The throne is finally in Marcus Vintner's grasp, but enemies unite to keep him from his lifelong ambition.Verdin and Balnus are in Turivkan, where boys a certain age disappear and resentment against the prefect's rule builds towards revolution. Verdin must gain the rebels' friendship and alliance to further his own ambitions...General Kelanus is in Eldova, surrounded by enemy soldiers, and determined to prove Hingast a fraud. But does hate prevent the general from using his better judgment?Increasingly desperate to hand the throne to its rightful occupant, Zenepha knows that Marka's Senate is unwilling to accept Marcus Vintner as their emperor. And an old enemy Zenepha believed defeated has again confidently asserted his claim to the throne...An Ilvenworld novel of 160 thousand words, Markan Sword completes the Markan Empire trilogy.

This book includes bonus material for the Seeker Series: Dark Beauty, Dark Seeker & Dark Return. With never seen before material, it's a great companion to the series. An in-depth look into the Seeker Series through: Character Interviews, Deleted Scenes, Sneak Peeks, Author Interviews, and more...This book includes bonus material for the Seeker Series: Dark Beauty, Dark Seeker & Dark Return. With never seen before material, it's a great companion to the series. An in-depth look into the Seeker Series through: Character Interviews, Deleted Scenes, Sneak Peeks, Author Interviews, and more...“Get ready for a new breed of vampire slayers! Browning has created an intriguing world that promises many interesting surprises to come. A terrific start to a new urban fantasy.” —Artist Arthur, author of The Mystyx Novels"YA fans of fresh, edgy urban fantasy are going to love Dark Seeker. Taryn Browning is a rising star. This is one author you'll want to keep your eye on as she shoots straight to the top of the charts!" —Kari Lee Townsend, National Best Selling Author of The Samantha Granger Experiment & The Fortune Teller Mysteries"Taryn Browning is a master writer. DARK SEEKER is thrilling and beautiful, and follows only one trend: good story-telling." —Brent Taylor, The Naughty Book Kitties"Dark Seeker is an original and action-packed adventure that will leave you kicking and screaming for the next installment! With endearing characters, a breathtaking romance, fabulous world-building and a spectacular storyline, Dark Seeker will surely impress readers!" --Shirley, Shiirleyy's Bookshelf"Taryn Browning’s debut novel is a stunning addition to any paranormal romance lover’s library." --Tiffany, For Those About to Read"This is a wicked tale! It's original and flows really well. There is great action, mystery, and Romance*yes I ment to capitalize that*. Everything works so well together. Well thought out and you don't have to make yourself believe any of it as your reading ... you just do. Get this AMAZING story NOW!" --Heather, SupaGurl Books

A feral child runs wild in the rooftops of a castle, awaiting the day the fairies will come take her away.Ravensdaughter hates the humans of the castle. They stink and they have stupid rounded ears while her ears are pointy. Ravensdaughter is fairy-born, a changeling. She knows that one day when her magic grows in the fairies will come to take her home. In the meanwhile, though, a human girl named Beth is trying to make friends with her...

A must-read for anyone who loves babies. Verses range from serious to silly, depending on who is doing the telling. Follow a family through pregnancy, bonding, sleepless nights, and milestones like crawling and the “firsts”: tear, steps, shoes, birthday, visit to Santa. Finally, the reader gets a glimpse of childlike wisdom, as Baby gives advice to a potential sibling. Life is good. Enjoy it!Mark Rollins has sold the technology company he founded to a large multinational corporation. The transaction left him with more money than he can ever spend, a large empty office building, and far too much time on his hands. He repurposed the building into an exclusive fitness club for socially elite, wealthy women of Nashville, Tennessee. Against the backdrop of daily life in the fitness club, sixty-six year old Rollins becomes a father figure to club members who turn to him when they have a problem. When a club member's husband is reported missing from his upscale Nashville home in the old-moneyed community of Belle Meade, Rollins sets out to solve the mystery exposing himself and his family to unexpected danger from organized criminal enterprises. Rollins, with the aid of his loyal team of computer experts, uses his money and friends in high places to unravel the mystery and protect those close to him.

