I can still remember the first time my mom let me wear makeup. I can also remember how much I loved looking in the mirror. I could not believe the change in my reflection. I didn't put much on and my mom made sure that it looked natural. There's no way she would let me leave the house looking like a clown. Thank God! Anyway, my skin looked smoother, my cheekbones were more pronounced but best of all, my eyes had a pop to them.
This began my lifelong obsession with eye-shadow. Still to this day I have a massive amount with a variety of colors. I know people who would match their eye-shadow to the color of their short. I took it a little bit further and matched my shirt to my eye-shadow. Yes, I was that obsessed. I would mix and match and it was like I never wore exact same shade.
Finding quality makeup can be a bit of a drag. If you are like me, then you are a bit leery of what you put on your skin. I just found out about Measureable Difference Eyshadow and I absolutely love the color palettes! I haven't actually tried this brand yet but based on the information I have, I will most likely buy some.
Head on over to Chrislie's website and check out Measurable Difference Eyeshadow. If you decide to make a purchase, visit Lashem.
At fourteen, Nick Gautier thinks he knows everything about the world around him. Streetwise, tough and savvy, his quick sarcasm is the stuff of legends. . .until the night when his best friends try to kill him. Saved by a mysterious warrior who has more fighting skills than Chuck Norris, Nick is sucked into the realm of the Dark-Hunters: immortal vampire slayers who risk everything to save humanity.
Nick quickly learns that the human world is only a veil for a much larger and more dangerous one: a world where the captain of the football team is a werewolf and the girl he has a crush on goes out at night to stake the undead.
But before he can even learn the rules of this new world, his fellow students are turning into flesh eating zombies. And he’s next on the menu.
As if starting high school isn't hard enough. . .now Nick has to hide his new friends from his mom, his chainsaw from the principal, and keep the zombies and the demon Simi from eating his brains, all without getting grounded or suspended. How in the world is he supposed to do that?
Q&A with Nicci Gerrard and Sean French, AKA Nicci French, author of BLUE MONDAY
BLUE MONDAY is your thirteenth book and the first book in a new series of psychological thrillers, introducing Frieda a psychotherapist. It’s also the first series you’ve ever written. What was the inspiration for this new series?
Frieda came along before the idea of writing a series did. We had always said we wrote stand-alone thrillers, but then we thought about a central character who is a therapist, someone who believes you can’t solve the mess in the world but you can try to address the mess in your own head, the pain and fear and anxiety inside of you. We thought of her as a different kind of detective, a detective of the mind, who is unwillingly dragged by the events that unfurl in the novel out into the real world.
Once we had imagined Frieda—solitary, insomniac, prickly, difficult, honorable, trustworthy, fiercely private—we knew she needed more than one book. She has to be discovered over time. And from that the octet gradually emerged. The books will cover a decade in Frieda’s life and the lives of the cast that she assembles around her; we want to see how time marks them, how they are changed by the experiences they live through together.
Also, we became excited by the idea of writing eight books that could stand as gripping thrillers in their own right, but which are also connected by one over-arching story. In BLUE MONDAY a fuse is lit that then will burn its way through the remaining seven books, coming to a climax in the final novel.
Where did the title BLUE MONDAY come from?
This is the first book of a planned series of dark thrillers that will be named after the days of the week. The title BLUE MONDAY seemed perfect to us because it is both about beginnings but also about the difficulty of beginning, its pains and regrets and fears. It also happens to be the title of not just one but two (very different) great songs – by Fats Domino and New Order.
Set against a backdrop of a dark, tangled London, BLUE MONDAY illustrates your power over a sense of place. As Frieda navigates its streets one can almost feel the damp chill of London’s foggy night air. What is your writing process? What are some things about the London you depict in your books that those of us in the US might not know?
As regards London, our writing process is to do what we have always done, which is to spend a lot of our time walking, cycling—and sometimes running—around the city, exploring its hidden alleys, squares, canals. We have both spent many years living in the city and every time we go out we see something completely new. Much of BLUE MONDAY came out of those walks.
