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F. X. Toole knew boxing. Between bouts, he wrote, and two years before his death he published this collection of stories, giving listeners an unprecedented look at the gritty life around the ring. He tells of a cutman with a sweet tooth, young fighters with dreams of celebrity, and a talented boxer who goes to Atlantic City for his biggest bout, only to be humiliated by the prejudices of a callous promoter. In "Million $$$ Baby", the inspiration for the Oscar-winning Clint Eastwood film, an aged trainer takes on a female fighter, guiding her through disappointment, pain, and tragedy.

Getting abducted is the best thing that ever happened to her! This bundle includes the exotic stories of how Keri leaves Earth and cuts her way through the universe using her body and sexuality to bend aliens and humans to her will! Keri is so sick of (Earth) men. She's in her late thirties and still doesn't think she's ever been in an adult relationship. When her useless, younger boyfriend asks for money for a guitar during an intimate moment, she thinks she's hit rock bottom. She wishes she could run away, but there's nowhere to go. Then a light appears above her. Some people would call ...

The construct of race has always been used to gain and keep power, to create dynamics that separate and silence. This remarkable reimagining of Dr. Ibram X. Kendi's National Book Award-winning Stamped from the Beginning reveals the history of racist ideas in America, and inspires hope for an antiracist future. It takes you on a race journey from then to now, shows you why we feel how we feel, and why the poison of racism lingers. It also proves that while racist ideas have always been easy to fabricate and distribute, they can also be discredited.

I assume I live only for the next Wild Hunt. But all this time, I’ve been looking for her, waiting for her, craving her. I’m damaged, but I can’t let her go, not only because the gods’ curse will make me hunt her to the end of the universe. My dark soul craves her tender flesh and fierce passion. My beast and I won’t rest until I imprint her and make her truly ours.

When Mace wakes up from a brutal wreck, he's met with broken glass, twisted metal, and savage monsters. Remembering nothing except his name, he suddenly finds himself in a tense struggle for survival. But he's not alone. Surprises hide in the wastelands, like fox girls with big, fluffy tails and attuned ears. Her name is Faye Nightshade. She's resourceful, intelligent, fast, gorgeous...and she has a curious eye for Mace Frost. Soon, night begins to fall across the dusty red deserts, and things lurk in the shadows. With Faye's help, maybe they can survive together.

Lucas Daniels senses secrets all around him. Lucas left home for good and believes he is safe at Club Dyavol. His whole world is now Konstantin’s world. But though he trusts Konstantin completely, the more time he spends in the club, the more questions he has about those that call it home. Count Konstantin “The Wolf” Volk believes that now that Lucas is under his full protection at the club that Lucas is safe. Except he could not be more wrong. By being completely within Konstantin’s world, Lucas becomes the focus of every friend and foe Konstantin has.

Secrets destroy relationships, and Loki and I have too many. They aren’t the only barrier between us. The Bride Trials has turned on me, and the blood contract demands I murder my fated mate. As I race to find the hellfire crown to prove I’m meant to be the queen of the underworld, the king turns to the dark side, at the risk of losing himself and his wolf to keep me alive. To win this treacherous game, we’ll have to throw all our cards on the table and bare our souls. And, even that might not be enough if we’re pawns, instead of becoming the masters of our own fates.

Soon, I’ll have to marry the most powerful queen and rule two kingdoms. But all I want is Barbie, the new girl in my house and the only thing I can’t have. If I take her for my own, she’ll be murdered. I know I should stay away from her, but I no longer can, even if the kingdoms collapse and the world burns as a consequence. I might be the villain in the story, but without her, there’s no meaning to my brutal, miserable existence. So, I start to push her to the breaking point so she can survive the bride trials and rise above it all.

I abandon all hope that my demigods will come for me. In Hell's Academy, it's either kill or be eaten. Demons turn violence into an art form, and they've marked me as their newest victim. A charismatic archdemon offers me a way out of the pit. His price: spend one night with him and his three dukes.

