Rocannon's World, authored by Ursula K. Le Guin, unfolds on a remote world inhabited by three native races: the subterranean Gdemiar, the ethereal Fiia, and the valiant warrior clan, the Liuar. Earth scientist Rocannon has been conducting an ethnological survey on this technologically unsophisticated planet when it is abruptly besieged by a fleet of starships, insurgents against the League of All Worlds.
As the sole survivor of his survey team, Rocannon finds himself stranded among alien cultures. He takes up the mantle of leadership to liberate this newly discovered world from its invaders, becoming a legend in the process, as he wages a resistance that will have tales told of his heroism for ages to come.
With this major new volume, Paul Krugman, today's most widely read economist, studies the past eighty years of American history. From the reforms that tamed the harsh inequality of the Gilded Age to the unraveling of that achievement, and the reemergence of immense economic and political inequality since the 1970s, Krugman delves deep.
Seeking to understand both what happened to middle-class America and what it will take to achieve a "new New Deal", Krugman has created his finest book to date. This work weaves together a nuanced account of three generations of history with sharp political, social, and economic analysis.
This book, written with Krugman's trademark ability to explain complex issues simply, will transform the debate about American social policy. It is a stimulating manifesto offering a compelling historical defense of liberalism and a clarion call for Americans to retake control of their economic destiny.
Warning: this description has not been authorized by Pseudonymous Bosch. As much as he'd love to sing the praises of his book (he is very vain), he wouldn't want you to hear about his brave 11-year old heroes, Cass and Max-Ernest. Or about how a mysterious box of vials, the Symphony of Smells, sends them on the trail of a magician who has vanished under strange (and stinky) circumstances. And he certainly wouldn't want you to know about the hair-raising adventures that follow and the nefarious villains they face. You see, not only is the name of this book secret, the story inside is, too. For it concerns a secret. A Big Secret.
"I never liked jazz music because jazz music doesn't resolve. I used to not like God because God didn't resolve. But that was before any of this happened." ―Donald Miller
In Donald Miller's early years, he was vaguely familiar with a distant God. But when he came to know Jesus Christ, he pursued the Christian life with great zeal. Within a few years he had a successful ministry that ultimately left him feeling empty, burned out, and, once again, far away from God. In this intimate, soul-searching account, Miller describes his remarkable journey back to a culturally relevant, infinitely loving God.
For anyone wondering if the Christian faith is still relevant in a postmodern culture.
For anyone thirsting for a genuine encounter with a God who is real.
For anyone yearning for a renewed sense of passion in life.
Blue Like Jazz is a fresh and original perspective on life, love, and redemption.
In A Great and Terrible Beauty, set in the year 1895, 16-year-old Gemma Doyle's life is irrevocably changed by the suicide of her mother, leading her to leave her home in India for a boarding school in England. Spence Academy for Young Ladies is a stark contrast to her previous life, and Gemma finds herself grappling with loneliness and the burden of guilt.
Gemma is no ordinary girl; she is plagued by visions of the future that disturbingly tend to manifest into reality. Her arrival at Spence is met with coldness, and to complicate matters, she is tailed by a mysterious young man from India whose intentions are unclear. This enigmatic figure seems to have been sent to observe her, but the reasons behind this surveillance are shrouded in mystery.
As Gemma navigates the complex social hierarchy of Spence, she becomes entwined with the school's most influential girls. Together, they delve into the spiritual realm, but this foray could lead to perilous consequences. Gemma must uncover her destiny and understand the connection between her haunting visions and the dark secrets that seem to lurk behind the walls of Spence.
Louis Charles Lynch (also known as Lucy) is sixty years old and has lived in Thomaston, New York, his entire life. He and Sarah, his wife of forty years, are about to embark on a vacation to Italy. Lucy's oldest friend, once a rival for his wife's affection, leads a life in Venice far removed from Thomaston.
Perhaps for this reason Lucy is writing the story of his town, his family, and his own life that makes up this rich and mesmerizing novel, interspersed with that of the native son who left so long ago and has never looked back.
Bridge of Sighs, from the beloved Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Empire Falls, is a moving novel about small-town America that expands Russo's widely heralded achievement in ways both familiar and astonishing.
Boston private detectives Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro are hired to find four-year-old Amanda McCready, abducted from her bed on a warm, summer night. They meet her stoned-out, strangely apathetic mother, her loving aunt and uncle, the mother's dangerous, drug-addled friends, and two cops who've found so many abused or dead children they may be too far over the edge to come back.
