National Geographic leads book-loving adventurers on a whirlwind tour of 500 literary landmarks and offers practical trip-planning advice for visiting in person. Peppered with great reading suggestions and little-known tales of literary gossip, this book is the ultimate browser's delight.

Novel Destinations invites readers to follow in the footsteps of much-loved authors, discover the scenes that sparked their imaginations, glimpse the lives they led, and share a bit of the experiences they transformed so eloquently into print.

If you’re looking to indulge in literary adventure, you’ll find all the inspiration and information you need here, along with behind-the-scenes stories such as these:

• After Ernest Hemingway survived two near-fatal plane crashes during an African safari, he perused his obituaries and sipped champagne on a canal-side terrace in Venice.
• Washington Irving's wisteria-draped cottage in the Hudson Valley was once occupied by members of the Van Tassel family, immortalized in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
• A mysterious incident at a stone tower near Dublin made such a vivid impression on James Joyce that he drew on it for the opening scene of Ulysses.
• Sir Arthur Conan Doyle consulted on the mystery of Agatha Christie's 1926 disappearance before she resurfaced under an assumed name in northern England.
• Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The House of the Seven Gables was inspired by a seaside manse in Salem, Massachusetts, infamous witch trials in which his ancestor played a role.

From master storyteller Carlos Ruiz Zafon, author of the international phenomenon The Shadow of the Wind, comes The Angel’s Game — a dazzling new page-turner about the perilous nature of obsession, in literature and in love.

The whole of Barcelona stretched out at my feet and I wanted to believe that when I opened those windows — my new windows — each evening its streets would whisper stories to me, secrets in my ear, that I could catch on paper and narrate to whomever cared to listen…

In an abandoned mansion at the heart of Barcelona, a young man, David Martin, makes his living by writing sensationalist novels under a pseudonym. The survivor of a troubled childhood, he has taken refuge in the world of books and spends his nights spinning baroque tales about the city’s underworld. But perhaps his dark imaginings are not as strange as they seem, for in a locked room deep within the house lie photographs and letters hinting at the mysterious death of the previous owner. Like a slow poison, the history of the place seeps into his bones as he struggles with an impossible love. Close to despair, David receives a letter from a reclusive French editor, Andreas Corelli, who makes him the offer of a lifetime. He is to write a book unlike anything that has ever existed — a book with the power to change hearts and minds. In return, he will receive a fortune, and perhaps more. But as David begins the work, he realizes that there is a connection between his haunting book and the shadows that surround his home.

Once again, Zafon takes us into a dark, gothic universe first seen in The Shadow of the Wind and creates a breathtaking adventure of intrigue, romance, and tragedy. Through a dizzyingly constructed labyrinth of secrets, the magic of books, passion, and friendship blend into a masterful story.

Becky is seven months pregnant with her fourth child when she meets her dream actor, Felix Callahan, by chance. Twelve hours, one elevator ride, and one alcohol-free dinner later, something has happened, though nothing has happened... it isn't sexual. It isn't even quite love.

But soon Felix shows up in the Utah 'burbs to visit, and before they know what's hit them, Felix and Becky are best friends. Really. Becky's husband is pretty cool about it. Her children roll their eyes. Her best friend can't get her head around it. But Felix (think Colin Firth) and Becky have something special... something unusual, something completely impossible to sustain. Or is it?

Shannon Hale's latest novel is at turns hilarious and heartbreaking, completely real, and utterly surreal too. One of those magical stories that explores all the permutations of what happens when your not-so-secret celebrity crush walks right into real life, and changes everything...

Dreamland delves into the tumultuous life of Caitlin, a sixteen-year-old grappling with the disappearance of her older sister. As she navigates this profound loss, Caitlin is drawn into a relationship with Rogerson Biscoe, a boy whose magnetic allure is undeniable but harbors a dangerous side. This association leads Caitlin into a semi-conscious state, where the boundaries between reality and illusion blur, making her everyday life seem distant and unimportant.

The novel explores themes of love, danger, and self-discovery, presenting a compelling narrative that captures the complexity of relationships and the challenging journey towards understanding oneself and one's desires. Sarah Dessen's skillful storytelling invites readers to reflect on the impact of relationships and the difficult choices one must make in the pursuit of happiness and self-identity.

When Cammie "The Chameleon" Morgan visits her roommate Macey in Boston, she thinks she's in for an exciting end to her summer break. After all, she's there to watch Macey's father accept the nomination for vice president of the United States. But when you go to the world's best school (for spies), "exciting" and "deadly" are never far apart. Cammie and Macey soon find themselves trapped in a kidnappers' plot, with only their espionage skills to save them.

As her junior year begins, Cammie can't shake the memory of what happened in Boston, and even the Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women doesn't feel like the safe haven it once did. Shocking secrets and old flames seem to lurk around every one of the mansion's corners as Cammie and her friends struggle to answer the questions, Who is after Macey? And how can the Gallagher Girls keep her safe?

Soon Cammie is joining Bex and Liz as Macey's private security team on the campaign trail. The girls must use their spy training at every turn as the stakes are raised, and Cammie gets closer and closer to the shocking truth.

