Patricia Smith

Falling in love is one of the easiest thing to do. Staying in love-is the where the heartache is. How can you keep your relationship and marriage fresh and growing with the everyday demands of life. So many women hope for a long lasting relationship even marriage. A good marriage/relationship needs more than being in love. Relationships, especially those that last a lifetime, are an important part of a fulfilling and satisfying life. Yet marital relationship is an adventure in which more and more people fail. Almost 50 percent of all marriages end up in divorce. Whether you are single and looking for a partner, whether you are living in a partnership or a marriage, whether you are separated or divorced, whether you are in the middle of a divorce or thinking about separating: in this book you will find suggestions for yourself personally, your partnership or future relationships. Even if many relationships and marriages fail, I can tell you from my own experience: it is worth the effort to look after your relationship. It is worth fighting for with the partner and arguing. It is worthwhile to compromise in a relationship and give in not at any price, but always again. It is worth the effort to work for the partnership. Pathways to Love and Lasting Marriage is a short, direct and straight forward guide on how and what to do to have a lasting marriage and relationship filled with love and happiness.

A young woman's battle to escape a post-apocalyptic nuclear world results in a fight for her life and the need to seek help from an old friend. The long awaited sequel to Time Split.

Saturdays are special for Janna. That's when she and Granddaddy spend the whole day together. Walking down the street with Granddaddy is like strolling through a kingdom with a king. He knows everyone and everyone knows him. Best of all, Granddaddy and Janna always head for her favorite place in the world -- Terrell's barbershop. There, Granddaddy and his friends are kings in barber chair thrones, and Janna is a princess, showered with love and attention. One day Granddaddy passes away, and Janna feels she has lost their wonderful kingdom forever. But with great courage and some unexpected help, Janna finds her way back to the happiness of those special Saturdays. Winner of LEE & LOW's New Voices Award, Janna and the Kings is a moving story of love and rediscovery, and a celebration of the enduring bond between grandchild and grandparent.

As the survivors of the catastrophe that turned Earth into a barren rock are settling on their new planet, an enemy from a past encounter finds them and a new fight for survival begins.****"There's a ship coming around from the dark side of the planet. I've tried communicating with it, but have so far received no response," Lauren informed." Is it the Cyroux?" Joel asked." It doesn't look like the original craft we saw." Then, as the vessel cleared the planet and moved away from the murky effect of the atmosphere, Lauren leapt from her seat and lunged for the captain's chair. "It's the ship that attacked us," she yelled." Get out of there," Joel called, "go anywhere, just get away." Lauren pulled on the headset used to control Terra's systems and was just about to instruct the ship to go to warp, when the screen was swamped by a powerful pulse of energy. As the alien vessel grew larger, Lauren realized Terra was moving towards it when a set of numbers, indicating their location in space, changed rapidly on the holographic display which appeared ahead the moment her brain waves connected with the ship's systems. She instructed Terra to go to warp. Space ahead blurred slightly, but before the craft could make the leap, a pulse of energy was fired from the attacking vessel again and the warp drive was disabled." They've got us in a tractor beam, we're being dragged towards them," she told the captain on the surface. She now instructed the ship to reverse. For a moment, the numbers on the holographic display held static and Lauren had some hope they might escape the grip of the beam until another pulse pounded Terra, resonating throughout the hull, and the figures returned to their previous state, continuing to climb." What about the force field?" Anton suggested, dragging his eyes away from the enemy ship. "Could we repel them with the force field?""It's on. It activated the moment the system sensed I was alarmed." A hiss, soft at first, but increasing with proximity, began to grow on the flight deck. It decreased slightly when the front of the alien vessel opened out to reveal a massive cargo hold. Then, as Terra continued to be dragged in, the hiss climbed again until it reached a painful level." What's happening?" Joel called." We're being pulled into the ship. They're taking Terra inside their vessel.""The force field is overloading," Anton informed. "The energy levels are into the red.""Deactivate it," Joel instructed. "Do everything you can to escape. We'll..." Then the link was severed as space behind Terra disappeared.

This enthralling historical novel brings alive the dark world of medieval religion and hypocrisy. Innocence? No protection. No protection at all. There was a moment of total silence when even birds were hushed. Then we heard hooves. Into the square trotted a magnificent white palfrey with richly-embossed saddle, tossing its head in silent rebellion as the rider jerked at the reins. "I give you my blessing " the man shouted. I tried not to flinch, hoping my look of horror hadn't given me away. That tight, clipped voice was horribly familiar; his long nose and fleshy chin could only belong to one man. The Inquisitor. In Toulouse. How I cursed my over-confidence. What a fool I'd been to ignore my doubts. Our most precious gift was beyond price and for it he'd chase us to the gates of Hell itself. But recriminations were useless. Perhaps the man wouldn't notice us. Or perhaps this was Fate. He dismounted, gave the reins to a soldier and strode like an oversized, hunched vulture straight towards where I stood. Anton, desperate for glory, is one of hundreds of Cathar heretics besieged in the doomed citadel of Monts gur. Reluctantly he agrees to smuggle a small package to safety and leave the Citadel to its fate. Even more reluctantly he must accept a companion - Anna Marie, feisty, resourceful and able to charm leaves off the trees. Inside the package lies a secret that many will torture or kill to possess. Is it God's greatest gift which will redeem mankind forever, or 'the divine curse', destroyer of Christianity? But they have their own demons to face - and a relationship to forge. They flee across a divided, violent and fearful France, relentlessly pursued by the mysterious Inquisitor and seeking sanctuary which they never find. Dr. Valerie Levy (author of 'Midwyf') comments, "This is a gem - what a pleasure to read a well-written story set in such a fascinating period of history. I have read several books about the Cathars and medieval Europe; this has to be one of the most interesting." Janet Bettle (author of legal thrillers 'Unnatural Causes', 'The Confession', 'Dead Man's Shoes') says, "It took me into a totally different world, my guides being two young French people on the run from religious persecutors. The characters were interesting and developed over the course of the story; the plot was exciting and fast-moving. It managed to be entertaining and informative at the same time, introducing me into a world that I knew so little about."

