Keep the Faith


Book Description

"Forceful talent" (Essence Magazine) and R&B sensation Faith Evans gives us a first person account of life at ground zero of the most infamous part of hip-hop history. It's been over ten years since Big was killed. I grieved for him for a very long time. And then, as time passed, the icy wall of grief surrounding my heart began to thaw and I began to heal. I remarried, had more children, and continued to record and release more music. I continued to live my life. And while I can never discount the time I spent with Big, I've never felt the need to live in the past. But sometimes, I still find myself thinking about Big being rushed the hospital, and I break down in tears. It's not just because we hung up on each other during what would be our last telephone conversation. And it's not because I am raising our son, a young man who has never known his father. It's partly all of those things. But mainly it's because he wasn't ready to go. His debut album was called Ready to Die. But in the end, he wasn't. Big never got a chance to tell his story. It's been left to others to tell it for him. In making the decision to tell my own story, it means that I've become one of those who can give insight to who Big really was. But I can only speak on what he meant to me. Yet I also want people to understand that although he was a large part of my life, my story doesn't actually begin or end with Big's death. My journey has been complicated on many levels. And since I am always linked to Big, there are a lot of misconceptions about who I really am. I hope that in reading my words, there is inspiration to be found. Perhaps you can duplicate my success or achieve where I have failed. Maybe you can skip over the mistakes I've made. Use my life as an example-of what to do and in some cases, what not to do. It's not easy putting your life out there for the masses. But I've decided I'll tell my own story. For Big. For my children. And for myself.




Billboard


Book Description

In its 114th year, Billboard remains the world's premier weekly music publication and a diverse digital, events, brand, content and data licensing platform. Billboard publishes the most trusted charts and offers unrivaled reporting about the latest music, video, gaming, media, digital and mobile entertainment issues and trends.




Would I Lie to You?


Book Description

In this “total page-turner,” wife and mother Faiza is about to find what happens when you have your dream life and are about to lose it... but only if you're caught (Sarah Pearse, New York Times bestselling author of The Sanatorium). At the school gates, Faiza fits in. It took a few years, but now the snobbish white mothers who mistook her for the nanny treat her as one of their own. She's learned to crack their subtle codes, speak their language of fashion and vacations and haircuts. You'd never guess, seeing her at the trendy kids' parties and the leisurely coffee mornings, that her childhood was spent being bullied and being embarrassed of her poor Pakistani immigrant parents. When her husband Tom loses his job in finance, he stays calm. Something will come along, and in the meantime, they can live off their savings. But Faiza starts to unravel. Creating the perfect life and raising the perfect family comes at a cost – and the money Tom put aside has gone. Faiza will have to tell him she spent it all. Unless she doesn't... It only takes a second to lie to Tom. Now Faiza has mere weeks to find $100,000. If anyone can do it, Faiza can. She's had to fight for what she has, and she'll fight to keep it. But as the clock ticks down and Faiza desperately tries to put things right, she has to ask herself: how much more should she sacrifice to live someone else's idea of the dream life?







Skein Island


Book Description

From the author of The Loosening Skin and The Beauty, Aliya Whiteley, Skein Island is a powerful and disturbing look at the roles we play, and how they form and divide us. This new edition features a brand new novelette set in the same world as Skein Island. Skein Island, a private refuge twelve miles off the coast of Devon, lies in turbulent waters. Few receive the invitation to stay for one week, free of charge. If you are chosen, you must pay for your stay with a story from your past; a Declaration for the Island's vast library. What happens to your Declaration after you leave the island is none of your concern. From the monsters of Ancient Greece to the atrocities of World War II, from heroes to villains with their seers and sidekicks by their sides, Skein Island looks through the roles we play, and how they form and divide us. Powerful and disturbing, it is a story over which the characters will fight for control. Until they realise the true enemy is the story itself.




Aliya's Surprise


Book Description

Aliya has her eyes set on Anil - a doctor in his early fifties - and is on a mission to seduce him. They, then, spend a night to remember, together. Know what happens next in the latest installment of the Billionaire Romance Saga by Chetna Khanna.




Crunch Time


Book Description

In Crunch Time, Aliya Hamid Rao gets up close and personal with college-educated, unemployed men, women, and spouses to explain how comparable men and women have starkly different experiences of unemployment. Traditionally gendered understandings of work—that it’s a requirement for men and optional for women—loom large in this process, even for marriages that had been not organized in gender-traditional ways. These beliefs serve to make men’s unemployment an urgent problem, while women’s unemployment—cocooned within a narrative of staying at home—is almost a non-issue. Crunch Time reveals the minutiae of how gendered norms and behaviors are actively maintained by spouses at a time when they could be dismantled, and how gender is central to the ways couples react to and make sense of unemployment.




The Lost Light


Book Description

“Being a candle is not easy: in order to give light, one must first burn.” — Rumi Every child in the world deserves a great childhood, right? Although Diya did have a childhood, it wasn’t really the one we imagine for our children. Growing up in an Indian household, she was taught from a young age that family was everything and it did not matter if they were your cousins—they were still like your own siblings. But as Diya was growing up, she found this was not the case, and the more she ignored everything around her, the more perplexed she became about herself and who she was. We all have tough times in our lives, and life at times can be a confusing roller coaster, but it is a matter of knowing who we are from within and trusting the true voice within us all. Diya is now finding this out, and she hopes to be an inspiration for many others, just as she was inspired and encouraged to write her story and share it with others. This is based on a true story. All characters are real, but for privacy, all names have been changed.




Diamond Life


Book Description

The follow-up to the critically acclaimed novel Platinum, Diamond Life returns to the smoke and mirrors world of fame with brand new characters and more true to life plotlines. Alex Maxwell’s career as a journalist and celebrity ghostwriter is taking off, but it pales in comparison to her rapper husband Birdie’s multi-platinum debut and world tour. Slowly but surely, everything they swore would never happen begins to happen—leaving Brooklyn for a mansion in suburban New Jersey and letting a reality TV crew into their home. Birdie is confronted time and again by the sexy groupies who pursue famous rappers, and he’s forced to make some life-changing choices. Meanwhile, the largely unknown performers Trip and Step release their new single, and it becomes the hottest song of the year. The duo’s popularity spreads like wildfire at the expense of entertainment’s leading icons—Jake and Z—who seem to be losing their edge, their market share, and perhaps their reputations, too. Diamond Life doesn’t just pick up where Platinum left off—it reintroduces Platinum’s main characters from a different perspective and gives background characters center stage while presenting future stars. Whether readers have read the first book or not, they’ll be swept up by this intoxicating story of love, sex, ambition, money, betrayal, and the surprising realities of making it big.




Billboard


Book Description

In its 114th year, Billboard remains the world's premier weekly music publication and a diverse digital, events, brand, content and data licensing platform. Billboard publishes the most trusted charts and offers unrivaled reporting about the latest music, video, gaming, media, digital and mobile entertainment issues and trends.