, it is an attempt to make whites North and South see slaves as mothers, fathers, and children as human beings. Her basic question remains penetrating even today: Is man ever a creature to be trusted with wholly irresponsible power? Uncle Tom's Cabin is an American classic that every American should read.

The Picture of Dorian Gray

Oscar Wilde's only novel, a classic instance of the aestheticism of the 19th century English literature. Dorian is what I would like to be - in other ages, perhaps, said Oscar Wilde describing this novel. Basil Hallward is what I think I am. Lord Henry is what the world thinks I am.

In the centre of the room, clamped to an upright easel, stood the full-length portrait of a young man of extraordinary personal beauty, and in front of it, some little distance away, was sitting the artist himself, Basil Hallward, whose sudden disappearance some years ago caused, at the time, such public excitement and gave rise to so many strange conjectures.

As the painter looked at the gracious and comely form he had so skilfully mirrored in his art, a smile of pleasure passed across his face, and seemed about to linger there. But he suddenly started up, and closing his eyes, placed his fingers upon the lids, as though he sought to imprison within his brain some curious dream from which he feared he might awake.

How sad it is! murmured Dorian Gray with his eyes still fixed upon his own portrait. How sad it is! I shall grow old, and horrible, and dreadful. But this picture will remain always young. It will never be older than this particular day of June.... If it were only the other way! If it were I who was to be always young, and the picture that was to grow old! For that - for that - I would give everything! Yes, there is nothing in the whole world I would not give! I would give my soul for that!

A lush, cautionary tale of a life of vileness and deception or a loving portrait of the aesthetic impulse run rampant? Why not both? After Basil Hallward paints a beautiful, young man's portrait, his subject's frivolous wish that the picture change and he remain the same comes true. Dorian Gray's picture grows aged and corrupt while he continues to appear fresh and innocent. After he kills a young woman, "as surely as if I had cut her little throat with a knife," Dorian Gray is surprised to find no difference in his vision or surroundings. "The roses are not less lovely for all that. The birds sing just as happily in my garden."

As Hallward tries to make sense of his creation, his epigram-happy friend Lord Henry Wotton encourages Dorian in his sensual quest with any number of Wildean paradoxes, including the delightful "When we are happy we are always good, but when we are good we are not always happy." But despite its many languorous pleasures, The Picture of Dorian Gray is an imperfect work. Compared to the two (voyeuristic) older men, Dorian is a bore, and his search for ever new sensations far less fun than the novel's drawing-room discussions. Even more oddly, the moral message of the novel contradicts many of Wilde's supposed aims, not least "no artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style." Nonetheless, the glamour boy gets his just deserts. And Wilde, defending Dorian Gray, had it both ways: "All excess, as well as all renunciation, brings its own punishment."