White Lightning: Episode 2


Book Description

Secrets, Sex and Scandals … Welcome to Storm, Texas, where passion runs hot, desire runs deep, and secrets have the power to destroy… Get ready. The storm is coming. As the citizens of Storm, Texas, sway in the wake of the death of one of their own, Daddy's girl Dakota Alvarez also reels from an unexpected family crisis ... and finds consolation in a most unexpected place.




Tempest Rising: Episode 1


Book Description

Secrets, Sex and Scandals … Welcome to Storm, Texas, where passion runs hot, desire runs deep, and secrets have the power to destroy… Get ready. The storm is coming. Nestled among rolling hills and painted with vibrant wildflowers, the bucolic town of Storm, Texas, seems like nothing short of perfection. But there are secrets beneath the facade. Dark secrets. Powerful secrets. The kind that can destroy lives and tear families apart. The kind that can cut through a town like a tempest, leaving jealousy and destruction in its wake, along with shattered hopes and broken dreams. All it takes is one little thing to shatter that polish. Ginny Moreno didn’t mean to do it, but when she came home to Storm, she brought the tempest with her. And now everyone will be caught in its fury…




Rising Storm: Bundle 1, Episodes 1-4, Season 1


Book Description

Secrets, Sex and Scandals … Welcome to Storm, Texas, where passion runs hot, desire runs deep, and secrets have the power to destroy… Get ready. The storm is coming. Nestled among rolling hills and painted with vibrant wildflowers, the bucolic town of Storm, Texas, seems like nothing short of perfection. But there are secrets beneath the facade. Dark secrets. Powerful secrets. The kind that can destroy lives and tear families apart. The kind that can cut through a town like a tempest, leaving jealousy and destruction in its wake, along with shattered hopes and broken dreams. All it takes is one little thing to shatter that polish. Season 1 – episodes 1-4




Storm Warning, Season 2, Episode 2


Book Description




Romancing the Zombie


Book Description

The zombie--popular culture's undead darling--shows no signs of stopping. But as it develops to suit changing audience tastes, its characteristics transform. This collection of new essays examines the latest incarnation, the romantic zombie, a re-humanized monster we want to help, heal and connect with rather than destroy. The authors discuss our increasingly sympathetic view of the reanimated dead as more than physical bodies devoid of life and personality. Their essays cover a range of topics, including audience obsession with Apocalyptic love; the problem of a kinder, gentler undead; the millennial reinvention of the "sexy zombie"; and "uncanny valley romance."




Lightning Strike


Book Description

An instant New York Times bestseller, this prequel to the acclaimed Cork O’Connor series is “a pitch perfect, richly imagined story that is both an edge-of-your-seat thriller and an evocative, emotionally charged coming-of-age tale” (Kristin Hannah, #1 New York Times bestselling author) about fathers and sons, small-town conflicts, and the events that shape our lives forever. Aurora is a small town nestled in the ancient forest alongside the shores of Minnesota’s Iron Lake. In the summer of 1963, it is the whole world to twelve-year-old Cork O’Connor, its rhythms as familiar as his own heartbeat. But when Cork stumbles upon the body of a man he revered hanging from a tree in an abandoned logging camp, it is the first in a series of events that will cause him to question everything he took for granted about his hometown, his family, and himself. Cork’s father, Liam O’Connor, is Aurora’s sheriff and it is his job to confirm that the man’s death was the result of suicide, as all the evidence suggests. In the shadow of his father’s official investigation, Cork begins to look for answers on his own. Together, father and son face the ultimate test of choosing between what their heads tell them is true and what their hearts know is right. In this “brilliant achievement, and one every crime reader and writer needs to celebrate” (Louise Penny, #1 New York Times bestselling author), beloved novelist William Kent Krueger shows that some mysteries can be solved even as others surpass our understanding.







What America Watched


Book Description

Although television critics have often differed with the public with respect to the artistic and cultural merits of television programming, over the last half-century television has indubitably influenced popular culture and vice versa. No matter what reasons are cited--the characters, the actors, the plots, the music--television shows that were beloved by audiences in their time remain fondly remembered. This study covers the classic period of popular television shows from the 1960s through the 1990s, focusing on how regular viewers interacted with television shows on a personal level. Bridging popular and scholarly approaches, this book discovers what America actually watched and why through documents, footage, visits to filming locations, newspapers, and magazine articles from the shows' eras. The book features extensive notes and bibliography.




Black Dad—White Dad


Book Description

If this book were about a football game, instead of an ordinary life well lived, we would read thirty chapters where your favorite team is two points behind in the fourth quarter with forty five seconds left on the play clock. James is the quarterback and executes a play that produces the winning score with honor and dignity every time. His life is a complex tapestry woven with threads of racism, poverty, alcoholism, bravery, illiteracy, tension, paternal rejection, sexual exploitation, patient endurance, domestic violence and a strong faith in God. The challenges he faces would have caused men of lesser faith to find solutions deeply rooted in violence, hate, alcohol and disregard for humanity and the sacredness of life. James has invited you into the thoughts, feelings, successes, and failures of his life in an intimate and honest presentation. You will be honored by his honesty, and humbled by his courage and determination. There are enough struggles in this personal history to deter the brave but not enough to stop the honored bravery of someone who knows God. Black Dad-White Dad choreographs the life of black kid growing up in Mississippi as he transitioned from sharecropper status to urban life, from illiteracy to education in the forties and fifties. James does what so many think we may want to do in our life. He not only asks the questions but searches for the answers. One might say he should be mad at the world, but he is not. He does not let his life experiences be an excuse or the answer but uses each challenge and blessing as a welcome mat to the next chapter of his life.




Television Variety Shows


Book Description

For the few hundred television viewers in 1946, a special treat on the broadcast schedule was the variety show called Hour Glass. It was the first TV program to go beyond talking heads, cooking demonstrations, and sporting events, featuring instead dancers, comics, singers, and long commercials for its sponsor, Chase and Sanborn coffee. Within two years, another variety show, Texaco Star Theatre, became the first true television hit and would be credited with the sales of thousands of television sets. The variety show formula was a staple of television in its first 30 years, in part because it lent itself to a medium where everything had to be live and preferably inside a studio. Most of the early television stars--including Jackie Gleason, Milton Berle, Sid Caesar, Ed Sullivan, Red Skelton, Dinah Shore, and Arthur Godfrey--rose to prominence through weekly variety shows. In the 1960s, major stars such as Jerry Lewis, Dean Martin, Judy Garland and Danny Kaye were hosting variety shows. By the 1970s, the format was giving way to sitcoms and dramas, but pop music stars Sonny and Cher, Tony Orlando and Dawn, and Donny and Marie Osmond hosted some of the last of the species. This book details 57 variety shows from the 1940s through the 1990s. A history of each show is first provided, followed by a brief look at each episode. Air date, guest stars, sketches performed, and a listing of songs featured are included.