The Billionaire's Curse

The Billionaire's Curse
Author: Richard Newsome
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 292
Release: 2010-05-15
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 006199832X

Gerald Wilkins never considered himself a particularly exceptional thirteen-year-old. But that was before he inherited twenty billion pounds, a Caribbean island, a yacht, and three estates from a great-aunt he never knew. With this fortune, however, comes a letter. One from his great-aunt Geraldine. One that tells Gerald that she was murdered, and that it's up to him to find out why. Along with his friends Ruby and Sam, Gerald embarks on a journey that will lead him from the British Museum to dodgy social clubs for the disgustingly rich to mansions in the English countryside to secret places far underground. Who was Geraldine Archer? And what secrets was she hiding? Unless Gerald, Sam, and Ruby can find out before the killer does, they may be next.

The Crystal Code

The Crystal Code
Author: Richard Newsome
Publisher: Text Publishing
Total Pages: 374
Release: 2012-09-26
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 1921961287

Gerald Wilkins, the world's youngest billionaire, is about to get more than he expected for Christmas. Gerald, Ruby and Sam are meeting up with Alisha and Gerald's Australian school friend Ox for two weeks of snowboarding in the mountains of California. It's a dream vacation. But soon after they arrive - by helicopter, with Gerald's butler Mr Fry at the controls, of course - the private chalet is attacked. Gerald and the gang escape through a secret passage, only to be pursued on snowmobiles by men with guns across frozen lakes and into the path of a cascading avalanche. Could this be the work of Gerald's nemesis Sir Mason Green, recently escaped from prison? Or is someone else behind the attack? Does the old dry cleaning ticket Gerald found amongst Green's belongings hold the key? And how does an invitation to join the secretive Billionaire's Club land Gerald in so much trouble? Join Gerald and his friends in the USA, the Czech Republic and a tiny island in Sweden for a new thrilling adventure. After all, with all that money, there's got to be more to the story.

The Cursing Mommy's Book of Days

The Cursing Mommy's Book of Days
Author: Ian Frazier
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Total Pages: 254
Release: 2012-10-02
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0374709491

Based on his widely read columns for The New Yorker, Ian Frazier's uproarious first novel, The Cursing Mommy's Book of Days, centers on a profoundly memorable character, sprung from an impressively fertile imagination. Structured as a daybook of sorts, the book follows the Cursing Mommy—beleaguered wife of Larry and mother of two boys, twelve and eight—as she tries (more or less) valiantly to offer tips on how to do various tasks around the home, only to end up on the ground, cursing, surrounded by broken glass. Her voice is somewhere between Phyllis Diller's and Sylvia Plath's: a hilariously desperate housewife with a taste for swearing and large glasses of red wine, who speaks to the frustrations of everyday life. Frazier has demonstrated an astonishing ability to operate with ease in a variety of registers: from On the Rez, an investigation into the lives of modern day Oglala Sioux written with a mix of humor, compassion, and imagination, to Dating Your Mom, a sidesplitting collection of humorous essays that imagines, among other things, how and why you might begin a romance with your mother. Here, Frazier tackles another genre with his usual grace and aplomb, as well as an extra helping of his trademark wicked wit. The Cursing Mommy's failures and weaknesses are our own—and Frazier gives them a loving, satirical spin that is uniquely his own.

Once a Myth

Once a Myth
Author: Pepper Winters
Publisher: Pepper Winters
Total Pages: 297
Release: 2020-02-25
Genre: Fiction
ISBN:

A new Dark, Delicious, Deviant Romance coming from the New York Times Bestseller, Pepper Winters. “There was a boy once. A boy who wasn’t strong enough to save me when I was taken. There was an owner once. An owner who bought me, entrapped me, and made me his unwilling goddess.” Eleanor Grace is a naïve dreamer. Trusting and young, she believes her book-loving boyfriend can save her when her freedom is snatched and sold. Squirrelled away to an island at midnight, delivered to a man even darkness won’t touch, she’s bound by a contract. Sullivan Sinclair is the giver of fantasies. Any wish, any desire—he is the master at quenching even the filthiest appetites. His private paradise and perfectly trained goddesses are there for one purpose: to ensure every guest is extremely well satisfied. He bought her. He trapped her. She belongs to him. Five books in the series. Each full length. All out now! Once a Myth Twice a Wish Third a Kiss Fourth a Lie Fifth a Fury Dark content and deviously delicious.

