The greatest athletic performances spring from the mind, not the body. Elite athletes have known this for decades and now science is learning why it's true. In his fascinating new book How Bad Do You Want It?, coach Matt Fitzgerald examines more than a dozen pivotal races to discover the surprising ways elite athletes strengthen their mental toughness. Fitzgerald puts you into the pulse-pounding action of more than a dozen epic races from running, cycling, triathlon, XTERRA, and rowing with thrilling race reports and revealing post-race interviews with the elites. Their own words reinforce what the research has found: strong mental fitness lets us approach our true physical limits, giving us an edge over physically stronger competitors. Each chapter explores the how and why of an elite athlete's transformative moment, revealing powerful new psychobiological principles you can practice to flex your own mental fitness. The new psychobiological model of endurance performance shows that the most important question in endurance sports is: how bad do you want it? Fitzgerald's fascinating book will forever change how you answer this question and show you how to master the psychology of mind over muscle. These lessons will help you push back your limits and uncover your full potential. How Bad Do You Want It? reveals new psychobiological findings including: • Mental toughness determines how close you can get to your physical limit. • Bracing yourself for a tough race or workout can boost performance by 15% or more. • Champions have learned how to give more of what they have. • The only way to improve performance is by altering how you perceive effort. • Choking under pressure is a form of self-consciousness. • Your attitude in daily life is the same one you bring to sports. • There's no such thing as going as fast as you can—only going faster than before. • The fastest racecourse is the one with the loudest spectators. • Faith in your training is as important as the training itself. Athletes featured in How Bad Do You Want It?: Sammy Wanjiru, Jenny Simpson, Greg LeMond, Siri Lindley, Willie Stewart, Cadel Evans, Nathan Cohen and Joe Sullivan, Paula Newby-Fraser, Ryan Vail, Thomas Voeckler, Ned Overend, Steve Prefontaine, and last of all John "The Penguin" Bingham

What if the most scandalous romance ever told was rewritten as a dark, gothic romantasy? Sir Clifford Chatterley turned me into a vampire to prove a theory — that feral creatures like me could be domesticated, civilised, and made acceptable for his aristocratic world. He keeps me chained and starved, drowning my hunger in silver and ash while he moulds me into the perfect Progeny wife. But his gamekeeper sees something different when he looks at me. Oliver Mellors doesn't want to tame me. He wants to unleash me. In the dark woods beyond Wragby Hall, he teaches me to hunt. To feed. To feel. He shows me that the wildness my husband is trying to suppress isn't shameful — it's my power. Between the lord who wants to break me and the vampire who wants to free me, I discover a hunger that has nothing to do with blood. And everything to do with taking back what's mine. My body. My desire. My rage. You know the story. But you don’t know my story. 'Chatterley' by Cara Clare is a standalone, deliciously dark, gothic reimagining where Lady Chatterley has fangs, the gamekeeper knows how to use his, and burning down the patriarchy has never been so satisfying.

In 1982, having sold his jazz bar to devote himself to writing, Murakami began running to keep fit. A year later, he’d completed a solo course from Athens to Marathon, and now, after dozens of such races, not to mention triathlons and a dozen critically acclaimed books, he reflects upon the influence the sport has had on his life and—even more important—on his writing. Equal parts training log, travelogue, and reminiscence, this revealing memoir covers his four-month preparation for the 2005 New York City Marathon and takes us to places ranging from Tokyo’s Jingu Gaien gardens, where he once shared the course with an Olympian, to the Charles River in Boston among young women who outpace him. Through this marvelous lens of sport emerges a panorama of memories and insights: the eureka moment when he decided to become a writer, his greatest triumphs and disappointments, his passion for vintage LPs, and the experience, after fifty, of seeing his race times improve and then fall back. By turns funny and sobering, playful and philosophical, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running is rich and revelatory, both for fans of this masterful yet guardedly private writer and for the exploding population of athletes who find similar satisfaction in running.

Oscar Wilde’s only novel is the dreamlike story of a young man who sells his soul for eternal youth and beauty. In this celebrated work Wilde forged a devastating portrait of the effects of evil and debauchery on a young aesthete in late-19th-century England. Combining elements of the Gothic horror novel and decadent French fiction, the book centers on a striking premise: As Dorian Gray sinks into a life of crime and gross sensuality, his body retains perfect youth and vigor while his recently painted portrait grows day by day into a hideous record of evil, which he must keep hidden from the world. For over a century, this mesmerizing tale of horror and suspense has enjoyed wide popularity. It ranks as one of Wilde's most important creations and among the classic achievements of its kind.

