Obsession Brain

Whether you load your iPod with Bach or Bono, music has a significant role in your life - even if you never realized it. Why does music evoke such powerful moods? The answers are at last becoming clear, thanks to revolutionary neuroscience and the emerging field of evolutionary psychology. Both a cutting-edge study and a tribute to the beauty of music itself, This Is Your Brain on Music unravels a host of mysteries that affect everything from pop culture to our understanding of human nature.

I rejected my fated mate, and didn’t regret it for a second. Until now. Shipped off to Ravenscroft University, a graduate school for the supernatural elite, I have a lot to live up to. As heir to America’s most powerful pack, I was locked away. Not to be protected, but because I was born broken. A disappointment. A wolf who couldn’t shift. This is supposed to be my fresh start, but my past won’t leave me alone. Not when he’s here.

In this groundbreaking union of art and science, rocker-turned-neuroscientist Daniel J. Levitin explores the connection between music - its performance, its composition, how we listen to it, why we enjoy it - and the human brain. Levitin draws on the latest research and on musical examples ranging from Mozart to Duke Ellington to Van Halen.

Trauma surgeon Justin Wellington is accustomed to handling gunshot wounds… just not over his Cobb salad. When a lunch date with his best friend, the woman with whom he’s quietly and desperately in love – homicide detective Kathleen Murphy – becomes the scene of a drive-by shooting, Justin’s surgical skills are called upon to save the life of a young waitress. His heroism that day sets into motion a chain of events that brings him to the attention of a dangerous and disturbed individual, threatening his career, his own life and the lives of those he holds dear. Obsession: Because ...

Maxwell Fallini: I get everything that I want. I'm not only a self-made man, I am also a respected and feared mob boss. A mob war had been building for years, and I would do anything to bring an end to both it and my depraved enemy. When an innocent, yet spirited man comes under my control, I had to find a way not only to maintain my focus on business but claim the young man that was quickly becoming an obsession. Jacob Fields: I became a pawn in a dangerous game. I had never known such danger existed outside of books and movies. I despised the ridiculously gorgeous gangster; and still, I ...

John Douglas once again takes us fascinatingly behind the scenes, focusing his expertise on predatory crimes, primarily against women. With a deep sense of compassion for the victims and an uncanny understanding of the perpetrators, Douglas looks at the obsessions that lead to rape, stalking, and sexual murder through such cases as Ronnie Shelton, the serial rapist who terrorized Cleveland; and New York's notorious "Preppie Murder". But Douglas also looks at obsession on the other side of the moral spectrum: his own career-long obsession with hunting these predators.

He's arrogant, domineering, and...To. Die. For. Hunter is a ruthless killer. And the Department of Defense has him firmly in their grasp, which usually doesn't chafe too badly because he gets to kill bad guys. Most of the time he enjoys his job. That is until he's saddled with something he's never had to do before: protect a human from his mortal enemy.

Special Agent Jess Harris has spent more than a decade studying the many faces of evil. In her determination to stop a serial killer, she broke the rules, and it cost her everything. With her career in need of resuscitation and her love life dead and buried, Jess jumps at a chance to advise on a case that has the top detectives of Birmingham, Alabama, stumped. But the case forces her to confront all the reasons she put her hometown-and her first love-in her rearview mirror.

Jade Roberts is in love with Talon Steel but no longer welcome in his home. While she resolves to move on, she still longs for the passion she and Talon shared...and when her boss asks her to dig up information on the Steels, she's only too happy to comply. Talon and his brothers are hiding something, and Jade is determined find out what it is. The moment Talon saw Jade he wanted her, ached for her, craved her...and now his desire has become his obsession.

Secrets can kill. Harper wanted Sean to dominate her, to degrade her...and she loved every second of it. Every hot, gasping-for-breath, clenching-the-sheets moment. She loved to have him looming over her, dictating her every move. She got off on it. But now it's too real. Their relationship has gotten complicated and dark, fast.

Tiffany is trapped in a life she never wanted for herself. The man she fell in love with turned out to be a lazy, good-for-nothing womanizer. Night after night Tiffany comes home to Blake’s physical, mental, and verbal abuse. She’s tried leaving it in the past, but somehow he always finds her. Each time, she comes back and convinces herself things will get better. Then one day Blake beats her for the last time. Tiffany decides death is the only way out - and she’s not the one being buried. Her life takes a drastic turn as she attempts to live the life she’s always wanted.

While filming on location in scenic Santa Barbara, California, Peter Barrington and Ben Bacchetti look to expand Centurion Studios' business by making a deal with a young Croatian tech billionaire. But when the magnate’s wife is kidnapped, Teddy Fay is brought in to assess the threat and recover the young woman. As Teddy unravels the threads of her disappearance, he quickly comes to find an old vendetta seethes at the center, one that puts them all at risk. And danger is lurking even nearer to home as an obsessive fan with perilous intentions weasels his way onto the film set.

Using musical examples from Bach to the Beatles, Levitin reveals the role of music in human evolution, shows how our musical preferences begin to form even before we are born and explains why music can offer such an emotional experience. Music is an obsession at the heart of human nature, even more fundamental to our species than language. In This Is Your Brain on Music Levitin offers nothing less than a new way to understand it and its role in human life.

Lust. Revenge. Greed. Hunger. Desire doesn’t care if you’re at the bottom of the ladder or the top of your game. Six masters of psychological suspense craft tales about people crossing moral lines in pursuit of their deepest desires. In these short stories, even the most mild-mannered characters can spin out of control when passion is at play. Hold on tight—there’s no turning back.

Natchez Trace Ranger and historian Emma Winters hoped never to see Sam Ryker again after she broke off her engagement to him. But when shots are fired at her at a historical landmark just off the Natchez Trace, she's forced to work alongside Sam as the Natchez Trace law enforcement district ranger in the ensuing investigation. To complicate matters, Emma has acquired a delusional secret admirer who is determined to have her as his own. Sam is merely an obstruction, one which must be removed.

They call him the executioner. Some say monster. Dishonorably discharged from the military, he runs a highly secret, clandestine operation, and has everything I need to find the justice I crave. Power players at his disposal. An insatiable hunger for justice. A reckless disregard for the law. I offer him my skills, but that's not what he wants... He wants me. And Cain Master always gets what he wants.

I've spent so many years fantasizing about this kind of thing I've lost count, and now that it’s here, I can hardly believe my luck. That’s right before my mom drops a bombshell, of course, and fate stabs me in the ass with his sharpened sword. Twins Logan and Jack are perfect in every single way but one. They’re about to become my stepbrothers.

Tanya Bigelow was a solemn little girl when Dr. Alex Delaware successfully treated her obsessive-compulsive symptoms. Now, at 19, Patty Bigelow, Tanya's aunt and adoptive mother, has made a deathbed confession of murder and urged the young woman to seek Delaware's help.

Carly and Rob, Jenni and Craig. Two couples, four friends. Betraying each other. Wanting each other. All of them have access to prescription drugs through the medical practice where they work, and all of them are fighting their own demons. But can any of them be trusted? And when the lies begin, can they ever be silenced?

Katharine Lawrence has no idea what hit her. The attack came out of nowhere. Only hours earlier she had been enjoying a girls-only weekend with an old college friend. Now she finds herself lying bound and gagged on her kitchen floor, staring with terrified eyes at her friend Lisa while two masked gunmen search her house for - what? She doesn't know. She knows only that, unless they can escape, whatever it is they are searching for could end up getting both her and Lisa killed.