Lory Cross (17 results)
Language: English
Published by Lory Cross Publications, 2025
Series: Off-Limits Romance, Book 3 of 8. Book 3 of 8 - Off-Limits Romance
- Softcover
Seller: California Books, Miami, FL, U.S.A.California Books
Contact seller4-star sellerCondition: New
US$ 23.00
Free ShippingShips within U.S.A.Quantity: Over 20 available
Condition: New.
- Softcover
Seller: California Books, Miami, FL, U.S.A.California Books
Contact seller4-star sellerCondition: New
US$ 25.00
Free ShippingShips within U.S.A.Quantity: Over 20 available
Condition: New.
- Softcover
Seller: California Books, Miami, FL, U.S.A.California Books
Contact seller4-star sellerCondition: New
US$ 26.00
Free ShippingShips within U.S.A.Quantity: Over 20 available
Condition: New.
- Softcover
Seller: Grand Eagle Retail, Bensenville, IL, U.S.A.Grand Eagle Retail
Contact seller5-star sellerCondition: New
US$ 29.00
Free ShippingShips within U.S.A.Quantity: 1 available
Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. Two people who should cancel each other out fall wildly, stubbornly, beautifully in love. Hollis Brooks is a sharp-tongued policy strategist who trusts data more than doctrine. Jack Coleman is a grease-knuckled mechanic who moonlights at a small church where his sermons are short and honest.… They don't marry because they agree-they marry because their arguments end with hands finding hands. When a baby arrives and the world starts labeling, the fault lines widen.(Opposites Attract - Political Divide Romance - Interfaith Tension - Smart & Sassy Quiet & Steady - Found Family - Marriage in Crisis - Motherhood vs Ambition - Slow-Build Domestic Intimacy)Across twenty chapters, their love defies tidy categories. A neighborhood debate, a stalled car, and a dare of a kiss light the fuse. Jack believes in lighthouses. Hollis builds bridges. Their domestic life is both messy and steamy, and full of landmines: a church board that wants Jack's signature under fences; a national advocacy offer in Atlanta that wants Hollis on a plane by summer; a family table where grace sounds like judgment. When labor begins like a rumor and their daughter arrives, the stakes sharpen. Postpartum haze collides with public pressure. Hollis's inbox floods with invitations from causes she believes in-ones that don't believe in her marriage. Jack's shop lease is in jeopardy; the pulpit keeps demanding a certainty he won't fake.On a primetime panel, a microphone tries to make Hollis a convert. Instead, she becomes what she's always been: a builder. "I didn't marry a faith. I married a man," she says. The clip explodes. Labels do, too. A grieving mother finds Jack outside the church to say the quiet part out loud-love doesn't always save. Jack answers the only way he knows how: presence.The middle act is a season of almosts: almost moving south, almost signing a creed, almost quitting each other. Instead, they choose softness over surrender. Every Friday, Hollis writes letters on a park bench. Jack writes the kind of prayers that don't need God's name to work. Their daughter Lena becomes a tiny philosopher-"God is a hug"-as the world demands clarity. Jack turns a complaint into Listening Night, where neighbors, teachers, and churchgoers tell one lived story before one statistic.When Jack is asked to officiate a wedding, the board threatens his title. When Hollis's sister calls from an ER, love reroutes the night. They choose people over optics and let the chips fall. Jack steps down from payroll and up to the city's need, starting community circles and publishing essays about chairs pulled out for the unsure. Hollis writes the book she swore she wouldn't-not a conversion arc, but a testament to tenderness without certainty. Online strangers argue over it. One reader simply writes: "I don't agree with her, but I feel less alone."The final act brings light without a finish line. A parent's complaint about "God is a hug" sparks a forum. A doctrinal packet becomes a blank page. A TV crew turns into documentation, not direction. Onstage together, they offer the ten practices that saved them: make a table, not a stage; start with names; keep a Sabbath from certainty; let each other be second drafts. Then they walk home, past the sycamore they call Tree Friend, to a fridge still holding a stick-figure sun.In the Catskills, where things once cracked, they return with cocoa and a telescope, answering the only question that still matters: You don't need to name the light to walk toward it. He believes in her. She believes in them. Their daughter believes the sky is close enough to keep an eye on.Their Happily Ever After isn't a victory lap-it's ordinary, chosen, and true: a kitchen table, a shared calendar, a bedtime prayer to the nameless light, and two voices whisperi Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.
