Empire of the Sun is a poignant exploration of a young boy's struggle to survive World War II in China. Separated from his parents in a world at war, Jim must find a strength greater than all the events that surround him to survive. The setting is Shanghai, 1941, a city aflame from the aftermath of Pearl Harbor. Amidst the chaos and corpses, Jim searches in vain for his parents. Eventually, he finds himself imprisoned in a Japanese concentration camp, witnessing the fierce white flash of Nagasaki as the bomb announces the end of the war...and the dawn of a blighted world.

J.G. Ballard's enduring novel not only captures the horrors of war and deprivation, internment camps and death marches, starvation and survival, but also serves as an honest coming-of-age tale set in a world thrown utterly out of joint.

Jane Austen's first novel—published posthumously in 1818—tells the story of Catherine Morland and her dangerously sweet nature, innocence, and sometime self-delusion. Though Austen's fallible heroine is repeatedly drawn into scrapes while vacationing at Bath and during her subsequent visit to Northanger Abbey, Catherine eventually triumphs, blossoming into a discerning woman who learns truths about love, life, and the heady power of literature. The satirical novel pokes fun at the gothic novel while earnestly emphasizing caution to the female sex.

DRAGON RIDER

Vetch had done the unimaginable. He had secretly raised his own baby dragon, a crimson female he named Avatre, and when she first took flight he had been on her back. Although Avatre was new to flight, with the help of his trainer and friend, the dragon Jouster Ari, he had managed to evade pursuit, escaping from the compound that housed the dragon-riding troops of Tia, his homeland's enemies.

Aided by the nomadic tribes of the desert, Vetch and Avatre had crossed the vast sands heading north toward the lands still held by Alta. It was Vetch's plan to convey to his half-conquered homeland the secret which he hoped would be the key to Alta's liberation: how to tame dragons. If he imparted this secret to the Altan rulers, would it not give them the edge they needed to throw off their conquerors despite their lesser numbers?

And it seemed that his good luck was holding when, after saving a young priestess of noble blood from the dangers of the Great Mother River, he was given entree into the dragon Jouster compound of Alta City.

But Vetch, now calling himself by his birth name of Kiron, was completely ignorant of the true forces that controlled Alta. For though the royal Great Ones sat on the Altan throne, they did not truly rule. In Alta, the Magi, the all-powerful practitioners of sorcery, held the populace—royalty and commoner alike—under the sway of a mysterious weapon. The Magi claimed that the Eye of Light would forever protect their land from Tia—incinerating enemy troops as far away as the seventh canal.

But were the Magi really interested in protecting their land from outside invaders? Or would Kiron find that Alta was burdened with a far greater threat than an enemy kingdom—a threat from within its own borders?

The extraordinary memoir of a peasant boy raised in rural Maoist China who was plucked from his village to study ballet and went on to become one of the greatest dancers of his generation.

From a desperately poor village in northeast China, at age eleven, Li Cunxin was chosen by Madame Mao's cultural delegates to be taken from his rural home and brought to Beijing, where he would study ballet. In 1979, the young dancer arrived in Texas as part of a cultural exchange, only to fall in love with America—and with an American woman. Two years later, through a series of events worthy of the most exciting cloak-and-dagger fiction, he defected to the United States, where he quickly became known as one of the greatest ballet dancers in the world. This is his story, told in his own inimitable voice.

A coup in Cambodia. Guns to Guatemala. For the men and women of Shorn Associates, opportunity is calling. In the superheated global village of the near future, big money is made by finding the right little war and supporting one side against the other—in exchange for a share of the spoils.

To succeed, Shorn uses a new kind of corporate gladiator: sharp-suited, hard-driving gunslingers who operate armored vehicles and follow a Samurai code. And Chris Faulkner is just the man for the job. He fought his way out of London’s zone of destitution. And his kills are making him famous.

But unlike his best friend and competitor at Shorn, Faulkner has a side that outsiders cannot see: the side his wife is trying to salvage, that another woman—a porn star turned TV news reporter—is trying to exploit. Steeped in blood, eyed by common criminals looking for a shot at fame, Faulkner is living on borrowed time. Until he’s given one last shot at getting out alive...

