A drifter’s obsession with an apparition adds chaos to his faltering life and violent dreams, a pair of scorned lovers hatred turns dangerous, and a psychotic vigilante all vie for each other’s attention in a waning spiral of doom. Their tenuous grasp on reality bends into the unreal as their secret lives are brought to the forefront. The cold night of the desert can only hold so many secrets…Thrilling Adventure is an anthology where new characters debut, team ups between existing EBH heroes, and tales that cannot be told in the EBH solo series. This first episode features the team up of Scarlet Tie the openly gay African American hero of Cleveland and Jewish hero the Key-Master. The central theme is extinction and what future efforts might be used to restore extinct species to the planet.

Space Refugees is book 3 of the Star Warriors Sci-Fi adventure book series. Mars Magellan finds himself and his companions at the end of rough tactics that are designed to eliminate any evidence of his existence on the space-station Maverick. As a result of this unwanted attention, they leave behind their past careers in space exploration and find themselves looking for a new world to call home.Space Refugees is book 3 of the Star Warriors Sci-Fi adventure book series. Mars Magellan finds himself and his companions at the end of rough tactics that are designed to eliminate any evidence of his existence on the space-station Maverick. As a result of this unwanted attention, they leave behind their past careers in space exploration and find themselves looking for a new world to call home.Read the full instalment of the novel in these gripping ebooks: Book 1 - Spaceboy Mars, Book 2 - Space Recall, Book 3 - Space Refugees, Book 4 - New World, Book 5 - The Uprising

When relationships go bad, what exactly can happen? Open your world to twenty of the most twisted characters you'll ever encounter. Each short story is made up of fifty words. Did these eye splintering tales actually happen or were they just a figment of a warped mind's imagination?When twelve-year-old Rebecca’s parents quickly split up, she moves hundreds of miles away to a big city housing project. She has had to leave her Beatles album and record player behind. Everyone who lives in The Project gets called “just Project”. Her mother becomes seriously ill. A younger Project friend disappears. Her brother leaves. Her father won’t come to take her home. How can she become a teenager when every day is worse than the last one?In spite of the family chaos, Rebecca holds onto the dream of turning thirteen years old. She hangs around with an older Project girl and learns to think and speak like a teenager. They plan a teenage haircut and cool clothes for Rebecca. Rebecca sneaks away to the lookout where she thinks about how her life has changed. She thinks about the Project and poverty, which makes her madder.As she becomes a teenager, her rebellion intensifies. She fights with her mother. Yet there is more to being a teenager than pulling away. Rebecca searches for the deeper meaning to growing up.

PERILOUS ASSURANCE takes place in 1969, against the backdrop of escalating civil unrest over the Vietnam war. Mattie O'Keeffe Shaw, a professor of art history at Brooksford College in New Hampshire, has tried to distance herself from the conflict over the war, but after meeting mysterious Clay Adamore, is drawn into the fray.PERILOUS ASSURANCE takes place in 1969, against the backdrop of escalating civil unrest over the Vietnam war. Mattie O'Keeffe Shaw, a professor of art history at Brooksford College in the small town of Brooksford, New Hampshire, south of the White Mountains, worriedly leaves her on-campus residence to check on students who she knew had planned a protest on the quad. While walking around the small group of chanting and poster-waving students, she happens to meet Clayton Payne Adamore, and immediately dislikes his over-bearing attitude and wonders why he is there, since he doesn't fit in with the younger protesters. She wonders if he's a government agent spying on the students, or perhaps, an outside agitator. Mattie has not formed an opinion of the war, and is more concerned about her job and students' safety than politics at that point in her life, but as time passes, to her dismay, finds that she is drawn into the fray.

The War is over, won by Ender Wiggin and his team of brilliant child-warriors. The enemy is destroyed, the human race is saved. Ender himself refuses to return to the planet, but his crew has gone home to their families, scattered across the globe. The battle school is no more. But with the external threat gone, the Earth has become a battlefield once more. The children of the Battle School are more than heroes; they are potential weapons that can bring power to the countries that control them. One by one, all of Ender's Dragon Army are kidnapped. Only Bean escapes; and he turns for help to Ender's brother Peter. Peter Wiggin, Ender's older brother, has already been manipulating the politics of Earth from behind the scenes. With Bean's help, he will eventually rule the world.

