Lola Nolan is a budding costume designer, and for her, the more outrageous, sparkly, and fun the outfit, the better. And everything is pretty perfect in her life (right down to her hot rocker boyfriend) until the Bell twins, Calliope and Cricket, return to the neighborhood. When Cricket, a gifted inventor, steps out from his twin sister's shadow and back into Lola's life, she must finally reconcile a lifetime of feelings for the boy next door.
It’s the end of the line. WICKED has taken everything from Thomas: his life, his memories, and now his only friends—the Gladers. But it’s finally over. The trials are complete, after one final test. Will anyone survive? What WICKED doesn’t know is that Thomas remembers far more than they think. And it’s enough to prove that he can’t believe a word of what they say. The truth will be terrifying.
Thomas beat the Maze. He survived the Scorch. He’ll risk anything to save his friends. But the truth might be what ends it all. The time for lies is over.
Hitler boasted that The Third Reich would last a thousand years. It lasted only 12. But those 12 years contained some of the most catastrophic events Western civilization has ever known.
No other powerful empire ever bequeathed such mountains of evidence about its birth and destruction as the Third Reich. When the bitter war was over, and before the Nazis could destroy their files, the Allied demand for unconditional surrender produced an almost hour-by-hour record of the nightmare empire built by Adolph Hitler. This record included the testimony of Nazi leaders and of concentration camp inmates, the diaries of officials, transcripts of secret conferences, army orders, private letters—all the vast paperwork behind Hitler's drive to conquer the world.
The famed foreign correspondent and historian William L. Shirer, who had watched and reported on the Nazis since 1925, spent five and a half years sifting through this massive documentation. The result is a monumental study that has been widely acclaimed as the definitive record of one of the most frightening chapters in the history of mankind.
This worldwide bestseller has been acclaimed as the definitive book on Nazi Germany; it is a classic work.
The accounts of how the United States got involved and how Hitler used Mussolini and Japan are astonishing, and the coverage of the war-from Germany's early successes to her eventual defeat-is must reading.
Atticus O'Sullivan, last of the Druids, doesn’t care much for witches. Still, he’s about to make nice with the local coven by signing a mutually beneficial nonaggression treaty—when suddenly the witch population in modern-day Tempe, Arizona, quadruples overnight. And the new girls are not just bad, they’re badasses with a dark history on the German side of World War II.
With a fallen angel feasting on local high school students, a horde of Bacchants blowing in from Vegas with their special brand of deadly decadence, and a dangerously sexy Celtic goddess of fire vying for his attention, Atticus is having trouble scheduling the witch hunt. But aided by his magical sword, his neighbor’s rocket-propelled grenade launcher, and his vampire attorney, Atticus is ready to sweep the town and show the witchy women they picked the wrong Druid to hex.
Have you ever had the feeling that you've lived another life? Been somewhere that has felt totally familiar, even though you've never been there before, or felt that you know someone well, even though you are meeting them for the first time? It happens.
In 2073, on the remote and secretive island of Blessed, where rumors say no one ages and no children are born, a visiting journalist, Eric Seven, and a young local woman named Merle are ritually slain. Their deaths echo a moment ten centuries before, when, in the dark of the moon, a king was slain, tragically torn from his queen. Their souls search to be reunited, and as mother and son, artist and child, forbidden lovers, and victims of a vampire, they come close to finding what they've lost.
This novel, comprising seven parts, each influenced by a moon - the flower moon, the harvest moon, the hunter's moon, the blood moon - tells the story of Eric and Merle, whose souls have been searching for each other since their untimely parting. Beautifully imagined, intricately and cleverly structured, this is a heart-wrenching and breathtaking love story with the hallmark Sedgwick gothic touches of atmosphere, blood-spilling, and sacrifice.
Twelve timeless Ozarkian tales of those on the fringes of society, by a stunningly original American master. Daniel Woodrell is able to lend uncanny logic to harsh, even criminal behavior in this wrenching collection of stories.
Desperation—both material and psychological—motivates his characters. A husband cruelly avenges the killing of his wife's pet; an injured rapist is cared for by a young girl, until she reaches her breaking point; a disturbed veteran of Iraq is murdered for his erratic behavior; an outsider's house is set on fire by an angry neighbor.
There is also the tenderness and loyalty of the vulnerable in these stories—between spouses, parents and children, siblings, and comrades in arms—which brings the troubled, sorely tested cast of characters to vivid, relatable life.
A Legacy of Madness is the story of a loving family coming to grips with its own fragilities. It relays the author's journey to uncover, and ultimately understand, the history of mental illness that led generations of his suburban American family to their demise.
Dede Davis had worried, fussed, and obsessed for the last time. Her heart stopped beating in a fit of anxiety. In the wake of his mother's death, Tom Davis knew one thing: Helplessly self-absorbed and severely obsessive-compulsive, Dede led a tormented life. She spent years bouncing around mental health facilities, nursing homes, and assisted-living facilities, but what really caused her death?
A Legacy of Madness portrays Tom Davis's captivating discoveries of mental illness throughout generations of his family. Investigating his mother's history led to that of Davis's grandfather, a top administrator at one of the largest psychiatric hospitals in the country; his great-grandfather who died of self-inflicted gas asphyxiation during the Depression; and his great-great-grandmother who, with her eldest son, completed suicide one tragic day.
Ultimately, four generations of family members showed clear signs of depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and alcoholism—often mistreated illnesses that test one's ability to cope.
Through this intimate memoir, we join Davis on a personal odyssey to ensure that he and his siblings, the fifth generation, recover their family legacy by not only surviving their own mental health disorders but by getting the help they need to lead healthy, balanced lives. In the end, we witness Davis's powerful transition as he makes peace with the past and heals through forgiveness and compassion for his family—and himself.
Bill Bryson takes us on a fascinating journey through the history of the modern home. In At Home: A Short History of Private Life, he offers a room-by-room tour of his own Victorian parsonage in England, exploring the vast history of domestic artifacts we often take for granted.
Each room serves as a doorway to a different aspect of history: the bathroom introduces the history of hygiene, the bedroom delves into sex, death, and sleep, and the kitchen reveals the tales of nutrition and the spice trade. Bryson's lively and inquisitive mind turns seemingly mundane facts into the most entertaining expositions imaginable. His wit and prose fluency make this book one of the most entertaining reads about private life.
Whatever happens in the world, it eventually ends up in our homes, in the paint, the pipes, the pillows, and every item of furniture. Discover the surprising connections to everything from the Crystal Palace to the Eiffel Tower, from scurvy to body-snatching, from bedbugs to the Industrial Revolution. This book will change how you see your house and daily life in a new and revelatory light.
What would cause an eighteen-year-old old senior class president and homecoming queen from Nashville, Tennessee, to disappoint her parents by forgoing college, break her little brother’s heart, lose all but a handful of her friends (because the rest of them think she has gone off the deep end), and break up with the love of her life, all so she could move to Uganda, where she knew only one person but didn’t know any of the language? A passion to make a difference. Katie Davis left over Christmas break her senior year for a short mission trip to Uganda and her life was turned completely inside out. She found herself so moved by the people and children of Uganda that she knew her calling was to return and care for them. She has given up a relatively comfortable life—at a young age—to care for the less fortunate of this world. She was so moved by the need she witnessed, she’s centered her life around meeting that need.
Katie, a charismatic and articulate young woman, is in the process of adopting thirteen children in Uganda, and she completely trusts God for daily provision for her and her family. Despite the rough conditions in which Katie lives, she has found a life of service to God to be one of great joy. Katie’s children bring constant delight and help her help others by welcoming whoever comes to their door. As the challenges grow, so does Katie’s faith and her certainty that what she’s doing in Uganda, one person at a time, will have far-reaching rewards. It isn’t the life she planned, but it is the life she loves.
To further her reach into the needs of Ugandans, Katie established Amazima Ministries. The ministry matches orphaned children with sponsors worldwide. Each sponsor’s $300/year provides schooling, school supplies, three hot meals a day, minor medical care, and spiritual encouragement. Katie expected to have forty children in the program; she had signed up 150 by January 2008; today it sponsors over 400. Another aspect of the ministry is a feeding program created for the displaced Karamojong people—Uganda’s poorest citizens. The program feeds lunch to over 1,200 children Monday-Friday and sends them home with a plate of food; it also offers basic medical care, Bible study, and general health training.
Katie Davis is more than fascinating, she’s inspiring, as she has wholeheartedly answered the call to serve.