Pope Joan has all the elements one wants in a historical drama—love, sex, violence, duplicity, and long-buried secrets. Donna Woolfolk Cross brings the Dark Ages to life in all their brutal splendor and shares the dramatic story of a woman whose strength of vision led her to defy the social restrictions of her day.

For a thousand years her existence has been denied. She is the legend that will not die—Pope Joan, the ninth-century woman who disguised herself as a man and rose to become the only female ever to sit on the throne of St. Peter. Now in this riveting novel, Cross paints a sweeping portrait of an unforgettable heroine who struggles against restrictions her soul cannot accept.

Brilliant and talented, young Joan rebels against medieval social strictures forbidding women to learn. When her brother is brutally killed during a Viking attack, Joan takes up his cloak—and his identity—and enters the monastery of Fulda. As Brother John Anglicus, Joan distinguishes herself as a great scholar and healer. Eventually, she is drawn to Rome, where she becomes enmeshed in a dangerous web of love, passion, and politics. Triumphing over appalling odds, she finally attains the highest office in Christendom—wielding a power greater than any woman before or since. But such power always comes at a price...

Bestselling novelist Cullen "Cubby" Greenwich is a lucky man and he knows it. He makes a handsome living doing what he enjoys. His wife, Penny, a children's book author and illustrator, is the love of his life. Together they have a brilliant six-year-old, Milo, affectionately dubbed "Spooky," and a non-collie named Lassie, who's all but part of the family.

So Cubby knows he shouldn't let one bad review of his otherwise triumphant new book get to him — even if it does appear in the nation's premier newspaper and is penned by the much-feared, seldom-seen critic Shearman Waxx. Cubby knows that the best thing to do is ignore the gratuitously vicious, insulting, and inaccurate comments. Penny knows it; even little Milo knows it. If Lassie could talk, she'd tell Cubby to ignore them, too.

Ignore Shearman Waxx and his poison pen is just what Cubby intends to do. Until he happens to learn where the great man is taking his lunch. Cubby just wants to get a good look at the mysterious recluse whose mere opinion can make or break a career — or a life.

But Shearman Waxx isn't what Cubby expects, and neither is the escalating terror that follows what seemed to be an innocent encounter. For Waxx gives criticism; he doesn't take it. He has ways of dealing with those who cross him that Cubby is only beginning to fathom. Soon Cubby finds himself in a desperate struggle with a relentless sociopath, facing an inexorable assault on far more than his life.

The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane is a spellbinding, beautifully written novel that moves between contemporary times and one of the most fascinating and disturbing periods in American history—the Salem witch trials.

Harvard graduate student Connie Goodwin needs to spend her summer doing research for her doctoral dissertation. But when her mother asks her to handle the sale of Connie's grandmother's abandoned home near Salem, she can't refuse. As she is drawn deeper into the mysteries of the family house, Connie discovers an ancient key within a seventeenth-century Bible. The key contains a yellowing fragment of parchment with a name written upon it: Deliverance Dane.

This discovery launches Connie on a quest—to find out who this woman was and to unearth a rare artifact of singular power: a physick book, its pages a secret repository for lost knowledge.

As the pieces of Deliverance's harrowing story begin to fall into place, Connie is haunted by visions of the long-ago witch trials, and she begins to fear that she is more tied to Salem's dark past than she could have ever imagined.

Written with astonishing conviction and grace, The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane travels seamlessly between the witch trials of the 1690s and a modern woman's story of mystery, intrigue, and revelation.

Man in the Dark is Paul Auster’s brilliant, devastating novel about the many realities we inhabit as wars flame all around us.

Seventy-two-year-old August Brill is recovering from a car accident in his daughter’s house in Vermont. When sleep refuses to come, he lies in bed and tells himself stories, struggling to push back thoughts about things he would prefer to forget—his wife’s recent death and the horrific murder of his granddaughter’s boyfriend, Titus.

The retired book critic imagines a parallel world in which America is not at war with Iraq but with itself. In this other America, the twin towers did not fall and the 2000 election results led to secession, as state after state pulled away from the union and a bloody civil war ensued.

As the night progresses, Brill’s story grows increasingly intense, and what he is so desperately trying to avoid insists on being told. Joined in the early hours by his granddaughter, he gradually opens up to her and recounts the story of his marriage. After she falls asleep, he at last finds the courage to revisit the trauma of Titus’s death.

Passionate and shocking, Man in the Dark is a novel of our moment, a book that forces us to confront the blackness of night even as it celebrates the existence of ordinary joys in a world capable of the most grotesque violence.

Georgina Kincaid has been a bad, bad succubus... which should be a good thing. But lately, thanks to her foul mood over breaking up with bestselling writer Seth Mortensen, she's been so wicked that Seattle's über-demon Jerome, decides to "outsource" Georgina to a rival—and have her spy for him in the process.

Being exiled to the frozen north—okay, Vancouver—and leaving Seth in the cozy clutches of his new girlfriend is unpleasant enough. Then Jerome is kidnapped, and all immortals under his control mysteriously lose their powers. One bright spot: with her life-sucking ability gone, there's nothing to keep Georgina from getting down and dirty with Seth—nothing apart from his girlfriend that is. Now, as the supernatural population starts turning on itself, a newly mortal Georgina must rescue her boss and figure out who's been playing them—or all hell will break loose...

