Follow Jim as he and his friend try to track down the missing Christmas tree decorations which seemed to have mysteriously disappearedJim had waited six years for this, the day he is in sixth grade and finally gets to decorate the school christmas tree. Everything is set and the class is ready but where are the ornaments?. Will Jim find them in time to decorate the school tree for christmas? while he find them at all?

The alien virus arrived on Earth just after World War II - and the world was never the same. For those who become infected, there are two results: death, or transformation. And depending on the recipient, death is sometimes the preferable outcome. Only a few lucky ones become super-human "aces" as a side effect of the virus; the rest are turned into horrible, grotesque "jokers." It's a strange and wonderful, terrible and terrifying world where anything can go. A world that, in a twist of fate, could lie just outside your door. A world of Wild Cards.

The first career retrospective of terrifying stories by "one of the greatest writers of the 20th century" (Ray Bradbury), edited by award-winning author Victor LaValle. Among the greats of 20th-century horror and fantasy, few names stand above Richard Matheson. Though known by many for novels like I Am Legend and his sixteen Twilight Zone episodes, Matheson truly shines in his chilling, masterful short stories. Since his first story appeared in 1950, virtually every major writer of science fiction, horror, and fantasy has fallen under his influence, including Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, Peter Straub, and Joe Hill, as well as filmmakers like Stephen Spielberg and J.J. Abrams. Matheson revolutionized horror by taking it out of Gothic castles and strange cosmos and setting it in the darkened streets and suburbs we recognize as our own. He infused tales of the fantastic and supernormal with dark explorations of human nature, delving deep into the universal dread of feeling alone and threatened in a dangerous world. The Best of Richard Matheson brings together his greatest hits as chosen by Victor LaValle, an expert on horror fiction and one of its brightest talents, marking the first major overview of Matheson's legendary career.

They say a painting can have a life of its own…   In the case of Ghosts in the Mind by Henry Sebastian Hubert, that's more than just an expression. This painting is reputed to come to life—and to bring death. The artist was a friend of Lord Byron and Mary Shelley, joining them in Switzerland during 1816, "the year without a summer." That was when they all explored themes of horror and depravity in their art….  Now, almost two hundred years later, the painting appears in New Orleans. Wherever it goes, death seems to follow.   Danielle Cafferty and Michael Quinn, occasional partners in solving crime, are quickly drawn into the case. They begin to make connections between that summer in Switzerland and this spring in Louisiana. Danni, the owner of an eccentric antiques shop, and Quinn, a private detective, have discovered that they have separate but complementary talents when it comes to investigating unusual situations.  Trying to blend their personal relationship with the professional lives they've stumbled into, they learn how much they need each other. Especially as they confront this work of art—and evil. The people in the portrait might be dead, but something seems to wake them and free them to commit bloody crimes. Cafferty and Quinn must discover what that is. And they have to destroy it—before it destroys them.

Rudyard Kipling, winner of the Nobel Prize in literature in 1907, has long been considered an important and vibrant, even controversial, storyteller and poet. The Wish House and Other Stories is a collection of Kipling’s finest works, including the stories “In the House of Suddhoo,” “The Disturber of Traffic,” and “The Eye of Allah,” the poems “The Runners,” “The Return of the Children,” and “The Last Ode,” and his famous story about Afghanistan, “The Man Who Would Be King.” Each piece was selected by poet and scholar Craig Raine, who writes in his Preface, “We need to think about Kipling. He is our greatest short-story writer, but one whose achievement is more complex and surprising than even his admirers recognize.” From the Trade Paperback edition.

Tavia Michaels has discovered that she’s an Earthbound—a fallen goddess with the power to remake the Earth—and that a rival faction of Earthbounds, the Reduciata, has created a virus that is literally wiping swaths of the planet out of existence. Tavia is captured and imprisoned before she can act on this information, along with her eternal lover, Logan. Huddled in a claustrophobic cell, they lose track of the days, their attempts to escape proving as ephemeral as Tavia’s newly gestating powers. But then Tavia and Logan are mysteriously rescued. . . . They’re brought to the underground headquarters of the Curatoria, another group of Earthbounds that Tavia doesn’t fully trust. There, she’s told that she can save the Earth before it disappears. She agrees. Tavia quickly realizes that she isn’t like other Earthbound, and as her abilities continue to awaken, they begin to threaten her centuries-long relationship with Logan. When Benson—Tavia’s former best friend and romantic interest—appears at Curatoria headquarters, Tavia will again have to make a choice about who to be with even as she tries to stop the virus that is destroying the world and uncover the truth about the two Earthbound organizations that have her tangled up in their webs.

