Experience the thrill of Firmly Convinced, a collection of true-life crime stories told by a veteran assistant prosecutor who worked in New Jersey courtrooms for a quarter century.

In these pages, you'll ride alongside prosecutors maintaining integrity in the face of chaos, defense attorneys fiercely defending their clients' rights, and judges meticulously balancing the scales of justice. Each vignette unveils the raw, unfiltered heart of the justice system, exposing the individuals who uphold the law and those who dare to challenge it.

Readers will feel the tension, experience the triumphs, and grasp the struggles that shape the relentless quest for justice.

By the end, they'll gain a profound appreciation for the delicate interplay of truth, law, and order that sustains society.

Created for those who love exploring Lake Michigan's shores, this guide is your go-to for identifying rocks.Explore this complete visual guide of shoreline stones with detailed descriptions and characteristics, alongside invaluable tips, tricks, and essential tools for confident beachcombing. In addition, discover ideas for rock crafting, including tumbling, hand-sanding, and an easy at-home hardness test. Let this book guide and inspire your rockhounding adventures, turning nature exploration into life-long memories.

A deadly prophecy must be stopped before all is lost. Trust none, sacrifice all: words to live (or die) by in this edge-of-your-seat psychological thriller of deceit and intrigue.

Five days before the presidential inauguration, rookie Special Agent Emma Noble is tasked with her first assignment-informing a shy young man from Boston that he is the victim of the most infamous kidnapping of the past century.

Ben Danvers is not the child of a quiet Vermont couple. His birth mother is a wealthy politician soon to be sworn in as the US vice president. Stunned by the realization that his life is a lie, Ben runs from the DC spotlight, searching for answers about the woman that raised him. What he discovers is a brutal cult preparing to fulfill a deadly prophecy.

As the clock ticks toward the inauguration, a platoon of assassins is deployed. Ben Danvers is being hunted. His girlfriend is in mortal danger. Hundreds of American leaders are in the crosshairs. Emma Noble races against time, searching for clues-discovering the truth hidden in the tangled threads of a plot set in motion two decades ago, a prophecy that has crept into the darkest corridors of power. Emma can trust no one.

Across the nation, a rising tide of hate, fear, and conspiracies threatens to overtake the levees of common sense. Emma Noble is only a rookie. Ben Danvers is no hero. Together, they must risk everything.

Did you know that Petoskey stones are perhaps one of the oldest things you will ever hold in your hand? Are they older than Grandpa? Older than dinosaurs? How did they form? Why are they most abundantly found in Michigan?

If a Petoskey Stone Could Talk tells the story of a family's visit to the beach and imagines the history of Michigan through the eyes of a Petoskey stone-when millions of years ago, Michigan was surrounded by a warm ocean and dinosaurs roamed the state. Petoskey stones even go back before dinosaurs and the most recent Ice Age, more than three hundred million years ago. Now that's OLD!

It is fun to imagine what Petoskey stones have seen, and what they know. If a Petoskey stone could talk, what would it say? This book is a wonderful exploration for curious minds-children and adults alike!

One hundred years after Ernest Hemingway's short story elevated the myth of the Two Hearted River into the public consciousness, Bob Otwell invites you to the riverside - to experience the revered watershed as it really is.

In The Real Two Hearted: Life, Love, and Lore Along Michigan's Most Iconic River, Otwell reveals truths about the river's past, present, and future in ways that only he can.

As the owners and caretakers of a secluded old cabin called Boggy's Camp, Otwell and his family have spent decades paddling, hiking, and mountain biking in an area along the Two Hearted River so remote that visiting in the winter requires skiing five miles.

An expert in hydrology and environmental investigations, Otwell explains the river's science and shares his thoughts about conserving the watershed's delicate balance.

Otwell weaves together the rich history of this isolated gem in Michigan's Upper Peninsula; he introduces colorful local characters, including the man named Boggy. And he reminisces about his family's adventures at a beautiful and hidden bend along the storied Two Hearted.