Despite enormous public attention, rabid news coverage, and dogged police work, the investigation repeatedly hits a brick wall. Led into a world of drug dealers, child molesters, and merciless executioners, Patrick and Angie are soon forced to face not only the horrors adults can perpetrate on innocents but also their own conflicted feelings about what is best, and worst, when it comes to raising children.
As the Indian summer fades and the autumn chill deepens, Amanda McCready stays gone, banished so completely that she seems never to have existed.
Then another child disappears...
Dennis Lehane takes you into a world of triple crosses, elaborate lies, and shrouded motives, where the villains may be more moral than the victims, the missing should possibly stay missing, and those who go looking for them may not come back alive.
Settle in and turn off the phone. From its haunting opening to its shocking climax, Gone, Baby, Gone is certain to be one of the most thrilling suspense novels you'll read.
Heart of Darkness, originally published in 1902, remains one of the 20th century's most enduring and harrowing works of fiction. Written several years after Joseph Conrad's grueling sojourn in the Belgian Congo, the novel tells the story of Marlow, a seaman who undertakes his own journey into the African jungle to find the tormented white trader Kurtz.
Rich in irony and spellbinding prose, Heart of Darkness is a complex meditation on colonialism, evil, and the thin line between civilization and barbarity. This edition also contains selections from Conrad's Congo Diary of 1890—the first notes, in effect, for the novel which was composed at the end of that decade.
This narrative is a profound exploration of the darkness within humanity, revealing the moral ambiguities of both civilization and savagery, and positioning darkness as both a literal and metaphorical force within the human soul.
Leven Thumps, a powerfully gifted fourteen-year-old from Oklahoma, embarks on an extraordinary journey from Reality to the mystical realm of Foo. In a world where dark dreams threaten to invade and conquer Reality, Leven finds himself at the center of a grand conflict.
Book Three in the series sees the war to unite Foo and Reality intensify. Leven must race across Foo to stop the Secret before the deadly truth is revealed. His journey takes him to the island of Lith, home of the Want—a manic dreammaster who holds the key to Leven's success against a foreboding army of rants and other Foo beings.
If you have the courage, join Leven in this thrilling adventure! Travel to Sycophant Run, survive the Lime Sea, and discover a new gateway to Foo and a hidden threat beneath the soil. The fooseeable adventure promises to keep Foo fans captivated and yearning for more!
The ruthless and brilliant brother Vishous possesses a destructive curse and a frightening ability to see the future. As a member of the Brotherhood, he has no interest in love or emotion, only the battle with the Lessening Society. But when a mortal injury puts him in the care of a human surgeon, Dr. Jane Whitcomb compels him to reveal his inner pain and taste true pleasure for the first time—until a destiny he didn't choose takes him into a future that does not include her...
Fourteen-year-old Cynthia Bigge woke one morning to discover that her entire family—mother, father, brother—had vanished. No note, no trace, no return. Ever.
Now, twenty-five years later, she'll learn the devastating truth. Sometimes it's better not to know...
Cynthia is happily married with a young daughter, a new family. But the story of her old family isn't over. A strange car in the neighborhood, untraceable phone calls, ominous gifts—someone has returned to her hometown to finish what was started twenty-five years ago.
And no one's innocence is guaranteed, not even her own. By the time Cynthia discovers her killer's shocking identity, it will again be too late... even for goodbye.
Since their mother's death, Tip and Teddy Doyle have been raised by their loving, possessive, and ambitious father. As the former mayor of Boston, Bernard Doyle wants to see his sons in politics, a dream the boys have never shared. But when an argument in a blinding New England snowstorm inadvertently causes an accident that involves a stranger and her child, all Bernard Doyle cares about is his ability to keep his children—all his children—safe.
Set over a period of twenty-four hours, Run takes us from the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard to a home for retired Catholic priests in downtown Boston. It shows us how worlds of privilege and poverty can coexist only blocks apart from each other, and how family can include people you've never even met.
As in her bestselling novel Bel Canto, Ann Patchett illustrates the humanity that connects disparate lives, weaving several stories into one surprising and endlessly moving narrative. Suspenseful and stunningly executed, Run is ultimately a novel about secrets, duty, responsibility, and the lengths we will go to protect our children.