- Softcover
Seller: CitiRetail, Stevenage, United KingdomCitiRetail
Contact seller5-star sellerCondition: New
US$ 31.72
US$ 49.56 shippingShips from United Kingdom to U.S.A.Quantity: 1 available
Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. Two people who should cancel each other out fall wildly, stubbornly, beautifully in love. Hollis Brooks is a sharp-tongued policy strategist who trusts data more than doctrine. Jack Coleman is a grease-knuckled mechanic who moonlights at a small church where his sermons are short and honest.… They don't marry because they agree-they marry because their arguments end with hands finding hands. When a baby arrives and the world starts labeling, the fault lines widen.(Opposites Attract - Political Divide Romance - Interfaith Tension - Smart & Sassy Quiet & Steady - Found Family - Marriage in Crisis - Motherhood vs Ambition - Slow-Build Domestic Intimacy)Across twenty chapters, their love defies tidy categories. A neighborhood debate, a stalled car, and a dare of a kiss light the fuse. Jack believes in lighthouses. Hollis builds bridges. Their domestic life is both messy and steamy, and full of landmines: a church board that wants Jack's signature under fences; a national advocacy offer in Atlanta that wants Hollis on a plane by summer; a family table where grace sounds like judgment. When labor begins like a rumor and their daughter arrives, the stakes sharpen. Postpartum haze collides with public pressure. Hollis's inbox floods with invitations from causes she believes in-ones that don't believe in her marriage. Jack's shop lease is in jeopardy; the pulpit keeps demanding a certainty he won't fake.On a primetime panel, a microphone tries to make Hollis a convert. Instead, she becomes what she's always been: a builder. "I didn't marry a faith. I married a man," she says. The clip explodes. Labels do, too. A grieving mother finds Jack outside the church to say the quiet part out loud-love doesn't always save. Jack answers the only way he knows how: presence.The middle act is a season of almosts: almost moving south, almost signing a creed, almost quitting each other. Instead, they choose softness over surrender. Every Friday, Hollis writes letters on a park bench. Jack writes the kind of prayers that don't need God's name to work. Their daughter Lena becomes a tiny philosopher-"God is a hug"-as the world demands clarity. Jack turns a complaint into Listening Night, where neighbors, teachers, and churchgoers tell one lived story before one statistic.When Jack is asked to officiate a wedding, the board threatens his title. When Hollis's sister calls from an ER, love reroutes the night. They choose people over optics and let the chips fall. Jack steps down from payroll and up to the city's need, starting community circles and publishing essays about chairs pulled out for the unsure. Hollis writes the book she swore she wouldn't-not a conversion arc, but a testament to tenderness without certainty. Online strangers argue over it. One reader simply writes: "I don't agree with her, but I feel less alone."The final act brings light without a finish line. A parent's complaint about "God is a hug" sparks a forum. A doctrinal packet becomes a blank page. A TV crew turns into documentation, not direction. Onstage together, they offer the ten practices that saved them: make a table, not a stage; start with names; keep a Sabbath from certainty; let each other be second drafts. Then they walk home, past the sycamore they call Tree Friend, to a fridge still holding a stick-figure sun.In the Catskills, where things once cracked, they return with cocoa and a telescope, answering the only question that still matters: You don't need to name the light to walk toward it. He believes in her. She believes in them. Their daughter believes the sky is close enough to keep an eye on.Their Happily Ever After isn't a victory lap-it's ordinary, chosen, and true: a kitchen table, a shared calendar, a bedtime prayer to the nameless light, and two vo Shipping may be from our UK warehouse or from our Australian or US warehouses, depending on stock availability.
