Summer of Haint Blue


Book Description

A poor teenage Louisiana Cajun boy parrots without questioning many of the racist views of southern society. He learns a lesson that people who seem different are surprisingly the same and relatable.




The Perfect Shade of Haint Blue


Book Description

Heeding the Signs Mark Hersch enjoys a busy summer in his favorite place: with his grandparents in Hartstown, Virginia. Working, saving for college, learning to drive. Getting to know his family and himself. Then one job brings a shiver of warning. Will Mark and his Papaw recognize the danger before it's too late? A Voices through Time Story Also available in the collection Stepping Out of Reality An excerpt from The Perfect Shade of Haint Blue: Learning to Heed Those Strange Warnings Mark frowned, but a quick little thrill of excitement shot through his belly. The change of pace and scenery was doing him a world of good, especially since he was considering coming right back to Virginia for college in a couple of years. But he wouldn't mind a bit of mystery and adventure to spice things up. "Did something strange happen there, Papaw? At the Hartsock place?" "Well no, I can't exactly say that. It's just... I got an uneasy twinge about you going there is all." Mark's father and everyone else in the family often talked about Papaw's twinges, and hunches, and notions, and even dreams. No one ever made much of a fuss about it that Mark could tell. But they never mentioned thinking those twinges were something it was better to ignore, either.




Haint Blue


Book Description

Gold Medalist for Paranormal Fiction in the 2021 Reader's Favorite Contest "Charleston’s favorite ghost-talking divorcée returns in Alexander’s latest supernatural mystery... A well-told, deeply felt addition to a ghostly mystery series." — Kirkus "... a highly engaging paranormal mystery filled with frolic, fun, and genuine nail-biting moments... a really fresh take on the paranormal genre, setting this novel apart from others...." — Readers' Favorite Clairvoyant single mom Tipsy Collins is easing into a post-divorce new normal. She’s solved a century-old murder mystery and brought peace to her house. She’s rebuilding her artistic career and co-parenting with her ornery ex-husband. She’s hopeful that her boyfriend is Mr. Right. Mercurial phantom Henry Mott still haunts her house, but he’s become a dear friend. Tipsy plans to return to her lifelong habit of ignoring restless spirits. A series of sudden financial and personal setbacks leave her feeling like she's back to square one, until a new friendship offers unexpected financial salvation. Ivy More has been haunting a Sullivan's Island cottage since the 1940s. Ivy's eccentric granddaughter, Pamella Brewton, will pay big bucks if Tipsy can figure out how to free her moody, volatile Meemaw. It turns out there was more to Ivy’s death than a simple swan dive off the dock at low tide. To complicate matters, Ivy had a secret lover. Shockingly, he's someone Tipsy has seen before. As Tipsy struggles with heartbreak, her ex-husband's shenanigans, and a growing sense of frustration with life, she turns to Henry for help solving Ivy's mystery. She finds herself learning from her brooding housemate, but also from Ivy, who has far more in common with Tipsy than either of them expect.




The Summer's End


Book Description

In this next novel in the Lowcountry Summer series, New York Times bestselling author Mary Alice Monroe returns to the charm and sultrybeauty of Sullivan's Island, South Carolina, and the Muir family--three half sisters bound by love for their grandmother and the Carolina lowcountry--in an unforgettable tale of family bonds and love as strong and steady as the tides.




Forever Beautiful


Book Description

Bestselling author Sikes, now the “standard bearer of great American design” (Architectural Digest), returns with a new book of fresh yet classic American decorating. AD100 and Elle Decor A-List designer and tastemaker Sikes believes there’s beauty everywhere: all we have to do is look for it. His classic, livable looks are beloved by celebrities and notables from Reese Witherspoon to Dr. Jill Biden, who hired him to redesign her White House office. In this third book of the Beautiful trilogy, Sikes celebrates a full year of beautiful interiors inspired by nature. Colors, patterns, and textures, including his favorite blue and white, chinoiserie, rattan, gingham, stripes, and more, came from the world outside these rooms. In twelve chapters, he shares inspiration and advice from homes he has designed across America and abroad. There is a house for every month of the year, inspired by the seasons, from April’s leafy green Gardens of Versailles–inspired French Chateau-style home outside of Chicago to crisp navy in East Hampton for June, August’s homage to the pink sands in Bermuda, and holiday reds for December’s Swiss-style chalet on a sweeping horse ranch near Sun Valley, Idaho. Throughout, each house features Sikes’s signature touches, inspirational quotes, and tradition updated for today. With all-new light-filled photography by Amy Neunsinger, Forever Beautiful reminds new and returning readers alike of the power of making it beautiful.




