What starts out as a pleasant little summer vacation for Maggie and her friends, Molly and Tim, becomes an extraordinary adventure that will forever transform their lives. These three best buddies unexpectedly find themselves thrust into the magical world of a brilliant sorceress, a mysterious bridge, and talking animals.When a severely injured Cooper Hawk begs a group of vacationing school kids for help, they find themselves drawn into a fierce battle being waged among the forest inhabitants for control of the ancient and powerful If Bridge, which has the power to undo the past.What starts out as a pleasant little summer vacation for Maggie and her friends, Molly and Tim, becomes an extraordinary adventure that will forever transform their lives. These three best buddies unexpectedly find themselves thrust into the magical world of a brilliant sorceress, a mysterious bridge, and talking animals. Manny, an old farmhand, Molly’s two spinster aunts, and her parents fight side-by-side with the three young friends in their struggle against the Wolf, the Vulture, and the Snake, who want to destroy the If Bridge. The three human friends join the Deer, the Bear, and the Hawk in their battle to prevent its destruction. Ultimately, they all find themselves fighting the age-old battle of good versus evil, defending a world of friendship and noble sacrifice against one of greed and treachery.

In the heatwave summer of 1962 Frank Watson, an investigator with a dubious past in pre-revolutionary Cuba, is hired to plant phone taps in the Hollywood home of Marilyn Monroe. There are rumours Monroe has kept a diary, a red book, detailing her affair with John F. Kennedy, the record of a scandal that could bring down the President.In the heatwave summer of 1962 Frank Watson is hired by Jack Scalligan, a man he believes is working for Twentieth Century Fox, to plant illegal phone taps in the Hollywood home of Marilyn Monroe whose escalating problems with barbiturates and the Kennedys is disrupting the studio’s filming of Something's Got To Give.Watson has recently been dismissed from a clandestine posting at the Havana Embassy after the CIA failed to save Batista's government. Now he’s helped by his partner and brother-in-law, Tommy Guppy, an ex-LAPD detective. A man whose family relationships have dissolved in alcohol and cynicism but whose basic ideals somehow survive.As they watch Monroe’s glamorous life disintegrate Frank becomes personally involved. Similarities between the star’s vulnerability and the fate of a young cabaret singer he rescued from the Havana revolution haunt him, a woman at the other end of success but sharing the same self-destructive core. He feels a guilty complicity with the Hollywood dream that seduced and destroyed her.Marilyn’s personal crisis is echoed on the wider stage by the political turmoil between the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis. With the world on the edge of nuclear war - the clock in Kennedy’s words at ‘five to midnight’ - Frank Watson comes to believe the Secret Service are conspiring to protect the President by other than legitimate means.There are rumours that Monroe has kept a diary, a red book, detailing her affair with John F. Kennedy, the record of a scandal that could bring down the President.After her death in strange circumstances - some claim suicide, rumours say murder - the book vanishes. Tommy Guppy, suspected of stealing the diary, is killed as shadowy factions scramble for the evidence.Dealing with the aftermath of Guppy’s death on his estranged family, Watson fights to resolve ambiguities and shifting allegiances as he searches a city of lost beliefs. A Los Angeles where failed politician Richard Nixon and has-been actor Ronald Reagan walk the same streets as Sinatra’s Rat Pack and Mafia dons, a time when naked ambitions create reality out of Hollywood noir.

Raven has been viciously bashed by his father ever since he can remember. Every day is fresh hell, until he is given a chance to change it all. He is confronted by a voice which promises a way of getting revenge for his suffering. Armed with a pocketknife and insatiable blood lust, this rage-filled teenager has to choose to either kill or be killed, and Raven has already chosen not to die...A mother awaits her son's visit in the nineteenth century before his life - and her life - will change forever. A short story of a mother's love and belief in her son's future greatness, you will walk away smiling, learning about a little known woman in American history that enabled a nation's greatest change with her belief in literacy and love of a son... who wasn't even her real child.

I know. I know. I know.You just had to goI'm not glad you wentBut with all those crazy nightsI'm so glad you cameWhen you wake upIn the dead of nightFeeling so empty And full of frightRemember who still loved youAnd if you hadHe just mightIf you've ever wondered what made Gruff gruff, read his tragic tale of lust and betrayal here.Origins: Gruff explored the origins of one of the most beloved characters introduced in Equivocal Destines, book 1 of the Upheaving Nidola epic fantasy series.

