Blood Ties

When Theo discovers the father he thought died when he was a baby is still alive, he's determined to find him. The clues lead him to lonely Rachel, who has problems of her own, including parents who compare her unfavourably to her long-dead sister. But when Rachel and Theo are attacked by men from RAGE - the Righteous Army against Genetic Engineering - they are rescued by strangers and taken to meet a mysterious figure who leads them to make startling discoveries about their identities, which will affect their past, present, and future in dramatic and life-altering ways...

Blood Ties is a story of families, betrayal, corruption, espionage and terrorism all that has been made possible in the United States by those people whom are elected to do a job for the people of our great nation and fail because of differences they may have in doing what is right.

"Raised in rural England before the internet era, Ben Crane grew up in the midst of wild things, with hawks and other predatory birds alive in his mind (and woods and fields) as symbols of a kind of self-possessed, solitary power. He spent time with them, knew them, and loved them. But as he grew into adulthood, situations that may seem to us natural, or even comforting, were for him challenging: he found it difficult to be around other people and to read social cues, sometimes retreating in fear or lashing out in misunderstanding. He was recognized as autistic. When Crane became a father, these challenges became unbearable, and he fled to isolation. Birds--specifically hawks--brought him back. In this artfully written memoir, we learn first about the history and practice of falconry, a beautiful and brutal partnership between humans and birds that goes back thousands of years. As the chapters unfold, the details of Crane's personal story are revealed, and we begin to understand how Crane found solace and insight via his relationships with these animals. "I saw that my feelings towards nature, and birds of prey in particular, ran in parallel with my feelings for my son," Crane writes. "I worked out that they were, in fact, two sides of the same coin--the deep love of one could, with gentle observation, inform and unlock the deep love for the other...Perhaps this then is the central theme of my story.""--

Against his mother’s wishes, Shane has decided to seek out his biological father. He feels he needs to know his real father to make his life and family complete. As you know, things don’t always go as planned and Shane receives a rude awakening when he manages to locate the man he was told is his father. Dave Knight, whom Amy says is Shane’s father has a few surprises himself and they are multiplied when Shane shows up, claiming to be his son. Things get worse when Dave’s adopted daughter has kidney failure. As one crisis after another affects the family, Dave is finding his life changed forever with the discovery of certain facts. Now Dave’s biggest worry, along with his own health, is how to save his marriage and be sure his daughter gets the help she needs. Meanwhile, Shane and his mother Amy are dealing with their own problems that will also alter their lives. In this sequel to FAMILY LIES, problems seem designed to destroy the peace and quiet of the two families; but as always, blood ties will bring them together and form an unstoppable bond. I hope you enjoy BLOOD TIES.

The Darke Academy is a school like no other. An élite establishment that moves to an exotic new city every term, its students are impossibly beautiful, sophisticated and rich. This term the secretive Darke Academy has moved to New York, and Cassie Bell is no longer the innocent new girl. Now she is strong, determined, and hiding secrets of her own. For Cassie has been introduced to the world of the Few and is struggling to come to terms with her astonishing powers, a dangerous romance and the malevolent spirit inside her, demanding to be fed. When an old enemy returns, bent on revenge, Cassie is tested to the limit. Can she rescue her friends from a horrific fate, or will she end up destroying them to save herself? Wherever the Darke Academy goes, death is never far behind ...

After the Storm, nothing is Forsaken. The saga of New York City Detective Jake Castillo comes to a head in the final installment of the Blood Ties trilogy, The Forsaken. In an effort to leave his painful memories behind, Jake relocates to the Midtown South Police Precinct, where his reputation has quickly preceded him. The detective soon finds himself investigating the murder of a high class escort, which quickly leads him to the heart of Manhattan’s Financial District and several high-powered executives with secrets that they would kill to keep. Castillo’s life gets more complicated when his older brother returns to New York City for one final score that puts him directly in the sights of the Maxwell Brothers, two of Harlem’s most notorious underworld figures. Meanwhile, the hatred between the detective and crime boss Frank Colon is reignited, leading to a chain of events that will ultimately force the detective to choose between his loyalty to his family, and the reckoning of his greatest enemy. A complex tale of family loyalty and unrelenting vengeance, The Forsaken is the violent conclusion of the Blood Ties trilogy featuring Jake Castillo, a New York City Detective who is haunted by the demons of his past as he delivers justice on the streets of a corrupt city.