Bean's past was a battle just to survive. He first appeared on the streets of Rotterdam, a tiny child with a mind leagues beyond anyone else. He knew he could not survive through strength; he used his tactical genius to gain acceptance into a children's gang and then to help make that gang a template for success for all the others. He civilized them and lived to grow older. Then he was discovered by the recruiters for the Battle School.

Bean was the smallest student at the Battle School but he became Ender Wiggins' right hand. Since then, he has grown to be a power on Earth. He served the Hegemon as strategist and general in the terrible wars that followed Ender's defeat of the alien empire attacking Earth. Now he and his wife Petra yearn for a safe place to build a family—something he has never known—but there is nowhere on Earth that does not harbor his enemies—old enemies from the days in Ender's Jeesh, new enemies from the wars on Earth.

To find security, Bean and Petra must once again follow in Ender's footsteps. They must leave Earth behind, in the control of the Hegemon, and look to the stars.

A war fueled by the powers of dark sorcery is about to engulf the peaceful land of Osten Ard—for Prester John, the High King, lies dying. And with his death, the Storm King, the undead ruler of the elf-like Sithi, seizes the chance to regain his lost realm through a pact with the newly ascended king. Knowing the consequences of this bargain, the king’s younger brother joins with a small, scattered group of scholars, the League of the Scroll, to confront the true danger threatening Osten Ard.

Simon, a kitchen boy from the royal castle unknowingly apprenticed to a member of this League, will be sent on a quest that offers the only hope of salvation, a deadly riddle concerning long-lost swords of power. Compelled by fate and perilous magics, he must leave the only home he’s ever known and face enemies more terrifying than Osten Ard has ever seen, even as the land itself begins to die.

In this funny, poignant debut, a plus-size heroine becomes a reality TV show contestant and discovers she's already beautiful enough to be the next big thing.

Kat Larson figured she had nothing to lose by becoming a contestant on the new reality show From Fat to Fabulous—except maybe a few dozen pounds. Then she'd finally be able to arrange a face-to-face meeting with Nick, the British hunk she met online, who still thinks she's a size four. She'd finally be confident and graceful and thin—and there's that big cash prize, too, to pay for all those slinky new clothes she'd need. She'd finally have the perfect life.

Jojo Harvey is a dead ringer for Jessica Rabbit and the most ferocious literary agent in town. A former NYPD cop, she now lives in London making million-dollar book deals while trying to make partner at her firm... all the while sleeping with the boss man.

Lily Wright is an author who believes in karma and is waiting for the sky to fall after stealing her former best friend's man. Though her first book failed to sell, her life turns upside down when her most recent book becomes a huge bestseller.

Gemma Hogan is an event designer extraordinaire, but her personal life is nonexistent after losing the love of her life and her best friend in one fell swoop. To make matters worse, her father has just left her mother. While taking care of her mother, she emails a close colleague about her frustrations, who in turn forwards the hilarious emails to a famous literary agent named Jojo Harvey, who just happens to represent her former friend, now enemy, Lily Wright...

Written in the charming and chatty voice that has become Marian Keyes's signature style, this hilarious and heartwarming novel proves there are three sides to every story... especially in the world of publishing!

Calwyn has never been beyond the high ice-wall that guards the sisters of Antaris from the world of Tremaris. She knows only the rounds of her life as a novice ice priestess, tending her bees, singing her ice chantments, and dreaming.

But then Calwyn befriends Darrow, a mysterious Outlander who appears inside the Wall and warns of an approaching danger. To help Darrow, to see the world, and perhaps to save it, Calwyn will leave the safety of the Wall for a journey with a man she barely knows—and an adventure as beautiful and dangerous as the music of chantment itself.

The Yacoubian Building is a controversial bestselling novel in the Arab world that reveals the political corruption, sexual repression, religious extremism, and modern hopes of Egypt today.

All manner of flawed and fragile humanity reside in the Yacoubian Building, a once-elegant temple of Art Deco splendor now slowly decaying in the smog and bustle of downtown Cairo: a fading aristocrat and self-proclaimed "scientist of women"; a sultry, voluptuous siren; a devout young student, feeling the irresistible pull toward fundamentalism; a newspaper editor helplessly in love with a policeman; a corrupt and corpulent politician, twisting the Koran to justify his desires.

These disparate lives careen toward an explosive conclusion in Alaa Al Aswany's remarkable international bestseller. Teeming with frank sexuality and heartfelt compassion, this book is an important window into the experience of loss and love in the Arab world.