- Softcover
Seller: AussieBookSeller, Truganina, VIC, AustraliaAussieBookSeller
Contact seller5-star sellerCondition: New
US$ 46.59
US$ 37.00 shippingShips from Australia to U.S.A.Quantity: 1 available
Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. Two people who should cancel each other out fall wildly, stubbornly, beautifully in love. Hollis Brooks is a sharp-tongued policy strategist who trusts data more than doctrine. Jack Coleman is a grease-knuckled mechanic who moonlights at a small church where his sermons are short and honest.… They don't marry because they agree-they marry because their arguments end with hands finding hands. When a baby arrives and the world starts labeling, the fault lines widen.(Opposites Attract - Political Divide Romance - Interfaith Tension - Smart & Sassy Quiet & Steady - Found Family - Marriage in Crisis - Motherhood vs Ambition - Slow-Build Domestic Intimacy)Across twenty chapters, their love defies tidy categories. A neighborhood debate, a stalled car, and a dare of a kiss light the fuse. Jack believes in lighthouses. Hollis builds bridges. Their domestic life is both messy and steamy, and full of landmines: a church board that wants Jack's signature under fences; a national advocacy offer in Atlanta that wants Hollis on a plane by summer; a family table where grace sounds like judgment. When labor begins like a rumor and their daughter arrives, the stakes sharpen. Postpartum haze collides with public pressure. Hollis's inbox floods with invitations from causes she believes in-ones that don't believe in her marriage. Jack's shop lease is in jeopardy; the pulpit keeps demanding a certainty he won't fake.On a primetime panel, a microphone tries to make Hollis a convert. Instead, she becomes what she's always been: a builder. "I didn't marry a faith. I married a man," she says. The clip explodes. Labels do, too. A grieving mother finds Jack outside the church to say the quiet part out loud-love doesn't always save. Jack answers the only way he knows how: presence.The middle act is a season of almosts: almost moving south, almost signing a creed, almost quitting each other. Instead, they choose softness over surrender. Every Friday, Hollis writes letters on a park bench. Jack writes the kind of prayers that don't need God's name to work. Their daughter Lena becomes a tiny philosopher-"God is a hug"-as the world demands clarity. Jack turns a complaint into Listening Night, where neighbors, teachers, and churchgoers tell one lived story before one statistic.When Jack is asked to officiate a wedding, the board threatens his title. When Hollis's sister calls from an ER, love reroutes the night. They choose people over optics and let the chips fall. Jack steps down from payroll and up to the city's need, starting community circles and publishing essays about chairs pulled out for the unsure. Hollis writes the book she swore she wouldn't-not a conversion arc, but a testament to tenderness without certainty. Online strangers argue over it. One reader simply writes: "I don't agree with her, but I feel less alone."The final act brings light without a finish line. A parent's complaint about "God is a hug" sparks a forum. A doctrinal packet becomes a blank page. A TV crew turns into documentation, not direction. Onstage together, they offer the ten practices that saved them: make a table, not a stage; start with names; keep a Sabbath from certainty; let each other be second drafts. Then they walk home, past the sycamore they call Tree Friend, to a fridge still holding a stick-figure sun.In the Catskills, where things once cracked, they return with cocoa and a telescope, answering the only question that still matters: You don't need to name the light to walk toward it. He believes in her. She believes in them. Their daughter believes the sky is close enough to keep an eye on.Their Happily Ever After isn't a victory lap-it's ordinary, chosen, and true: a kitchen table, a shared calendar, a bedtime prayer to the nameless light, and two vo Shipping may be from our Sydney, NSW warehouse or from our UK or US warehouse, depending on stock availability.
- Softcover
- Print on Demand
Seller: Grand Eagle Retail, Bensenville, IL, U.S.A.Grand Eagle Retail
Contact seller5-star sellerCondition: New
US$ 24.99
Free ShippingShips within U.S.A.Quantity: 1 available
Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. In the shadows of surveillance towers and concrete checkpoints, two lives intertwine-one crossing borders, the other enforcing them.Noura, a Palestinian woman surviving day to day as a hospital cleaner in Tel Aviv, walks a thin line with every step she takes across a heavily monitored border…. Her permit is always at risk. Her silence is survival. But when a glitch in the system flags her as a potential threat, she's pulled into secondary screening-and face to face with someone she thought she'd never see again.Yousef was once a boy who folded paper boats with her, who made promises under a shared sky. Now, he's a soldier on the other side of the glass. A drone operator. A man tasked with watching for danger. And suddenly, she's in his sights.Their reunion is not fate-it is tension. It is memory. It is danger. Because in a system built on suspicion and code, even a look too long, a word too soft, can trigger alarm. Their history-fragile, sweet, unresolved-becomes a liability.As surveillance tightens and propaganda threatens to erase Noura's name, Yousef risks his own status to protect her. A glance becomes a message. A warning becomes a poem. A flag in the system becomes the fire between them.But they are not alone. Anonymous messages warn Noura she is being watched. Soldiers board her bus. Drones track her movements. A silence descends, not of peace, but of calculated control.Told in poetic prose through alternating perspectives, Across the Borderline is not a traditional love story-it is a story of what remains unspoken in places where language itself is regulated. It is about the weight of memory, the erosion of identity, and what it costs to be seen.The checkpoint becomes a metaphor for the emotional terrain both Noura and Yousef must navigate-every crossing a choice, every silence a rebellion, every connection a risk. Their relationship is rendered in moments: shared history, stolen glances, encrypted messages, and dangerous hope.Lyrical, intimate, and deeply political, this novel explores: Surveillance and its dehumanizing logicForbidden intimacy across military and cultural linesMemory as resistanceThe haunting legacy of occupation, identity, and inherited silenceFor readers who loved the emotional depth of The Kite Runner, the quiet intensity of The Handmaid's Tale, and the poetic resistance of Salt Houses, Across the Borderline is a necessary and unforgettable journey.In the end, this is not just Noura's story. It is the story of every person trying to stay human in a world that reduces lives to numbers. And in that world, even love becomes an act of rebellion. This item is printed on demand. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.