At the happiest moment of Rachel Benson-Taft's life, she realizes that saying "yes" will really change everything. But, then, what's in a name?This is the story of Peter Pan’s last trip to The Neverland and it begins the evening Alice returns home from Wonderland. Advisory-The Queen of hearts succeeds at taking off heads.This was my final project for my children's literature class. The assignment was to write a story that combined characters from more than one story. I combined the characters and settings originally created by J. M. Barrie (Peter Pan) and Lewis Carol (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland). My goal was to pull Peter Pan out of his perpetual "syndrome" and give him a more promising ending

Prince Zechaire Oren Bourbon is envied - caught in a family intrigue spanning the larger part of the century, in which banishment and bitter heart breaks mar the lives of the nobility.The rules that once held Sardonem together will now aid in tearing it apart. With enemies at the gates and powerful enemies within, what will the Prince do to stop the siege of his crown?Prince Zechaire Oren Bourbon is envied - caught in a family intrigue spanning the larger part of the century, in which banishment and bitter heart breaks mar the lives of the nobility.The rules that once held Sardonem together will now aid in tearing it apart. With enemies at the gates and powerful enemies within, what will the Prince do to stop the siege of his crown? The Flight of the King is the first installment in the Envy Trilogy; a part of The Cardinal Sins Series.***Wolf and the Lamb A WOLF, meeting with a Lamb astray from the fold, resolved not to lay violent hands on him, but to find some plea to justify to the Lamb the Wolf’s right to eat him. He thus addressed him: “Sirrah, last year you grossly insulted me.” “Indeed,” bleated the Lamb in a mournful tone of voice, “I was not then born.” Then said the Wolf, “You feed in my pasture.” “No, good sir,” replied the Lamb, “I have not yet tasted grass.” Again said the Wolf, “You drink of my well.” “No,” exclaimed the Lamb, “I never yet drank water, for as yet my mother’s milk is both food and drink to me.” Upon which the Wolf seized him and ate him up, saying, “Well! I won’t remain supperless, even though you refute every one of my imputations.” The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny.Translated by George Fyler Townsend. Aesop's Fables (p. 15). Amazon Digital Services, Inc..

ThIs dark comedy follows Cameron, the young Scottish soldier as he comes to terms with his new ‘life’, from his first days as a hapless vampire in war-torn WW1 France to the glamorous modern day setting of the Côte d’Azur. Along the way, he develops a distinctive taste for the finer things in life: jewels, yachts, small dogs and champagne-infused humans.Until the outbreak of the First World War, young Cameron Blair would have liked nothing better than to stay in Edinburgh and marry his childhood sweetheart. As the call to arms goes out, Cameron and his pals sign up to fight for their country. They are soon delivered into the nightmare of war, and there Cameron more than meets his maker.The story follows Cameron as he comes to terms with his new ‘life’, from his first days as a hapless vampire in war-torn France to the glamorous modern day setting of the Côte d’Azur. Along the way, he develops a distinctive taste for the finer things in life: jewels, yachts, small dogs and champagne-infused human...

Winterburne's life is falling apart around him...he's lost his job...he's lost his woman...and now war has come to the Empire. What else could possibly go wrong?As Winterburne's life unravels in the fallout from his confrontation with Courtenay, he soon realises that it's going to take more than just a little luck to get it back on track. But, when Queen Ysabel actually declares war on the Empire, he finds himself sent on a mission to try to restore peace, a mission so dangerous that it threatens any semblance of the future that he might have hoped to salvage.

A short story about a man trying to find out what happened to his brother.The small college town of Crescent has been home to many sources of evil through the years, but none can compare to what is being cultivated now, what has grown in a small potted plant. It all centers around the boarding school of Alliance, and six teens who are trying to find their place in the world, who are willing to use anything, no matter the source, to help them get there. Rachel may be the beacon of morality, Bill the epitome of friendship, but can either make the right choice when offered more than they could ever dream of? Could the weakest of them actually hold the key to their salvation?This is Part One of Crescent Gorge.

Try this collection of short stories written by the author of the Silver Sagas series!For years I have been competing in my local community college's annual writing competition, the Crowder Quill. Finally, I have compiled some of the more recent stories! The genres vary from light fantasy to slice of life, with a dash of scifi thrown in here and there. I hope to encourage others to write and read.

The Apocalypse may or may not be around the corner, but the lamias of Nether Parts Punishments, Afterlife Services England & Wales (Hell), have a more serious problem to deal with.The Apocalypse may or may not be around the corner, but the lamias of Nether Parts Punishments, Afterlife Services England & Wales (Hell), have a more serious problem to deal with. The delivery of twenty-eight unruly souls to the wrong address – viz, their office – and the subsequent overly energetic castigation of said souls by an unsupervised young demon on secondment, could lead to them facing one of the ultimate horrors the underworld has to offer: a disciplinary panel. Hell, we learn, can be almost as much of a trial for the staff as for the customers.