Working with the Search and Rescue bloodhound team to find missing people, single mother Delia Hopkins anticipates her upcoming nuptials, until a series of unsettling flashbacks threatens to devastate her life and the lives of those she most loves.

By the author of My Sister's Keeper and Second Glance. Reprint. 300,000 first printing.

Armed with only his wits and his cunning, one man recklessly defies the French revolutionaries and rescues scores of innocent men, women, and children from the deadly guillotine. His friends and foes know him only as the Scarlet Pimpernel. But the ruthless French agent Chauvelin is sworn to discover his identity and to hunt him down.

Lilith is a profound story concerning the nature of life, death, and salvation. After he followed the old man through the mirror, nothing in his life was ever right again. It was a special mirror and the man he followed was a special man - a man who led him to the things that underlie the fate of all creation.

In this dark fantasy, MacDonald explores a cosmic sleep that heals tortured souls, preceding the salvation of all. The story is considered among the darkest of MacDonald's works, and among the most profound.

Wrath, the only purebred vampire left on the planet and the leader of the Black Dagger Brotherhood, has a score to settle with the slayers who killed his parents centuries ago. But when his most trusted fighter is killed—orphaning a half-breed daughter unaware of her heritage or her fate—Wrath must put down his dagger and usher the beautiful female into another world.

Racked by a restlessness in her body that wasn’t there before, Beth Randall is helpless against the dangerously sexy man who comes to her at night with shadows in his eyes. His tales of the Brotherhood and blood frighten her. Yet his touch ignites a dawning new hunger—one that threatens to consume them both…

Little Women, Good Wives, Little Men, and Jo's Boys are a series of novels by American author Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888). The books are loosely based on the author's childhood experiences with her three sisters. These novels are classics, with the publisher unable to keep up with the demand when the first book in the series was published.

Themes of romance, family drama, gender constraints, and the validation of virtue over wealth are explored in these timeless stories.

Catherine "Cat" Ferry is a forensic odontologist, a specialist in bite marks and the clues they provide. But while Cat's colleagues know her as a world-class scientist, she secretly attempts to manage her fragile psyche with alcohol, delving into the minds of rapists and murderers yet never allowing her own frightening past to creep into the foreground.

Cat's latest case involves a disturbing murder in New Orleans. Banishing her personal demons, she focuses on the potential killer, until one morning she's paralyzed by a panic attack at a grisly murder scene. Praying the attack is a onetime event, she continues her job as a consultant to the New Orleans Police Department, but when another victim dies in the same shocking way - raising fears that a serial killer is at large - Cat blacks out over the victim's mutilated corpse.

Suspended from the FBI task force, plagued by nightmares, and at odds with her married lover - a homicide detective - Cat finally reaches her breaking point. In a desperate effort to regain control over a life spiraling out of control, Cat retreats to her hometown of Natchez, Mississippi. But her family's secluded antebellum estate provides no sanctuary.

When some of Cat's forensic chemicals are spilled in her childhood bedroom, two bloody footprints are revealed. This sight shocks her more than any corpse she has seen in her career. Cat's father was murdered when she was eight years old, but she always believed the crime occurred in the garden outside their home. The bloody footprints suggest otherwise.

Driven by this fragment of her past, Cat attempts a forensic reconstruction of the decades-old crime, even as developments in New Orleans task force pull her back into the case she left behind. Plagued by troubling nightmares, Cat pieces together the horrifying events she has been shielded from all her life. Soon, both she and the FBI realize that the murders occurring now in New Orleans are intimately bound up with Cat's family and her past.

Cartoonist Jane Harris is delighted by the prospect of her first-ever trip to Europe. But it's hate at first sight for Jane and Cal Langdon, and neither is too happy at the prospect of sharing a villa with one another for a week—not even in the beautiful and picturesque Marches countryside.

When Holly and Mark's wedding plans hit a major snag that only Jane and Cal can repair, the two find themselves having to put aside their mutual dislike for one another in order to get their best friends on the road to wedded bliss—and end up on a road themselves... one neither of them ever expected.

Rising Storm, the fourth installment in the Warriors series, delves into the tumultuous summer months in the life of Fireheart, a young ThunderClan deputy. Despite the exile of his traitorous enemy, Tigerclaw, Fireheart cannot shake off the feeling that danger lurks within the forest, waiting for an opportunity to strike back.

