It's still true... That's the first thing James Tillerman says to his sister Dicey every morning. It's still true that their mother has abandoned the four Tillerman children somewhere in the middle of Connecticut. It's still true they have to find their way, somehow, to Great-aunt Cilla's house in Bridgeport, which may be their only hope of staying together as a family.
But when they get to Bridgeport, they learn that Great-aunt Cilla has died, and the home they find with her daughter, Eunice, isn't the permanent haven they've been searching for. So their journey continues to its unexpected conclusion -- and some surprising discoveries about their history, and their future.
Red Rabbit takes us back to the early days of Jack Ryan, long before he was President or head of the CIA. Before he fought terrorist attacks on the Super Bowl or the White House, even before a submarine named Red October made its perilous way across the Atlantic, Jack Ryan was a historian, teacher, and recent ex-Marine temporarily living in England while researching a book.
A series of deadly encounters with an IRA splinter group had brought him to the attention of the CIA's Deputy Director, Vice Admiral James Greer—as well as his counterpart with the British SIS, Sir Basil Charleston. When Greer asked him if he wanted to come aboard as a freelance analyst, Jack was quick to accept. The opportunity was irresistible, and he was sure he could fit it in with the rest of his work.
And then Jack forgot all about the rest of his work, because one of his first assignments was to help debrief a high-level Soviet defector. The defector told an amazing tale: Top Soviet officials, including Yuri Andropov, were planning to assassinate the Pope, John Paul II. Could it be true?
As the days and weeks go by, Ryan must battle, first to try to confirm the plot, and then to prevent it. This is a brave new world, and nothing he has done up to now has prepared him for the lethal game of cat-and-mouse that is the Soviet Union versus the United States. In the end, it will be not just the Pope's life but the stability of the Western world that is at stake... and it may already be too late for a novice CIA analyst to do anything about it.
In Island, his last novel, Aldous Huxley transports us to a Pacific island where, for 120 years, an ideal society has flourished. Inevitably, this island of bliss attracts the envy and enmity of the surrounding world. A conspiracy is underway to take over Pala, and events begin to move when an agent of the conspirators, a newspaperman named Faranby, is shipwrecked there. What Faranby doesn't expect is how his time with the people of Pala will revolutionize all his values and—to his amazement—give him hope.
Before there was Raylan, there was Sisco...
U.S. Marshal Karen Sisco is on the hunt for world-class gentleman felon Jack Foley in Out of Sight, a sexy thriller that moves from Miami to the Motor City.
Based on Miami, Florida's Gold Coast, U.S. Marshal Karen Sisco isn’t about to let an expert criminal like Jack Foley successfully bust out of Florida's Glades Prison. But there’s a major score waiting for him in Detroit, and a shotgun-wielding marshal isn’t going to stop Foley from getting it.
Neither counted on sharing a cramped car trunk—or on a sizzling chemistry that’s working overtime. As soon as Sisco escapes, Foley is already missing her.
Sisco can’t forget Foley either—and she isn’t about to let him go. Too bad the next time their paths cross, it’s going to be about business, not pleasure.
In Coraline's family's new flat there's a locked door. On the other side is a brick wall—until Coraline unlocks the door... and finds a passage to another flat in another house just like her own. Only different.
The food is better there. Books have pictures that writhe and crawl and shimmer. And there's another mother and father there who want Coraline to be their little girl. They want to change her and keep her with them... Forever.
Coraline is an extraordinary fairy tale/nightmare from the uniquely skewed imagination of #1 New York Times bestselling author Neil Gaiman.
Komarr could be a garden with a thousand more years' work, or an uninhabitable wasteland if the terraforming fails. Now, the solar mirror vital to the terraforming of the conquered planet has been shattered by a ship hurtling off course.
The Emperor of Barrayar sends his newest imperial auditor, Lord Miles Vorkosigan, to find out why. The choice is not a popular one on Komarr, where a betrayal a generation before drenched the name of Vorkosigan in blood.
Thus, the Komarrans surrounding Miles could be loyal subjects, potential hostages, innocent victims, or rebels ready for revenge. Lies within lies, treachery within treachery, Miles is caught in a race against time to stop a plot that could exile him from Barrayar forever.
His burning hope lies in an unexpected ally, one with wounds as deep and honor as beleaguered as his own.
As the boundaries between worlds begin to dissolve, Lyra and her daemon help Will Parry in his search for his father and for a powerful, magical knife.
Lyra finds herself in a shimmering, haunted otherworld yingbeats of distant angels sound against the sky.
But she is not without allies: twelve-year-old Will Parry, fleeing for his life after taking another's, has also stumbled into this strange new realm.
On a perilous journey from world to world, Lyra and Will uncover a deadly secret: an object of extraordinary and devastating power.
And with every step, they move closer to an even greater threat and the shattering truth of their own destiny.
