High Rock

At age eleven, Helen disappeared in the wilderness of Mount Rainier National Park while camping with her father, Benjamin. She was gone for almost a week before being discovered and returned to her family. It is now twenty-five years later, and after more than two decades of estrangement, Helen and Benjamin reconnect at his home in Portland, Oregon, to try to understand what happened during the days she was gone. Meanwhile, Benjamin meets an odd pair, a woman and boy who seem driven to help him learn more about Helen's disappearance.

High Drama explores rock climbing's transformation from a pursuit of select anti-establishment vagabonds to a sport embraced by competitors of all ages, social classes, and backgrounds. Climbing magazine's John Burgman weaves a multi-layered story of traditionalists and opportunists, grassroots organizers and business-minded developers, free-spirited rebels and rigorously coached athletes. Deeply reported and compellingly told, this is a celebration of climbing and the pivotal figures who made its growth possible....

In "Shadows of Deceit", former Marine Callum Rogers thought he’d left his darkest days behind. But when a cryptic message pulls him back into the world of covert operations, he finds himself facing a new enemy—a ruthless blackmailer named Royce Kincaid, whose power could topple governments and destroy lives. Tasked with protecting his old mentor, Dr. Ellis Newton, Callum teams up with his loyal friend, ex-Navy SEAL Owen Brooks, to unravel a conspiracy more dangerous than anything they’ve ever encountered. As Callum and Owen dive deeper into Royce’s criminal empire, they uncover ...

It’s that special time at the tiny East Texas town of Trails End. When hopes, dreams, and excitement rule the day. That’s right – it’s a surprise audit of the high school. This intrusion creates a tricky situation for cynic and rule-bending history teacher Paul Matthews. Add to this unpleasantry a revenge-seeking Sheriff, a local biker gang, a rat infestation, an obnoxious older brother, pistol-packing cowgirls, and the appearance of his 12-year-old far from angelic nephew. It only seals his fate that the four disaster-prone sophomores known as The OutlawX are eager to help. And ...

Well that certainly wasn’t in the benefits package. I’m staring at my grumpy boss’s package while getting passed over for yet another promotion. I want to unwrap it. My sex drive has been pedal to the metal since this whole hotwife thing started, and I can’t seem to pump the brakes. I want everyone I can get my hands on, even the jerk who runs the company I work for. Parker’s always been gorgeous, the type of gorgeous that should have had me pushing kids out of the bounce house at the company picnic and finding a better use for it, despite my husband standing right there. But come...

Thirty years ago, Chuck Berry starred in the seminal music documentary Chuck Berry: Hail! Hail! Rock 'N' Roll, which profiled the legend during a star-studded concert celebrating his 60th birthday. Now comes the complete story behind one of America's most enduring and embattled icons. Compiled as an oral history by the film's producer, Stephanie Bennett, Johnny B. Bad combines interviews from the film's participants, including its music director - Keith Richards. These unique interviews and accounts paint a vivid and multifaceted picture of the artist.

Look around. Clearly, we humans are radically different from the other creatures on this planet. But why? Where are the Bronze Age beavers? The Iron Age iguanas? Byron Reese argues that we owe our special status to our ability to imagine the future and recall the past, escaping the perpetual present that all other living creatures are trapped in. Envisioning human history as the development of a societal superorganism he names Agora, Reese shows us how this escape enabled us to share knowledge on an unprecedented scale, and predict—and eventually master—the future.

Ted Sweeney. Affable everyman in small-town Montana. Tailgate hung on with baling wire, owner of his own business. Ten minutes ago, his biggest worry had been how to pay for the engagement ring rattling around in his pocket. But that was before he came home to find a corpse tidily arranged in his favorite recliner, his "old pal of a piece of furniture". Is it a warning or a setup or what? Sweeney can't help but admire the efficiency of the work, the slice deep across the guy's throat. Somebody knew what they were doing.

Peter Rock's stunning autobiographical novel begins in the '90s on the Door Peninsula of Wisconsin. The narrator, a recent college graduate, and a young widow, Mrs. Abel, swim together at night, making their way across miles of open water, navigating the currents and swells carried by the rise and fall of the lake. The nature of these night swims, and of his relationship to Mrs. Abel, becomes increasingly mysterious to the narrator as the summer passes, until the night that Mrs. Abel disappears.

Before there was Elli and Jagger, there was Elli and... Sixteen year old Elli Matthews is learning about guys with her boy crazy best friend Jenna by her side. A tragedy changes the teens of East Lake High, but not always for the better.