Earth has been taken over by a strange alien force - creatures whose instinct for survival overrides any human resistance. Then a vital weapon - with the power of electronically warping the mind - falls into the hands of a terrorist group still strong enough to oppose the aliens. A weapon so powerful that it cannot be controlled. The control of Earth is in the balance - and the balance is a terrifyingly precarious one.

In these lively critical and personal essays, Chabon asserts his literary manifesto: “I read for entertainment, and I write to entertain. Period.” This collection of sixteen essays champions the cause of sci-fi and westerns, superheroes and horror shows, gumshoes and goblins—all the genre novels, comics, and pulp fiction that get pushed aside when literary discussion turns serious. For Chabon, the stories that give us great pleasure are in many ways our truest, best art—the building blocks of our shared imagination. Whether he’s taking up Superman or Sherlock Holmes, Poe or Proust, Chabon’s emphatic mission is to explore the reasons we tell each other tales, and to offer a glimpse of his own history as reader and writer. This ebook features a biography of the author.

Debbie Renaud is a police diver working on criminal cases with SEAL Allan Rappaport. She admires him greatly for his missions in the Navy, plus he's just plain HOT. Allan seems to share her attraction, but what she doesn't know is that her partner is wolf shifter. Allan is really hung up on his smart, beautiful dive partner, but he can't get involved with a human outside dive duty. Yet when she gets between a werewolf hunter and his intended victim, one of the members of Allan's pack, they run into real trouble, and their lives are altered forever.

Jim Francis has finally found the perfect life – and is now unrecognisable, even to himself. A successful painter and sculptor, he lives quietly with his wife, Melanie, and their two young daughters, in an affluent beach town in California. Some say he’s a fake and a con man, while others see him as a genuine visionary. But Francis has a very dark past, with another identity and a very different set of values. When he crosses the Atlantic to his native Scotland, for the funeral of a murdered son he barely knew, his old Edinburgh community expects him to take bloody revenge. But as he confronts his previous life, all those friends and enemies – and, most alarmingly, his former self – Francis seems to have other ideas. When Melanie discovers something gruesome in California, which indicates that her husband’s violent past might also be his psychotic present, things start to go very bad, very quickly. The Blade Artist is an elegant, electrifying novel – ultra violent but curiously redemptive – and it marks the return of one of modern fiction’s most infamous, terrifying characters, the incendiary Francis Begbie from Trainspotting.

The past few years have held more surprises than part-angel Clara Gardner could ever have anticipated. Yet from the dizzying highs of first love, to the agonizing low of losing someone close to her, the one thing she can no longer deny is that she was never meant to live a normal life. Since discovering the special role she plays among the other angel-bloods, Clara has been determined to protect Tucker Avery from the evil that follows her . . . even if it means breaking both their hearts. Leaving town seems like the best option, so she’s headed back to California - and so is Christian Prescott, the irresistible boy from the vision that started her on this journey in the first place. As Clara makes her way in a world that is frighteningly new, she discovers that the fallen angel who attacked her is watching her every move. And he’s not the only one. . . . With the battle against the Black Wings looming, Clara knows she must finally fulfill her destiny. But it won’t come without sacrifices and betrayal. In the riveting finale of the Unearthly series, Clara must decide her fate once and for all.