Zeke and Ned is the story of Ezekiel Proctor and Ned Christie, the last Cherokee warriors -- two proud, passionate men whose remarkable quest to carve a future out of Indian Territory east of the Arkansas River after the Civil War is not only history but legend. Played out against an American West governed by a brutal brand of frontier justice, this intensely moving saga brims with a rich cast of indomitable and utterly unforgettable characters such as Becca, Zeke's gallant Cherokee wife, and Jewel Sixkiller Proctor, whose love for Ned makes her a tragic heroine. At once exuberant and poignant, bittersweet and brilliant, Zeke and Ned takes us deep into the hearts of two extraordinary men who were willing to go the distance for the bold vision they shared -- and for the women they loved.

The bestselling author of THE THORN BIRDS returns with a novel of laughter, passion and more than a little magic ! 1960, Sydney's Kings Cross. Harriet Purcell leaves her conventional, respectable home and respectable, passionless boyfriend and moves into a rooming house owned by Mrs. Delvecchio Schwartz. There, Harriet finds a life she relishes -- excitement, adventure and passion. Mrs. Delvecchio Schwartz makes a living from telling fortunes, and is mother to 4-year-old Flo. Beautiful little Flo is mute, and Harriet comes to love her as if Flo were her own -- and must protect her at all costs when tragedy strikes! Angel is Colleen McCullough at her vintage best, drawing on her own experiences of living in the Cross in the 1960s and writing of a world that has long gone. Most of all, it is a tale of a woman's love for a child, and what she is prepared to endure to ensure her survival.

In his critically acclaimed novel Under Heaven, Guy Gavriel Kay told a vivid and powerful story inspired by China’s Tang Dynasty. Now, the international bestselling and multiple award-winning author revisits that invented setting four centuries later with an epic of prideful emperors, battling courtiers, bandits and soldiers, nomadic invasions, and a woman battling in her own way, to find a new place for women in the world – a world inspired this time by the glittering, decadent Song Dynasty. Ren Daiyan was still just a boy when he took the lives of seven men while guarding an imperial magistrate of Kitai. That moment on a lonely road changed his life—in entirely unexpected ways, sending him into the forests of Kitai among the outlaws. From there he emerges years later—and his life changes again, dramatically, as he circles towards the court and emperor, while war approaches Kitai from the north. Lin Shan is the daughter of a scholar, his beloved only child. Educated by him in ways young women never are, gifted as a songwriter and calligrapher, she finds herself living a life suspended between two worlds. Her intelligence captivates an emperor—and alienates women at the court. But when her father’s life is endangered by the savage politics of the day, Shan must act in ways no woman ever has. In an empire divided by bitter factions circling an exquisitely cultured emperor who loves his gardens and his art far more than the burdens of governing, dramatic events on the northern steppe alter the balance of power in the world, leading to events no one could have foretold, under the river of stars.

Welcome to the troubled, tempestuous world of Frank Lloyd Wright. Scandalous affairs rage behind closed doors, broken hearts are tossed aside, fires rip through the wings of the house and paparazzi lie in wait outside the front door for the latest tragedy in this never-ending saga. This is the home of the great architect of the twentieth century, a man of extremes in both his work and his private life: at once a force of nature and an avalanche of need and emotion that sweeps aside everything in its path. Sharp, savage and subtle in equal measure, "The Women" plumbs the chaos, horrors and uncontainable passions of a formidable American icon.

You're a young woman. You can choose. Which career to pursue. Who to have sex with. Who to marry and have children — or not — with. This is now. Step into the shoes of Olive. You're a happy, open-hearted girl. Your (tricky) mother is dead and you live with your father in a solid, Edwardian house with apple trees in the garden. Your passion for books gets you easily into university, where the world is surely waiting for you. There, you meet a boy. But then you make a mistake – the kind any one of us could make – and face an impossible choice. You are young, still, and full of hope. You can't possibly know how that mistake will sit in your heart. Or that when you get a job at a school you will fall in love with an older colleague. But the affair must stay secret; the world won't have it any other way. All you have ever wanted is for your heart to be free. But you are living in a time and place where freedoms we now take for granted had...

