A chance meeting of a young man and a famous reclusive actress. He knew who she was but her name was never mentioned. They had a coffee and chatted for a couple of hours.The mission of The Anzu was clear and simple, the exploration of space. The Zandu, the builders of the spaceship, were a highly advanced and logical race and they planned to include other species in their quest. Their intent was not only to learn from their travels, but also to learn from each other, they had not counted on how disparate intelligent beings could be. When Alec was born in Santa Cruz, California, he had no idea he would be part of a interplanetary crew. There are currently twenty-four humans on board and after a year in space, there is one thing Alec knows for sure, there is nowhere else he would rather be, even if the humans are not in the majority or in charge.

James Moody wants nothing more than to rebuild a quiet life in the living world with his resurrected girlfriend Karla. But she has given up on life and would rather she and James exist as free souls in the after lands. When Karla disappears, James, despair restored, regains his ability to pass to the now war-torn and turbulent after lands as he searches for Karla across the realms of the dead.James Moody has grown weary of the after lands, and wants nothing more than to rebuild a quiet life in the living world with his resurrected girlfriend Karla. He only wishes Karla felt the same. But she has long given up on life and yearns only to build a future with James as Freesouls in the Liminality.James' bliss prevents him from joining her on her frequent excursions to the after-realm. But then horrible things start happening to their friends in the UK. James remains blocked until one morning Karla disappears out of the blue.Despair restored, he can once again travel to the Liminality, where he discovers that the Seraph overlords of Penult have launched an all-out campaign to drive all rebel souls back where they 'belong' in the tunnels of Root. James joins the resistance while again being forced to search for Karla across two realms.

Stanley Stickle hates homework and he'll do almost anything to get out of it.Stanley gets a shock when he discovers that every pupil in the school is to be given EXTRA homework in preparation for the BIG TEST. Stanley is appalled at this assault on his human rights and will do just about anything to avoid the extra work. Stanley thinks up a cunning plStanley Stickle hates homework and he'll do almost anything to get out of it.In this, the first short book in the series, Stanley gets a shock when he discovers that every pupil in the school is to be given EXTRA homework in preparation for the BIG TEST. Stanley is appalled at this assault on his human rights and will do just about anything to avoid the extra work. Stanley thinks up a cunning plan, a master plan, the best plan that anyone ever planned...ever. Only it doesn't quite work, so it's on to Plan B... then Plan C...

Michael and Sarah, a young millionaire couple from New York, discover their dream home in rural Vermont. What they don’t know is that their house is already occupied, and the occupants don’t want to share.The mice of Darkyew Township have inhabited the house for hundreds of years, and know how to deal with these humans as they have the ones before.Karen was the love of Jack’s life… until she dumped him to take a job as a research assistant at a shady government contracted science lab in another town. He tried to put her behind him, but spiraled into a deep, years long depression. Until Karen appeared in his dreams and whispered a mysterious number. Now Jack finds himself placed on a terrorist watch list. His bank accounts are frozen and he’s pursued by relentless government agents with bizarre super powers. Broke, injured and with his life in ruins, Jack must decide how far he’s willing to go for the one that got away.

After a bizarre sighting, a middle-aged man's spiritual despair over the death of his son explodes into a dark, emotional quest for meaning...and another's soulless craving for proof of the existence of a terrifying, godlike entity.This essay is one where I argue for the recognition of the destruction of our humanity at the hands of our own technology. Soon we will just be a digital burp or fart on the Wi-FI. Pay heed to my warning words of doom and be careful how you tweet.

It's a slow day at the Office. Time to see how the Heroes pass time.“Goodmans Hotel”, a full length novel, is a gay love story set in 1990s London. Mark, a City high-flyer, is irresistibly attracted to Tom, a manual worker from a tough neighbourhood. Both men have been marked by past ordeals.Conflict between powerful cabals in the City firm causes Mark to leave, with a generous pay off. Tom’s boss, Andrew, a determinedly independent small businessman, convinces him he should put all his resources into setting up a gay guest house, the ‘Goodmans Hotel’ of the title. There he hopes for release from the heartlessly competitive norms of his old working life.He takes in an eighteen year old runaway, Darren, who is escaping from his parents’ religious bigotry. Mark comes to think of Tom, Darren and Andrew as his ‘family’. A crisis forces Mark and Tom apart, until eventually the family are reconciled and reunited in the final chapter, their understanding of life deepened by the challenges they have faced.

