The flush of morning has but just begun to tinge the sky above Sapun Mountain; the dark blue surface of the sea has already cast aside the shades of night and awaits the first ray to begin a play of merry gleams; cold and mist are wafted from the bay; there is no snow—all is black, but the morning frost pinches the face and crackles underfoot, and the far-off, unceasing roar of the sea, broken now and then by the thunder of the firing in Sevastopol, alone disturbs the calm of the morning. It is dark on board the ships; it has just struck eight bells. Toward the north the activity of the day begins gradually to replace the nocturnal quiet; here the relief guard has passed clanking their arms, there the doctor is already hastening to the hospital, further on the soldier has crept out of his earth hut and is washing his sunburnt face in ice-encrusted water, and, turning towards the crimsoning east, crosses himself quickly as he prays to God; here a tall and heavy camel-wagon has dragged creaking to the cemetery, to bury the bloody dead, with whom it is laden nearly to the top. You go to the wharf—a peculiar odor of coal, manure, dampness, and of beef strikes you; thousands of objects of all sorts—wood, meat, gabions, flour, iron, and so forth—lie in heaps about the wharf; soldiers of various regiments, with knapsacks and muskets, without knapsacks and without muskets, throng thither, smoke, quarrel, drag weights aboard the steamer which lies smoking beside the quay; unattached two-oared boats, filled with all sorts of people,—soldiers, sailors, merchants, women,—land at and leave the wharf.

The new book continues the story of Matt, the boy who was cloned from evil drug lord El Patrón in The House of the Scorpion. Now 14 years old, Matt rules his own country, the Land of Opium, the only thriving place in a world ravaged by ecological disaster. Though he knows that the cure for ending the suffering is hidden in Opium, Matt faces obstacles and enemies at every turn when he tries to use his power to help.

Nikki Eaton, single, thirty-one, sexually liberated, and economically self-supporting, has never particularly thought of herself as a daughter. Yet, following the unexpected loss of her mother, she undergoes a remarkable transformation during a tumultuous year that brings stunning horror, sorrow, illumination, wisdom, and even—from an unexpected source—a nurturing love.

Angelo Marchetti is dead.If the hitman is to live again, he must traverse the Wasteland to find the Avalon’s sacred burial ground.Armed with his tools of the killing trade along with his Elitario training, he is pitted against the forces of evil in a struggle to survive. But will his skills be enough to escape the minions of Boondocks or will he be imprisoned forever...Jake has watched a band of Hunters lay waste to the only family he has... the undead! Now he's also being hunted too, especially by The Mad Prophet. He is the last vampire left. However, in the middle of surviving the shrewdness of his big time nemesis and escaping, he discovers a secret, one owned by the hunters themselves and one only he can stop... before it spirals out of control.

A collection of short stories by the popular and influential Russian author, a founder of the socialist realism literary method and arguably the greatest Russian literary figure of the 20th century. He wrote stories, plays, memoirs and novels which touched the imagination of the Russian people, and was the first Russian author to write sympathetically of such characters as tramps and thieves, emphasizing their daily struggles against overwhelming odds.

Two short stories from the time of King Arthur, when magic was real and dangerous. They are "The Wellspring" and "The Fourth Concealment of the Island of Britain".

Immortal Essence SeriesBook OneWorlds divided them. Destiny brought them together. Only love will save them.WORLDS DIVIDED THEM. DESTINY BROUGHT THEM TOGETHER. ONLY LOVE WILL SAVE THEM. On princess Venus’s planet of Kelari, her people go through a change at the age of sixteen, one that takes them from mortality to immortality. But on her birthday, before the change can take place, she’s hurled to Earth. It’s a planet she can’t survive on for long. After pleading with the Gods, her guardian, Zaren counsels that the only way Venus can return home is if she helps someone find his soul mate. That seems a simple task. From her Earth Studies classes, she’s learned humans fall in love easily. But when she meets Michael her attitude changes. He’s broken, angry, and incredibly rude. Venus doesn’t even know if he can love. With time running out, and an evil force trying to destroy her, she is determined to help Michael heal and find love. Her life, her planet, and her people depend on her success. If she doesn't triumph, she'll die, but if she does she might lose her heart. ____________________PRAISE FOR THIS SERIES:"Michael and Venus have probably been the best pairing/couple that I've read about this year! GO READ THIS BOOK! You will love it. Seriously." Nancy, reviewer Tumbling Books "Writing that moves readers to ponder their hearts is good writing, and that's what readers will find with Workman. Her protagonist is strong willed, her antagonist is easy to hate, and her mentor is easy to love." Kathleen Brebes "What a ride!" Taffy Lovell_____________________________Books in this series:EXILEDDOVETAILEDALIGNEDEARTH'S GUARDIANZAREN'S TRAVELS

