These are some of the 'adventures' ten years old, Arnold Tibbs has whilst being, just Arnold. His imagination takes him into realms of fantasy that others' cannot envisage.Ten years old, Arnold Tibbs, lives with his mother, father, brother Baz and sister Fiona. Arnold has an imagination, a very vivid imagination, which seems to cause a lot of trouble, in other words, he is a rascal. He does not mean to cause trouble, he just lets his imagination take over, which is a problem whether he is at the shops, in the museum, on a school trip, at the zoo, at home, or just mooching around.

For Centuries Valdarius has been waiting for her. Finally it was time for him to teach his prede, if only it were that easy! Even after so much planning, he was not prepared for what was in store for him.**Please leave a review**One dark and quiet night in Valdare, the village far below Valdarius’ castle, a young woman was returning home from her daily duties at the magistrate’s manor house. She was the only person in the streets on this night, but she thought nothing of it, for it was a routine she had done many times before. Little did she know that tonight would be very different from any she had ever experienced in her young life As she was walking along, whistling her favorite tune to help drown out the silence, she felt a cold chill run through her body that made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. She bundled up and started walking faster. As she rounded the corner into the alley to her house, she noticed movement out of the corner of her eye. She stopped to take a look around, but saw nothing. Thinking that it must have been an ally cat or a street rat, she continued walking towards her house.

This is the third in a series of short stories based in the same world as the book series A Life in After World. Instead of telling the life story of one character, these stories tell the story of one day in the life of a person in After World. The stories should be able to stand alone but together they tell of a bigger story.Brach is a thief. He is a petty thief, but he steals a little more than he needs to survive. He is assisted in his chose profession by a unique set of abilities he has. When he concentrates, he can affect the way things move. He has bought 13 meals on the same gold coin and he gets change every time. After he pays, he just calls the coin back to him. He is always seeking a way to get ahead by using his ability. He is also looking for a girl.

This is the Second story in the series.The New Guardian.Not all Teddy Bears are brave enough to be Guardians. Are they?What do you do when a new Teddy Bear faces the challenge of becoming a Guardian?Will Snuggs be up to this task?What will happen if she fails?Have you ever wondered what happens when the children go to bed at night and what keeps them safe from the Night Terrors that are under their bed?The Guardians keep them safe from the darkness and shadow under the bed.The Teddy Bear Stories are what stories that have happened at night when the Teddy Bear Guardians stand guard over their young charges. Night Terrors want the two things that they can not have: The warmth of the human cubs and revenge on their creators.The Guardians are all that stand between the children and the Terrors that come from under the bed.They do not stop, they will not give up, they will guard their young ones and keep them safe.That's what Guardians do.This is the second story in the series.

Have you ever imagined what it was like for Mary to be the mother of Jesus? There had been countless prophecies about the coming Messiah. Everyone knew the Scriptures and what they told about the Messiah. But when the angel Gabriel showed up and told Mary that she would be the one, the one person in all of history, to help bring the Son of God into the world, I can't imagine how she felt.Have you ever imagined what it was like for Mary to be the mother of Jesus? There had been countless prophecies about the coming Messiah. Everyone knew the Scriptures and what they told about the Messiah. But when the angel Gabriel showed up and told Mary that she would be the one, the one person in all of history, to help bring the Son of God into the world, I can't imagine how she felt. This G-TRAX is not about the Christmas story. It's about Mary and the faith, the real faith that she had to have to be that person that bore the Messiah and bring Him into this world.

Dahna is quite comfortable in her role as an outcast. Her favorite activities are painting her nails and hanging out on the beach. An observation by the quirky Carr leads to an endearing friendship between two unlikely people.Note: This short story was first featured in Summer Shorts II: Best Kept Secrets by Durham Editing and E-books.Dahna has always been an outcast and loves to paint her nails in different colors, as well as go to the beach. When Carr notices a nail mishap, it starts an unlikely friendship between two people. When Dahna discovers Carr's biggest fear, can their friendship survive the test, or will it drown while Summer lingers? Note: This short story was first featured in Summer Shorts II: Best Kept Secrets by Durham Editing and E-books.