Tekkon Kinkreet: Black and White is a compelling tale of street urchins, Black and White, who have skyscraper-sized chips on their shoulders, yet remain fiercely loyal to one another. Black is particularly quick to avenge any slight against his dim-witted pal, White. The citizens of Treasure Town are afraid of them, the police are afraid of them, and even the local yakuza gangsters are afraid of them!
But when the crime boss known as the "Rat" returns to Treasure Town, it looks like there's going to be a rumble... The violence in this unique European-influenced manga title is more mindful than it seems at first glance. The subtle relationships between its unique cast of characters are marked by surprising poignancy.
Max McDaniels lives a quiet life in the suburbs of Chicago, until the day he stumbles upon a mysterious Celtic tapestry. Many strange people are interested in Max and his tapestry. His discovery leads him to Rowan Academy, a secret school where great things await him.
But dark things are waiting, too. When Max learns that priceless artworks and gifted children are disappearing, he finds himself in the crossfire of an ancient struggle between good and evil. To survive, he'll have to rely on a network of agents and mystics, the genius of his roommate, and the frightening power awakening within him.
I took the skull from its evidence bag and gently set it on the stainless steel table. 'Tell me who you are...'
Forensic anthropologist Dr. David Hunter should be at home in London with the woman he loves. Instead, as a favor to a beleaguered colleague, he's on the remote Hebridean island of Runa to inspect a grisly discovery.
Hunter has witnessed death in many guises, but even he is shocked by what he finds: a body almost totally incinerated except for the feet and a single hand. Could it be a textbook case of spontaneous human combustion? The local police are certain it's an accidental death, but Hunter is not convinced. Examining the scorched remains, he finds the evidence he feared. It's clear to him that this was no accident, this was murder.
But as the small, isolated community considers the enormity of Hunter's findings, a catastrophic storm hits the island. The power goes down, communication with the mainland ceases, and then the killing begins in earnest...
Exploding in a series of violent acts and shocking twists, this is the compelling new crime thriller from a brilliant British storyteller.
Months ago, when Kimihiro Watanuki became the indentured servant of the witch Yūko Ichihara, Yūko warned Kimihiro about his attraction to cute young Himawari-chan. But he refused to listen. How could his pretty classmate possibly pose any kind of danger to him?
At last the secret is revealed... and with near-fatal results. The volume includes chapters 59-64, delving into the mysteries and dangers that lie ahead for Watanuki.
Josh Mendel has a secret. Unfortunately, everyone knows what it is. Five years ago, Josh’s life changed drastically. And everyone in his school, his town—seems like the world—thinks they understand. But they don’t—they can’t.
Now, about to graduate from high school, Josh is still trying to sort through the pieces. First, there’s Rachel, the girl he thought he’d lost years ago. She’s back, and she’s determined to be part of his life, whether he wants her there or not.
Then there are college decisions to make, the toughest baseball game of his life coming up, and a coach who won’t stop pushing Josh all the way to the brink. And then there’s Eve. Her return brings with it all the memories of Josh’s past. It’s time for Josh to face the truth about what happened. If only he knew what the truth was...
Rick Dockery was the third-string quarterback for the Cleveland Browns. In the AFC Championship game against Denver, to the surprise and dismay of virtually everyone, Rick actually got into the game. With a 17-point lead and just minutes to go, Rick provided what was arguably the worst single performance in the history of the NFL. Overnight, he became a national laughingstock and, of course, was immediately cut by the Browns and shunned by all other teams.
But all Rick knows is football, and he insists that his agent, Arnie, find a team that needs him. Against enormous odds, Arnie finally locates just such a team and informs Rick that, miraculously, he can in fact now be a starting quarterback – for the mighty Panthers of Parma, Italy.
Yes, Italians do play American football, to one degree or another, and the Parma Panthers desperately want a former NFL player – any former NFL player – at their helm. So Rick reluctantly agrees to play for the Panthers – at least until a better offer comes along – and heads off to Italy. He knows nothing about Parma, has never been to Europe, and doesn’t speak or understand a word of Italian.
To say that Italy holds a few surprises for Rick Dockery would be something of an understatement.
Overachieving and eccentric football manager Brian Clough was on his way to take over at the country's most successful, and most reviled football club: Leeds United, home to a generation of fiercely competitive but ageing players. The battle he'd face there would make or break the club - or him.