Sharply observed and brilliantly plotted, Stars and Bars is an uproarious portrait of culture clash deep in the heart of the American South, by one of contemporary literature’s most imaginative novelists. A recent transfer to Manhattan has inspired art assessor Henderson Dores to shed his British reserve and aspire to the impulsive and breezy nature of Americans. But when Loomis Gage, an eccentric millionaire, invites him to appraise his small collection of Impressionist paintings, Dores's plans quite literally go south. Stranded at a remote mansion in the Georgia countryside, Dores is received by the bizarre Gage family with Anglophobic slurs, nausea-inducing food, ludicrous death threats, and a menacing face off with competing art dealers. By the time he manages to sneak back to New York City–sporting only a cardboard box–Henderson Dores realizes he is fast on the way to becoming a naturalized citizen.

From master storyteller and #1 New York Times bestseller Barbara Taylor Bradford comes a gripping drama with a shocking twist. Margo, the most brilliant political fixer in Chicago, has made her name helping others – but now she’s the one in trouble…Just as she is about to board a plane with her husband, Jack, he vanishes. Stunned and devastated, Margo starts to investigate Jack’s past, using all her contacts and pulling in favors. But before long, she discovers how little she really knew about the man she married. Lies, betrayal and double-crossing shock to the core, and treachery that threatens to destroy more than a marriage…

This book can be read as a standalone. Izzy Sawyer has always been the it girl. She believes she’s the last person on earth who deserves a happily ever after. Holt Edwards has always been the player that women voluntarily fall to their knees for. When it comes to love, Holt doesn’t believe in fairytale endings. When Izzy dives back into the dating pool, Holt is right there, ready and willing, to offer tips and tricks to get her through an entire army of blind dates—starting with a bone melting demonstration on how to deliver mouthwatering kisses. One thing leads to whiskey and Izzy is starting to think happily ever after doesn’t seem like such a bad idea. Holt is starting to rethink his stance on fairytale endings. But Izzy has a secret that has turned her world upside down. Holt has a secret of his own that cost him far more than he ever bargained for. Sometimes life doesn’t give you the happily ever after. Sometimes it’s best to leave fairytale endings on the bookshelf where they belong. Izzy can’t stop thinking about Holt. Holt can’t seem to quit his favorite new addiction—Izzy. The mercury is rising—secrets are percolating—and their lust for one another is just about to detonate. Izzy needs just one more hit of Holt and his late night Whiskey kisses, but deep down she knows that will never be enough. She wants all of him—every bone melting kiss he ever has to offer. Izzy wants Holt Holt worships Izzy. Summer in Hollow Brook just heated up. Sparks are flying. Together Izzy and Holt are unstoppably electric.

'Oh no, not again...'           It's the ultimate in mass transit systems, a network of interstitial tunnels that bind the planets of the solar system together. Earth to Pluto in forty minutes with a supersave non-premium off-peak travelcard.           But something is living in the network, chewing its way to the very heart of the system and leaving a trail of death and mutation behind it.           Once again a reluctant Doctor is dragged into human history. Back down amongst the joyboys, freesurfers, chessfans, politicians and floozies, where friends are more dangerous than enemies and one man's human being is another's psychotic killing machine. Once again the Doctor is all that stands between humanity and its own mistakes.

SOMEWHITHER is the first part of A TALE OF THE UNWITHERING REALM, a new science fantasy series from the science fiction author John C. Wright. It is an adventure, it is a romance, and it is a coming of age story of a young man who is not a man, in a world that is only one among many. It is a tale of a greater and darker evil with longer reach than anything he could imagine, of despair without bounds, of pain beyond measure, and of the faith required to surmount all three. It is a story of inexorable destiny written in the stars and the stubborn courage that is required to defy it. Ilya Muromets is a big, ugly, motherless boy who does not look like anyone else in his Oregon town. His father is often absent on Church missionary work that strangely seems to involve silver bullets, sacred lances, and black helicopters. Ilya works as a janitor for Professor Achitophel Dreadful of the Cryptozoological Museum of Scientific Curiosities, and he has a hopeless crush on the Professor’s daughter, Penelope, who seems to think his name is Marmoset. One night, when Professor Dreadful escapes from the asylum in which he is presently residing, he sends a warning to Ilya that not only is the professor’s Many Worlds theory correct, but those many worlds are dominated by an unthinkably powerful enemy determined to destroy anyone who opens the Moebius Ring between the worlds. And, as it happens, prior to his involuntary absence, the Professor left his transdimensional equipment in the basement of the Museum plugged-in and running…. So it is that Ilya, as he has long dreamed in secret, is called upon to save the mad scientist’s beautiful daughter. With his squirrel gun, his grandfather’s sword, and his father’s crucifix, Ilya races to save the girl, and, incidentally, the world.