Interesting Times: The Play is a new stage adaptation of one of Pratchett's best-selling novels. The Discworld's most inept wizard, Rincewind, has been sent from Unseen University in Ankh-Morpork to the oppressive Agatean Empire to help some well-intentioned rebels overthrow the Emperor.
He's assisted by toy-rabbit-wielding rebels, an army of terracotta warriors, a tax gatherer, and a group of seven very elderly barbarian heroes led by Cohen the Barbarian. Opposing him, though, is the evil and manipulative Lord Hong and his army of 750,000 men.
Rincewind is also aided by Twoflower—Discworld's first tourist and the author of a subversive book about his visit to Ankh-Morpork, which has inspired the rebels in their struggle for freedom. The book is called What I Did On My Holidays.
Introducing Laurie Notaro, the leader of the Idiot Girls’ Action-Adventure Club. Every day she fearlessly rises from bed to defeat the evil machinations of dolts, dimwits, and creepy boyfriends—and that’s before she even puts on a bra.
For the past ten years, Notaro has been entertaining Phoenix newspaper readers with her wildly amusing autobiographical exploits and unique life experiences. She writes about a world of hourly-wage jobs that require absolutely no skills, a mother who hands down judgments more forcefully than anyone seated on the Supreme Court, horrific high school reunions, and hangovers that leave her surprised that she woke up in the first place.
The misadventures of Laurie and her fellow Idiot Girls (“too cool to be in the Smart Group”) unfold in a world that everyone will recognize but no one has ever described so hilariously. She delivers the goods: life as we all know it.
Long-awaited final volume in the Avalon series by bestselling fantasy author, Marion Zimmer Bradley. As the Merlin of Britannia keeps his vigil atop the Tor of Avalon, Rian, the High Priestess of Avalon, dies giving birth to her fifth child. The girl, named Eilan with her mother's dying breath, takes life. From the stars, the Merlin draws forth her prophecy: 'The child that was born at the Turning of Autumn, just as the night gave way to dawn, shall stand at the turning of the Age, the gateway between two worlds.' A prophecy of greatness, but it seems that she is destined to walk a path unlike any trod by a Priestess of Avalon before!
This spellbinding historical romance is the concluding volume in the Avalon series from Marion Zimmer Bradley, the author of the worldwide bestseller, The Mists of Avalon, who died in 1999.
Once again Jean M. Auel opens the door of a time long past to reveal an age of wonder and danger at the dawn of the modern human race. With all the consummate storytelling artistry and vivid authenticity she brought to The Clan of the Cave Bear and its sequel, The Valley of Horses, Jean M. Auel continues the breathtaking epic journey of the woman called Ayla.
Riding Whinney with Jondalar, the man she loves, and followed by the mare’s colt, Ayla ventures into the land of the Mamutoi--the Mammoth Hunters. She has finally found the Others she has been seeking. Though Ayla must learn their different customs and language, she is adopted because of her remarkable hunting ability, singular healing skills, and uncanny fire-making technique. Bringing back the single pup of a lone wolf she has killed, Ayla shows the way she tames animals. She finds women friends and painful memories of the Clan she left behind, and meets Ranec, the dark-skinned, magnetic master carver of ivory, whom she cannot refuse--inciting Jondalar to a fierce jealousy that he tries to control by avoiding her. Unfamiliar with the ways of the Others, Ayla misunderstands, and thinking Jondalar no longer loves her, she turns more to Ranec. Throughout the icy winter the tension mounts, but warming weather will bring the great mammoth hunt and the mating rituals of the Summer Meeting, when Ayla must choose to remain with Ranec and the Mamutoi, or to follow Jondalar on a long journey into an unknown future.
Jean M. Auel’s enthralling Earth’s Children series has become a literary phenomenon, beloved by readers around the world. In a brilliant novel as vividly authentic and entertaining as those that came before, Jean M. Auel returns us to the earliest days of humankind and to the captivating adventures of the courageous woman called Ayla.
With her companion, Jondalar, Ayla sets out on her most dangerous and daring journey--away from the welcoming hearths of the Mammoth Hunters and into the unknown. Their odyssey spans a beautiful but sparsely populated and treacherous continent, the windswept grasslands of Ice Age Europe, casting the pair among strangers. Some will be intrigued by Ayla and Jondalar, with their many innovative skills, including the taming of wild horses and a wolf; others will avoid them, threatened by what they cannot understand; and some will threaten them. But Ayla, with no memory of her own people, and Jondalar, with a hunger to return to his, are impelled by their own deep drives to continue their trek across the spectacular heart of an unmapped world to find that place they can both call home.