What do you do when the guy you like has a best friend that likes you when he should really like your best friend and she should like him too? Ugh, sometimes Life’s a Mitch. Noelle Moody, no relation to the Christmas carol, but a very accurate last name, has been crushing on Mitchell since the days they flirted incessantly. She loved his corny jokes. He loved that she loved his corny jokes and could match his wit with sarcasm. It made class fun. It made it easy to be her friend. Until that came to an abrupt end the day he found out she sorta, maybe, a little bit, liked him. There’s only...

Lead singer of the hugely successful Irish rock band Kodaline, Steve Garrigan plays to thousands of fans worldwide - his business is being in the spotlight. But for years, Steve was privately battling his own demons. Here in this deeply personal memoir, he shares his experiences.

Frederick Moore spent his 1950s Minneapolis childhood obsessively teaching himself guitar and writing songs. In the 1960s, his bands Skogie and the Flaming Pachucos reached local stardom. After, they put everything they had into their cars and caravanned to Los Angeles. From a garage in suburban Arleta, they evolved Skogie into a new band called The Kats. In the 1980s, The Kats sold out every major club in Los Angeles.

Two Edinburgh PhD students head to the Phoenix Festival to sell legal highs. When a friend discovers that their Horn-E pills are poison, he faces a race against the clock to make sure that nobody comes to any harm. To complicate matters, the drugs were paid for with a loan from Edinburgh’s infamous Tony Fish. If they don’t have the cash to straighten their debt, there’ll be nowhere for them to hide. Jesse Garon’s obsession with Elvis Presley may be as strong ever, but as his hormones kick in he’s finding he has more in common with Jake Bugg. Jesse’s hoping that a weekend at the ...

Muir Powell is a shy, innocent, 17-year-old with big dreams and no clue what to do about them. Moody Powell is a few years older and wild. Embittered by the death of his father 15 years earlier and cramped by the narrowness of his mountain world, Moody escapes into moonshine and gambling while Ginny, their mother, watches helplessly. When Muir decides that his purpose in life is to build a rock church with his own hands, the consequences of his ambition are far-reaching.

A talented group of teen musicians. A stateless old man living on the margins of society. What do they have in common? Humanity and sweet music. Will, Sanchez, Song-Yi, and Stephanie attend an American international school on the island of Penang, Malaysia. But at night, they are a talented band of musicians striving to win their school’s talent show, so they can further their dreams of becoming professional musicians. Musa “Moses” Marbun has been without a country for forty-six years. The crippled and destitute rickshaw driver pedals tourists through the quaint streets of Penang’s ...

Bridget doesn't have dreams. Growing up across the tracks in the 50s and 60s, her life's a little tough having to take care of family and raise siblings. But it isn't all bad. She's adored by a throng at school, not for anything great, just for her flower child ways, occult knowledge, and listening. She can do telekinesis and tell when the phone’s going to ring, but her real gift is listening to boys concerned about going to Vietnam. Things explode when she loses her virginity at fifteen to the lead singer of a garage band. She even begins to dream of a crossroads ranch house to assist ...

Eden can’t believe her eyes, JD Stone, after all these years, in the flesh. The way he fills out his jeans should be illegal. Her heart palpitates in places it shouldn’t palpitate and her husband knows it. With one look, she gives away a secret she’s been hiding for years, a desire to sleep with her high school crush. Eden is the love of JD’s life, she just so happens to also be the love of Tyler’s. JD never thought he’d get the chance to have her until he saw her at the mall this Christmas, the day before Birthmas, her Christmas Eve birthday. He couldn’t believe his luck when...

At 29 years old, Mary and her newlywed husband embark at a two-year diplomatic assignment to South Africa. A continued campaign of economic sanctions from the international community has pressured President De Klerk to negotiate with recently-freed Nelson Mandela to end apartheid with the end goal of democratic government. Uncertainty about the future hangs like a cloud cover over the South African heat.

Rock Stars on the Record is a collection of firsthand tales by artists of all ages, backgrounds, and musical influences, remembering the meaning behind the records that mattered most to them. From Laura Jane Grace to Ian MacKaye, Don McLean to Cherie Currie, Alice Bag to Mac DeMarco, and many more, best-selling author Eric Spitznagel talks to rock stars across the sonic spectrum about the albums that changed them in ways only music can change someone.