Language: English
Published by Lory Cross Publications, 2025
Series: Off-Limits Romance, Book 3 of 8. Book 3 of 8 - Off-Limits Romance
- Softcover
- Print on Demand
Seller: Grand Eagle Retail, Bensenville, IL, U.S.A.Grand Eagle Retail
Contact seller5-star sellerCondition: New
US$ 25.76
Free ShippingShips within U.S.A.Quantity: 1 available
Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. The Cost of Fire is a lyrical, unflinching novel about two South Asian women who meet at an elite American university and find themselves caught in a collision of desire, identity, and inherited trauma.Aalia, from Kerala, walks into every room with a storm behind her. She's sharp-tongued, un…apologetically political, and weary of being reduced to a token brown girl. Her past is filled with silences and burn scars-visible and otherwise. Meera, from Delhi, is all polish and promise, the kind of girl who was raised to smile and shine, but never too brightly. When they meet in a classroom debating caste and colonialism, they clash. Then click. Then combust.Told in alternating voices and poetic fragments, The Cost of Fire explores the tender, volatile intimacy between two women who were never meant to fall in love-not by their families, not by their histories, and certainly not by the systems that watch them from every angle. Between whispered prayers and late-night panels, group chat screenshots and anonymous threats, this is a love that is always political, always dangerous, and always half a heartbeat from shattering.Aalia knows how to fight. Meera knows how to perform. But neither of them knows how to stay. As their bond deepens, so do the stakes: caste prejudice, family expectation, religious tension, academic gatekeeping, and the ever-present threat of surveillance. At the same time, their relationship unfolds with moments of breathtaking softness-a stolen cake at midnight, hands almost touching in the snow, poetry written and never sent.But love, they discover, is not always soft. Sometimes, it's a fist. A fire. A truth too loud to be silenced. And when home becomes a question and belonging a battlefield, the biggest risk may not be loving each other-it may be believing they deserve to.Fierce, lyrical, and devastatingly intimate, The Cost of Fire is a portrait of what it means to exist at the intersection of too many identities in a world that prefers you in pieces. It's a story about the politics of visibility, the cost of courage, and the radical act of being seen-and loved-without apology. This item is printed on demand. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.
Language: English
Published by Lory Cross Publications, 2025
Series: Off-Limits Romance, Book 3 of 8. Book 3 of 8 - Off-Limits Romance
- Softcover
- Print on Demand
Seller: CitiRetail, Stevenage, United KingdomCitiRetail
Contact seller5-star sellerCondition: New
US$ 28.26
US$ 49.56 shippingShips from United Kingdom to U.S.A.Quantity: 1 available
Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. The Cost of Fire is a lyrical, unflinching novel about two South Asian women who meet at an elite American university and find themselves caught in a collision of desire, identity, and inherited trauma.Aalia, from Kerala, walks into every room with a storm behind her. She's sharp-tongued, un…apologetically political, and weary of being reduced to a token brown girl. Her past is filled with silences and burn scars-visible and otherwise. Meera, from Delhi, is all polish and promise, the kind of girl who was raised to smile and shine, but never too brightly. When they meet in a classroom debating caste and colonialism, they clash. Then click. Then combust.Told in alternating voices and poetic fragments, The Cost of Fire explores the tender, volatile intimacy between two women who were never meant to fall in love-not by their families, not by their histories, and certainly not by the systems that watch them from every angle. Between whispered prayers and late-night panels, group chat screenshots and anonymous threats, this is a love that is always political, always dangerous, and always half a heartbeat from shattering.Aalia knows how to fight. Meera knows how to perform. But neither of them knows how to stay. As their bond deepens, so do the stakes: caste prejudice, family expectation, religious tension, academic gatekeeping, and the ever-present threat of surveillance. At the same time, their relationship unfolds with moments of breathtaking softness-a stolen cake at midnight, hands almost touching in the snow, poetry written and never sent.But love, they discover, is not always soft. Sometimes, it's a fist. A fire. A truth too loud to be silenced. And when home becomes a question and belonging a battlefield, the biggest risk may not be loving each other-it may be believing they deserve to.Fierce, lyrical, and devastatingly intimate, The Cost of Fire is a portrait of what it means to exist at the intersection of too many identities in a world that prefers you in pieces. It's a story about the politics of visibility, the cost of courage, and the radical act of being seen-and loved-without apology. This item is printed on demand. Shipping may be from our UK warehouse or from our Australian or US warehouses, depending on stock availability.