This season brings not only the heat but also a series of sinister omens, an apprentice harboring a shocking secret, and a Clan leader devastated and reduced to a shadow of her former self. As the forest's temperature continues to rise, Fireheart and his Clan brace themselves for the inevitable storm that threatens their very existence.

Tohru and company have been having a lot more fun ever since Kisa came to visit. Now it's time for Tohru to meet another member of the Zodiac - the skillfully sarcastic grade-school student, Hiro! One way or another, this tyke will have to deal with his resentment of Tohru and his affection for Kisa. Where will he find the answers? In the fabulous 7th volume of the super-popular Fruits Basket, of course!

Kip from Midwest Centerville, USA, works the summer before college as a pharmacy soda jerk and wins an authentic stripped-down spacesuit in a soap contest. He answers a distress radio call from Peewee, a scrawny, rag doll-clutching genius aged 11. With the comforting cop Mother Thing, three-eyed tripod Wormfaces kidnap them to the Moon and Pluto.

Ed Kennedy is an underage cabdriver without much of a future. He's pathetic at playing cards, hopelessly in love with his best friend, Audrey, and utterly devoted to his coffee-drinking dog, the Doorman. His life is one of peaceful routine and incompetence until he inadvertently stops a bank robbery.

That's when the first ace arrives in the mail. That's when Ed becomes the messenger. Chosen to care, he makes his way through town helping and hurting (when necessary) until only one question remains: Who's behind Ed's mission?

I'll make you pay...

School is over, and now Stacey, her boyfriend Jacob, and their friends have rented a beach cottage for the summer. No more stress, secrets, or stalkers. But then Stacey's nightmares return—predicting the cruel death of Clara, a mysterious girl with a secret.

And now Jacob, the only one who understands Stacey's magic, is keeping secrets too. Is he betraying Stacey's trust or protecting her from revenge and tragedy?

Dolphin adores her mother: she's got wonderful clothes, bright hair, and vivid tattoos all over her body. She definitely lives a colourful life. Dolphin's older sister, Star, also loves her but is beginning to wonder if staying with a mom whose temper can be as flashy as her body art is the best thing for the girls...

This is a powerful novel about two sisters living in a very dysfunctional household with their tattoo-crazy mum, who is struggling to cope. Dolphin adores her mother, Marigold. She's got wonderful clothes, bright hair, and vivid tattoos all over her body — a colourful lady, to match her colourful life. But Dolphin's older sister, Star, is beginning to wonder if living with Marigold's fiery, unpredictable moods is the best thing for the girls.

Tally is about to turn sixteen, and she can't wait. In just a few weeks she'll have the operation that will turn her from a repellent ugly into a stunning pretty. And as a pretty, she'll be catapulted into a high-tech paradise where her only job is to have fun.

But Tally's new friend Shay isn't sure she wants to become a pretty. When Shay runs away, Tally learns about a whole new side of the pretty world—and it isn't very pretty. The authorities offer Tally a choice: find her friend and turn her in, or never turn pretty at all. Tally's choice will change her world forever.

Published in 1911, El árbol de la ciencia is considered by Pío Baroja himself as "the most complete and accomplished book of all my works." This novel showcases the novelist's narrative technique at its most effective, characterized by the uninterrupted succession of events, the abundance of secondary characters, the skillful articulation of critical situations, descriptive impressionism, and the rapid sketch of characters.

Azorín noted that this book best captures the spirit of Baroja, blending his philosophical and social principles with autobiographical elements. The protagonist, a doctor like Baroja, witnesses the injustices of a petty and degraded society, caught between physiological determinism and moral rebellion, searching for his own path.

This semi-autobiographical work spans the years 1887 to 1898, offering a privileged insight into the author's world.

Reservation Blues is a captivating novel that weaves a powerful tale of Indians, rock ’n’ roll, and redemption. The story begins when legendary bluesman Robert Johnson mysteriously appears on the Spokane Indian Reservation with a magical guitar. This extraordinary gift is left to Thomas Builds-the-Fire, a storyteller whose life is irrevocably changed by this enchanted instrument.

