Hive

      A. J. Betts
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All I can tell you is what I remember, in the words that I have.Hayley tends to her bees and follows the rules in the only world she has ever known. Until she witnesses the impossible: a drip from the ceiling. A drip? It doesn't make sense.Yet she hears it, catches it. Tastes it.Curiosity is a hook.What starts as a drip leads to a lie, a death, a boy, a beast, and too many awful questions.

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    The Mother

      Pearl S. Buck
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“Buck has never done better work than this. By a great gift of intuition she has entered into the mind, heart and spirit of the Chinese peasant woman and revealed the permanent values of life.” —The *Times Literary Supplement* Dickensian in its epic sweep, one of Buck’s finest novels centers on an unnamed peasant woman in pre-revolutionary China. Without warning, her restless husband abandons her. Shamed by the experience, she is left to work the land, raise their three children on her own, and care for her aging mother-in-law. To save face with her neighbors, she pretends her husband is traveling, and sends letters to herself signed in his name. Surrounded by poverty, despair, and a growing web of lies meant to protect the family, her children grow up and enter society with only the support of their mother’s unbreakable will. An unforgettable story of one woman’s strength and a remarkable fable about the role of mothers, this novel is a powerful achievement by a master of twentieth-century fiction. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Pearl S. Buck including rare images from the author’s estate.

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    Don't You Dare Read This, Mrs. Dunphrey

      Margaret Peterson Haddix
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Things are so bad, I feel like I'm going to explode if I don't do something... Everyone has to keep a journal in Mrs. Dunphrey's English class, but the teacher has promised she won't read any entry marked "Do not read this." It's the kind of assignment Tish Bonner, one of the girls with big hair who sit in the back row, usually wouldn't take very seriously. But right now, Tish desperately needs someone to talk to, even if it's only a notebook she doesn't dare let anyone read. As Tish's life spins out of control, the entries in her journal become more and more private...and dangerous. Is she risking everything that matters to her by putting the truth on paper? And is she risking more by keeping silent?

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    Sammy Keyes and the Hollywood Mummy

      Wendelin Van Draanen
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"The most winning junior detective ever in teen lit. (Take that, Nancy Drew!)" *—Midwest Children's Book Review* When Sammy finds out that her mother has changed her name, dyed her hair, and shaved ten years off her age, she knows it's time for Lady Lana to get reacquainted with reality. Sammy hops a bus to Hollywood and finds her mother in deeper trouble than she imagined. Lana's phony persona is crumbling just as she is being considered for the part of a lifetime. So when one of Lana's competitors for the big role is found dead in the room next door, Sammy can't help wondering: Is her mother the next likely victim . . . or the prime suspect? The Sammy Keyes mysteries are fast-paced, funny, thoroughly modern, and true whodunits. Each mystery is exciting and dramatic, but it's the drama in Sammy's personal life that keeps readers coming back to see what happens next with her love interest Casey, her soap-star mother, and her mysterious father. From the Trade Paperback edition.

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    The Shepherd's Hut

      Tim Winton
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For years Jaxie Clackton has dreaded going home. His beloved mum is dead, and he wishes his dad was too, until one terrible moment leaves his life stripped to nothing. No one ever told Jaxie Clackton to be careful what he wishes for. And so Jaxie runs. There’s just one person in the world who understands him, but to reach her he’ll have to cross the vast saltlands of Western Australia. It is a place that harbours criminals and threatens to kill those who haven't reckoned with its hot, waterless vastness. This is a journey only a dreamer - or a fugitive - would attempt. Fierce and lyrical, The Shepherd's Hut is a story of survival, solitude and unlikely friendship. Most of all it is about what it takes to keep hope alive in a parched and brutal world.

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    Destination: Morgue!: L.A. Tales

      James Ellroy
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Dig. The Demon Dog gets down with a new book of scenes from America’s capital of kink: Los Angeles. Fourteen pieces, some fiction, some nonfiction, all true enough to be admissible as state’s evidence, and half of it in print for the first time. And every one of them bearing the James Ellroy brand of mayhem, machismo, and hollow-nose prose. Here are Mexican featherweights and unsolved-murder vics, crooked cops and a very clean D.A. Here is a profile of Hollywood’s latest celebrity perp-walker, Robert Blake, and three new novellas featuring a demented detective with an obsession with a Hollywood actress. And, oh yes, just maybe the last appearance of Hush-Hush sleaze-monger Danny Getchell. Here’s Ellroy himself, shining a 500-watt Mag light into all the dark places of his life and imagination. Destination: Morgue! puts the reader’s attention in a hammerlock and refuses to let go. From the Trade Paperback edition.

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  • 283

    Thirteen Days to Midnight

      Patrick Carman
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You are indestructible. Three whispered words transfer an astonishing power to Jacob Fielding that changes everything. At first, Jacob is hesitant to use the power, unsure of its implications. But there's something addictive about testing the limits of fear. Then Ophelia James, the beautiful and daring new girl in town, suggests that they use the power to do good, to save others. But with every heroic act, the power grows into the specter of a curse. How to decide who lives and who dies? * *In this nail-biting novel of mystery and dark intrigue, Jacob must walk the razor thin line between right and wrong, good and evil, and life and death. And time is running out. Because the Grim Reaper doesn't disappear. . . . He catches up.

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  • 283

    An Irish Doctor in Peace and at War: An Irish Country Novel

      Patrick Taylor
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Doctor O'Reilly heeds the call to serve his country in Irish Doctor in Peace and At War, the new novel in Patrick Taylor's beloved Irish Country series Long before Doctor Fingal Flahertie O'Reilly became a fixture in the colourful Irish village of Ballybucklebo, he was a young M.B. with plans to marry midwife Dierdre Mawhinney. Those plans were complicated by the outbreak of World War II and the call of duty. Assigned to the HMS Warspite, a formidable 30,000-ton battleship, Surgeon Lieutenant O'Reilly soon found himself face-to-face with the hardships of war, tending to the dreadnought's crew of 1,200 as well as to the many casualties brought aboard. Life in Ballybuckebo is a far cry from the strife of war, but over two decades later O'Reilly and his younger colleagues still have plenty of challenges: an outbreak of German measles, the odd tropical disease, a hard-fought pie-baking contest, and a local man whose mule-headed adherence to tradition is standing in the way of his son's future. Now older and wiser, O'Reilly has prescriptions for whatever ails…until a secret from the past threatens to unravel his own peace of mind. Shifting deftly between two very different eras, Patrick Taylor's latest Irish Country novel reveals more about O'Reilly's tumultuous past, even as Ballybucklebo faces the future in its own singular fashion. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

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  • 283

    Dragonfield: And Other Stories

      Jane Yolen
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Award-winning author Jane Yolen transports readers to new realms of dragons, sprites, and rogues in twenty-seven magical stories and poems “That’s what dragons are for, after all, to call forth heroes.” Jane Yolen enchants and enthralls with an exquisite collection of short fiction and poetry brimming with sympathetic monsters, unlikely heroes, and all manner of magical amazements. Exploring the depths of human love, pain, and folly in these unforgettable tales, Yolen gives life to a cast of unforgettable characters: a selfless young woman whose sadness brings forth beautiful gifts, a deluded musician whose song spectacularly fails to soothe a savage beast, and an alien salvage crew mining gems from the mind of a dying poet. Here be dragons, outlaws, kings, mermen, and dream weavers, sprung from the unparalleled imagination of one of the world’s foremost fantasists. This ebook features a personal history by Jane Yolen including rare images from the author’s personal collection, as well as a note from the author about the making of the book.

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