Michael Scott’s first-ever exclusive ebook short story delves into the world of the bestselling series The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel and offers readers a never-before-seen lost story—the story of two warriors who would become sisters. Joan of Arc was not burned at the stake in Rouen, France in 1431. She was rescued from certain death by Scathach the Warrior. The truth about that day is revealed in the last will and testament of William of York, and it will leave you wondering: does Joan of Arc still walk the earth?

Teresa Hamilton is having a rough year—she’s in love with her big brother’s best friend, but he hasn’t spoken to her since they shared a truly amazing, mind-blowing, change-your-life kiss. She got out of a terrible relationship. And now an injury is threatening to end her dance career for good. It’s time for Plan B – college. And maybe a chance to convince Jase that what they have together is real. Jase Winstead has a huge secret that he’s not telling anyone. Especially not his best friend’s incredibly beautiful sister. Even though he and Teresa shared the hottest kiss of his life, he knows that his responsibilities must take priority. He certainly doesn’t have time for a relationship. But it doesn’t help that all he can think about kissing the one girl who could ruin everything for him. As they’re thrown together more and more, Jase and Tess can’t keep denying their feelings for each other. But a familiar danger looms and tragedy strikes. As the campus recovers, the star-crossed couple must decide what they’re willing to risk to be together, and what they’re willing to lose if they’re not…

SWASHBUCKLING FANTASY features excerpts from 10 series by bestselling and critically acclaimed authors such as Margaret Petersen Haddix, author of the Shadow Children series, D.J. MacHale, author of the Pendragon series, Scott Westerfeld, author of Uglies and Holly Black, author of Valiant. This online sampler also highlights six debut series from rising stars in fantasy, including Kai Meyer, Jane Johnson and Obert Skye. This fantasy sampler is the perfect way to introduce middle grade through teen readers to alternate worlds, distant pasts and fantastic creatures!

Winning what you want may cost you everything you love...  As a general’s daughter in a vast empire that revels in war and enslaves those it conquers, seventeen-year-old Kestrel has two choices: she can join the military or get married. But Kestrel has other intentions. One day, she is startled to find a kindred spirit in a young slave up for auction. Arin’s eyes seem to defy everything and everyone. Following her instinct, Kestrel buys him—with unexpected consequences. It’s not long before she has to hide her growing love for Arin. But he, too, has a secret, and Kestrel quickly learns that the price she paid for a fellow human is much higher than she ever could have imagined. Set in a richly imagined new world, The Winner’s Curse by Marie Rutkoski is a story of deadly games where everything is at stake, and the gamble is whether you will keep your head or lose your heart.

Shipwrecked on a remote island in the Dutch East Indies, Captain Aubrey, surgeon and secret intelligence agent Stephen Maturin, and the crew of the Diane fashion a schooner from the wreck. A vicious attack by Malay pirates is repulsed, but the makeshift vessel burns, and they are truly marooned. Their escape from this predicament is one that only the whimsy and ingenuity of Patrick O'Brian—or Stephen Maturin—could devise. In command now of a new ship, the Nutmeg, Aubrey pursues his interrupted mission. The dreadful penal colony in New South Wales, harrowingly described, is the backdrop to a diplomatic crisis provoked by Maturin's Irish temper, and to a near-fatal encounter with the wildlife of the Australian outback.(less)

Brace yourself for the battle of the exes... Hayden and Nick used to be a hot item, but their brief affair ended with a highly publicized breakup. Now the two are "just friends," excluding the occasional flirtation. When Hayden wins the girls' division of a local snowboarding competition, Nick is unimpressed, claiming that Hayden wouldn't have a chance against a guy. Hayden calls Nick's bluff and challenges him to a head-to-head boarding contest. Their mutual friends quickly take sides, the girls on Hayden's and the boys on Nick's, making for an all-out battle of the sexes. This friendly competition is bound to get heated — and they might end up igniting some old flames.

in recognition of this pulitzer prize–winning author’s lauded career as a master essayist, a landmark collection, including her most beloved pieces and some rarely seen work the abundance includes the best of Annie Dillard’s essays, delivered in her fierce and muscular prose, filled with absorbing detail and metaphysical fact. Intense, vivid, and fearless, her work endows the true and seemingly ordinary aspects of life—a commuter chases snowball-throwing children through backyards, a bookish teenager memorizes the poetry of Rimbaud—with beauty and irony. These essays invite readers into sweeping landscapes, to join Dillard in exploring the complexities of time and death, often with wry humor. On one page, an eagle falls from the sky with a weasel attached to its throat; on another, a man walks into a bar. Marking the vigor of this powerful writer, The Abundance highlights Annie Dillard’s elegance of mind.

The first book in a new horse trilogy from Pulitzer Prize winner Jane Smiley starring a feisty young rider. Eleven-year-old Ellen is a spunky--and occasionally misbehaving--young riding student. Her teacher Abby Lovitt (who readers might recognize from The Georges and the Jewels) is a high school student who introduces her to jumping, dressage techniques, and most importantly, Ned. Ned is a colt who used to be a racehorse, until he hurt his leg and moved to Abby's ranch. Ellen and Ned seem to understand each other, and their companionship is immediate. But Ellen is only allowed to go to riding lessons when she behaves at school. And with all that's going on, from learning that she's adopted to finding out her parents are adopting a new baby, it's harder than ever for Ellen to pay attention and behave in class and at home. Will Ellen be able to spend more time on the ranch with Ned? And will her parents ever let her have a horse of her own?

There's Magic in the Wilds. Maggie O'Shea expected the worst when her family relocated from the lively beaches of Boca Raton to the secluded forests of the Ozark Mountains. What she didn't expect was a new beginning - one full of Fae, magical powers, dangerous physical and mental trials, and two surprisingly gorgeous young men. These aren't the fairies you're familiar with, but dangerous superpowers embroiled in an enduring struggle among themselves over the fate of all humanity. Some want to protect us, and others would love nothing more than to see us, and especially fifteen-year-old Maggie, dead and buried. Now, torn between her new duties as Steward of the most sacred Fae land and her burgeoning love for Gavin, a powerful Fae, Maggie must fight to protect her family, her friends, herself, and the fate of the entire world. Join Maggie as she learns that fairy lore is not as far from the truth as she had believed, but neither is it anything like the tales in books or movies. As she navigates the treacherous schemes of the Fae, Maggie must become a quick study if she hopes to protect the lives of many, and possibly all, people from the insidious plot the Unseelie Fae have planned for centuries. The Steward is the first book in the exciting and magical four part series: the Weald Fae Journals by Christopher Shields.

After WW II, Lucilla's soldier son George and his beautiful wife Nadine lived with their five children. They acquired an ancient pilgrim's inn on the river. Sally had never seen this face before, but as she studied the unfinished portrait of David Eliot, her untried heart knew the meaning of love. She would always know this face... the finely shaped head, the obstinate jaw, the hint of bitterness about the mouth. But David was tied, tied to a married woman who could not let him go. Theirs is an unforgettable story, one that will hold you spellbound as you enter the portals of Pilgrim's Inn...

When Ellis Earnshaw and Heathan James met as children, they couldn’t have been more different. Ellis was loud and beautiful – all blond hair, bright laughs and smiles. Heathan was dark and brooding, and obsessed with watching things die. The pair forged an unlikely friendship, unique and strange. Until they were ripped apart by the sick cruelty of others, separated for years, both locked in a perpetual hell. Eleven years later, Heathan is back for his girl. Back from a place from which he thought there was no return. Back to seek revenge on those who wronged them. Time has made Heathan’s soul darker, polluted with hatred and the thirst for blood. Time has made Ellis a shell of her former self, a little girl lost in the vastness of her pain. As Heathan pulls Ellis out of her mental prison, reviving the essence of who she once was, down the rabbit hole they will go. With malice in their hearts and vengeance in their veins, they will seek out the ones who hurt and destroyed them. One at a time. Each one more deadly than the last. Tick Tock. Dark Contemporary Romance. Contains explicit sexual situations, violence, disturbingly sensitive and taboo subjects, offensive language and very mature topics. Recommended for ages 18 and over.