This unforgettable odyssey into the distant past carries us back to the awesome mysteries of the exotic, primeval world of The Clan of the Cave Bear, and to Ayla, now grown into a beautiful and courageous young woman. Cruelly cast out by the new leader of the ancient Clan that adopted her as a child, Ayla leaves those she loves behind and travels alone through a stark, open land filled with dangerous animals but few people, searching for the Others, tall and fair like herself. The short summer gives her little time to look, and when she finds a sheltered valley with a herd of hardy steppe horses, she decides to stay and prepare for the long glacial winter ahead. Living with the Clan has taught Ayla many skills but not real hunting. She finally knows she can survive when she traps a horse, which gives her meat and a warm pelt for the winter, but fate has bestowed a greater gift, an orphaned foal with whom she develops a unique kinship.
One winter extends to more; she discovers a way to make fire more quickly and a wounded cave lion cub joins her unusual family, but her beloved animals don't fulfill her restless need for human companionship. Then she hears the sound of a man screaming in pain. She saves tall, handsome Jondalar, who brings her a language to speak and an awakening of love and desire, but Ayla is torn between her fear of leaving her valley and her hope of living with her own kind.
Blown Up
All New Jersey bounty hunter Stephanie Plum has to do is bring in semi-retired bail jumper Eddie DeChooch. For an old man, he's still got a knack for slipping out of sight—and raising hell. How else can Stephanie explain the bullet-riddled corpse in Eddie's garden? Who else would have a clue as to why two of Stephanie's friends suddenly vanished? For answers, Stephanie has the devil to pay: her mentor, Ranger. The deal? He'll give Stephanie all the help she needs—if she gives him everything he wants...
Messed Up
As if things weren't complicated enough, Stephanie's just discovered her Grandma Mazur's own unmentionable alliance with Eddie. Add a series of unnerving break-ins, not to mention the bombshell revelation leveled by Stephanie's estranged sister, and Stephanie's ready for some good news. Unfortunately, a marriage proposal from Joe Morelli, the love of her life, isn't quite cutting it. And now—murder, a randy paramour, a wily mobster, death threats, extortion, and a triple kidnapping aside—Stephanie's really got the urge to run for her life...
Beautiful Sorcha is the courageous young woman who risked all to save her family from a wicked curse and whose love shattered generations of hate and bridged two cultures. It is from her sacrifice that Sorcha's brothers were brought home to their ancestral fortress Sevenwaters, and her life has known much joy. But not all the brothers were able to fully escape the spell that transformed them into swans, and it is left to Sorcha's daughter Liadan to help fulfill the destiny of the Sevenwaters clan.
Beloved child and dutiful daughter, Liadan embarks on a journey that shows her just how hard-won was the peace that she has known all her life. Liadan will need all of her courage to help save her family, for there are dark forces and ancient powers conspiring to destroy this family's peace--and their world. And she will need all of her strength to stand up to those she loves best, for in the finding of her own true love, Liadan's course may doom them all... or be their salvation.
In the shadow of an abandoned castle, a wolf pack seeks shelter. The she-wolf's pups will not be able to survive the harsh Transylvanian winter. And they are being stalked by a lone wolf, Morgra, possessed of a mysterious and terrifying power known as the Sight. Morgra knows that one of the pups born beneath the castle holds a key to power even stronger than her own - power that could give her control of this world and the next. But the pack she hunts will do anything to protect their own, even if it means setting in motion a battle that will involve all of nature, including the creature the wolves fear the most: Man.
Battle on and off the field, with sword and fan, with might and manners...
It begins in a cold and shabby tower room, where young Countess Meliara swears to her dying father that she and her brother will defend their people from the growing greed of the king. That promise leads them into a war for which they are ill-prepared, a war that threatens the homes and lives of the very people they are trying to protect.
But war is simple compared to what follows, when the bloody fighting is done and a fragile peace is at hand. Although she wants to turn her back on politics and the crown, Meliara is summoned to the royal palace. There, she soon discovers, friends and enemies look alike, and intrigue fills the dance halls and the drawing rooms.
If she is to survive, Meliara must learn a whole new way of fighting—with wit and words and secret alliances. In war, at least, she knew whom she could trust. Now she can trust no one.
Being a princess isn't all that...
You've heard the fairy tale: a glass slipper, Prince Charming, happily ever after...
Welcome to reality: royal genealogy lessons, needlepoint, acting like "a proper lady," and—worst of all—a prince who is not the least bit interesting, and certainly not charming.
As soon-to-be princess Ella deals with her new-found status, she comes to realize she is not "your majesty" material. But breaking off a royal engagement is no easy feat, especially when you're crushing on another boy in the palace...
For Ella to escape, it will take intelligence, determination, and spunk—and no ladylike behavior allowed.
Tricked by the uncle who has stolen his inheritance, young David Balfour is kidnapped and bound for America. Or at least that was the plan, until the ship runs into trouble and David is rescued by Alan Breck Stewart, fugitive Jacobite and, by his own admission, a ‘bonny fighter’. Balfour, a canny lowlander, finds an echo of some wilder and more romantic self in the wilful and courageous Highland spirit of Alan Breck. A strange and difficult friendship is born, as their adventures begin.
