After her only daughter Amy suffers a crib death, Emily takes up running as a way to deal with her pain. She believes that "only fast running will do"—she pushes her body to its limits, often vomiting and sweating profusely. Her husband, Henry, finds out about this habit, and treats it as a psychological reaction to grief. Emily is hurt and runs out of the house, down to a local Holiday Inn. She contacts her father and explains her situation; after their conversation, Emily decides to stay in her father''s summer home, near Naples, FL. (In the story, she takes Southwest Air to the Naples Airport, even though, as is noted later, Naples Airport is a private airport, without commercial service.) She also speaks with Henry, and the two agree that a trial separation is a good idea. Emily''s life becomes quite simple—she eats plain meals and runs for miles every day. As her body shrinks, she gets to know the few people that hover around the island; Vermillion Key is mostly devoid of tourists. The only person Emily regularly contacts is Deke Hollis, an old friend of her father who runs the drawbridge on the island. During a chance meeting, Hollis tells Emily that Jim Pickering, one of the men who owns a home on the island, is back. He has brought along a "niece"—Hollis''s polite name for the young women Pickering lures to his home. Emily prepares to continue, but Hollis warns her that Pickering is "not a very nice man." As Emily continues her daily run, she notices a shiny red car outside one of the "McMansions" along the beach. She deduces that it must be Pickering''s car, and must satisfy her curiosity—which turns to concern as she hears a low moan coming from around the vehicle. Emily cautiously approaches...and notices a trail of blood running toward the trunk. She sees a young woman lying in the car with her throat slashed, meaning that she could not have made the groaning noise she heard. The moment she reaches this conclusion, though, someone cracks her on the back of the head. When Emily awakens, she finds herself imprisoned on a kitchen chair with duct tape. Pickering stands before her, licking his lips and acting excited. He is particularly aroused by Emily''s powerful legs, which have become lean and muscular due to her continued runs. Emily realizes that Pickering is insane, and hints that she let someone know where she was going. When Pickering presses her for details, Emily blurts out Deke Hollis''s name; Pickering leaves, presumably to kill the old man. Emily knows that she does not have much time, and hears her father''s voice in her head, giving her advice. She uses her strong legs to splinter the tape that binds her; the pain is excruciating, but she manages to free her lower body. She looks for a knife to release her arms, but settles on the corner of the island in the middle of the kitchen. She undoes all of her restraints just as Pickering returns. Emily fights Pickering in the kitchen, using the broken legs of the chair to attack. After temporarily knocking him out, she runs through the house, eventually stumbling into the bedroom. She hears Pickering chasing her, and realizes the only way out is to jump out of the window. Emily again recalls her father''s advice from her youth—"Gravity is everyone''s mother"—and leaps. She runs to the beach and hears Pickering behind her, and realizes, in a rather odd coincidence, that she has been "training" for this moment. Though exhausted from her imprisonment, Emily''s months of running serve her well. She keeps well ahead of Pickering, who now carries a pair of scissors as a weapon. She eventually meets a young Latino man on the beach, and begs for help, but he does not understand her cries. Pickering appears and tries to use Spanish to convince the man that Emily is with him, but Emily''s fearful expression convinces the young man otherwise. He pushes Emily behind him; incensed, Pickering brutally slaughters the man with the scissors. Emily, tiring quickly, runs into the ocean. Pickering follows her, but begins to flounder. Emily gasps as she figures out what is happening—Pickering cannot swim. Emily manages to escape him, and sits on the shoreline watching as Pickering drowns. When he finally goes under, Emily tells herself that a shark or some other creature attacked him. She wonders why, and guesses that it is a part of the human condition. Her long ordeal over, Emily stands and shouts at the birds flying about, and prepares to go home.

