This eBook includes the full text of the novel plus the following additional content: • An exclusive preview chapter from Jean M. Auel’s The Land of Painted Caves, on sale in hardcover March 29, 2011 • An Earth’s Children® series sampler including free chapters from the other books in Jean M. Auel’s bestselling series • A Q&A with the author about the Earth’s Children® series The Valley of Horses is the second in the great Earth's Children® series. In The Valley of Horses, Jean Auel uses her thorough understanding of human nature and her powerful gift of storytelling to continue the saga of Ayla and to once again, with exquisite and accurate detail, re-create the world as it truly might have been.

Written in a time when criminal biographies enjoyed great success, Daniel Defoe's "Moll Flanders" details the life of the irresistible Moll and her struggles through poverty and sin in search of property and power. Born in Newgate Prison to a picaresque mother, Moll propels herself through marriages, periods of success and destitution, and a trip to the New World and back, only to return to the place of her birth as a popular prostitute and brilliant thief. The story of Moll Flanders vividly illustrates Defoe's themes of social mobility and predestination, sin, redemption and reward. This Modern Library Paperback Classic is set from the 1721 edition printed by Chetwood in London, the only edition approved by Defoe. "From the Trade Paperback edition."

This classic Beginner Book edited by Dr. Seuss is a delightful ode to winter. "Brrrrr!" It snowed! From snowball fights and skiing to fort building and snowman making, P. D. Eastman and Roy McKie's" Snow "will have young readers eager for the kind of fun only a wintry-white day can bring. Perfect for enjoying with a cup of hot cocoa! Originally created by Dr. Seuss, Beginner Books encourage children to read all by themselves, with simple words and illustrations that give clues to their meaning. "Joyful verse relates the many ways to enjoy snow. First graders will love it."--"Chicago Tribune. "

Ava has watched her parents, Caleb and Maggie, live the perfect fairy tale, the perfect love story, played out in front of her eyes her entire life. Her family is love, life, and happiness. The Jacobsons are everything a family should be and Ava is loved and well taken care of. But the one thing that’s missing from her life is the one thing she’s waited for every day, the one thing her kind knows will make them complete, the one thing they thought was gone and lost forever. Her significant. Seth has lived with the Watsons his entire life. They’re the only family he knows, but he knows that there are things they keep from him. He knows that they lie and they do unspeakable evil, things from when he was a child that he can barely remember that cling to the edges of his memory. He barely remembers his real mother and all he knows is what he’s told. He doesn’t know what to trust. He wants to believe that the Watsons love and care for him, have his best interest at heart, but isn’t so sure of that anymore when he finally—after a lifetime of waiting for her—meets his soulmate, and the Watson’s first act is to try to take her away from him. The Virtuoso worlds collide, hearts are exposed, humans are endangered, and the lives of Seth and Ava are changed forever. They’ll have to love without judgment or reservation, they’ll have to be wise and accepting beyond their years, they’ll have to forgive for things before they’ve even happened, they’ll have to trust without seeing, have faith without knowing, and they’ll have to light their own way in the dark when everyone else is blind to show them the way. And more than anything else… they’ll fight like hell to keep each other.

*With The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, Stephen R. Donaldson changed the face of fantasy fiction forever. In The Mirror of Her Dreams, the astonishing first novel in the two-volume Mordant’s Need series, Donaldson shows us a world of wondrous beauty and seductive illusion, where mirrors hold the deadliest of magics and nothing is what it seems. . . . ***The daughter of rich but neglectful parents, Terisa Morgan lives alone in a New York City apartment, a young woman who has grown to doubt her own existence. Surrounded by the flat reassurance of mirrors, she leads an unfulfilled life—until the night a strange man named Geraden comes crashing through one of her mirrors, on a quest to find a champion to save his kingdom of Mordant from a pervasive evil that threatens the land. Terisa is no champion. She wields neither magic nor power. And yet, much to her own surprise, when Geraden begs her to come back with him, she agrees. Now, in a culture where women are little more than the playthings of powerful men, in a castle honeycombed with secret passages and clever traps, in a kingdom threatened from without and within by enemies able to appear and vanish out of thin air, Terisa must become more than the pale reflection of a person. For the way back to Earth is closed to her. And the enemies of Mordant will stop at nothing to see her dead.

In the Pyrenees mountains near Carcassonne, Alice, a volunteer at an archaeological dig, stumbles into a cave and makes a startling discovery-two crumbling skeletons, strange writings on the walls, and the pattern of a labyrinth. Eight hundred years earlier, on the eve of a brutal crusade that will rip apart southern France, a young woman named Alais is given a ring and a mysterious book for safekeeping by her father. The book, he says, contains the secret of the true Grail, and the ring, inscribed with a labyrinth, will identify a guardian of the Grail. Now, as crusading armies gather outside the city walls of Carcassonne, it will take a tremendous sacrifice to keep the secret of the labyrinth safe.