Thomas forms an all-Indian Catholic band, Coyote Springs, alongside Victor Joseph on lead guitar and Junior Polatkin on drums. The band embarks on a magical journey that takes them from reservation bars to the bustling cities of Seattle and New York. Along the way, they encounter the depths of their own souls, confronting themes of poverty, pain, and loss, yet also finding moments of joy and laughter.

In this remarkable narrative, National Book Award winner Sherman Alexie masterfully navigates between comedy and tragedy, exploring the collision of cultures with a unique blend of Delta blues and Indian rock. This novel is an exploration of identity, friendship, and the transformative power of music.

The nightmare continues... Vampire War Trilogy comprising: Hunters of the Dusk, Allies of the Night and Killers of the Dawn. Join Darren Shan's descent into the darkness.

In Hunters of the Dusk, Darren Shan leaves Vampire Mountain on a life or death mission. Darren scours the world in search of the Vampaneze Lord, but the road ahead is lined with the bodies of the damned.

In Allies of the Night, Darren Shan faces his worst nightmare yet - school! But bodies are piling up, and the past is catching up with the hunters fast!

In Killers of the Dawn, Darren Shan becomes public enemy Number One. As the vampires prepare for deadly confrontation - is this the end for Darren and his allies?

Dom Casmurro is a classic story of love and jealousy. It tells the story of Bento and his childhood love, Capitu, who overcome their parents' reluctance to marry. However, Bento jealously suspects that their son is not his.

But beyond this straightforward plot, Machado de Assis plays with the reader's expectations and comments on the structure of the story, blurring the line between fiction and reality. This approach makes Dom Casmurro appear very modern and unique among its contemporaries.

A twentieth-century successor to Edgar Allan Poe as the master of "weird fiction," Howard Philips Lovecraft once wrote, "The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown." In the novellas and stories he published in such pulp magazines as Weird Tales and Astounding Stories—and in the work that remained unpublished until after his death, including some of his best writing—H. P. Lovecraft adapted the conventions of horror stories and science fiction to express an intensely personal vision, cosmic in its ramifications and fearsome in its shuddering view of human destiny.

In this Library of America volume, the best-selling novelist Peter Straub brings together the very best of Lovecraft's fiction in a treasury guaranteed to bring fright and delight both to longtime fans and to readers new to his work. Early stories such as The Outsider, The Music of Erich Zann, Herbert West–Reanimator, and The Lurking Fear demonstrate Lovecraft's uncanny ability to blur the distinction between reality and nightmare, sanity and madness, the human and non-human. The Horror at Red Hook and He reveal the fascination and revulsion Lovecraft felt for New York City; Pickman's Model uncovers the frightening secret behind an artist's work; The Rats in the Walls is a terrifying descent into atavistic horror; and The Colour Out of Space explores the eerie impact of a meteorite on a remote Massachusetts valley.

In such later works as The Call of Cthulhu, The Whisperer in Darkness, At the Mountains of Madness, The Shadow Over Innsmouth, and The Shadow Out of Time, Lovecraft developed his own nightmarish mythology in which encounters with ancient, pitiless extraterrestrial intelligences wreak havoc on hapless humans who only gradually begin to glimpse "terrifying vistas of reality, and our frightful position therein." Moving from old New England towns haunted by occult pasts to Antarctic wastes that disclose appalling secrets, Lovecraft's tales continue to exert a dread fascination.

Enter an adrenaline-laced epic where dreams and reality collide. Fleeing his assailants through deserted alleyways, Thomas Hunter narrowly escapes to the roof of a building. Then a silent bullet from the night clips his head...and his world goes black.

From the blackness comes an amazing reality of another world—a world where evil is contained. A world where Thomas Hunter is in love with a beautiful woman. Then he remembers the dream of the chase as he reaches to touch the blood on his head.

Where does the dream end and reality begin? Every time he falls asleep in one world, he awakes in the other—both facing catastrophic disaster. Thomas is being pushed beyond his limits...even beyond the limits of space and time.

Black is an incredible story of evil and rescue, betrayal and love, pursuit and death, and a terrorist's threat unlike anything the human race has ever known.

Some say the world hangs in the balance of every choice we make. Now the fate of two worlds hangs in the balance of one man's choice.

A haunting tale of power, corruption, and the complex search for identity, Conversation in The Cathedral takes place in 1950s Peru during the dictatorship of Manuel Apolinario Odría Amoretti. Over beers and a sea of freely spoken words, the conversation flows between two individuals, Santiago and Ambrosia, who talk of their tormented lives and of the overall degradation and frustration that has slowly taken over their town.