Betrayed by their cousins, abandoned by their uncle, and with only the slimmest hint to guide them, fourteen-year-old Amy Cahill and her younger brother, Dan, rush off to Egypt on the hunt for 39 Clues that lead to a source of unimaginable power. But when they arrive, Amy and Dan get something completely unexpected - a message from their dead grandmother, Grace. Did Grace set out to help the two orphans... or are Amy and Dan heading for the most devastating betrayal of them all?

Meet Nikki Maxwell! She's starting eighth grade at a new school—and her very first diary packed with hilarious stories and art in Book One of the #1 New York Times bestselling Dork Diaries series! New school. New mean girl. New crush. New diary so I can spill about all of it…

I put a lot of really personal stuff in this diary along with my sketches and doodles. But, mostly it’s about how TRAUMATIC it was transferring to my new private middle school, Westchester Country Day. And, how a lot of the CCP (Cool, Cute & Popular) kids were really SNOBBY and made my life TOTALLY miserable. People like, oh, I don’t know, maybe…MACKENZIE HOLLISTER!! And, it just so happened that I got stuck with a locker right next to hers. I could NOT believe I had such CRAPPY luck. I knew right then and there it was going to be a VERY, VERY long school year :-( !

13 Elements you will find in the first Emily the Strange novel:

1. Mystery
2. A beautiful golem
3. Souped-up slingshots
4. Four black cats
5. Amnesia
6. Calamity Poker
7. Angry ponies
8. A shady truant officer
9. Top-13 lists
10. A sandstorm generator
11. Doppelgängers
12. A secret mission
13. Earwigs

Emily the Strange: 13 years old. Able to leap tall buildings, probably, if she felt like it. More likely to be napping with her four black cats; or cobbling together a particle accelerator out of lint, lentils, and safety pins; or rocking out on drums/guitar/saxophone/zither; or painting a swirling feral sewer mural; or forcing someone to say "swirling feral sewer mural" 13 times fast . . . and pointing and laughing.

The Story Sisters charts the lives of three sisters–Elv, Claire, and Meg. Each has a fate she must meet alone: one on a country road, one in the streets of Paris, and one in the corridors of her own imagination.

Inhabiting their world are a charismatic man who cannot tell the truth, a neighbor who is not who he appears to be, a clumsy boy in Paris who falls in love and stays there, a detective who finds his heart’s desire, and a demon who will not let go.

What does a mother do when one of her children goes astray? How does she save one daughter without sacrificing the others? How deep can love go, and how far can it take you? These are the questions this luminous novel asks.

At once a coming-of-age tale, a family saga, and a love story of sensual longing, The Story Sisters sifts through the miraculous and the mundane as the girls become women and their choices haunt them, change them and, finally, redeem them.

Wesley the Owl is a funny and poignant story about the unique bond between a biologist, Stacey O'Brien, and a barn owl named Wesley. This remarkable tale spans over two decades, beginning on Valentine's Day 1985, when Stacey first met a four-day-old baby barn owl with nerve damage in one wing.

With a heart full of love and a scientist's eye, Stacey gave Wesley a permanent home, caring for him with a mice-only diet and documenting his life stages. From a helpless ball of fuzz to a playful adolescent and a gorgeous adult owl, Wesley's journey is filled with humor, love, and loyalty.

Stacey shares insights into Wesley's individual personality, intelligence, and playful nature. Their bond deepens as she makes important discoveries about owl behavior and communication, coining the term "The Way of the Owl" to describe his inclinations.

The story also brings us inside the prestigious research community at Caltech, a place filled with eccentric scientists committed to studying and helping animals. As Stacey faces her own life-threatening illness, Wesley's insistent love and courage become a source of strength and rescue.

Enhanced by wonderful photos, Wesley the Owl is an engaging, heartwarming, and often funny story of a complex, emotional, non-human being capable of reason, play, and, most importantly, love and loyalty.

Sixteen-year-old Miranda Merchant is great at science... and not so great with boys. After major drama with her boyfriend and (now ex) best friend, she's happy to spend the summer on small, mysterious Selkie Island, helping her mother sort out her late grandmother's estate.

There, Miranda finds new friends and an island with a mysterious, mystical history, presenting her with facts her logical, scientific mind can't make sense of. She also meets Leo, who challenges everything she thought she knew about boys, friendship... and reality.

Is Leo hiding something? Or is he something that she never could have imagined?

ARE YOU A GIFTED CHILD Looking for special opportunities? When this peculiar ad appears in the newspaper, dozens of children enroll to take a series of mysterious, mind-bending tests. (And you, dear listener, can test your wits right alongside them.) But in the end just four very special children will succeed. Their challenge: to go on a secret mission that only the most intelligent and resourceful children could complete. To accomplish it they will have to go undercover at the Learning Institute for the Very Enlightened, where the only rule is that there are no rules. As our heroes face physical and mental trials beyond their wildest imaginations, they have no choice but to turn to each other for support. But with their newfound friendship at stake, will they be able to pass the most important test of all? Welcome to the mysterious benedict society.

