Set eighty years in the future, this novel by the best-selling author Michael O'Brien is about an expedition sent from the planet Earth to Alpha Centauri, the star closest to our solar system. TheKosmos, a great ship that the central character Neil de Hoyos describes as a "flying city", is immense in size and capable of more than half light-speed. Hoyos is a Nobel Prize winning physicist who has played a major role in designing the ship. Hoyos has signed on as a passenger because he desires to escape the seemingly benign totalitarian government that controls everything on his home planet. He is a skeptical and quirky misanthropic humanist with old tragedies, loves, and hatreds that are secreted in his memory. The surprises that await him on the voyage-and its destination-will shatter all of his assumptions and point him to a true new horizon. Science fiction and fantasy literature are genres that have become dominant forces in contemporary worldwide culture. Our fascination with the near-angelic powers of new technology, its benefits and dangers, its potential for obsession and catastrophe, raises vital questions that this work explores about human nature and the cosmos, about man's image of himself and where he is going-and why he seeks to go there. Michael O'Brien, iconographer, painter, and writer, is the popular author of many best-selling novels including Father Elijah, The Father's Tale, Eclipse of the Sun, Sophia House, Theophilos, and Island of the World. His novels have been translated into twelve languages and widely reviewed in both secular and religious media in North America and Europe. He lives in Ontario with his wife, Sheila, and family.  Praise for Voyage to Alpha Centauri: "Michael O'Brien is a superior spiritual story teller worthy to join the ranks of C.S. Lewis, Flannery O'Connor, Graham Greene, and Evelyn Waugh." - Peter Kreeft, Ph.D., Boston College  "Some Sci Fi novels are scientism fiction, worshiping science. Others are science friction, where high tech makes humans lowly. Voyage to Alpha Centauri, though, neither creates a new god nor blames science for our sin. Its narrator excitedly embarks on a 19-year trip aboard a sleek, huge spaceship, only to learn of oppression in the heavens as on earth, with big brothers watching and demanding lying conformity. Michael O'Brien shows us the battle that ensues and its sensational result as he skillfully portrays a clash of world views without end, amen." - Marvin Olasky, Editor-in-chief, World Magazine "Ingenious, expansive, and enduringly wise, Voyage to Alpha Centauri is a tour de force of storytelling and moral imagination--sparkling in its humanity, rich in its embroidery, and chilling in its plausibility. It is a parable of an age that could easily become our own, with its concomitant wonders and dangers, an exploration of the most sublime heights and of the greatest depths of human possibility, and a thought-provoking meditation on the ethical limits of knowledge. InVoyage to Alpha Centauri, Michael O'Brien has given us a literary treasure and a deeply satisfying read."- Corban Addison, Author, A Walk Across the Sun

Being happy. It sounds so simple. Yet, it seems that it’s always just out of reach for Shannon Ryan. After serving overseas for seven years as a female United States Marine, Ryan is finally getting out the military. But coming home to live with her biker brother and his motorcycle club is more difficult than she thought it would be. Much has changed in the years that she has been gone, including Ellis, her brother’s best friend and childhood crush. Ellis 'Dirty' Crane is the second in command for Tormented Souls Motorcycle Club. The only thing he lives for is the club, that is until Ryan comes home, no longer the wild little girl that followed him around. The two things standing in his way of getting what he wants are Patrick, Ryan's brother and leader of the club, and Jeremiah, Ryan’s boyfriend. Can Ellis break through Ryan’s walls? Burn them and Jeremiah down? Prove to her brother that he’s the right man for her? Or is Ryan hiding more than she’s letting on?

First title in Titan Books' Marvel fiction reissue program, featuring the classic Avengers story: Everybody Wants to Rule the World.HOW MANY VILLAINS DOES IT TAKE TO RULE THE WORLD?Hydra has a synthetic pathogen that will make the entire human race dependent on them for the cure. A.I.M.'s newly developed nanotech compound to enslave humanity is dangerously close to contaminating the world's water supplies. Ultron is poised on the edge of Singularity, Earth's technology at his metallic fingertips. Dormammu has a plan to save the world—by claiming it as his own. The High Evolutionary is rewriting the human genome in a bid to turn humankind into a eugenic slave-race.Everybody wants to rule the world—and only the isolated Avengers can stop them.THE MIGHTY AVENGERS FACE AN ARRAY OF THEIR GREATEST FOES—ALL AT ONCE!

On the tenth anniversary of 9/11, a portrait of tragedy, survival, and healing from the author of The New York Times bestseller Report from Ground Zero.This year marks the tenth anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, an occasion that is sure to be observed around the world. But among the memorials, political speeches, and news editorials, the most pressing consideration- and often the most overlooked-is the lives and well-being of the 9/11 first responders, their families, and the victims' families over the past decade.Dennis Smith, a former firefighter and the author of the bestselling Report from Ground Zero, addresses this important topic in a series of interviews with the heroes and families of those most affected by the tragedy either through feats of bravery in the rescue efforts or heroic bearing up in the face of unimaginable loss. Smith provides an intimate look at a terrible moment in history and its...

“Tell me about this place. This…Arcania.” What if your life as you knew it ceased to exist? That is the question Naeve Brannigan and her three sisters are faced with on the eve of their 25th birthday.Continuing a tradition they’ve hidden from their mother for years, the four women arrive at a tarot shop to have their futures told. Only this time their futures aren’t predicted—they’re forever changed. They’ve awoken in a strange time and place with no knowledge of how they got there. All they have to go by is the word of a man who claims to be family—a family they’ve never heard of.He tells them of a world they could never have imagined. One that has been cursed by an Empress fueled by old revenge—revenge their mother appears to be at the center of. As they fight to survive the people and dangers of an unknown land, they slowly begin to unravel its mysteries to find that they hold the key to saving this world…this Arcania. The question that remains for each of them is: Who do you become when the you that you always were is no longer?

From the national bestselling author of The Lost Wife and The Garden of Letters, comes an intimate and richly imagined story of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the French pilot and author of The Little Prince. March, 1942: Declared medically unfit to fly while France is beseiged by war, Saint-Exupéry languishes in homesick frustration, unable to aid his country—and unable to write. While his publisher tries in vain to ease the author's mind, Saint-Exupéry meets the enchanting Silvia Hamilton at a cocktail party. Though they do not share a language, they are nonetheless drawn to each other, and where words fail them they find other forms of communication. In the proceeding months, Silvia's warmth and grace give Saint-Exupéry the peace of mind he so desperately needs. And as their love affair flourishes, he finds himself inspired to tell a tale of such simplicity and beauty that a person of any age could find joy and comfort in it. With Silvia as...

The legacy that haunts her . . . The mystery she must solve . . . A man who threatens to reveal her secrets . . . and break her heart.Burned by a failed marriage, former FBI agent Marc Rossi wants back in the investigation game with no emotional strings attached. Taking an assignment for his enterprising Angelino cousins, he heads to Northern Ireland to pry a key piece of evidence from a missing socialite-any way he can. But when the ice queen turns out to be warm, beautiful, and on a secret mission of her own, the job becomes a passionate reminder of what happens when duty and desire mix. The daughter of an infamous fugitive, Devyn Sterling has survived betrayal only to find that her mother has mysteriously disappeared. When her search uncovers secrets, lies, and threats, Devyn and Marc must trust each other when every instinct says they can't . . ....

After ten months of living in the White House, seventeen-year old Meg Powers knew she should be used to the pressures of life in the spotlight—but she wasn't. In addition to the usual senior year worries—college applications and Josh, her first serious boyfriend—Meg had to live up to what was expected from the President's daughter. She had to suppress her sense of humor and watch the way she dressed and spoke. And she had to try to have a normal relationship with Josh despite intrusions by reporters and secret service agents who followed her everywhere. Then, just when everything was already so difficult, a shocking attack on her mother makes life in the White House even more impossible. Meg, her father, and her two younger brothers find they must turn to one another for solace and support—while her mother's life hangs in the balance.

This collection of literature attempts to compile many classics that have stood the test of time and offer them at a reduced, affordable price in an attractive volume so that everyone can enjoy them.

These 34 funny, tragic, bracing, and acerbic stories represent the complete short fiction of one of Ireland's finest living writers. On struggling farms, in Dublin's rain-drenched streets, or in parched exile in Franco's Spain, McGahern's characters wage a confused but touching war against the facts of life.

SUMMARY: Beloved Commissario Guido Brunetti once again finds himself pursuing a puzzling case his fellow policemen would rather leave closed. What appears to be a cut-and-dried murder case pinpoints an elderly lady's maid as her killer. However, Brunetti comes to a different conclusion and decides--unofficially--to take on the case himself.

Realizing that he has become lost in a strange part of town, Skipper Matthews, a ravenous comic book collector who's favorite character is an evil super-villain, discovers a building just like the secret headquarters of his idol.

Young Arabel's life is changed forever when her father, a taxi driver, brings home an injured bird he finds in the street. This wacky raven eats everything in sight, answers the telephone by squawking "Nevermore!" and causes chaos wherever he goes—but Arabel loves her new feathered friend, whom she names Mortimer.This is the first volume of Arabel and Mortimer's adventures, brightened with hilarious illustrations by Quentin Blake.