Ava Starr has always been the epitome of bad luck, but she never imagined she would wake up and find herself on a cannibal-infested island with no memory of how she got there. The last thing she remembers is boarding a plane with her pilot boyfriend, Preston. But now he and his crew are missing, and she must find him before a tribe of hungry cannibals finds him first.How can Ava Starr's worst nightmare be Dax Miller's dream come true?For the past three years, Dax has been stranded on Lamarai Island with his stepsister and two tribes of cannibals. But now a beautiful girl named Ava has washed up on shore. After secretly reading her journal, he believes she is a perfect match to the girl of his dreams. He's determined not only to keep her alive, but also to win over her heart by convincing her to forget about her past and the secrets that continue to haunt her.Ava Starr has always been the epitome of bad luck, but she never imagined she would wake up and find herself on a cannibal-infested island with no memory of how she got there. The last thing she remembers is boarding a plane with her pilot boyfriend, Preston. But now he and his crew are missing, and she must find him before a tribe of hungry cannibals finds him first. But Ava's troubles have followed her to Lamarai, where once again she's surrounded by danger and people who want her dead. She finds herself caught in a web of deceit and soon discovers the answers to her mysterious past can be found in the most unlikely of places, and that no one is actually who they seem to be.

Short story, 15 pages. Aging undercover narcotics agent Michael O'Neill is fighting back the years. Pumping iron, practising karate with the best, running miles every day so that he can stay in the field. He is sent to the north coast of New South Wales, Australia, along with his Vietnam buddy Baby Johnson to bust a heroin dealer everyone up there calls 'God'. 5,500 words.Short story, 15 pages. Aging undercover narcotics agent Michael O'Neill is fighting back the years. Pumping iron, practising karate with the best, running miles every day so that he can stay in the field. He is sent to the north coast of New South Wales, Australia, along with his Vietnam buddy Baby Johnson to bust a heroin dealer so big that everyone up there calls him 'God'. Against orders from his wily female CEO, aptly nicknamed The Eagle, O'Neill takes his longtime girlfriend Azure with him. She is a part-time model. God proves difficult to find, but with the help of a local freak named David, O'Neill and Baby eventually meet God. What happens then is not what O'Neill was expecting. 5,500 words.

How far would you go to save a child? An abusive father, a little boy, a murderous ghost. Deep within the walls of Ramsey Halls lies a terrible secret, one which five year old Adam must escape from. But when the spirit of a former servant girl Mildred appears to save him, things aren’t quite what they seem. Especially when she keeps poisoning him with cyanide...How far would you go to save a child? An abusive father, a little boy, a murderous ghost. Deep within the walls of Ramsey Halls lies a terrible secret, one which five year old Adam must escape from. But when the spirit of a former servant girl Mildred appears to save him, things aren’t quite what they seem. Especially when she keeps poisoning him with cyanide... But what exactly is Adam’s father hiding? Could he really be planning the impossible with his son? With the arrival of a mysterious Frenchman known as The Curator it would seem the worst is destined to happen, but not if Mildred can get to the boy in time. The Riddle of Ramsey Halls is a macabre and Gothic page turner full of twisted characters and sinister secrets.

The third installment in the all-new series from the #1 NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author Maggie Stiefvater! Blue Sargent has found things. For the first time in her life, she has friends she can trust, a group to which she can belong. The Raven Boys have taken her in as one of their own. Their problems have become hers, and her problems have become theirs. The trick with found things, though, is how easily they can be lost. Friends can betray. Mothers can disappear. Visions can mislead. Certainties can unravel.

*Before Miss Peregrine gave them a home, the story of peculiars was written in the Tales. * Wealthy cannibals who dine on the discarded limbs of peculiars. A fork-tongued princess. The origins of the first ymbryne. These are but a few of the truly brilliant stories in Tales of the Peculiar—known to hide information about the peculiar world—first introduced by Ransom Riggs in his Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children series. Riggs now invites you to share his secrets of peculiar history, with a collection of original stories, as collected and annotated by Millard Nullings, ward of Miss Peregrine and scholar of all things peculiar.