A few things you need to know about London:
It’s big; really big. Greater London is about thirty-five miles across.
It’s really old. It’s been a continuously functioning (and dis-functioning) city since the Romans and it has been built on, burnt down, bombed, demolished, built on, over and over again.
London is really a collection of villages that used to be separated by fields and meadows and woodlands and orchards that gradually got filled up but they still hang on to their identity. In good ways and bad, London is a jangling mess. North Londoners don’t like South London, East Enders feel persecuted by everybody, West Kensington isn’t really in Kensington, and wherever you’re from anywhere in the world, you’ll find a community somewhere in London.
London is a landscape as much as a city, one of the oldest and most complicated landscapes in England.
And still, there’s so much that we don’t understand about London. For example, why do tourists always go to Madame Tussaud’s?
What are some things about you that might be a surprise to those of us in the US?
Sean: My mother is Swedish and we spend every New Year in central Sweden. On New Year’s Eve we have a sauna and jump through a hole in the ice.
Nicci and I studied the same subject (English literature) at the same university (Oxford) but we didn’t meet until ten years later.
In 2005, we ran the London Marathon together. Literally—we crossed the line at the same time.
Nicci: I broke my back a few years ago (and have sworn never to get on a horse again).
I am trained as a celebrant—I can bury people!
One of my passions is growing chillies—very, very hot chillies. Another is eating them (if you eat burningly hot chillies when they are frozen, you can taste their real flavour and only later do they explode in your chest like a small bomb).
Frieda is a psychotherapist. What kind of research did you do to make her so real?
Sean: Frieda emerged from our fascination with the whole subject of doctors whose job it is to make sense of our lives just by the way we talk about them. We have friends who are therapists, we have a certain experience of therapy, we’ve talked to people who have undergone therapy and we’ve read an awful lot about it.
Nicci: And also, in a way, therapy is a bit like writing itself: you take chaos and put order onto it, a road out of the dark woods.
What are you working on now?
Sean: We’ve just finished the second Frieda Klein and we’re standing nervously by the edge plucking up the nerve to dive into the third one.
You are known as the internationally bestselling author Nicci French, yet really there are two of you: Nicci Gerrard and Sean French, writing partners and husband and wife and you live in England. Why did you decide to start writing fiction together?
Sean: In the first years we were married, we talked about the idea. We knew that people could collaborate in different ways but we were interested in whether two people could write a novel that had one voice, where you were really creating a new person.
Nicci: It was like an experiment. But looking back at it, all these years and fourteen books later, it seems so odd, such a strange thing to do when we were both working flat out anyway, with four tiny children racing around the house. We didn’t do it because we thought we would write a book, get it published, become Nicci French. We did it to see if we could do it, because it seemed like a shared adventure—and it has been a shared adventure, a way of exploring the world together.
How do you manage co-authorship? Do you sit down and write together or do you take it in shifts?
Nicci: When we talk about how we write together we tend to make it sound much neater and better managed than it actually is, it’s a rather chaotic and messy business. The one thing we never do is actually sit down and write together, and the thought of one of us dictating to the other is a kind of madness, it just wouldn’t work. We spend a long time talking about the shape of the novel, the story, the way the plot goes, the development of the characters and above all the voice of the narrator into whom we both have to write, and once we’re satisfied with that then we’ll start to write. The writing will quite often take us away from the plan, but that’s what we do. One of us will write, say, the first chapter and then hand it over to the other who is absolutely free to change it, edit it, erase it, add other words to it, and then they will write the next chapter and pass it back. It’s a question of moving between the two of us. We never decide in advance who’s going to write what chapter, there’s no division.
Sean: We felt that in order for it to work we both have to be responsible for everything, whether we (individually) have written it or not. If there’s any research that needs doing for a book then we both have to do it, we both have to have all of it in our heads.