The third edition of The Trails of M-22 is a guidebook blended with digital content. Trail maps in this book are accompanied by a QR code linking you to a larger and more detailed version on the MichiganTrailMaps.com website. Those maps can be downloaded onto a mobile device or printed and then used on the trail. Also on the website are links to Avenza Map Store that will enable you to download a georeferenced version of the maps.

#1 New York Times bestselling author Doug Stanton- You are holding in your hands an amazing journey into a world of puzzles, intrigue, and mystery. Giant Killers are among us-- author David Yuzuk walked with one and returned with this tale.

At 4' 9 tall, Richard J. Flaherty needed a Congressional waiver just to enlist in the Army as he did not meet the height or weight requirements. Bullied and ridiculed at boot camp, Flaherty nonetheless achieved the kind of stature that's only dreamed of: He became a 101st Airborne Screaming Eagle and a 3rd Special Forces Group Green Beret Captain earning the Silver Star, 2 Bronze Stars and 2 Purple Hearts. Once in Nam his leadership skills were immediately put to the test during the, Tet Offensive.

His decommission during the Reduction in Force in 1971 was unexpected and devastating, and Flaherty sank into the murky world of mercenary work. But he gained a reputation for intelligence, and the CIA recruited him to supply the Contras in Central America. So began a wild adventure involving guns, cash, cocaine and HALO jumps into the Everglades. Flaherty continued to work with other agencies including the ATF and discloses a weapons smuggling ring at the heart of Fort Bragg.

Author and police officer David Yuzuk befriended Richard J. Flaherty in 1999, when Flaherty was living homeless on the streets of Aventura, Florida. Flaherty warned Yuzuk that asking too many questions could be bad for Yuzuk's career and dangerous to his own health. Sure enough, eight hours after Yuzuk made a call to confirm Flaherty's identity, Flaherty was killed in a hit-and-run.

Spending time outdoors enriches children's creativity, imaginations, and relaxes and refreshes them. With the use of beautiful watercolor illustrations, Beaches, Boats, and Birds: A Lake Michigan Alphabet Book, examines the importance of playing outside with family while also teaching children to appreciate and respect nature and beauty.

This book shares a story of the Great Lakes beaches for first-time visitors or for those who want to relive their experience, while also serving as inspiration and motivation to unplug and get away from technology and screens.

Beaches, Boats, and Birds: A Lake Michigan Alphabet Book will serve as a keepsake for those vacationing to the Great Lakes, and for those who cannot visit, it will serve as an educational tool, showcasing the uniqueness of the treasures our state holds.

In a tense showdown between corporate interests and community values, the fate of the Voyager Dune hangs in the balance. Mython Corporation's ambitious plans to extract the dune and replace it with a sprawling residential complex along one of North America's Great Lakes spark a grassroots movement of resistance. Led by local tribes, residents, and conservation groups, protesters gather at the base of the dune, forming an encampment to block the mining operation. Legal battles ensue, with Mython filing lawsuits to remove the encampment. Meanwhile, the tribes and concerned citizens rally under the banners of the Mound People Coalition and People of the Dune, seeking legal avenues to halt the destruction of this cherished landscape.

Amidst the legal wrangling, the weight of Judge Odom Odie Holmes's decision looms large. Despite his adherence to the principles of law, he grapples with the profound moral implications of his ruling. As the trial unfolds in his courtroom, the clash between property rights and the cultural and natural significance of the dune unfolds before him. When he ultimately upholds the law, permitting the removal of the dune to proceed, he finds himself haunted by doubt and introspection. Confronted by a haunting visitation on the eve of the mining operation, Judge Holmes is compelled to confront not only the fate of Voyager Dune but also the broader implications for humanity and the earth's commons. In a pivotal moment of reckoning, he must navigate the intersection of legal duty and ethical responsibility, grappling with the profound consequences of his decision for both the people involved and the fragile balance of the earth itself.

