Rich in the atmosphere of thirteenth-century Italy, The Road to Damietta offers through Ricca di Montanaro’s eyes a new perspective on the man who became the famous Saint Francis of Assisi, the guileless, joyous man who praised the oneness of nature and sought to bring the world into harmony. “Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace,” he said. “Where there is hatred, let me sow love, where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy.”

What is her husband's secret? Miranda Cooper's life takes a terrifying turn when an SUV deliberately runs her and her husband off a desolate Arizona road. With her husband badly wounded, she must run for help alone as his cryptic parting words echo in her head: "Be careful who you trust." BookShots LIGHTNING-FAST STORIES BY JAMES PATTERSON Novels you can devour in a few hours Impossible to stop reading All original content from James Patterson

Courtney Will always dreamed of finding her Prince Charming and living happily ever after, like in the fairy tales she read as a child. Her dreams were shattered one fateful night when her prince turned out to be her worst nightmare. Burying herself in her job as an editor, Courtney tried to forget her past, and she lost hope of ever finding true love. Reed Moore's past filled his world with guilt and anger, and then a mistake in college deepened these feelings. Fearing he will one day repeat his father's mistakes with the woman he loves, Reed has vowed to never give his heart to anyone
. Reed and Courtney have each spent years building walls to guard their hearts, so when their feelings for one another explode into something unexpected, they argue and throw hurtful words at each other in hopes of avoiding the truth.
 Will Reed end up being the Prince Charming Courtney has dreamed of her entire life? Is Courtney the woman who will help Reed move past the guilt and anger, so he can embrace love?
 Can their broken dreams become their happily ever after?

Lily Parker is new to St Sophia's School for Girls, but she's already learned that magic can be your best friend ...or your worst enemy. So they say absolute power corrupts absolutely. But it turns out even a little bit of magic can turn you to the dark side. That's why Lily has to learn how to control her newly discovered abilities and quickly, on top of avoiding the snobs who think they run her school, nursing a crush on a cute sophomore with a big, werewolfy secret, and fighting the good fight with her best friend Scout as they take on Chicago's nastiest nightlife - including the tainted magic users known as the Reapers. All that's even before Lily's invited to a private meeting with Sebastian. He's hot, he's powerful, and he's offering to help her harness the magic flowing through her veins in a way that no one else can. He's also a Reaper. Lily can't help but be suspicious of his offer. But she also needs his help. It seems that the line between good and evil isn't quite so clear as she thought ...

Orphan. Runaway. Thief. Since the moment I was ripped from my mother's womb, I've been an outcast amongst my own kind. The Sidhe might possess magical Gifts, unbelievable wealth and unfathomable power but I don't want a thing to do with them. I ran away from their lands in the Highlands of Scotland when I was eleven years old and I've never looked back. I don't need a Clan. I've got my own family of highly skilled thieves who mean more to me than any Sidhe ever could. Unfortunately for me, the playboy heir to the Moncrieffe Clan has something I desperately need. To get it back, I'm going to have to plunge myself back into that world, no matter what the consequences may be. I suppose it's just as well I have sense of humour. I think I'm going to need it.

Considered by André Gide to be one of the ten greatest novels in the French language, Germinal is a brutal depiction of the poverty and wretchedness of a mining community in northern France under the second empire. At the centre of the novel is Etienne Lantier, a handsome 21 year-old mechanic, intelligent but with little education and a dangerous predisposition to murderous, alcoholic rage. Germinal tells the parallel story of Etienne's refusal to accept what he appears destined to become, and of the miners' difficult decision to strike in order to fight for a better standard of life.

Princess Eilonwy hates to leave her friend Taran, Assistant Pig-Keeper, and her beloved home, Caer Dallben. Why does she have to go to the Isle of Mona to train as a proper lady when she's already a princess? But Eilonwy soon faces much more than the ordeal of becoming a dignified young maiden, for she possesses magical powers sought by the evil enchantress Queen Achren. When Eilonwy is put under a deep spell, Taran and his companions set out on a dangerous quest to rescue her. Yet how can a lowly Assistant Pig-Keeper hope to stand against the most evil enchantress in all of Prydain?

