Two Tickets to the Christmas Ball

      Donita K. Paul
     Two Tickets to the Christmas Ball

Can mysterious matchmaking booksellers bring two lonely hearts together in time for Christmas?   In a sleepy, snow-covered city, Cora Crowder is busy preparing for the holiday season. Searching for a perfect gift, a fortuitous trip to Warner, Werner, and Wizbotterdad’s (a most unusual bookshop) leads to an unexpected encounter with co-worker Simon Derrick. And the surprise discovery of a ticket for a truly one-of-a-kind Christmas Ball. Every year, the matchmaking booksellers of the Sage Street bookshop host an enchanting, old-fashioned Christmas Ball for the romantic matches they’ve decided to bring together. This year, will Simon and Cora discover a perfect chemistry in their opposite personalities and shared faith? Or will the matchmakers’ best laid plans end up ruining everything this holiday? From the Hardcover edition.

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    Magic Slays

      Ilona Andrews
     Magic Slays

Plagued by a war between magic and technology, Atlanta has never been so deadly. Good thing Kate Daniels is on the job. Kate Daniels may have quit the Order of Merciful Aid, but she’s still knee-deep in paranormal problems. Or she would be if she could get someone to hire her. Starting her own business has been more challenging than she thought it would be—now that the Order is disparaging her good name, and many potential clients are afraid of getting on the bad side of the Beast Lord, who just happens to be Kate’s mate. So when Atlanta’s premier Master of the Dead calls to ask for help with a vampire on the loose, Kate leaps at the chance of some paying work. Turns out this is not an isolated incident, and Kate needs to get to the bottom of it—fast, or the city and everyone dear to her might pay the ultimate price . . .

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    River Boy

      Tim Bowler
     River Boy

Fifteen-year-old Jess's grandfather has just had a major heart attack, but he insists he finish his painting, River Boy. At first, Jess cannot understand why this painting is so important to her grandfather, especially since there doesn't seem to be any boy in it at all. But while swimming in the river herself, Jess begins to feel the presence of a strange boy. Could this be the same one her ailing grandfather struggles to paint? And if so, why has he returned?

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    The Sword of Shannara

      Terry Brooks
     The Sword of Shannara

BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Terry Brooks's The Measure of the Magic. The fate of a world rests on an unlikely hero. . . . Tucked away in peaceful Shady Vale, the young half-elf Shea Ohmsford gives little thought to the outside world. Yet far to the north, the evil Warlock Lord has dispatched shadowy Skull Bearers, creatures twisted by dark sorcery, to hunt him down. At the same time, a black-cloaked giant of a man appears in Shady Vale. He claims to be the mysterious Druid known as Allanon, a wizardly wanderer of vast knowledge and power–and he has come to see Shea. For Shea, he says, is the last descendant of an ancient Elven king. Only he, in all the world, can wield the fabled Sword of Shannara. And only the Sword can stop the Warlock Lord from destroying all that lives. The Sword lies far from Shady Vale, in the Druid castle of Paranor. And Paranor has fallen under the shadow of the Warlock Lord. Yet all is not lost. Shea will rise to the challenge. Together with Allanon and a handful of brave companions, he begins a desperate quest into the very heart of evil. . . .

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    The Magician's Land

      Lev Grossman
     The Magician's Land

Quentin Coldwater has been cast out of Fillory, the secret magical land of his childhood dreams. With nothing left to lose, he returns to where his story began, the Brakebills Preparatory College of Magic, but he can’t hide from his past, and it’s not long before it comes looking for him. Along with Plum, a brilliant young undergraduate with a dark secret of her own, Quentin sets out on a crooked path through a magical demimonde of gray magic and desperate characters. But all roads lead back to Fillory, and his new life takes him to old haunts, like Antarctica, and to buried secrets and old friends he thought were lost forever. He uncovers the key to a sorcery masterwork, a spell that could create magical utopia, and a new Fillory--but casting it will set in motion a chain of events that will bring Earth and Fillory crashing together. To save them he will have to risk sacrificing everything.

