A young family in Las Vegas questions their mysterious new neighbors. A short story about 7000 words.Ride with the Lane AvengerTM as he fights for truth, justice and a bit of consideration for others on the highways of Great Britain.Thrill to his exploits as he struggles bravely with middle lane hoggers, tailgating BMWs, ticket happy policemen, Top Gear presenters and car-hating local authorities.Swoon as he rediscovers techniques lost to motorists for generations, like using your indicators, letting people out at busy junctions and pulling in after overtaking.Weep as he is ruthlessly hunted down like a wanted criminal by the Hampshire police and patronised by well-meaning morons for two hours at a Driver Awareness Course.Learn new skills like The Nudge, The Sally, The LA Stare TM, the WOPO formula and The Flying ‘H’ and maybe, one day, you too could become a Lane AvengerTM.More hate less speed.Part autobiography, part self-help book, part homework diary and a bit of a call to arms, the book charts Lane’s rise from his humble birth on an Indian reservation near Montreal, through a stellar career in psychosomatics and nuclear physics to become head of standing around in a white coat at the Laboratoire Garniere and parish councillor for Swindon’s Toothill ward (East).Hear how, fed up with the incessant and spiteful back-biting of the world of academia, and after a row over fortnightly bin collections, he gave all this up to found the ‘Take back the Highway!’ movement.Gasp as he reveals the answers to the big questions that others are too sacred to ask. Why does nature abhor a vacuum? Is the word ‘abhor’ ever used in any other context? How come ‘flammable’ and ‘inflammable’ mean the same thing?Wonder about the mysterious gaps in his CV in 1976, 1980, 2003 and 2012 - strangely coinciding with the Israeli raid on Entebbe, the end of the Iranian Embassy siege, the capture of Saddam Hussein and the brutal slaying of Osama Bin Laden. Was he really ‘just watching television’ at the time? Yes.Go to bed dreaming of a better commute for us all, but with a strange, niggling feeling at the back of your mind that somewhere between pages eight and forty seven (depending on font size) you missed a very important message...a secret that could blow the entire western world apart.Batteries not included.

Those Cajun folk know the ins and outs of the swamp like the back of their hand. They love the swamp almost as much as a good practical joke. When a group of Yankee birdwatchers, Yankee being defined as anyone from anywhere North of Baton Rouge, show up looking for a guide, will they experience the trip of their lives or just end up with egg on all their faces?A young boy's family has a tradition of walking across a long path in the wilderness, but he does not want to take up the journey. The young boy's family would be ashamed of the boy if he didn't go, so what will the boy do?What lengths will a young boy go in order to avoid tradition?

Wyatt Holmes, the great human hunter revered by the clones, embarks on his final expedition. Sickness eats his bones and crowds his lungs. Yet Wyatt still marches deep into the new wild. For he alone owns the will to kill what the hungry clone stomachs require, and Wyatt fears what may befall the original world if no other man or woman shoulders the last responsibility reserved for humankind.Wyatt Holmes has claimed nearly every trophy offered by the new world. He has fallen the graceful genolope, conquered the furious razor boar, and bested the terrible splicer-lynx. Yet on a last hunt upon the savanna, Wyatt discovers a new creature introduced to the second creation that is more splendid than any animal the tall grasses ever revealed to him. And Wyatt fears that humanity owns no defense against it.Cayden Holmes joins his father on a thrilling voyage into the new wild. He is determined to show his old man that he too owns the courage required to pull his rifle’s trigger and drop the game encountered in the veld. But Cayden finds that the killing is easier said than done. For every creature centered in his weapon’s scope reminds him of everything the lost world wasted, until shame weighs upon Cayden’s heart so that pulling that trigger feels impossible.Kendra’s face bears the clone’s mark - a pair of blue rings circling the right eye that conveys the secrets of her genetic construction. Her life has never been easy upon the savanna, but it had been consistent before the great hunter Wyatt Holmes brought his son onto the hunt. The dry season ends by delivering cataclysmic change to Kendra’s community, a change that forces Kendra and her kind to rely as never before on the hunters’ courage to pull their weapons’ triggers.For a new hunger has arrived in the second creation, one that threatens to forever upend the natural distinctions between the human and the clone.