Through a complicated web of secrets and historical references, Mario Vargas Llosa analyzes the mental and moral mechanisms that govern power and the people behind it. More than a historic analysis, Conversation in The Cathedral is a groundbreaking novel that tackles identity as well as the role of a citizen and how a lack of personal freedom can forever scar a people and a nation.

Anna is not sick, but she might as well be. By age thirteen, she has undergone countless surgeries, transfusions, and shots so that her older sister, Kate, can somehow fight the leukemia that has plagued her since childhood. The product of preimplantation genetic diagnosis, Anna was conceived as a bone marrow match for Kate—a life and a role that she has never challenged... until now.

Like most teenagers, Anna is beginning to question who she truly is. But unlike most teenagers, she has always been defined in terms of her sister—and so Anna makes a decision that for most would be unthinkable, a decision that will tear her family apart and have perhaps fatal consequences for the sister she loves.

A provocative novel that raises some important ethical issues, My Sister's Keeper is the story of one family's struggle for survival at all human costs and a stunning parable for all time.

The Dark Hills Divide introduces readers to Alexa Daley, who annually visits the town of Bridewell. Alexa is curious about what lies beyond the massive ramparts that surround the city and the walled roads that link Bridewell to nearby towns. Soon after town leader Thomas Warvold passes away, Alexa finds herself outside the walls, acquires a stone with remarkable powers, and discovers that she's meant to stop a potential war from occurring.

Inquisitive twelve-year-old Alexa Daley is spending another summer in the walled town of Bridewell. This year, she is set on solving the mystery of what lies beyond the walls. Legend says the walls were built to keep out an unnamed evil that lurks in the forests and The Dark Hills. But what exactly is it that the townspeople are so afraid of? As Alexa begins to unravel the truth, pushing beyond the protective barrier she's lived behind all her life, she discovers a strange and ancient enchantment and exposes a danger that could destroy everything she holds dear.

Hidden in the heart of the old city of Barcelona is the 'Cemetery of Lost Books', a labyrinthine library of obscure and forgotten titles that have long gone out of print. To this library, a man brings his 10-year-old son, Daniel, one cold morning in 1945. Daniel is allowed to choose one book from the shelves and pulls out 'The Shadow of the Wind' by Julian Carax.

But as he grows up, several people seem inordinately interested in his find. Then, one night, as he is wandering the old streets once more, Daniel is approached by a figure who reminds him of a character from the book, a character who turns out to be the devil. This man is tracking down every last copy of Carax's work in order to burn them.

What begins as a case of literary curiosity turns into a race to find out the truth behind the life and death of Julian Carax and to save those he left behind. An epic story of murder, madness, and doomed love.

Titus Andronicus is the earliest tragedy and the earliest Roman play attributed to Shakespeare. Set during the latter days of the Roman Empire, it tells the fictional story of Titus, a general in the Roman army, who is engaged in a cycle of revenge with Tamora, Queen of the Goths.

Titus, a model Roman, has led twenty-one of his twenty-five sons to death in Rome’s wars; he stabs another son to death for what he views as disloyalty to Rome. Yet Rome has become “a wilderness of tigers.” After a death sentence is imposed on two of his three remaining sons, and his daughter is raped and mutilated, Titus turns his loyalty toward his family.

Aaron the Moor, a magnificent villain and the empress’s secret lover, makes a similar transition. After the empress bears him a child, Aaron devotes himself to preserving the baby. Retaining his thirst for evil, he shows great tenderness to his little family—a tenderness that also characterizes Titus before the terrifying conclusion.

This play is Shakespeare's bloodiest and most violent work and traditionally was one of his least respected plays. However, from around the middle of the twentieth century, its reputation began to improve.

Girls in Pants: The Third Summer of the Sisterhood is the third novel in the wildly popular #1 New York Times bestselling Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series. It's the summer before the sisterhood departs for college, marking their last real summer together before they head off to start their grown-up lives.

It's the time when Lena, Tibby, Bridget, and Carmen need their Pants the most. Pants = love. Love your pals. Love yourself.

This is a fun and poignant coming-of-age story that captures the essence of friendship and growing up.