A sample of offerings from international fantasy superstar Andrzej Sapkowski, and the perfect introduction to his work. Best known for his series of stories and novels about Geralt, the Witcher, Sapkowski is one of the most successful fantasy authors in the world.Contains: 2 complete Witcher short stories taken from THE LAST WISH, the first chapter of BLOOD OF ELVES, the first Witcher novel, an exclusive sneak peak at BAPTISM OF FIRE, the third full-length book in the series, and a non-Witcher short story "The Malady."

Alive and hiding in South America, the fiendish Nazi Dr. Josef Mengele gathers a group of former colleagues for a horrifying project—the creation of the Fourth Reich. Barry Kohler, a young investigative journalist, gets wind of the project and informs famed Nazi hunter Ezra Lieberman, but before he can relay the evidence, Kohler is killed. Thus Ira Levin opens one of the strangest and most masterful novels of his career. Why has Mengele marked a number of harmless aging men for murder? What is the hidden link that binds them? What interest can they possibly hold for their killers: six former SS men dispatched from South America by the most wanted Nazi still alive, the notorious "Angel of Death"? One man alone must answer these questions and stop the killings—Lieberman, himself aging and thought by some to be losing his grip on reality. At the heart of The Boys from Brazil lies a frightening contemporary nightmare, chilling and all too possible.

Omnibus with two complete novels and a novella in one large volume. This collection shows Miles and Ekaterin meeting (Komarr), getting to know each other as Miles tries to court her (A Civil Campaign), and the wedding (Winterfair Gifts), and, of course, Miles dealing with assorted family relationships. Miles deals with political problems along the way plus recounts the loves of his life to Ekaterin. ...none of them would marry him; they all went on to lead successful lives--so unlike her life on Komarr. The last on his list was Rian: "And what does she do now?" ... "Now, She's an empress" ... "Can I take a number and get in line?" ... "The next number up", he breathed, "is one". Contents: Komarr: Miles Vorkosigan is sent to Komarr, a planet that could be a garden with a thousand more years of terraforming; or an uninhabitable wasteland, if the terraforming project fails. The solar mirror vital to the project has been shatteredby a ship hurtling off course, and Miles Vorkossigan has been sent to find out if it was an accident, or sabotage. Miles uncovers a plot that could exile him from Barrayar forever - and discovers an unexpected ally, one with wounds as deep and honor as beleaguered as his own. A Civil Campaign: On Komarr, Miles met the beautiful Vor widow Ekaterin Vorsoisson, who has no intention of getting married after the heartbreak and betrayal of her first experience. But Miles has a cunning plan to change her mind. Unfortunately his clone-brother Mark and his cousin Ivan have cunning plans of their own, and the three-way collision of cunning plans threatens to undo Miles' brilliant romantic strategy. "Winterfair Gifts": Miles and Ekaterin make elaborate preparations for their wedding. But Miles has an enemy who is plotting to turn the romantic ceremony into a festival of death.

Is the cure for a breakup a hookup? Marissa Duplei has one mission. Pick herself up, dust the ex off, and get dirty with someone else. However, sexy, inked-up, metal-musician Jack Storm is not the average girl’s revenge fling. A tour bus bang. A one night stand gone awry. A secret to keep at all costs. Could it all lead to love? Eye of the Storms (Book 1) ♪♫ Marissa ♫♪ Looking back, everything about that day was a perfect storm. My bestfriend’s score of two VIP passes the day before the Hang Fest. A giant hurricane with a generous shot of alcohol. A sexy metal musician who was opposite of my cheating fiancé in every way. Those inked-up muscled arms holding a tiny puppy protectively to his bare chest told me there was more to him than met the eye. I had to know more. I’ve always been practical. I know I wouldn’t have seen him again if I hadn’t rolled out of bed and stepped into the shower. ♪♫ Jack ♫♪ That's true. A Perfect Storm. There was the puppy my sister forced on me as an exercise in commitment. And for damn sure, the cutoff shorts and tight sleeveless top she was wearing that day. The tan line well past the very short hem and way above the very low neckline of her tank top told me the packaging on this girl was deceptive. I had to know more. Much more. It likely would have ended like every other hookup in that tour bus—if I hadn’t followed her into the shower afterward. ♪♫♫♪ That shower was the beginning of us. The point where we became more than a chance possibility. The part never told in countless interviews. I’m Marissa, and Jack may jump in. Here’s our story… Excerpt Our kiss became separated as he pushed at his jeans, and I took that opportunity to rid my feet of socks and shoes. Straightening, I found his eyes skimming over me, and I was glad I’d listened to Olivia and worn the lingerie from the back corner of my drawer. Standing before him, wearing only a pair of red G-string underwear, I’d never felt sexier. And that was good. Because I’d never seen any man as sexy as Jack. He was just stepping from his jeans, and with a little kick, he sent them to the side. My breath came in short pants as I took in once more all that had spellbound me since first laying eyes on him. The shiny, shaggy hair falling over broad shoulders, inked triceps, biceps, forearms—when had I ever thought a man’s forearms were sexy? Yet Jack’s were. Long fingers. Abs tapering into a now bare waist, lean strong hipbones, and between them… Holy fuckin' shit… I could feel the short hitches of my breath as I admired, and at the same time, craved every inch. Could I take every inch? That remained to be seen, but I’d die a happy woman trying. Briefly, my eyes touched over tan muscular legs, and long sexy feet, before they greedily came back up to those many thick inches… is this why Olivia was rock star crazed? Is this why groupies acted demented? Were all rock stars this blessed anatomically? Author’s note Eye of the Storms is the first POV, Spicy Hot, Original Edition of Marissa and Jack's story as written three years ago. The 3rd POV Clean version was never acceptable to those who first loved Jack and Marissa as told in her voice and his—those who encouraged the story to be published and spent hours beta reading and making suggestions. I love you guys, you are my rock stars. So here a year later, is the Anniversary Edition, aka the Original, Hot, First POV edition of Jack and Marissa. Coming November 2014 Bloggers Hosting and ARC Signup Interested in hosting a release blitz or a tour post and ARC copies? All help greatly appreciated. SignUp Here--> Release Blitz- NOVEMBER 17 and/or SignUp Here--> Blog Tour NOVEMBER 24-DECEMBER 3

Piece of cake! Nancy's cousin is getting married, and Nancy is the flower girl. She can't wait to see the butter crème de le crème wedding cake! Bess and George have the special job of rolling out the cake. But a wedding day disaster strikes when Bess and George bring out the cake and Nancy notices that a slice is missing. Who would want to ruin it? The crew begins to wonder if the culprit is Kendall, the bride's neighbor. But when the clues point to another guest, Nancy is worried. Will this culprit get to have his cake and eat it too?

Parallel German text and English translation. The influence and popularity of Rilke’s poetry in America have never been greater than they are today, more than fifty years after his death. Rilke is unquestionably the most significant and compelling poet of romantic transformation, of spiritual quest, that the twentieth century has known. His poems of ecstatic identification with the world exert a seemingly endless fascination for contemporary readers. In Stephen Mitchell’s versions, many readers feel that they have discovered an English rendering that captures the lyric intensity, fluency, and reach of Rilke’s poetry more accurately and convincingly than has ever been done before. Mr. Mitchell is impeccable in his adherence to Rilke’s text, to his formal music, and to the complexity of his thought; at the same time, his work has authority and power as poetry in its own right. Few translators of any poet have arrived at the delicate balance of fidelity and originality that Mr. Mitchell has brought off with seeming effortlessness. Originally published: New York : Random House, 1982.

In The Golem and the Jinni, a chance meeting between mythical beings takes readers on a dazzling journey through cultures in turn-of-the-century New York. Chava is a golem, a creature made of clay, brought to life by a disgraced rabbi who dabbles in dark Kabbalistic magic and dies at sea on the voyage from Poland. Chava is unmoored and adrift as the ship arrives in New York harbor in 1899. Ahmad is a jinni, a being of fire born in the ancient Syrian desert, trapped in an old copper flask, and released in New York City, though still not entirely free. Ahmad and Chava become unlikely friends and soul mates with a mystical connection. Marvelous and compulsively readable, Helene Wecker's debut novel The Golem and the Jinni weaves strands of Yiddish and Middle Eastern literature, historical fiction and magical fable, into a wondrously inventive and unforgettable tale.

"Equal parts Groucho Marx & Stephen Jay Gould, both enlightening & entertaining."—Sunday Denver Post & Rocky Mountain News The best-selling author of Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers now trains her considerable wit & curiosity on the human soul. What happens when we die? Does the light just go out & that's that—the million-year nap? Or will some part of my personality, my me-ness persist? What will that feel like? What will I do all day? Is there a place to plug in my lap-top?" In an attempt to find out, Mary Roach brings her tireless curiosity to bear on an array of contemporary & historical soul-searchers: scientists, schemers, engineers, mediums, all trying to prove (or disprove) that life goes on after we die. She begins the journey in rural India with a reincarnation researcher & ends up in a University of Virginia operating room where cardiologists have installed equipment near the ceiling to study out-of-body near-death experiences. Along the way, she enrolls in an English medium school, gets electromagnetically haunted at a university in Ontario & visits a Duke University professor with a plan to weigh the consciousness of a leech. Her historical wanderings unearth soul-seeking philosophers who rummaged thru cadavers & calves' heads, a North Carolina lawsuit that established legal precedence for ghosts & the last surviving sample of ectoplasm in a Cambridge University archive.

From the bestselling author of Sleepers and former writer/producer of Law & Order comes another high-octane New York City crime drama pulsing with energy. In Lorenzo Carcaterra’s Chasers, the street-smart and highly specialized cadre of renegade NYPD cops last depicted in his acclaimed novel Apaches returns in a new tale of action and suspense. It’s 1985, and the city that never sleeps is about to wish it had stayed in bed. The heinous machine-gun murder of innocent bystanders in a Manhattan restaurant shocks all five boroughs. The brutal slaying propels the surviving members of the Apaches–controversial, take-’em-down, outside-the-law ex-cops–into investigating a Colombian drug cartel responsible for distributing millions of kilos of cocaine on American shores. Along for the harrowing ride with Boomer, Dead-Eye, and Reverend Jim are three new Apaches: Ash, a wounded female Hispanic cop who specializes in arson investigations; Quincy, an HIV-positive recruit who’s a forensics expert; and a retired police dog named Buttercup, a Neapolitan bullmastiff who is no ordinary animal but a gold-shield detective, highly decorated for his skills at sniffing out illegal drugs. Now this dedicated team will become Chasers, working multiple cases that will converge into one explosive, all-out street war. They will face a gallery of formidable enemies: Quinones, a mysterious and deadly assassin; the Boiler Man, a killer as ruthless as he is cunning; Angel, a former priest turned cartel boss, determined to end his career as the richest drug baron in the world; and the G-Men, a band of dealers and doers determined to maintain their iron grip on the cocaine trade–no matter how much blood is spilled. Fueled by Lorenzo Carcaterra’s adrenaline-rush prose and peopled with uncommon heroes and merciless crime lords tearing through city streets, Chasers proves to be this acclaimed author’s most intense novel to date. From the Hardcover edition.

Twelve years have passed since Churchill lost to the appeasers, and Britain surrendered to Nazi Germany after Dunkirk. As the long German war against Russia rages on in the east, the British people find themselves under dark authoritarian rule: the press, radio and television are controlled; the streets patrolled by violent auxiliary police and British Jews face ever greater constraints. There are terrible rumours too about what is happening in the basement of the German Embassy at Senate House. Defiance, though, is growing. In Britain, Winston Churchill's Resistance organisation is increasingly a thorn in the government's side. And in a Birmingham mental hospital an incarcerated scientist, Frank Muncaster, may hold a secret that could change the balance of the world struggle forever. Civil Servant David Fitzgerald, secretly acting as a spy for the Resistance, is given by them the mission to rescue his old friend Frank and get him out of the country. Before long he, together with a disparate group of Resistance activists, will find themselves fugitives in the midst of London’s Great Smog; as David’s wife Sarah finds herself drawn into a world more terrifying than she ever could have imagined. And hard on their heels is Gestapo Sturmbannfuhrer Gunther Hoth, brilliant, implacable hunter of men . . .

In this luminous novel -- winner of Britain's prestigious Booker Prize -- John Berger relates the story of "G.," a young man forging an energetic sexual career in Europe during the early years of this century. With profound compassion, Berger explores the hearts and minds of both men and women, and what happens during sex, to reveal the conditions of the Don Juan's success: his essential loneliness, the quiet cumulation in each of his sexual experiences of all of those that precede it, the tenderness that infuses even the briefest of his encounters, and the way women experience their own extraordinariness through their moments with him. All of this Berger sets against the turbulent backdrop of Garibaldi and the failed revolution of Milanese workers in 1898, the Boer War, and the first flight across the Alps, making G. a brilliant novel about the search for intimacy in history's private moments.

The witty sequel to Frederik Pohl's & C. M. Kornbluth's legendary science fiction classic The Space Merchants, written 30 years later. Great advertising agencies still dominate the world and control all governments and every aspect of human behavior. When a handful of renegades on Venus zealously opposes the so-called “benefits” of the hucksters’’ paradise, it seems inevitable that the all-powerful account executives of Earth will stop at nothing, not even war, to force the rebels to submit. But the Veenies have a plan….

How do we think about money? What caused bankers to lose sight of the economy? What caused individuals to take on mortgages that were not within their means?What irrational forces guided our decisions?And how can we recover from an economic crisis? In this revised and expanded edition of the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller Predictably Irrational, Duke University's behavioral economist Dan Ariely explores the hidden forces that shape our decisions, including some of the causes responsible for the current economic crisis. Bringing a much-needed dose of sophisticated psychological study to the realm of public policy, Ariely offers his own insights into the irrationalities of everyday life, the decisions that led us to the financial meltdown of 2008, and the general ways we get ourselves into trouble. Blending common experiences and clever experiments with groundbreaking...

"Pray God our aim is true and each arrow finds its mark." King Raven has brought hope to the oppressed people of Wales--and fear to their Norman overlords. Deceived by the self-serving King William and hunted by the treacherous Abbot Hugo and Sheriff de Glanville, Rhi Bran is forced again to take matters into his own hands as King Raven. Along the way Friar Tuck has been the stalwart supporter of the man behind the legend--bringing Rhi Bran much-needed guidance, wit, and faithful companionship. Aided by Tuck and his small but determined band of forest-dwelling outlaws, Rhi Bran ignites a rebellion that spreads through the Welsh valleys, forcing the wily monarch to marshal his army and march against little Elfael. This epic trilogy dares to shatter everything you thought you knew about Robin Hood as Stephen R. Lawhead conjures an ancient past while holding a mirror to contemporary realities. Filled with unforgettable characters, breathtaking suspense, and rousing battle scenes, Stephen R. Lawhead's masterful retelling of the Robin Hood legend reaches its stunning conclusion in "Tuck."

"The world of Shiuan was doomed. Rising waters and shattering earthquakes due to the coming of a vast and strange new satellite had sealed the fate of its peoples—flee or die with their world. Their sole escape routes were the Gates, the passages between worlds established by a forgotten cosmic race. And just as this knowledge dawned on the desperate tribes and cities there appeared the woman Morgaine—whose mission was to seal Shiuan's Gates." Winner of the John W. Campbell Award for the best new writer of the year. This is the story of Morgaine, and of her henchman, Nhi Vanye, and of their relentless enemy, Chya Roh, who followed them to the drowning planet.