They were called "The Devil's Brood", though never to their faces. They were the four surviving sons of Henry Plantagenet and Eleanor of Aquitaine. With two such extraordinary parents, much was expected of them.
But the eldest—charming yet mercurial—would turn on his father and, like his brother Geoffrey, meet an early death. When Henry died, Richard would take the throne and, almost immediately, set off for the Holy Land. This was the Third Crusade, and it would be characterized by internecine warfare among the Christians and extraordinary campaigns against the Saracens. And, back in England, by the conniving of Richard's youngest brother, John, to steal his crown.
Avi Steinberg is stumped. After defecting from yeshiva to attend Harvard, he has nothing but a senior thesis on Bugs Bunny to show for himself. While his friends and classmates advance in the world, Steinberg remains stuck at a crossroads, his “romantic” existence as a freelance obituary writer no longer cutting it. Seeking direction (and dental insurance), Steinberg takes a job running the library counter at a Boston prison.
He is quickly drawn into the community of outcasts that forms among his bookshelves—an assortment of quirky regulars, including con men, pimps, minor prophets, even ghosts—all searching for the perfect book and a connection to the outside world. Steinberg recounts their daily dramas with heartbreak and humor in this one-of-a-kind memoir—a piercing exploration of prison culture and an entertaining tale of one young man’s earnest attempt to find his place in the world.
The prison library counter, his new post, attracts con men, minor prophets, ghosts, and an assortment of quirky regulars searching for the perfect book and a connection to the outside world. There’s an anxious pimp who solicits Steinberg’s help in writing a memoir, a passionate gangster who dreams of hosting a cooking show titled Thug Sizzle, a disgruntled officer who instigates a major feud over a Post-it note, and a doomed ex-stripper who asks Steinberg to orchestrate a reunion with her estranged son, himself an inmate.
Over time, Steinberg is drawn into the accidental community of outcasts that has formed among his bookshelves—a drama he recounts with heartbreak and humor. But when the struggles of the prison library—between life and death, love and loyalty—become personal, Steinberg is forced to take sides.
Running the Books is a trenchant exploration of prison culture and an entertaining tale of one young man’s earnest attempt to find his place in the world while trying not to get fired in the process.
Ellen DeGeneres, the stand-up comedian, television host, best-selling author, and actress, candidly discusses her personal life and professional career. She shares her experiences and thoughts on becoming a judge on American Idol.
With her winning, upbeat candor, Ellen brings us up to date about her life as a kindhearted woman who chose to step away from American Idol because she didn't want to be mean. Her stories are lively, hilarious, and often sweetly poignant.
Nora Grey can't remember the past five months of her life. After the initial shock of waking up in a cemetery and being told that she has been missing for weeks - with no one knowing where she was or who she was with - she tried to get her life back on track. Go to school, hang out with her best friend, Vee, and dodge mom's creepy new boyfriend.
But there is this voice in the back of her head, an idea that she can almost reach out and touch. Visions of angel wings and unearthly creatures that have nothing to do with the life she knows.
And this unshakable feeling that a part of her is missing.
Then Nora crosses paths with a sexy stranger, whom she feels a mesmerizing connection to. He seems to hold all the answers...and her heart. Every minute she spends with him grows more and more intense until she realizes she could be falling in love. Again.
It's 1952 and the Scott family has just moved from Los Angeles to London. Here, fourteen-year-old Janie meets a mysterious apothecary and his son, Benjamin Burrows—a fascinating boy who's not afraid to stand up to authority and dreams of becoming a spy.
When Benjamin’s father is kidnapped, Janie and Benjamin must uncover the secrets of the apothecary’s sacred book, the Pharmacopoeia, in order to find him, all while keeping it out of the hands of their enemies—Russian spies in possession of nuclear weapons.
Discovering and testing potions they never believed could exist, Janie and Benjamin embark on a dangerous race to save the apothecary and prevent impending disaster.
The Dovekeepers is Alice Hoffman's most ambitious and mesmerizing novel, a tour de force of imagination and research, set in ancient Israel. In 70 C.E., nine hundred Jews held out for months against armies of Romans on Masada, a mountain in the Judean desert. According to the ancient historian Josephus, two women and five children survived. Based on this tragic and iconic event, Hoffman's novel is a spellbinding tale of four extraordinarily bold, resourceful, and sensuous women, each of whom has come to Masada by a different path.
