Why has Sam's sister fallen out with their mum? Will Dad ever reveal his secret from the past? How can Sam get her family back on track? And, most importantly, will she hold it all together on the night of Star Makers' fab new musical?

I was sent away for protection. Pulled from a world and forced into another, I lost myself on the way. No emotion. Only walls to hide feelings that were now masked behind a barrier. Matteo Santos opened my eyes. He helped me see through the darkness that consumed my soul. He breathed life into my lungs, gripping my heart until it beat again. With a darkness of his own, it haunted him, turning him into a beautiful Master of seduction and pain. Through trust and love, we would battle our pasts together. Before they took control...completely. "Not everything is as it seems." ~ Beautiful Pain

This sharply satirical novel concerns a battle royal between two academic institutions and their principals. England, 1987. It's all-out war. Two universities in the same city each aim to destroy the other and take over one another's buildings, students and – above all – bank balance. At a time of austerity in public life and huge government cuts, the situation has become desperate and the respective university principals are prepared to fight very dirty indeed. Dr Lawford Chute of the revered Sedge University wants to expand, expand, expand, while the government is telling him to cut, cut, cut. But Dr Victor Tane of Charter Mill employs more covert methods to ensure his institution comes out on top. Who will win these ferocious academic fights and be the model for the statue in the modern-day university grounds: the ultimate proof of posterity for which both principals are battling? This hilariously witty and highly topical satire on...

Teodora has always longed to visit Venice, and at last she has her chance. But strange and sinister things are afoot in the beautiful floating city. Teo is quickly subsumed into a secret world in which salty-tongued mermaids run subversive printing presses, ghosts good and bad patrol the streets, statues speak, rats read, and librarians fluidly turn into cats. And where a book, The Key to the Secret City, leads Teo straight into the heart of the danger that threatens to destroy the city to which she feels she belongs. An ancient proverb seems to unite Teo with a Venetian boy, Renzo, and with the Traitor who has returned from the dark past to wreak revenge. . . . But who is the Undrowned Child destined to save Venice?From the Hardcover edition.

He puts the "screw" in screwball comedy...BRYNNAt thirty-four, I’m reeling from a divorce. I don’t want to party or try to move on. I just want to stay home and post a new recipe on my blog: Brynn’s Dips and Balls.But my friends aren’t having it. Get out there again, they say. It will be fun, they say. I’m still taking a hard pass. Free designer cocktails, they say. And that’s a game-changer. Too bad my ex shows up with his new arm candy. That’s when I lose my mind. But when my besties dare me to leap on the first single man I see, they don't expect me to actually go through with it.TOMAll I need right now is some peace and quiet while my home renovation TV show is on hiatus. But when a curvy woman in a red wrap dress charges me like she’s a gymnast about to mount my high bar, all I can do is brace myself and catch her. What follows is the hottest experience...

SUMMARY: Queen of Mean Amanda Beeson, 13, gets the shock of her life when she wakes up one morning to find herself in the body of one of her victims, Tracey Devon. Amanda discovers that Tracey, ignored at home and school, has the ability to become invisible. When Amanda finds herself in a special class that Tracey usually attends, it becomes clear that at Meadowbrook Middle School the definition of “gifted” has a whole other meaning. Can Amanda rescue her one-time target from obscurity and get her own life back on track? In order to do so, she will have to reveal her own startling gift and take her rightful place among Meadowbrook’s very secret clique.

At the once-splendid Imperial Hotel, chef Gabriel Lightfoot is trying to run a tight kitchen. But his integrity and his sanity are under constant challenge from an exuberantly multinational staff, a gimlet-eyed hotel management, and business partners with whom he is planning a new venture. Despite the pressure, his hard work looks set to pay off.Until the discovery of a porter's dead body in the kitchen appears to tip the scales. It is a small death, a lonely death -- but it is enough to disturb the tenuous balance of Gabe's life. In The Kitchen is Monica Ali's stunning follow up to Brick Lane. It is both the portrait of a man pushed to the edge, and a wry and telling look into the melting pot which is our contemporary existence. It confirms Monica Ali not only as a great modern storyteller but also an acute observer of the dramas of modern life.

Martine can't wait to spend the school vacation riding her white giraffe around the Sawubona wildlife reserve with her friend Ben. But when her grandmother gets a distressed call from an old friend, Martine's hopes are dashed. They must all travel to Zimbabwe, where Martine will face her greatest challenge yet. Local legend says that the last resting place of the king of leopards is the hiding place of the king's treasure. Martine and Ben must fi nd and protect Khan, the last leopard in the Matobo Hills, from the poachers and treasure hunters who will stop at nothing to discover if the legend is true.This heart-pounding companion to The White Giraffe and Dolphin Song brings Martine even closer to her own destiny as the child who has power over all the animals

Sidney and her friends might have survived the storm that came to the small island of Benediction, but now the storm has reached Boston, and the city isn't prepared for what's coming in this sequel to the "unpredictable" (VOYA) and "fast-paced" (School Library Journal) Savage from New York Times bestselling author Thomas E. Sniegoski.The horrors that began in Savage continue in Boston as Sydney and her friends work to protect the city from the newly crazed rampage of animals and try to figure out the origin of the storm and its power.

In the third installment in the Knights' Tales series, Gerald Morris tells the laugh-outloud tale of King Arthur's most celebrated knight, and nephew, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. With lively illustrations by Aaron Renier, Morris creates a captivating and comical medieval world that teems with humor and wonder.This chapter book is sure to set young readers on another rollicking and hilarious Arthurian adventure!

The Final Storm opens a new front in Jeff Shaara’s gripping chronicle of World War II as soldiers, sailors, and marines sacrifice all for one final push toward decisive victory in the fierce maelstrom of the Pacific theater.As the war in Europe winds down in the wake of the Normandy invasion, the United States has turned its vast military resources toward an all-out effort against the Japanese. In the spring of 1945, Japan’s empire has been pressed slowly back toward its home islands, and the Americans mount a furious assault on the last great stepping-stone to Japan itself—the heavily fortified island of Okinawa. The three-month battle will feature some of the most vicious combat of the entire war, as American troops confront an enemy that would rather be slaughtered than experience the shame of surrender. With a narrative dexterity befitting his status as a master storyteller, Shaara relates the story of the struggle for Okinawa through the eyes of combatants on both sides: Private Clay Adams, a young marine whose brother Jesse has already earned his share of glory as a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne in Europe; Admiral Chester Nimitz, who must unite rival army and marine commanders into a cooperative effort; General Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr., the American ground commander trying to live up to the legacy of his father, who led Confederate troops during the Civil War; and General Mitsura Ushijima, the Japanese general in charge of defending the island, who understands what Tokyo will not believe: that his own fight to the death will only delay the inevitable—as the Americans continue their advance toward the home islands and ultimate victory.With the fights raging across the Pacific, a different kind of campaign is being waged in extraordinary secrecy: the development of a weapon so powerful, not even the scientists who build it know just what they are about to unleash. Colonel Paul Tibbets, one of the finest bomber pilots in the U.S. Army Air Corps, is selected to lead the mission to drop the horrific new weapon on a Japanese city. As the new president, Harry S Truman, mulls his options, and a Japanese physician named Okiro Hamishita cares for patients at a clinic near the city of Hiroshima, citizens on the home front await the day of reckoning that everyone knows is coming.A fitting conclusion to one of the most riveting sagas in military fiction, The Final Storm illuminates the heroism and sacrifice that defined the war in the Pacific, bringing the conflict to life as only Jeff Shaara can.From the Hardcover edition.

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.