The Gingerbread Girl

Throughout the novel, the peace is contested and then established between the Skolians and the Traders. Imperator Kelric Skolia is reunited with his children, Rohka Miesa Varz Skolia (daughter of Kelricson Valdoria and Savina Miesa) and Jimorla Haka (son of Kelricson Valdoria and Rashiva Haka), and his wife Ixpar Carn. Imperator Kelric Skolia finds out about Emperor Jaibriol III''s parentage during a meeting on Earth. He also discovers that Jaibriol III became a Key and a member of the Triad (the kind of Key is unspecified, whether it is Web Key, like his grandfather Eldrinson Althor Valdoria before him, or something else). Kelric and Jaibriol decide to meet on Earth in person. Kelric suspects that Jai might be a psion, but he cannot be certain unless he sees him in person. Their last meeting happened almost ten years ago at the Lock that was captured by the Traders, when Kelric took on the title of the Imperator, becoming Military Key (see Ascendant Sun). An attempt on Kelric''s life occurs, killing all of his and Jai''s bodyguards. While they are stranded in the Appalachian Mountains, Kelric teaches Jai Quis, the dice game that Kelric learned on Coba during his eighteen years of living there, by linking their minds. The two leaders also sign a peace treaty that would change the fates of their empires forever. After returning to the Skolians, the Imperator is thrown into jail since the Assembly contests his loyalty to the Imperialite because of his secret meeting with the Eubean Emperor. However, both the Traders and the Skolians ratify the treaty, making peace possible. In the novel, it is never revealed who attempted the assassinations on Kelric''s life. The novel links to Catch the Lightning through the treaty, but apparently it did not work as intended, because even during the events of Catch the Lighning, both Skolia and Eubean Concord are still on shaky grounds. Quis refers to a dice game learned by Kelric on the planet Coba. This dice strategy game can be played with a physical set of dice that are made from hand-crafted jewels; or it can be played mentally. It originates on a planet called Coba, a former colony of the Ruby Empire that became isolated during the empire''s collapses and remains so even during the time of the novels. All members of Coban society learn to play Quis, but only a few excel at it. The Quis dice can be used for a variety of purposes, including as a game, to tell stories, to exchange information, and even to gamble. But its most important use is its influence on politics, as the dice are used to compete politically, and also can convey politically important information. There are competing city-states that have isolated top Quis players, who study the art of playing Quis as their fulltime occupation.

The Ruby Dice

Nana tells the story of Nana Coupeau''s rise from streetwalker to high-class cocotte during the last three years of the French Second Empire. Nana first appears in the end of L''Assommoir (1877), another of Zola''s Rougon-Macquart series, in which she is portrayed as the daughter of an abusive drunk; in the end, she is living in the streets and just beginning a life of prostitution. The new novel opens with a night at the Théâtre des Variétés. The Exposition Universelle (1867) has just opened its doors. Nana is 15 years old (the number 18 mentioned in the book is not more than a fig leaf). Zola had taken care to make this clear to his readers by publishing an elaborate family tree of the Rougon-Macquarts in the newspaper Le Bien Public in 1878 when he started writing Nana. Zola describes in detail the performance of La blonde Vénus, a fictional operetta modelled after Offenbach''s La belle Hélène, in which Nana is cast as the lead. She has never been seen on a stage, but tout Paris is talking about her. When asked to say something about her talents, Bordenave, the manager of the theatre (he calls it the brothel), explains that a star doesn''t have to know how to sing or act: Nana has something else, dammit, and something that takes the place of everything else. I scented it out, and it smells damnably strong in her, or else I lost my sense of smell. Just as the crowd is about to dismiss her performance as terrible, young Georges Hugon shouts: "Très chic!" From then on, she owns the audience, and, when she appears only thinly veiled in the third act, Zola writes: All of a sudden, in the good-natured child the woman stood revealed, a disturbing woman with all the impulsive madness of her sex, opening the gates of the unknown world of desire. Nana was still smiling, but with the deadly smile of a man-eater. The novel then goes on to show how Nana destroys every man who pursues her: Philippe Hugon, Georges'' brother, imprisoned after stealing from the army, his employer, for Nana; Steiner, a wealthy banker who is ruined after hemorrhaging cash for Nana''s decadence; Georges Hugon, who was so captivated with her from the beginning that, when he realized he could not have her, stabs himself with scissors in anguish; Vandeuvres, a wealthy owner of horses who burns himself in his barn after Nana ruins him financially; Fauchery, a journalist and publisher who falls for Nana early on, writes a scathing article about her later, and falls for her again and is ruined financially; and Count Muffat, whose faithfulness to Nana brings him back for humiliation after humiliation until he finds her in bed with his elderly father-in-law. Becker explains: "What emerges from [Nana] is the completeness of Nana''s destructive force, brought to a culmination in the thirteenth chapter by a kind of roll call of the victims of her voracity" (118). When Nana''s work is done, Zola has her die a horrible death from smallpox: What lay on the pillow was a charnel house, a heap of pus and blood, a shovelful of putrid flesh. The pustules had invaded the whole face, so that one pock touched the next. While outside her window the crowd is madly chanting To Berlin! To Berlin! (the time is July 1870, after the Ems Dispatch), Venus is decomposing, her moral corruption is now physical. And this is, Zola implies, what is about to happen to the Second Empire.