The bestselling author of the Killer Instincts novels “knows how to write scorching sexual tension” (USA Today). Now she really sets it on fire in a new series about men and women living on the edge of violence, sex, and life and death. After a devastating war decimated most of the world, Hudson Lane has only known the oppressive life under her own father’s tyranny. She finally escapes, branding herself an outlaw and hunted by the Enforcers. Her best chance at survival is Connor Mackenzie, an aggressively sensual fugitive who opens her eyes to the wicked possibilities of a world without rules. As the leader of a band of outlaw fighters, Connor can’t resist the beautiful stranger who asks for his protection. Despite his reservations, he agrees to introduce her to a whole new way of life. But when Connor discovers Hudson’s connection to the enemies of liberty, he wonders how far he can trust the woman who has abandoned all inhibitions to challenge every forbidden desire.

From the acclaimed John Barth, "one of the greatest novelists of our time" (Washington Post Book World) and "a master of language" (Chicago Sun-Times), comes a lively triad of tales that delight in the many possibilities of language and its users. The first novella, "Tell Me," explores a callow undergraduate's initiation into the mysteries of sex, death, and the Heroic Cycle. The second novella, "I've Been Told," traces no less than the history of storytelling and examines innocence and modernity, ignorance and self-consciousness. And the three elderly sisters of the third novella, "As I Was Saying . . . ," record an oral history of their youthful muse-like services to (and servicings of) a subsequently notorious and now mysteriously vanished novelist. Sexy, humorous, and brimming with Barth's deep intelligence and playful irreverence, Where Three Roads Meet will surely delight loyal fans and draw new ones. John Barth is the author of numerous works of fiction, including The Sot-Weed Factor, The Tidewater Tales, Lost in the Funhouse, The Last Voyage of Somebody the Sailor, the National Book Award winner Chimera, and most recently The Book of Ten Nights and a Night. He taught for many years in the writing program at Johns Hopkins University. "Teller, tale, torrid . . . inspiration: Barth's seventeenth book brings these three narrative 'roads' together inimitably, and thrice. [Where Three Roads Meet] employs all of his familiar devices -- alliteration, shifts in diction and time, puns -- to tease and titillate, while at the same time articulate -- obliquely, sadly, angrily, gloriously -- a farewell to language and its objects: us." -- Publishers Weekly, starred review

IF IT'S IN HIS HEART... IT'S IN HIS KISS MEET OUR HERO... Gareth St. Clair is in a bind. His father, who detests him, is determined to beggar the St. Clair estates and ruin his inheritance. Gareth's sole bequest is an old family diary, which may or may not contain the secrets of his past... and the key to his future. The problem is—it's written in Italian, of which Gareth speaks not a word. MEET OUR HEROINE... All the ton agreed: there was no one quite like Hyacinth Bridgerton. She's fiendishly smart, devilishly outspoken, and according to Gareth, probably best in small doses. But there's something about her—something charming and vexing—that grabs him and won't quite let go... MEET POOR MR. MOZART... Or don't. But rest assured, he's spinning in his grave when Gareth and Hyacinth cross paths at the annual—and annually discordant—Smythe-Smith musicale. To Hyacinth, Gareth's every word seems a dare, and she offers to translate his diary, even though her Italian is slightly less than perfect. But as they delve into the mysterious text, they discover that the answers they seek lie not in the diary, but in each other... and that there is nothing as simple—or as complicated—as a single, perfect kiss.

Accused of mocking the inviolate codes of Islam, the Persian poet and sage Omar Khayyam fortuitously finds sympathy with the very man who is to judge his alleged crimes. Recognising genius, the judge decides to spare him and gives him instead a small, blank book, encouraging him to confine his thoughts to it alone. Thus beginds the seamless blend of fact and fiction that is Samarkand. Vividly re-creating the history of the manuscript of the Rubaiyaat of Omar Khayyam, Amin Maalouf spans continents and centuries with breathtaking vision: the dusky exoticism of 11th-century Persia, with its poetesses and assassins; the same country's struggles nine hundred years later, seen through the eyes of an American academic obsessed with finding the original manuscript ; and the fated maiden voyage of the Titanic, whose tragedy led to the Rubaiyaat's final resting place - all are brought to life with keen assurance by this gifted and award-winning writer.