Language: English
Published by Lory Cross Publications, 2025
Series: Off-Limits Romance, Book 3 of 8. Book 3 of 8 - Off-Limits Romance
- Softcover
- Print on Demand
Seller: AussieBookSeller, Truganina, VIC, AustraliaAussieBookSeller
Contact seller5-star sellerCondition: New
US$ 41.64
US$ 37.00 shippingShips from Australia to U.S.A.Quantity: 1 available
Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. The Cost of Fire is a lyrical, unflinching novel about two South Asian women who meet at an elite American university and find themselves caught in a collision of desire, identity, and inherited trauma.Aalia, from Kerala, walks into every room with a storm behind her. She's sharp-tongued, un…apologetically political, and weary of being reduced to a token brown girl. Her past is filled with silences and burn scars-visible and otherwise. Meera, from Delhi, is all polish and promise, the kind of girl who was raised to smile and shine, but never too brightly. When they meet in a classroom debating caste and colonialism, they clash. Then click. Then combust.Told in alternating voices and poetic fragments, The Cost of Fire explores the tender, volatile intimacy between two women who were never meant to fall in love-not by their families, not by their histories, and certainly not by the systems that watch them from every angle. Between whispered prayers and late-night panels, group chat screenshots and anonymous threats, this is a love that is always political, always dangerous, and always half a heartbeat from shattering.Aalia knows how to fight. Meera knows how to perform. But neither of them knows how to stay. As their bond deepens, so do the stakes: caste prejudice, family expectation, religious tension, academic gatekeeping, and the ever-present threat of surveillance. At the same time, their relationship unfolds with moments of breathtaking softness-a stolen cake at midnight, hands almost touching in the snow, poetry written and never sent.But love, they discover, is not always soft. Sometimes, it's a fist. A fire. A truth too loud to be silenced. And when home becomes a question and belonging a battlefield, the biggest risk may not be loving each other-it may be believing they deserve to.Fierce, lyrical, and devastatingly intimate, The Cost of Fire is a portrait of what it means to exist at the intersection of too many identities in a world that prefers you in pieces. It's a story about the politics of visibility, the cost of courage, and the radical act of being seen-and loved-without apology. This item is printed on demand. Shipping may be from our Sydney, NSW warehouse or from our UK or US warehouse, depending on stock availability.
