Palo Alto is a fiercely vivid collection of stories about troubled California teenagers and misfits. These tales are violent and harrowing, showcasing the astonishing talent of actor and artist James Franco.

This debut introduces a surprising and powerful new literary voice. Written with an immediate sense of place—claustrophobic and ominous—Franco's collection traces the lives of an extended group of teenagers experimenting with vices, struggling with their families and one another, and often succumbing to self-destructive, heartless nihilism.

In "Lockheed," a young woman's summer is abruptly changed by a spectacular act of violence at a house party. "American History" follows a high school freshman who tries to impress a girl with a realistic portrayal of a slave owner, only to face retribution for his feigned bigotry. "I Could Kill Someone" explores the mind of a lonely teenager who buys a gun to confront his high school tormentor but ends up contemplating his bully's inner life.

These linked stories are stark, vivid, and disturbing, offering a compelling portrait of lives on the rough fringes of youth.

Alek and Deryn are aboard the Leviathan when the ship is ordered to pick up an unusual passenger. This brilliant yet maniacal inventor claims to have a weapon called Goliath that can end the war. But whose side is he really on?

While on their top-secret mission, Alek finally discovers Deryn's deeply kept secrets. Two, actually. Not only is Deryn a girl disguised as a guy, but she also has feelings for Alek.

The crown, true love with a commoner, and the destruction of a great city all hang on Alek's next—and final—move.

The thunderous conclusion to Scott Westerfeld's Leviathan series.

From the internationally acclaimed author of Blankets, a highly anticipated new graphic novel.

Sprawling across an epic landscape of deserts, harems, and modern industrial clutter, Habibi tells the tale of Dodola and Zam, refugee child slaves bound to each other by chance, by circumstance, and by the love that grows between them.

We follow them as their lives unfold together and apart; as they struggle to make a place for themselves in a world (not unlike our own) fueled by fear, lust, and greed; and as they discover the extraordinary depth—and frailty—of their connection.

At once contemporary and timeless, Habibi gives us a love story of astounding resonance: a parable about our relationship to the natural world, the cultural divide between the first and third worlds, the common heritage of Christianity and Islam, and, most potently, the magic of storytelling.

In 1989, the Berlin Wall fell; shortly afterwards, the two Germanies reunited, and East Germany ceased to exist. In a country where the headquarters of the secret police can become a museum literally overnight, and one in 50 East Germans were informing on their countrymen and women, there are a thousand stories just waiting to get out.

Anna Funder tells extraordinary tales from the underbelly of the former East Germany. She meets Miriam, who as a 16-year-old might have started World War III, visits the man who painted the line which became the Berlin Wall, and gets drunk with the legendary 'Mik Jegger' of the East, once declared by the authorities to his face to 'no longer exist'.

Written with wit and literary flair, Stasiland provides a riveting insight into life behind the wall.

Once a century, one person is chosen for greatness. Elisa is the chosen one. But she is also the younger of two princesses. The one who has never done anything remarkable, and can’t see how she ever will. Now, on her sixteenth birthday, she has become the secret wife of a handsome and worldly king—a king whose country is in turmoil. A king who needs her to be the chosen one, not a failure of a princess.

And he’s not the only one who seeks her. Savage enemies, seething with dark magic, are hunting her. A daring, determined revolutionary thinks she could be his people’s savior, and he looks at her in a way that no man has ever looked at her before. Soon it is not just her life, but her very heart that is at stake.

Elisa could be everything to those who need her most. If the prophecy is fulfilled. If she finds the power deep within herself. If she doesn’t die young. Most of the chosen do.

The Strain is the first installment in a thrilling trilogy that presents a horrifying battle between man and vampire, threatening all of humanity. A Boeing 777 lands at JFK Airport and comes to an inexplicable stop on the tarmac. With all shades pulled down, lights out, and communication channels silent, the ground crews are baffled. The CDC sends out an alert, and Dr. Eph Goodweather, head of their Canary project which investigates biological threats, is summoned to investigate.

What Dr. Goodweather discovers on the plane sends chills down his spine. Meanwhile, in Spanish Harlem, Abraham Setrakian, a former professor and Holocaust survivor, senses that an ominous war is brewing. As a vampiric virus infects New York and begins to spread, Dr. Goodweather, Setrakian, and a diverse group of fighters unite to stop the contagion and save the city, including Dr. Goodweather's own family, before it's too late.

Authored by Guillermo del Toro, the visionary filmmaker behind the Academy Award-winning Pan's Labyrinth, and Chuck Hogan, a Hammett Award-winning author, The Strain offers a bold, epic, and extraordinary narrative that reinvents the vampire novel with a chilling and unputdownable tale of survival.

An unforgettable, illuminating story of how men live and how they survive, from Abraham Verghese, the acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of Cutting for Stone.

