Lily's Story


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In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), inhuman conditions within its vast mining industry, and endemic corruption at the highest levels of government are hardly uncommon. But when native son, Jean Amani, rises to the role of minister of mines in the mineral rich Katanga province, he vows to advocate for workers’ rights and expose the industry’s unscrupulous dealings. Jean’s investigations are quickly curtailed when he dies in a car crash. It’s just another soon-forgotten tragedy in this region of the world. But not to Lily, Jean’s daughter with his wife, Laura, a descendent of the Janssens, one of the region’s founding Belgian families. To cope with her grief, Lily enrols in journalism school in Montreal, Canada, where she befriends André Fortin, a freelance photojournalist, and Logan Taylor, scion of the Taylor Media Group. The trio teams up to make a documentary about the mining industry in the DRC. Lily’s sole motivation, however, is uncovering what truly happened to her father. Lily’s Story is a tale about romance and power, one reveals the profound injustices often suffered by citizens in resource-rich African countries.




Lily the Silent


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The second History of Arcadia novel is the tale of reluctant queen Lily, narrated by her daughter Sophia the Wise.




The Ambassador


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Coates's Herd Book


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The Ambassador's Wife


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The Ambassador's Wife


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In the Beauty of the Lilies


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In the Beauty of the Lilies begins in 1910 and traces God’s relation to four generations of American seekers, beginning with Clarence Wilmot, a clergyman in Paterson, New Jersey. He loses his faith but finds solace at the movies, respite from “the bleak facts of life, his life, gutted by God’s withdrawal.” His son, Teddy, becomes a mailman who retreats from American exceptionalism, religious and otherwise, into a life of studied ordinariness. Teddy has a daughter, Esther, who becomes a movie star, an object of worship, an All-American goddess. Her neglected son, Clark, is possessed of a native Christian fervor that brings the story full circle: in the late 1980s he joins a Colorado sect called the Temple, a handful of “God’s elect” hastening the day of reckoning. In following the Wilmots’ collective search for transcendence, John Updike pulls one wandering thread from the tapestry of the American Century and writes perhaps the greatest of his later novels.




Lily Packed a Facemask


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At the end of February 2020, Larry and Ann Thomas left their home in Issaquah, Washington, for a three-week vacation visiting family in Colorado and Texas. News of the coronavirus pandemic was slowly spreading. By the middle of March 2020 the world had changed and the global pandemic was in full swing. The Thomases decided to shelter in place in Flower Mound, Texas, for the next six weeks. On March 17, 2020, when Larry returned to his work as the interim pastor at Sammamish Hills Lutheran Church in Sammamish, Washington, it was from a makeshift office in Texas, not his office in Sammamish. Working remotely, Pastor Thomas began organizing weekly virtual prayer gatherings and Bible studies. In order to connect with the congregation, he started writing pastoral letters as a way of reflecting on the intersection of faith, hope, and love while living through the pandemic. Lily Packed a Facemask is a chronicle of one pastor's commitment to engage with a congregation during the 2020 coronavirus pandemic. Grounded in biblical texts, Thomas takes the threads of a variety of writers and contemporary resources and weaves a tapestry of living life faithfully in the midst of a year of constant changes and challenges.




Lily's Rules Construed


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The Madonna Lily


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Yitzakh and Naomi, brother and sister, escaped the Warsaw ghetto in 1942. The two Jews were drawn to what their father repeatedly called their homeland, Palestine. As they stepped upon the shore of their new home, two strong but different forces ensnared them. Naomi fell in love with a quiet Arab introduced as Anwar. Yitzakh felt the land absorb him and consume his soul. A longed-for peace seduced the two but soon vanished as World War II engulfed the area. The Nazis that pushed Yitzakh and Naomi from Warsaw now forced Anwar and Naomi away from their home. Made to live in western Syria, the young couple produced a son, Abraham. However, his future was denied his mother. The former "Ghetto Rat," Yitzakh, was forced back to violence, a partisan's life, and into a tenuous partnership with a strong ruthless Arab named Hafez. The war ended, and Palestine soon became the State of Israel and the once partisan comrades became enemies of necessity. In 1967 Syria and Israel clashed in the Golan, and Abraham, Anwar, Yitzakh, and Hafez became embroiled in a vicious plot to destroy one country and solidify the strength of another. A master's chess game of violence began and under the direction of the two former comrades, all became pawns. An unforeseen element, with roots that mimicked Yitzakh and captured Abraham as surely as Anwar had captured his mother, entered the clash. It would take all of Yitzhak's guile, ferocity, and love to save his country without destroying the ones he held dear. Hafez, as well as voices and memories from the past, haunted the old Jew, as the two warriors moved elements of their world to face and destroy each other.