Nana

Dr. Maya Witherspoon is a young doctor who has just emigrated to England, and intends to practice medicine in London. She had lived most of the first twenty-five years of her life in her native India. The daughter of a British physician and a Brahmin woman of the highest caste who was trained in the medical arts since she was a child. Maya was trained in medicine by her father and graduated from the University of Delhi as a Doctor of Medicine when she was twenty-two. As well as being a doctor, Maya also had a magical heritage. Her mother was a powerful sorceress; a former priestess of the Indian gods. Despite her repeated requests for training, her mother refused, saying only that Maya’s magic was of her father’s blood. However, she never had the chance to explain this enigmatic statement fully, for she was stricken by cholera, and died. Maya suspected that something far more sinister than the disease had killed her mother, and her suspicions were confirmed by her father’s death shortly thereafter. He had been killed by the bite of a krait, a tiny venomous snake, and in the last hours of her mother’s life, Surya had repeatedly warned Maya to beware ‘the serpent’s shadow’. With the loss of her father, Maya knew she must flee the land of her birth or face the same fate as her parents. In her self-imposed exile in London, Maya lives with only the most loyal of her family’s servants, as well as seven pets that originally belonged to her mother and appear to be occasional avatars of Hindu deities. In her new home she fights the prejudices held by those in power against her gender and race and continues to hide from the mysterious and sinister power that murdered her parents. Eventually, with the help of a local Water mage Peter Scott, Maya discovers and trains her own Earth magic, and manages to defeat the malign force that seeks to destroy her. The malign force after her is none other than her mother''s twin sister, her aunt Shivani. She devises a plot to kill Maya and steal her power. To do this, she disguises herself as an old mute woman with a basket of apples, who is wandering down Maya''s street. She collides with Maya, who is on her way to work, and in the process stabs her in the side with a syringe. The syringe contains a mixture of poison and magic that separate Maya''s spirit from her body. Eventually, with the help of Peter Scott and a few friends, Maya''s spirit is returned to her body via a kiss from Peter, who is carrying her soul in his heart after Shivani severed the cord that connects it. After he returns her to her body, they both realize how much they love each other and get married. Maya is later found in the novel (also by Lackey) Phoenix and Ashes as Dr. Scott treating a young Air Master named Reggie. Maya is also shown to be in touch with and think highly of Dr. Andrew Pike, a main character in the The Gates of Sleep.

The Serpent''s Shadow

Dorinda Oakley, daughter of a land‐poor farmer in Virginia, at 20 goes to work in Nathan Pedlar''s store. She falls in love with Jason Greylock, weak‐willed son of the village doctor, and forgets her purpose of helping her father to rebuild the farm, but the day before their planned wedding Jason is forced to marry a former fiancée. Bitterly disillusioned and pregnant, Dorinda seeks work in New York, where she is injured and miscarries in a street accident. She is attended by Dr. Faraday, who later employs her as a nurse for his children. A young doctor proposes to her, but she refuses him, determined to “find something else in life.” After her father''s death, Dorinda returns to the family farm, which is impoverished and overgrown with broomsedge. Having studied scientific agriculture in New York, she introduces progressive methods, gradually returning the “barren ground” to fertility and creating a prosperous dairy farm. Her mother becomes an invalid, after her brother Rufus is questioned for murder, so that Dorinda must carry on with only the aid of a few farm laborer. After her mother''s death she marries Nathan Pedlar, to provide a home for his children, and after he dies she shelters Jason, now penniless and ill from excessive drinking. He soon dies.