THEY KILL WITHOUT CONSCIENCE. ANN RULE PORTRAYS THEIR SHATTERING CRIMES WITHOUT PITY. In eight stunning Case Files volumes, from A Rose for Her Grave to the #1 blockbuster Last Dance, Last Chance, Ann Rule reigns as "America's best true-crime writer" (Kirkus Reviews). Now, she updates the most astonishing cases from that acclaimed series -- and presents shocking, all-new true-crime accounts -- in one riveting anthology. In every explosive chapter of Without Pity, Ann Rule deepens her unrelenting exploration of the evil that lies behind the perfect facades of heartless killers...and the deadly compulsions of greed and power that shatter their outward trappings of material success. They are the admired, trusted neighbor; the affable family man; the sexy, charismatic lover; the high-achieving professional. Perhaps most frightening of all is that they are heroes in their own minds. But when someone gets in the way of their deluded dreams, they are capable of deadly acts of violence with no remorse. Analyzing the true nature of the sociopathic mind in chilling detail, Ann Rule traces the murderous crimes of seemingly ordinary men -- killers who drew their unsuspecting victims into their twisted worlds with devastating consequences.

Evie Jamieson, a former wild child, is not only a headstrong, smart-mouthed trouble magnet, she is also a lead singer with a plan. That plan involves relocating her band, including her two best friends guitarist Henry and band manager Mac, to Sydney to kick off their dreams of hitting the big time. Jared Valentine is the older brother of Evie's best friend Mac and also the man determined to make Evie his. They strike up a long distance friendship which suits Evie because she's determined to avoid the distraction of love, not only because it doesn't fit in with her plan but because twice in the past it has left her for dead. Moving to Sydney however, has put her directly in Jared's path and he has decided it's the perfect opportunity to make his play. Unfortunately Jared, co-owner in a business that 'consults' in dangerous hostage and kidnapping situations, makes an enemy who's determined to enact revenge. When this enemy puts Evie in his sights, Jared not only has a fight on his hands to make her his own, but also to keep her alive. Is accepting the love he's so desperate to give worth the risk to both her heart...and her life?

A wealthy New England blind woman escaped the shelter of her overprotective family to marry a poor blind rancher in a remote California mountain town, and gets the jolt of reality she'd been longing for. There's more to learning to ride western than just horses, and it has to do with seeing eye bulls, a cabin so small she constantly crashes into her grand piano shipped from home, four elusive children she can't see to feed or care for, and a husband who expects perfection, prays on horseback, makes adobe bricks to build her a proper house, drives a jalopy truck with his seven-year-old son on his lap--and won't ever admit to being blind.

A new and radically revised version of the classic novel the New York Times called "a fiercely imagined tale of love and loss, a story that manages to transform tragedy into comic redemption, sorrow into heroic survival." When Klaus Shawano abducts Sweetheart Calico and carries her far from her native Montana plains to his Minneapolis home, he cannot begin to imagine what the eventual consequences of his rash act will be. Shawano's mysterious Antelope Woman has stolen his heart--and soon proves to be a bewitching agent of chaos whose effect on others is disturbing and irresistible, as she alters the shape of things around her and the shape of things to come. In this remarkable revised edition of her acclaimed novel, Louise Erdrich weaves an unforgettable tapestry of ancestry, fate, harrowing tragedy, and redemption that seems at once modern and eternal.

“Librarians often say that every book is not for every child, but The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp is” (The New York Times). Meet Bingo and J’miah, raccoon brothers on a mission to save Sugar Man Swamp in this rollicking tale and National Book Award Finalist from Newbery Honoree Kathi Appelt. Raccoon brothers Bingo and J’miah are the newest recruits of the Official Sugar Man Swamp Scouts. The opportunity to serve the Sugar Man—the massive creature who delights in delicious sugar cane and magnanimously rules over the swamp—is an honor, and also a big responsibility, since the rest of the swamp critters rely heavily on the intel of these hardworking Scouts. Twelve-year-old Chap Brayburn is not a member of any such organization. But he loves the swamp something fierce, and he’ll do anything to help protect it. And help is surely needed, because world-class alligator wrestler Jaeger Stitch wants to turn Sugar Man swamp into an Alligator World Wrestling Arena and Theme Park, and the troubles don’t end there. There is also a gang of wild feral hogs on the march, headed straight toward them all. The Scouts are ready. All they have to do is wake up the Sugar Man. Problem is, no one’s been able to wake that fellow up in a decade or four… Newbery Honoree and Kathi Appelt’s story of care and conservation has received five starred reviews, was selected as a National Book Award finalist, and is funny as all get out and ripe for reading aloud.