Passion and betrayal, violent desperation, ambivalent love that hinges on hatred, and the quest for acceptance by those who stand on the edge of society-these are the hard-hitting themes of a stunningly crafted first collection of stories by the bestselling author of House of Sand and Fog*. *A vigilant young man working in a halfway house finds himself unable to defend against the rage of one of the inmates in the title story. In "White Trees, Hammer Moon," a man soon to leave home for prison finds himself as unprepared for a family camping trip in the mountains of New Hampshire as he has been for most things in his life. And in the award-winning "Forky," an ex-con is haunted by the punishment he receives just as he is being released into the world. With an incisive ability to inhabit the lives of his characters, Dubus travels deep into the heart of the elusive American dream.

Janet Evanovich teams up with Phoef Sutton for a brand-new series of mysteries featuring Emerson Knight and Riley Moon, a dynamic duo with instant and undeniable chemistry. Emerson Knight is introverted, eccentric, and has little to no sense of social etiquette. Good thing he's also brilliant, rich, and (some people might say) handsome, or he'd probably be homeless. Riley Moon has just graduated from Harvard Business and Harvard Law. Her aggressive Texas spitfire attitude has helped her land her dream job as a junior analyst with mega-bank Blane-Grunwald. At least Riley Moon thought it was her dream job, until she is given her first assignment: babysitting Emerson Knight. What starts off as an inquiry about missing bank funds in the Knight account leads to inquiries about a missing man, missing gold, and a life-and-death race across the country. Through the streets of Washington, D.C., and down into the underground vault of the Federal Reserve in New York City, an evil plan is exposed. A plan so sinister that only a megalomaniac could think it up, and only the unlikely duo of the irrepressibly charming Emerson Knight and the tenacious Riley Moon can stop it.

Originally published in French in 1867, Michael Strogoff, or, the Courier of the Czar, is regarded as one of Jules Verne's greatest novels. This intriguing tale set in Russia tells the story of one man, Michael Strogoff, the Czar's courier, who is set out on an impossible mission to save his country. A traitor inspires the dangerous Feofar Khan to invade Siberia and form a rebellion, leading to a plot to kill the czar's brother, the Grand Duke. As a result, Strogoff is sent out to warn the Duke, serving as the nation's last hope to cease the rebellion. Along the way he meets new people, makes new friends and gets capture by the enemy, only to make a grand escape. Readers are sure to be at the edge of their seats as they follow the courier's adventures through Siberia. Though this book is not one of the many science-fiction books that Verne is so highly regarded for, it utilizes the scientific phenomenon as a major plot device, allowing readers to nevertheless enjoy his profound literary voice and follow the protagonist on an unforgettable adventure. Jules Verne was a French novelist known for his adventure novels and his influence over the science fiction genre. He was considered the most literary author of his time in France and throughout most of Europe, and is regarded as the second most translated author since 1979. His more famous works include, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and Journey to the Center of the Earth. He lived in France until his death in 1905.

This gripping and chillingly realistic novel from New York Times bestselling author Sharon Draper shows that all it takes is one bad decision for everything to change. Diamond knows not to get into a car with a stranger. But what if the stranger is well-dressed and handsome? On his way to meet his wife and daughter? And casting a movie that very night—a movie in need of a star dancer? What then? Then Diamond might make the wrong decision. It’s a nightmare come true: Diamond Landers has been kidnapped. She was at the mall with a friend, alone for only a few brief minutes—and now she’s being held captive, forced to endure horrors beyond what she ever could have dreamed, while her family and friends experience their own torments and wait desperately for any bit of news. From New York Times bestselling author Sharon Draper, this is a riveting exploration of power: how quickly we can lose it—and how we can take it back.

Know Thy Enemy They fled from an Earth ravaged by plague and violence, seeking to fulfill their holy mission -- to discover a new home for humanity. But instead of landing in a peace-filled paradise, Earth's Missionaries find themselves caught between two warring civilizations -- the Garkohn and Tehkohn. And only one of the people from Earth, a young girl and "converted" Missionary named Alanna, has the proper survival training to see through the lies of their Garkohn "hosts," who extend the hand of friendship to the humans only to enslave them. Alanna alone can understand the necessity of becoming one with the Tehkohn "enemy." And, perhaps, she can find a way to release the Missionaries from the deadly bondage into which they have complacently fallen. Yet even if she succeeds, will Alanna merely be saving them for a still more inescapable doom . . . ?