Barren Ground

Lady Jessica Nepean is fond of flirtation, not so much because she is dissatisfied with her husband, Gilbert, as because it flatters her vanity to keep other men dangling just on the edge of proposal. At the houseparty of her sister, Lady Rosamund Tatton, her flirtation with Edward Falkner, a recently returned South African hero, is the theme of conversation. Everyone insists that Sir Christopher Deering (who had socially stood sponsor for Falkner) must reason him out of his infatuation for Lady Jessica before her husband realizes what she does. The women of the party also attempt to reason with Lady Jessica. Both attempts, however, are foredoomed. Falkner is desperately in love with Lady Jessica, as only a lonely and serious man can be. Lady Jessica is enjoying his ardor immensely, and still believes she can end it with a word. Business calls Gilbert Nepean away, so when the houseparty breaks up Lady Jessica keeps an appointment to have dinner with Falkner at the inn where he is staying. Her husband''s brother, George accidentally comes upon her there and, putting the worst possible construction on it, feels himself bound to wire Gilbert to return at once. Lady Jessica happens to see Rosamund and Freddie rowing down the river, and manages to get her sister into the inn. In hopes to forestall George they write Gilbert a letter asking him to call at Lady Rosamund''s town house the next morning for an explanation. About the time Gilbert is due, most of the other members of the houseparty turn up at Lady Rosamund''s on some pretext or other. When Gilbert arrives, he is met with a most amazing barrage of lies. To complicate the situation, he has already seen a member of the houseparty on his way from the station, and by a chance remark of hers recognizes these subsequent explanations as lies. Finally when Lady Jessica sees that they are hopelessly involved, she bids Falkner tell the truth. By this time she imagines herself as much in love with him as he with her and is ready to run away with him. Sir Christopher, however, is determined that his friend shall not sacrifice his brilliant career for a shallow woman. He manages to reconcile Lady Jessica and her husband by the simple process of blaming Gilbert for the whole affair. "In future," Sir Christopher advises, "flirt with your wife yourself if you don''t want some other man to do it."

The Liars

An elderly American writer and journalist for the Hearst media empire decides to leave his old life behind and seek a glorious death in the midst of the Mexican revolution. A widower, whose two sons had earlier committed suicide, this unnamed old man eventually comes across part of the army of Pancho Villa. This particular group, led by General Arroyo, has just liberated a massive land holding which had been owned by the Mirandas, a wealthy landowning family. Arroyo is the mestizo product of the rape of his Indian mother by his Miranda father. At that same hacienda, the old man meets Harriet Winslow, a woman from Washington D.C. hired to tutor the young Miranda children. However, by the time she arrived there, they had long since fled with their parents from Arroyo''s army. At first, she has a patronizing view about the revolutionary army and the Mexican people, saying "What these people need is education, not rifles. A good scrubbing, followed by a few lessons on how we do things in the United States, and you''d see an end to this chaos." "You''re going to civilize them?" the old man asked dryly. "Precisely." As the novel progresses, Winslow begins to learn to accept the truth of her past, as well as to appreciate the Mexican culture she finds all around her. By the close of the novel, she decides that instead of attempting to change Mexico, as she had early wanted, she wants &#34;to learn to live with Mexico&#34;. The novel ends with the deaths of both the old man and General Arroyo. When the &#39;old gringo&#39; burns some historical documents as a means of encouraging Arroyo to leave the Miranda household and continue with the revolution, Arroyo responds by murdering him. Later, when Arroyo finally meets up with Pancho Villa&#39;s army, he is executed for this crime as a means of preventing any American response. Like many of Fuentes&#39; works, The Old Gringo explores the way in which revolutionary ideals become corrupted, as Arroyo chooses to pursue the deed to an estate where he once worked as a servant rather than follow the true goals of the revolution.