Two mortal enemies. One hot, fated love. The dominant wolf shifter never thought I'd fall onto his doomed planet. When I do, he thinks it's the best day of his life. It's the worst for me. I escaped being a breeder to a cruel king, only to have my spaceship crash on the arena where nine clans fight to the death to claim me. I flee the ship, but Antonio tracks me down. He f--ks me, believing I'm his mate, but when he finds out who I truly am - a leopard princess whose father slaughtered his family - he looks at me with hatred. Yet he can't let me go. His body craves mine too much.

Dom’s life was never easy. Forged in the fires of poverty and neglect, he’s spent years building a life for himself. And it seems like everything is finally coming together. He lives on his own in a decent house at the edge of town, he works for himself, he’s debt-free, and, most recently, his relationship with his attractive best friend seems to be heading somewhere....

The world hasn't seen the likes of me. My power can unmake the gods and the worlds - but only after I mate with the demigod of sea and activate the living flame inside me. Mate all day and all night long. Peachy right? If only we weren't trapped in the void where no gods, demons, or mortals are safe. The monsters here? They eat immortals like us as if we're candy. It's hard to have sexy times when we're fending off titans, cannibals, nasty Ares, and that loose cannon Lucifer.

She walks in on me banging another woman for sport. Her blue eyes burn like twin suns at daybreak when they train on me. One sniff in her direction, and I know she’s mine. Ice to my pyre. Scenting its fated mate, my wolf beast awakens for the first time and roars with hellfire. Heat sears through my veins. I’ve never been so aroused by any other female. But Tessa Morrigan can’t be my queen. She came too late. I’ve started the Underworld Bride Trials. All the contestants must fight to the death until the last one stands by my side to claim the crown.

Here in his own words are the revolutionary ideas that made Malcolm X one of the most charismatic and influential African-American leaders of the 1960s. These speeches document Malcolm's progression from Black nationalism to internationalism, and are key to both understanding his extraordinary life and illuminating his angry yet uplifting cause.

At the age of twenty-four, Dang Thuy Tram volunteered to serve as a doctor in a National Liberation Front (Viet Cong) battlefield hospital in the Quang Ngai Province. Two years later she was killed by American forces not far from where she worked. Written between 1968 and 1970, her diary speaks poignantly of her devotion to family and friends, the horrors of war, her yearning for her high school sweetheart, and her struggle to prove her loyalty to her country.

Purgatory (Latin "purgare", to make clean, to purify), in accordance with Catholic teaching, is a place or condition of temporal punishment for those who, departing this life in God's grace, are not entirely free from venial faults, or have not fully paid the satisfaction due to their transgressions. The whole penitential system of the Church testifies that the voluntary assumption of penitential works has always been part of true repentance. The councils of the Church remind the faithful that God does not always remit the whole punishment due to sin together with the guilt.

Gabriel Braven knows his destiny, but is he willing to face it? Gabriel has only one day left on land before moving to the wondrous Mer city to live forever with his true love, Mer Prince Casillus Nerion. He wishes his greatest challenges were giving up making love on land with Casillus and telling his beloved grandmother that he is a merman. But ex-soldier Johnson Tims has other plans for him.

Gabriel should have drowned twice in his life, but he survived. Casillus Nerion, his beautiful merman savior, tells him the reason for this is simple: Gabriel is a merman. Long ago, a Braven ancestor fell in love and had a child with a powerful merman. This child did not inherit the Mer gifts, but Gabriel has. Despite seeing inexplicable physical changes to his body when he gets wet and having trouble breathing when there is plenty of air, Gabriel’s head tells him that Mer, like love, do not exist.

To save their dying land, Rohan and Finn must rule together and reunite the Empire and Rirea, but they may have to cut a bloody path to take their thrones. Marikoth, hostile gods, and even Finn’s loving father, Fae King Thalanil, stand in their way.

Over the past decade Rome has been marked with sharp, and often unwarranted, criticism of the Church in the United States and American Catholic life. But very few of the critics have taken the time to talk, systematically, with a wide range of U.S. Catholics to understand their concerns. True Confessions is unique for its frank and in-depth interviews with 103 bishops, clergy, religious, and lay men and women from various backgrounds over a 17-month period, December 2020 through May 2022.