Unlikely Angel


Book Description

Dolly Parton's success as a performer and pop culture phenomenon has overshadowed her achievements as a songwriter. But she sees herself as a songwriter first, and with good reason. Parton's compositions like "I Will Always Love You" and "Jolene" have become American standards with an impact far beyond country music. Lydia R. Hamessley's expert analysis and Parton’s characteristically straightforward input inform this comprehensive look at the process, influences, and themes that have shaped the superstar's songwriting artistry. Hamessley reveals how Parton’s loving, hardscrabble childhood in the Smoky Mountains provided the musical language, rhythms, and memories of old-time music that resonate in so many of her songs. Hamessley further provides an understanding of how Parton combines her cultural and musical heritage with an artisan’s sense of craft and design to compose eloquent, painfully honest, and gripping songs about women's lives, poverty, heartbreak, inspiration, and love. Filled with insights on hit songs and less familiar gems, Unlikely Angel covers the full arc of Dolly Parton's career and offers an unprecedented look at the creative force behind the image.




Unlikely Angel


Book Description

In April 2005, Ashley Smith made headlines around the globe when she miraculously talked her way out of the hands of alleged courthouse killer Brian Nichols after he took her hostage for seven hours in her suburban Atlanta apartment. In this moving, inspirational memoir, the 26-year-old widowed mother of a six-year-old girl shares for the first time the little-known details of her traumatic ordeal, and expands on how her faith and the bestselling book The Purpose-Driven« Life helped her survive and bring the killer's murderous rampage to a peaceful end. Just as she told her 6'1", 210-pound captor that his ultimate "purpose" in life was to end up spending the rest of his life in prison, preaching the teachings of Jesus Christ to his fellow inmates, Smith believes her own purpose is to spread that message of love to the rest of us. Juxtaposing the minute-by-minute tale of her experience with the never-before-told tragedies and triumphs of her own life, Unlikely Angel is a gripping tale of downfall and redemption, involving addiction, violence, death, loss, faith, and love. It is a story that will leave no reader untouched.




An Unlikely Angel


Book Description

Juel Jones could play a guitar the first time she picked one up, but nobody ever knew. A beautiful girl from a troubled family, she gets lost in the world at an early age and sells herself for money. Living in a dingy motel, barely nineteen years old, she writes the first two verses of a song that will one day be heard by the world. Her audience, a stray yellow cat. Working in a massage parlor a thousand miles from home, Juel sets out hitchhiking in a fit of anger when along comes Sammy Reed. Twenty-one the day the story begins, Sammy is drifting through life in the aftermath of an unthinkable family tragedy, California bound from North Carolina in a windowless 69 Camaro. Over the next six months and several thousand miles, things happen in the lives of these two beautiful losers that cant be logically explained. Things such as the song and its incredible, mysterious journey from the back of a brown paper sack to a number one hit. As the writer of this story I attempt to raise a number of interesting possibilities. The characters I use and the things they do, and say, will offend some people, I know. In their defense Id simply say that I personally believe God meant everybody to matter. Everybody.




The Unlikely Angel


Book Description

The daughter of a wealthy merchant devotes her life to London's orphans, many of whom are the result of society's rakes and their conquests. Considered an old maid at twenty-five, she has no use for anything except donations. But when a handsome Viscount becomes her landlord and doubles her rent, she readies herself for battle. When they eventually meet she is caught off-guard by his disarming charm, and suddenly feels the long-ago stirring of innocent young charges....




Fallen Angel


Book Description

Walter Stadnick is not an imposing man. At five-foot-four, his face and arms scarred by fire in a motorcycle accident, he would not spring to mind as a leader of Canada's most notorious biker gang, the Hells Angels. yet through sheer guts and determination, intelligence and luck, this Hamilton-born youth who had the nickname of "Nurget" rose in the Hells Angels ranks to become national president. Not only did he lead the Angels through the violent war with their rivals the rock machine in Montreal in the Nineties, Stadnick saw opportunity to grow the Hells Angels into a national criminal gang. he was a visionary--and a highly successful one. Bikers are not known for their fondness for rival gangs. Stadnick and the Angels fought and defeated rival gangs, or used power of persuasion to patch them over. As Stadnick's influence spread, law enforcement took notice of the growing presence of the Angels in Ontario, Manitoba and British Columbia. However, Stadnick's success did not come without a price. Arrested and charged with 13 counts of first-degree murder, stadnick beat the murder charges but was convicted of gangsterism and is currently serving time. Fallen Angel details one man's improbable rise to power in one of the world's most violent organizations, while shedding light on how this enigmatic and dangerous biker gang operated and why it remains so powerful.




The Unfinished Angel


Book Description

Newbery Medal winner Sharon Creech crafts a truly endearing story, one that is imbued with happiness, wonder, and an appreciation for all the little things that make life big. With beautiful, fresh new cover art, this is a gem of a book. In the winding stone tower of the Casa Rosa, in a quiet little village in the Swiss Alps, lives one very unlikely angel—one that is still awaiting her instructions from the angel-training center. What happens to an angel who doesn't know her mission? She floats and swishes from high above, watching the crazy things that "peoples" say and do. But when a zany American girl named Zola arrives in town and invades the Casa Rosa, dogs start arfing, figs start flying through the air, lost orphans wander in, and the village becomes anything but quiet. And as Zola and the angel work together to rescue the orphans, they each begin to realize their purpose and learn that there is magic in the most ordinary acts of kindness.




Unlikely Friends


Book Description

With the guidance of an angel, fifteen-year-old juvenile offender Jason discovers the rewards of working with and helping Kelly, who is in a wheelchair.




The Better Angels of Our Nature


Book Description

Faced with the ceaseless stream of news about war, crime, and terrorism, one could easily think this is the most violent age ever seen. Yet as bestselling author Pinker shows in this startling and engaging new work, just the opposite is true.




Christmas Angel


Book Description

Weary of war, Leander Knollis, Earl of Charrington, wants a home, a wife, and a good, old-fashioned English Christmas. Unable to fall in love, he offers a marriage of convenience to widow Judith Rossiter. Judith wonders why an attractive earl would propose to a impoverished widow with two young children. But after the folly of her first marriage, a sensible rather than sentimental union is what she wants--or so she believes when she says her vows.




Angel in Aisle 3


Book Description

In the tradition of An Invisible Thread and Same Kind of Different as Me, Angel in Aisle 3 is the “heartwrenching yet hopeful” (Publishers Weekly) true story of an unlikely friendship that began with a chance meeting in a grocery store between a bank executive bound for prison and an elderly stranger. When Kevin West resigned from his job as vice president of a bank after making fraudulent loans, he spent the time before his trial managing a family-owned, small grocery store in Ironton, Ohio. Dealing with serious marriage problems and with a prison sentence almost certainly in his future, Kevin was overcome with remorse and without a scrap of hope. It was at his lowest moment that Kevin called out to a power beyond himself for help, and God answered his prayer in the form of an elderly vagrant named Don. What began as a chance meeting between two individuals whose lives seemed headed for certain ruin turns into an unlikely friendship that saved them both. It was this friendship that helped Kevin thrive in prison, restore his failed marriage, and gave Don a chance at a new life that went beyond anyone’s imagination. Moving and awe-inspiring, this story of a pure friendship sheds light on the redemption and hope that can grow out of relationships based in faith.




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