Only Love Can Heal a Wounded Soul...

Caitlin O'Shannessy's late father left her with many things: a Colorado ranch, enduring memories of pain and sadness, an unshakable mistrust of men... and an adversary.

Ace Keegan has returned to No Name, too late to enact a rightful vengeance on his most hated enemy. The man who put a hole in Ace's life is dead, leaving a daughter behind to run the family enterprise. Though proud and strong as well as beautiful, Caitlin is caught off guard when Ace's calculated anger inadvertently destroys her good name.

But Ace Keegan is a man of honor, determined to make amends by marrying the enchanting lady he wronged—and to nurture with patience and love the light she guards in her damaged heart until it blazes with the power of a thousand suns.

The acclaimed author of Emperor: The Gates of Rome returns to the extraordinary life of Julius Caesar in a new novel that takes us further down the path to glory... as Caesar comes into his own as a man, warrior, senator, husband, and leader.

In a sparsely settled region of North Africa, a band of disheveled soldiers turn their eyes toward one man among them: their leader, Julius Caesar. The soldiers are Roman legionaries. And their quarry is a band of pirates who dared to kidnap Julius Caesar for ransom. Now, as Caesar exacts his revenge and builds a legend far from Rome, his friend Marcus Brutus is fighting battles of another sort, rising to power in the wake of the assassination of a dictator.

Once Brutus and Caesar were as close as brothers, devoted to the same ideals and attracted to the same forbidden women. Now they will be united again by a shock wave from the north, where a gladiator named Spartacus is building an army of seventy thousand slaves—to fight a cataclysmic battle against Rome itself.

It's Valentine's Day--and while Domeki is showered with chocolates and cards from girls, Watanuki receives none. To make matters worse, he must also do the usual chores for Yûko, which includes making chocolate cake for her and Mokona, as well as the treats his boss wants to give away as gifts. But when Watanuki discovers he has a shy and secret admirer who is not quite human, he finds that chocolates can be more than just sweets.

Then, after seeing identical twin sisters pass by in the street, Yûko makes a curious remark: that there are chains that only humans can use to bind others. Watanuki meets the sisters and senses that the relationship between them is not what it seems. . . .

xxxHOLiC crosses over with Tsubasa, also by CLAMP. Don't miss it!

Includes chapters 23-28.

Oliver Barrett IV, a wealthy jock from a stuffy WASP family on his way to a Harvard degree and a career in law... Jenny Cavilleri, a sharp-tongued, working-class beauty studying music at Radcliffe...Opposites in nearly every way, Oliver and Jenny are kindred spirits from vastly different worlds. Falling deeply and powerfully, their attraction to one another defies everything they have ever believed—as they share a passion far greater than anything they dreamed possible... and explore the wonder of a love that must end too soon.

One of the most adored novels of our time, this is the book that defined a generation—a story of uncompromising devotion, of life as it really is... and love that changes everything.

Welcome to Paradise. Epic battles of good and evil are happening all around us. Today, that battle comes to town with the sound of lone footsteps clacking down the blacktop on a hot, lazy summer afternoon.

The black-cloaked man arrives in the sleepy town of Paradise and manages to become the talk of the town within the hour. Bearing the power to grant any unfulfilled dream, he is irresistible.

Seems like bliss... but is it? Or is hell about to break loose in Paradise?

Interpreter of Maladies brings to life the stories of characters navigating between the Indian traditions they've inherited and the new world they find themselves in. These elegant, touching stories explore the search for love beyond the barriers of culture and generations.

In "A Temporary Matter," a young Indian-American couple faces the heartbreak of a stillborn birth while their Boston neighborhood copes with a nightly blackout. In the title story, an interpreter guides an American family through the India of their ancestors and hears an astonishing confession. Lahiri writes with deft cultural insight and a nuanced depth, charting the emotional journeys of her characters with compassion and understanding.

A villainous new presence is aprowl in Mossflower Woods—the Marlfoxes. Stealthy and mysterious, they are out to plunder and destroy everything in their path. And when they reach Redwall Abbey, they ruthlessly steal the most precious treasure of all—the tapestry of Martin the Warrior.

It takes Dann Reguba and Song Swifteye, children of warrior squirrels, to follow in their fathers' heroic footsteps. Together with the young shrew Dippler, and Burble the brave watervole, they embark upon the seemingly impossible quest...