One of the premier novelists of the twentieth century, James A. Michener captures a frenzied time when sane men and women risked their very lives in a forbidding Arctic land to win a dazzling and elusive prize: Yukon gold. In 1897, gold fever sweeps the world. The promise of untold riches lures thousands of dreamers from all walks of life on a perilous trek toward fortune, failure—or death. Journey is an immersive account of the adventures of four English aristocrats and their Irish servant as they haul across cruel Canadian terrain toward the Klondike gold fields. Vivid and sweeping, featuring Michener’s probing insights into the follies and grandeur of the human spirit, this is the kind of novel only he could write. BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from James A. Michener's Hawaii. Praise for *Journey  * “Stunning . . . Michener at his best.”—Houston Chronicle  * “Michener brings sharply into focus the hardships encountered by those who dreamed of striking it rich.”—Associated Press   “Michener has amassed a peerless reputation as the heralded dean of the historical tome. . . . Journey is a book that envelops the reader in an atmosphere of hazardous escapades.”—Richmond Times-Dispatch “Remarkable . . . superb literature.”—The Pittsburgh Press*

Between the pages of this book lies the secret to the best-tasting chocolate in all the world. I promise, your taste buds will tingle. Your palette will sing! Oh no, have I accidentally tempted you to read this book? I will warn you, however, the most delicious things are never good for you...and this story is particularly scrumptious! In this tooth-rotting adventure, Cass's mom has been kidnapped by the evil dessert chef and chocolatier, Señor Hugo! The ransom...the legendary tuning fork. Can Cass and Max-Ernest find the magical instrument before it's too late? Will they discover the evil secret ingredient to Señor Hugo's chocolate success? If you're tempted, take a taste, but just remember...this book is not good for you.

Peter is quick, daring, and full of mischief—and like all boys, he loves to play, though his games often end in blood. His eyes are sparkling gold, and when he graces you with his smile you are his friend for life, but his promised land is not Neverland. Fourteen-year-old Nick would have been murdered by the drug dealers preying on his family had Peter not saved him. Now the irresistibly charismatic wild boy wants Nick to follow him to a secret place of great adventure, where magic is alive and you never grow old. Even though he is wary of Peter's crazy talk of faeries and monsters, Nick agrees. After all, New York City is no longer safe for him, and what more could he possibly lose? There is always more to lose. Accompanying Peter to a gray and ravished island that was once a lush, enchanted paradise, Nick finds himself unwittingly recruited for a war that has raged for centuries—one where he must learn to fight or die among the "Devils," Peter's savage tribe of lost and stolen children. There, Peter's dark past is revealed: left to wolves as an infant, despised and hunted, Peter moves restlessly between the worlds of faerie and man. The Child Thief is a leader of bloodthirsty children, a brave friend, and a creature driven to do whatever he must to stop the "Flesh-eaters" and save the last, wild magic in this dying land.

Larry Weller, born in 1950, is an ordinary guy made extraordinary by his creator's perception, irony and tenderness. Carol Shields gives us, as it were, a CAT scan of his life, in episodes between 1977 and 1997 that flash back and forward seamlessly. As Larry journeys toward the millennium, adapting to society's changing expectations of men, Shields' elegant prose makes the trivial into the momentous. Among all the paradoxes and accidents of his existence, Larry moves through the spontaneity of the seventies, the blind enchantment of the eighties and the lean, mean nineties, completing at last his quiet, stubborn search of self. Larry's odyssey mirrors the male condition at the end of our century with targeted wit, unerring poignancy and faultless wisdom.

What fun is a fair with no tickets? River Heights Elementary is throwing a fall festival! It promises to be full of fun games, great food, and amazing amusement park rides -- even a roller coaster! All of the kids in River Heights, including Nancy, George, and Bess, are very excited and have been working hard to earn extra money for festival tickets. So when Nancy's friend Ned claims someone stole his hard-earned tickets, the Clue Crew jumps into action. The girls are in a race against time to find Ned's tickets. And it turns out the culprit might have a very different reason for needing them....

The bestselling author of he Yacaoubian Building and hicago turns his attention to current affairs in Egypt. In the novels and short stories of Alaa Al Aswany, characters struggle with class differences, police brutality, poverty, sexual harassment, and political corruption; now, in a new collection of the weekly newspaper columns previously published in Arabic, Al Aswany considers these same issues that torment modern Egyptian society. He has a great deal to say about one of the most pressing questions on everyone's mind: who will be the next president of Egypt, and how will he be elected? He discusses the moral ambiguity of appointed politicians, the suitability of democratic reforms in a Muslim society, and the inherent contradiction in the actions of the religiously observant policeman who tortures or the man who harasses women. Critical, controversial, and straightforward, Al Aswany asks his government to serve the people, and the people to demand what they deserve.