In the maternity ward of a Brooklyn, New York City hospital immigrant parents hold on to their newborn child and wonder about the life he'll lead. As new arrivals from Haiti and the Dominican Republic, they try to understand what awaits their infant son based on their past. Through memories we're taken on a fast-paced journey within personal stories and a political history seldom talked about."No Hiding Place” is a literary short story featured in the collection "You, Me and the Rest of Us: #NewYorkStories." In the maternity ward of a Brooklyn, New York City hospital, Francis and his wife Estefani hold on to their newborn child and wonder about the life he'll lead. As new immigrant parents from Haiti and the Dominican Republic they try to understand what life awaits their infant son based on their past. Through their memories readers are taken on a fast-paced journey within their personal stories and a political history we seldom learn about.The narrative weaves through culture and modern politics to help us understand that in this world, for people like Francis, Estefani and their son Eddie, there is no safety. There is no hiding place.

Recruited to help hunt for a serial killer who has gone without capture for forty years, her second week in Homicide Detective Beck Nash already finds herself at odds with veteran detective Mick Bishop, the original lead on the case. Instincts pulling Beck one way, Bishop’s experience leads them in another, and Beck will learn what it means to be the new blood on the case.Recruited to help hunt for a serial killer who has gone without capture for forty years, her second week in Homicide Detective Beck Nash already finds herself at odds with veteran detective Mick Bishop, the original lead on the case. Instincts pulling Beck one way, Bishop’s experience leads them in another, and Beck will learn what it means to be the new blood on the case.Meanwhile, at home, Beck’s brother has come to crash at her apartment under troubling circumstances, stirring demons from their past they would both rather forget.21 Weeks is a fast-paced police procedural thriller series that ramps up in intensity with each victim that falls until its explosive final week.Warning: This series is about a serial killer. There will be violence. There will be language. There will be other adult things. It is intended for a mature audience.

This book contains Haiku and selected poems, some are based on direct observation of the natural world, others are philosophical and some are of a lighter nature. The author has been published a number of times in the World Haiku Review and the United Haiku and Tanka Society Journal.The book covers mostly the anthropological and political side of Hegel thought, as contained and explained in the lessons around the “Phenomenology of Spirit” held by Alexandre Kojeve in the 1930s at the “Ecole de Hautes Etudes” in Paris. The course gives a lot of background for granted, namely the historical context as well as the philosophical one, being targeted at classes of philosophy students.In order to highlight Hegel core themes, I deliberately removed all the references of Hegel to other philosopher and key themes of his time (that is, Hegel position with respect to Kant on, say, the theory of intellect and knowledge, or his position with respect to Descartes on the concept of idea etc.) while I added two chapters to briefly show how Hegel ideas actually influenced much of the thinking after him and still provide a lot of the conceptual framework we use today.Chapter 1 provides a very essential biography of Hegel, to cast him in the key events that shaped his life and thinking.Chapter 2 gives a view on the task of philosophy as conceived by Hegel and the novel approach he introduced into looking at the development of ideas.Chapter 3 introduces the Master-Slave dialectic, according to Hegel the key mechanism that creates at once culture, society and history, as well as his vision of man and his action in the World.Chapter 4 expands on Hegel vision of History as it derives from his basic understanding of man and then how this evolves into his vision of Society and State.Chapter 5 moves eventually into the most abstract part of Hegel with a brief description of the main change he brought to the concept of idea and how ideas relate to time and history.Chapters 6 and 7 provide a short overview of the main concepts inherited from Hegel by some major thinkers and how they tried to differentiate themselves from such a legacy. I warn my readers that the disclaimer still applies, so I might be even more inaccurate here than I have been in previous chapters. I broadly classify these thinkers in two categories, the “fond adopters” and the “strong opponents” dedicating one chapter to each category.Chapter 8 tries eventually to draw some conclusion by figuring out what we can still be tremendously grateful to Hegel in our global 21st century, after that in the 20th century the darkest side of the philosopher thinking shaped in the bloodiest way the fate of entire countries through the rise and fall of totalitarian regimes across Europe and the world.

While you cannot fix stupid, you can at least minimize its effect. This book describes the logic behind such arguments and goes to apply that thinking to a variety of social and economic problems which currently plague our society in the hope that someone who reads this book also has the authority and ability to implement these solutions and in doing so raise the quality of life for all.Poor little Emma was a sickly child and had been since her birth, she been born with a very rare form of Sarcomas cancer. So rare was her condition that as far as any of the medical experts knew she was the only one. Emma was now six and her parents Giles and Tracy Evans were told, she had at best four weeks to live and nothing could change that. Of course they were very sorry and insisted they had tried every known thing to man and none had worked. She believed that she could be cured by a Giraffe's kiss, unfortunately she was the only one that believed that.

Joseph Rannen is dead, and no one besides Morgan Kimball seems to believe he wasn't a traitor. With greedy Earth warships hovering overhead, Kimball has twelve hours to produce evidence that his friend and mentor was murdered, preferably without jeapordizing the colony's safety.This whodunit mystery set on a distant colony planet was a Finalist for the Writers of the Future Award.When economic collapse happens, who takes over. If it's big business, are they after profit or power. What is the individual to do, go underground and look for an escape? Infiltrating the Cartels laboratories they find experiments that chill them to the bone. The also find technology that is suppressed. One of these technologies offers them the chance, if they can build the equipment. In hidden laboratories of their own, they work feverishly to duplicate the equipment, and hope the Cartel cannot detect the signals it generates. Is the grass really greener on the other side? They send a team to prepare a place for their families. When their families join them, the signals created by the equipment are detected by a merchant. He diverts from his scheduled route to investigate. This diversion cost him money, so he captures the refugees. In the decadent federation slavery is legal. Selling them will recover more of his expenses, than simply throwing them out an airlock door. To increase the slaves value he educates them, and everyone knows that knowledge is power. Curiosity mixed with knowledge causes more problems than solutions.

Joseph Albers attempts to save the coal-mining town he’s founded by making a deal at the crossroads - but instead of the devil he'd hoped to meet, he encounters the ancient, ageless god Charley Cat. By the time the parley has ended, the fates of both Joseph and of tiny Piquette, Kentucky will have changed forever.It’s late summer in 1901 and Joseph Albers is a man in trouble: he bet everything on a Kentucky coal mine, but soon after his mine collapsed the family and friends who followed him from Atlanta began falling to smallpox and yellow fever. In a desperate attempt to save what’s left of his town – and his dream of making it big in coal country – Joseph hunkers down at the crossroads, hoping for a midnight meeting with the devil.Instead Joseph encounters the ancient, ageless god Charley Cat, and finds himself surrounded by the demons, legends, and creatures of myth who travel with him. By the time their parley has ended, the fate of Piquette will have changed forever.

The Glass Bead Game, for which Hesse won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1946, is the author's last and crowning achievement, the most imaginative and prophetic of all his novels. Setting the story in the distant postapocalyptic future, Hesse tells of an elite cult of intellectuals who play an elaborate game that uses all the cultural and scientific knowledge of the Ages. The Glass Bead Game is a fascinating tale of the complexity of modern life as well as a classic of modern literature.This edition features a Foreword by Theodore Ziolkowski that places the book in the full context of Hesse's thought.

For the first time the complete works of the award-winning author Elizabeth Gilbert are collected together, highlighting her talents as a writer of both fiction and non-fiction. In the international best-seller "Eat, Pray, Love," Gilbert narrates her struggles after a bitter divorce and turbulent love affair, beginning her quest to rediscover how to be happy. In Rome, she indulges herself and gains nearly two stone. In India, she finds enlightenment through scrubbing temple floors. Finally, in Bali a toothless medicine man reveals a new path to peace, leaving her ready to find love again. In "Committed," Gilbert is about to wed the man she fell in love with at the end of "Eat, Pray, Love "and with wit and intelligence contemplates marriage, trying with all her might to discover what this stubbornly enduring old institution actually is. In "The Last American Man," Gilbert presents a fascinating, intimate portrait of the American naturalist and brilliant modern hero Eustace Conway, who at the age of seventeen ditched the comforts of his suburban existence to escape into the wild. Attempting to instil in people a deeper appreciation of nature, Conway stops at nothing in pursuit of bigger, bolder adventures. In Gilbert's first novel "Stern Men," the eighteen-year-old irredeemably unromantic Ruth Thomas returns home from boarding school determined to join the 'stern-men'. Throwing her education overboard, this feisty and unforgettable American heroine helps work the lobster boats and brushes up on her profanity, eventually falling for a handsome young lobsterman. In "Pilgrims," Gilbert's sharply drawn and tenderly observed collection of twelve short stories, tough heroes and heroines, hardened by their experiences, struggle for their epiphanies and seek companionship as fiercely as they can.

London, 1939. Vivian Smith thinks she is being evacuated to the countryside, because of the war. But she is being kidnapped - out of her own time. Her kidnappers are Jonathan and Sam, two boys her own age, from a place called Time City, designed especially to oversee history. But now history is going critical, and Jonathan and Sam are convinced that Time City's impending doom can only be averted by a twentieth-century girl named Vivian Smith. Too bad they have the wrong girl...

From the author of Snow Falling on Cedars comes this bestselling novel about a dying man’s final journey through a landscape that has always sustained him and provided him with hope and challenges. When he discovers that he has terminal cancer, retired heart surgeon Ben Givens refuses to simply sit back and wait. Instead he takes his two beloved dogs and goes on a last hunt, determined to end his life on his own terms. But as the people he meets and the memories over which he lingers remind him of the mystery of life’s endurance, his trek into the American West becomes much more than a final journey.