"A Japanese writer of genius."—Japan QuarterlySoseki Natsume is considered to be one of Japan's most beloved and respected authors. And Then is ranked as one of his most insightful and stirring novels.Daisuke, the protagonist, is a man in his twenties who is struggling with his personal purpose and identity as well as the changing social landscape of Meiji-era Japan. As Japan enters the Twentieth Century, ancient customs give way to western ideals, and Daisuke works to resolve his feelings of disconnection and abandonment during this time of change. Thanks to his father's wealth, Daisuke has the luxury of having time to develop his philosophies and ruminate on their meaning while remaining intellectually aloof from traditional Japanese culture and the demands of growing industrialization. Then Daisuke's life takes an unexpected turn when he is reunited with his college friend and his sickly wife. At first, Daisuke's stoicism allows him to act...

One afternoon, single mother Sara Weston says that she's going to the store - and never returns. In her absence, she leaves her teenage son alone with his damaged past and a legacy of secrets. Keith Weston nearly lost his life in an act of arson. He survived - but with devastating physical and emotional scars. Without his mother, he has no one to help him heal, no money, nothing to live for but the medications that numb his pain. Isolated and angry, his hatred has one tight focus: his half sister, Maggie Lockwood. Nineteen-year-old Maggie Lockwood spent a year in prison for the acts that led up to the fire. Now she's back home. But her release cannot free her from the burden of guilt she carries. She grew up with Keith Weston, played with him as a child…and recently learned they share the same father. Now the person Keith despises most is the closest thing he has to family - until Sara returns. If Sara returns….

'Twas the night (okay, more like the week) before Christmas, and all through the tiny community of Pine Cove, California, people are busy buying, wrapping, packing, and generally getting into the holiday spirit.But not everybody is feeling the joy. Little Joshua Barker is in desperate need of a holiday miracle. No, he's not on his deathbed; no, his dog hasn't run away from home. But Josh is sure that he saw Santa take a shovel to the head, and now the seven-year-old has only one prayer: Please, Santa, come back from the dead.But hold on! There's an angel waiting in the wings. (Wings, get it?) It's none other than the Archangel Raziel come to Earth seeking a small child with a wish that needs granting. Unfortunately, our angel's not sporting the brightest halo in the bunch, and before you can say "Kris Kringle," he's botched his sacred mission and sent the residents of Pine Cove headlong into Christmas chaos, culminating in the most hilarious and horrifying holiday party the town has ever seen.Move over, Charles Dickens -- it's Christopher Moore time.

Freak weather and flash floods all over southern England. Half of Lafferton is afloat. A landslip on the Moor has closed the bypass and, as the rain slowly drains away, a shallow grave - and a skeleton - are exposed. The remains are identified as those of missing teenager, Harriet Lowther, last seen 16 years ago.

They are the Sentinels. Three races descended from ancient guardians of mankind, each possessing unique abilities in their battle to protect humanity against their eternal foes: the Synestryn. Now a warrior must protect a strong-minded woman from an incredible evil. . . A beautiful, independent Theronai, Rory Rainey knows that her attempts to be a warrior are futile—unless she can stop the demonic visions that torment her. Determined to be free, Rory sets out to find the mysterious guardian who can cure her, before she loses her sight—or her life. But Rory’s journey brings its own dangers when she is attacked by a pack of Synestryn sent by the demon lord Raygh. Cornered and desperate, Rory narrowly escapes with the help of a sword-wielding stranger. Cain knows that Rory needs his protection to survive, just as he knows that her power is compatible with his own. And when Rory binds herself to Cain, the warrior knows he will do anything to keep her safe from the threat of the demon lord that pursues her. . .

Discount a 50-something woman as just a “pathetic old hag,” and see where that gets you. The arrogant young boyfriend of a former employee of Lily Raffenport, a mellow but irreverent Colorado garden designer, finds out when he dismisses everything about Lily as he trowels on the story of his girlfriend’s drunken suicide. That write-off spurs the reluctant sleuth Lily into action, and danger.Discount a 50-something woman as just a “pathetic old hag,” and see where that gets you. The arrogant young boyfriend of a former employee of Lily Raffenport, a mellow but irreverent Colorado garden designer, finds out when he dismisses everything about Lily as he trowels on the story of his girlfriend’s drunken suicide. That write-off spurs the reluctant sleuth Lily into action because she isn’t buying his self-important tale, and her curiosity for the truth takes her to New Mexico and back, before she herself becomes the main mark in a drug ring’s cover up of torture and murder. Is exposing the killer to find the truth worth the risk of revealing herself to the cartel’s mastermind?