David Peace's extraordinarily inventive novel tells the story of a world characterised by fear of failure and hunger for success set in the bleak heart of the 1970s.
Ben Wolf has big things planned for his senior year. Had big things planned. Now what he has is some very bad news and only one year left to make his mark on the world.
How can a pint-sized, smart-ass seventeen-year-old do anything significant in the nowheresville of Trout, Idaho? First, Ben makes sure that no one else knows what is going on—not his superstar quarterback brother, Cody, not his parents, not his coach, no one.
Next, he decides to become the best 127-pound football player Trout High has ever seen; to give his close-minded civics teacher a daily migraine; and to help the local drunk clean up his act.
And then there's Dallas Suzuki. Amazingly perfect, fascinating Dallas Suzuki, who may or may not give Ben the time of day. Really, she's first on the list.
Living with a secret isn't easy, though, and Ben's resolve begins to crumble... especially when he realizes that he isn't the only person in Trout with secrets.
Dexter Morgan is a Miami crime scene investigator who is no stranger to evil deeds, particularly because he occasionally enjoys committing them himself. Guided by his dark Passenger - the voice inside him that helps him stalk his prey - Dexter lives an outwardly normal life adhering to one simple rule: he only kills very bad people.
Dexter slides through life undetected, working as a blood splatter analyst for the Miami Police Department, helping his fiancée raise her two adorable (if somewhat... unique) children, and always planning his next jaunt as Dexter the Dark Avenger under the light of the full moon.
But everything changes when Dexter is called to a gruesome double homicide. Dexter realizes he's dealing with someone far more sinister than he is, sending the Dark Passenger into hiding. And when something scares your friendly neighborhood serial killer, you know it's serious.
More used to inspiring fear than experiencing it, Dexter must investigate while simultaneously coping with his demanding family. If he's to save himself and those around him, Dexter must pose questions he's never dared to ask: Where does evil come from, and does it hide inside everyone?
Lassie is Joe's prize collie and constant companion. But when Joe's father loses his job, Lassie must be sold. Three times she escapes from her new owner, and three times she returns home to Joe, until finally she is taken to the remotest part of Scotland — too far a journey for any dog to make alone. But Lassie is not just any dog.
First published in 1940, Lassie Come-Home has become one of the best-loved dog stories in the world. This beautiful edition showcases the original text and illustrations within a striking new jacket.
It's an offer you can't refuse. Who would not wish to be the man in charge of Ankh-Morpork's Royal Mint and the bank next door? It's a job for life. But, as former con-man Moist von Lipwig is learning, the life is not necessarily for long.
The Chief Cashier is almost certainly a vampire. There's something nameless in the cellar (and the cellar itself is pretty nameless), it turns out that the Royal Mint runs at a loss. A 300 year old wizard is after his girlfriend, he's about to be exposed as a fraud, but the Assassins Guild might get him first. In fact, a lot of people want him dead. Oh. And every day he has to take the Chairman for walkies. Everywhere he looks he's making enemies.
What he should be doing is... Making Money!
Orhan Pamuk’s first book since winning the Nobel Prize, Other Colors is a dazzling collection of essays on his life, his city, his work, and the example of other writers.
Over the last three decades, Pamuk has written, in addition to his seven novels, scores of pieces—personal, critical, and meditative—the finest of which he has brilliantly woven together here. He opens a window on his private life, from his boyhood dislike of school to his daughter’s precocious melancholy, from his successful struggle to quit smoking to his anxiety at the prospect of testifying against some clumsy muggers who fell upon him during a visit to New York City.
From ordinary obligations such as applying for a passport or sharing a holiday meal with relatives, he takes extraordinary flights of imagination; in extreme moments, such as the terrifying days following a cataclysmic earthquake in Istanbul, he lays bare our most basic hopes and fears.
Again and again, Pamuk declares his faith in fiction, engaging the work of such predecessors as Laurence Sterne and Fyodor Dostoyevsky, sharing fragments from his notebooks, and commenting on his own novels. He contemplates his mysterious compulsion to sit alone at a desk and dream, always returning to the rich deliverance that is reading and writing.
By turns witty, moving, playful, and provocative, Other Colors glows with the energy of a master at work and gives us the world through his eyes, assigning every radiant theme and shifting mood its precise shade in the spectrum of significance.