Experience the thrill of Firmly Convinced, a collection of true-life crime stories told by a veteran assistant prosecutor who worked in New Jersey courtrooms for a quarter century.

In these pages, you'll ride alongside prosecutors maintaining integrity in the face of chaos, defense attorneys fiercely defending their clients' rights, and judges meticulously balancing the scales of justice. Each vignette unveils the raw, unfiltered heart of the justice system, exposing the individuals who uphold the law and those who dare to challenge it.

Readers will feel the tension, experience the triumphs, and grasp the struggles that shape the relentless quest for justice.

By the end, they'll gain a profound appreciation for the delicate interplay of truth, law, and order that sustains society.

In Ungrieving, a memoir about family dysfunction and estrangement, religious doubt, and complex relationships, Jennifer Stolpa Flatt provides others with the book she needed but couldn't find. The insights will resonate with those who have experienced family divisions or who support those who do, and those who struggle to let go of the relationships they wanted but never had.

After a lifetime of emotional abuse, verbal attacks, and controlling behaviors, including a four-year estrangement from a man she called Daddy despite not feeling the warmth the nickname implies, her father's death left her struggling to make sense of their fractured relationship.

She felt both a sense of relief and a profound sadness:

I don't miss him and I feel guilty admitting that.

Sometimes I do miss him. And that confuses me.

Through relatable and compelling stories and essays, Flatt places readers in key moments throughout her family's journey, demonstrating how she, her sister, and her mom suffered as collateral damage due to her dad's untreated depression. The memoir artfully weaves in passages from her dad's journals, allowing her to explore his pain, his dreams, and his parenting choices.

Flatt also explores how Catholicism, changing her religious faith, music, mental illness, counseling, and feminism both united and separated her from her father.

Ungrieving challenges readers to think carefully about what we say to ourselves and what we say to others in moments of grief. Flatt's journey also helps ease the guilt readers might feel around strained relationships, questioning religion, or mental health concerns as readers learn to see themselves and others as individuals, and not only in relationship to others.

A DARK LABYRINTH OF FAMILY BETRAYAL

Based on a true crime, The Younger Girl, by trailblazing, award-winning writer Georgia Jeffries combines historical fiction and supernatural suspense to unravel a thrilling tale of family deception and long-denied redemption.

In 1933, Chicago tabloids trumpeted the death of twenty-year-old town belle Aldine Younger.

HEIRESS SLAIN, MARRIED MAN HELD.

In the aftermath of Aldine Younger's tragic death, her grieving brother Owen suspects that their wealthy uncle orchestrated a sinister murder plot to cover up the theft of Aldine's inheritance. Fast forward to 1996, when an aging Owen, burdened by the weight of the past, is compelled to discover the truth before he dies. His daughter, Joanna, becomes the key to unraveling the family's twisted history.

Father and daughter journey back to Pontiac, Illinois, to claim Owen's rightful bequest. They find themselves caught in a labyrinth of lies born of family greed and treachery crossing three generations. Amidst violent storms and dramatic revelations, Owen's sanity teeters on the edge as he confuses Joanna with the sister he lost. Joanna, racing against time, unearths secrets that could shatter her world and discovers a psychic bridge linking past, present, and future. But at what cost? And who will survive the revelations?

After plum assignments in Washington, London, Paris, and Buenos Aires, TIME magazine correspondent Charles Eisendrath gave up the glamor. It wasn't that he'd gotten it wrong-

the career, the stories-it was the realization that getting it right in terrorism zones could lead to something worse than just wrong for his family.

Eisendrath took a leave of absence (just a delaying tactic), packed up the household and set off to find out what else he might do. His new base would be a 146-acre farm in Northern Michigan. Journalists, he says, spend their time looking out windows, but the farm encouraged introspection. No, more than introspection-the farm led him deep into agriculture, engineering, fishing, hunting, and supporting journalism by raising $60 million to endow fellowships at the University of Michigan.