An enchanting seventeenth-century epic of grand passion and adventure, this debut novel tells the captivating story of one of India's most legendary and controversial empresses -- a woman whose brilliance and determination trumped myriad obstacles, and whose love shaped the course of the Mughal empire. She came into the world in the year 1577, to the howling accompaniment of a ferocious winter storm. As the daughter of starving refugees fleeing violent persecution in Persia, her fateful birth in a roadside tent sparked a miraculous reversal of family fortune, culminating in her father's introduction to the court of Emperor Akbar. She is called Mehrunnisa, the Sun of Women. This is her story. Growing up on the fringes of Emperor Akbar's opulent palace grounds, Mehrunnisa blossoms into a sapphire-eyed child blessed with a precocious intelligence, luminous beauty, and a powerful ambition far surpassing the bounds of her family's station. Mehrunnisa first encounters young Prince Salim on his wedding day. In that instant, even as a royal gala swirls around her in celebration of the future emperor's first marriage, Mehrunnisa foresees the path of her own destiny. One day, she decides with uncompromising surety, she too will become Salim's wife. She is all of eight years old -- and wholly unaware of the great price she and her family will pay for this dream. Skillfully blending the textures of historical reality with the rich and sensuous imaginings of a timeless fairy tale, The Twentieth Wife sweeps readers up in the emotional pageant of Salim and Mehrunnisa's embattled love. First-time novelist Indu Sundaresan charts her heroine's enthralling journey across the years, from an ill-fated first marriage through motherhood and into a dangerous maze of power struggles and political machinations. Through it all, Mehrunnisa and Salim long with fiery intensity for the true, redemptive love they've never known -- and their mutual quest ultimately takes them, and the vast empire that hangs in the balance, to places they never dreamed possible. Shot through with wonder and suspense, The Twentieth Wife is at once a fascinating portrait of one woman's convention-defying life behind the veil and a transporting saga of the astonishing potency of love.

#1 in the entire Kindle Store. A new paranormal romance from Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestseller Jaymin Eve. My father made a terrible mistake. One I’m left paying for. As a wolf shifter growing up in a strong pack, I should be living my best life. But after my father tried to kill our leader, I’m labelled an outcast, traitor, less than dirt. When I can't take pack life any longer, I run, but apparently they don't like losing their punching bag. Torin, the leader’s son, drags me back before my first shift... a shift that will reveal my true mate. I never could have predicted who mine would be, but the moment my wolf looks upon him, I’m filled with hope for a brighter future. Afterall, no one ever rejects their true mate, right? Wrong. Very wrong. When the wolves attack, my soul screams for vengeance, and somehow I touch the shadow world. Somehow I bring him to our lands. The Shadow Beast. Our shifter god. The devil himself. Turns out being rejected by my mate was only the beginning. *If you like sexy, dark paranormal romances, with humor, steam, action, a tough heroine and an antihero, this is for you. Rejected is full length (100k) words, is book one of three in Shadow Beast Shifters series, and ends on a cliffhanger. It's recommended for 18+ due to language and sexual situations.

From bestselling author B.B. Reid comes a wicked retelling of your favorite fairytale. America’s sweetheart has been canceled. From teen star to international phenom to the biggest celebrity in the world, Aurelia George has suddenly found herself on the other side of adoration. The public thinks they hate her when they never really knew her. The saddest tragedy of all is that she doesn’t know herself. Done with the fame, glitz, and glam—the whole doe-eyed princess charade—Aurelia decides she’s taking back her life, even if it costs her everything. But her uncle has other plans. Shipped far away until the heat dies, Aurelia finds herself in the one place where her name means nothing. When a blizzard causes her plane to crash, she becomes stranded in the wilds of Northern Canada, a sole survivor with no one to turn to. No one except them. The misanthropic mountain men who’ve shut themselves away. It’s their cabin Aurelia finds in the icy wilderness and their obsession she ignites when they discover her sleeping in one of their beds. Thorin, Khalil, and Ezekiel (and all of his personalities) have only longed for one thing in nine long years...a woman to warm their beds. Surviving a plane crash, wolves, avalanches, frozen lakes, and a harsh winter with three feral men is nothing compared to Aurelia’s hardest trial of all—finding herself. Crucible is dark why-choose romance. Please refer to the trigger warnings before reading.

Tyson Corso At first sight she sparked something dangerous within me. Something that has been long buried. Dead. And I will have her. Keeping her safely tucked away until she comes to accept it. Body and soul. She's mine. Taking her for myself serves exactly two purposes. Vengeance and pleasure. As a hitman of the Camorra ruling over the West Coast, especially one without feelings, I´m good at what I do. Never losing sight of the end goal, until... Malory Hayes When a masked man took me from my bed in the middle of the night to a secluded cabin in the wilderness of Northern California, I didn´t expect him to liberate me from the shackles of my past, to offer me freedom I didn´t dare dreaming of. And I didn´t expect to be drawn to him, to the darkness surrounding him. But how can I resist its lethal pull on me. The only thing I know for certain is that once he has me, there´s no going back. I belong to him.

The Sunday Times bestselling author of Beautiful Ugly is back with a psychological masterpiece that will leave you questioning everything you know about love, identity, and revenge.Eden Fox, an artist on the brink of her big break, sets off for a run before her first exhibition. When she returns to the home she recently moved into, Spyglass, an enchanting old house in Hope Falls, nothing is as it should be. Her key doesn’t fit. A woman, eerily similar to her, answers the door. And her husband insists that the stranger is his wife.One house. One husband. Two women. Someone is lying.Six months earlier, a reclusive Londoner called Birdy, reeling from a life-changing diagnosis, inherits Spyglass. This unexpected gift from a long-lost grandmother brings her to the pretty seaside village of Hope Falls. But then Birdy stumbles upon a shadowy London clinic that claims to be able to predict a person's date of death, including her own. Secrets start to unravel, and as the line between truth and lies blurs, Birdy feels compelled to right some old wrongs.My Husband’s Wife is a tangled web of deception, obsession, and mystery that will keep you guessing until the last page. Prepare yourself for the ultimate mind-bending marriage thriller and step inside Spyglass – if you dare – to experience a story where nothing is as it seems.