key visual novel Audiobooks

“Papa explains the war like this: ‘When the elephants dance, the chickens must be careful.’ The great beasts, as they circle one another, shaking the trees and trumpeting loudly, are the Amerikanos and the Japanese as they fight. And our Philippine Islands? We are the small chickens.” Once in a great while comes a storyteller who can illuminate worlds large and small, magical and true to life. When the Elephants Dance introduces us to the incandescent voice of Tess Uriza Holthe, who sets her remarkable first novel in the waning days of World War II, as the Japanese and the Americans engage in a fierce battle for possession of the Philippine Islands. The Karangalan family and their neighbors huddle for survival in the cellar of a house a few miles from Manila. Outside the safety of their little refuge the war rages on—fiery bombs torch the beautiful Filipino countryside, Japanese soldiers round up and interrogate innocent people, and from the hills guerillas wage a desperate campaign against the enemy. Inside the cellar, these men, women, and children put their hopes and dreams on hold as they wait out the war, only emerging to look for food, water, and medicine. Through the eyes of three narrators, thirteen-year-old Alejandro Karangalan, his spirited older sister Isabelle, and Domingo, a passionate guerilla commander, we see how ordinary people must learn to live in the midst of extraordinary uncertainty, how they must find hope for survival where none seems to exist. They find this hope in the dramatic history of the Philippine Islands and the passion and bravery of its people. Crowded together in the cellar, the Karangalans and their friends and neighbors tell magical stories to one another based on Filipino myth and legend to fuel their courage, pass the time, and teach important lessons.

Murder can be most foul… Is a sweet ending possible when a rival meets his bitter end? Marilyn Hayes, amateur sleuth and owner of SubLime Sweets, Key West’s most popular pie shop, is stunned when a nearby rival starts selling Key Lime pie. The pie mysteriously tastes all too similar to Marilyn’s, and when her rival starts giving his Key Lime pie away for free, Marilyn’s business takes a huge hit. Furious, she tries to beat him at his own game, but when she lashes out, and her rival is later found dead in his shop, her actions look more than suspicious. A special investigator comes in to tackle the case, and his gaze is laser-focused on Marilyn…as the prime suspect. With business dwindling rapidly, and a detective who is ready to close the case and throw Marilyn in jail, the stressed-out pie baker has to find the real killer before it’s too late. Will she clear her name and save her business? Find out in this delicious Cozy Culinary Mystery!

ONE OF QUEER FORTY'S BEST PRIDE READS FOR SUMMER 2023! Three gay men in pre-Stonewall New York City find their fates thrown together in the police raid of a Village bar. Roger Moorhouse is a Wall Street banker and Westchester family man with a preciously guarded secret. As the shouting begins and flashlights blaze in his face, the life he’s carefully curated over the years―a fancy new office overlooking lower Broadway, a house in Beechmont Woods, his wife and children―is about to come crashing down around him. Columbia literature professor Julian Prince lives a comparatively uncloseted life when he finds his first committed relationship tested to its limits. How could he explain to Gus, a fearless young artist, that he couldn’t stay with him that weekend because the woman who was still technically Julian’s fiancée would be visiting? But when Gus is struck unconscious by a police baton, Julian comes out of hiding to protect him, even if exposure means losing everything. For Danny Duffy, an Irish kid from the Bronx with a sassy mouth and a diverse group of friends, the raid is a galvanizing, Spartacus moment. Danny doesn’t have too much left to lose; his family has just disowned him. But once his name appears in the newspaper, he’ll be fired from his job at Sloan’s Supermarket, where he’s risen to assistant manager of produce, and begin a journey that veers between political enlightenment and violent revenge. The three men find themselves in a police wagon together, their hidden lives threatened to be revealed to the world. Blackmail, a private investigator, Gus’s disappearance, and Danny’s quest for retribution propel Disorderly Men to its piercing conclusion, as each man meets the boundaries of his own fear, love, and shame. The stakes for each are different, but all of them confront a fundamental question: How much happiness is he allowed to have . . . and what share of it will he lay claim to?

Revenge may be best served cold… But the right pie can be murder. Key Lime pie shop owner, Marilyn Hayes, moved to the sublime paradise of Key West after her divorce to make a new life for herself and her daughter. With unshakable determination, and a killer recipe for Key Lime pie, she grew her home-based business into a thriving enterprise and opened a shop across the street from the beach. Life was sunny and sweet, until murder walked into Marilyn’s quirky little shop, bringing with it a whole heap of trouble. When a man is found dead, and her daughter is implicated in the crime, Marilyn reluctantly becomes an amateur sleuth, sniffing out clues and putting herself in danger in the process. Will her determination and smarts lead her to catch a criminal? Or, will she get caught up in a dangerous game of cat and mouse? Find out in this fast-paced Culinary Cozy Mystery!

Real life can be ugly sometimes… But not as ugly as reality TV. SubLime Sweets owner and amateur sleuth, Marilyn Hayes is in quite a pickle when a reality show producer asks to visit her store, with cast and cameras in tow. She’s hesitant, but when her daughter, Tiara convinces her that the publicity would boost their business, she agrees. Marilyn gets more than she bargained for when Tiara has a showdown with one of the reality celebrities, and things really heat up when a body is found. The stressed-out baker has her hands full, and grows even more agitated when her creepy new neighbor keeps dropping in on her. Suspects abound, and unfortunately, Tiara is among them. Will Marilyn be able to get to the bottom of the case before her daughter is dragged off to jail? Find out in this delightful Cozy Culinary Mystery!