Keane is a perfectly ordinary fourteen year old orphan...except for his abnormal, glowing hands, his unexplained dreams frequented by a scary, black dragon, the bullies at his school that just won't leave him alone, and a crippling crush on the new girl. Lucky, then, that he's completely unaware of his connection to the fearful race of supernaturals called the Terralytes rising to claim the Earth.This is not a story about Book of Dark.This is the story of a Majjikon who lost his memory.This is the story of a boy named Keane...Keane Davies is an ordinary fourteen year old orphan, normal in every way. Except that he sometimes awakens in the middle of the night to find his hands glowing bright green.He doesn't understand why he dreams of a scary, black dragon and an enchanted forest, or why his best friend won't let him use his strange new powers against the bullies at school and their needlessly violent methods of "conflict resolution". And things aren't helped any when he starts to develop a crush on the new girl at John Atkins High, inadvertently making her a target for the terrifying bullies.It's a good thing, then, that he remains quite unaware of his innate connection to the fearsome band of supernatural beings who call themselves Terralytes, and who are on the rise against the Council of Majjikons and the High Realm in their quest to claim the Earth in the name of their Order.Will Keane ever learn to use his powers? Will the dark dragon and the mystical forest in his dreams ever make sense? And will he ever find the mettle to face up to his high school tormentors?"Always Stand Up" is the first of thirty-six installments which comprise the Book of Dark Series. Find out more at www.BookOfDark.com.

Revised Edition. Pairing up with Texas frontiersman Hank MacElrae, the inimitable Bostonian Hawk Banks sets off in quest of adventure on the Plains of Texas. A distinctly incompatible pair, the two manage to make their unlikely friendship work and, enduring all manner of unlikely events, they succeed in finding their way into the heart of Texas, becoming founding fathers of a new nation.Revised Edition. The seven month period from the fall of 1835 to the spring of 1836 was a pivotal period in the history of Texas. At the outset of the Texas Revolution settlers faced a myriad of life threatening dangers in this untamed region. This is the story of seven persons drawn into the revolution, forcing them to make choices that would forever change each of them and in so doing, alter the course of Texas history.Scotsman Hank MacElrae has brought his wife Julie and son Auggey to Texas to build a better life. Bostonian Hawk Banks has haphazardly joined the Texas Rangers under the erroneous impression that fighting Indians promises to be adventurous. Nate Tucker arrives in Nacogdoches from Kentucky, where he befriends the enigmatic horned toad named Mephistopheles. Francisco de la Garza is still in his teens when General Santa Anna sweeps into his village of Zacatecas and conscripts him into the Mexican Army that is headed for Texas. Antonia Perez has migrated from Monclova to San Antonio to escape the reaches of the Mexican government. Little do these seven settlers know that they are about to be swept into a revolution, one that will become the defining event in Texas history, and that each of them will play a pivotal role in the outcome.At the outset of hostilities Hank leaves Julie and Auggey behind and joins the Revolutionary Army of Texas. Hank is introduced to the enigmatic Hawk Banks, who is never boring, ever brilliant, living on the edge, and winning in the end - emerging as a revolutionary legend. The friendship that develops between Hank and Hawk is intricate, highly unorthodox, at times hilarious, and ultimately pivotal to the outcome of the Revolution.The harsh realities of life eventually affect each and every settler, as they are beset with revolutionary battles, run-ins with the infamous Comanche Buffalo Hump, and encounters with death and destruction on the plains of Texas. As the story rushes to the climactic conclusion, an intricate series of events brings the main characters together at the pivotal conflict of the Texas Revolution – the Battle of San Jacinto. Each settler will play a seminal role in the birth of a nation.

This is a riveting novel, cleverly written with many twists and turns of all extremities. When a new family hosts a dinner party in Riverwolf Pass, it turns out to be more deadly than anyone would suspect. Will anyone survive? Ivan and Latianna are going to give it their best stab as they battle ferocious beasts for one shot at true love and a happy ending... will it ever be happy? Find out now...Ivan speeds through downtown Riverwolf Pass. His heart is pumping faster than ever before. Adrenaline rushes through his veins. There's only one thing on his mind... that thing just happens to be the thing that's on everybody's mind... The Dinner Party. Ivan speeds up the road to the old manner where the dinner party is being held... where the unsuspecting victims wait. The manipulative monsters dwell there, waiting for the perfect moment to make their move. Ivan has to destroy them... the fate of the entire town is in Ivan's hands. Latianna, the new girl in town, warns him that it won't be easy. She begs him to flee town without her, but he doesn't listen. Now, the dinner party is rapidly approaching... the impending doom looms over the town like a low, gray cloud. Will Ivan be able to handle it... or will he crack to pieces under the heart-wrenching pressure?The path we take is long and winding, the road is bumpy and rarely ever do two friends make it through it all. Especially two newly made friends who attend a dinner party that should seem so quaint and ordinary. But, in Riverwolf Pass, dinner parties seem to be taking a treacherous turn. What could possibly be so dangerous about a dinner party? I'll tell you. When dinner parties include blood-sucking beasts, riveting plots, true love, intriguing characters, unsuspecting victims, all written with cleverly surprising twists and turns of unimaginable extremities, they can most certainly put one in grave danger.