An Unlikely Vineyard


Book Description

An Unlikely Vineyard tells the evolutionary story of Deirdre Heekin's farm from overgrown fields to a fertile, productive, and beautiful landscape that melds with its natural environment. Is it possible to capture landscape in a bottle? To express its terroir, its essence of place--geology, geography, climate, and soil--as well as the skill of the winegrower? That's what Heekin and her chef/husband, Caleb Barber, set out to accomplish on their tiny, eight-acre hillside farm and vineyard in Vermont. But An Unlikely Vineyard involves much more. It also presents, through the example of their farming journey and winegrowing endeavors, an impressive amount of information on how to think about almost every aspect of gardening: from composting to trellising; from cider and perry making to growing old garden roses, keeping bees, and raising livestock; from pruning (or not) to dealing naturally with pests and diseases. Challenged by cold winters, wet summers, and other factors, Deirdre and Caleb set about to grow not only a vineyard, but an orchard of heirloom apples, pears, and plums, as well as gardens filled with vegetables, herbs, roses, and wildflowers destined for their own table and for the kitchen of their small restaurant. They wanted to create, or rediscover, a sense of place, and to grow food naturally using the philosophy and techniques gleaned from organic gardening, permaculture, and biodynamic farming. Accompanied throughout by lush photos, this gentle narrative will appeal to anyone who loves food, farms, and living well.




Summer Ruins


Book Description

A final battle for the survival of Earth is coming. Between the alien Others and the destruction of humanity stand four Dissidents. When the Prime Other banishes them to the Harvest Site to live the remainder of their time on earth as slaves, the Dissidents use the opportunity to learn more about the substance that keeps the Others alive…and how they might use it to their advantage. But the Others guard their secrets well, and the Prime Other has proven his willingness to do whatever’s necessary to secure a future for his race, no matter what or who is destroyed in the process. When Althea and the boys realize their lives could be the key to allowing another planet to suffer the same fate as earth, they promise they’ll die before they let that happen. If they can’t figure out how to turn the tables in their favor before the Summer Celebration, they might have to do just that. The end draws near, and there’s only one question left—are the Dissidents going to save their chosen people or perish alongside them?




Place Attachment


Book Description

Following on from the ground-breaking first edition, which received the 2014 EDRA Achievement Award, this fully updated text includes new chapters on current issues in the built environment, such as GIS and mapping, climate change, and qualitative approaches. Place attachments are powerful emotional bonds that form between people and their physical surroundings. They inform our sense of identity, create meaning in our lives, facilitate community, and influence action. Place attachments have bearing on such diverse issues as rootedness and belonging, placemaking and displacement, mobility and migration, intergroup conflict, civic engagement, social housing and urban redevelopment, natural resource management, and global climate change. In this multidisciplinary book, Manzo and Devine-Wright draw together the latest thinking by leading scholars from around the globe, including contributions from scholars such as Daniel Williams, Mindy Fullilove, Randy Hester, and David Seamon, to capture significant advancements in three main areas: theory, methods, and applications. Over the course of fifteen chapters, using a wide range of conceptual and applied methods, the authors critically review and challenge contemporary knowledge, identify significant advances, and point to areas for future research. This important volume offers the most current understandings about place attachment, a critical concept for the environmental social sciences and placemaking professions.




Ghostoria: Vintage Romantic Tales of Fright


Book Description

Do you like scary stories with a little romance and a vintage twist? Welcome to Ghostoria. What happens when a WWII secretary is trapped in the office with a ghost and the only way out is to make an unwelcome choice? Drive-in movies, hot rods, and jitterbugs populate Long Way Home; can one young man survive a bloody night in a historic cemetery with his girlfriend? Young residents of a cursed Texas town grapple with what they’re willing to sacrifice in order to save their crops, animals and loved ones? Can a kindergarten teacher silence the talking doll that has frightened her students by solving a fifty year old mystery? A lone lady hitchhiker hops a ride in a 1959 El Dorado Cadillac by a roadside grave. Who will be alive at the end of the drive? Find out what happens when college coed gets more than she bargained for with her vintage swing dance dress. A turn of the century jail that housed murderers, liars, and thieves for over a hundred years is taken over by six teenagers on Halloween. What happens when a childhood chant turns deadly? Those are just a few haunts and haints that populate this world of unrequited love, woe and mystery. Ghostoria will gnaw the corners of your mind and challenge your ideas about life, love and death long after you leave.




Haint Misbehavin'


Book Description

The start of a fun middle-grade series, The Ghost Handlers, follows Heather Tildy, an Atlanta teen with a troublesome habit of attracting ghosts. Middle-child Heather has enough to worry about with sisters, boys and school. Now that a trouble-making girl from the 1800's is poking her nose in Heather's business, her life has taken a supernatural turn for the worse! Before her life can get better, she has to figure out how to help the ghost move on. Debut author Hardegree is a veteran short-story author for the well-known MOSSY CREEK HOMETOWN series. She plans multiple titles in this warm and funny YA series. "Ghostly fun!" ~Gillian Summers, The Faire Folk Series "A fun package of crushes, quests for popularity, and summertime antics, tied together with a paranormal bow. Fans of Meg Cabot's Mediator novels will find much to like in Haint Misbehavin', the first of Hardegree's Ghost Handler series." ~Trish Milburn HEARTBREAK RIVER (as Tricia Mills), Razorbill