Nicci: If Sean writes something and I change absolutely nothing about that whole section, but I read it and approve it, then it becomes mine as well. It becomes a kind of Nicci French thing so we both own each word of it.
Why did you choose to write crime novels?
Nicci: I’m interested in crime in the sense that I’m interested in the strange path that people’s lives can go down. I’m not so much interested in the criminal; I’m much more interested in the victim, the effects of the crime and what lies beneath the settled surface. Most people, when you meet them, present themselves as ordered and controlled; they have a self-possessed image. Underneath that everybody is a welter of doubt, grief, loss, nostalgia, love and hate; that’s what I’m interested in. The thrillers that we write are not about fiendishly clever serial killers outwitting the police, they’re about ordinary people who have extraordinary things happening in the middle of their lives, and the way that they change and have to resolve things. I think that attracts us to the thriller genre.
You chose to use a female pseudonym, and almost all your novels so far have been written from a female viewpoint. Is there a reason for this?
Sean: The first idea we had was about recovered memory, and 99% of people recovering memory in therapy are women, so it obviously had to be a woman. Once it was a woman as the main character then it just seemed obvious that if we were going to choose a name, that it should be a female name. Women have achieved a kind of independence and equality, a nominal independence, and yet so many things haven’t changed. There are so many kinds of unexpected pressures that have come along with that, and that seemed an interesting road to go down.
Nicci: It is that sense of there being a cross-current between what modern women are like now; assertive, independent, strong, ambitious, and yet still very physically vulnerable, but also vulnerable to all the things that attack us from the past, all the things we’re conditioned to feel. There’s a kind of emotional vulnerability and intelligence, a particular kind of female intelligence that seems to be a good way of looking at the world.
SYNOPSIS:
The abduction of five-year-old Matthew Farraday provokes a national outcry and a desperate police hunt. And when a picture of his face is splashed over the newspapers, Frieda Klein is left troubled: one of her patients has been relating dreams in which he has a hunger for a child. A child he can describe in perfect detail, a child the spitting image of Matthew. Detective Chief Inspector Karlsson doesn't take Frieda's concerns seriously until a link emerges with an unsolved child abduction twenty years ago and he summons Frieda to interview the victim's sister, hoping she can stir hidden memories. Before long, Frieda is at the centre of the race to track the kidnapper. But her race isn't physical. She must chase down the darkest paths of a psychopath's mind to find the answers to Matthew Farraday's whereabouts.
Once peaceful and prosperous, the spectacular Land of Oz is knotted with social unrest: The Emerald City is mounting an invasion of Munchkinland, Glinda is under house arrest, and the Cowardly Lion is on the run from the law. And look who’s knocking at the door. It’s none other than Dorothy. Yes. That Dorothy.
Yet amidst all this chaos, Elphaba’s granddaughter, the tiny green baby born at the close of Son of a Witch, has come of age. Now it is up to Rain to take up her broom—and her legacy—in an Oz wracked by war.
The stirring, long-awaited conclusion to the bestselling series begun with Wicked, Out of Oz is a magical journey rife with revelations and reversals, reprisals and surprises—the hallmarks of the unique imagination of Gregory Maguire.
In an all-new trilogy set in blissful Edilean, Virginia, Jude Deveraux weaves together the tales of three young women, best friends since college, and the lives, loves, and dreams that await them.
Sparks are flying between Jecca Layton and Dr. Tristan Aldredge. At the urging of her dear friend Kim, Jecca put the ruthless New York City art world on hold to spend the summer pursuing her passion for painting while enjoying Edilean’s tightly knit artistic community. For years, Kim’s cousin Tris—the town’s handsome and dedicated doctor—felt a deep connection to Kim’s college “sister” Jecca, though they had met only once before; now, Jecca is swept off her feet by this strong, sensitive man in a summer of sensual delights. But when long shadows announce Jecca’s return to “real life” and the big city, the lovers must decide: Can they survive the distance? And who will sacrifice the life they’ve created for themselves to be together?
