Frank Carlson Library

The sensational bestselling story of Little Nell, the beautiful child thrown into a shadowy, terrifying world, seems to belong less to the history of the Victorian novel than to folklore, fairy tale, or myth. The sorrows of Nell and her grandfather are offset by Dickens's creation of a dazzling contemporary world inhabited by some of his most brilliantly drawn characters-the eloquent ne'er-do-well Dick Swiveller; the hungry maid known as the "Marchioness";...

"Carla Reece had never met anyone more infuriating in her life. The blond giant who swaggered up to her door had no right to take over half her ranch-no matter how stupid her brother had been gambling it away in a high-stakes poker game. Her new foreman claimed to be some foreign royalty who promised to leave in a year. Still, a year was way too long to spend with a man who made her madder than a wet hen and weak in the knees all at the same time....

Lawyer Penn Cage goes up against a mix of murder, racial tension, double-crosses, illicit sex...and all of the ensuing violent consequences in the kudzu-strangled, snake- rat- and armadillo-infested hole of the Devil's Punchbowl.

When LuAnn Tyler is asked to be part of a crooked lottery scheme, she refuses, even though it would mean millions of dollars. But when she is framed for murder, the frightened single mother is forced to participate. Ten years later she has become a wealthy woman determined to live a normal life. But it will take more than money to escape the attention of the FBI who may want her for murder, and the dangerous man from her past who wants to kill her--if...

"When seventh-grader Mitch Sloan moves to Jonasburg, Indiana, he uses his exceptional skills in math, money, and sports statistics to make friends--but get in over his head when he starts a football betting ring." -- Publisher.

"Vienna Mortenson isn't your typical gambler. She prefers to stay under the radar, using her poker winnings to support her family and her community, including the local search and rescue team, which she heads up. Out in the backcountry there's no time for hesitation when lives are on the line. Vienna prides herself on being tough and decisive. She's not the sort to make a fool of herself over a guy, especially one who left her high and dry without...

REFORMING A RAKE...Desperate to support her widowed mother, Marina Beaumont had agreed to become a companion to a dowager countess and found herself in an impossible situation. She had never anticipated the position would force her to deal with Kit Stratton-a renowned rake who would stop at nothing to get the revenge he sought...even if it cost Marina all that she held most dear. For unable to restrain the dowager's gambling habit, Marina soon found...

"Miss Venus Merriwell has been waiting for her prince to come since the tender age of fourteen. She wants a man who is a selfless academic like her, and free from all the wretched vices her gambler father enjoyed far too much before he left the Merriwell sisters practically destitute. Unfortunately, after a slew of romantic disappointments, there is still no sign of that prince at twenty-three and the only one true love of her life is the bursting-at-the-seams...

Amarillo Slim Preston has won $300,000 from Willie Neslon playing dominoes and $2 million from Larry Flynt playing poker. He has shuffled, dealt, and bluffed with some of twentieth-century's most famous figures. He beat Minnesota Fats at pool with a broom, Bobby Riggs at table tennis with a skillet, and Evel Knievel at golf with a carpenter's hammer. Amarillo Slim has gambled with 'em all, and left most of them wishing they hadn't. The memoirs...