CUBBIEPHRENIA, is about a boy’s journey from the baseball sandlots on the cliffs of San Pedro to the vine covered park of Chicago’s Wrigley Field. Mickey O’Really fears his life is just a fantasy camp made up of stuff that will never be real. His bleacher bum uncle, St. Sligo, is his wizard/mentor on the superstition addled path that leads to the big leagues.CUBBIEPHRENIA, is about a boy’s journey from the baseball sandlots on the cliffs of San Pedro to the vine covered park of Chicago’s Wrigley Field. Mickey O’Really fears his life is just a fantasy camp made up of stuff that will never be real. His bleacher bum uncle, St. Sligo, is his wizard/mentor on the superstition addled path that leads to the big leagues. Teacher-turned-lunatic Mr. Shane stalks Mickey and aims to put an end to his hardball dreams. In his quest to win the World Series Mickey finds out that you can be hurt the most by those that are supposed to help.

In a world that had to adapt to a drastic new climate, society follows the seasons and migration is law. When the son of the Exalted Leader decides to test his mettle against the unforgiving Summer, he learns that nothing is really what it seems, and the life he thought he understood may be no more than a mirage.After an asteroid collided with earth and changed the tilt of the axis, humanity had to adapt. The survivors of the impact slowly rebuilt, creating a migratory society that followed the short growing seasons. Migration was more than a suggestion, it was the law.Tenet Bradwin, the son of the nation's Exalted Leader, spent weeks gathering supplies and making plans to go through the modern day rite of passage and off-season through the Summer. Others had done it. Others had hidden from the transports and guards to test their mettle against the brutal elements. Others had done it and been considered heroes by their peers. He was certain he could handle it.But he hadn't planned on wraiths. He hadn't considered the enormous gilla and raptors and other preditors that prowled in the sun. He hadn't known his food would spoil in days, or that all his practical training at the Academy was useless in the brutal reality of Summer. In a very short time, Tenet learned that all he thought he knew was no more than a story. He didn't just have to prove his mettle. In the scorching Summer sun, he quickly learned that he had to prove himself.

Kamlyn Paige joins a group of supernatural hunters to find her son's killer. When a mysterious neighbor sees her weeping on a sidewalk, he picks her up and introduces her to a new world. She goes with him to the Chamber of Darkness, and underground society, where she learns to fight evil beings and creatures as a Huntsman. But is there a traitor among them?THE THINGS THAT GO BUMP IN THE NIGHT ARE REAL.Kamlyn Paige is a young woman who has suffered great loss in her life. At nineteen, when she was seven months pregnant, her parents were in a fatal car accident. And at twenty-four, when her son was only five years old, he was murdered before her eyes by a cloaked figure in the middle of the night. It takes everything she has to hold on after the devastation.But when a mysterious neighbor sees her weeping on the sidewalk, he picks her up and introduces her to a new world. She goes with him to the Chamber of Darkness, an underground society, where she learns to fight evil beings and creatures as a Huntsman. The sole motivation to complete her training is getting revenge on the demon that killed her little boy. But while she's there, she realizes there are other beings that threaten the way of life on Earth. Prophetic dreams reveal there is a mysterious traitor in the Chamber's headquarters and he's trying to get his hands on a goblet that will open the portal to the demon world, unleashing them all on the humans.Will she be able to figure out who the traitor is in time to stop them from destroying the human race? With the help of her new friends and fellow Huntsmen, they may stand a chance at saving the world from a massive possession of epic proportions.