Detective Isaac Bell returns in the remarkable new adventure in the #1 New York Times–bestselling series. It is 1902, and a bright, inexperienced young man named Isaac Bell, only two years out of his apprenticeship at the Van Dorn Detective Agency, has an urgent message for his boss. Hired to hunt for radical unionist saboteurs in the coal mines, he is witness to a terrible accident that makes him think that something else is going on, that provocateurs are at work and bigger stakes are in play. Little does he know just how big they are. Given exactly one week to prove his case, Bell quickly finds himself pitted against two of the most ruthless opponents he has ever known, men of staggering ambition and cold-bloodedness . . . who are not about to let some wet-behind-the-ears detective stand in their way.

Prior to the first American Publication of Brian Lumley's ground-breaking, dead waking, best-selling Necroscope ® in 1988--the first novel in a long-lived, much-loved series--this British author had for twenty years been earning an envious reputation writing short stories, novellas, and a series of novels set against H. P. Lovecraft's cosmic Cthulhu Mythos backdrop. In addition and for a further twenty years Lumley's non-Mythos Fantasy, SF, and Horror stories have been appearing on a regular basis in some of the world's most famous publications; for example The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and Weird Tales, along with anthologies such as Karl Edward Wagner's Year's Best Horror Stories, Charles L. Grant's Final Shadows, and Kirby McCauley's Frights, among others. With his multiple-award-winning literary career now spanning over four decades, Lumley continues to write his superior fictions, examples of which from each of those decades can be found in this current collection, where Weird Tales itself is represented by no less than five stories! And so, to complete a trilogy of volumes begun with the Lovecraft-inspired The Taint and Other Novellas, and followed by Haggopian and Other Stories, Subterranean Press is now proud to offer No Sharks in the Med and Other Stories, a handpicked collection of Brian Lumley s best macabre tales...

The year is 490 AD. Fiery 16-year-old Elaine of Ascolat, the daughter of one of King Arthur's supporters, lives with her father on Arthur's base camp, the sole girl in a militaristic world of men. Elaine's only girl companion is the mysterious Morgan, Arthur's older sister, but Elaine cannot tell Morgan her deepest secret: She is in love with Lancelot, Arthur's second-in-command. However, when yet another girl -- the lovely Gwynivere-- joins their world, Elaine is confronted with startling emotions of jealousy and rivalry. But can her love for Lancelot survive the birth of an empire?

*This is an alternate cover edition for B01C5F19WA * A STREETWISE VIGILANTE who will do anything to cure her dying sister A RUTHLESS GANGSTER on a grisly quest to attain immortality A DESPERATE FATHER who crossed oceans to free his enslaved son A TRAIL OF RIDDLES and the mythical treasure they all seek: THE SERENGETI SAPPHIRE

When Genevieve Ahrens moves into the charming community of Glenbrooke, she revives the downtown area by purchasing the Wallflower Restaurant and making it a town favorite. But Gena's heart needs some renovation of its own when her daughter marries and Gena is back in touch with her estranged husband. All of her advice to a young friend about forgiving and trusting God to heal the hurt haunts her as she and Stephen talk through what went wrong in their marriage. Will the pain-filled couple experience the joy of God's redeeming grace or the agony of divorce? Genevieve has been married for over half her life…so how can she suddenly fall deeply in love for the very first time? Genevieve Ahren’s dream is coming true at last! Glenbrooke’s Wildflowers Cafe goes up for sale and Genevieve knows she can make it into something special. However, her new venture is far from easy. With her husband gone so often due to his career as an international airline pilot, Genevieve is alone in making all the important decisions. Her heart is empty and hollowed out...like an isolated cottage boarded up for a long winter season. It’s in the solitude of this dark season that Genevieve discovers friends she didn’t realize she had. When this small circle of tender-hearted women rally around her, Genevieve finds light streaming in through the door of her heart. A door she thought she had locked and bolted long ago. The biggest surprise of all is when Genevieve realizes she is giddily in love—with the last man she expected could make her feel this way!