If Naomi had picked tails, she would have won the coin toss. She wouldn't have had to go back for the yearbook camera, and she wouldn't have hit her head on the steps. She wouldn't have woken up in an ambulance with amnesia. She certainly would have remembered her boyfriend, Ace. She might even have remembered why she fell in love with him in the first place. She would understand why her best friend, Will, keeps calling her "Chief." She'd know about her mom's new family. She'd know about her dad's fiancée. She never would have met James, the boy with the questionable past and the even fuzzier future, who tells her he once wanted to kiss her. She wouldn't have wanted to kiss him back.
But Naomi picked heads.
After her remarkable debut, Gabrielle Zevin has crafted an imaginative second novel all about love and second chances.
When we first meet Michael Oher, he is one of thirteen children by a mother addicted to crack; he does not know his real name, his father, his birthday, or how to read or write. He takes up football and school after a rich, white, Evangelical family plucks him from the streets.
Then two great forces alter Oher: the family's love and the evolution of professional football itself into a game in which the quarterback must be protected at any cost. Our protagonist becomes the priceless package of size, speed, and agility necessary to guard the quarterback's greatest vulnerability: his blind side.
#1 bestselling author Karen Kingsbury tells the heartwrenching story of Cody Gunner, a widower fighting for stability, and the woman who wants to help him trust again—even when trust is the most terrifying thing of all.
Still aching over his wife's death, Cody Gunner can't bear the thought of also letting go of his Down's Syndrome brother, Carl Joseph. Cody wants his brother home, where he will be safe and cared for, not out on his own in a world that Cody knows all too well can be heartless and insecure.
So when Carl Joseph's teacher, Elle, begins championing his independence, she finds herself at odds with Cody. But even as these two battle it out, they can't deny the instinctive connection they share, and Cody faces a crisis of the heart. What if Elle is the one woman who can teach Cody that love is still possible? If Cody can let go of his lingering anger, he might just see that sometimes the brightest hope of all lies just beyond the clouds.
Halley's Bible Handbook with the New International Version provides an accessible commentary on the Bible. This text explores the cultural, religious, and geographical settings in which the story of the Bible unfolds.
Now in full color, the twenty-fifth edition offers time-tested help for understanding the Bible—not just with the mind, but also with the heart. It includes a concise Bible commentary, important discoveries in archaeology, related historical data, church history, maps, and more.
Adam Farmer is on a journey - he has to get to Rutterburg with a parcel for his father. But as he travels, he starts to remember the events leading up to this point, memories which are also being prised out in gruelling psychiatric interviews.
What is the secret of Adam Farmer? And what will happen when he finds out?
What if there were a place where you could get magical candy? Moon rocks that made you feel weightless. Jawbreakers that made you unbreakable. Or candy that gave animals temporary human intelligence and communication skills. Imagine what your pet would say!
Four young friends, Nate, Summer, Trevor, and Pigeon, are befriended by Belinda White, the owner of a new candy shop on Main Street. However, the gray-haired, grandmotherly Mrs. White is not an ordinary candy maker. Her confections have magical side effects.
Purposefully, she invites the kids on a special mission to retrieve a hidden talisman under Mt. Diablo Elementary School. However, Mrs. White is not the only magician in town in search of the ancient artifact rumored to be a fountain of youth. She is aware that Mr. Stott, the not-so-ordinary ice cream truck driver, has a few tricks of his own.
When Abigail Thomas’s husband, Rich, was hit by a car, his brain shattered. Subject to rages, terrors, and hallucinations, he must live the rest of his life in an institution. He has no memory of what he did the hour, the day, the year before. This tragedy is the ground on which Abigail had to build a new life.
How she built that life is a story of great courage and great change, of moving to a small country town, of a new family composed of three dogs, knitting, and friendship, of facing down guilt and discovering gratitude. It is also about her relationship with Rich, a man who lives in the eternal present, and the eerie poetry of his often uncanny perceptions.
This wise, plainspoken, beautiful book enacts the truth Abigail discovered in the five years since the accident: You might not find meaning in disaster, but you might, with effort, make something useful of it.
Kristin Burns has lived her life by the philosophy: "Don't think, just shoot"—pictures, that is. Struggling to make ends meet, she works full-time as the nanny for the fabulously wealthy Turnbull family, looking after their two wonderful children and waiting for her glamorous life as a New York photographer to begin.