Hannah Rose was not quite 13 years old when she discovered her family was cursed...

The arrival of a mysterious letter changes Hannah’s life forever. One day she is an ordinary teenage girl. The next day she discovers she is heir to a castle in the Scottish highlands—a castle that was cursed more than four hundred and forty years ago.

The curse has haunted her family for generations, culminating in the disappearance of Hannah’s father the day after she was born. A prophecy tells of a Red Rose who will save a Black Rose, solve the puzzle ring, and break the curse. Red-haired Hannah is determined to be the one.

Yet, to break the curse, she must go back in time to the last tumultuous days of Mary, Queen of Scots... a time when witches were burnt and queens were betrayed and the dark forces of wild magic still stalked the land...

"Don't worry, Anna. I'll tell her, okay? Just let me think about the best way to do it."

"Okay."

"Promise me? Promise you won't say anything?"

"Don't worry." I laughed. "It's our secret, right?"

According to her best friend Frankie, twenty days in Zanzibar Bay is the perfect opportunity to have a summer fling, and if they meet one boy every day, there's a pretty good chance Anna will find her first summer romance. Anna lightheartedly agrees to the game, but there's something she hasn't told Frankie---she's already had that kind of romance, and it was with Frankie's older brother, Matt, just before his tragic death one year ago.

Beautifully written and emotionally honest, Twenty Boy Summer is a debut novel that explores what it truly means to love someone and what it means to grieve, and ultimately, how to make the most of every single moment this world has to offer.

The year is 1984 and the city is Tokyo.

A young woman named Aomame follows a taxi driver’s enigmatic suggestion and begins to notice puzzling discrepancies in the world around her. She has entered, she realizes, a parallel existence, which she calls 1Q84 —“Q is for ‘question mark.’ A world that bears a question.”

Meanwhile, an aspiring writer named Tengo takes on a suspect ghostwriting project. He becomes so wrapped up with the work and its unusual author that, soon, his previously placid life begins to come unraveled.

A love story, a mystery, a fantasy, a novel of self-discovery, a dystopia to rival George Orwell’s—1Q84 is Haruki Murakami’s most ambitious undertaking yet: an instant best seller in his native Japan, and a tremendous feat of imagination from one of our most revered contemporary writers.

Burnt Shadows is an epic narrative beginning on August 9, 1945, in Nagasaki, and ending in a prison cell in the US in 2002. The story unfolds as a man waits to be sent to Guantanamo Bay. At the center of this tale is Hiroko Tanaka, a young woman of twenty-one, deeply in love with her fiancé, Konrad Weiss.

On the fateful day, as Hiroko stands on her veranda, wrapped in a kimono adorned with three black cranes, her world is irrevocably changed by the atomic bomb that obliterates everything she holds dear. All that remains are the bird-shaped burns on her back, a stark reminder of the world she has lost.

In search of new beginnings, Hiroko journeys to Delhi two years later, where her life becomes intertwined with Konrad’s half-sister, Elizabeth, her husband, James Burton, and their employee Sajjad Ashraf, who teaches her Urdu. With the partition of India and the creation of Pakistan, Hiroko finds herself displaced once more, navigating a world where old wars are replaced by new conflicts.

The shadows of history—both personal and political—are cast over the interrelated worlds of the Burtons, the Ashrafs, and the Tanakas. These families are transported from Pakistan to New York and, in the novel’s astonishing climax, to Afghanistan in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. The ties binding these families over decades and generations are tested to the extreme, with unforeseeable consequences.

Before I Die tells the story of Tessa, a young teenage girl who has only months to live. In this brilliantly crafted novel, which is both heartbreaking yet life-affirming, Tessa compiles a list. It’s her To Do Before I Die list. And number one is Sex. Released from the constraints of ‘normal’ life, Tessa tastes new experiences to make her feel alive while her failing body struggles to keep up.

Tessa’s feelings, her relationships with her father and brother, her estranged mother, her best friend, and her new boyfriend, all are painfully crystallized in the precious weeks before Tessa’s time finally runs out.

"I've got my entire life planned out for the next ten years — including my PhD and Pulitzer Prize," claims 16-year-old overachiever Vassar Spore, daughter of equally ambitious parents, who in true overachiever fashion named her after an elite women's college.

Vassar expects her sophomore summer to include AP and AAP (Advanced Advanced Placement) classes. Surprise! Enter a world-traveling relative who sends her plans into a tailspin when she blackmails Vassar's parents into forcing their only child to backpack with her through Southeast Asia.

On a journey from Malaysia to Cambodia to the remote jungles of Laos, Vassar sweats, falls in love, hones her outdoor survival skills — and uncovers a family secret that turns her whole world upside-down. Vassar Spore can plan on one thing: she'll never be the same again.

The year is 2033. The world has been reduced to rubble. Humanity is nearly extinct. The half-destroyed cities have become uninhabitable through radiation. Beyond their boundaries, they say, lie endless burned-out deserts and the remains of splintered forests. Survivors still remember the past greatness of humankind. But the last remains of civilisation have already become a distant memory, the stuff of myth and legend.