Yael's mother died in childbirth, and her father, an expert assassin, never forgave her for that death. Revka, a village baker's wife, watched the murder of her daughter by Roman soldiers; she brings to Masada her young grandsons, rendered mute by what they have witnessed. Aziza is a warrior's daughter, raised as a boy, a fearless rider and expert marksman who finds passion with a fellow soldier. Shirah, born in Alexandria, is wise in the ways of ancient magic and medicine, a woman with uncanny insight and power. The lives of these four complex and fiercely independent women intersect in the desperate days of the siege. All are dovekeepers, and all are also keeping secrets—about who they are, where they come from, who fathered them, and whom they love.
Unconfirmed accounts of a group of Araluen warriors - tales of adventure, battle, and triumph over evil - have spread for centuries throughout the known world. Most notable is a clan shrouded in mystery, phantom warriors known as the Rangers.
Two names pass the lips of every storyteller: Halt, and his apprentice, Will. They and their comrades in arms are said to have traveled throughout the kingdom and beyond its borders, protecting those who needed it most. If true, these rumors can be only part of the story.
Only now, centuries after these men and women walked the earth, do we have confirmation of their existence. Behold The Lost Stories, Book 11 in the Ranger's Apprentice epic.
PERCY IS CONFUSED. When he awoke from his long sleep, he didn't know much more than his name. His brain-fuzz is lingering, even after the wolf Lupa told him he is a demigod and trained him to fight with the pen/sword in his pocket. Somehow Percy manages to make it to a camp for half-bloods, despite the fact that he has to keep killing monsters along the way. But the camp doesn't ring any bells with him. The only thing he can recall from his past is another name: Annabeth.
HAZEL IS SUPPOSED TO BE DEAD. When she lived before, she didn't do a very good job of it. Sure, she was an obedient daughter, even when her mother was possessed by greed. But that was the problem—when the Voice took over her mother and commanded Hazel to use her gift for an evil purpose, Hazel couldn't say no. Now, because of her mistake, the future of the world is at risk. Hazel wishes she could ride away from it all on the stallion that appears in her dreams.
FRANK IS A KLUTZ. His grandmother says he is descended from heroes and can be anything he wants to be, but he doesn't see it. He doesn't even know who his father is. He keeps hoping Apollo will claim him, because the only thing he is good at is archery—although not good enough to win camp war games. His bulky physique makes him feel like an ox, especially in front of Hazel, his closest friend at camp. He trusts her completely—enough to share the secret he holds close to his heart.
Beginning at the other camp for half-bloods and extending as far as the land beyond the gods, this breathtaking second installment of the Heroes of Olympus series introduces new demigods, revives fearsome monsters, and features other remarkable creatures, all destined to play a part in the Prophesy of Seven.
Your toddler throws a tantrum in the middle of a store. Your preschooler refuses to get dressed. Your fifth-grader sulks on the bench instead of playing on the field. Do children conspire to make their parents’ lives endlessly challenging? No—it’s just their developing brain calling the shots!
In this pioneering, practical book, Daniel J. Siegel, neuropsychiatrist and author of the bestselling Mindsight, and parenting expert Tina Payne Bryson demystify the meltdowns and aggravation, explaining the new science of how a child’s brain is wired and how it matures. The “upstairs brain,” which makes decisions and balances emotions, is under construction until the mid-twenties. And especially in young children, the right brain and its emotions tend to rule over the logic of the left brain. No wonder kids can seem—and feel—so out of control. By applying these discoveries to everyday parenting, you can turn any outburst, argument, or fear into a chance to integrate your child’s brain and foster vital growth.
Raise calmer, happier children using twelve key strategies, including:
Name It to Tame It: Corral raging right-brain behavior through left-brain storytelling, appealing to the left brain’s affinity for words and reasoning to calm emotional storms and bodily tension.
Engage, Don’t Enrage: Keep your child thinking and listening, instead of purely reacting.
Move It or Lose It: Use physical activities to shift your child’s emotional state.
Let the Clouds of Emotion Roll By: Guide your children when they are stuck on a negative emotion, and help them understand that feelings come and go.
SIFT: Help children pay attention to the Sensations, Images, Feelings, and Thoughts within them so that they can make better decisions and be more flexible.
Connect Through Conflict: Use discord to encourage empathy and greater social success.