- Softcover
- Print on Demand
Seller: CitiRetail, Stevenage, United KingdomCitiRetail
Contact seller5-star sellerCondition: New
US$ 30.34
US$ 49.56 shippingShips from United Kingdom to U.S.A.Quantity: 1 available
Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. In the shadows of surveillance towers and concrete checkpoints, two lives intertwine-one crossing borders, the other enforcing them.Noura, a Palestinian woman surviving day to day as a hospital cleaner in Tel Aviv, walks a thin line with every step she takes across a heavily monitored border…. Her permit is always at risk. Her silence is survival. But when a glitch in the system flags her as a potential threat, she's pulled into secondary screening-and face to face with someone she thought she'd never see again.Yousef was once a boy who folded paper boats with her, who made promises under a shared sky. Now, he's a soldier on the other side of the glass. A drone operator. A man tasked with watching for danger. And suddenly, she's in his sights.Their reunion is not fate-it is tension. It is memory. It is danger. Because in a system built on suspicion and code, even a look too long, a word too soft, can trigger alarm. Their history-fragile, sweet, unresolved-becomes a liability.As surveillance tightens and propaganda threatens to erase Noura's name, Yousef risks his own status to protect her. A glance becomes a message. A warning becomes a poem. A flag in the system becomes the fire between them.But they are not alone. Anonymous messages warn Noura she is being watched. Soldiers board her bus. Drones track her movements. A silence descends, not of peace, but of calculated control.Told in poetic prose through alternating perspectives, Across the Borderline is not a traditional love story-it is a story of what remains unspoken in places where language itself is regulated. It is about the weight of memory, the erosion of identity, and what it costs to be seen.The checkpoint becomes a metaphor for the emotional terrain both Noura and Yousef must navigate-every crossing a choice, every silence a rebellion, every connection a risk. Their relationship is rendered in moments: shared history, stolen glances, encrypted messages, and dangerous hope.Lyrical, intimate, and deeply political, this novel explores: Surveillance and its dehumanizing logicForbidden intimacy across military and cultural linesMemory as resistanceThe haunting legacy of occupation, identity, and inherited silenceFor readers who loved the emotional depth of The Kite Runner, the quiet intensity of The Handmaid's Tale, and the poetic resistance of Salt Houses, Across the Borderline is a necessary and unforgettable journey.In the end, this is not just Noura's story. It is the story of every person trying to stay human in a world that reduces lives to numbers. And in that world, even love becomes an act of rebellion. This item is printed on demand. Shipping may be from our UK warehouse or from our Australian or US warehouses, depending on stock availability.
- Softcover
- Print on Demand
Seller: AussieBookSeller, Truganina, VIC, AustraliaAussieBookSeller
Contact seller5-star sellerCondition: New
US$ 44.61
US$ 37.00 shippingShips from Australia to U.S.A.Quantity: 1 available
Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. In the shadows of surveillance towers and concrete checkpoints, two lives intertwine-one crossing borders, the other enforcing them.Noura, a Palestinian woman surviving day to day as a hospital cleaner in Tel Aviv, walks a thin line with every step she takes across a heavily monitored border…. Her permit is always at risk. Her silence is survival. But when a glitch in the system flags her as a potential threat, she's pulled into secondary screening-and face to face with someone she thought she'd never see again.Yousef was once a boy who folded paper boats with her, who made promises under a shared sky. Now, he's a soldier on the other side of the glass. A drone operator. A man tasked with watching for danger. And suddenly, she's in his sights.Their reunion is not fate-it is tension. It is memory. It is danger. Because in a system built on suspicion and code, even a look too long, a word too soft, can trigger alarm. Their history-fragile, sweet, unresolved-becomes a liability.As surveillance tightens and propaganda threatens to erase Noura's name, Yousef risks his own status to protect her. A glance becomes a message. A warning becomes a poem. A flag in the system becomes the fire between them.But they are not alone. Anonymous messages warn Noura she is being watched. Soldiers board her bus. Drones track her movements. A silence descends, not of peace, but of calculated control.Told in poetic prose through alternating perspectives, Across the Borderline is not a traditional love story-it is a story of what remains unspoken in places where language itself is regulated. It is about the weight of memory, the erosion of identity, and what it costs to be seen.The checkpoint becomes a metaphor for the emotional terrain both Noura and Yousef must navigate-every crossing a choice, every silence a rebellion, every connection a risk. Their relationship is rendered in moments: shared history, stolen glances, encrypted messages, and dangerous hope.Lyrical, intimate, and deeply political, this novel explores: Surveillance and its dehumanizing logicForbidden intimacy across military and cultural linesMemory as resistanceThe haunting legacy of occupation, identity, and inherited silenceFor readers who loved the emotional depth of The Kite Runner, the quiet intensity of The Handmaid's Tale, and the poetic resistance of Salt Houses, Across the Borderline is a necessary and unforgettable journey.In the end, this is not just Noura's story. It is the story of every person trying to stay human in a world that reduces lives to numbers. And in that world, even love becomes an act of rebellion. This item is printed on demand. Shipping may be from our Sydney, NSW warehouse or from our UK or US warehouse, depending on stock availability.