When her photographs are considered by an elite Manhattan art gallery, it seems she might finally get the chance that will start her career. But Kristin has a major distraction: forbidden love. The man of her dreams is almost hers for keeps. Breathless with an inexhaustible passion and the excitement of being within reach of her goals, Kristen ignores all signs of catastrophe brewing.
Fear exists for a reason. And Kristin can only dismiss the warnings for so long. Searching desperately for the truth through the lens of her camera, she can only hope that it's not too late.
Heaven's Net Is Wide is the new beginning and the grand finale to the beloved Tales of the Otori series. It serves as the prequel to Across the Nightingale Floor, the book that first introduced Lian Hearn's mythical, medieval Japanese world.
This is the story of Lord Otori Shigeru, who has presided over the entire series as a spiritual warrior-godfather. He is the man who saved Takeo and raised him as his own, making him the heir to the Otori clan. This sweeping novel expands on what has only been hinted at before: Shigeru's training in the ways of a warrior and feudal lord, his relationship with the Tribe of mysteriously powerful assassins, the battles that tested his skills and talents, and his fateful meeting with Lady Maruyama.
Heaven's Net Is Wide is an epic tale of warfare, loyalty, love, and heartbreak. It leaves off where Across the Nightingale Floor begins, finally bringing the Otori series full circle. While it both completes and introduces the Tales of the Otori, it also stands on its own as a satisfying, dramatic novel of feudal Japan.
Things have never been easy for Oscar, a sweet but disastrously overweight, lovesick Dominican ghetto nerd. From his home in New Jersey, where he lives with his old-world mother and rebellious sister, Oscar dreams of becoming the Dominican J. R. R. Tolkien and, most of all, of finding love. But he may never get what he wants, thanks to the Fuk\u00fa—the curse that has haunted Oscar's family for generations, dooming them to prison, torture, tragic accidents, and, above all, ill-starred love.
Oscar, still waiting for his first kiss, is just its most recent victim. D\u00edaz immerses us in the tumultuous life of Oscar and the history of the family at large, rendering with genuine warmth and dazzling energy, humor, and insight the Dominican-American experience, and, ultimately, the endless human capacity to persevere in the face of heartbreak and loss. A true literary triumph, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao confirms Junot D\u00edaz as one of the best and most exciting voices of our time.
Eddie Chapman was a charming criminal, a con man, and a philanderer. He was also one of the most remarkable double agents Britain has ever produced. Inside the traitor was a man of loyalty; inside the villain was a hero. The problem for Chapman, his spymasters, and his lovers was to know where one persona ended and the other began.
In 1941, after training as a German spy in occupied France, Chapman was parachuted into Britain with a revolver, a wireless, and a cyanide pill, with orders from the Abwehr to blow up an airplane factory. Instead, he contacted MI5, the British Secret Service. For the next four years, Chapman worked as a double agent, a lone British spy at the heart of the German Secret Service who at one time volunteered to assassinate Hitler for his countrymen.
Crisscrossing Europe under different names, all the while weaving plans, spreading disinformation, and, miraculously, keeping his stories straight under intense interrogation, he even managed to gain some profit and seduce beautiful women along the way.
The Nazis feted Chapman as a hero and awarded him the Iron Cross. In Britain, he was pardoned for his crimes, becoming the only wartime agent to be thus rewarded. Both countries provided for the mother of his child and his mistress.
A gripping story of loyalty, love, and treachery, Agent Zigzag offers a unique glimpse into the psychology of espionage, with its thin and shifting line between fidelity and betrayal.
When thieves find an abandoned child lying in a monster’s footprint, they have no idea that their wilderness discovery will change the course of history. Cloaked in mystery, Auralia grows up among criminals outside the walls of House Abascar, where vicious beastmen lurk in shadow.
There, she discovers an unsettling–and forbidden–talent for crafting colors that enchant all who behold them, including Abascar’s hard-hearted king, an exiled wizard, and a prince who keeps dangerous secrets. Auralia’s gift opens doors from the palace to the dungeons, setting the stage for violent and miraculous change in the great houses of the Expanse.
Auralia’s Colors weaves literary fantasy together with poetic prose, a suspenseful plot, adrenaline-rush action, and unpredictable characters sure to enthrall ambitious imaginations.