Complete with clear explanations, age-appropriate strategies for dealing with day-to-day struggles, and illustrations that will help you explain these concepts to your child, The Whole-Brain Child shows you how to cultivate healthy emotional and intellectual development so that your children can lead balanced, meaningful, and connected lives.
Benson Fisher thought that a scholarship to Maxfield Academy would be the ticket out of his dead-end life. He was wrong.
Now he’s trapped in a school that’s surrounded by a razor-wire fence. A school where video cameras monitor his every move. Where there are no adults. Where the kids have split into groups in order to survive. Where breaking the rules equals death.
But when Benson stumbles upon the school’s real secret, he realizes that playing by the rules could spell a fate worse than death, and that escape—his only real hope for survival—may be impossible.
The new Abby Abernathy is a good girl. She doesn't drink or swear, and she has the appropriate number of cardigans in her wardrobe. Abby believes she has enough distance from the darkness of her past, but when she arrives at college with her best friend, her path to a new beginning is quickly challenged by Eastern University's Walking One-Night Stand.
Travis Maddox, lean, cut, and covered in tattoos, is exactly what Abby needs—and wants—to avoid. He spends his nights winning money in a floating fight ring, and his days as the ultimate college campus charmer. Intrigued by Abby's resistance to his appeal, Travis tricks her into his daily life with a simple bet. If he loses, he must remain abstinent for a month. If Abby loses, she must live in Travis's apartment for the same amount of time. Either way, Travis has no idea that he has met his match.
You've heard the expression, “It’s the little things that count.” It's more than a simple platitude. Research has shown that integrating little daily practices into your life can actually change the way your brain works.
This guide offers simple things you can do routinely, mainly inside your mind, that will support and increase your sense of security and worth, resilience, effectiveness, well-being, insight, and inner peace. For example, they include: taking in the good, protecting your brain, feeling safer, relaxing anxiety about imperfection, not knowing, enjoying your hands, taking refuge, and filling the hole in your heart. At first glance, you may be tempted to underestimate the power of these seemingly simple practices. But they will gradually change your brain through what’s called experience-dependent neuroplasticity.
Moment to moment, whatever you're aware of—sounds, sensations, thoughts, or your most heartfelt longings—is based on underlying neural activities. This book offers simple brain training practices you can do every day to protect against stress, lift your mood, and find greater emotional resilience.
Just one practice each day can help you to:
With over fifty daily practices you can use anytime, anywhere, Just One Thing is a groundbreaking combination of mindfulness meditation and neuroscience that can help you deepen your sense of well-being and unconditional happiness.
In The Land of Painted Caves, Jean M. Auel brings the ice-age epic Earth's Children series to an extraordinary conclusion. Ayla, one of the most remarkable and beloved heroines in contemporary fiction, continues to explore the world and the people around her with curiosity, insight, and above all, courage.
As the story opens, Ayla, Jondalar, and their infant daughter, Jonayla, are welcomed by the Zelandonii, but problems arise. They face new challenges, not just the ordinary trials of sheer survival, but the complications posed by many groups of people who need to live and work together. The wisdom that Ayla gained from her struggles as an orphaned child, alone in a hostile environment, strengthens her as she moves closer to leadership of the Zelandonia.
Ayla and Jondalar's first priority is the care for their golden-haired child, Jonayla, and the well-being of their amazing animals, Wolf, Whinney, Racer, and Gray. The two participate in hunts to provide food, in travels to Summer Meetings for decision making, and in social activities. Whatever the obstacles, Ayla's inventive spirit produces new ways to lessen the difficulties of daily life: searching for wild edibles to make delicious meals, experimenting with techniques to ease the long journeys the Zelandoni must take, honing her skills as a healer and a leader.
And then, there are the Sacred Caves, the caves that Ayla's mentor—the Donier, the First of the Zelandonia—takes her to see. These caves are filled with remarkable art—paintings of mammoths, lions, aurochs, rhinoceros, reindeer, bison, bear. The powerful, mystical aura within these caves sometimes overwhelms Ayla.
Ayla's final preparations for her initiation as a Zelandoni bring The Land of Painted Caves to a riveting climax. So much time apart from Jondalar has caused him to drift away from her. The rituals themselves bring her close to death. But through those rituals, Ayla gains A Gift of Knowledge so important that it will change the world.