The onset of summer brings predictably steamy weather to the Body Farm, Dr. Bill Brockton's human-decomposition research facility at the University of Tennessee. But Brockton's about to get more heat than he's bargained for when Angie St. Claire, a forensic analyst with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, asks him to help prove that her sister's death was not suicide, but murder.
Brockton's quick consulting trip takes a long, harrowing detour when bones begin turning up amid the pines and live oaks of the Florida panhandle. Two adolescent skulls–ravaged by time and animals, but bearing the telltale signs of lethal fractures–send Brockton, Angie, and Special Agent Stu Vickery on a search for the long-lost victims. The quest leads them to the ruins of the North Florida Boys' Reformatory, a notorious juvenile detention facility that met a fiery end more than forty years ago.
Guided by the discovery of a diary kept by one of the school's young "students," Brockton's team finds a cluster of shallow graves, all of them containing the bones of boys who suffered violent deaths. The graves confirm one of the diary's grim claims: that one wrong move could land a boy in the Bone Yard. But as the investigation expands, it encounters opposition from the local sheriff, who's less than delighted to find forensic experts from the state capital and the Body Farm digging up dirt in his county.
As Brockton and his team close in on the truth, they find skeletons in some surprisingly prominent closets . . . and they learn that the ghosts of the past pose perilous consequences in the present.
When a young reporter is killed in a hit and run accident, freelance writer Robyn Guthrie agrees to finish one of the stories the reporter had been writing for the local newspaper. But nothing is as simple as it seems when she finds out about shady land deals, an old high school nemesis, and Robyn's aging mother.
One woman’s courage threatens a conspiracy as old as humankind . . .
And some will do anything—anything—to keep their secrets in the dark.
Sanctus
A man climbs a cliff face in the oldest inhabited place on earth, a mountain known as the Citadel, a Vatican-like city-state that towers above the city of Ruin in modern-day Turkey. But this is no ordinary ascent. It is a dangerous, symbolic act. And thanks to the media, it is an event witnessed by the entire world.
Few people understand its consequence. But for foundation worker Kathryn Mann and a handful of others, it’s evidence that a revolution is at hand. For the Sancti, the cowled and secretive monks who live inside the Citadel, it could mean the end of everything they have built. They will stop at nothing to keep what is theirs, and they will break every law in every country and even kill to hold it fast. For American reporter Liv Adamsen, it spurs the memory of the beloved brother she lost years before, setting her on a journey across the world and into the heart of her own identity.
There, she will make a discovery so shocking that it will change everything. . . .
Meet Rev Jen. Patron saint of the uncool. Cheerleader for nonconformists, geeks, and oddballs the world over. From her tiny rent-controlled apartment on Manhattan’s hip Lower East Side, she holds court over a wacky cast of friends and lovers with an unchecked candor that makes her impossible not to love. Zany and wry, Rev Jen will charm readers with these fun and irreverent true stories of her meteoric rise from art school misfit to neighborhood celebrity and all-around good-time gal. Whether she is dressing up as Doo-Doo, the hard-drinking Teletubby who’s been expelled from Teletubbyland, or starring in her one-woman musical Rats, the shortest running show on Broadway, Jen’s quirky humor and genuine heart make Elf Girl an anthem for misfits everywhere.
MALCOLM MACDOWYLT sees himself a failed warrior, haunted by the death of the woman he married to become laird of Clan MacGahan. Neither his Viking heritage nor his claim to descend from Norse gods can restore his confidence in his ability to protect his people. His sister is held captive, her life in jeopardy, and his Magically powerful half brother wants him dead. The last thing he needs is more responsibility, but that’s exactly what he gets when his Faerie mother-in-law arrives seeking justice for her daughter in the form of an enticing woman from seven hundred years in the future.DANIELLE DEARMON has waited fifteen years to discover the life she is supposed to live. She just never dreamed she’d end up in the thirteenth century with a handsome Scot bent on saving everyone but himself. With the lives of those most dear to him hanging in the balance, Malcolm sets out to battle a powerful evil magic, only to learn that the redemption he seeks exists in the arms of the woman he loves.