Kidnapped has become a classic of historical romance the world over and is justly famous as a novel of travel and adventure in the Scottish landscape. Stevenson’s vivid descriptive powers were never better than in his account of remote places and dangerous action in the Highlands in the years after Culloden.
A mythmaker of the highest order, China Mi\u00e9ville has emblazoned the fantasy novel with fresh language, startling images, and stunning originality. Set in the same sprawling world of Mi\u00e9ville's Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning novel, Perdido Street Station, this latest epic introduces a whole new cast of intriguing characters and dazzling creations.
Aboard a vast seafaring vessel, a band of prisoners and slaves, their bodies remade into grotesque biological oddities, is being transported to the fledgling colony of New Crobuzon. But the journey is not theirs alone. They are joined by a handful of travelers, each with a reason for fleeing the city. Among them is Bellis Coldwine, a renowned linguist whose services as an interpreter grant her passage\u2014and escape from horrific punishment. For she is linked to Isaac Dan der Grimnebulin, the brilliant renegade scientist who has unwittingly unleashed a nightmare upon New Crobuzon.
For Bellis, the plan is clear: live among the new frontiersmen of the colony until it is safe to return home. But when the ship is besieged by pirates on the Swollen Ocean, the senior officers are summarily executed. The surviving passengers are brought to Armada, a city constructed from the hulls of pirated ships, a floating, landless mass ruled by the bizarre duality called the Lovers. On Armada, everyone is given work, and even Remades live as equals to humans, Cactae, and Cray. Yet no one may ever leave.
Lonely and embittered in her captivity, Bellis knows that to show dissent is a death sentence. Instead, she must furtively seek information about Armada's agenda. The answer lies in the dark, amorphous shapes that float undetected miles below the waters\u2014terrifying entities with a singular, chilling mission.
China Mi\u00e9ville is a writer for a new era\u2014and The Scar is a luminous, brilliantly imagined novel that is nothing short of spectacular.
A Clash of Kings transports us to a world of revelry and revenge, wizardry and warfare unlike any we have ever experienced. A comet the color of blood and flame cuts across the sky. Two great leaders—Lord Eddard Stark and Robert Baratheon—who held sway over an age of enforced peace, are dead, victims of royal treachery.
From the ancient citadel of Dragonstone to the forbidding shores of Winterfell, chaos reigns as six factions struggle for control of a divided land. Amidst a backdrop of incest, fratricide, alchemy, and murder, the price of glory is measured in blood.
As the series continues, George R.R. Martin has created a work of unsurpassed vision, power, and imagination. A Clash of Kings is a tale of lords and ladies, soldiers and sorcerers, assassins and evildoers who come together in a time of grim omens.
Here a knight of the mind prepares a poison for a treacherous sorceress, and wild men descend from the Mountains of the Moon to ravage the countryside. At the center of the conflict, the Iron Throne of the Seven Kingdoms, as coveted as it is cursed, stands as a symbol of the conflict's harsh reality: when kings clash, the whole land trembles.
Sammy Keyes and her friend Marissa decide to escape their routine and take a bus to the seedy, insane town of Hollywood to surprise Sammy's mother, the elusive Lady Lana. Upon arrival, they discover that she has transformed herself into the glamorous, platinum-blonde, "25-year-old" actress Dominique Windsor. This new persona certainly could never have spawned a 12-year-old—let alone a scruffy, no-nonsense girl like Sammy.
The plot thickens as Lady Lana's masquerade backfires in the most dreadful of ways, leaving Sammy to save the day and solve the biggest mystery of her life. Hollywood is a world where everyone pretends and no one is who or what they seem. When a woman is killed in the room next door, Sammy is hard-pressed to find someone who doesn’t have a motive—including her own mom.
This fast-paced, funny, and thoroughly modern mystery will keep readers on the edge of their seats. It's not just the mystery that's exciting, but also the drama in Sammy's personal life that keeps readers coming back for more.
For fans of Hatchet and Island of the Blue Dolphins comes Theodore Taylor’s classic bestseller and Lewis Carroll Shelf Award winner, The Cay. Phillip is excited when the Germans invade the small island of Curaçao. War has always been a game to him, and he’s eager to glimpse it firsthand–until the freighter he and his mother are traveling to the United States on is torpedoed.
When Phillip comes to, he is on a small raft in the middle of the sea. Besides Stew Cat, his only companion is an old West Indian, Timothy. Phillip remembers his mother’s warning about black people: “They are different, and they live differently.” But by the time the castaways arrive on a small island, Phillip’s head injury has made him blind and dependent on Timothy.
