Bicentennial fireworks burn the sky. Bob Seger growls from a transistor radio. And down by the river, girls line up on lawn chairs in pursuit of the perfect tan. Yet for ten-year-old Eli Book, the summer of 1976 is the one that threatened to tear his family apart. There is his distant mother; his traumatized Vietnam vet dad; his wild sister; his former warprotester aunt; and his tough yet troubled best friend, Edie, the only person with whom he can be himself. As tempers flare and his father’s nightmares rage, Eli watches from the sidelines, but soon even he cannot escape the current of conflict. From Silas House comes a tender look at the complexities of childhood and the realities of war — a quintessentially Southern novel filled with music, nostalgic detail, a deep respect for nature, and a powerful sense of place.

Driven by the most sidesplitting dialogue this side of Catch-22, Everett's latest tells the story of a young man named Not Sidney Poitier who bears an uncanny resemblance to the famed actor and is adept at deploying a hypnotic technique called Fesmerism. When Not Sidney is young, his mother dies, but not before becoming an early investor in Ted Turner's enterprises. The boy then moves to Atlanta, into the home of Ted Turner. Despite his vast wealth and celebrity looks, when Not Sidney ventures out into the world as a young adult, he faces bizarre, stinging and potentially deadly forms of racism. While Not Sidney comes across as a likable and thoughtful soul, he's the perfect foil for the fictionalized Turner's stream-of-consciousness non sequiturs (I've never been struck by lightning. You?) as well as the logical absurdities that pepper the speech of his university professor who happens to be named Percival Everett. Not only is the novel smart and without a trace of pretentiousness, it shows Everett as a novelist at the height of his narrative and satirical powers." (Publishers Weekly)

The eight stories in this debut collection maintain a sense of isolation and loss while depicting and dissecting the lives of drifting characters making questionable decisions in a quiet Kentucky town. In the title piece, a father is faced with a moral quandary when his 19-year-old son is accused of raping a local teenager. The others follow similar themes of emotional voids and gaps in trust. In Upright Man, a college-bound town kid, Matt, befriends large and muscular and handsome country-boy Robbie while doing manual labor the summer after graduation. Though Robbie helps Matt get his first girlfriend, Matt secretly desires Robbie's girl and discovers how easily betrayal overcomes good intentions. The strongest entries are Parts and Proof of God, opposite sides of the same tale, narrated in turn by the mother who loses her daughter in a horrific crime, and the college classmate who killed her. Throughout each, the fallible characters are handled with delicate honesty. Though the setting tends to feel repetitive, Jones writes with grace and ease, the selections adding up to a powerful sum of reflection, loss and regret." (Publishers Weekly)

Mickey Donnelly feels as if he has lost it all. Recently divorced, he also just lost his job as a sports talk show host in Kentucky. Mickey believes he was fired because of actions taken by a childhood friend, Anthony Michaels, the smartest kid in school. But Anthony always used his brains for mischief. When Mickey gets an offer to host another talk show in his hometown of Binghamton, New York, he has mixed emotions about going back. If he takes the new job, he will have to resolve things with Anthony and will also need to face demons from his past that are haunting him. This novel brings home the dilemma of a broken man who must come to terms with his past. It is a powerful story of love, friendship and coming to terms with who you are.

Giardina (Saints and Villains) offers Brontë fans a solid biographical novel portraying sisters Anne, Charlotte and Emily as different in temperament but in love with the same man, fighting the same illnesses and withdrawing from the same grim realities to write poetry and fiction that express their individual passions. Youngest sister Emily distinguishes herself at age six when, while attending boarding school, she admits to encounters with ghosts. (The punishment doled out by the headmaster does not deter Emily, but it does inspire a well-known scene in Jane Eyre.) Brontë men include brother Branwell, who struggles with addiction; father Patrick, straining to support his family on limited finances; and William Weightman, Patrick's young, flirtatious, social-reforming curate who becomes the key figure as he wins the hearts of the three Brontë girls. Giardina's mid-19th-century England is factually sturdy, while the relationship between Emily and Weightman is nicely nuanced, and the insights and inferences about Emily and Charlotte's relationship are convincingly rendered. You don't have to be a Brontë scholar to appreciate Giardina's novel, but having a little context will greatly increase the payoff." (Publishers Weekly)

Equine ER: A Year in the Life of an Equine Veterinary Hospital captures the often dramatic, sometimes heartbreaking, but all-inspiring stories author Leslie Guttman witnessed during her year as the proverbial "fly on the wall" at world-renowned Rood & Riddle Equine Hospital in Lexington, Kentucky.

"In Ghosts of the Bluegrass, James McCormick and Macy Wyatt present stories of Kentucky ghosts past and present. Some of the tales are set in rural areas, but many take place in urban areas such as the haunted house on Broadway in downtown Lexington and in buildings on the University of Kentucky campus, where Adolph Rupp is said to have conversed with the deceased biology professor Dr. Funkhouser. This volume contains chapters on haunted places, poltergeists, communication with the dead, and ghosts who linger to resolve unfinished business from their past lives, as well as a chapter about ghosts who reveal themselves through lights, changes in temperature, or sound. The book even features a chilling account by a nineteenth-century family haunted in their Breckinridge County home." (Lynwood Montell)

A prominent journalist and horse breeder gives a comic but poignant critique of what is happening to the sport of thoroughbred racing and the animals he loves--including the blight of drug-enhanced horses--as he and a small group of unlikely heroes agitate for a return to fair dealing.

As the GOP leader in the U.S. Senate, Mitch McConnell is the highest-ranking Republican in America. Fellow Kentuckian and political columnist Dyche offers an engrossing inside look at Senator McConnell's unlikely rise.

Lynwood Montell has collected ghost tales all over the state of Kentucky, from coal mining settlements to river landings, from highways to battlefields. He presents these suspense-filled stories just as he first heard or read them: as bona fide personal experiences or as events witnessed by family members or friends. There are over 250 stories in Ghosts across Kentucky that are set in specific places and times. They include tales of graveyards, haunted dormitories, animal ghosts, and vanishing hitchhikers. Montell describes weird lights, unexplained sounds, felt presences, and disappearing apparitions. Phantom workmen, fallen soldiers, young lovers, and executed criminals appear in these pages, along with the living who chance upon them. Though the focus is on the stories themselves, Montell also includes a chapter explaining our fascination with the supernatural and the deep truths these storytelling traditions reveal about our lives and our pasts.

This book is a compilation from people who have had encounters with ghosts, demons and aliens. Inside these pages are stories of demons, witchcraft, ghostly encounters and other strange phenomonon, most from Kentucky and Ohio. Come along with author Denver Hensley as he keeps you on the edge of your seat telling you stories of the bizarre.

Says the author in his preface to the book: "All too often authentic folklore has been caught up in the backwash of time. Nearly forgotten, it has disappeared into the pages of neglected histories or been all but lost in the retelling of legends. In Kentucky a few ancient ones still remain who know firsthand some of the stories, legends and folklore of our state. With their passing we stand to lose even more of this wonderful heritage. It is time ... time that someone undertakes to collect, at least in part, the scattered remnants and compile them for the present and future generations of Kentuckians."