Gringo Viejo

Set in the 1930s it follows the misadventures of Fang Hung-chien, a bumbling everyman who wastes his time studying abroad, and secures a fake degree when learning he has run out of money and must return home to China. The first part of the novel is set on the boat home, where Fang courts two young ladies. Fang was the son of a country gentleman. A marriage had been arranged for him while at university, but the intended wife died before he could see her. After completing a degree in Chinese literature, he went to Europe where he studied at several universities without pursuing a degree. After being pressured by his family, he bought a fake degree from an American Irishman. The year was 1937, and Fang was returning to China from Europe along with other graduating Chinese students. One fellow traveler was Miss Su, in her late 20s. She is quite pretty in a thin and pallid style, but her choosy attitude towards men means she is still unattached and getting slightly desperate. Another young lady on board was Miss Pao, who tended towards the tanned and voluptuous. Fang pursued Miss Pao with some success during the voyage. However, when the boat reached Hong Kong, Miss Pao disembarked into the embrace of her fiancee, a middle-aged, balding doctor, and Fang realised he had been used. Fang then became more intimate with Miss Su. However, after they disembarked at Shanghai, Fang became occupied with finding a job, and attending matchmaking sessions arranged by his parents and former in-laws. After one failed attempt, Fang decided to contact Miss Su. While visiting her he also met her cousin, Miss T''ang, and another suitor of Miss Su''s. The second section follows his securing a teaching post at a new university - where his fake credentials are used to keep him in line, and in the third part, it centers on his disastrous marriage. The novel ends with his wife leaving him, while he listens to a clock chiming.

Fortress Besieged

The novel begins with a discussion of the character’s summer goals: Paula losing her virginity and all of the characters having “madcap adventures.” Then Edward meets his father’s girlfriend, Dagmar. While driving around they spot a green Ceramic Buddha and come up with their plan called Creative Vandalism, which means bringing “flair and vitality” to the suburbs without doing anything illegal. Ed then finds out Dagmar and his father Al are getting married. Edward throws a big party at his house to celebrate the end of the summer and a lot of people he doesn’t really know show up. He ends up revealing that he has strong sexual feelings for Doug. Edward learns that his step mom, Dagmar, is a “raving lunatic.” Then Edward’s world falls apart when he learns that his dream of going to Juilliard and becoming an actor may be hindered because his father refuses to pay for Edward’s college unless he goes into business. Natie decides that Edward needs to get a job to pay for college. Doug asks Edward if he bisexual, Edward says yes. Edward quits the school play in order to do his job, and in his absence Doug and Kelly grow close. Kelly wants to have sex, but Edward keeps avoiding it. Edward declares himself financially independent of his father and needs somewhere to live, so he moves in with Kelly. Edward grows more in love with Doug and eventually admits it to him. Edward needs to go to an audition for Juilliard so he goes to New York. He goes to a gay bar and sees his teacher, Mr. Lucas, who takes him back to his apartment to get him out of the bar. In the morning Edward wakes up hung over and late for his audition. During the audition Edward can’t remember his lines and breaks down ranting about his father and how much he hates him, which fits his speech. He leaves convinced he has not got in, but he does. Edward breaks up with Kelly, so now Kelly and Doug are dating. Doug (who is fluent in German; Dagmar''s native language) and Edward learn that Dagmar has been stealing money form Edward’s father they decide to steal it and put it into a scholarship that Edward will be sure to get. On a choir trip to Washington D.C. Doug and Edward almost have a gay moment. However, Ziba invites a past boyfriend to hang out at the hotel but he refuses to leave. He is reduced to repeated vomiting followed by passing out. They then take incriminating pictures of him to use as blackmail to get Edward money for college. Edward then visits Paula in New York and Edward finds out that he didn’t get the scholarship. Dagmar knows that Edward stole her money but can’t prove it. Aunt Glo gets arrested. Her car was used in vandalism cases over the past summer and the Buddha was reported stolen. When Edward goes home he finds Ziba and Kelly fooling around in bed, They go to pick up the Buddha and on the way back are stopped, the Buddha is discovered and they are arrested. After some negotiating and phone calls they are let out and must return the Buddha. Kelly and Edward have sex and it progresses for a while but ultimately Kelly goes back to Ziba. To create the scholarship they steal a dead little girl’s identity, and it turns out to be the late sister of one of Doug’s friends: he keeps quiet and even gets a scholarship out of it. The school production of Godspell goes really well, phenomenally well and Edward is just reassured that this is what he wants to do for his whole life. The good feeling form the play is cut short however because Dagmar is getting closer to finding out about the money. To counter this they decide to take incriminating pictures of Dagmar to get Al to divorce her so that he will pay for Juilliard. While they are taking the pictures Edward’s mother returns form her spiritual journey in South America. After some discussion with her Edward finds out that Al must pay for him to go to the college of his choice, it says it in the divorce papers for his mother and father. Al agrees to pay if that’s what Edward wants also him and Dagmar split up. In the end everybody goes their separate ways for college.