When part of a murdered body is discovered on a running trail in a sleepy Tennessee town, three agents from the FBI's elite Special Crimes Unit are dispatched to investigate and discover an unearthly series of killings, in a conclusion to a trilogy that includes Blood Sins and Blood Dreams. Reprint.

Blood is thicker—and more tempting—than water Finally, school’s out for summer. To avoid the lethal sun, the Nocturne family is taking a trip to Isla Necrata, the exclusive resort owned by the Half-Light Consortium, whose destinations are always located near a natural disaster, which makes for plenty of vampire fun. But for Oliver, it’s hard to look forward to a big dose of time with his family when everything he does seems to disappoint them. Luckily, they stop to visit some Old World relatives in Morosia on the way. Though Oliver’s grandparents may be bloodthirsty and gothic, at least they still seem to like him. And the timing is convenient: Emalie is in nearby Rome searching for the oracle who may be the key to Oliver’s prophecy. But what the three friends discover in the ruins of Rome and the dark passages of Morosia will forever change their understanding of Oliver’s destiny and the dangerous lengths to which Half-Light would go to see the prophecy fulfilled.

"Dark, delicious and full of surprises, the Blood Coven series is like vampire candy." -New York Times bestselling author Heather Brewer. Officially back in the arms of her vampire boyfriend Magnus, Sunny finds she still can't forget the gentle mortal Jayden who once saved her life. When darkness threatens to steal his humanity, Sunny must make a choice: stay true to her love, or defy him in a desperate attempt to save Jayden's soul. Meanwhile, the Blood Coven is gearing up for a showdown with a splinter group of Slayer Inc. It's Vampires vs. Slayers in a showdown that could cost Sunny not only her heart...but also her life.

The truth will set you free—if it doesn't get you killed Savannah Slade is not the person she thought she was. The reading of her "father's" will has led her to a world-shattering revelation: her sisters are not her blood kin—and she may be the heiress to a massive fortune. Her not-quite-fiancé Judd doesn't care where she came from—he only wants her by his side. But the primal need to uncover her past wins out, and Savannah trades the Montana ranges for Miami's moneyed oceanside enclaves. The wealthy and powerful Stoss family is less than overjoyed to find that Gerald Stoss's daughter has emerged from the past. But theirs is a clan seldom troubled by…inconveniences. They've always had the means to eradicate any blemish on their perfect lives. One more won't make a difference.

For David Adams Richards, blood ties is not merely a figure of speech, but an assertion of the reality of life in small-town Canada, where blood ties people in countless, almost unknowable ways to friends, community, and landscape. The lives of three generations of MacDurmots form a Miramichi Valley family portrait that is beguiling, insightful, witty, and tender. Employing dazzling angles of vision and fast-shifting perspectives, Richards captures the inner lives of his characters with sympathy and understanding. From the Paperback edition.

When Theo discovers the father he thought died when he was a baby is still alive, he's determined to find him. The clues lead him to lonely Rachel, who has problems of her own, including parents who compare her unfavourably to her long-dead sister. But when Rachel and Theo are attacked by men from RAGE - the Righteous Army against Genetic Engineering - they are rescued by strangers and taken to meet a mysterious figure who leads them to make startling discoveries about their identities, which will affect their past, present, and future in dramatic and life-altering ways...

A massive bestseller in its native Italy, and a book that can justly be compared with Roberto Saviano's Gomorrah, Blood Ties is a terrifying account of the 'ndrangheta's criminal activities over the last four decades. Originally from Calabria, this sinister organization has - like the Mafia in Sicily and the Camorra in Naples - a vicious hold over northern Italy and much of the rest of the country, too, a stranglehold that is growing every day. Told to the authors by an insider, Pippo di Bella, a 'pentito', a former member of the gang now turned state's evidence, it reveals many hitherto unknown operations, as well as throwing new light on well-known cases from the past. It shows an organization which retains and strengthens its position through corruption, drug smuggling, gun running, violence, extortion and kidnapping. Visceral, compelling and terrifyingly readable, it paints a brutally vivid picture of the most dangerous and powerful of the Italian mafias, one which demands to be read.