Each of the twenty-two tales in this enchanting collection is a surprise and a delight, melding the poignant and the possible with the outrageous, the magical, and, sometimes, the eerily haunting. Wolf men, dolphin women, defiant old ladies, and middle-aged manufacturers of erotic leatherwear -- in Jigs & Reels the miraculous goes hand in hand with the mundane, the sour with the sweet, and the beautiful, the grotesque, the seductive, and the disturbing are never more than one step away. Whether she's exploring the myth of beauty, the pain of infidelity, or the wonder of late-life romance, Joanne Harris once again proves herself a master of the storyteller's trade.

Warning: this story contains a major spoiler from SHADOW'S END (book #9, released December 1st, 2015). If readers do not want to be spoiled, they should read the stories in order of their release dates. This is a short story intended for readers of the Elder Races who enjoy Liam Cuelebre as a character. Reeling from a deep loss, the magical prince of the Wyr, Dragos and Pia's son Liam Cuelebre, turns inward and withdrawn as he struggles to come to terms with who he is, along with the challenges that lie before him. Hoping to ease his heartache and offer comfort, a concerned Dragos and Pia offer him a gift, something he has desired for a long time. Liam's response has a ripple effect across all of New York. Soon miracles of all kinds start arriving just in time for Christmas, along with a visit from a mysterious person who gives Liam hope and a vision of his future. LIAM TAKES MANHATTAN is the third part of a three-story series about Pia, Dragos, and and their son, Liam. Each story stands alone, but fans might want to read all three: DRAGOS GOES TO WASHINGTON, PIA DOES HOLLYWOOD, and LIAM TAKES MANHATTAN.

My name is Catarina. Or, that’s who I was christened to be, anyways. I live in a convent. I am a nun in training. A postulant. I am eighteen years old. I am a predator. No one is safe from me. I am protected. No one can get to me. By day one way, by night another. They call on me. My name is Catarina. Codename: Night Fury. No one is safe from me. I will come for you.

“One of America’s greatest novelists” dazzlingly reinvents the coming-of-age story in his most passionate and surprising book to date Sinuously constructed in four interlocking parts, Paul Auster’s fifteenth novel opens in New York City in the spring of 1967, when twenty-year-old Adam Walker, an aspiring poet and student at Columbia University, meets the enigmatic Frenchman Rudolf Born and his silent and seductive girfriend, Margot. Before long, Walker finds himself caught in a perverse triangle that leads to a sudden, shocking act of violence that will alter the course of his life. Three different narrators tell the story of Invisible, a novel that travels in time from 1967 to 2007 and moves from Morningside Heights, to the Left Bank of Paris, to a remote island in the Caribbean. It is a book of youthful rage, unbridled sexual hunger, and a relentless quest for justice. With uncompromising insight, Auster takes us into the shadowy borderland between truth and memory, between authorship and identity, to produce a work of unforgettable power that confirms his reputation as “one of America’s most spectacularly inventive writers.” 

Gore Vidal—novelist, playwright, critic, screenwriter, memoirist, indefatigable political commentator, and controversialist—is America's premier man of letters. No other living writer brings more sparkling wit, vast learning, indelible personality, and provocative mirth to the job of writing an essay.This long-needed volume comprises some twenty-four of his best-loved pieces of criticism, political commentary, memoir, portraiture, and, occasionally, unfettered score settling. It will stand as one of the most enjoyable and durable works from the hand and mind of this vastly accomplished and entertaining immortal of American literature. From the Trade Paperback edition.