Misfit Declan- known as the local schizophrenic crazy man, has to break out of his cell in the psych ward to find his missing girlfriend. Piece of cake right?What would you do if the love of your life went missing? For misfit Declan, he'd do anything to find her. With the whole town thinking he's just the crazy man who talks to himself, he sets off alone to find his girlfriend. First, he has to break out of the psych hospital. Shouldn't be hard right?

Wrong Place, Wrong Time #2Sarah Hargreaves is walking through the emerging dawn streets after another night’s work, when she is bundled into the back of a van by six figures dressed in black. They have one question:‘What really happened at the Halloween Party three weeks ago?’Wrong Place, Wrong Time #2Sarah Hargreaves is walking through the emerging dawn streets after another night’s work, when she is bundled into the back of a van by six figures dressed in black. She is taken to an underground location, where she is interviewed by a smartly dressed woman and a man from a secret organisation. They have one question:‘What really happened at the Halloween Party three weeks ago?’Sarah is forced to retell the terrifying truth. She is an experienced member of Dark Watch, an organisation set up to eliminate the threat from the creatures of the night. On the hunt for a vampire cell, she and her new boyfriend get an invitation to a Halloween Party – the Vampire Special. She suspects that humans will be lulled to their deaths. What happens at the party surprises even her. Who is her new boyfriend?#2 In the series Wrong Place, Wrong TimeOther stories in the series#1 Hero's BreakAt the height of Christmas shopping in the downtown plaza, two superheroes create havoc as they unleash their powers. Bolt and Accel, tear apart the plaza as they smash cars, shops and restaurants to rumble and ruin in their desire to destroy their rival in love for Psy, a female superhero. The happy Christmas spirit is replaced with ultra violence, chaos and fear.The General flies in to stop them with the rest of the superhero unit of Flame, Amazon and Psy.But they are too late. Bolt's and Accel's actions, through an incidental event, have unleashed an unstoppable terrifying power.#3 Wedding AnniversaryHiding in time a superhero, Subject Zero, enjoys the delights of the wild west; the women, the drink and the fighting. After another night of fun Zero is alerted to the presence of another time traveller who has sought him out across time and space. The traveller is his wife he hasn’t seen for fifty years. She has come to remind him it's their Wedding Anniversary. They discuss old times together and make plans for a reconciliation in the future.Zero is happy, until a massive time disturbance breaks the peace and Zero and wife are forced to reveal their true powers to the inhabitants of the wild west town.

High in the Transylvanian woods, at the castle Piscul Draculi, live five daughters and their doting father. It's an idyllic life for Jena, the second eldest, who spends her time exploring the mysterious forest with her constant companion, a most unusual frog. But best by far is the castle's hidden portal, known only to the sisters. Every Full Moon, they alone can pass through it into the enchanted world of the Other Kingdom. There they dance through the night with the fey creatures of this magical realm. But their peace is shattered when Father falls ill and must go to the southern parts to recover, for that is when cousin Cezar arrives. Though he's there to help the girls survive the brutal winter, Jena suspects he has darker motives in store. Meanwhile, Jena's sister has fallen in love with a dangerous creature of the Other Kingdom--an impossible union it's up to Jena to stop. When Cezar's grip of power begins to tighten, at stake is everything Jena loves: her home, her family, and the Other Kingdom she has come to cherish. To save her world, Jena will be tested in ways she can't imagine--tests of trust, strength, and true love. From the Hardcover edition.

A thrilling new case for London’s most talented psychic detection agency—from the global bestselling author of the Bartimaeus Sequence. In London, a mysterious and potentially deadly ghost is stalking the halls of St Simeon’s Academy for Talented Youngsters. It lurks in the shadows, spreading fear and icy cold – and it carries a sharp and very solid dagger... The headmaster wastes no time in enlisting the help of ghost-hunters Anthony Lockwood, Lucy Carlyle and George Cubbins. Can Lockwood & Co. survive the night and save the day?

Part One Of Two Parts The author of THE FAR PAVILIONS returns us once again to the vast, intoxicating romance of India under the British Raj. SHADOW OF THE MOON is the story of Winter de Ballesteros, a beautiful English heiress come home to her beloved India. It is also the tale of Captain Alex Randall, her protector, who aches to possess her. Forged in the fires of a war that threatens to topple an empire, their tale is the saga of a desperate and unforgettable love that consumes all in its thrall. Filled with the mystery of moonlit palace gardens and the whisperings of passion and intrigue, M. M. Kaye evokes an era at once of its time, yet timeless. "Another splendid tale of India." (Wall Street Journal)

This mesmerizing ebook original short story—a prequel to The Sleepwalker—from Chris Bohjalian, bestselling author of The Sandcastle Girls and The Guest Room, tells the tale of one strange summer when a pair of horses die, an odd boy moves to a small Vermont town, and a woman rises from her bed and disappears into the night. Lianna Ahlberg is seventeen when a thunderstorm snaps a power line to the earth, electrifying the ground, the rain spreading the current like wildfire across the wet grass. Two horses are killed in the nearby field, unnerving the neighbors, upsetting the peculiar boy who has just moved in, and filling Lianna with a deep and abiding sense of dread. This is not the first unusual thing to happen that summer—a summer when Lianna’s mother begins to sleepwalk in the smallest hours of morning—and it will not be the last.

New York Times bestselling novelist Jennifer Crusie combines fast-paced banter, sexy situations, and unforgettable characters in this delightful romance about two reluctant lovers who couldn’t be more wrong about being right for each other. TRUST ME ON THIS Dennie Banks is an investigative reporter chasing down the biggest story of her career. Alec Prentice is a government agent working undercover to catch an elusive grifter. When they meet by accident, it’s a case of mistaken identities at first sight. What they don’t mistake is the instant attraction they have for each other, an attraction they’ll do everything in their power to resist—because Dennie thinks that Alec is running interference for her interview subject, and Alec suspects that Dennie is linked to his swindler. As the confusion grows, so do their feelings for each other, and what begins as a romantic comedy of errors may just end in the love affair of a lifetime. From the Paperback edition.

From *New York Times bestselling author Bernard Cornwell, the second installment in the world-renowned   Sharpe series, chronicling the rise of Richard Sharpe, a Private in His Majesty’s Army at the siege of Seringapatam.* "The greatest writer of historical adventures today." —*Washington Post* Richard Sharpe. Soldier, hero, rogue—the man you always want on your side. Born in poverty, he joined the army to escape jail and climbed the ranks by sheer brutal courage. He knows no other family than the regiment of the 95th Rifles, whose green jacket he proudly wears.

Spring, 1922 - Tessa is a beautiful, tiny, dark-eyed princess - who's given up her duties to follow her heart, working for nothing backstage at the Viennese opera. No one there knows who she really is, or that a fairytale castle is missing its princess, and Tessa is determined to keep it that way. But secret lives can be complicated. When a wealthy, handsome Englishman discovers this bewitching urchin backstage,Tessa's two lives collide - and in escaping her inheritance, she finds her destiny...

Once upon a time that was called 1828, before all the living things on the land and the fishes in the sea were destroyed, there was a man named William Buelow Gould, a convict in Van Dieman's Land who fell in love with a black woman and discovered too late that to love is not safe. Silly Billy Gould, invader of Australia, liar, murderer, forger, fantasist, condemned to live in the most brutal penal colony in the British Empire, and there ordered to paint a book of fish. Once upon a time, miraculous things happened...

At once an incredible adventure narrative and a penetrating biographical portrait, The River of Doubt is the true story of Theodore Roosevelt’s harrowing exploration of one of the most dangerous rivers on earth. The River of Doubt—it is a black, uncharted tributary of the Amazon that snakes through one of the most treacherous jungles in the world. Indians armed with poison-tipped arrows haunt its shadows; piranhas glide through its waters; boulder-strewn rapids turn the river into a roiling cauldron. After his humiliating election defeat in 1912, Roosevelt set his sights on the most punishing physical challenge he could find, the first descent of an unmapped, rapids-choked tributary of the Amazon. Together with his son Kermit and Brazil’s most famous explorer, Cândido Mariano da Silva Rondon, Roosevelt accomplished a feat so great that many at the time refused to believe it. In the process, he changed the map of the western hemisphere forever. Along the way, Roosevelt and his men faced an unbelievable series of hardships, losing their canoes and supplies to punishing whitewater rapids, and enduring starvation, Indian attack, disease, drowning, and a murder within their own ranks. Three men died, and Roosevelt was brought to the brink of suicide. The River of Doubt brings alive these extraordinary events in a powerful nonfiction narrative thriller that happens to feature one of the most famous Americans who ever lived. From the soaring beauty of the Amazon rain forest to the darkest night of Theodore Roosevelt’s life, here is Candice Millard’s dazzling debut. From the Trade Paperback edition.

Carried by the dark, winding waterways of Merovingen, the yearly fever spreads, wreaking havoc with the plots and counter-plot of even the greatest Houses, laying low the likes of such key players in the games of power as Thomas Mondragon himself. And as the fever-fed canal city is brough to the brink of war, and panicked by the threat of the alien sharrh's imminent return, those who prowl both the high ways and the waters below, from Jones to Raj, from Black Cal to Rif, must take up the challenge to keep Merovingen safe from devastating internal treachery... In Angel with the Sword, Hugo Award-winning author C.J. Cherryh introduced readers to Merovingen. Once again, she has assembled a series of closely linked tales by herself and other top writers such as Lynn Abbey and Janet and Chris Morris that continue the wonder of Merovingen.

Giving up is hard. . . but giving in is even harder. When did my life become a demented episode from The Mindy Project? Moving to Boston to begin grad school meant I was supposed to start a new life--not dig through a past I thought I'd left behind four years ago. But when I saw the poster for Random Acts of Crazy, all I could think about was the drummer, Sam Hinton, the boy I'd loved in high school and who disappeared with my heart. Who knew I'd become the living version of Magic Mike? Seeing Amy Smithson at my gig and watching her win a kiss from my bandmate, Liam, was a gut punch. Four years ago we squared off in a high school debate that had higher stakes than we ever imagined, and here I was. . . wanting what I'd walked away from. Are there too many secrets between us to allow her to trust me again? And can I trust myself?

As far as she can tell, Nell Harris is either going insane or she is in love. Nell thought she had been summoned to Prague to work on an inscription in a rare fourteenth-century breastplate. Instead, she is immersed in the world of the Moravian Dark Ones (think vampires) when she is swept up in the search for a boy held captive by the demon lord Asmodeus. Although Nell would like nothing better than to use her powers as a "Charmer" to help find the missing boy, the last time she dabbled in magic the consequences were dire. Then Nell meets Adrian Tomas. Bound to serve Asmodeus and forced to betray his fellow Dark Ones, Adrian desperately needs Nell to charm away his curse. One look into Adrian's haunted eyes, and Nell discovers she will do just about anything to save the soul of her new beloved.

Is life offering fewer and fewer options? Then join the dead. When Annelise meets dark and seductive Ronan, he promises her a new life-if she has the courage to chance the unknown. Now, she's whisked away to a mysterious island and pitted against other female recruits to become a Watcher-girls who are partnered with vampires and assist them in their missions. To survive and become a Watcher, Annelise has to beat out every other girl, but she's determined to do so, because to fail doesn't mean dishonor-it means death.