More than 20 years have passed since the last plane took off from the earth. Rusted railways lead into emptiness. The ether is void and the airwaves echo to a soulless howling where previously the frequencies were full of news from Tokyo, New York, Buenos Aires. Man has handed over stewardship of the earth to new life-forms. Mutated by radiation, they are better adapted to the new world. Man's time is over. A few score thousand survivors live on, not knowing whether they are the only ones left on earth.

They live in the Moscow Metro - the biggest air-raid shelter ever built. It is humanity's last refuge. Stations have become mini-statelets, their people uniting around ideas, religions, water-filters - or the simple need to repulse an enemy incursion. It is a world without a tomorrow, with no room for dreams, plans, hopes. Feelings have given way to instinct - the most important of which is survival. Survival at any price.

VDNKh is the northernmost inhabited station on its line. It was one of the Metro's best stations and still remains secure. But now a new and terrible threat has appeared. Artyom, a young man living in VDNKh, is given the task of penetrating to the heart of the Metro, to the legendary Polis, to alert everyone to the awful danger and to get help. He holds the future of his native station in his hands, the whole Metro - and maybe the whole of humanity.

Pearl and May are sisters, living carefree lives in Shanghai, the Paris of Asia. But when Japanese bombs fall on their beloved city, they set out on the journey of a lifetime, one that will take them through the Chinese countryside, in and out of the clutch of brutal soldiers, and across the Pacific to the shores of America.

In 1937, Shanghai is the Paris of Asia, a city of great wealth and glamour, the home of millionaires and beggars, gangsters and gamblers, patriots and revolutionaries, artists and warlords. Thanks to the financial security and material comforts provided by their father’s prosperous rickshaw business, twenty-one-year-old Pearl Chin and her younger sister, May, are having the time of their lives. Though both sisters wave off authority and tradition, they couldn’t be more different: Pearl is a Dragon sign, strong and stubborn, while May is a true Sheep, adorable and placid. Both are beautiful, modern, and carefree... until the day their father tells them that he has gambled away their wealth and that in order to repay his debts he must sell the girls as wives to suitors who have traveled from California to find Chinese brides.

As Japanese bombs fall on their beloved city, Pearl and May set out on the journey of a lifetime, one that will take them through the Chinese countryside, in and out of the clutch of brutal soldiers, and across the Pacific to the shores of America. In Los Angeles they begin a fresh chapter, trying to find love with the strangers they have married, brushing against the seduction of Hollywood, and striving to embrace American life even as they fight against discrimination, brave Communist witch hunts, and find themselves hemmed in by Chinatown’s old ways and rules.

When a murdered woman is found in the city of Beszel, somewhere at the edge of Europe, it looks to be a routine case for Inspector Tyador Borlú of the Extreme Crime Squad. But as he investigates, the evidence points to conspiracies far stranger and more deadly than anything he could have imagined.

Borlú must travel from the decaying Beszel to the only metropolis on Earth as strange as his own. This is a border crossing like no other, a journey as psychic as it is physical, a shift in perception, a seeing of the unseen. His destination is Beszel’s equal, rival, and intimate neighbor, the rich and vibrant city of Ul Qoma. With Ul Qoman detective Qussim Dhatt, and struggling with his own transition, Borlú is enmeshed in a sordid underworld of rabid nationalists intent on destroying their neighboring city, and unificationists who dream of dissolving the two into one. As the detectives uncover the dead woman’s secrets, they begin to suspect a truth that could cost them and those they care about more than their lives. What stands against them are murderous powers in Beszel and in Ul Qoma: and, most terrifying of all, that which lies between these two cities.

Casting shades of Kafka and Philip K. Dick, Raymond Chandler and 1984, The City & the City is a murder mystery taken to dazzling metaphysical and artistic heights.

Monday, 24 May, 11.32 a.m. Ted and Kat watch their cousin Salim get on board the London Eye. He turns and waves as the pod rises from the ground.

Monday, 24 May, 12.02 p.m. The pod lands and the doors open. People exit in all shapes and sizes – but where is Salim?

Ted and his older sister Kat become sleuthing partners since the police are having no luck. Despite their prickly relationship, they overcome their differences to follow a trail of clues across London in a desperate bid to find their cousin.

Ultimately, it comes down to Ted, whose brain runs on its own unique operating system, to find the key to the mystery.

Nicholas Flamel's heart almost broke as he watched his beloved Paris crumble before him. The city was destroyed by Dee and Machiavelli, but Flamel played his own role in the destruction. Sophie and Josh Newman show every sign of being the twins of prophecy, and Flamel had to protect them and the pages from the Dark Elders.

But Nicholas grows weaker with each passing day. Perenelle is still trapped in Alcatraz, and now that Scatty has gone missing, the group is without protection. Except for Clarent—the twin sword to Excalibur. But Clarent’s power is unthinkable, its evil making it nearly impossible to use without its darkness seeping into the soul of whoever wields it.