If your inner wolf and your body react rather enthusiastically to a psychotic Alpha male who’s own wolf has a tendency to turn feral, it can’t be a good thing, can it? Entering into a bargain with him wouldn’t be good either. Unfortunately, Taryn Warner, a latent wolf shifter, doesn’t have many options open to her right now. Okay, she has no options. Basically it comes down to whether she’ll do what it takes to escape the arranged mating with the sick SOB that her father set up. As the answer in this case is yes, it looks as though she’ll have to agree to Trey Coleman’s deal… she’ll have to mate with him instead. Having always disliked shifter politics, Trey Coleman hadn’t bothered trying to form alliances with other packs. Now that his uncle – a wolf with many alliances – means to take Trey’s territory and his pack, he has no option but to form some alliances of his own very quickly or he’ll be easily outnumbered in the upcoming battle. He figures that the easiest way to do that would be to mate with a female whose Alpha is powerful and influential. There’s only one problem with that – he would then be stuck with her, and the last thing Trey wants is a mate. When he hears of Taryn’s situation, he offers her a deal – if she falsely claims he’s her true mate and allows him to claim her, he’ll save her from her arranged mating and then let her leave after the battle with his uncle is over. Sounds like a pretty straightforward deal...but soon Taryn and Trey realize they got more than they bargained for. Their mating instincts to protect and possess are weighing on them, they crave each other’s touch and company, and their inner wolves don’t like it whenever they’re apart. Add in that they’ll have to deal with this for an entire three months until the day of the battle finally arrives, and they’ve got themselves a recipe for disaster – or maybe for something quite the opposite. Warning*: This novel contains an extremely sarcastic Alpha female, a broody possessive Alpha male, bitter in-laws, voyeuristic enforcers, a whole lot of dirty talk, and steamy bedroom battles for dominance. Reader Advisory:* This book also contains a graphic ménage scene - not for the faint-hearted.

In her small town, dubbed "Dullsville," sixteen-year-old Raven -- a vampire-crazed goth-girl -- is an outcast. But not for long... The intriguing and rumored-to-be haunted mansion on top of Benson Hill has stood vacant and boarded-up for years. That is, until its mysteriously strange new occupants move in. Who are these creepy people -- especially the handsome, dark, and elusive Alexander Sterling? Or rather, what are they? Could the town prattle actually ring true? Are they vampires? Raven, who secretly covets a vampire kiss, both at the risk of her own mortality and Alexander's loving trust, is dying to uncover the truth. Ellen Schreiber's spooky and stirring romance tells the story of two outsiders who fall in love in a town where conformity reigns, and ends with a shocking surprise.

Vanni is furious when her fiancé tricks her into attending a conference where his father’s church is protesting the New Species Organization. She hates everything those vile bigots stand for. Vanni goes to the bar to cool off and ends up seated next to a handsome New Species. Things heat up fast when they are both drugged. Smiley doesn't want to believe the sweet human would dose them with the breeding drug. He's willing to trust her and determined to save her life. He'll hold her. Protect her. Offer up his body to distract them both from the pain. She is his female, even if she doesn't realize it yet.

If you think the wildest, wackiest stories that Carl Hiaasen can tell have all made it into his hilarious, bestselling novels, think again. Dance of the Reptiles collects the best of Hiaasen’s Miami Herald columns, which lay bare the stories--large and small--that demonstrate anew that truth is far stranger than fiction. Hiaasen offers his commentary—indignant, disbelieving, sometimes righteously angry, and frequently hilarious—on burning issues like animal welfare, polluted rivers, and the broken criminal justice system as well as the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Bernie Madoff's trial, and the shenanigans of the recent presidential elections. Whether or not you have read Carl Hiaasen before, you are in for a wild ride.

In South Florida, everyone wants to get a head. But not just any head. A very famous human head--severed and snugged away in a cryonic container. A head that could spark a revolution and change the course of history. Everybody wants a piece of the noggin: rotund gangster Big Joey G., a 102-year-old environmentalist, hard-boiled Miami reporter Britt Montero, lawyer Jake Lassiter, and a would-be dictator in exile--with ex-president Jimmy Carter and a lovable manatee named Booger thrown in for good measure. With bodies piling up it's anybody's guess what will happen from one chapter to the next, as an all-star line-up of Florida's finest writers take turns at taking this outrageously original novel to the limit--and beyond.