He is a man who has faced peril without flinching, determined to fight for king and country.
She is a bold, beautiful woman with a scandalous past, destined to become an untamed bride.
Together they must vanquish the ruthless enemy, while confronting the dangers of the heart...
THE ELUSIVE BRIDE
A second battle-hardened, completely unstoppable, all male hero, an ex-officer of the Crown, confronts the deadly enemy known only as the Black Cobra.
He's focused in his mission, then sees a lady he never dreamed he'd see again - with an assassin on her heels.
She's secretly followed him, unaware her path is deadly - or that she'll join him to battle a treacherous foe.
Through ever-present peril, through passion, desire and ecstasy, they race to reach England - and their destiny.
THE BRAZEN BRIDE
Shipwrecked, wounded, he risks all to pursue his mission - only to discover a partner as daring and brazen as he.
Fiery, tempestuous, a queen in her own realm, she rescues a warrior - only to find her heart under seige.
Bound by passion, linked by need, together they must brave the enemy's gauntlet to win all their hearts' desire.
IT HAPPENED ONE SEASON
We asked our readers what story they would most like to see from four bestselling authors. They responded . . .
A handsome hero returns from war, battle-scarred and world-weary. But family duty calls and he must find a bride.
A young lady facing yet another season without a suitor never expects to find herself the object of his affections.
Four amazing talents
Stephanie Laurens Mary Balogh Jacquie D'Alessandro and Candice Hern
have come together to create one of the most unforgettable events of the year. The results are spectacular—each story is as unique as a lover's first kiss.
KBL: Kill Bin Laden probes the hearts and minds of America's secret warriors, revealing what the job means to them, and the toll it takes. In this riveting novel drawn from actual events and based on real-life heroes, John Weisman brings to life the drama behind the hunt and SEAL Team 6's breathtaking raid in which Bin Laden—the grail for counterterrorists for more than a decade—met his fate.
Filled with pulse-pounding excitement and the tactics, intelligence tradecraft, and operational sources and methods used in real-world CIA and special operation missions, KBL: Kill Bin Laden is a thrill-a-minute dramatization that sets the standard for adventure novels as it brilliantly imagines the action, intrigue, and suspense of this real-life event, and offers a glimpse of the new face of warfare.
Truth is stranger than legend . . . and your journey into both begins here.
World adventurer and international monster hunter Josh Gates has careened through nearly 100 countries, investigating frightening myths, chilling cryptozoological legends, and terrifying paranormal phenomena. Now, he invites fans to get a behind-the-scenes look at these breathtaking expeditions.
Follow Gates from the inception of the groundbreaking hit show (at the summit of Kilimanjaro) to his hair-raising encounters with dangerous creatures in the most treacherous locations on earth. Among his many adventures, he unearths the flesh-crawling reality of the Mongolian Death Worm, challenges an ancient curse by spending the night in King Tut’s tomb, descends into a centuries-old mine to search for an alien entity in subterranean darkness, pursues ghosts in the radioactive shadow of Chernobyl, and explores sightings of Bigfoot from the leech-infested rain forests of Malaysia to the dizzying heights of the Himalayas.
Part journey into the unexplained, part hilarious travelogue, part fascinating look at the making of a reality-based TV show—and featuring never-before-published photographs— this Destination Truth companion takes readers on the supernatural expedition of a lifetime.
"The Joy of Melt & Pour Soap Crafting" is written by someone who learned how to work with crafting glycerin melt & pour soap the hard way -- with only a single page of instructions to follow! From 2004-2009 the author ran an online business, Everything Shea Aromatic Creations, selling 85+ varieties of soap. If you've always wanted to make your own soap, here's an opportunity to learn just how easy it really is!