Explore new heights of sensuality in this return to the world of the Psy—where two people who know evil intimately must unlock the good within their icy hearts…
As an Arrow, an elite soldier in the Psy Council ranks, Judd Lauren was forced to do terrible things in the name of his people. Now a defector, his dark abilities have made him the most deadly of assassins—cold, pitiless, unfeeling. Until he meets Brenna…
Brenna Shane Kincaid was an innocent before she was abducted—and had her mind violated—by a serial killer. Her sense of evil runs so deep, she fears she could become a killer herself. Then the first dead body is found, victim of a familiar madness. Judd is her only hope, yet her sensual changeling side rebels against the inhuman chill of his personality, even as desire explodes between them. Shocking and raw, their passion is a danger that threatens not only their hearts, but their very lives…
The one thing you can depend on in Cold Sassy, Georgia, is that word gets around--fast. On July 5, 1906, scandal breaks in the small town of Cold Sassy, Georgia, when the proprietor of the general store, E. Rucker Blakeslee, elopes with Miss Love Simpson. He is barely three weeks a widower, and she is only half his age and a Yankee to boot. As their marriage inspires a whirlwind of local gossip, fourteen-year-old Will Tweedy suddenly finds himself eyewitness to a family scandal, and that’s where his adventures begin.
Cold Sassy Tree is the undeniably entertaining and extraordinarily moving account of small-town Southern life in a bygone era. Brimming with characters who are wise and loony, unimpeachably pious and deliciously irreverent, Olive Ann Burns’s classic bestseller is a timeless, funny, and resplendent treasure.
Damaged Portland detective Archie Sheridan spent ten years tracking Gretchen Lowell, a beautiful serial killer, but in the end she was the one who caught him. Two years ago, Gretchen kidnapped Archie and tortured him for ten days, but instead of killing him, she mysteriously decided to let him go.
She turned herself in, and now Gretchen has been locked away for the rest of her life, while Archie is in a prison of another kind—addicted to pain pills, unable to return to his old life, powerless to get those ten horrific days off his mind. Archie's a different person, his estranged wife says, and he knows she's right. He continues to visit Gretchen in prison once a week, saying that only he can get her to confess as to the whereabouts of more of her victims, but even he knows the truth—he can't stay away.
When another killer begins snatching teenage girls off the streets of Portland, Archie has to pull himself together enough to lead the new task force investigating the murders. A hungry young newspaper reporter, Susan Ward, begins profiling Archie and the investigation, which sparks a deadly game between Archie, Susan, the new killer, and even Gretchen.
They need to catch a killer, and maybe somehow then Archie can free himself from Gretchen, once and for all. Either way, Heartsick makes for one of the most extraordinary suspense debuts in recent memory.
Night after night the beautiful woman walked beside the serene waters of Lough Glass. Until the day she disappeared, leaving only a boat drifting upside down on the unfathomable lake that gave the town its name. Ravishing Helen McMahon, the Dubliner with film-star looks and unfulfilled dreams, never belonged in Lough Glass, not the way her genial pharmacist husband Martin belonged, nor their spirited daughter Kit.
Suddenly she is gone and Kit is haunted by the memory of her mother, seen through a window, alone at the kitchen table, tears streaming down her face. Now Kit, too, has secrets: of the night she discovered a letter on Martin’s pillow and burned it, unopened. The night her mother was lost. The night everything changed forever.
Once upon a time there was a war... and a young American who thought of himself as the Quiet American and the Ugly American, and who wished to be neither, who wanted instead to be the Wise American, or the Good American, but who eventually came to witness himself as the Real American and finally as simply the Fucking American. That's me.
This is the story of Skip Sands—spy-in-training, engaged in Psychological Operations against the Vietcong—and the disasters that befall him thanks to his famous uncle, a war hero known in intelligence circles simply as the Colonel. This is also the story of the Houston brothers, Bill and James, young men who drift out of the Arizona desert into a war in which the line between disinformation and delusion has blurred away. In its vision of human folly, and its gritty, sympathetic portraits of men and women desperate for an end to their loneliness, whether in sex or death or by the grace of God, this is a story like nothing in our literature.
Tree of Smoke is Denis Johnson's first full-length novel in nine years, and his most gripping, beautiful, and powerful work to date.