A northerner by birth, Willow moves south when she inherits her grandfather’s ice cream shop. From the slow southern dialect to the crazy drivers, Willow finds herself at odds with what most call “southern charm.” She becomes obsessed with cook-offs and bake-offs, wanting those trophies for her mantle. With the chili cook-off just around the corner, Willow manages to provoke one of the judges.A northerner by birth, Willow moves south when she inherits her grandfather’s ice cream shop. From the slow southern dialect to the crazy drivers, Willow finds herself at odds with what most call “southern charm.” She becomes obsessed with cook-offs and bake-offs, wanting those trophies for her mantle. With the chili cook-off just around the corner, Willow manages to provoke one of the judges to a fit of road rage. When that judge ends up face down, dead, in a bowl of Willow’s chili, police chief Grice looks to the newest town resident as his number one suspect. Willow must find out who wanted Ms. Delonda Posey dead before the good citizens of Turtle, OK run her Yankee bottom out of town.

In Evil Hour is the thrilling story of a Colombian society menaced by rumour and paranoia by the Nobel Laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez, author of the One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera. As a small South American town sweats under an oppressive heat, an unknown person creeps through the night sticking malicious posters to walls and doors. When the contents of one poster lead to a murder, everyone knows that the town is threatened by a malevolent presence - but is there anything that the mayor, the doctor or the priest can do about it? 'In Evil Hour was the book which was to inspire my own career as a novelist. I owe my writing voice to that one book!' Jim Crace 'Belongs to the very best of Marquez's work . . . should on no account be missed' Financial Times 'A splendid achievement' The Times

FREE for a limited time! The "New York Times" bestselling author of the Nova and Quinton series delivers a short story featuring Tristan. TRISTAN: FINDING HOPE Tristan has always felt like a ghost. After a painful loss, he became all but invisible to his grieving family. So he dove headfirst into a dangerous life, sinking deeper until he felt he could disappear-and almost did. Though Tristan survived, staying on track is a 24/7 battle he's not sure he wants to fight. Then Tristan meets Avery, the girl with purple streaks in her hair and tattoos like secrets, waiting to be uncovered. Her smile is warm and inviting, but her sad, hazel eyes tell a different story. And the strangest part is-she can really "see" him. A girl like that might just keep Tristan out of the darkness . . . or pull him right back in. (12,000 words) Includes a bonus chapter from "Breaking Nova"!

In 1919, the same year Demian was published, seven of these stories appeared as a book entitled Märchen (lit. Fairy Tales). This 1st edition in English has followed the arrangement Hesse made for the final collected edition of his works, where he added an 8th story, "Flute Dream". The new note so clear in Demian was 1st sounded, Hesse believed, in some of these tales written during 1913-18, the period that brought him into conflict with supporters of the war, with his country & its government, with conventional intellectual life, with every form of orthodoxy both in the world & in himself. Unlike his earlier work, from Peter Carmenzind thru Knulp, the stories in Strange News from Another Star don't allow for an essentially realistic interpretaion. They are concerned with dream worlds, the subconscious, magical thinking & the numinous experience of the soul. Their subject is the distilling of wisdom. The stories are "Augustus", "The Poet", "Flute Dream", "Strange News from Another Star", "The Hard Passage", "A Dream Sequence", "Faldum" &--perhaps the masterpiece of the collection--"Iris".

An American millionaire builds a Christian seminary in India, furthering his spiritual mission—and setting into motion a generations-spanning cycle of miscommunication and fracture within his family Beginning in the 1890s, Come, My Beloved describes an American family’s involvement with India over four generations. Touched by the poverty he encounters in Bombay, self-made millionaire David MacArd establishes a seminary for Christian missionary workers, and in so doing shapes the fates of his son and grandson. The choices made by each generation parallel one another, distinctly marked by the passage of time—though the patriarch remains in New York, the second David becomes a missionary in India himself, while his own son, Ted, goes even further, opting to live in a remote village—and these choices come with unforeseen sacrifices. Nor does their religious journey necessarily mean any growing harmony with their surroundings—something that is powerfully brought home when Ted refuses to let his daughter marry across racial lines. Featuring an unforgettable rendering of India during Gandhi’s rise to power, Come, My Beloved is a family saga of rare power and sensitivity. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Pearl S. Buck including rare images from the author’s estate.