“Mr. Taylor has provided an exciting story…The idea that all humanity would benefit from this special form of color blindness permeates the whole book…The result is a story with a high ethical purpose but no sermon.”—New York Times Book Review
“A taut tightly compressed story of endurance and revelation…At once barbed and tender, tense and fragile—as Timothy would say, ‘outrageous good.’”—Kirkus Reviews
* “Fully realized setting…artful, unobtrusive use of dialect…the representation of a hauntingly deep love, the poignancy of which is rarely achieved in children’s literature.”—School Library Journal, Starred
“Starkly dramatic, believable and compelling.”—Saturday Review
“A tense and moving experience in reading.”—Publishers Weekly
“Eloquently underscores the intrinsic brotherhood of man.”—Booklist
"This is one of the best survival stories since Robinson Crusoe."—The Washington Star
Desecration: Antichrist Takes the Throne is the thrilling ninth installment in the Left Behind series. This gripping novel follows the Tribulation Force as they summon their courage against the menacing, newly-resurrected Carpathia. This malevolent figure shows a disturbing fondness for gruesome killings of those who dare to remain unloyal to him.
In a world teetering on the edge of chaos, Carpathia commits the ultimate act of desecration against the Judeo-Christian community, pushing the boundaries of evil. The stakes are unimaginably high, and the suspense is palpable as the characters navigate through this apocalyptic landscape.
Welcome to Battleschool.
Growing up is never easy. But try living on the mean streets as a child begging for food and fighting like a dog with ruthless gangs of starving kids who wouldn't hesitate to pound your skull into pulp for a scrap of apple. If Bean has learned anything on the streets, it's how to survive. And not with fists. He is way too small for that. But with brains.
Bean is a genius with a magician's ability to zero in on his enemy and exploit his weakness. What better quality for a future general to lead the Earth in a final climactic battle against a hostile alien race, known as Buggers. At Battleschool Bean meets and befriends another future commander - Ender Wiggins - perhaps his only true rival.
Only one problem: for Bean and Ender, the future is now.
Ender's Shadow is the book that launched The Shadow Series, and the parallel novel to Orson Scott Card's science fiction classic, Ender's Game.
Skilled, cautious, and anonymous, Jack Reacher is perfect for the job: to assassinate the vice president of the United States. Theoretically, of course.
A female Secret Service agent wants Reacher to find the holes in her system, and fast—because a covert group already has the vice president in their sights. They’ve planned well. There’s just one thing they didn’t plan on: Reacher.
Callie Hayes is living a life of fear and disillusionment when she volunteers for a psychology experiment that promises to turn her life around. As her orientation proceeds, Callie becomes frightened by the secrecy and evasion she encounters. When she demands to be released from the program, she is suddenly dropped into a terrifying alien world and into a perilous battle between good and evil.
With limited resources and only a few cryptic words to guide her, Callie embarks on a life-changing journey. Will she decipher the plans the Benefactor has established for her escape, or will she succumb to the deception of the Arena?
Imagine a young man on his way to a less-than-thirty second event — the loss of his left hand, long before he reached middle age. The Fourth Hand asks an interesting question: “How can anyone identify a dream of the future?” The answer: “Destiny is not imaginable, except in dreams or to those in love.”
While reporting a story from India, a New York television journalist has his left hand eaten by a lion; millions of TV viewers witness the accident. In Boston, a renowned hand surgeon awaits the opportunity to perform the nation’s first hand transplant. Meanwhile, in the distracting aftermath of an acrimonious divorce, the surgeon is seduced by his housekeeper. A married woman in Wisconsin wants to give the one-handed reporter her husband’s left hand—that is, after her husband dies. But the husband is alive, relatively young, and healthy.
This is how John Irving’s tenth novel begins; it seems, at first, to be a comedy, perhaps a satire, almost certainly a sexual farce. Yet, in the end, The Fourth Hand is as realistic and emotionally moving as any of Mr. Irving’s previous novels. The story offers a penetrating look at the power of second chances and the will to change.
Semi, Miranda, and Arnie are part of a group of 50 British Young Conservationists on their way to a wildlife conservation station deep in the rainforests of Ecuador. After a terrifying mid-air disaster and subsequent crash, these three are the sole survivors, stranded together on a deserted tropical island. Or so they think.
Semi, Miranda, and Arnie stumble into the hands of Dr. Franklin, a mad scientist who’s been waiting for them, eager to use them as specimens for his experiments in genetic engineering.
A Warning from the Publisher:
Many readers have questions about Lemony Snicket, author of the distressing serial concerning the trials of the charming but unlucky Baudelaire orphans, published under the collective title A Series of Unfortunate Events.
Before purchasing, borrowing, or stealing this book, you should be aware that it contains the answers to some of those questions, such as the following:
Our advice to you is that you find a book that answers less upsetting questions than this one. Perhaps your librarian, bookseller, or parole officer can recommend a book that answers the question, "Aren't ponies adorable?"
Diplomatic Immunity takes us on a thrilling journey where Lord Miles Vorkosigan is once again called into action. A rich Komarran merchant fleet has been impounded at Graf Station in distant Quaddiespace after a bloody incident involving a security officer from the convoy's Barrayaran military escort.