Spellbinding drama, meticulous research, fascinating detail, and superb narrative skill combine to make The Land of Painted Caves a captivating, utterly believable creation of a civilization that resonates long after the reader has turned the last page, and serves as an astonishing end to this beloved saga.
He appeared out of nowhere. They were calling him, the Rootless, because he wasn't a member of the Tribe; he was a creature with no origins, a vague legend. He traveled alone, with no clear plan and a voice in his head that was always there, a remnant of a distant and forgotten past. This story is set in the same universe as the Living Sword Chronicles.
When Eva's film star sister Katrina dies, she leaves California and returns to Cornwall, where they spent their childhood summers, to scatter Katrina's ashes and in doing so return her to the place where she belongs. But Eva must also confront the ghosts from her own past, as well as those from a time long before her own.
The house where she so often stayed as a child is home not only to her old friends, the Halletts, but also to the people who lived there in the eighteenth century. When Eva finally accepts that she is able to slip between centuries and see and talk to the inhabitants from hundreds of years ago, she soon finds herself falling for Daniel Butler, a man who lived - and died - long before she herself was born.
Eva begins to question her place in the present, and in laying her sister to rest, comes to realize that she too must decide where she really belongs, choosing between the life she knows and the past she feels so drawn towards.
The Jewel in the Crown is the first of Paul Scott’s renowned historical novels that “limn the Anglo-Indian world with its lovers, friends, family servants, soldiers, businessmen, murderers and suicides—all involved in one another’s fate” (The New York Times). It opens in 1942 as the British fear both Japanese invasion and Indian demands for independence. On the night after the Indian Congress Party votes to support Gandhi, riots break out and an ambitious police sergeant arrests a young Indian for the alleged rape of the woman they both love.
“What has always astonished me about The Raj Quartet is its sense of sophisticated and total control of its gigantic scenario and highly varied characters . . . The politics are handled with an expertise that intrigues and never bores, and are always seen in terms of individuals.” —New Republic
“Paul Scott’s vision is both precise and painterly.” —The New York Times Book Review
“Few people have written about India quite as seductively, or as intelligently, with a sense of loss but also a sense of responsibility and fallibility.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
The Challenge: Piper has one month to get the rock band Dumb a paying gig.
The Deal: If she does it, Piper will become the band's manager and get her share of the profits.
The Catch: How can Piper possibly manage one egomaniacal pretty boy, one talentless piece of eye candy, one crush, one silent rocker, and one angry girl? And how can she do it when she's deaf?
Piper can't hear Dumb's music, but with growing self-confidence, a budding romance, and a new understanding of the decision her family made to buy a cochlear implant for her deaf baby sister, she discovers her own inner rock star and what it truly means to be a flavor of Dumb.
On the night of Skye’s seventeenth birthday, she meets two enigmatic strangers. Complete opposites—like fire and ice—Asher is dark and wild, while Devin is fair and aloof. Their sudden appearance sends Skye’s life into a tailspin. She has no idea what they want, or why they seem to follow her every move—only that their presence coincides with a flurry of strange events.
Soon she begins to doubt not just the identity of the two boys, but also the truth about her own past. In the dead of a bitingly cold Colorado winter, Skye finds herself coming to terms with the impossible secret that threatens to shatter her world. Torn between Asher, who she can’t help falling for, and Devin, who she can’t stay away from, the consequences of Skye’s choice will reach further than the three of them could ever imagine.
A Beautiful Dark is the first book in a captivating trilogy by debut author Jocelyn Davies.
Around the world, black handprints are appearing on doorways, scorched there by winged strangers who have crept through a slit in the sky. In a dark and dusty shop, a devil's supply of human teeth grows dangerously low. And in the tangled lanes of Prague, a young art student is about to be caught up in a brutal otherworldly war.
Meet Karou. She fills her sketchbooks with monsters that may or may not be real; she's prone to disappearing on mysterious errands, she speaks many languages - not all of them human - and her bright blue hair actually grows out of her head that color. Who is she? That is the question that haunts her, and she's about to find out.
When beautiful, haunted Akiva fixes fiery eyes on her in an alley in Marrakesh, the result is blood and starlight, secrets unveiled, and a star-crossed love whose roots drink deep of a violent past. But will Karou live to regret learning the truth about herself?