The Wealth Hoarders

The Wealth Hoarders
Author: Chuck Collins
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2021-03-08
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1509543503

For decades, a secret army of tax attorneys, accountants and wealth managers has been developing into the shadowy Wealth Defence Industry. These ‘agents of inequality’ are paid millions to hide trillions for the richest 0.01%. In this book, inequality expert Chuck Collins, who himself inherited a fortune, interviews the leading players and gives a unique insider account of how this industry is doing everything it can to create and entrench hereditary dynasties of wealth and power. He exposes the inner workings of these “agents of inequality”, showing how they deploy anonymous shell companies, family offices, offshore accounts, opaque trusts, and sham transactions to ensure the world’s richest pay next to no tax. He ends by outlining a robust set of policies that democratic nations can implement to shut down the Wealth Defence Industry for good. This shocking exposé of the insidious machinery of inequality is essential reading for anyone wanting the inside story of our age of plutocratic plunder and stashed cash.

Beating the Midas Curse

Beating the Midas Curse
Author: Rod Zeeb
Publisher:
Total Pages: 276
Release: 2020-10-29
Genre:
ISBN:

In this updated 3rd edition of the classic best-seller, you will learn why only one out of ten families successfully pass their unity and prosperity from one generation to the next, and what you can do to protect and strengthen your own family against The Midas Curse. For as long as historical records have been kept, the three-generation cycle of boom to bust has been the painful reality for 90% of all families. Two thousand years ago in China the saying was 'wealth never survives three generations.' A century ago in Brazil it was 'from the stables to the stars to the stables' in three generations. Many cultures, one sad tradition of loss and failure.Watching your family's material assets fade away is bad enough; even worse is witnessing the damage done to individual family member achievement and family unity, in large part because traditional inheritance planning fails to address the Midas Curse. Author Rod Zeeb knew why so many families were failing. For him, the more important question was: what were the 10% of families who continue to thrive and prosper generation after generation doing differently? Beating the Midas Curse is the product of decades of research and practical experience with hundreds of families at all income levels, from average income earners to billionaires. It details the practical, proven methods identified by Zeeb that have been used for centuries by the 'successful 10%' to beat the Midas Curse. Start with the information in this book, and then begin your family's own multi-generational journey to greater unity, strength and prosperity-right now.

A Little Life

A Little Life
Author: Hanya Yanagihara
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 833
Release: 2016-01-26
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0804172706

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A stunning “portrait of the enduring grace of friendship” (NPR) about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. A masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century. NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • MAN BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST • WINNER OF THE KIRKUS PRIZE A Little Life follows four college classmates—broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition—as they move to New York in search of fame and fortune. While their relationships, which are tinged by addiction, success, and pride, deepen over the decades, the men are held together by their devotion to the brilliant, enigmatic Jude, a man scarred by an unspeakable childhood trauma. A hymn to brotherly bonds and a masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century, Hanya Yanagihara’s stunning novel is about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. Look for Hanya Yanagihara’s latest bestselling novel, To Paradise.

Arrangement with a Billionaire

Arrangement with a Billionaire
Author: Mandy Rosko
Publisher: Mandy Rosko
Total Pages: 416
Release: 2016-04-26
Genre: Fiction
ISBN:

Payback. Power Struggles. Lust. Love? Isla King's family business was taken over by Calendri Corp, leaving her family in shambles. Now she's in Arturo Calendri's high rise office to beg for some mercy since he's the new CEO. His reputation as a bad boy doesn't scare her. Not much, anyway. When face to face with him, however, he reminds her of one tiny little detail that she might've forgotten. That time she told him off in her family's boutique. Oops... Arturo is holding all the cards and incredibly happy about it, and if Isla wants the family business back, she's going to have to agree to a little arrangement. Spend four weeks with him in his lonely mansion, being owned and claimed by him, or go home with nothing.

Odd Apocalypse

Odd Apocalypse
Author: Dean Koontz
Publisher: Bantam
Total Pages: 370
Release: 2012-07-31
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0345533585

“Koontz gives [Odd Thomas] wit, good humor, a familiarity with the dark side of humanity—and moral outrage.”—USA Today Once presided over by a Roaring ’20s Hollywood mogul, the magnificent West Coast estate known as Roseland now harbors a reclusive billionaire financier and his faithful servants—and their guests: Odd Thomas, the young fry cook who sees the dead and tries to help them, and Annamaria, his inscrutably charming traveling companion. Fresh from a harrowing clash with lethal adversaries, they welcome their host’s hospitality. But Odd’s extraordinary eye for the uncanny detects disturbing secrets that could make Roseland more hell than haven. Soon enough the house serves up a taste of its terrors, as Odd begins to unravel the darkest mystery of his curious career. What consequences await those who confront evil at its most profound? Odd only knows. “Odd Thomas is the greatest character Dean Koontz has ever created. He’s funny, humble, immensely likable, courageous, and just a joy to read about.”—Seattle Post-Intelligencer “[Odd Thomas is] one of the most remarkable and appealing characters in current fiction.”—The Virginian-Pilot “Supernatural thrills with a side of laughs.”—The Denver Post