Language: English
Published by Lory Cross Publications, 2025
Series: Off-Limits Romance, Book 3 of 8. Book 3 of 8 - Off-Limits Romance
- Softcover
- Print on Demand
Seller: AHA-BUCH GmbH, Einbeck, GermanyAHA-BUCH GmbH
Contact seller5-star sellerCondition: New
US$ 30.56
US$ 70.30 shippingShips from Germany to U.S.A.Quantity: 2 available
Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. nach der Bestellung gedruckt Neuware - Printed after ordering - The Cost of Fire is a lyrical, unflinching novel about two South Asian women who meet at an elite American university and find themselves caught in a collision of desire, identity, and inherited trauma.Aalia, from Kerala, walks into ever…y room with a storm behind her. She's sharp-tongued, unapologetically political, and weary of being reduced to a token brown girl. Her past is filled with silences and burn scars-visible and otherwise. Meera, from Delhi, is all polish and promise, the kind of girl who was raised to smile and shine, but never too brightly. When they meet in a classroom debating caste and colonialism, they clash. Then click. Then combust.Told in alternating voices and poetic fragments, The Cost of Fire explores the tender, volatile intimacy between two women who were never meant to fall in love-not by their families, not by their histories, and certainly not by the systems that watch them from every angle. Between whispered prayers and late-night panels, group chat screenshots and anonymous threats, this is a love that is always political, always dangerous, and always half a heartbeat from shattering.Aalia knows how to fight. Meera knows how to perform. But neither of them knows how to stay. As their bond deepens, so do the stakes: caste prejudice, family expectation, religious tension, academic gatekeeping, and the ever-present threat of surveillance. At the same time, their relationship unfolds with moments of breathtaking softness-a stolen cake at midnight, hands almost touching in the snow, poetry written and never sent.But love, they discover, is not always soft. Sometimes, it's a fist. A fire. A truth too loud to be silenced. And when home becomes a question and belonging a battlefield, the biggest risk may not be loving each other-it may be believing they deserve to.Fierce, lyrical, and devastatingly intimate, The Cost of Fire is a portrait of what it means to exist at the intersection of too many identities in a world that prefers you in pieces. It's a story about the politics of visibility, the cost of courage, and the radical act of being seen-and loved-without apology.
- Softcover
- Print on Demand
Seller: AHA-BUCH GmbH, Einbeck, GermanyAHA-BUCH GmbH
Contact seller5-star sellerCondition: New
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Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. nach der Bestellung gedruckt Neuware - Printed after ordering - In the shadows of surveillance towers and concrete checkpoints, two lives intertwine-one crossing borders, the other enforcing them.Noura, a Palestinian woman surviving day to day as a hospital cleaner in Tel Aviv, walks a thin line with… every step she takes across a heavily monitored border. Her permit is always at risk. Her silence is survival. But when a glitch in the system flags her as a potential threat, she's pulled into secondary screening-and face to face with someone she thought she'd never see again.Yousef was once a boy who folded paper boats with her, who made promises under a shared sky. Now, he's a soldier on the other side of the glass. A drone operator. A man tasked with watching for danger. And suddenly, she's in his sights.Their reunion is not fate-it is tension. It is memory. It is danger. Because in a system built on suspicion and code, even a look too long, a word too soft, can trigger alarm. Their history-fragile, sweet, unresolved-becomes a liability.As surveillance tightens and propaganda threatens to erase Noura's name, Yousef risks his own status to protect her. A glance becomes a message. A warning becomes a poem. A flag in the system becomes the fire between them.But they are not alone. Anonymous messages warn Noura she is being watched. Soldiers board her bus. Drones track her movements. A silence descends, not of peace, but of calculated control.Told in poetic prose through alternating perspectives, Across the Borderline is not a traditional love story-it is a story of what remains unspoken in places where language itself is regulated. It is about the weight of memory, the erosion of identity, and what it costs to be seen.The checkpoint becomes a metaphor for the emotional terrain both Noura and Yousef must navigate-every crossing a choice, every silence a rebellion, every connection a risk. Their relationship is rendered in moments: shared history, stolen glances, encrypted messages, and dangerous hope.Lyrical, intimate, and deeply political, this novel explores:Surveillance and its dehumanizing logicForbidden intimacy across military and cultural linesMemory as resistanceThe haunting legacy of occupation, identity, and inherited silenceFor readers who loved the emotional depth of The Kite Runner, the quiet intensity of The Handmaid's Tale, and the poetic resistance of Salt Houses, Across the Borderline is a necessary and unforgettable journey.In the end, this is not just Noura's story. It is the story of every person trying to stay human in a world that reduces lives to numbers. And in that world, even love becomes an act of rebellion.