Curtis Sittenfeld's debut novel, Prep, is an insightful, achingly funny coming-of-age story as well as a brilliant dissection of class, race, and gender in a hothouse of adolescent angst and ambition. Lee Fiora is an intelligent, observant fourteen-year-old when her father drops her off in front of her dorm at the prestigious Ault School in Massachusetts. She leaves her animated, affectionate family in South Bend, Indiana, at least in part because of the boarding school’s glossy brochure, in which boys in sweaters chat in front of old brick buildings, girls in kilts hold lacrosse sticks on pristinely mown athletic fields, and everyone sings hymns in chapel.

As Lee soon learns, Ault is a cloistered world of jaded, attractive teenagers who spend summers on Nantucket and speak in their own clever shorthand. Both intimidated and fascinated by her classmates, Lee becomes a shrewd observer of—and, ultimately, a participant in—their rituals and mores. As a scholarship student, she constantly feels like an outsider and is both drawn to and repelled by other loners. By the time she’s a senior, Lee has created a hard-won place for herself at Ault. But when her behavior takes a self-destructive and highly public turn, her carefully crafted identity within the community is shattered.

Ultimately, Lee’s experiences—complicated relationships with teachers; intense friendships with other girls; an all-consuming preoccupation with a classmate who is less than a boyfriend and more than a crush; conflicts with her parents, from whom Lee feels increasingly distant—coalesce into a singular portrait of the painful and thrilling adolescence universal to us all.

Recently widowed, Stella Rothchild is no stranger to the ghosts of the past. The move from Michigan back to her roots near Memphis, Tennessee is supposed to be about the future. Her two energetic young sons are thriving in their new school. Stella's got a great job managing the successful nursery 'In the Garden' and an interesting boss and landlady in local legend Roz Harper.

She even has a new friend in Hayley Phillips, the feisty young pregnant woman who turns up at Harper House, Stella's new home, looking for a job. More than that, Stella feels an instant attraction to In the Garden's landscaper, Logan Kitridge, who gets under her skin and makes her feel truly alive for the first time in years.

But there is someone at Harper House who isn't happy about Stella's growing feelings for Logan - the Harper Bride, an unidentified woman whose grief and rage have kept her spirit alive long past the death of her body. Love and loss broke her mind, and in her madness, she will stop at nothing to destroy the new passion that Logan and Stella have found.

The Malazan Empire simmers with discontent, bled dry by interminable warfare, bitter infighting and bloody confrontations with the formidable Anomander Rake and his Tiste Andii, ancient and implacable sorcerers. Even the imperial legions, long inured to the bloodshed, yearn for some respite. Yet Empress Laseen's rule remains absolute, enforced by her dread Claw assassins.

For Sergeant Whiskeyjack and his squad of Bridgeburners, and for Tattersail, surviving cadre mage of the Second Legion, the aftermath of the siege of Pale should have been a time to mourn the many dead. But Darujhistan, last of the Free Cities of Genabackis, yet holds out. It is to this ancient citadel that Laseen turns her predatory gaze.

However, it would appear that the Empire is not alone in this great game. Sinister, shadowbound forces are gathering as the gods themselves prepare to play their hand... Conceived and written on a panoramic scale, Gardens of the Moon is epic fantasy of the highest order--an enthralling adventure by an outstanding new voice.

Anna Karenina left her husband for a dashing officer. Lady Chatterley left hers for the gamekeeper. Now Alice Coombs has left her boyfriend for nothing… nothing at all.

Just how that should have come to pass and what Philip Engstrand, Alice’s spurned boyfriend, can do about it is the premise for this vertiginous speculative romance by the acclaimed author of Gun, with Occasional Music.

Alice Coombs is a particle physicist, and she and her colleagues have created a void, a hole in the universe, that they have taken to calling Lack. But Lack is a nullity with taste—tastes; it absorbs a pomegranate, light bulbs, an argyle sock; it disdains a bow tie, an ice ax, and a scrambled duck egg.

To Alice, this selectivity translates as an irresistible personality. To Philip, it makes Lack an unbeatable rival, for how can he win Alice back from something that has no flaws—because it has no qualities?

Ingenious, hilarious, and genuinely mind-expanding, As She Climbed Across the Table is the best boy-meets-girl-meets-void story ever written.