With the bravura storytelling and pungent authenticity of detail she brought to her acclaimed Lymond Chronicles, Dorothy Dunnett, grande dame of the historical novel, presents The House of Niccolò series. The time is the 15th century, when intrepid merchants became the new knighthood of Europe. Among them, none is bolder or more cunning than Nicholas vander Poele of Bruges, the good-natured dyer's apprentice who schemes and swashbuckles his way to the helm of a mercantile empire.      Niccolò Rising, Book One of the series, finds us in Bruges, 1460. Jousting is the genteel pastime, and successful merchants are, of necessity, polyglot. Street smart, brilliant at figures, adept at the subtleties of diplomacy and the well-timed untruth, Dunnett's hero rises from wastrel to prodigy in a breathless adventure that wins him the hand of the strongest woman in Bruges and the hatred of two powerful enemies. From a riotous and potentially murderous carnival in Flanders, to an avalanche in the Alps and a pitched battle on the outskirts of Naples, Niccolò Rising combines history, adventure, and high romance in the tradition stretching from Alexandre Dumas to Mary Renault. From the Trade Paperback edition.

In Darujhistan, the city of blue fire, it is said that love and death shall arrive dancing. It is summer and the heat is oppressive, but for the small round man in the faded red waistcoat, discomfiture is not just because of the sun. All is not well. Dire portents plague his nights and haunt the city streets like fiends of shadow. Assassins skulk in alleyways, but the quarry has turned and the hunters become the hunted. Hidden hands pluck the strings of tyranny like a fell chorus. While the bards sing their tragic tales, somewhere in the distance can be heard the baying of Hounds...And in the distant city of Black Coral, where rules Anomander Rake, Son of Darkness, ancient crimes awaken, intent on revenge. It seems Love and Death are indeed about to arrive...hand in hand, dancing. A thrilling, harrowing novel of war, intrigue and dark, uncontrollable magic, Toll the Hounds is the new chapter in Erikson's monumental series - epic fantasy at its most imaginative and storytelling at its most exciting.

Secrets, Sex and Scandals … Welcome to Storm, Texas, where passion runs hot, desire runs deep, and secrets have the power to destroy… Get ready. The storm is coming. As Sebastian and Marylee plot to cover up Sebastian’s sexual escapade, Ginny and Dakota continue to reel from the fallout of Dakota’s announcement. But it is the Rush family that’s left to pick up the pieces as Payton, Brittany and Jeffry each cope with Sebastian’s betrayal in their own way…

It is 1934, and New York City is in the icy grip of the Great Depression. With enormous compassion, Dr. James Delaney tends to his hurt, sick, and poor neighbors, who include gangsters, day laborers, prostitutes, and housewives. If they can't pay, he treats them anyway. But in his own life, Delaney is emotionally numb, haunted by the slaughters of the Great War. His only daughter has left for Mexico, and his wife Molly vanished months before, leaving him to wonder if she is alive or dead. Then, on a snowy New Year's Day, the doctor returns home to find his three-year-old grandson on his doorstep, left by his mother in Delaney's care. Coping with this unexpected arrival, Delaney hires Rose, a tough, decent Sicilian woman with a secret in her past. Slowly, as Rose and the boy begin to care for the good doctor, the numbness in Delaney begins to melt. Recreating 1930s New York with the vibrancy and rich detail that are his trademarks, Pete Hamill weaves a story of honor, family, and one man's simple courage that no reader will soon forget.

Despite all his disaster planning, and the bomb shelter he built under his shed, Mario Scietto was not prepared for the apocalypse that hit Monument, Colorado. A series of escalating disasters, beginning with a monster hailstorm and ending with a terrible chemical weapons spill that affects people differently depending on blood type, has torn the world as he knows it apart. “What Mario Scietto Says” is set in the world of Emmy Laybourne’s Monument 14. The final book in the series, Monument 14: Savage Drift, goes on sale May 6th.