For years Daniel had admired it, the cryptic stone temple in the heart of downtown. He could never have guessed the secret it holds...Theodore Arbuckle had been walking the fine line between reality and his own mind since his early childhood, plagued by voices and hallucinations. For the last four years he has been waking up screaming, tangled in his own bedsheets and covered in cold sweat every night.Over the years he had found ways to keep his mind anchored to the real world, but everything that he has worked so hard on comes crumbling apart in the course of a single night. Now he can't even trust his own mind, let alone other people.And with more secrets uncovered, everything seems to be plotting against him.

A young man by the name of Jaden is abducted by benevolent aliens, bio-engineered to superhuman levels and sent back to Earth years later to stop an alien invasion.Book 3 starts off with Jaden returning to Earth in his upgraded EIS, eighteen years later by earth time.His bio-engineered body is slowly evolving into superhuman levels. His mission is to help scientist locate the Nanomole in humans and then deactivate it, before the Darclonian mothership enters broadcast range. When a Nanomole is activated and is in the correct stage, it can control a human body. It would need to synchronize with a Bio-parasite for a permanent takeover of the human mind (Bio-parasites are Darclonians in microbe form). Love and romance follows the chapters as the silent attack on humans begins.

One false move—or trusting the wrong person—can turn the Gifted into the hunted.Sam Benson doesn’t know where she is or, more importantly, who she is. With her memories gone, she must piece together the details of her life—and figure out who to trust—before they take it from her.One false move — or trusting the wrong person — can turn the Gifted into the hunted.Captured by the Northern Alliance Betterment Society, a group more dedicated to murder than betterment, memory-bringer Sam Benson’s in trouble. She doesn’t know where she is or, more importantly, who she is. With her memories gone, she must piece together the details of her life before they take it from her.But there’s more at stake than Sam’s life…Now that she’s been dragged into the war between the Gifted and the Northern Alliance Betterment Society, Sam realizes how much is riding on her ability to escape. As the conflict escalates and new players stand in her way, she must find a way to take charge of the fate of the divided Gifted people.Sam might crumble under the pressure… or rise up to give the Gifted a fighting chance.

A protector in medieval times attacked an immortal, but missed his target, and accidentally killed his eternal mate. The primary target was damaged also, and had to be cured by a dark wizard who put hin in a coma for 1,000 years. When he awakened in the 24th century, He went after all the protector's descendants to destroy them. The last descendant has to find a way to defeat the eternal.In the medieval times, there was an immortal that was the perceived scourge back then. Chorlisr, a protector from the Ktaldeik (Tal-DEEK) had to defend the village against the eternal. He had to use witchcraft in order to damage him.The immortal, Gavis, was just sitting by a fire with his eternal mate in a cottage outside the village when Chorlisr attacked them without provocation.Chorlisr attacked, and inadvertently killer his eternal mate, Renae,. As Gavis vowed revenge, Chorlisr used witchcraft once more to destroy Gavis. He was affected, but ran into the wood to a dark wizard so he could be healed. He took a potion, but slept in a mountain range for one thousand years.In the 24th century, Chorlisr was long since dead so Gavis had to find his descendants to wipe out Chorlisr's lineage for good. He destroyed all but one.Adama Aruna was a history mentor, and also Chorlisr's last descendant. She became Gavis' target for his deadly malevolence, so he engaged her at a club to administer annihilation.Adama escaped the murderous deluge, and now has to learn magick to defeat the bitter eternal with a perpetual grudge. Can she do it in time?

The world was called Montefiore, as far as she knew, and from her aerie on every side all the world descended. The year is 1502, and seven-year-old Bianca de Nevada lives perched high above the rolling hills and valleys of Tuscany and Umbria at Montefiore, the farm of her beloved father, Don Vicente. There she spends her days cosseted by Primavera Vecchia, the earthy cook, and Fra Ludovico, a priest who tends to their souls between bites of ham and sips of wine. But one day a noble entourage makes its way up the winding slopes to the farm - and the world comes to Montefiore. In the presence of Cesare Borgia and his sister, the lovely and vain Lucrezia - decadent children of a wicked pope - no one can claim innocence for very long. When Borgia sends Don Vicente on a years-long quest to reclaim a relic of the original Tree of Knowledge, he leaves Bianca under the care - so to speak - of Lucrezia. She plots a dire fate for the young girl in the woods below the farm, but in the dark forest there can be found salvation as well ... The eye is always caught by light, but shadows have more to say.