Also published as A CHRISTMAS PARTY It is no ordinary Christmas at Lexham Manor. Six holiday guests find themselves the suspects of a murder enquiry when the old Scrooge, Nathaniel Herriad, who owns the substantial estate, is found stabbed in the back. whilst the delicate matter of inheritance could be the key to this crime, the real conundrum is how any of the suspects could have entered the locked room to commit this foul deed. For Inspector Hemingway of Scotland Yard, 'tis the season to find whodunit.

Smuggler. Smoker. Aviatrix. Thief. The dynamic Roxy Loewen is all these things and more, in this riveting and gorgeous historical fiction novel for readers of Paula McLain, Roberta Rich, Kate Morton and Jacqueline Winspear. You should never fall in love with a flyer. You should only fall in love with flight. That's what Roxy Loewen always thought, until she falls for fellow pilot Jocco Zomack as they run guns into Ethiopia. Jocco may be a godless commie, but his father is a leading art dealer and he's found the original of Bruegel's famous painting, the Fall of Icarus. The trouble is, it's in Spain, a country slipping fast into civil war. The money's better than good--if Roxy can just get the painting to Berlin and back out again before Reichsmarshall Hermann Goring and his Nazi pals get their hands on it . . . But this is 1936, and Hitler's Olympics are in full swing. Not only that, but Goring has teamed up with Roxy's greatest enemy: Sydney Munroe, an American billionaire responsible for the death of her beloved dad seven years before. When the Nazis steal the painting, Roxy and Jocco decide that they are just going to have to steal it back. What happens when Icarus flies too close to the sun? Roxy is going to find out. From African skies to a cellar in Madrid, from the shadow cast by the swastika to the world above the clouds on the Hindenburg's last voyage, in the end Roxy will have just two choices left--but only one bullet.

Only Georges Bataille could write, of an eyeball removed from a corpse, that "the caress of the eye over the skin is so utterly, so extraordinarily gentle, and the sensation is so bizarre that it has something of a rooster's horrible crowing." Bataille has been called a "metaphysician of evil," specializing in blasphemy, profanation, and horror. Story of the Eye, written in 1928, is his best-known work; it is unashamedly surrealistic, both disgusting and fascinating, and packed with seemingly endless violations. It's something of an underground classic, rediscovered by each new generation. Most recently, the Icelandic pop singer Björk Guðdmundsdóttir cites Story of the Eye as a major inspiration: she made a music video that alludes to Bataille's erotic uses of eggs, and she plans to read an excerpt for an album. Warning: Story of the Eye is graphically sexual, and is only for adults who are not easily offended.

IN A CERTAIN TIME, IN A CERTAIN LAND . . . Once there lived and once there was a simple woodcutter and his good-hearted wife, whose greatest pleasure was making toys for children. Then the miracle occurred. In a magical kingdom at the Top of the World the kindly pair discovered the secret of making reindeer fly and of bringing happiness to children everywhere, then and forever. His reward was to be the joy that shines in every child’s face at Christmas. But one of his helpers decided he could improve on Christmas—and almost ruined it. Now a wondrous movie and a magical novel, this story tells of the good man’s gravest threat and biggest triumph. He went on to become the Greatest Living Legend of All Time. But still you might not know his name. Unless you too were once a child . . .

A New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Times, and Denver Post Bestseller   In 1925, the legendary British explorer Percy Fawcett ventured into the Amazon jungle, in search of a fabled civilization. He never returned. Over the years countless perished trying to find evidence of his party and the place he called “The Lost City of Z.” In this masterpiece of narrative nonfiction, journalist David Grann interweaves the spellbinding stories of Fawcett’s quest for “Z” and his own journey into the deadly jungle, as he unravels the greatest exploration mystery of the twentieth century. From the Trade Paperback edition.