When Abraham Verghese, a physician whose marriage is unraveling, relocates to El Paso, Texas, he hopes to make a fresh start as a staff member at the county hospital. There he meets David Smith, a medical student recovering from drug addiction, and the two men begin a tennis ritual that allows them to shed their inhibitions and find security in the sport they love and with each other.

This friendship between doctor and intern grows increasingly rich and complex, more intimate than two men usually allow. Just when it seems nothing can go wrong, the dark beast from David’s past emerges once again—and almost everything Verghese has come to trust and believe in is threatened as David spirals out of control.

Compassionate and moving, The Tennis Partner is an unforgettable, illuminating story of friendship and loss.

Beautiful is a harrowing but ultimately inspiring memoir of how one girl's beautiful face and spirit was destroyed after a vicious acid attack.

'I heard a horrible screaming sound, like an animal being slaughtered ... then I realised it was me.'

When Katie Piper was 24, her life was near perfect. Young and beautiful, she was well on her way to fulfilling her dream of becoming a model. But then she met Daniel Lynch on Facebook, and her world quickly turned into a nightmare. After being held captive and brutally raped by her new boyfriend, Katie was subjected to a vicious acid attack.

Within seconds, this bright and bubbly girl could feel her looks and the life she loved melting away. This is the moving true story of how one young woman had her mind, body, and spirit cruelly snatched from her and how she inspired millions with her fight to get them back.

Daunted by the singular sexual tastes and dark secrets of the beautiful, tormented young entrepreneur Christian Grey, Anastasia Steele has broken off their relationship to start a new career with a Seattle publishing house. But desire for Christian still dominates her every waking thought, and when he proposes a new arrangement, Anastasia cannot resist.

They rekindle their searing sensual affair, and Anastasia learns more about the harrowing past of her damaged, driven, and demanding Fifty Shades. While Christian wrestles with his inner demons, Anastasia must confront her anger and envy of the women who came before her and make the most important decision of her life. Erotic, sparkling and suspenseful, Fifty Shades Darker is the irresistibly addictive second part of the Fifty Shades trilogy.

In the summer of 1974, a fourteen-year-old girl in Dolton, Illinois, had a dream. A dream to become an actress, like her idols Ron Howard and Vicki Lawrence. But it was a long way from the South Side of Chicago to Hollywood, and it didn't help that she'd recently dropped out of the school play, The Ugly Duckling. Or that the Hollywood casting directors she wrote to replied that "professional training was a requirement."

But the funny thing is, it all came true. Through a series of happy accidents, Jane Lynch created an improbable—and hilarious—path to success. In those early years, despite her dreams, she was also consumed with anxiety, feeling out of place in both her body and her family. To deal with her worries about her sexuality, she escaped in positive ways—such as joining a high school chorus not unlike the one in Glee—but also found destructive outlets. She started drinking almost every night her freshman year of high school and developed a mean and judgmental streak that turned her into a real-life Sue Sylvester.

Then, at thirty-one, she started to get her life together. She was finally able to embrace her sexuality, come out to her parents, and quit drinking for good. Soon after, a Frosted Flakes commercial and a chance meeting in a coffee shop led to a role in the Christopher Guest movie Best in Show, which helped her get cast in The 40-Year-Old Virgin. Similar coincidences and chance meetings led to roles in movies starring Will Ferrell, Paul Rudd, and even Meryl Streep in 2009’s Julie & Julia.

Then, of course, came the two lucky accidents that truly changed her life. Getting lost in a hotel led to an introduction to her future wife, Lara. Then, a series she’d signed up for abruptly got canceled, making it possible for her to take the role of Sue Sylvester in Glee, which made her a megastar.

Today, Jane Lynch has finally found the contentment she thought she'd never have. Part comic memoir and part inspirational narrative, this is a book equally for the rabid Glee fan and for anyone who needs a new perspective on life, love, and success.

Excerpt from Happy Accidents: If I could go back in time and talk to my twenty-year-old self, the first thing I would say is: "Lose the perm." Secondly I would say: "Relax. Really. Just relax. Don't sweat it." I can't remember a time when I wasn't anxious and fearful that the parade would pass me by. And I was sure there was someone or something outside of myself with all the answers. I had a driving, anxiety-filled ambition. I wanted to be a working actor so badly. I wanted to belong and feel like I was valued and seen. Well, now I am a working actor, and I guarantee you it's not because I suffered or worried over it.

As I look back, the road to where I am today has been a series of happy accidents I was either smart or stupid enough to take advantage of. I thought I had to have a plan, a strategy. Turns out I just had to be ready and willing to take chances, look at what's right in front of me, and put my heart into everything I do. All that anxiety and fear didn't help, nor did it fuel anything useful. My final piece of advice to twenty-year-old me: Be easy on your sweet self. And don't drink Miller Lite tall boys in the morning.

Most startups fail. But many of those failures are preventable. The Lean Startup is a new approach being adopted across the globe, changing the way companies are built and new products are launched. Eric Ries defines a startup as an organization dedicated to creating something new under conditions of extreme uncertainty. This is just as true for one person in a garage or a group of seasoned professionals in a Fortune 500 boardroom.

What they have in common is a mission to penetrate that fog of uncertainty to discover a successful path to a sustainable business. The Lean Startup approach fosters companies that are both more capital efficient and that leverage human creativity more effectively. Inspired by lessons from lean manufacturing, it relies on "validated learning," rapid scientific experimentation, as well as a number of counter-intuitive practices that shorten product development cycles, measure actual progress without resorting to vanity metrics, and learn what customers really want.

It enables a company to shift directions with agility, altering plans inch by inch, minute by minute. Rather than wasting time creating elaborate business plans, The Lean Startup offers entrepreneurs - in companies of all sizes - a way to test their vision continuously, to adapt and adjust before it's too late. Ries provides a scientific approach to creating and managing successful startups in an age when companies need to innovate more than ever.

Sam Harris' first book, The End of Faith, ignited a worldwide debate about the validity of religion. In the aftermath, Harris discovered that most people - from religious fundamentalists to non-believing scientists - agree on one point: science has nothing to say on the subject of human values. Indeed, our failure to address questions of meaning and morality through science has now become the most common justification for religious faith. It is also the primary reason why so many secularists and religious moderates feel obligated to respect the hardened superstitions of their more devout neighbors.

In this explosive new book, Sam Harris tears down the wall between scientific facts and human values, arguing that most people are simply mistaken about the relationship between morality and the rest of human knowledge. Harris urges us to think about morality in terms of human and animal well-being, viewing the experiences of conscious creatures as peaks and valleys on a "moral landscape."

Because there are definite facts to be known about where we fall on this landscape, Harris foresees a time when science will no longer limit itself to merely describing what people do in the name of "morality"; in principle, science should be able to tell us what we ought to do to live the best lives possible.

Bringing a fresh perspective to age-old questions of right and wrong and good and evil, Harris demonstrates that we already know enough about the human brain and its relationship to events in the world to say that there are right and wrong answers to the most pressing questions of human life. Because such answers exist, moral relativism is simply false - and comes at increasing cost to humanity. And the intrusions of religion into the sphere of human values can be finally repelled: for just as there is no such thing as Christian physics or Muslim algebra, there can be no Christian or Muslim morality.

Using his expertise in philosophy and neuroscience, along with his experience on the front lines of our "culture wars," Harris delivers a game-changing book about the future of science and about the real basis of human cooperation.

Having lost his mother and his hearing in a short time, twelve-year-old Ben leaves his Minnesota home in 1977 to seek the father he never knew in New York City, and meets there Rose, who is also longing for something missing from her life. Ben's story is told in words; Rose's in pictures.

You Against Me is an intense and riveting novel from Jenny Downham, the critically acclaimed author of Before I Die. It's a story that delves into the complexities of family loyalty and the difficult choices that come with it.

When Mikey's sister claims she has been assaulted, his world is turned upside down. And when Ellie's brother stands accused of this terrible crime, despite his protests of innocence, her world starts to crumble. The paths of Mikey and Ellie intersect, and as they navigate the turbulent waters of truth and justice, two worlds collide.

This is a brave and unflinching novel that explores themes of loyalty, revenge, and love. Above all, it's a book that confronts the dilemmas of love in the face of family adversity.

ALL WARS HAVE RULES

Rule Number One: No killing innocent bystanders.

Rule Number Two: No killing anyone under the age of eighteen.

BREAK THE RULES, BECOME THE TARGET

Since the age of eighteen, Joseph has been assassinating people on behalf of a cause that he believes in but doesn't fully understand. The War is ageless, hidden in the shadows, governed by a rigid set of rules, and fought by two distinct sides—one good, one evil. The only unknown is which side is which. Soldiers in the War hide in plain sight, their deeds disguised as accidents or random acts of violence amidst an unsuspecting population ignorant of the brutality that is always inches away.

Killing people is the only life Joseph has ever known, and he's one of the best at it. But when a job goes wrong and he's sent away to complete a punishingly dangerous assignment, Joseph meets a girl named Maria, and for the first time in his life his single-minded, bloody purpose fades away.

Before Maria, Joseph's only responsibility was dealing death to the anonymous targets fingered by his superiors. Now he must run from the people who have fought by his side to save what he loves most in this world. As Children of Paranoia reaches its heart-in-throat climax, Joseph will learn that only one rule remains immutable: the only thing more dangerous than fighting the War...is leaving it.

At Westish College, a small school on the shore of Lake Michigan, baseball star Henry Skrimshander seems destined for big league stardom. But when a routine throw goes disastrously off course, the fates of five people are upended. Henry's fight against self-doubt threatens to ruin his future. College president Guert Affenlight, a longtime bachelor, has fallen unexpectedly and helplessly in love. Owen Dunne, Henry's gay roommate and teammate, becomes caught up in a dangerous affair. Mike Schwartz, the Harpooners' team captain and Henry's best friend, realizes he has guided Henry's career at the expense of his own. And Pella Affenlight, Guert's daughter, returns to Westish after escaping an ill-fated marriage, determined to start a new life.

As the season counts down to its climactic final game, these five are forced to confront their deepest hopes, anxieties, and secrets. In the process, they forge new bonds, and help one another find their true paths. Written with boundless intelligence and filled with the tenderness of youth, The Art of Fielding is an expansive, warmhearted novel about ambition and its limits, about family and friendship and love, and about commitment to oneself and to others.

New York Times bestselling author Nalini Singh is back in the shadows of a deadly, beautiful world where angels rule, vampires serve, and one female hunter must crawl out of the darkness to survive...

The severed head marked by a distinctive tattoo on its cheek should have been a Guild case, but dark instincts honed over hundreds of years of life compel the vampire Dmitri to take control. There is something twisted about this death, something that whispers of centuries long past...

But Dmitri’s need to discover the truth is nothing to the vicious strength of his response to the hunter assigned to decipher the tattoo. Savaged in a brutal attack that almost killed her, Honor is nowhere near ready to come face to face with the seductive vampire who is an archangel’s right hand, and who wears his cruelty as boldly as his lethal sensuality... the same vampire who has been her secret obsession since the day she was old enough to understand the inexplicable, violent emotions he aroused in her.

As desire turns into a dangerous compulsion that might destroy them both, it becomes clear the past will not stay buried. Something is hunting... and it will not stop until it brings a blood-soaked nightmare to life once more...

It could happen tomorrow...

An electromagnetic pulse flashes across the sky, destroying every electronic device, wiping out every computerized system, and killing billions.

Alex hiked into the woods to say good-bye to her dead parents and her personal demons. Now desperate to find out what happened after the pulse crushes her to the ground, Alex meets up with Tom—a young soldier—and Ellie, a girl whose grandfather was killed by the EMP.

For this improvised family and the others who are spared, it’s now a question of who can be trusted and who is no longer human.

Author Ilsa J. Bick crafts a terrifying and thrilling post-apocalyptic novel about a world that could become ours at any moment, where those left standing must learn what it means not just to survive, but to live amidst the devastation.

October "Toby" Daye is finally doing all right—and that inevitably means it's time for things to take a turn for the worse. Someone has kidnapped the sons of the Duchess Dianda Lorden, regent of the Undersea Duchy of Saltmist. To prevent a war between land and sea, Toby must not only find the missing boys, but also prove that the Queen of the Mists was not behind their abduction.

She'll need all her tricks and the help of her allies if she wants to make it through this in one piece. Toby's search will take her from the streets of San Francisco to the lands beneath the waves. But someone is determined to stop her—and whoever it is isn't playing by Oberon's Laws.

As the battle grows more and more personal, one thing is chillingly clear: when Faerie goes to war, not everyone will walk away.

A hurricane is building over the Gulf of Mexico, threatening the coastal town of Bois Sauvage, Mississippi, and Esch's father is growing concerned. A hard drinker, largely absent, he doesn't show concern for much else. Esch and her three brothers are stocking food, but there isn't much to save. Lately, Esch can't keep down what food she gets; she's fourteen and pregnant.

Her brother Skeetah is sneaking scraps for his prized pitbull's new litter, dying one by one in the dirt, while brothers Randall and Junior try to stake their claim in a family long on child's play and short on parenting. As the twelve days that comprise the novel's framework yield to the final day and Hurricane Katrina, the unforgettable family at the novel's heart—motherless children sacrificing for each other as they can, protecting and nurturing where love is scarce—pulls itself up to struggle for another day.

A wrenching look at the lonesome, brutal, and restrictive realities of rural poverty, "Salvage the Bones" is muscled with poetry, revelatory, and real.

Three teenage descendants of Medusa, the once-beautiful Gorgon maligned in myth, must reunite and embrace their fates.

Grace just moved to San Francisco and is excited to start over at a new school. The change is full of fresh possibilities, but it's also a tiny bit scary. It gets scarier when a minotaur walks in the door. And even more shocking when a girl who looks just like her shows up to fight the monster.

Gretchen is tired of monsters pulling her out into the wee hours, but what can she do? Sending the minotaur back to his bleak home is just another notch on her combat belt. She never expected to run into this girl who could be her double, though.

Greer has her life pretty well put together, thank you very much. But that all tilts sideways when two girls who look eerily like her appear on her doorstep and claim they're triplets, supernatural descendants of some hideous creature from Greek myth, destined to spend their lives hunting monsters.