The entire school's talking about the gorgeous new math teacher, Mr. Beck. Everyone except Kaylee Cavanaugh. After all, Kaylee's no ordinary high-school junior. She's a banshee—she screams when someone dies. But the next scream might be for Kaylee.
Yeah—it's a shock to her, too. So to distract herself, Kaylee's going to save every girl in school. Because that hot new teacher is really an incubus who feeds on the desire of unsuspecting students. The only girls immune to his lure are Kaylee and Sabine, her boyfriend's needy ex-girlfriend. Now the unlikely allies have to get rid of Mr. Beck…before he discovers they aren't quite human, either.
But Kaylee's borrowed lifeline is nearing its end. And those who care about her will do anything to save her life. Anything.
The stakes have never been higher for the young Blue Bloods of Manhattan. After their brief yet beautiful bonding ceremony in Italy, Schuyler Van Alen and Jack Force depart for Egypt, desperate to find the elusive Gate of Promise before Jack must face his twin, Mimi, for a blood trial. A blood trial that only one of them can survive.
But everything Schuyler thought she knew about the gate turns out to be a lie, and they soon find themselves ensnared in a deadly battle against the demon-born. Schuyler and Jack take up arms, only to realize that there is a much graver threat simmering in the Kingdom of the Dead.
Meanwhile, determined to save the only vampire she still loves, Mimi has followed Kingsley Martin into Hell. With the help of her new human Conduit, Oliver Hazard-Perry, Mimi makes a bargain with the Queen of the Dead that she may soon regret. When the time comes to choose between love and revenge, both Mimi and Oliver will learn the true meaning of sacrifice.
Confronted by danger, betrayal, and loss at every turn, the Blue Bloods must find the will to fight - and love - another day.
Based on a true story, The Book of Negroes tells the story of Aminata, a young girl abducted from her village in Mali aged 11 in 1755. Following a deathly journey on a slave ship where she witnesses the brutal repression of a slave revolt, Aminata is sold to a plantation owner in South Carolina, who rapes her. She is brought to New York, where she escapes her owner, and finds herself helping the British by recording all the freed slaves on the British side in the Revolutionary War in The Book of Negroes (a real historical document that can be found today at the National Archives at Kew).
Aminata is sent to Nova Scotia to start a new life, but finds more hostility, oppression, and tragedy. Separated from her one true love, and suffering the unimaginable loss of both her children who are taken away from her, she eventually joins a group of freed slaves on a harrowing odyssey back to Africa, and ends up in London as a living icon for Wilberforce and the other Abolitionists.
Possessed by the demon of Defeat, Strider cannot lose a challenge without suffering unimaginable pain. For him, nothing stands in the way of victory. Until Kaia, an enchanting Harpy, tempts him to the razor's edge of surrender.
Known among her people as The Disappointment, Kaia must bring home the gold in the Harpy Games or die. Strider is a distraction she can't afford because he has an agenda of his own—steal first prize, an ancient godly artifact, before the winner can be named. But as the competition heats up, only one prize will matter—the love neither had thought possible.
In the Book of Revelation, a man named John has a prophetic dream. He dreams of the final prophecies that will come to pass - and the seven archangels that guard them. Each angel waits to sound their trumpet at God's appointed time, preparing humanity to fight and win the final battle.
2,000 years later, Father Chris Mognahan is a member of the Hetairia Melchizedek, a secret society within the Catholic Church that studies Biblical omens. The society asks Chris to investigate an unusually grotesque crime - a murder on a college campus where the killer's hand literally burned off the victim's face. While the killing seems isolated at first, the society ties the murder to the final Biblical prophecy and a terrifying omen that the order of the prophecies is about to be disrupted.
The final battle is coming too soon - long before humanity is prepared to win it. Suddenly, Chris finds himself fighting against time and hell to keep the prophecies in order and stop an early Armageddon. He is joined by a band of unlikely allies, and together they find themselves in Rome above the Vatican Necropolis - the city of the dead - where the future is revealed to them in ancient texts.
They are not alone, however; an evil as old as time itself hunts them. As they travel across continents on their mission, the demonic force follows relentlessly, waiting in every shadowed corner, and every dark place. As Armageddon descends, Father Chris finds that his only hope lies in a young woman within the group who has a secret gift - and their belief that God Himself may have sent her to keep the final angelic trumpet from sounding out the early end of the Earth.
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.
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.