Brother Gabriel, Daniel’s mentor and an ancient Urbat, plays an important role in The Lost Saint as well as the upcoming conclusion to the Dark Divine trilogy, The Savage Grace. We were first introduced to Gabriel in The Dark Divine when Grace recieves a book of ancient letters that Gabriel (a young monk at the time) wrote to his sister during the Crusades, detailing his search to know more about the Urbat. The book of letters ends just before Gabriel falls to the Urbat curse, leaving us to wonder what happened to him in the following years to turn him into the man he is today. Most of Gabriel’s letters were written during the thirteenth century, and later translated and compiled by an Orthodox priest in the eighteenth century. For whatever reason, some of Gabriel’s letters were lost after translation and did not make it into that original book. But good news! A few of these “lost letters,” detailing Gabriel’s fall to the Urbat curse and his quest to seek revenge on the man responsible for his demise, have recently been “discovered” by the indomitable crew at Egmont USA, and are compiled here for your reading pleasure. I hope you enjoy The Lost Letters of Brother Gabriel. I think they give a lot more depth to Brother Gabriel’s character and the mythology of the Dark Divine trilogy. Always, Bree Despain

A Boston Wedding... A Veiled Threat... A Dangerous Environment... When Nancy attends a wedding in Boston, she encounters a marriage marred by mischief. The groom may have stolen the bride's heart, but a thief has made off with her antique lace veil! From a mansion in Cape Cod to a museum of witchcraft in Salem, Nancy, Bess, and George follow a trail of intrigue and deceit across the New England countryside. They uncover the shocking story behind the wedding-day prank -- and a $60 million mystery behind the vanishing veil!

When a ferocious hurricane rips through southern Florida, the con artists and carpetbaggers waste no time in swarming over the disaster area. Among the predators are Edie Marsh, an entrepreneurial young woman whose scheme to sleep with a Palm Beach Kennedy has fizzled, freezing her to concoct a colossal insurance rip-off; Lester Maddox Parsons, a murderous ex-con whose violent encounter with a game warden has left him with the fitting name of “Snapper”; and Avila, a crooked building inspector-turned-roofer who dabbles somewhat unsuccessfully in the occult.  Caught in the middle are Max and Bonnie Lamb, newlyweds torn in wildly different directions by the storm. It is Max’s fateful decision to abort their Disney World honeymoon and race to Dade County to see the terrible devastation. Armed with a video camera, the ambitious young advertising executive can’t wait to show his hurricane tapes to his buddies back in New York.  Over Bonnie’s objections, Max eagerly sets out through the rubble, debris and mayhem—and promptly vanishes. The only clue to his whereabouts: a runaway monkey. The only person who can help Bonnie’s search: a mysterious young man with a tranquilizer gun and a roomful of human skulls.  But there’s also a man called Skink who has devoted his very strange existence to saving Florida from the kinds of people blown in by the hurricane. It is he, crazed and determined, who prowls the swath of the storm and forever changes the lives of Max, Bonnie, Edie and the others. Their paths—tangled before they even know it—come together in a novel that continues the hilarious and scathing muckraking tradition that Carl Hiaasen has so mercilessly made his own. In Stormy Weather, there is no calm eye. BONUS: This edition includes an excerpt from Carl Hiaasen's Bad Monkey.

One girl too many . . . When a girl is born to Chu Ju's family, it is quickly determined that the baby must be sent away. After all, the law states that a family may have only two children, and tradition dictates that every family should have a boy. To make room for one, this girl will have to go. Fourteen-year-old Chu Ju knows she cannot allow this to happen to her sister. Understanding that one girl must leave, she sets out in the middle of the night, vowing not to return. With luminescent detail, National Book Award-winning author Gloria Whelan transports readers to China, where law conspires with tradition, tearing a young woman from her family, sending her on a remarkable journey to find a home of her own.