There on her forearm, next to a small brown birthmark, were six tattooed numbers. 'Do you remember me now?' he asked, trembling. She looked at him again, as if giving weight and bone to a ghost. 'Lenka, it's me,' he said. 'Josef. Your husband.'

During the last moments of calm in prewar Prague, Lenka, a young art student, falls in love with Josef. They marry - but soon, like so many others, they are torn apart by the currents of war.

In America, Josef becomes a successful obstetrician and raises a family, though he never forgets the wife he thinks died in the camps. But in the Nazi ghetto of Terezín - and later in Auschwitz - Lenka has survived, relying on her skills as an artist and the memories of a husband she believes she will never see again.

Now, decades later, an unexpected encounter in New York brings Lenka and Josef back together. From the comfort of life in Prague before the occupation to the horrors of Nazi Europe, The Lost Wife explores the endurance of first love, the resilience of the human spirit, and our capacity to remember.

True love can last an eternity... but immortality comes at a price...

On the midnight shift at a hospital in rural St. Andrew, Maine, Dr. Luke Findley is expecting a quiet evening—until a mysterious woman, Lanore McIlvrae, arrives in his ER, escorted by police. Lanore is a murder suspect, and Luke is inexplicably drawn to her.

As Lanny tells him her story, an impassioned account of love and betrayal that transcends time and mortality, she changes his life forever. At the turn of the nineteenth century, Lanny was consumed as a child by her love for the son of St. Andrew’s founder, and she will do anything to be with him forever, but the price she pays is steep—an immortal bond that chains her to a terrible fate.

An Impossible Romance. Bitter Rivalries. Deadly Choices. To save the life of the boy she loves, Jacinda did the unthinkable: She betrayed the most closely guarded secret of her kind. Now she must return to the protection of her pride knowing she might never see Will again—and worse, that because his mind has been shaded, Will’s memories of that fateful night and why she had to flee are gone.

Back home, Jacinda is greeted with hostility and must work to prove her loyalty for both her sake and her family’s. Among the few who will even talk to her are Cassian, the pride’s heir apparent who has always wanted her, and her sister, Tamra, who has been forever changed by a twist of fate. Jacinda knows that she should forget Will and move on—that if he managed to remember and keep his promise to find her, it would only endanger them both. Yet she clings to the hope that someday they will be together again. When the chance arrives to follow her heart, will she risk everything for love?

Existen sorpresas que pueden cambiar nuestro destino. Existe la sorpresa mayor, para la cual nadie está preparado (aunque se la anuncien): la muerte. En los cuentos que integran este volumen, Mario Benedetti narra el descubrimiento de que vida y muerte son dos caras de un mismo acontecimiento: placer y dolor, inquietud y calma, tiempo de ida y tiempo de regreso, presencia permanente donde se desarrolla el secreto del drama humano.

Diecinueve cuentos impregnados de las sorprendentes atmósferas que envuelven la vida cotidiana. En la ciudad, hombres y mujeres se aman y se odian; mueren, sobreviven, se deterioran y renacen; sonríen, lloran; se pierden y regresan a través de caminos muchas veces recorridos, o descubren nuevos senderos iluminados por un radiante sol montevideano.

La soledad, las dificultades de comunicación, la conciencia de la muerte, la alegría de la vida o el paso del tiempo son algunos de los temas incluidos en estos relatos, que retratan sorprendentes atmósferas de la vida cotidiana. Pocos escritores son capaces de enfrentar al lector con la vida y la muerte de una forma tan delicada, tan humana y al mismo tiempo brutal. Mario Benedetti, uno de los grandes genios de la literatura latinoamericana contemporánea, nos zambulle en el inmenso océano de la existencia, mostrando a través de su mirada lo más íntimo de una realidad cruel, pero siempre esperanzadora.

D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover explores the intense physical and emotional relationship between Constance Chatterley, an upper-class woman, and Oliver Mellors, the gamekeeper of her husband's estate. Set against the backdrop of post-World War I England, this novel challenges the social norms of the time, particularly with regards to class, love, and sexuality.

The frank portrayal of the extramarital affair and the explicit sexual explorations of its central characters caused this controversial book to be banned as pornography until 1960. Now considered a masterpiece, Lady Chatterley's Lover is a bold exploration of human intimacy and the power of love to transcend societal constraints.

How do you send a killer to the grave when he’s already dead? Having narrowly averted an (under)World War, Cat Crawfield wants nothing more than a little downtime with her vampire husband, Bones. Unfortunately, her gift from New Orleans’s voodoo queen just keeps on giving—leading to a personal favor that sends them into battle once again, this time against a villainous spirit.

Centuries ago, Heinrich Kramer was a witch hunter. Now, every All Hallows Eve, he takes physical form to torture innocent women before burning them alive. This year, however, a determined Cat and Bones must risk all to send him back to the other side of eternity—forever. But one wrong step and they’ll be digging their own graves.

Brainiac Tessa McClean's newly discovered magical powers give her hope of an escape from her inadequate life. But the thrill of being a witch fades when she learns of a rival coven and begins to suspect her own coven's objective.

Evidence tells Tessa to trust one side, but instinct drives her toward the other. When Hayden Anders, the most delinquent kid in school—and the toughest—offers self-defense lessons in exchange for tutoring, the timing couldn't be better. Though the idea of hanging out with a bad-boy that tempting is unnerving, staying alive amidst warring witches takes priority.

She vows to hold onto her values and not surrender to the bad-boy she begins to secretly want. Together, Tessa and Hayden uncover the truth about the two factions—a truth that explains why the covens will stop at nothing to lure her to their side.

Tessa has only a matter of weeks to form an alliance with one coven or the other, but the wrong decision could cost Tessa the lives of all those she loves—including Hayden.

Wendy Mass turns to another magical birthday: 13!

When Tara, a self-proclaimed shrinking violet, steals the school mascot, a goat, in order to make some friends with the popular crowd and gets caught, she gets herself in a heap of trouble. In addition, her parents decide that instead of taking her on their summer trip to Madagascar to study the courtship rituals of the Bamboo Lemur, she must go stay with her aunt, uncle, and bratty cousin Emily St. Claire in Willow Falls.

Tara thinks it's a good time to start over; she'll be turning 13 after all, so she might as well make the best of it and perhaps even attempt to break out of her shell (in a non-criminal manner). What Tara doesn't know is that this charmed town has something big in store for her on her 13th birthday. It's not a typical birthday. But then again, nothing in Willow Falls is exactly typical!

No sickness, No injuries, No pain, No limits. If you had the power to heal, what would you do?

For fifteen-year-old Ada, discovering that she can heal feels more like a curse than a gift. When she learns of the mystery surrounding her mother's disappearance and sees the indifference of so-called friends, she sets out for Paris to find her.

The power to heal protects her, but also has her hunted by a man who sees her as nothing more than his fountain of youth. Ada realizes her true power is her will to survive, and that her only chance at freedom is to become the best at escaping.

Ada hasn't grown up in a house with a white picket fence. Instead, she was cast off and absorbed into the foster care system, quickly putting up a shield of hostility. Always knowledgeable of the sicknesses of those around her and never getting hurt just seemed like facts of life. Finally on her last strike of trouble, an estranged aunt comes to the rescue, giving Ada the knowledge of how to use her healing power. Now Ada, who up to this point has shunned the world, all of the sudden has the power to heal it.

This book delves into the psychology and growth of a teenage girl coming to grips with the knowledge that there are some good people out there; some people worth healing. Along with action and adventure, Ada: Legend of a Healer also brings to light numerous philosophical issues. Like many middle and high school girls, Ada is introduced to society's harsh realities at a young age, so she's built a wall of anger to strengthen her self-reliance, to survive. Despite the pressure and demands, Ada refuses to sacrifice her self-worth, and in this she discovers that a strong will overcomes all obstacles.

The sixth instalment in the historic, hysterical and horrific Skulduggery Pleasant series.

Think you’ve seen anything yet? You haven’t. Because the Death Bringer is about to rise…

Meet Skulduggery Pleasant: detective, sorcerer, warrior.

Oh yes. And dead.

The Necromancers no longer need Valkyrie to be their Death Bringer, and that’s a Good Thing.

There’s just one catch. There’s a reason the Necromancers don’t need her any more. And that’s because they’ve found their Death Bringer already, the person who will dissolve the doors between life and death.

And that’s a very, very Bad Thing…

Pleasure is their ultimate weapon... Runa Wagner never meant to fall in love with the sexy stranger who seemed to know her every deepest desire. But she couldn't resist the unbelievable passion that burned between them, a passion that died when she discovered his betrayal and found herself forever changed. Now, determined to make Shade pay for the transformation that haunts her, Runa searches for him, only to be taken prisoner by his darkest enemy.

A Seminus Demon with a love-curse that threatens him with eternal torment, Shade hoped he'd seen the last of Runa and her irresistible charm. But when he wakes up in a dank dungeon chained next to an enraged and mysteriously powerful Runa, he realizes that her effect on him is more dangerous than ever. As their captor casts a spell that bonds them as lifemates, Shade and Runa must fight for their lives and their hearts—or succumb to a madman's evil plans.

On the world called Hyperion, beyond the law of the Hegemony of Man, there waits the creature called the Shrike. There are those who worship it. There are those who fear it. And there are those who have vowed to destroy it. In the Valley of the Time Tombs, where huge, brooding structures move backward through time, the Shrike waits for them all.

On the eve of Armageddon, with the entire galaxy at war, seven pilgrims set forth on a final voyage to Hyperion seeking the answers to the unsolved riddles of their lives. Each carries a desperate hope—and a terrible secret. And one may hold the fate of humanity in his hands.