Note: Despite chronology, it is recommended that The Emperor's Edge (book 1) be read first. This short story contains a spoiler for book 1. Sicarius, the emperor’s personal assassin, returns from a successful mission only to discover that the enemy is retaliating by sending an assassin of their own. The target? Five-year-old Prince Sespian. Shadows over Innocence is a 4,500-word short story set fourteen years before the first Emperor’s Edge novel. It is available for free on the author’s website: http://www.lindsayburoker.com/Shadows...

The New York Times bestselling author of the “enthralling thriller” Vision Impossible* is back with her newest Psychic Eye mystery, in which psychic Abigail Cooper must rely on her inner vision to search for a missing woman…When a mysterious client approaches Abby with a cryptic message about a young mother who has vanished, Abby is more than willing to get involved.  After all, it’s the perfect distraction from dealing with the headache of her sister Cat – who has flown into town and turned Abby and Dutch’s impending nuptials into Weddingpalooza. After Abby recruits her business partner and BFF, Candice, to assist, they meet with the parents of the missing woman.  But the parents refuse to put their faith in a psychic. What’s worse, due to a grave misunderstanding, the family suspects Abby has a connection to their daughter’s husband – the man they believe to be responsible for her disappearance. So while the family may be blind to the truth, with a potential killer in her sights, Abby is determined to keep her eyes wide open... Genre Go Round Reviews

In 1953, Penny is just another washed-up, wannabe Hollywood actress who is past her prime. She has settled in to a quiet lifestyle, and when she finds a low-rent bungalow in Canyon Arms, it's a dream come true; Penny takes to the place instantly. But the dream cottage with its French doors and tiled courtyard may not be as perfect as it seems. Penny's new neighbors start filling her head with stories about past tenants, whispering voices, and a suicide that may not have been a suicide at all. Soon enough, Penny starts hearing strange noises and she can't help but wonder about the true fate of the bookseller who died in her home a dozen years earlier. Her suspicions are only fueled by the ominous inscription that she discovers in a book that's closely guarded by her landlord. . . .

Amazon.com ReviewIt speaks to the failure of medieval Europe, writes popular historian William Manchester, that "in the year 1500, after a thousand years of neglect, the roads built by the Romans were still the best on the continent." European powers were so absorbed in destroying each other and in suppressing peasant revolts and religious reform that they never quite got around to realizing the possibilities of contemporary innovations in public health, civil engineering, and other peaceful pursuits. Instead, they waged war in faraway lands, created and lost fortunes, and squandered millions of lives. For all the wastefulness of medieval societies, however, Manchester notes, the era created the foundation for the extraordinary creative explosion of the Renaissance. Drawing on a cast of characters numbering in the hundreds, Manchester does a solid job of reconstructing the medieval world, although some scholars may disagree with his interpretations. From Publishers WeeklyUsing only secondary sources, Manchester plunges readers into the medieval mind-set in a captivating, marvelously vivid popular history that humanizes the tumultuous span from the Dark Ages to the dawn of the Renaissance. He delineates an age when invisible spirits infested the air, when tolerance was seen as treachery and "a mafia of profane popes desecrated Christianity." Besides re-creating the arduous lives of ordinary people, the Wesleyan professor of history peoples his tapestry with such figures as Leonardo, Machiavelli, Lucrezia Borgia, Erasmus, Luther, Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. Manchester ( The Arms of Krupp ) devotes much attention to Magellan, whose globe-straddling voyage shattered Christendom's implicit belief in Europe as the center of the universe. His portrayal of the Middle Ages as a time when the strong and the shrewd flourished, while the imaginative, the cerebral and the unfortunate suffered, rings true. Illustrations. Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The Eel is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This popular classic work by Miriam Allen DeFord is in the English language, and may not include graphics or images from the original edition. If you enjoy the works of Miriam Allen DeFord then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection.