Effie Truelove believes in magic, as does her grandfather Griffin (although he refuses to do any magic, let alone teach Effie how to use it). After a mysterious incident leaves Griffin close to death, Effie is given an unusual silver ring and told she must look after her grandfather’s library of rare and powerful books. But then the books fall into the hands of shady scholar Leonard Levar, and Effie is propelled into the most dangerous adventure of her life. Now, Effie and her friends—nerdy Maximilian, rugby-mad Wolf, helpful Lexy, and eccentric Raven—must discover their true powers if they are to get the books back. And Effie alone will have to travel to the Otherworld, where she will uncover the true meaning of the strange old book called Dragon’s Green…

No collection of Japanese literature is complete without Natsume Soseki's Kokoro, his most famous novel and the last he completed before his death. Published here in the first new translation in more than fifty years, Kokoro—meaning "heart"—is the story of a subtle and poignant friendship between two unnamed characters, a young man and an enigmatic elder whom he calls "Sensei". Haunted by tragic secrets that have cast a long shadow over his life, Sensei slowly opens up to his young disciple, confessing indiscretions from his own student days that have left him reeling with guilt, and revealing, in the seemingly unbridgeable chasm between his moral anguish and his student's struggle to understand it, the profound cultural shift from one generation to the next that characterized Japan in the early twentieth century.

Seer and wolf shifter Elain Pardie-Lyall has a baby on the way. If that wasn’t enough to deal with, she’s got to conduct a little grave robbing, battle vengeful cockatrice…and then there’s the accidentally exploding moose. Just an average day in her crazy life. It’ll get a whole lot worse before it gets better as she uncovers a painful secret from her husband Ain’s past. Ain is willing to let Elain do what she needs to in the course of her Seer duties. What he didn’t expect was a chance to atone for an old mistake. Fixing what was means sacrifices for one of their friends, and even more drastic changes for their future. Now Elain has to figure out how to keep her secrets. Not just from her men, but from her family, friends, and allies. But with only the Devil to lean on, can she turn away from ancient patterns of vengeance and embrace a future of forgiveness?

From Susan Vreeland, bestselling author of such acclaimed novels as Girl in Hyacinth Blue, Luncheon of the Boating Party, and Clara and Mr. Tiffany, comes a richly imagined story of a woman’s awakening in the south of Vichy France—to the power of art, to the beauty of provincial life, and to love in the midst of war.   In 1937, young Lisette Roux and her husband, André, move from Paris to a village in Provence to care for André’s grandfather Pascal. Lisette regrets having to give up her dream of becoming a gallery apprentice and longs for the comforts and sophistication of Paris. But as she soon discovers, the hilltop town is rich with unexpected pleasures. Pascal once worked in the nearby ochre mines and later became a pigment salesman and frame maker; while selling his pigments in Paris, he befriended Pissarro and Cézanne, some of whose paintings he received in trade for his frames. Pascal begins to tutor Lisette in both art and life, allowing her to see his small collection of paintings and the Provençal landscape itself in a new light. Inspired by Pascal’s advice to “Do the important things first,” Lisette begins a list of vows to herself (#4. Learn what makes a painting great). When war breaks out, André goes off to the front, but not before hiding Pascal’s paintings to keep them from the Nazis’ reach. With German forces spreading across Europe, the sudden fall of Paris, and the rise of Vichy France, Lisette sets out to locate the paintings (#11. Find the paintings in my lifetime). Her search takes her through the stunning French countryside, where she befriends Marc and Bella Chagall, who are in hiding before their flight to America, and acquaints her with the land, her neighbors, and even herself in ways she never dreamed possible. Through joy and tragedy, occupation and liberation, small acts of kindness and great acts of courage, Lisette learns to forgive the past, to live robustly, and to love again. Look for special features inside. Join the Random House Reader’s Circle for author chats and more.   “Vreeland’s love of painters and painting, her meticulous research and pitch-perfect descriptive talents . . . are abundantly evident in her new novel.”—The Washington Post “This historical novel’s . . . great strength is its lovingly detailed setting. . . . Readers will enjoy lingering in the sun-dappled, fruit-scented Provençal landscape that Vreeland brings to life.”—The Boston Globe “A pleasurable opportunity to learn something about art, history . . . and to enjoy a plucky heroine who grows in ways she never thought possible.”—St. Louis Post-Dispatch “Mesmerizing . . . Vreeland’s passionate writing is as good as a private showing at the Louvre.”—Kirkus Reviews* (starred review) “An entrancing novel of joy and heartache . . . Vreeland provides the reader with a broad spectrum of emotions.”—*The Free Lance-Star From the Trade Paperback edition.

Lucien is seriously ill but his life is transformed when an old Italian notebook gives him the power to become a stravagante, a time traveller with access to 16th century Italy. He wakes up in Bellezza (Venice) during carnival time and meets Arianna, a girl his own age who is disguised as a boy in the hope of being selected as one of the Duchessa's mandoliers. Arianna gives Lucien her boy's clothing and he is selected as a mandolier himself, becoming a friend of fellow-stravagante Rodolfo, the Duchessa's lover, and saving the Duchessa's life when she is threatened by an assassin hired by the powerful di Chimici family. For state occasions the Duchessa uses her maid Giuliana as a body-double but Guiliana commits the fatal mistake of revealing the secret to her fiance Enrico and a sequence of devastating consequences unravels. Meanwhile Lucien has met the original stravagante, the Elizabethan alchemist William Dethridge, and he begins to understand that he may be called to follow in his footsteps.

In her long career as America’s most beloved suspense writer, Mary Higgins Clark’s The Lost Years is her most astonishing and dramatic novel to date. At its center is a discovery that, if authenticated, may be the most revered document in human history—“the holiest of the holy”—and certainly the most coveted and valuable object in the world. In The Lost Years, Mary Higgins Clark, America’s Queen of Suspense, has written her most astonishing novel to date. At its center is a discovery that, if authenticated, may be the most revered document in human history—“the holiest of the holy”—and certainly the most coveted and valuable object in the world. Biblical scholar Jonathan Lyons believes he has found the rarest of parchments—a letter that may have been written by Jesus Christ. Stolen from the Vatican Library in the 1500s, the letter was assumed to be lost forever. Now, under the promise of secrecy, Jonathan is able to confirm his findings with several other experts. But he also confides in a family friend his suspicion that someone he once trusted wants to sell the parchment and cash in. Within days Jonathan is found shot to death in his study. At the same time, his wife, Kathleen, who is suffering from Alzheimer’s, is found hiding in the study closet, incoherent and clutching the murder weapon. Even in her dementia, Kathleen has known that her husband was carrying on a long-term affair. Did Kathleen kill her husband in a jealous rage, as the police contend? Or is his death tied to the larger question: Who has possession of the priceless parchment that has now gone missing? It is up to their daughter, twenty-eight-year-old Mariah, to clear her mother of murder charges and unravel the real mystery behind her father’s death. Mary Higgins Clark’s The Lost Years is at once a breathless murder mystery and a hunt for what may be the most precious religious and archaeological treasure of all time.

Everyone in the small town of Central City, Texas loves Lou Ford. A deputy sheriff, Lou's known to the small-time criminals, the real-estate entrepreneurs, and all of his coworkers--the low-lifes, the big-timers, and everyone in-between--as the nicest guy around. He may not be the brightest or the most interesting man in town, but nevertheless, he's the kind of officer you're happy to have keeping your streets safe. The sort of man you might even wish your daughter would end up with someday. But behind the platitudes and glad-handing lurks a monster the likes of which few have seen. An urge that has already claimed multiple lives, and cost Lou his brother Mike, a self-sacrificing construction worker fell to his death on the job in what was anything but an accident. A murder that Lou is determined to avenge--and if innocent people have to die in the process, well, that's perfectly all right with him. In THE KILLER INSIDE ME, Thompson goes where few novelists have dared to go, giving us a pitch-black glimpse into the mind of the American Serial Killer years before Charles Manson, John Wayne Gacy, and Brett Easton Ellis's American Psycho, in the novel that will forever be known as the master performance of one of the greatest crime novelists of all time.

Addy Hanlon has always been Beth Cassidy's best friend and trusted lieutenant. Beth calls the shots and Addy carries them out, a long-established order of things that has brought them to the pinnacle of their high-school careers. Now they're seniors who rule the intensely competitive cheer squad, feared and followed by the other girls -- until the young new coach arrives.Cool and commanding, an emissary from the adult world just beyond their reach, Coach Colette French draws Addy and the other cheerleaders into her life. Only Beth, unsettled by the new regime, remains outside Coach's golden circle, waging a subtle but vicious campaign to regain her position as "top girl" -- both with the team and with Addy herself. Then a suicide focuses a police investigation on Coach and her squad. After the first wave of shock and grief, Addy tries to uncover the truth behind the death -- and learns that the boundary between loyalty and love can be dangerous terrain. The raw passions of girlhood are brought to life in this taut, unflinching exploration of friendship, ambition, and power. Award-winning novelist Megan Abbott, writing with what Tom Perrotta has hailed as "total authority and an almost desperate intensity," provides a harrowing glimpse into the dark heart of the all-American girl.Amazon.com ReviewAmazon Best Books of the Month, August 2012: Oh my, these beautiful, terrible girls, with their "Aruba-tanned" legs and their ferocity and fears, for whom the smallest slights become life-and-death matters. This brilliantly dark and uncomfortably real story, sharp and suspenseful and chilling, made me desperately glad I have sons. The author is so attuned to the "witchiness of girls" and the drama of high school, and then she takes us to the darkest corners of that world. These aren't Mean Girls or Breakfast Club teens--more like Glee on steroids. Megan Abbott is a scary genius. Her voice is fierce and fearless. --Neal ThompsonReviewEARLY PRAISE FOR DARE ME:"A fascinating, almost voyeuristic, glimpse into the power struggle that goes on between teenaged girls. Not just any teenaged girls-cheerleaders-with their own unique hierarchy and fierce code of loyalty, which they'll protect at any cost. There's a dark and twisted love story here, told with a rich sensual undertone that lingers long after you close the last page, still breathing in your ear: Dare me." (Chevy Stevens, New York Times bestselling author of Still Missing and *Never Knowing* )"Arresting, original and unputdownable." (Rosamund Lupton, New York Times bestselling author of *Sister* )"I dare you not to love this book. You lucky reader." (Tom Franklin, New York Times bestselling author of *Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter* )"DARE ME sneaks up on you from behind, pulling on long-forgotten memories of teenaged desperation, obsession, and desire. This is truly masterful storytelling." (Alafair Burke, author of *Never Tell* )"Megan Abbott's brilliant new book presents a number of possibilities-the mysterious and the erotic, as well as the inevitable and paradoxical lessons of girlhood-with such illumination that the joyful terrors of adolescence were once again present in me. Abbott's characters, confronted with unaccustomed questions and strange, new difficulties, remind us that the loss of innocence can, if we are fortunate, emerge into a lustrous wisdom." (Susanna Moore, author of *In the Cut* )"In Dare Me Megan Abbott guides us into the subculture of athletic and fierce young cheerleaders, who train together, compete, andbond until they form a rugged unit much as Marines form a rugged unit. She finds the nearly sinister underside of everyday events and somehow builds great suspense from ingredients that seem so familiar. Abbott has become expert at revealing truths we thought we knew but didn't, delivered in prose that is by turns elegant and incantatory." (Daniel Woodrell, author of *Winter's Bone* )

Knock Three Times! By Marion St. John Webb

"My true name is so well known in the records or registers at Newgate, and in the Old Bailey, and there are some things of such consequence still depending there, relating to my particular conduct, that it is not be expected I should set my name or the account of my family to this work; perhaps, after my death, it may be better known; at present it would not be proper, nor not though a general pardon should be issued, even without exceptions and reserve of persons or crimes. It is enough to tell you, that as some of my worst comrades, who are out of the way of doing me harm (having gone out of the world by the steps and the string, as I often expected to go), knew me by the name of Moll Flanders, so you may give me leave to speak of myself under that name till I dare own who I have been, as well as who I am." This book has a beautiful glossy cover and a blank page for the dedication.

As if G.O.D.'s struggles to meet Wall Street's expectations weren't enough, G.O.D. may be going out of business because of a blogger's rant. So begins Horse's Ass, an irreverent look at corporate America whose events unfold at the Gift of Drug (G.O.D.) pharmacy.As if G.O.D.'s struggles to meet Wall Street's expectations weren't enough, G.O.D. may be going out of business because of a blogger's rant. So begins Horse's Ass, an irreverent and mean spirited look at corporate America whose events unfold at the Gift of Drug (G.O.D.) pharmacy.When G.O.D.'s popularity plummets, along with its stock, Doug, the CEO, embarks on a cost reduction plan which makes patients responsible for quality control. With no one checking what's in the box, G.O.D. inadvertently gives the wrong drugs to Helen, an impish, terminally ill young redhead whose blog sends the stock into free fall.As the stock hits its low point, The Chairman issues Doug an ultimatum, "Fix it, or you'll be standing in traffic with a cardboard sign begging for change." With Doug believing prayer the only thing left to raise the stock price, he bows his head. Will Doug's prayers be enough to save him, and win over Helen, G.O.D.'s biggest critic?

The long-awaited and stunning new novel from the unrivalled Iain Banks

A new e-book compilation of Alfred Bester's brilliant short fiction,

Stacey gets caught with a counterfeit bill and the Babysitters search for the crook spreading funny money in Stoneybrook.

Dollar Jungle isn’t Mia Crawford’s idea of the perfect job. Then again, the cute older guy who comes in every night to hunt around for just the right Halloween decorations makes things a little easier. When Mia realizes her “mystery shopper” lives in the same trailer park, will she be brave enough to knock on his door? And if she does, will she discover a trick… or a treat?The story is initially about the chance coming together of two Brisbane families in the seventies - the first, and larger, group headed by middle-aged Frank and Sylvia Bentley; the second headed by young Jim and Lee Davis.In 1978, by a tragic twist of fate, the Davis family is torn apart and Lee – in her darkest time - is unexpectedly dealt generous support by the Bentley seniors and by their son Jon, an accountancy career aspirant. A brief caring friendship develops between Lee and Jon in the period between the start of her trials and his departure interstate for career advancement.Before too long, the remainder of the Bentleys move away from Brisbane and settle in various areas of northern New South Wales. And the ties between the two family groups fray with passage of years.In mid-1989, Jon Bentley makes his first brief visit to Brisbane in a decade - a decade significant for him only because of gruelling work and unfortunate stumbles with members of the opposite sex. While in Brisbane, he takes the opportunity to look-up some old pals from school and university and to visit his friend Lee Davis.Though the school and university friends leave him cold, Lee is as remembered – attractive, warm and interesting. Still close despite the passage of time!Jon’s next visit to Brisbane in mid-1992 is for a six-month work project. Soon after arriving, he navigates his way to his brightest friendship beacon in the north – Lee’s place. And there, in his thirty-sixth year, he discovers a type of relationship that had evaded him for virtually his entire adult life.But fate again takes a hand and Jon’s dreams about companionship are soon demolished. He is left in a precarious emotional state – his personal life in utter disarray and his precious career teetering as a result.The story continues on to describe Jon’s handling of his personal and career dilemmas; and the impact his family and friends have on his struggle to prevail, despite remarkable odds.“Directives …” is, quite unashamedly, a love story.But it’s a very earthy love story with strong undercurrents.It seeks to explain that even the most intelligent and powerful of men have weakness; and that they are capable of quickly slipping and falling - and hurting very badly. It also seeks to fossick for truth within a range middle class Australian social mores that seem not to suit the full range of social realities.If “Directives …” is a touch disrespectful about hairy-chested Australian manhood and certain Australian middle class values, it is not so about the importance of partnership, family and friends. With these matters, it seeks to be thoroughly conventional.“Directives …” is written in chronological sequence, the pace quickening through non-critical periods and slowing to cater for milestones in the life of Jon Bentley.The story is fictional – or as fictional as can be, anyway!

Four short stories from my blog:1. The Winter Man2. Stabbing Spree3. Silent Crimes of Love4. Identity TheftWhile handling my laptop and computer every day, I have grown accustomed to sitting in front of it with a cup of strong coffee, as I wait for it to start up, then to load up applications and finally load the internet. The situation did not get any better, as I have to regularly download stuff from internet and already wasted a lot of money paying so called computer professionals who have been giving me false promises. Sometime or the other, even you must have come across something similar.I have made a list of the most easily performing tasks to remove the problem of slowness from my computer. And with this ebook, you can also say goodbye to the slow computer problem once and for all… Not just blunt instructions: I have combined it with proper guidance so that the most computer illiterate person can handle the daily issues with their computer. With a dedicated section for Windows 7 users and a list of the most efficient freeware available in the market, you can also become like me… self-dependant: "Computeristically"!

Eking out an existence as a scavenger in post-apocalyptic Russia, Ryska never thought she would be more than a blind, discarded military experiment. Then she ends up in the middle of a kidnapping gone wrong and must use her all her skills to save herself, and the young boy who brings back painful memories of her past.This is a science fiction short story.Eking out an existence as a scavenger in post-apocalyptic Russia, Ryska never thought she would be more than a blind, discarded military experiment. Then she ends up in the middle of a kidnapping gone wrong and must use her all her skills to save herself, and the young boy who brings back painful memories of her past.This is a science fiction short story that originally appeared in the anthology Mirror Shards: Volume One.

On Solaris, a planet eons old, souls from the crust of a meteor give inhuman powers to their symbiotic pairs. Good battles evil to survive.Solaris. A planet like any other, rife with wars, science and love. But at the peak of its civilization, a great meteor fell, bringing long-dead souls to Solaris, souls that had been sustained by the life-force of one lone man, Ineal.At the moment of impact, these souls scattered across Solaris, giving inhuman abilities to mortals while scarring their bodies and corrupting their lives.Samuel was one such man, a man of faith who thought to use his powers to worship his God: he watched his followers, and his planet, die. Seas turned to lava and the skies darkened. And as Samuel’s heart grew weary and angry, he used his powers to manipulate the world to serve him alone.Samuel became god of a planet whose only life was the symbiotic life so like his own.Centuries later, he discovered others, threats that had not been on this planet before. A winged woman; a cyborg; a future-seer and a child. A great vengeance burned a comradery between them.They were souls that could overthrow him. Souls that he would need to destroy.An excerpt:Darkness consumed Ineal as the voices tore at his thoughts. The sole survivor of the planet Eon, he wanted to shut off his brain, to destroy his consciousness and be nothing. But the voices would not let him.The planets’ souls, he thought, encased in this meteor hurtling through space. The souls of dead planets destroyed us. I am the last. They take me for their own.He did not know when the essences of dead planets first came to Eon. Men and women bonded with them, inviting the haunting gaseous essences to their bodies and allowing the essences to become necessary symbiotes of the flesh. The symbiosis with the dead planetary souls gave his people powers and abilities beyond their dreams. But the price, the price of the flesh was great, and an ultimate death of sacrifice and pain was given in return. Ineal was the last, and the only being of Eon who had not accepted them into his flesh.But you took me, he thought as they spoke with their unintelligible voices, whispering in a constant echo through his mind. When my planet died you came to me. You took my body to keep yourselves alive. They kept him alive too, feeding him their energy as they fed off his living essence.Millennia of time passed as the meteor orbited the solar system.Ineal could take no more. Rock pressed against him, suffocating his thoughts.He closed his mind, pulling blackness from the void beyond and urging it to destroy him and the planetary souls, so that whatever planet they would go to next might be spared.His mind’s darkness came. He forgot speech. He forgot sight. He forgot love. But the essences would not release his life force and the greatness it became in their harnessing embrace. They would not allow him to forget primal sense.Then, in that rawness of life, where he was barely being at all, he sensed a planet. They had intended this new planet as their destination from the start.The essences’ telekinetic connection pulled away from him, severing the symbiosis and sending searing heat through his form.There was a moment of silence for Ineal, of freedom. Then came the violent crack of stone, as meteor met planet. A great boom consumed him. Ineal’s consciousness was lost… almost. But his essence lingered somehow in the planet’s form. The planetary essences fled their transport, consuming life and searching for prey.

An ancient, dormant evil returns to haunt the spectrum. Threatening everything. And as chaos stirs, Ion, a young man with a scarred past must put away his inner woes and give himself to a greater cause ... and confront the demons of his past along the way.CRANSOF, STAR CLUSTER 24:A top secret techno facility falls prey to a sudden terrorist attack. But the attackers are no ordinary ones.The spectrum’s worst fear has been realised: this is the return of its most ancient, deadly threat … a threat that has lain suppressed for millennia. The return of the ones they call as mystics.FARNOR, THE OUTER SPECTRUM:Elderly master Mantra feels a sudden disturbance within him. One that signals towards a grave threat ahead for their entire realm… SACROGON, STAR CLUSTER 32:For two years now, Ion has lived a reclusive existence, keeping to himself … carrying the scars of a greatly dark past. But now, as chaos begins to stir in the spectrum, Ion’s life twists overnight, and he is thrust into a perilous new world. A world where good and evil clash with catastrophic proportions … while the fate of the entire realm hangs in the balance.As his life changes overnight in the face of this grave new threat, Ion must muster the courage to put away his inner woes and give himself over to a greater cause … and confront the demons of his past along the way.

Weeks before the 2020 U.S. presidential election, the Bull Moose Party candidate is shot in the head and assassinated. His party thaws Walt Disney's head, attaches it to their guy and runs that. Can someone with the body of a politician and the head of a dreamer become president? It's surprising what's possible in the not-so-distant future...Christmas is a time when families are brought together , people who haven’t seen each other in a long time and who, on this day, sit together at a table, share stories, dreams, joys and a traditional dinner. But on this Christmas, one particular supper is anything but traditional. And what gets served is something very few ever get to taste.A bored and unhappy teen in search of a late-night adventure, in a small farm near the river, will find far more than presents under the tree.One simple meal can hold many secrets …

"Children of a Sunless Land" is the first installment in the "Deaf Swordsman Series"."Children of a Sunless Land" is the first installment in the "Deaf Swordsman Series".Told in serial form, the Deaf Swordsman Series is a collection of stories featuring the fantastical deaf swordsman, Vohro Vahllenu. These set of stories is a sprawling epic of good and evil, bringing together the supernatural and weird, featuring dark fantasy adventures sure to resonate with both the hardcore and casual reader of dark fantasy literature.The stories begin and end in chaos, promising the reader a wild ride through the darkest bowels of the imagination while offering moments of deep reflection. Here are the terror-inducing tales of children clad in beastly armor, of people consumed by their own shadows, and of dark nights spent under the auspices of an angry moon.Embark on perilous journeys into unknown places like an abandoned asylum floating in the open, midnight sky, or an eerie forest characterized by the continuous sounds of echoing whispers. These are some of the places you'll venture into, following a fierce avenger armed with nine of the deadliest blades known to mankind, as he rides from the seen into the unseen, where hope and doom are bound only by the thinnest threads of humanity.Series No. 1: Children of a Sunless Land: 8,000 words (the equivalent to 30 paperback pages).*Includes illustrations.