Showing results by author "Earl Smith" in All Categories

She's a servant masquerading as a lady... Gillian Beaumont never had a fairytale life: she was left penniless after her father’s death, forcing her into service as a lady’s maid. Luckily, her mistress is more adventurous than most ladies and soon Gillian is aiding her espionage. One such spy mission forces Gillian to masquerade as a high-born lady to infiltrate a Hellfire Club. But when she falls into the club’s trap, she’s rescued by gentleman rogue, the Earl of Pembroke. His heated kisses make her long for a different life, but she has a secret that could destroy everything…

When Travis Saint Croix enrolled at San Francisco State University, romance was the last thing on his mind. Meeting Esther, however, changed all of that. What followed was a whirlwind romance entwined with questions of race, society, mental health, and two trips to Bhutan. It was in this tiny South Asian country that wars against both self-doubt and self-harm would be waged. 

Based on ethnographic observations and interviews with prisoners, correctional officers, and civilian staff conducted in solitary confinement units, Way Down in the Hole explores the myriad ways in which daily intimate interactions between those locked up twenty-four hours a day and the correctional officers charged with their care, custody, and control produce and reproduce hegemonic racial ideologies.

My fellow CEOs were always carping about business development. "Why does business development never seem to fully live up to its name? Why is it so difficult to get business development working effectively for our company? Why does my BD team look like a series of revolving doors with one person after another being hired amid great fanfare only to be let go within a year for ‘non-performance’? All these consultants are peddling the same tired old solutions to a problem that never seems to go away.” I had started three companies and knew exactly what these CEOs were talking about.

A life’s journey is a marvelous thing - bookended by confusion and disorientation - yet between those awesome extremities there are abundant opportunities for clarity and comprehension. The true blessing is that those chances are legion. The most important residuals of having lived are those times when life comes into sharp focus and, within a broader nature, begins to make a bit more sense. Before you are born and after you die you will not be not here - the opportunity to live and experience is not yours.

This book, at its core, is an investigation into what it means to be human. Not all of what it means to be human, but a small slice. The characters you will meet are all animals. They are loosely drawn from the mythologies of the native tribes of southern Alaska.