If he hopes to defeat Dee, Nicholas must find an Elder who can teach Josh and Sophie the third elemental magic—Water Magic. The problem? The only one who can do that is Gilgamesh, and he is quite, quite insane.

Wicked Plants is an enthralling exploration of the world's most dangerous and diabolical plants. A tree that sheds poison daggers; a glistening red seed that stops the heart; a shrub that causes paralysis; a vine that strangles; and a leaf that triggered a war.

In this captivating book, Amy Stewart takes on over two hundred of Mother Nature’s most appalling creations. It’s an A to Z of plants that kill, maim, intoxicate, and otherwise offend. You’ll learn which plants to avoid (like the exploding shrubs), which plants make themselves exceedingly unwelcome (like the vine that ate the South), and which ones have been killing for centuries (like the weed that killed Abraham Lincoln's mother).

Menacing botanical illustrations and splendidly ghastly drawings create a fascinating portrait of the evildoers that may be lurking in your own backyard. Drawing on history, medicine, science, and legend, this compendium of bloodcurdling botany will entertain, alarm, and enlighten even the most intrepid gardeners and nature lovers.

New York City. Two in the morning. A subway car heading uptown. Jack Reacher, plus five other passengers. Four are okay. The fifth isn’t. And if you think Reacher isn’t going to get involved... then you don’t know Jack.

Susan Mark, the fifth passenger, had a big secret, and her plain little life was being watched in Washington, California, and Afghanistan—by dozens of people with one thing in common: They’re all lying to Reacher. A little. A lot. Or just enough to get him killed.

A race has begun through the streets of Manhattan, a maze crowded with violent, skilled soldiers on all sides of a shadow war. For Jack Reacher, a man who trusts no one and likes it that way, the finish line comes when you finally get face-to-face and look your worst enemy in the eye.

The time is World War II. The place is a brutal prison camp deep in Japanese-occupied territory. Here, within the seething mass of humanity, one man, an American corporal, seeks dominance over both captives and captors alike. His weapons are human courage, unblinking understanding of human weaknesses, and total willingness to exploit every opportunity to enlarge his power and corrupt or destroy anyone who stands in his path.

Summer break is over, and Raven is hardly eager to be returning to Dullsville High. Not only does school mean daily interaction with the preppy pest Trevor Mitchell, but her sleep-filled days and romantic nights with her immortal boyfriend, Alexander, must come to an end.

Plus, the shock of morning classes isn't the only change in store. An unexpected letter turns up at Alexander's mansion, announcing his parents will be coming to town. And once they arrive, just about everyone has had a sighting of the macabre couple except Raven. What could be delaying Alexander from introducing Raven to them? Could Alexander be hiding something about his parents' homecoming?

When Raven is finally invited to the most thrilling dinner party of her life, the next turn of events could transform her entire future with Alexander.

The sixth book in Ellen Schreiber's bestselling Vampire Kisses series takes an unusual twist in the continuing romance of Raven and Alexander.

Introducing the first eight volumes of the fan-favorite, New York Times Best Seller series collected into one massive paperback collection.

In a world ruled by the dead, we are forced to finally start living. With The Walking Dead #1-48, this compendium features more than one thousand pages chronicling the start of Robert Kirkman's Eisner Award-winning story of zombie horror, from Rick Grimes waking up alone in a hospital, his band of survivors seeking refuge on an isolated farm and the controversial introduction of Woodbury despot, The Governor.

A field of corpses, laid out in a macabre display… A serial killer who confounds even the most seasoned profilers… A doctor whose life has been shattered by crime—plunged into the heart of a shocking investigation…

In this masterful new novel by Simon Beckett, #1 internationally bestselling author of Written in Bone and The Chemistry of Death, forensic anthropologist David Hunter is thrust into his first murder investigation on U.S. soil—and his most devastating case yet.

In the heat of a Tennessee summer, Dr. Hunter has come to Knoxville’s legendary “Body Farm”—the infamous field laboratory where law enforcement personnel study real corpses—to escape London and the violence that nearly destroyed his life. He’s also here to find out if he’s still up to the job of sorting through death in all its strange and terrible forms.…

Hunter will soon find his answer when he’s called to a crime scene in a remote Smoky Mountain cabin—a scene as grisly as it is bizarre. The body is taped to a table. Everything about the crime scene—the wounds, the decomposition, the microscopic evidence—quickly short-circuits the tools and methods of forensic experts.

Within days, Hunter knows he’s dealing with a serial killer, someone intimately familiar with the intricacies of forensics. All around him, egos and hierarchies clash—from the boasts of a renowned criminal profiler to the dogged work of a young female investigator—but fate keeps pushing Hunter further into the heart of the manhunt. And the killer keeps coming up with surprises: booby-trapping corpses, faking times of death, swapping bodies—finally turning his sights on Hunter himself.…

An electrifying race against time, a fascinating journey into the world of forensic science, and a terrifying portrait of a killer in love with death itself, Whispers of the Dead is a thriller of the highest order.

Oh. My. Gods. is a modern girl's comedic odyssey in a school filled with the descendants of Greek gods. When Phoebe's mom returns from Greece with a new husband and moves them to an island in the Aegean, Phoebe's plans for her senior year and track season are ancient history.

Now she must attend the uber exclusive academy, where admission depends on pedigree, namely, ancestry from Zeus, Hera, and other Greek gods. That's right, they're real, not myth, and their teen descendants are like the classical heroes: supersmart and super beautiful with a few superpowers. And now they're on her track team!

Armed only with her Nikes and the will to win, Phoebe races to find her place among the gods.

In Strange Angels, Dru Anderson has what her grandmother called “the touch.” This comes in handy when you’re traveling from town to town with your dad, hunting ghosts, suckers, wulfen, and the occasional zombie. Then her dad turns up dead—but still walking—and Dru knows she’s next. Even worse, she’s got two guys hungry for her affections, and they’re not about to let the fiercely independent Dru go it alone. Will Dru discover just how special she really is before coming face-to-fang with whatever—or whoever—is hunting her?

In one short week . . . three lives change.

Rhiannon is devastated after the breakup with her boyfriend and wants him back. Nicole's ex is still in the picture, but she can't help having a new crush. James and Rhiannon are just friends, though he may try to take it to the next level.

Will their desire to take a mean girl down a notch bring these three friends what they want . . . and more?

Set during one life-altering week and told in three realistic perspectives, this engaging, witty novel by the author of When It Happens shows the ups and downs of love, friendship, and karma.

It's Dade's last summer at home. He has a crappy job at Food World, a "boyfriend" who won't publicly acknowledge his existence (maybe because Pablo also has a girlfriend), and parents on the verge of a divorce. College is Dade's shining beacon of possibility, a horizon to keep him from floating away.

Then he meets the mysterious Alex Kincaid. Falling in real love finally lets Dade come out of the closet - and, ironically, ignites a ruthless passion in Pablo. But just when true happiness has set in, tragedy shatters the dreamy curtain of summer, and Dade will use every ounce of strength he's gained to break from his past and start fresh with the future.

His past. Her future. Can love bring them together in time?

Abby's senior year of high school is textbook perfect, until she meets Dante Alexander, a foreign-exchange student from Italy. Time behaves differently when they are together - too fast, too slow, or seeming to stop entirely.

When the band Zero Hour performs at the local hangout, they exert a bizarre influence over their audience, ensnaring Abby's best friend, Valerie.

Dante helped Leonardo Da Vinci build a time machine, only to be falsely accused of being a traitor and sent over 500 years into the future as punishment.

As past and present collide, Abby learns she holds a special power over time itself.

Pendergast - the world's most enigmatic FBI Special Agent - returns to New York City to investigate a murderous cult.

William Smithback Jr., a prominent New York Times reporter, was killed in a brutal attack in his Upper West Side apartment. His wife, Nora Kelly, an archaeologist at the Museum of Natural History, was injured as well. Multiple eyewitnesses identified the assailant as a neighbor in the building, Colin Fearing: a man who, by all reports, was dead and buried ten days ago.

While Captain Laura Hayward leads the official investigation, Pendergast and Lieutenant Vincent D'Agosta undertake their own private—and decidedly unorthodox—quest for the truth. Their serpentine journey takes them to an enclave of Manhattan they never imagined could exist: a secretive, reclusive cult of Obeah and voodoo which no outsiders have ever survived.

Calpurnia Virginia Tate is eleven years old in 1899 when she wonders why the yellow grasshoppers in her Texas backyard are so much bigger than the green ones. With a little help from her notoriously cantankerous grandfather, an avid naturalist, she figures out that the green grasshoppers are easier to see against the yellow grass, so they are eaten before they can get any larger.

As Callie explores the natural world around her, she develops a close relationship with her grandfather, navigates the dangers of living with six brothers, and comes up against just what it means to be a girl at the turn of the century.

Debut author Jacqueline Kelly deftly brings Callie and her family to life, capturing a year of growing up with unique sensitivity and a wry wit.

Thirteen-year-old Johnny Merrimon had the perfect life: a warm home and loving parents; a twin sister, Alyssa, with whom he shared an irreplaceable bond. He knew nothing of loss, until the day Alyssa vanished from the side of a lonely street.

Now, a year later, Johnny finds himself isolated and alone, failed by the people he'd been taught since birth to trust. No one else believes that Alyssa is still alive, but Johnny is certain that she is—confident in a way that he can never fully explain.

Determined to find his sister, Johnny risks everything to explore the dark side of his hometown. It is a desperate, terrifying search, but Johnny is not as alone as he might think. Detective Clyde Hunt has never stopped looking for Alyssa either, and he has a soft spot for Johnny. He watches over the boy and tries to keep him safe, but when Johnny uncovers a dangerous lead and vows to follow it, Hunt has no choice but to intervene.

Then a second child goes missing...

Undeterred by Hunt's threats or his mother's pleas, Johnny enlists the help of his last friend, and together they plunge into the wild, to a forgotten place with a history of violence that goes back more than a hundred years. There, they meet a giant of a man, an escaped convict on his own tragic quest. What they learn from him will shatter every notion Johnny had about the fate of his sister; it will lead them to another far place, to a truth that will test both boys to the limit.