Customer Success Leads to Your Success If you liked Crucial Conversations , The Challenger Sale or books by Grant Cardone, you’ll love Closing the Sale . Guide the conversation. Closing is a process, not an event. In the closing process, there are inevitably many conversations with a variety of potential clients. Closing the Sale will teach you how to influence good decisions to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes from these conversations. Turn talking into decision making. For clients, decision making can seem daunting. They may often favor the noncommittal "maybe" over the decisive "yes" or "no." Essential Secrets to Closing the Sale will teach you how to help your clients make the best possible decisions for both their business goals and your own. Customer success is your success. Closing the Sale will show you how to attain the only real success. the win-win situation. Because the more you focus on creating success for your clients, the more successful you will be. Closing the Sale will teach you the five essential skills to the sale closing process: Identify the End in Mind Decision Address Client Key Beliefs Resolve Objections Prepare the Conditions for Good Decision Making Open Purposefully, Close Powerfully

As the foremost researcher in the area of correlating mindset with a variety of organizational learning factors, having performed a survey validation study of the Mindset Works, Inc. What’s My School Mindset? Survey and the Project for Educational Research That Scales (PERTS) academic mindset survey, the author has discovered links between the philosophical positions one holds and the theory of mind that describes what makes humans different from animals. This book proposes that the ability to recognize and respond to the differences between what we “see” and others “see” is the key reason for individuals, groups, and organizations to succeed or to fail. How we perceive differences and respond to them changes the way our brain develops and how our systems are designed. This book provides strategies for supporting continuous development and growth in individuals, in group dynamics, and in system/organizational development using the most current understanding and propositions of theories of mind. Our theories of physics are expanding through Newtonian, Classical, on to Quantum. Our technologies are expanding from simple tools, to industrialization, to digital information systems, and on to holographic imagery and virtual realities. Biological understandings have grown from magical beliefs about life, through static views of fixed DNA, to cloning, and the potential to regenerate organs and extend life. Our world is in need of an update on the social transformations occurring in human understanding that apply to addressing key issues of our day. This book revisits the concepts discussed in mindset theory and reframes it with a larger, more inclusive potential for understanding our world that empowers our ability for personal choice to improve our lives.

Anyone who opts for self-employment quickly learns that succeeding as your own boss is no walk in the park. While professional freedom has many, many joys, it also involves significant risks. If you’re considering self-employment, or you’re already self-employed, The Self-Employment Survival Guide: Proven Strategies to Succeed as Your Own Boss alerts you to the challenges involved and provides proven strategies for surmounting these obstacles and succeeding. You’ll also learn what you need to put in place before taking the leap to being your own boss to help assure your success. Working for yourself offers personal freedoms and rewards, but the road can curve or travel uphill at times. Here, Jeanne Yocum shares eight key behaviors that impede success and provides proven solutions for the various obstacles that might cross your path, including unreasonable client demands, slow payers, unexpected client defections, daily schedules, health and financial planning, and the feelings of isolation that can sometimes accompany working on your own. Unlike many books that provide only a rose-colored view of self-employment, this book gives a full, realistic view of what being your own boss is actually like. By learning about the ups and downs that come with being in charge of your own livelihood, you will be better able to handle the demands of self-employment and succeed on your own terms.

Intuition is the hot buzzword in business, but specific guidelines on how to trust your gut have been sorely lacking. Put Your Intuition to Work provides that missing link. Business is about making money, but it's also about making decisions. There are relatively small decisions, like when to call a meeting or which emails to answer quickly. Then there are the big decisions that can make or break a business--which product to launch, whom to hire, how to spend. Hard work, analytics, past successes, intelligence, and a great business plan aren't enough anymore. Many of us are scrambling to discover the path to success but have found instead that we've lost our way. Although many business leaders won't publicize it, intuition is a key part of their decision-making success. Put Your Intuition to Work offers numerous compelling stories from entrepreneurs and executives about how they successfully use intuition in their daily lives. It is an inspiring and practical guide to help you: Make successful decisions when you don't have all the facts. Tap into your passion as a personal source of guidance. Discover the many ways to listen to your "inner CEO."

Imagined by one of the world's leading experts on Buddhism, this fictionalised conversation presents the essential biography of its famously wise founder. A relaxed chat with the Buddha tells us what he thought about impermanence, karma, mindfulness, compassion, love, and everything else that leads us toward a true understanding of ourselves and the cosmos. We know him as the Buddha, the "Awakened One". Born Siddhartha Gautama 2,500 years ago in northern India, he became one of the world's greatest spiritual leaders. He suffered as we do, then by his own efforts found the key to liberation from the bonds of desire, hatred and ignorance. As Westerners living in relative prosperity, we can identify with this man who had it all - love, success, money, talent, privilege - but set these things aside to search for something deeper and more enduring. This book presents an account of the Buddha's life followed by a series of plausible and illuminating but imagined conversations, which probe all aspects of his philosophy for living. The insights he conveys here offer us practical wisdom for a better life.