Published when Wallace was just twenty-four years old, The Broom of the System stunned critics and marked the emergence of an extraordinary new talent. At the center of this outlandishly funny, fiercely intelligent novel is the bewitching heroine, Lenore Stonecipher Beadsman. The year is 1990 and the place is a slightly altered Cleveland, Ohio. Lenore’s great-grandmother has disappeared with twenty-five other inmates of the Shaker Heights Nursing Home. Her beau, and boss, Rick Vigorous, is insanely jealous, and her cockatiel, Vlad the Impaler, has suddenly started spouting a mixture of psycho-babble, Auden, and the King James Bible. Ingenious and entertaining, this debut from one of the most innovative writers of his generation brilliantly explores the paradoxes of language, storytelling, and reality.

Fearless Surrender Nothing incites Marcus more than the primal hunger roused by his former fiancée, Elizabeth. It's been years since she jilted him for another man, but that only means there's a lot to catch up on, a lot to make up for, and that he's going to enjoy every sweet moment... The same drive and passion that sent her into another man's arms is what brings Elizabeth back to Marcus. Her attraction to him is the one thing she fears, but she's run out of options. Resisting is impossible. But does she have the courage to surrender everything?

FBI Special Agents Nicholas Drummond and Michaela Caine have a new mandate as the government’s Covert Eyes, assembling a handpicked team of top-notch agents to tackle crimes and criminals both international and deadly. But their first case threatens to tear the fledgling team apart when the enigmatic thief known as the Fox reappears with a plea for help. Master thief Kitsune has stolen the staff of Moses from the Topkapi Museum in Istanbul, and now that she’s delivered, her clients are trying to kill her. On the run, she asks Nicholas and Mike to help her discover the true identity of her clients and stop the threat against her life. Under strict orders to arrest the Fox and bring her back to New York, the Covert Eyes team heads to Venice, Italy, to meet with Kitsune, and finds nothing is as it seems. Kitsune’s secret clients are the Koaths, a family descended from Moses himself, who will do anything, anything, to find the Ark of the Covenant and wield its power, as their long and bloody history can attest. To execute their plan, they’ve spent years perfecting a machine that can control the weather, manipulating worldwide disasters that spin the entire globe into chaos. From New York to Venice, from Rome to the Bermuda Triangle, Nicholas and Mike and their team are in a race against time, and nature herself, to stop the Koaths and recover the famous Ark of the Covenant. But can they trust Kitsune, their sworn enemy, to help them save the world from a family of madmen?

A stunning successor to his best selling novel Peace Like a River, Leif Enger's new work is a rugged and nimble story about an aging train robber on a quest to reconcile the claims of love and judgment on his life, and the failed writer who goes with him. In 1915 Minnesota, novelist Monte Becket has lost his sense of purpose. His only success long behind him, Monte lives simply with his wife and son. But when he befriends outlaw Glendon Hale, a new world of opportunity and experience presents itself. Glendon has spent years in obscurity, but the guilt he harbors for abandoning his wife, Blue, over two decades ago, has lured him from hiding. As the modern age marches swiftly forward, Glendon aims to travel back to his past--heading to California to seek Blue's forgiveness. Beguiled and inspired, Monte soon finds himself leaving behind his own family to embark for the unruly West with his fugitive guide. As they desperately flee from the relentless Charles Siringo, an ex-Pinkerton who's been hunting Glendon for years, Monte falls ever further from his family and the law, to be tempered by a fiery adventure from which he may never get home.

Jonathan Franzen's Freedom was the runaway most-discussed novel of 2010, an ambitious and searching engagement with life in America in the twenty-first century. In The New York Times Book Review, Sam Tanenhaus proclaimed it "a masterpiece of American fiction" and lauded its illumination, "through the steady radiance of its author's profound moral intelligence, [of] the world we thought we knew." In Farther Away, which gathers together essays and speeches written mostly in the past five years, Franzen returns with renewed vigor to the themes, both human and literary, that have long preoccupied him. Whether recounting his violent encounter with bird poachers in Cyprus, examining his mixed feelings about the suicide of his friend and rival David Foster Wallace, or offering a moving and witty take on the ways that technology has changed how people express their love, these pieces deliver on Franzen's implicit promise to conceal nothing. On a trip to China to see first-hand the environmental devastation there, he doesn't omit mention of his excitement and awe at the pace of China's economic development; the trip becomes a journey out of his own prejudice and moral condemnation. Taken together, these essays trace the progress of unique and mature mind wrestling with itself, with literature, and with some of the most important issues of our day. Farther Away is remarkable, provocative, and necessary.