'Islands - The Epidemic' is the first in the Islands series. Six months into an experiment to prove self-sufficiency is possible at the bottom of the sea, a war breaks out and, soon after, the five hundred specialists lose contact with the surface.****Palov Kilchinski stared the length of the room, his eyes fixed on the top of the stairs. Seconds earlier the whole world had seemed to momentarily jump and, as his senses tingled painfully on high-alert, an explosion followed by a rolling roar impacted the twin doors leading into the basement. Triggered by a sharp shot of adrenaline, his blinkered, tunnelled vision focused on the timber. As the wood visibly billowed, swelling and straining against the lock and hinges, Palov instinctively stepped away - but it did not crack and the frame held. Fine dust escaped the base as the doors shuddered back into their seating, ballooning down the stairs to amass in a slow moving eddy until a dense shard-filled fog blocked the exit. Escape was not Palov's concern; nor were the alarms which warned the building was ablaze, or the screams of survivors from the floor above. He scanned the basement for structural damage. At the far end of the room two wide cracks had appeared. One snaked down the wall to almost floor level; the other ran the length of the concrete ceiling, splitting the basement in two. He turned to his colleague. "Check the seals are intact." Mikile Brunev - the only other in the building who was privy to the true nature of the facility - crossed to a touch screen on the right of a heavily fortified metal door and studied the readings. Positioned at eye level it was equipped with a line of LEDs, all of which were mute - bar one. This single red light, glowing like a ripe autumn berry, indicated that the internal pressure within the chambers had fluctuated slightly. It happened from time to time and was not an automatic alert that something was faulty, since even a minuscule change would be registered. The noise upstairs intensified as the search for survivors began. Muffled calls, stifled by the basement's extraordinarily thick walls, intermingled with screams when limbs were released and the injured moved. Equipment, upended then dropped, loosened more dust from the ceiling and widened the fracture further. The two men, focusing on their task, were oblivious to the chaos above. Mikile entered a string of commands on the screen. He hoped to balance the pressure and extinguish the LED, but instead it seemed to have an adverse effect when a second diode began to glow, followed immediately by a third. He looked over his shoulder. "There are three lights on," he gasped. "It's all right," Palov replied, the calmness in his voice hiding a barely-controlled terror. "Anything less than five means the chambers remain hermetically sealed." When Mikile returned his attention to the screen he found a further LED had sprung to life. "There's now..." he stopped as another lit. "No " then a sixth and a seventh, "Please God No "By now Palov could see for himself the string of pulsating red beads that adorned the safety panel and, as his self-preservation shut down, his thoughts went immediately to his family and loved ones. He knew what had to be done and it had to be done fast. Prompted into action, he crossed the room to the phone." Go and see what's happening upstairs," he instructed as he dialled an outside line, but when his colleague never moved, he screamed: "Mikile . No-one must be allowed to leave; you know what you must do "Mikile was also ex-army and it was only discipline that kept him going now. Tearing his eyes away from the safety panel, he grabbed an Uzi and two spare clips from a cupboard then hurriedtowards the stairs.****Also by Patricia Smith: Time Split, Time Split-Briggs Distant Suns, Distant Suns-The Journey Home, Distant Suns-The Silexous, Distant Suns-Mettle and Nebathan.

Distant Suns - The Journey Home is the sequel to Distant Suns. The crew of the star ship Terra - the last hope to avoid extinction for the human race - are nearly two years from the dying planet Earth, when their four thousand year long journey, to reach the first possible habitable world, is unexpectedly halted.

Winner of 2013 Wheatley Book Award in Poetry Finalist for 2013 William Carlos Williams Award Winner of 2014 Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry "Patricia Smith is writing some of the best poetry in America today. Ms Smith's new book, Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah, is just beautiful--and like the America she embodies and represents--dangerously beautiful. Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah is a stunning and transcendent work of art, despite, and perhaps because of, its pain. This book shines." --Sapphire "One of the best poets around and has been for a long time." --Terrance Hayes "Smith's work is direct, colloquial, inclusive, adventuresome." --Gwendolyn Brooks In her newest collection, Patricia Smith explores the second wave of the Great Migration. Shifting from spoken word to free verse to traditional forms, she reveals "that soul beneath the vinyl." Patricia Smith is the author of five volumes of poetry, including Blood Dazzler, a finalist for the 2008 National Book Award, and Teahouse of the Almighty, a National Poetry Series selection. She lives in New Jersey.

A Guide to Recognizing and Managing Compassion Fatigue - Presenter's Guide Level 1

A Guide to Recognizing and Managing Compassion Fatigue - Student Guide Level 1