Pholisa is coming to make a fresh start in Cape Town with her older brother Masi. Her old friend Lelethu is there to welcome her to Harmony High, where she meets the lovely Lazola, and romance is in the air. But at home Masi is becoming aggressive and moody, and Pholisa is worried about what he is doing late at night. When Masi spirals out of control, all of their lives are shattered, and Pholisa is forced to make one of the most difficult choices of her life, and face just how strong blood ties really are.

The new ‘Naomi Blake’ mystery - When Alec and Naomi take a much-needed Winter holiday in Somerset, they encounter local eccentric Eddy Thame, a historian and metal detectorist obsessed with the Monmouth rebellion of 1685 and the alleged Kirkwood treasure. A few days after their arrival, Eddy is found dead. Reluctantly, Alec and Naomi become involved, but they soon realise that Eddy seems very different to the rather dotty individual they encountered in the local pub . . .

A thousand years ago, the Eleven Domains were invaded and the original inhabitants forced on the road as Travelers, belonging nowhere, welcomed by no-one. Now the Domains are governed with an iron fist by the Warlords, but there are wilder elements to the landscape which cannot be controlled and which may prove their undoing. Some are spirits of place, of water and air and fire and earth. Some are greater than these. And some are human. Bramble: a village girl, whom no-one living can tame ... forced to flee from her home for a crime she did not commit. Ash: apprentice to a safeguarder, forced to kill for an employer he cannot escape. Saker: an enchanter, who will not rest until the land is returned to his people. As their three stories unfold, along with the stories of those whose lives they touch, it becomes clear that they are bound together in ways that not even a stonecaster could foresee - bound by their past, their future, and their blood.

When Clay Garner returns to Montana after 20 years, he is burned out by too many years of police work. Looking for peace and quiet, his life is instead thrown into turmoil when his wife and son are kidnapped, forcing him to use his FBI training to save them.

Henry Dolan's granddaughter, Martha Lynch, adopted 23 years earlier, wants to find her birth parents. Her adopted parents are frantic over the idea of losing her, so Henry seeks out Father Dowling for help. Meanwhile, Martha's birth father, Nathaniel Fleck, who left before Martha's birth, has contacted Martha's real mother, Madeline, for details about Martha. Madeline panics, afraid he won't leave her alone, and turns to Amos Cadbury, a lawyer, for advice. When Nathaniel is found murdered two days later, Dowling and Amos must juggle the responsibility of spoiling the peace of the families involved while uncovering the truth behind the murder. Blood Ties is an absorbing and suspenseful addition to this beloved series.

The region that is today the Republic of Macedonia was long the heart of the Ottoman Empire in Europe. It was home to a complex mix of peoples and faiths who had for hundreds of years lived together in relative peace. To be sure, these people were no strangers to coercive violence and various forms of depredations visited upon them by bandits and state agents. In the final decades of the nineteenth century and throughout the twentieth century, however, the region was periodically racked by bitter conflict that was qualitatively different from previous outbreaks of violence. In Blood Ties, İpek K. Yosmaoğlu explains the origins of this shift from sporadic to systemic and pervasive violence through a social history of the "Macedonian Question." Yosmaoğlu’s account begins in the aftermath of the Congress of Berlin (1878), when a potent combination of zero-sum imperialism, nascent nationalism, and modernizing states set in motion the events that directly contributed to the outbreak of World War I and had consequences that reverberate to this day. Focusing on the experience of the inhabitants of Ottoman Macedonia during this period, Yosmaoğlu shows how communal solidarities broke down, time and space were rationalized, and the immutable form of the nation and national identity replaced polyglot, fluid associations that had formerly defined people’s sense of collective belonging. The region was remapped; populations were counted and relocated. An escalation in symbolic and physical violence followed, and it was through this process that nationalism became an ideology of mass mobilization among the common folk. Yosmaoğlu argues that national differentiation was a consequence, and not the cause, of violent conflict in Ottoman Macedonia.