In this memoir of a big life in a small place, Eisendrath's bright eye and curious mind flashes on maple syruping, replanting a forest after tornadoes, an octopus in the basement, the personalities of brook trout, inventing the perfect grill, a plane crash in the jungle, and his many friends, family, and neighbors. Ken Auletta of The New Yorker calls it, An amazing, beautifully written memoir. Actor Jeff Daniels says, Prepare to be inspired.

Before Michigan became a state, there were witch trials, scalp collectors, dirty sports, and a massacre of epic proportions. The lumber era that followed made Michigan as much of a wild, wild west as Deadwood. And Prohibition allowed a group of Detroit thugs to run roughshod over even the likes of Al Capone.

There's more:

- A father who shoots his daughter and friends for being hippies, just as an eerily similar tale hits the silver screen

- A widow whose love of dressing up leaves a trail of poisoned relatives across the Lower Peninsula

- A lawless Upper Peninsula town that not only hangs two criminals without trial, but forces women to lie with the corpses

- A murder that spread its victim's body parts along I-75 from Detroit to Pellston

In Blood on the Mitten, crimes of passion, crimes of necessity and cold, calculated evil take on flesh, bones and blood. These 57 illustrated, read-out loud tales from across time also look at the historical context of murder, in Michigan and beyond.

A DARK LABYRINTH OF FAMILY BETRAYAL

Based on a true crime, The Younger Girl, by trailblazing, award-winning writer Georgia Jeffries combines historical fiction and supernatural suspense to unravel a thrilling tale of family deception and long-denied redemption.

In 1933, Chicago tabloids trumpeted the death of twenty-year-old town belle Aldine Younger.

HEIRESS SLAIN, MARRIED MAN HELD.

In the aftermath of Aldine Younger's tragic death, her grieving brother Owen suspects that their wealthy uncle orchestrated a sinister murder plot to cover up the theft of Aldine's inheritance. Fast forward to 1996, when an aging Owen, burdened by the weight of the past, is compelled to discover the truth before he dies. His daughter, Joanna, becomes the key to unraveling the family's twisted history.

Father and daughter journey back to Pontiac, Illinois, to claim Owen's rightful bequest. They find themselves caught in a labyrinth of lies born of family greed and treachery crossing three generations. Amidst violent storms and dramatic revelations, Owen's sanity teeters on the edge as he confuses Joanna with the sister he lost. Joanna, racing against time, unearths secrets that could shatter her world and discovers a psychic bridge linking past, present, and future. But at what cost? And who will survive the revelations?

Walloon Writers Review is an annual collection of short stories, poetry, and nature photography inspired by the natural beauty of Northern Michigan and Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Featuring a broad array of contributors, this general audience collection explores the region sharing impressions, unique experiences, legends and more. The contents are suitable for a pleasant reading experience and is intended for a general audience.

Through meticulous research, author Aaron Veselenak has uncovered a significant number of terrifying, yet fascinating historical encounters whereby humans, usually the top predators in all of Animalia, became or nearly became the prey of the largest and most fearsome of Michigan's native cat species-Felis concolor-a creature of many different names. By bringing forth these thrilling accounts, Silent Springs the Panther is meant to appeal to lovers of both history and the natural environment.

Intertwining fiction and historical fact, author Laura A. Stewart brings to life the story of a small 19th-century farming community's quest to build Michigan's first public schoolhouse.

Set in 1828 near the grape-vined River Raisin in Michigan, this delightful picture book is narrated by Justus, a young boy who has never held a book beyond the family Bible. Now, his close-knit community is gathering to build something he's only dreamed of: a public schoolhouse.

Follow along as Justus and other real historical characters reveal a glimpse into early 1800s family and farm life as they work together to build the Bridge School. This unique and uplifting story will interest young children as well as older elementary students with its period-accurate illustrations, historical characters, and sidebars illuminating facts about this fascinating time and place.

Building the Bridge School is an invaluable resource for learning about this significant time in Michigan history.