There are two sides to every story -- even fairy tales. A he said/she said series with a prince and princess twist. Rapunzel is having the ultimate bad day. She's been stolen from home by an evil witch, locked in an incredibly high tower, and doesn't even have a decent brush for her hair. Prince Benjamin is in a pretty uncomfortable situation himself. His father wants him to be more kingly, his mother wants him to never leave her sight, and his cousin wants to get him into as much trouble as possible. Plus, there's the little matter of prearranged marriages. . . . Both Rapunzel and Prince Benjamin are trapped--in very different ways. It's only when their paths cross, that things really start to change.

The basis of two bestselling computer games Metro 2033 and Metro Last Light, the Metro books have put Dmitry Glukhovsky in the vanguard of Russian speculative fiction alongside the creator of Night Watch, Sergei Lukyanenko. A year after the events of METRO 2033 the last few survivors of the apocalypse, surrounded by mutants and monsters, face a terrifying new danger as they hang on for survival in the tunnels of the Moscow Metro. Featuring blistering action, vivid and tough characters, claustrophobic tension and dark satire the Metro books have become bestsellers across Europe.

They are called kareshta, the silent ones. But the silent are waking. Kyra has lived her life in the shadow of a powerful Grigori brother. She's ignored her own desires for the good of her family, but an unexpected request from Thailand sends her on a mission that could change her life and alter the fate of free Grigori all over the world. Sons of the Fallen hidden in the mountains of Thailand have adapted an ancient human magic for their own purposes. Will this practice bring peace or lead to even greater danger for the Irin race? A simple diplomatic mission sends Leo to Bangkok, but he didn't expect to see a familiar face in surveillance photographs. He's tried everything to drive Kyra from his mind, since he was convinced the gentle kareshta wanted to hide from the world. How did she turn up halfway across the globe, living with Grigori who may or may not be Irin allies? Leo has bided his time. He's given Kyra her space. But this scribe is ready to hear a kareshta sing. THE SILENT is a romantic fantasy, and the fifth book in the Irin Chronicles series.

"Ambitious, but never seeming so, Kent Haruf reveals a whole community as he interweaves the stories of a pregnant high school girl, a lonely teacher, a pair of boys abandoned by their mother, and a couple of crusty bachelor farmers. From simple elements, Haruf achieves a novel of wisdom and grace--a narrative that builds in strength and feeling until, as in a choral chant, the voices in the book surround, transport, and lift the reader off the ground." -FROM THE CITATION FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD From the Trade Paperback edition.

Bestselling historian Alison Weir brings Elizabeth I to vivid life in a novel of intrigue, sex, plots, mysteries and tragedies, amid all the colour and pageantry of the Tudor court. '[Weir] gets right inside the head of the Virgin Queen. The reader has a blissful sense of seeing history as it happens.' - Kate Saunders, The Times ** It was an affair that shocked the world. Elizabeth I is the most sought-after bride in Europe. But though she is formidably intelligent, brave and tempestuous, she is desperately insecure. The tragic events in her past mean she cannot give herself to any man, and yet she relishes the thrill of the chase, the lure of forbidden fruit. And so, using sex and high-powered diplomacy, she plays what becomes known as the 'Marriage Game', dangling suitors to keep them friendly to her kingdom, while holding them off indefinitely. But playing this tantalising game with the married Robert Dudley, the son and grandson of traitors, could cost her the throne…

A Song of Love won her heart. A Song of Darkness haunted her soul. A Song in the Dance would seal her fate. Seers had long foreseen an extraordinary destiny for Ellysetta Baristani. Already she had won the heart of the Fey King—the magnificent Rain, ever her ally, eternally her love. She had saved the offspring of the magical tairen and fought beside her legendary mate against the armies of Eld. But the most powerful—and dangerous—Verse of her Song had yet to be sung. As the final battle draws nigh and evil tightens its grip upon her soul—will Ellysetta secure the world for Light or plunge it into Darkness for all eternity? As she and Rain fight for each other, side by side, will they find a way to complete their truemate bond and defeat the evil High Mage of Eld before it's too late, or must they make the ultimate sacrifice to save their world?

