My Life As A Potato Read Aloud

A Blighted Awakening

A sexually charged, deeply moving tale revealing the shaded tastes in sexual practices that will absorb you, entertain you and stay in your thoughts for a very long time. An epic lustful and sensual story set amidst the turmoil and lawlessness of the mid-nineteenth century beginning at the outbreak of the devastating Irish potato famine, A Blighted Awakening is the story of Michael Flanagan, an innocent, naive Irish lad who manages to escape the perils of the potato famine after losing his mother and father to starvation and typhoid, along with millions of others, travels on a unloaded coal barge returning to Liverpool where the awakening to a new world starts. After having been beaten and robbed of the little he possesses, Michael is rescued by Leon, a black slave who bought his freedom and made his way to England. Leon is also a bare-knuckle fighter, having been forced to fight by his owner. He is now working as a bouncer at a high-class brothel. Leon persuades the owner of the brothel to take Michael on. At the brothel Michael is awakened into a world of brothels, BDSM and eroticism, the likes of which his strict naive religious upbringing could ever possibly have led him to imagine existed.

My Life in Two Hemispheres

The Secret Lives of Dresses

A woman returns to her small southern hometown to take care of her ailing grandmother and her vintage dress shop in a novel that is "a pure delight" (Claire LaZebnik, author of KNITTING UNDER THE INFLUENCE ). Dora has always taken the path of least resistance. She went to the college that offered her a scholarship, majoring in "vagueness studies," and wears whatever shows the least dirt. She falls into a job at the college coffee shop and has a crush on her flirty boss, Gary. But just when she's about to test Gary's feelings, Mimi, the grandmother who raised her, suffers a stroke. Dora rushes back to Forsyth, NC, and finds herself running her grandmother's vintage clothing store while her grandmother recovers—and meets Mimi's adorable contractor, Conrad. The store has always been a fixture in Dora's life; though she grew up more of a jeans-and-sweatshirt kind of girl, before she even knew how to write, Mimi taught her that a vintage 1920s dress could lift a woman's spirit. But why has Mimi started writing down—and giving away—stories of the dresses in her shop? Amidst personal and professional turmoil, can Dora can trade her boring clothes for vintage glamour and her boring life for one she actually wants? "A sweet tale, stylishly told." —Lauren Lipton, author of Mating Rituals of the North American Wasp "Pleasantly effervescent debut." - Kirkus Reviews "Romance readers and fans of small-town fiction will love this positive and enjoyable book." — Booklist