Though Miles and his wife, Lady Ekaterin, are eager to return home for the births of their first children, duty calls when Barrayar's Emperor Gregor requests Miles' expertise as the youngest Imperial Auditor, a special high-level troubleshooter.
On Graf Station, Miles faces diplomatic snarls, tangled loyalties, old friends, new enemies, racial tensions, lies, and deceptions. There are mysterious disappearances and a lethal secret with consequences wider than Miles anticipates. Time is running out, and the entire system is in danger.
The downside of being a troubleshooter is starkly illustrated when the trouble starts shooting back. With life and death at stake, Miles embarks on a race against time, confronting horrifying new forms of danger.
Polly has two sets of memories...
One is normal: school, home, friends. The other, stranger memories begin nine years ago, when she was ten and gate-crashed an odd funeral in the mansion near her grandmother's house. Polly's just beginning to recall the sometimes marvelous, sometimes frightening adventures she embarked on with Tom Lynn after that. And then she did something terrible, and everything changed.
But what did she do? Why can't she remember? Polly must uncover the secret, or her true love — and perhaps Polly herself — will be lost.
The Prince and the Pauper, a novel by American author Mark Twain, marks Twain's first foray into historical fiction. Set in 1537, it weaves the tale of two young boys, born on the same day and identical in appearance: Tom Canty, a pauper dwelling with his abusive, alcoholic father in the squalid quarters of Offal Court off Pudding Lane in London, and Edward VI of England, the son of Henry VIII.
Fascinated by each other's life and their uncanny resemblance, they decide to switch places "temporarily". This decision leads to a series of adventures that highlight the stark contrasts between their lives. Edward, mistaken for Tom, experiences the brutal reality of a London pauper's life, while Tom, now mistaken for Edward, navigates the intricacies of royal court life, constantly fearing discovery.
Through their experiences, Twain critiques social hypocrisy and injustice, emphasizing the absurdity of basing one's worth on their social status. Edward's firsthand encounters with the harsh realities faced by the lower classes prompt him to vow for a more merciful reign, should he regain his rightful position.
Ultimately, The Prince and the Pauper is not just a story of mistaken identity but a commentary on the human condition, exploring themes of identity, empathy, and social justice.
Miles Vorkosigan graduates from the Academy, only to find himself embroiled in a whirlwind of unexpected events. He joins a mutiny, is placed under house arrest, and embarks on a secret mission. Along the way, he reconnects with his loyal Dendarii Mercenaries, rescues his Emperor, and thwarts an interstellar war.
This is just another day in the life if you're Miles.
Within Cole Matthews lies anger, rage and hate. Cole has been stealing and fighting for years. This time he caught Peter Driscal in the parking lot and smashed his head against the sidewalk. Now, Peter may have permanent brain damage and Cole is in the biggest trouble of his life.
Cole is offered Circle Justice: a system based on Native American traditions that attempts to provide healing for the criminal offender, the victim, and the community. With prison as his only alternative, Cole plays along. He says he wants to repent, but in his heart, Cole blames his alcoholic mom, his abusive dad, wimpy Peter (everyone but himself) for his situation.
Cole receives a one-year banishment to a remote Alaskan island. There, he is mauled by a mysterious white bear of Native American legend. Hideously injured, Cole waits for death. His thoughts shift from anger to humility. To survive, he must stop blaming others and take responsibility for his life.
Rescuers arrive to save Cole's body, but it is the attack of the Spirit Bear that may save his soul.
Ben Mikaelsen paints a vivid picture of a juvenile offender, examining the roots of his anger without absolving him of responsibility for his actions, and questioning a society in which angry people make victims of their peers and communities. Touching Spirit Bear is a poignant testimonial to the power of a pain that can destroy, or lead to healing.
Romance of the Three Kingdoms is an epic saga of brotherhood and rivalry, of loyalty and treachery, of victory and death, forming part of the indelible core of classical Chinese culture and continues to fascinate modern-day readers.
In 220 EC, the 400-year-old rule of the mighty Han dynasty came to an end and three kingdoms contested for control of China. Liu Pei, the legitimate heir to the Han throne, elects to fight for his birthright and enlists the aid of his sworn brothers, the impulsive giant Chang Fei and the invincible knight Kuan Yu. The brave band faces a formidable array of enemies, foremost among them the treacherous and bloodthirsty Ts'ao Ts'ao.
The bold struggle of the three heroes seems doomed until the reclusive wizard Chuko Liang offers his counsel, and the tide begins to turn.
Romance of the Three Kingdoms is China's oldest novel and the first of a great tradition of historical fiction. Believed to have been compiled by the playwright Lo Kuan-chung in the late fourteenth century, it is indebted to the great San-kuo chi (Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms) completed by the historian Ch'en Shou just before his death in 297 CE. The novel first appeared in print in 1522.
This epic saga of brotherhood and rivalry, of loyalty and treachery, of victory and death, forms part of the indelible core of classical Chinese culture and continues to fascinate modern-day readers.
In 220 EC, the 400-year-old rule of the mighty Han dynasty came to an end and three kingdoms contested for control of China. Liu Pei, the legitimate heir to the Han throne, elects to fight for his birthright and enlists the aid of his sworn brothers, the impulsive giant Chang Fei and the invincible knight Kuan Yu. The brave band faces a formidable array of enemies, foremost among them the treacherous and bloodthirsty Ts'ao Ts'ao.
The bold struggle of the three heroes seems doomed until the reclusive wizard Chuko Liang offers his counsel, and the tide begins to turn. Romance of the Three Kingdoms is China's oldest novel and the first of a great tradition of historical fiction.
Believed to have been compiled by the playwright Lo Kuan-chung in the late fourteenth century, it is indebted to the great San-kuo chi (Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms) completed by the historian Ch'en Shou just before his death in 297 CE. The novel first appeared in print in 1522. This edition, translated in the mid-1920s by C. H. Brewitt-Taylor, is based on a shortened and simplified version which appeared in the 1670s.
An Introduction to this reprint by Robert E. Hegel, Professor of Chinese and Comparative Literature at Washington University, provides an insightful commentary on the historical background to the novel, its literary origins, and its main characters.
Mighty Kushiel, of rod and weal
Late of the brazen portals
With blood-tipp'd dart a wound unhealed
Pricks the eyen of chosen mortals
The land of Terre d'Ange is a place of unsurpassed beauty and grace. The inhabiting race rose from the seed of angels and men, and they live by one simple rule: Love as thou wilt.
Phèdre nó Delaunay was sold into indentured servitude as a child. Her bond was purchased by a nobleman, the first to recognize that she is one pricked by Kushiel's Dart, chosen to forever experience pain and pleasure as one. He trained Phèdre in the courtly arts and the talents of the bedchamber—and, above all, the ability to observe, remember, and analyze.
When she stumbled upon a plot that threatened the very foundations of her homeland, she gave up almost everything she held dear to save it. She survived, and lived to have others tell her story, and if they embellished the tale with fabric of mythical splendor, they weren't far off the mark.
The hands of the gods weigh heavily upon Phèdre's brow, and they are not finished with her. While the young queen who sits upon the throne is well loved by the people, there are those who believe another should wear the crown... and those who escaped the wrath of the mighty are not yet done with their schemes for power and revenge.
The once-utopian Chasm City - a doomed human settlement on an otherwise inhospitable planet - has been overrun by a virus known as the Melding Plague, capable of infecting any body, organic or computerized. Now, with the entire city corrupted - from the people to the very buildings they inhabit - only the most wretched sort of existence remains.
For security operative Tanner Mirabel, it is the landscape of nightmares through which he searches for a low-life postmortal killer. But the stakes are raised when his search brings him face to face with a centuries-old atrocity that history would rather forget.
Weiner's witty, original, fast-moving debut features a lovable heroine, a solid cast, snappy dialogue and a poignant take on life's priorities. For twenty-eight years, things have been tripping along nicely for Cannie Shapiro. Sure, her mother has come charging out of the closet, and her father has long since dropped out of her world. But she loves her friends, her rat terrier, Nifkin, and her job as pop culture reporter for The Philadelphia Examiner. She's even made a tenuous peace with her plus-size body.
But the day she opens up a national women's magazine and sees the words "Loving a Larger Woman" above her ex-boyfriend's byline, Cannie is plunged into misery...and the most amazing year of her life. From Philadelphia to Hollywood and back home again, she charts a new course for herself: mourning her losses, facing her past, and figuring out who she is and who she can become.
O Clube dos Imortais é uma horda formada por seres lendários coagidos pelo vampiro Luar para servi-lo em sua busca particular. Luciano, o personagem-chave, é seduzido pelo vampiro, e seus amigos se unem para resgatá-lo, percorrendo cenários sombrios da capital paulista.
Luar crê que está perto de atingir seu objetivo - reencontrar Álvares de Azevedo, sua paixão outrora perdida num baile da corte. Ao mesmo tempo, a Sibila Rubra, uma bruxa presa ao vampiro por uma promessa ancestral, passa a questionar suas ações enquanto os lobisomens tramam em segredo uma rebelião para destruí-lo.
Este é um clube formado por vampiros, bruxas, lobisomens, anjos, e outros seres, todos em uma complexa teia de alianças e traições.
Briar Rose is a powerful retelling of the classic Sleeping Beauty tale, woven with elements of history and mystery.
Rebecca has always been captivated by her grandmother Gemma's enchanting stories of Briar Rose. However, upon making a promise to her dying grandmother, Rebecca embarks on a remarkable journey to uncover the truth behind Gemma's astonishing claim: I am Briar Rose.
This journey leads Rebecca through a tapestry of unspeakable brutality and horror, but also guides her towards redemption and hope. The story beautifully intertwines the magical fairy tale with the harsh realities of history, creating a narrative that is both heartbreaking and heartwarming.
The land of Terre d'Ange is a place of unsurpassing beauty and grace. It is said that angels found the land and saw it was good... and the ensuing race that rose from the seed of angels and men live by one simple rule: Love as thou wilt.
Phèdre nó Delaunay is a young woman who was born with a scarlet mote in her left eye. Sold into indentured servitude as a child, her bond is purchased by Anafiel Delaunay, a nobleman with very a special mission... and the first one to recognize who and what she is: one pricked by Kushiel's Dart, chosen to forever experience pain and pleasure as one.
Phèdre is trained equally in the courtly arts and the talents of the bedchamber, but, above all, the ability to observe, remember, and analyze. Almost as talented a spy as she is courtesan, Phèdre stumbles upon a plot that threatens the very foundations of her homeland. Treachery sets her on her path; love and honor goad her further. And in the doing, it will take her to the edge of despair... and beyond. Hateful friend, loving enemy, beloved assassin; they can all wear the same glittering mask in this world, and Phèdre will get but one chance to save all that she holds dear.
Set in a world of cunning poets, deadly courtiers, heroic traitors, and a truly Machiavellian villainess, this is a novel of grandeur, luxuriance, sacrifice, betrayal, and deeply laid conspiracies. Not since Dune has there been an epic on the scale of Kushiel's Dart-a massive tale about the violent death of an old age, and the birth of a new.
At Swim, Two Boys is a tender, tragic love story set during the year preceding the Easter Uprising of 1916—Ireland’s brave but fractured revolt against British rule. This masterwork by Jamie O'Neill is both powerful and artful, capturing the essence of people caught in the tide of history.
Jim Mack is a naïve young scholar, the son of a foolish, aspiring shopkeeper. Doyler Doyle is the rough-diamond son—revolutionary and blasphemous—of Mr. Mack’s old army pal. Out at the Forty Foot, a great jut of rock where gentlemen bathe in the nude, the two boys make a pact: Doyler will teach Jim to swim, and in a year, on Easter of 1916, they will swim to the distant beacon of Muglins Rock and claim that island for themselves.
Meanwhile, Mr. Mack, who has grand plans for a corner shop empire, remains unaware of the depth of the boys’ burgeoning friendship and the changing landscape of a nation.
The English Assassin by Daniel Silva is a gripping tale that combines the worlds of art restoration and international espionage. Gabriel Allon, an Israeli spy turned art restorer, is drawn back into the dangerous world he thought he had left behind.
When Allon arrives in Zurich to restore a painting for a reclusive millionaire banker, he finds himself amidst a murder scene, with the millionaire lying dead at the foot of a priceless Raphael. As Allon tries to clear his name, he is plunged into a spiraling chain of events involving Nazi art theft, a decades-old suicide, and a series of brutal killings.
The stakes are high as Gabriel battles wits with an assassin he once trained, in a game of cat and mouse that spans the globe. With the Swiss authorities on his tail and a powerful cabal intent on keeping wartime secrets buried, Allon must use all his spy skills to uncover the truth.
This novel is tense, taut, and expertly crafted, brimming with unexpected reversals and thrilling action. Daniel Silva delivers a masterful story, keeping readers on the edge of their seats from start to finish.
Considered by critics to be Barth's most distinguished masterpiece, The Sot-Weed Factor has acquired the status of a modern classic. Set in the late 1600s, it recounts the wildly chaotic odyssey of hapless, ungainly Ebenezer Cooke, sent to the New World to look after his father's tobacco business and to record the struggles of the Maryland colony in an epic poem.
On his mission, Cooke experiences capture by pirates and Indians; the loss of his father's estate to roguish impostors; love for a farmer prostitute; stealthy efforts to rob him of his virginity, which he is (almost) determined to protect; and an extraordinary gallery of treacherous characters who continually switch identities. A hilarious, bawdy tribute to all the most insidious human vices, The Sot-Weed Factor has a lasting relevance for readers of all times.
Eight hundred years have passed since King Connavar of the Rigante and his bastard son, Bane, defeated the invading army of Stone. Now, the Rigante have lost the freedom and culture so many gave their lives to preserve.
Only one woman remains who follows the ancient ways—the Wyrd of Wishing Tree Wood—and she alone knows the nature of the evil soon to be unleashed. But the Wyrd pins her hope on two men: a giant Rigante fighter, a man haunted by his failure to save his best friend from betrayal; and a youth whose deadly talents will earn him the rancor of the brutal Varlish.
One will become the Ravenheart, an outlaw leader whose daring exploits will inspire the Rigante. The other will forge a legend—and light the fires of revolution.