A breakneck race against time...and an implacable enemy. An anonymous young woman murdered in a run-down hotel, all identifying characteristics dissolved by acid. A father publicly beheaded in the blistering heat of a Saudi Arabian public square. A notorious Syrian biotech expert found eyeless in a Damascus junkyard. Smoldering human remains on a remote mountainside in Afghanistan. A flawless plot to commit an appalling crime against humanity. One path links them all, and only one man can make the journey. Pilgrim.'

The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea tells the tale of a band of savage thirteen-year-old boys who reject the adult world as illusory, hypocritical and sentimental, and train themselves in a brutal callousness they call "objectivity." When the mother of one of them begins an affair with a ship's officer, he and his friends idealize the man at first; but it is not long before they conclude that he is in fact soft and romantic. They regard their disappointment in him as an act of betrayal on his part, and react violently.

Nobody understands Wallace Wallace. This reluctant school football hero has been suspended from the team for writing an unfavorable book report of Old Shep, My Pal. But Wallace won't tell a lie -- he hated every minute of the book! Why does the dog in every classic novel have to croak at the end?After refusing to do a rewrite, his English teacher, who happens to be directing the school play Old Shep, My Pal, forces him go to the rehearsals as punishment. Although Wallace doesn't change his mind, he does end up changing the play into a rock-and-roll rendition, complete with Rollerblades and a moped!

Professor Edward Kitchener, a double Nobel laureate researching quantum cosmology for the powerful Event Horizon conglomerate has been savagely murdered. But was he the victim of industrial espionage, personal revenge, or a crime of passion by one of his handpicked team of live-wire students? Event Horizon needs to know and fast, so Greg Mandel, PSI-boosted veteran of the infamous Mindstar Battalion, must embark on an urgent investigation that ultimately leads him to an astounding confrontation with a past, which, according to the dead man's theories, might never have happened.

As James Potter returns to Hogwarts in the wake of "the Night of the Unveiling", he discovers that even in the protected center of the magical world, nothing is quite the same. Despite the Ministry's efforts, the Vow of Secrecy is crumbling the world over, eroding age-old safeguards and threatening magical and Muggle governments with dark magic conspiracies. Amidst the turmoil, a gravely suspicious new headmaster, Rechtor Grudje, institutes Draconian security measures hinting more at dictatorial control than safety. At the same time, an international exchange program allows students from Hogwarts, Alma Aleron, Durmstrang, Beauxbatons and a mysterious fifth school to attend each others' classes, introducing an entirely new social dynamic and potential for exploration. Along with Alma Aleron's Zane Walker, this brings a new face to Hogwarts, the infuriating yet intriguing Natasia Hendrix, who harbors her own complicated-- and far-reaching-- secrets. As the school year progresses, James' works is gradually overshadowed by a growing danger known as the Morrigan Web, a mythical, magical doomsday weapon which threatens to tumble the entire world, Muggle and magical alike, into the hands of the vicious Lady of the Lake. In the center of it all, Petra Morganstern and her sister Izzy-- the Sister Fates of the Lady of the Lake-- move quietly in the shadows, out of sight, weaving their own mysterious master plan.

The Gates were relics of a lost era. The Union Science Bureau surmised that they had once linked a whole network of civilizations throughout the galaxy-an empire ruled by a ruthless race known as the qhal. This qhal empire had spanned both Space and Time, for their Gates warped time, enabling qhal travelers to step from point to point across light-years unaged. It was even possible to travel into the future. However, intervention in backtime could affect entire worlds and civilizations, could change the course of galactic history, could destroy empires and possibly even implode time itself...and this was what the Science Bureau believed had happened-sometime, somewhere in the unreachable past, an arrogant power-drunk qhal had done the unthinkable, and warped the very fabric of space and time. Morgaine: pale in coloring and as tall as the tallest men, it seems clear that this mysterious traveler is a descendent of the long-vanished qhal. Aided by a single warrior honor-bound to serve her, it is her mission to travel from world to world sealing the ancient Gates whose very existence threatens the integrity of the universe. But will she have the power to follow her quest to its eventual conclusion-to the Ultimate Gate or the end of time itself?