How I Paid For College: A Novel of Sex, Theft, Friendship, and Musical Theater

A prototypical Yatesian dreamer, John C. Wilder is a bored but successful salesman of advertising space, living in New York who seeks refuge from the disappointments of his life in alcohol and adultery. He breaks down during a distillers'' convention. Lacking sleep and the worse for alcohol upon his return to New York, he threatens his family. His friend, Paul Borg, has him committed to the psychiatric ward of Bellevue Hospital in New York. Upon his release he seeks help from his family, psychiatrists, and AA meetings, all of whom he subsequently rejects. With the encouragement of a mistress, Pamela Hendricks, Wilder renews himself through their common love of movies and the prospect of making a film about his institutionalization. After a group of enthusiastic college students embrace his story and partially film his screenplay, Wilder leaves his family and job to move to Hollywood in the hopes of securing a deal that will complete and distribute the film. The loss of his mistress and the rejection he suffers from producers leads him even deeper into an abyss of paranoid alcoholic delusion. The novel ends with Wilder wandering the streets of Los Angeles, declaring himself to be Jesus Christ (mirroring a delusional incident in Yates'' own life), and being recommitted to an institution.

Disturbing the Peace

The novel begins with us meeting Emerson Watts as she is on a model shoot in St. Johns, clinging onto a rock cliff over a group of nurse sharks, for a commercial for Stark Brand deodorant. She suddenly falls into the water and is rescued by her on-and-off "boyfriend" Brandon Stark (the son of her boss Robert Stark, C.E.O of mega-corporation "Stark Enterprises"). Later on at the hotel, Em gets a call from her apartment man saying a man keeps coming to her door. Em finds out the man that keeps coming to the door was Nikki''s brother, Steven, there giving her the news that their mother (i.e. Nikki''and Steven''s mother) has gone missing. Em tries to convince Steven she doesn''t know anything, but barely gets him to believe her "amnesia" story. Lulu, attracted Steven, asks him to stay with them at the loft. During his time at the loft, Em notices that they have been bugged and begins to watch what she says and does there and in other places around the house. Shortly after all this drama, Em decided to go see her real family (who are being bugged too), and comes to the realization that she can''t really go back to her old life after she realizes that she couldn''t see her grandmother that Christmas. As she left her family''s apartment in tears and was greeted by Christopher, who asked her to come up to his apartment (which was also being bugged) and began to talk with her about his plans to take down Stark Enterprises for "killing" Em. Em also considers that Christopher must have loved Em after she sees a picture of her in his bedroom. He also says that he can help her find Nikki''s mother if Em can get him an account name and password for a Stark Employee. Em reluctantly agrees to help. Em and several other models from Stark Enterprises are having a rehearsal for the Stark Angels fashion show for the upcoming New Year''s Eve. While the models in their pairs of wings are lining up in a queue to get on stage, a model named Veronica who was standing in front of Em in the queue warns Em to stop sending romantic emails to her boyfriend Justin Bay. Em tells her that she has not been emailing to Justin, saying that it was another girl using her name, but Veronica doesn''t believe her. As Em completes her run and heads for the end of the catwalk, she trips over a pile of feathers seemingly ripped off a pair of Stark Angel wings, believing that it was Veronica who set it up. After the accident Em was taken to Dr Higgins'' office and had a discussion about parts of her body that are in pain. Em says she is fine but while the doctor was typing her user name and password on a Stark Employee login site, Em sees it to give both the user name and password to Christopher. After that, at the annual party that Nikki and Lulu hold, Christopher turns up unexpectedly and asks to speak to Nikki (Em) in private. They then go into her room, where Christopher then starts kissing her. Between a kiss, he mutters the word "Em". When it finally dawns on Em what he just said, she asks him and he says that he knows its really her as he saw her document when he was hacking into the Stark mainframe. He also confesses that he had always loved her and is regretful that it took her death for him to finally see it. Brandon bursts into the room and sees Christopher with Em but tells Em that her sister Frida (who wasn''t invited but eventually invites herself to the party wearing inappropriate clothing)is vomiting and had been lied to by Justin Bay about alcohol being in the fruit punch; Gabriel Luna is trying to help her. Em comes up to Justin and asks for his cellphone but Justin refuses to. With some help from Gabriel, Christopher chokes Justin so he will give his cellphone to Em. Em and Christopher go through Justin''s messages and finds Nikki Howard''s romantic message, asking Felix to track down the person who wrote this. Felix tracks the message to the house of Dr. Jonathan Fong, a Stark neurosurgeon who lives in Westchester using Brandon''s car. After they go there, they realize that Nikki''s mom and Nikki herself (but in another person''s body) is alive. Dr. Fong then explains why he did all those things and even says that he has been hiding Nikki and her mom there otherwise Stark will kill all the 3 of them. Soon, Brandon enters the house, after being asleep in the car. He threatens Em and tells her she must now be his girlfriend, and must help him destroy his fathers career, while telling Em to break up with Christopher. She unwillingly does so, and he takes Em, Nikki, and Mrs. Howard to his summer house, where they will be safe from Stark.

Being Nikki

Jeffrey Rodinov is a descended from one of the oldest families in Alaska, and a Rodinov has been protecting a Baranov for generations. It''s a job Jeffrey takes VERY seriously. Six feet four inches, 220 fatless lbs., black hair and blue eyes; weapon of choice: the 9&nbsp;mm Beretta. In a pinch? His fists. IQ: 157. No one ever sees Jeffrey Rodinov coming, and no one—not even a mouthy, illegitimate princess—is going to keep him from playing bodyguard when his decrees it. Right. But no Rodinov ever had to protect Princess Nicole Krenski. Her credentials? Hunting guide in the Alaskan wilderness. Smart. Stubborn bordering on exasperating. Five-seven. Blue eyes. Very kissable mouth. Very kissable neck, back, legs, wrists, earlobes. The lady says she doesn''t need a bodyguard, but that''s where she''s wrong. Someone needs to watch her and show her the royal ropes (and cuffs...and scarves...). Someone who can make her feel like a queen—in and out of bed. And that''s a job Jeffrey Rodinov takes very seriously as well...

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

Read - Listen - Learn

The Gingerbread Girl

By Stephen King

The Ruby Dice

By Catherine Asaro

Nana

By Émile Zola

The Serpent's Shadow

By Mercedes Lackey

Barren Ground

No Author Listed

The Liars

By Henry Arthur Jones

Gringo Viejo

By Carlos Fuentes

Fortress Besieged

By Qian Zhongshu

How I Paid For College: A Novel of Sex, Theft, Friendship, and Musical Theater

By Marc Acito

Disturbing the Peace

By Richard Yates

Being Nikki

By Meg Cabot

The Royal Mess

By MaryJanice Davidson