Traveling the wilderness between innocence and hard wisdom, between hopelessness and faith, The Last Child leaves all categories behind and establishes John Hart as a writer of unique power.

Five hundred years ago, Michelangelo began work on a painting that became one of the most famous pieces of art in the world—the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Every year, millions of people come to see Michelangelo's Sistine ceiling, which is the largest fresco painting on earth in the holiest of Christianity's chapels; yet there is not one single Christian image in this vast, magnificent artwork.

The Sistine Secrets tells the fascinating story of how Michelangelo embedded messages of brotherhood, tolerance, and freethinking in his painting to encourage "fellow travelers" to challenge the repressive Roman Catholic Church of his time.

Driven by the truths he had come to recognize during his years of study in private nontraditional schooling in Florence, truths rooted in his involvement with Judaic texts as well as Kabbalistic training that conflicted with approved Christian doctrine, Michelangelo needed to find a way to let viewers discern what he truly believed. He could not allow the Church to forever silence his soul. And what the Church would not permit him to communicate openly, he ingeniously found a way to convey to those diligent enough to learn his secret language.

Blech and Doliner reveal what Michelangelo meant in the angelic representations that brilliantly mocked his papal patron, how he managed to sneak unorthodox heresies into his ostensibly pious portrayals, and how he was able to fulfill his lifelong ambition to bridge the wisdom of science with the strictures of faith. The Sistine Secrets unearths secrets that have remained hidden in plain sight for centuries.

It has all been leading to this. Every victory. Every loss. All the thrills and sadness; the hope and despair. Bobby Pendragon's heart-pounding journey through time and space has brought him to this epic moment. He and his fellow Travelers must join forces for one last desperate battle against Saint Dane. At stake is not only the tenth and final territory, but all that ever was or will be. Everywhere.

This is the war for Halla. Every question is answered. Every truth is revealed. The final battle has begun.

Thirteen-year-old Kyra has grown up in an isolated community without questioning the fact that her father has three wives and she has twenty brothers and sisters. That is, without questioning it much - if you don't count her visits to the Ironton County Mobile Library on Wheels to read forbidden books, or her secret meetings with Joshua, the boy she hopes to choose for herself instead of having a man chosen for her.

But when the Prophet decrees that Kyra must marry her sixty-year-old uncle - who already has six wives - she must make a desperate choice in the face of violence and her own fears of losing her family forever.

Es la hora. Ya no hay vuelta atrás. Los juegos van a comenzar. Los tributos deben salir a la Arena y luchar por sobrevivir. Ganar significa fama y riqueza, perder significa la muerte segura... ¡Que empiecen los Septuagésimo Cuartos Juegos del Hambre!

¿Podrías sobrevivir tú solo en la naturaleza salvaje rodeado de quienes quieren asegurarse de que no vives para ver el amanecer? Un pasado de guerras ha dejado los 12 distritos que dividen Panem bajo el poder tiránico del “Capitolio”. Sin libertad y en la pobreza, nadie puede salir de los límites de su distrito. Sólo una chica de 16 años, Katniss Everdeen, osa desafiar las normas para conseguir comida. Sus principios se pondrán a prueba con “Los juegos del hambre”, espectáculo televisado que el Capitolio organiza para humillar a la población. Cada año, 2 representantes de cada distrito serán obligados a subsistir en un medio hostil y luchar a muerte entre ellos hasta que quede un solo superviviente. Cuando su hermana pequeña es elegida para participar, Katniss no duda en ocupar su lugar, decidida a demostrar con su actitud firme y decidida, que aún en las situaciones más desesperadas hay lugar para el amor y el respeto.

Things aren't pretty for Emerson Watts. Em was sure there couldn't be anything worse than being a brainiac in the body of a teenaged supermodel. But it turned out she was wrong.

It turns out she has a mother who's gone mysteriously missing, a brother who's shown up on her doorstep demanding answers, a former best friend who's intent on destroying Stark Enterprises, and a British heartthrob who's written a song about her that's topping the charts.

How can Em balance all that with school and runway shows - especially when she's got ex-boyfriends crawling out of the woodwork who want more than just a photo op, a sister who is headed to the high school cheerleading championships, and a company she represents that seems to be turning to the dark side...

Not to mention trying to convince the love of her life that models aren't really airheads after all... especially one model in particular.

But then, nobody said it was going to be easy being Nikki.

The vamps have been out for years, and now the weres and shifters have decided to follow the lead of the undead and reveal their existence to the ordinary world. Sookie Stackhouse already knows about them, of course - her brother turns into a panther at the full moon, she's friend to the local were pack, and Sam, her boss at Merlotte's bar, is a shapeshifter.

The great revelation goes well at first - then the horribly mutilated body of a were-panther is found in the parking lot of Merlotte's, and Sookie agrees to use her telepathic talent to track down the murderer. But there is a far greater danger than this killer threatening Bon Temps: a race of unhuman beings, older, more powerful, and far more secretive than the vampires or the werewolves, is preparing for war. And Sookie is an all-too-human pawn in their ages-old battle...