Here's what you will learn:
• WHY you should make your own soap
• How to make handcrafted soap in less than 1 hour!
• Secrets of melt & pour soap crafting
• Complete step-by-step instructions
• Fragrance & essential oils information
• List of reputable soap suppliers
• Creative labeling & packaging ideas and photos
• Easy-to-make craft projects for kids of all ages
In this cheeky sequel, Mark Montano picks up where his wildly popular The Big-Ass Book of Crafts left off, with even more spectacular—and easy-to-make—projects sure to satisfy crafters of all skill levels. Turn colorful ribbons into a show-stopping scarf . . . transform old cargo pants into a kick-ass carryall . . . a high-drama neckpiece made out of zippers? Absolutely. Along with a host of other wearable wonders, this exciting all-new volume includes sections such as Pillow Talk (fun, comfy, and made from the most surprising materials), Letter Perfect (cool designs to pop into the mailbox nearest you), Hey, I Could Use That (make a big statement with little things from magnets to nail polish), Just Kid-ding (cheery dÉcor made from kid-centric stuff, guaranteed to make you smile!), That’s Shoe Biz (fun fixes that give sidelined footwear and handbags a whole new life), and dozens of other ideas that are inventive, imaginative, and just plain fun.
With his trademark humor and no-holds-barred approach to crafting, Mark will have you tapping into your creative soul and taking simple techniques to a whole new level in no time. We’re not talking plant-hangers and potholders here—the more than 150 handmade projects in this truly unique compendium are artistic, eye-catching, and cutting-edge, from cool brooches and earrings to ingenious belts and bags, from Bauhaus-style furniture to fishbowl lanterns, and so much more!
Perhaps you've been laid off and are wondering where your next paycheck will come from. Or maybe you're stuck in a job you hate, one that makes no use of your talents. Either way, you're looking to make a change—and in today's uncertain climate, you need the best advice there is on how to manage your career.
For more than twenty-five years, New York Times bestselling author Martin Yate has shown the way for millions of job seekers. Now you can turn to him for a proven method to put your career on track.
This guide includes:
A completely revised section on how to ace the job interview Step-by-step guidance for writing a killer resume New advice on long-term career management—how you can join a company's inner circle
Jobs are coming back; the market is rebounding. You need the book Financial Times called "the best book on job hunting." Because it's time to take control of your career and your life.
It was brought to my attention that I had the wrong book (Knock 'em Dead 2011: The Ultimate Job Search Guide) listed as the giveaway item. One person will win Knock 'em Dead 2012: The Ultimate Job Search Guide. I apologize for my mistake.
Hidden away in the Badlands of South Dakota, Warehouse 13 is a top-secret repository for historical artifacts imbued with dangerous supernatural properties. Secret Service agents Pete Lattimer and Myka Bering are ever on the lookout for loose artifacts threatening to ruin the world’s day. Their mission:“Snag it, bag it, tag it.”
Reports of a genuine psychic healer, along with a simultaneous epidemic of mysterious illnesses, lead Myka and Pete on a hazardous investigation that stretches from a carnival sideshow back to the bloody history of the Civil War. But when Pete is infected with a deadly disease, Myka and the rest of the team, including Artie Nielsen and Claudia Donovan, must track down a pair of cursed gloves—before a madman unleashes a virulent plague upon America!
Fame and fortune have destroyed many a rock star, but not Trevor Wolff. ShapeShifter band dynamics will never be the same even before Trevor's two girlfriends, a world tour, and a bunch of secrets complicate life. Trevor may have to make common cause with his worst enemy -- his best friend's girl.
Cinder: Book One in The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer
Even in the future, the story begins with Once Upon a Time…. Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth's fate hinges on one girl. . . . Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She's a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister's illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai's, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world's future.
