FICTION · ROMANCE
Harper Allen
Harper Allen is an Canadian writer of romance novels. She is a four-time nominee for a Career Achievement Award by Romantic Times Book Reviews magazine and her novel Dressed To Slay was named the magazine's choice for Best Silhouette Bombshell of 2006. Her Irish ancestry lends them a touch of Celtic mysticism, while her work as a reporter in the criminal court system gives her books a darker edge, first and foremost each one is a story about a man and a woman falling in love and holding on to that love. Her characters have always been real people with real flaws, desperately struggling to find the love that will redeem them - and for that Harper need look no further for inspiration than her own life. Harper grew up in a blue-collar motor city, and with comments such as "Does not play well with others" on her grade-school report cards. Underneath the motorcycle leathers and the rose tattoo, beats the heart of a true romantic. The day she met the man who eventually became her husband, she told her sister, "I've just met the man I'm going to marry. How long do you think it'll take him to figure it out?" They married, and had little kids, who aren't the first ones picked for the volleyball team. Her idea of a great date with her husband is going to a baseball game. Her idea of a great baseball game is any one in which the Red Sox win.
Regretfully, I have no satisfying explanation for my irrational and shocking behavior.
— from Twice Tempted
Most acclaimed
Sullivan's last stand
THE FIRST TIME HAD BEEN HARD... Bailey Flowers should have known a man who'd been to hell and back would break her heart. But now ex-mercenary Terrence Sullivan was the only man who could help her locate her missing sibling - before the police framed her sister for murder! THE SECOND TIME WOULD BE IMPOSSIBLE These former lovers thought they could set aside personal feelings to solve an increasingly bizarre - and deadly - investigation. But when their simmering passion exploded in an all-consuming desire, Bailey knew this tortured mercenary needed her help. Because the only key to Sullivan's salvation lay in her ever-loving arms...
Payback
From the child taunted by her playmates to the office worker who feels stifled in his daily routine, people frequently take out their pain and anger on others, even those who had nothing to do with the original stress. The bullied child may kick her puppy, the stifled worker yells at his children: Payback can be directed anywhere, sometimes at inanimate things, animals, or other people. In this book, the authors, an evolutionary biologist and a psychiatrist, offer a look at this phenomenon, showing how it has evolved, why it occurs, and what we can do about it. Retaliation and revenge are well known to most people. We all know what it is like to want to get even, get justice, or take revenge. What is new in this book is an extended discussion of redirected aggression, which occurs not only in people but other species as well. The authors reveal that it's not just a matter of yelling at your spouse "because" your boss yells at you. Indeed, the phenomenon of redirected aggression, so called to differentiate it from retaliation and revenge, the other main forms of payback, haunts our criminal courts, our streets, our battlefields, our homes, and our hearts. It lurks behind some of the nastiest and seemingly inexplicable things that otherwise decent people do, from road rage to yelling at a crying baby. And it exists across boundaries of every kind, culture, time, geography, and even species. Indeed, it's not just a human phenomenon. Passing pain to others can be seen in birds and horses, fish and primates, in virtually all vertebrates. It turns out that there is robust neurobiological hardware and software promoting redirected aggression, as well as evolutionary underpinnings. Payback may be natural, the authors conclude, but we are capable of rising above it, without sacrificing self-esteem and social status. They show how the various human responses to pain and suffering can be managed mindfully, carefully, and humanely.