Published in 1917, "Light and Dark" is unlike any of Natsume Soseki's previous works and unique in Japanese fiction of the period. What distinguishes the novel as "modern" is its remarkable representation of interiority. The protagonists, Tsuda Yoshio, thirty, and his wife O-Nobu, twenty-three, exhibit a gratifying complexity that qualifies them as some of the earliest examples of three-dimensional characters in Japanese fiction. O-Nobu is quick-witted and cunning, a snob and narcissist no less than her husband, passionate, arrogant, spoiled, insecure, naive — yet, above all, gallant. Under Soseki's scrutiny, she emerges as a flesh-and-blood heroine with a palpable reality, dueling with her husband, his troublemaking friend, Kobayashi, and her sister-in-law, O-Hid?. Tsuda undertakes his own battles with Kobayashi, O-Hid? and the manipulative Madam Yoshikawa, his boss's wife. These exchanges explode into moments of intense jealousy, rancor, and recrimination that will surprise English-speaking readers who expect indirectness, delicacy, and reticence in Japanese relations. Echoing the work of Jane Austen and Henry James, Soseki's novel achieves maximal drama with minimal action and symbolizes a tectonic shift in literary form.

The final battle has begun, and Sawyer fights for the enemy. Will Ember be able to save him? Lucifer has broken free from his bonds as the Angels gather their armies for the battle of Armageddon. Ember and her friends must tread carefully as they unravel the truth about the final judgment and the chaos that is coming. Can they stop the apocalypse from happening? The battle between good and evil isn’t as straight forward as Ember had hoped, and now that her lover fights for the enemy, does she even want to take part in the war to come? Eternity is the breathtaking conclusion of the epic Wings of War Series, where loyalties will be tested, lives shattered, and prophecies fulfilled.

When a sixteen-year-old troublemaker named Marlow Green is trapped in a surreal firefight against nightmarish creatures in the middle of his New York City neighborhood, he unwittingly finds himself amid a squad of secret soldiers dedicated to battling the legions of the devil himself. Powering this army of young misfits is an ancient machine from the darkest parts of history. Known as the devil's engine, it can make any wish come true-as long as you are willing to put your life on the line. Promised powers beyond belief, and facing monstrous apparitions straight out of the netherworld, Marlow must decide if he's going to submit to a demonic deal with the infernal machine that will enable him to join the crusade-if it doesn't kill him first. From the author of the Escape from Furnace series, here is the opening salvo in an explosive new horror trilogy about an ordinary American kid caught up in an invisible war against the very worst enemy imaginable.

Uptown Local features eleven long and short works from the last decade and beyond, including: In The Company of Heroes -- A billionaire "living the dream" goes on a desperate quest for the one thing he needs to make his life perfect: a very special comic book... The Rizzoli Bag -- A sad young man in a Roman cafe is offered a once-in-a-lifetime bargain... Out of the Frying Pan -- The life of a part-time witch working in a shopping mall is turned upside down in a day... The Queen and the Thief and the Dragon -- A (fairy) tale of the True West, and a young monarch's solution to a thorny diplomatic problem... Bears -- An ancient sorrow (with a modern twist) wanders through the tumult of a pre-Lenten street carnival... The Fix -- In the dark guts of Rome's Colosseum, a slave boy with an impossible dream becomes entangled in the machinations of immortals... Herself -- In the heart of Dublin, something is killing the People of the Hills -- and it's going to take Ireland's only superhero to stop it... Hopper Painting -- Desolation and redemption in a midnight diner... The Back Door -- Two terrorists meet in Zurich to carry out a very unusual heist with a confederate who's more dangerous than they imagine... ...And of course, the title story, beloved and sought after for a quarter century by Young Wizards fans, and finally available in an ebook -- along with the only other Young Wizards short story, Theobroma.

An inventive, thought-provoking and characteristically bold collection of short fiction and essays from Hanif Kureishi, centered around the vexed relationship between love and hate. In the story of a Pakistani woman who has begun a new life in Paris, an essay about the writing of Kureishi's acclaimed film Le Week-End, and an account of Kafka's relationship with his father, readers will find Kureishi also exploring the topics that he continues to make new, and make his own: growing up and growing old; betrayal and loyalty; imagination and repression; marriage and fatherhood. The collection ends with a bravura piece of very personal reportage about the conman who stole Kureishi's life savings - a man who provoked both admiration and disgust, obsession and revulsion, love and hate.