When Dashti, a maid, and Lady Saren, her mistress, are shut in a tower for seven years because of Saren's refusal to marry a man she despises, the two prepare for a very long and dark imprisonment. As food runs low and the days go from broiling hot to freezing cold, it is all Dashti can do to keep them fed and comfortable. With the arrival outside the tower of Saren's two suitors--one welcome, the other decidedly less so--the girls are confronted with both hope and great danger, and Dashti must make the desperate choices of a girl whose life is worth more than she knows.
With Shannon Hale's lyrical language, this little-known classic fairy tale from the Brothers Grimm is reimagined and reset on the central Asian steppes; it is a completely unique retelling filled with adventure and romance, drama and disguise.
In this dark, thrilling fairy tale, it is the wolf who saves the girl. Fell, the dark-furred twin brother of Larka, the heroine of The Sight, must face life without his sister or the rest of his loving pack. He’s a lone wolf now, a “kerl,” an outcast from his kind who shares his sister’s fatal gift for seeing the future and the thoughts of others.
This gift leads him to befriend a young girl, also an outcast from her people. They have a shared destiny: to free the land from a tyrannical ruler who would enslave man and animal alike.
The intrepid Jacky Faber, having once again eluded British authorities, heads west, hoping that no one will recognize her in the wilds of America. There she tricks the tall-tale hero Mike Fink out of his flatboat, equips it as a floating casino-showboat, and heads south to New Orleans, battling murderous bandits, British soldiers, and other scoundrels along the way.
Will Jacky's carelessness and impulsive actions ultimately cause her beloved Jaimy to be left in her wake? Bold, daring, and downright fun, Jacky Faber proves once again that with resilience and can-do spirit, she can wiggle out of any scrape... well, almost.
The Lace Reader is a novel set in the mysterious town of Salem, Massachusetts, a place steeped in history and intrigue. The story revolves around Towner Whitney, a woman descended from a long line of mind readers and fortune tellers who can read the future in the patterns of lace.
Returning to Salem for some rest and relaxation, Towner's life is thrown into turmoil when her beloved aunt drowns under mysterious circumstances. As Towner delves deeper into her family's secrets, she must confront her painful past and the shocking truth about the death of her twin sister.
Through unreliable narratives and a blend of reality and imagination, the novel explores themes of family, memory, and the supernatural. The Whitney women's ability to read lace serves as both a gift and a curse, revealing hidden truths and challenging their perceptions of reality.
As the story unfolds, readers are drawn into a suspenseful, fast-paced tale that questions the boundaries between what is real and what is imagined. The novel's rich, evocative prose casts an enthralling spell, making it a compelling read for those who enjoy a mix of mystery, psychological drama, and historical fiction.
The author of The Deep End of the Ocean delivers a compelling, emotionally charged tale of tragedy, revenge, and redemption.
Set in a close-knit Mormon community, the peace is shattered by two brutal murders. This story explores the depths of human emotion and the journey towards forgiveness and understanding.
The last thing in the world Thom Creed wants is to add to his father's pain, so he keeps secrets. Like that he has special powers. And that he's been asked to join the League - the very organization of superheroes that spurned his dad. But the most painful secret of all is one Thom can barely face himself: he's gay.
But becoming a member of the League opens up a new world to Thom. There, he connects with a misfit group of aspiring heroes, including Scarlett, who can control fire but not her anger; Typhoid Larry, who can make anyone sick with his touch; and Ruth, a wise old broad who can see the future. Like Thom, these heroes have things to hide; but they will have to learn to trust one another when they uncover a deadly conspiracy within the League.
To survive, Thom will face challenges he never imagined. To find happiness, he'll have to come to terms with his father's past and discover the kind of hero he really wants to be.
Reed Brennan arrived at Easton Academy expecting to find an idyllic private school experience — challenging classes, adorably preppy boys, and a chance to create a new life for herself. Instead, she discovered lies, deception, blackmail, and... murder. But, thankfully, the killers were caught, and the nightmare is finally over.
Now, with a new school year ahead of her, Reed steps back on Easton's ivy-covered campus ready to start over. So when the headmaster announces that Billings is forbidden from holding their traditional, secretive initiation, Reed is relieved. She champions the new rules and the six new girls the administration has picked to live in Billings Hall: Constance, Missy, Lorna, Kiki, Astrid, and newcomer Sabine.
But Reed's fellow Billings resident and new nemesis, Cheyenne Martin, believes the changes are a mockery of Billings history. Despite the new rules, Cheyenne vows to keep the old ways alive, no matter what — or who — stands in her way...