"I'm coming for you, and nothing living or dead can stop me."

One witch is the most feared, the most ruthless, and the most deadly of all the witches in the county. If she hunts for you, she will find you. If you have crossed her, you don't stand a chance. She is the witch assassin, and her name is Grimalkin.

Grimalkin's one alliance is with Tom Ward, the Spook's apprentice. With Tom, she plans to rid the world of the most terrifying evil, the Fiend, who once did her great wrong.

For the first time, fans of the Last Apprentice series will hear the story from Grimalkin's side, as she is hunted herself by creatures of darkness set on revenge.

Grimalkin has never been defeated. But can she survive an enemy created for the sole purpose of destroying her?

Ruby Redfort is a genius code-cracker, a daring detective, and a gadget-laden special agent who just happens to be a 13-year-old girl.

She and her slick side-kick butler, Hitch, foil crimes and get into loads of scrapes with evil villains, but they're always ice-cool in a crisis.

Natalie Sterling wants to be in control. She wants her friends to be loyal. She wants her classmates to elect her student council president. She wants to find the right guy, not the usual jerk her school has to offer. She wants a good reputation, because she believes that will lead to good things.

But life is messy, and it's very hard to be in control of it. Not when there are freshman girls running around in a pack, trying to get senior guys to sleep with them. Not when your friends have secrets they're no longer comfortable sharing. Not when the boy you once dismissed ends up being the boy you want to sleep with yourself - but only in secret, with nobody ever finding out.

Slut or saint? Winner or loser? Natalie is getting tired of these forced choices - and is now going to find a way to live life in the sometimes messy, sometimes wonderful in-between.

In Georgina Kincaid, succubus and she-demon, #1 New York Times bestselling author Richelle Mead has created one of her most enticing characters. But with a shot at love, and maybe even redemption, is the ultimate seductress finally going soft? Like hell she is.

Georgina Kincaid has had an eternity to figure out the opposite sex, but sometimes they still surprise her. Take Seth Mortensen. The man has risked his soul to become Georgina's boyfriend. Still, with Lucifer for a boss, Georgina can't just hang up her killer heels and settle down to domestic bliss. In fact, she's being forced to transfer operations...to Las Vegas. The City of Sin is a dream gig for a succubus, but Georgina's allies are suspicious. Why are the powers-that-be so eager to get her away from Seattle and from Seth? Georgina is one of Hell's most valuable assets, but if there's any way out of the succubus business she plans to take it, no matter how much roadkill she leaves behind. She just hopes the casualties won't include the one man she's risking everything for.

Would you sacrifice your future... for an uncertain past?

Gabriella and Evangelia Betarrini are just two normal American teenagers. Normal--except for the fact that they time travel to fourteenth-century Italy, where they've lived in castles, become swept up in historic battles, and fallen in love with handsome knights willing to do anything to keep them alive.

They've returned with their mother to the present to save their father before his tragic death, and now the family travels back to the place that holds the girls' hearts: medieval Italy. But remaining there means facing great risk as the battle for territory wages on and the Black Plague looms. Will the Betarrinis truly be willing to risk it all? Or in facing death head-on, will they discover life as it was always meant to be lived?

The complex moral ambiguities of seduction and revenge make Les Liaisons dangereuses (1782) one of the most scandalous and controversial novels in European literature. The subject of major film and stage adaptations, the novel's prime movers, the Vicomte de Valmont and the Marquise de Merteuil, form an unholy alliance and turn seduction into a game - a game which they must win.

This new translation gives Laclos a modern voice, and readers will be able to judge whether the novel is as "diabolical" and "infamous" as its critics have claimed, or whether it has much to tell us about the kind of world we ourselves live in. David Coward's introduction explodes myths about Laclos's own life and puts the book in its literary and cultural context.

"Hearts are broken," Lillian Dyson carefully underlined in a book. "Sweet relationships are dead." But now Lillian herself is dead. Found among the bleeding hearts and lilacs of Clara Morrow's garden in Three Pines, shattering the celebrations of Clara's solo show at the famed Musée in Montréal.

Chief Inspector Gamache, the head of homicide at the Sûreté du Québec, is called to the tiny Québec village. There, he finds the art world gathered, and with it, a world of shading and nuance, a world of shadow and light. Where nothing is as it seems. Behind every smile, there lurks a sneer. Inside every sweet relationship, there hides a broken heart.

And even when facts are slowly exposed, it is no longer clear to Gamache and his team if what they've found is the truth, or simply a trick of the light.

Cas Lowood has inherited an unusual vocation: He kills the dead. So did his father before him, until he was gruesomely murdered by a ghost he sought to kill. Now, armed with his father's mysterious and deadly athame, Cas travels the country with his kitchen-witch mother and their spirit-sniffing cat. They follow legends and local lore, destroy the murderous dead, and keep pesky things like the future and friends at bay.

