John Bird has never fit in. He can't be the all American boy his dad wants him to be, he's bullied at school and he can't bear to look at himself in the mirror. While most boys his age are playing sports and kissing girls, John can only find comfort in the secret he keeps hidden away in a box in his room... When feisty Aureus crashes into his life, John starts the long process of realizing that it's what is inside us that counts and that true friends love us, no matter what our secrets are. It's time John learns to embrace the school taunt, "Ladybird" and grow into the person he is meant to...

A NEW APPROACH TO WRITING A NOVEL IN 30 DAYS Write fast or write well? You don't have to choose when you've got a story blueprint that shows you how to write a novel with perfect structure in thirty steps. If you've ever tried to write a novel in a month, you know how much fun it can be when the words flow...and how hard it can be to ignore the fear that your story is no good. What if you didn't have to worry about plot structure? What if you could be free to just focus on your characters when you sit down to write each day? The Plot-As-You-Write story blueprint breaks your novel into thirty...

My passion for chess has helped me survive where the laws of card games and debts of honor are above all. Great masters are afraid to play opposite an inconvenient contender. I was not trained in chess like they were, and I don't operate on canons of conventional battle. I'm able to foresee all possible combinations and win where sleight of hand borders on fiction. My enthusiasm has allowed me to teach children my hobby, until they became aware of my past. Even now, after being debarred, it is pleasant to observe one's young pupils playing with equal skill against the famous masters and great...