In the three novellas collected here, bestselling romancer Deveraux explores some of the limits of the genre she knows so well, indicating she may be as spunky as her heroines. The first story, The Invitation, is set in 1934. Jackie O'Neill returns to her hometown of Chandler, Colo., an accomplished pilot and a lonely widow. Developing her air transport business can keep her happy as a pilot, and her new partner, William Montgomery, promises to make very cozy company--until Jackie realizes he is the same little Billy she babysat for many years ago. In the second story, Matchmakers, Kane Taggert, who reluctantly agrees to guide four New York City women on a Colorado trail ride, may be enchanted by Ruth Edwards, a calculatingly charming widow, if only he can make it through the two-week trip without throttling Ruth's friend, bestselling author Cale Anderson. The last story, A Perfect Arrangement, finds Dorie Latham enlisting Cole Hunter, "an aging gunslinger with no visible means of support and the beginnings of a paunch," to play husband and help her elude her sister's matchmaking scheme.

In this explosive one-hundred-page prequel companion novella, uncover the truth behind Number Five’s unknown history with the Mogadorians. This sequel to I Am Number Four: The Lost Files: Five’s Legacy finds Number Five entering the ranks of the Mogadorian army. The Mogs have convinced him that they will be the victor in their war for Earth, and Five decides he would rather be on the winning side. Realizing that the only thing that matters is his survival, Five allies himself with the sworn enemies of the Lorien and pledges to help the Mogs take down the very people he was meant to protect. Is he too far gone to be saved? Discover how Five became one of Earth’s and Lorien’s most dangerous adversaries and decide for yourself.

'The kind of book that changes readers for the better' *Guardian* When a family tragedy means Mick is sent to the outback to live with his Granpa, it looks as if he has a lonely life ahead of him. The cattle station is a tough place for a child, where nature is brutal and the men must work hard in the heat and dust. However, after a cyclone hits, things change for Mick. Exploring the floodwaters, he finds a lost puppy covered in mud and half-drowned. Mick and his dog immediately become inseparable as they take on the adventures offered by their unusual home, and the business of growing up, together. In this charming prequel to the much-loved Red Dog, Louis de Bernières tells the moving story of a young boy and his Granpa, and the charismatic and entertaining dog who so many readers hold close to their hearts.

When suburban Claudia Kincaid decides to run away, she knows she doesn’t just want to run from somewhere, she wants to run to somewhere — to a place that is comfortable, beautiful, and, preferably, elegant. She chooses the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Knowing her younger brother Jamie has money and thus can help her with a serious cash-flow problem, she invites him along. Once settled into the museum, Claudia and Jamie find themselves caught up in the mystery of an angel statue that the museum purchased at auction for a bargain price of $225. The statue is possibly an early work of the Renaissance master, Michelangelo, and therefore worth millions. Is it? Or isn’t it? Claudia is determined to find out. Her quest leads her to Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, the remarkable old woman who sold the statue, and to some equally remarkable discoveries about herself.

Young buck Rannoch was born on the night his father was murdered and into a herd of deer where hunger for power has gradually whittled away at all that is true and good. He knows he must escape to survive. Chased by stags, with their fearsome antlers sharpened for the kill, he begins a treacherous journey into the unknown, and ahead of him lies a shocking and formidable search for truth and goodwill in the shadow of the Great Mountain. One day he will have to return to his home and face his destiny among the deer to fulfill the prophecy that has persistently given them hope: that one day a fawn will be born with the mark of an oak leaf on his forehead and that fawn's courage will lead all the deer to freedom. Filled with passion and a darkness that gradually, through Rannoch's courage in the face of adversity, lifts to reveal an overwhelming feeling of light, Fire Bringer is a tremendous, spirited story that takes the reader deep into the hearts and minds of its characters as they fight for their right to live in peace. Well-written and brimming with a gutsy excitement that leaps off the page and straight into the imagination, David Clement-Davies's debut novel for young readers is an exceptional, dynamic, complex, and utterly absorbing piece of work that anyone with a true love of animals and adventure will find impossible to put down. (Ages 10 and older)

A woman crosses a London street. It is just after 11am on a bright spring morning, and Diana Cowper is going into a funeral parlour to organise her own service. A mere six hours later she is dead, strangled with a crimson curtain cord in her own home. Did she know she was going to die? Did she recognise her killer? Are the two events even related? Because nobody arranges their own funeral, and the gets killed the same day - do they? Enter Daniel Hwthorne, a detective with a genius for solving crimes and an ability to hold his secrets very close. With him is his writing partner, Anthony Horowitz. Together they will set out to solve this most puzzling of mysteries. What neither of them know is that they are about to embark on a dark and dangerous journey where the twists and turns are as unexpected as they are bloody...