Searching for a ghost the locals call Anna Dressed in Blood, Cas expects the usual: track, hunt, kill. What he finds instead is a girl entangled in curses and rage, a ghost like he's never faced before. She still wears the dress she wore on the day of her brutal murder in 1958: once white, now stained red and dripping with blood. Since her death, Anna has killed any and every person who has dared to step into the deserted Victorian she used to call home.

Yet she spares Cas's life.

Heaven Help Her. Bethany Church is an angel sent to Earth to keep dark forces at bay. Falling in love was never part of her mission, but the bond between Beth and her mortal boyfriend, Xavier Woods, is undeniably strong. But even Xavier’s love, and the care of her archangel siblings, Gabriel and Ivy, can’t keep Beth from being tricked into a motorcycle ride that ends up in Hell. There, the demon Jake Thorn bargains for Beth’s release back to Earth. But what he asks of her will destroy her, and quite possibly, her loved ones, as well.

The story that Alexandra Adornetto built in her New York Times bestselling debut, Halo, comes alive in action-packed and unexpected ways, as angels battle demons, and the power of love is put to the test.

Lord Edgware Dies is a classic mystery novel by the renowned author Agatha Christie, featuring the brilliant Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot. When Lord Edgware is found murdered, the police are baffled. His estranged actress wife was seen visiting him just before his death, and Poirot himself heard her brag of her plan to “get rid” of him.

But how could she have stabbed Lord Edgware in his library at exactly the same time she was seen dining with friends? It’s a case that almost proves to be too much for the great Poirot, as he navigates through a web of deceit and alibis to uncover the true culprit.

From the internationally bestselling author of Kane and Abel and A Prisoner of Birth comes Only Time Will Tell, the first in an ambitious new series that tells the story of one family across generations, across oceans, from heartbreak to triumph.

The epic tale of Harry Clifton’s life begins in 1920, with the words “I was told that my father was killed in the war.” A dock worker in Bristol, Harry never knew his father, but he learns about life on the docks from his uncle, who expects Harry to join him at the shipyard once he’s left school. But then an unexpected gift wins him a scholarship to an exclusive boys’ school, and his life will never be the same again.

As he enters into adulthood, Harry finally learns how his father really died, but the awful truth only leads him to question: was he even his father? Is he the son of Arthur Clifton, a stevedore who spent his whole life on the docks, or the firstborn son of a scion of West Country society, whose family owns a shipping line?

This introductory novel in Archer’s ambitious series The Clifton Chronicles includes a cast of colorful characters and takes us from the ravages of the Great War to the outbreak of the Second World War, when Harry must decide whether to take up a place at Oxford or join the navy and go to war with Hitler’s Germany.

From the docks of working-class England to the bustling streets of 1940 New York City, Only Time Will Tell takes readers on a journey through to future volumes, which will bring to life one hundred years of recent history to reveal a family story that neither the reader nor Harry Clifton himself could ever have imagined.

The Birth House is the story of Dora Rare, the first daughter to be born in five generations of the Rare family. As a child in an isolated village in Nova Scotia, she is drawn to Miss Babineau, an outspoken Acadian midwife with a gift for healing and a kitchen filled with herbs and folk remedies.

During the turbulent years of World War I, Dora becomes the midwife's apprentice. Together, they help the women of Scots Bay through infertility, difficult labors, breech births, unwanted pregnancies, and even unfulfilling sex lives.

When Gilbert Thomas, a brash medical doctor, comes to Scots Bay with promises of fast, painless childbirth, some of the women begin to question Miss Babineau's methods. After Miss Babineau's death, Dora is left to carry on alone. In the face of fierce opposition, she must summon all of her strength to protect the birthing traditions and wisdom that have been passed down to her.

Filled with details that are as compelling as they are surprising—childbirth in the aftermath of the Halifax Explosion, the prescribing of vibratory treatments to cure hysteria, and a mysterious elixir called Beaver Brew—The Birth House is an unforgettable tale of the struggles women have faced to maintain control over their own bodies and to keep the best parts of tradition alive in the world of modern medicine.

Are you ready to save the world? The bestselling series returns with an adventure spanning six explosive books, two secret-filled card packs, and a website that places readers right in the action.

Thirteen-year-old Dan Cahill and his older sister, Amy, thought they belonged to the world's most powerful family. They thought the hunt for 39 Clues leading to the source of that power was over. They even thought they'd won. But Amy and Dan were wrong.

One by one, distress calls start coming in from around the globe. Cahills are being kidnapped by a shadowy group known only as the Vespers. Now Amy and Dan have only days to fulfill a bizarre ransom request or their captured friends will start dying. Amy and Dan don't know what the Vespers want or how to stop them. Only one thing is clear: The Vespers are playing to win, and if they get their hands on the Clues... the world will be their next hostage.