The expression “beyond the black stump” refers to the deepest, darkest wilds of the Australian outback, the setting for Nevil Shute’s novel of a romance tested by cultural difference. Stanton Laird is an American geologist sent to hunt oil in a remote part of Western Australia. There he befriends the highly unconventional Regan family, the rough-and-tumble owners of a million-acre sheep station, and falls in love with their daughter Mollie. However, when Mollie goes to join him in America, the young couple must face the realization that they are products of radically different worlds.  

Dashiell Hammett was a crime writer who elevated the genre to true literature, and The Thin Man was Hammett's last--and most successful--novel. Following the enormous success of "The Thin Man" movie in 1934, Hammett was commissioned to write stories for additional films. He wrote two full-length novellas, for the films that became "After the Thin Man" and "Another Thin Man". Bringing back his classic characters, retired private investigator Nick Charles and his former debutante wife Nora, who return home to find Nora’s family gardener murdered, pulling the couple back into another deadly game of cat and mouse. Hammett has written two fully satisfying "Thin Man" stories, with classic, barbed Hammett dialogue and fully developed characters. Neither of these stories has been previously published (except for a partial in a small magazine 25 years ago). The Return of the Thin Man is a hugely entertaining read that brings back two classic characters from one of the greatest of mystery writers who ever lived. This book is destined to become essential reading for Hammett's millions of fans and a new generation of mystery readers the world over.

The winner of multiple Hugo and Nebula Awards, Connie Willis capture the timeless essence of generosity and goodwill in this magical collection if Christmas stories. These eight tales-two of which have never before been published-boldly reimagine the stories of Christmas while celebrating the power of love and compassion. This enchanting treasury includes: Miracle, in which a young woman's carefully devised plans to find romance go awry when her guardian angel shows her the true meaning of love In Coppelius's Toyshop, where a jaded narcissist finds himself trapped in a crowded toy store at Christmastime Epiphany, in which three modern-day wisemen embark on a quest unlike any they've ever experienced Inn, where a choir singer gives shelter to a homeless man and his pregnant wife-only to learn later that there's much more to the couple than meets the eye And more From the Paperback edition.

Creed Barnett has one simple rule—no potential mates allowed in his territory. As if there isn’t enough on his shoulders trying to manage his crew of misfit, broken bear shifters, his past is now coming back to haunt him. And when the woman he hasn’t been able to stop thinking about for the past five months shows up in his trailer park, he’s re-thinking all the rules he set up to protect the Gray Backs. Gia is a curvy stunner, but his interest in the bombshell goes deeper than her good looks. She’s sweet, and fun, and puts his inner bear at ease in a way no other woman has managed. But Gia has also brought trouble to his territory that will turn his life upside down. Gia Cromwell’s life is ruined. She’s lost everything she used to value about herself and has nowhere to turn but to the man who started her downfall in the first place. She fully expects the sexy, reclusive bear shifter to turn her away just like everyone else in her life, but when he offers to be her protector instead, she’ll have to fight hard to keep her walls up. She knows she isn’t Creed’s true mate, but that doesn’t stop her huge crush. How can she not fall head over heels for him? Creed is easy on the eyes, sure, but he has a heart of gold and a protective streak a mile wide for the people he cares about. Now she just has to figure out whether his interest is genuine, or if they’re both in this for all the wrong reasons. Content Warning: explicit love scenes, naughty language, and piles of sexy shifter secrets. Adult only bear shifter romance.

They are trapped, frozen. Waiting. Straining against the wood that holds them. The unwary catch a glimpse now and then - feel their desperate hunger, see a glint of red eyes - and scurry out of the shadows of the wood, back to the light. She's coming; it will be soon. They will run free on the moors again. The Hunt will return. And the ground will run with blood. An ancient curse placed on a family of witches foretells that twins will be born - one good, one evil; and one will destroy the other. But who can be trusted when no one is as they seem?