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Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. nach der Bestellung gedruckt Neuware - Printed after ordering - Two people who should cancel each other out fall wildly, stubbornly, beautifully in love. Hollis Brooks is a sharp-tongued policy strategist who trusts data more than doctrine. Jack Coleman is a grease-knuckled mechanic who moonlights at… a small church where his sermons are short and honest. They don't marry because they agree-they marry because their arguments end with hands finding hands. When a baby arrives and the world starts labeling, the fault lines widen.(Opposites Attract ¿ Political Divide Romance ¿ Interfaith Tension ¿ Smart & Sassy × Quiet & Steady ¿ Found Family ¿ Marriage in Crisis ¿ Motherhood vs Ambition ¿ Slow-Build Domestic Intimacy)Across twenty chapters, their love defies tidy categories. A neighborhood debate, a stalled car, and a dare of a kiss light the fuse. Jack believes in lighthouses. Hollis builds bridges. Their domestic life is both messy and steamy, and full of landmines: a church board that wants Jack's signature under fences; a national advocacy offer in Atlanta that wants Hollis on a plane by summer; a family table where grace sounds like judgment. When labor begins like a rumor and their daughter arrives, the stakes sharpen. Postpartum haze collides with public pressure. Hollis's inbox floods with invitations from causes she believes in-ones that don't believe in her marriage. Jack's shop lease is in jeopardy; the pulpit keeps demanding a certainty he won't fake.On a primetime panel, a microphone tries to make Hollis a convert. Instead, she becomes what she's always been: a builder. 'I didn't marry a faith. I married a man,' she says. The clip explodes. Labels do, too. A grieving mother finds Jack outside the church to say the quiet part out loud-love doesn't always save. Jack answers the only way he knows how: presence.The middle act is a season of almosts: almost moving south, almost signing a creed, almost quitting each other. Instead, they choose softness over surrender. Every Friday, Hollis writes letters on a park bench. Jack writes the kind of prayers that don't need God's name to work. Their daughter Lena becomes a tiny philosopher-'God is a hug'-as the world demands clarity. Jack turns a complaint into Listening Night, where neighbors, teachers, and churchgoers tell one lived story before one statistic.When Jack is asked to officiate a wedding, the board threatens his title. When Hollis's sister calls from an ER, love reroutes the night. They choose people over optics and let the chips fall. Jack steps down from payroll and up to the city's need, starting community circles and publishing essays about chairs pulled out for the unsure. Hollis writes the book she swore she wouldn't-not a conversion arc, but a testament to tenderness without certainty. Online strangers argue over it. One reader simply writes: 'I don't agree with her, but I feel less alone.'The final act brings light without a finish line. A parent's complaint about 'God is a hug' sparks a forum. A doctrinal packet becomes a blank page. A TV crew turns into documentation, not direction. Onstage together, they offer the ten practices that saved them: make a table, not a stage; start with names; keep a Sabbath from certainty; let each other be second drafts. Then they walk home, past the sycamore they call Tree Friend, to a fridge still holding a stick-figure sun.In the Catskills, where things once cracked, they return with cocoa and a telescope, answering the only question that still matters: You don't need to name the light to walk toward it. He believes in her. She believes in them. Their daughter believes the sky is close enough to keep an eye on.Their Happily Ever After isn't a victory lap-it's ordinary, chosen, and true: a kitchen table, a shared calendar, a bedtime prayer to the nameless light, and two voices whispering the vow they finally learned how to keep-stay, and change, together.
Language: English
Published by Lory Cross Publications, 2025
Series: Off-Limits Romance, Book 3 of 8. Book 3 of 8 - Off-Limits Romance
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Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. The Cost of Fire | Lory Cross | Taschenbuch | Englisch | 2025 | Lory Cross Publications | EAN 9798233254666 | Verantwortliche Person für die EU: Libri GmbH, Europaallee 1, 36244 Bad Hersfeld, gpsr[at]libri[dot]de | Anbieter: preigu Print on Demand.
- Softcover
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Seller: preigu, Osnabrück, Germanypreigu
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Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. Across the Borderline | Lory Cross | Taschenbuch | Englisch | 2026 | Lory Cross Publications | EAN 9798233285028 | Verantwortliche Person für die EU: Libri GmbH, Europaallee 1, 36244 Bad Hersfeld, gpsr[at]libri[dot]de | Anbieter: preigu Print on Demand.