Three of longest tales plus outlines, notes, drafts. 1 The People of the Black Circle Amid towering crags of Vendhya, in the shadowy citadel of the Black Circle, Yasmina of the golden throne seeks vengeance against the Black Seers. Her only ally is also her most formidable enemy - Conan, outlaw chief. 2 The Hour of the Dragon Toppled from the throne of Aquilonia by the evil machinations of an undead wizard, Conan must find fabled jewel the Heart of Ahriman to reclaim his crown - and save his life. 3 A Witch Shall Be Born A malevolent witch of evil beauty. An enslaved queen. A kingdom in the iron grip of ruthless mercenaries. And Conan, who plots deadly vengeance against the human wolf who left him in the desert to die.

Winner of the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction, The Game of Silence is the second novel in the critically acclaimed Birchbark House series by New York Times bestselling author Louise Erdrich. Her name is Omakayas, or Little Frog, because her first step was a hop, and she lives on an island in Lake Superior. One day in 1850, Omakayas’s island is visited by a group of mysterious people. From them, she learns that the chimookomanag, or white people, want Omakayas and her people to leave their island and move farther west. That day, Omakayas realizes that something so valuable, so important that she never knew she had it in the first place, could be in danger: Her way of life. Her home. The Birchbark House Series is the story of one Ojibwe family’s journey through one hundred years in America. The New York Times Book Review raved about The Game of Silence: “Erdrich has created a world, fictional but real: absorbing, funny, serious and convincingly human.”

*Had they found each other again after all these years, only to lose everything that matters most? * As children, Jade Conner and Tanner Eastman were best friends—until scandal drove them apart. Then, one golden summer, they find each other again.  Through endless days they share their hearts and souls and dreams of forever.  Then, in a moment of weakness, they make a decision that will tear them apart for nearly a decade. In their own separate corners of the country, Jade and Tanner have become fighters for religious freedom. Now Jade’s unfaithful husband is determined to destroy her in a custody battle that will rock the nation and shake people’s understanding of faith and freedom. Could Jade lose her only child because of her faith? Only one man can help her in her darkest hour. And only one old woman knows the secret about that summer and the truth that can set them all free.

A mysterious cosmic force—the “Ring of Fire”—has hurled the town of Grantville from 20th century West Virginia back to 17th century Europe, and into the heart of the Thirty Years War. With their seemingly magical technology, and their radical ideas of freedom and justice, the time-lost West Virginians have allied with Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, to form the Confederated Principalities of Europe, changing the course of history—in ways both small and large. MORE TO COME.

A Chicago reporter in her mid-twenties unexpectedly finds love in Napa Valley when she’s assigned to spend a week with a famously reclusive genius. Kate Corbin has lost her spark. From the outside, her life seems charmed. She has a handsome, long-term boyfriend and a budding journalism career at a popular Chicago newspaper. But in reality, her relationship is going nowhere, and she’s quickly losing motivation for what she once believed was her dream job. When her boyfriend dumps her unceremoniously, Kate loses all hope of finding love. With no living family and few friends, Kate confides in her boss. Trusting that the hungry, ace reporter is buried somewhere deep inside, he gives Kate the opportunity to jumpstart her career. The assignment: to interview the famously reclusive R.J. Lawson, a wealthy tech genius who disappeared years ago but recently reemerged as a Napa Valley vintner. The week takes an unexpected turn, however, when Lawson refuses to divulge any information. Desperate for a lead, Kate turns to Jamie, a vineyard hand who shows her the romance of wine country—and stirs her aching heart. But his connection to Lawson is ambiguous, and when Jamie disappears before the end of the week, Kate is left to investigate another story: the truth behind the man who stole her heart. USA TODAY bestselling author Renée Carlino explored love and heartbreak in her beautifully written debut Sweet Thing, and her newest novel does not disappoint. For fans of Colleen Hoover, K.A. Tucker, and Katja Millay, Nowhere But Here is a stirring and satisfying romance that you won’t want to put down.