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    The People in the Trees

      Hanya Yanagihara
     The People in the Trees

Readers of exciting, challenging and visionary literary fiction-including admirers of Norman Rush's Mating, Ann Patchett's State of Wonder, Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible, and Peter Matthiessen's At Play in the Fields of the Lord-will be drawn to this astonishingly gripping and accomplished first novel. A decade in the writing, this is an anthropological adventure story that combines the visceral allure of a thriller with a profound and tragic vision of what happens when cultures collide. It is a book that instantly catapults Hanya Yanagihara into the company of young novelists who really, really matter. In 1950, a young doctor called Norton Perina signs on with the anthropologist Paul Tallent for an expedition to the remote Micronesian island of Ivu'ivu in search of a rumored lost tribe. They succeed, finding not only that tribe but also a group of forest dwellers they dub "The Dreamers," who turn out to be fantastically long-lived but progressively more senile. Perina suspects the source of their longevity is a hard-to-find turtle; unable to resist the possibility of eternal life, he kills one and smuggles some meat back to the States. He scientifically proves his thesis, earning worldwide fame and the Nobel Prize, but he soon discovers that its miraculous property comes at a terrible price. As things quickly spiral out of his control, his own demons take hold, with devastating personal consequences.

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    Poseidon’s Children

      Michael West
     Poseidon’s Children

Man no longer worships the old gods; forgotten and forsaken, they have become nothing more than myth and legend. But all that is about to change. After the ruins of a vast, ancient civilization are discovered on the ocean floor, Coast Guard officers find a series of derelict ships drifting in the current—high-priced yachts and leaking fishing boats, all ransacked, splattered in blood, their crews missing and presumed dead. And that's just the beginning. Vacationing artist Larry Neuhaus has just witnessed a gruesome shark attack, a young couple torn apart right before his eyes....at least, he thinks it was a shark. And when one of these victims turns out to be the only son of Roger Hays, the most powerful man in the country, things go from bad to worse. Now, to stop the carnage, Larry and his new-found friends must work together to unravel a mystery as old as time, and face an enemy as dark as the ocean depths.

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    Archangel

      Sharon Shinn
     Archangel

And so it came to pass... Through science, faith and force of will, the Harmonics carved out for themselves a society that they conceived of as perfect. Diverse peoples held together by respect for each other and the prospect of swift punishment if they disobeyed their laws. Fertile land that embraced a variety of climates and seasons. Angels to guard the mortals and mystics to guard the forbidden knowledge. Jehovah to watch over them all... But an age of corruption has come to the land, threatening their peace and placing the Samarians in grave danger. Their only hope lies in the crowning of a new Archangel. The oracles have chosen for this honor the angel named Gabriel, and further decreed that he must first wed a mortal woman named Rachel. It is his destiny and hers. And Gabriel is certain that she will greet the news of her betrothal with enthusiasm, and a devotion to duty equal to his own. Rachel, however, has other ideas...

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    The Final Programme

      Michael Moorcock
     The Final Programme

Jerry Cornelius is a scientist, a rock star, and an assassin. He is the hippest adventurer of them all: tripping through a pop art nightmare in which kidnappings, murder, sex and drugs are a daily occurrence. Along with his savvy and ruthless partner-in-chaos, Miss Brunner, Cornelius is on a mission to control a revolutionary code for creating the ultimate human being, a modern messiah— the final programme. The first book in the Cornelius Quartet is the groundbreaking introduction to the misadventures and vendettas of Jerry Cornelius, one of modern literature’s most distinctive characters, the product of a bewildering post-modern culture, and an inspiration for generations of characters since. "Michael Moorcock, rechazando las disputas de límites que han reducido la novela a una confusión de subgéneros en conflicto, recobra en estos cuatro volúmenes una vitalidad y una amplitud proteicas que pudieran llamarse dickensianas si no pertenecieran tan por completo a nustro tiempo volátil. En verdad, ninguna obra reciente de ficción ha manejado mejor las contingencias vertiginosas de la imaginación del medio siglo que esta brava arlequinada de juegos de identidad, realidades falsificadas, historia paródica, y un pobre y ordinario apocalipsis" (W.L. Webb, The Guardian). "Moorcock ha creado una figura capaz de moverse a través de las versiones míticas de los problemas de hoy, sin intentar situarlas o situarse a sí mismo en contextos simplificados. Una ficción semejante, en un mundo de imaginación escasa, es un don necesario" (Harpers Bazaar) Michael Moorcock nació en Inglaterra, ha publicado más de 50 libros y fue animador principal de la célebre revista New Worlds, que introdujo el término "ficción especulativa"; una literatura "moderna, coherente y vital". En EL PROGRAMA FINAL, primera de una serie de cuatro novelas independientes, anticipa la herencia decepcionante y caótica de la década del 60, un dorado presente en el que todo parecía instantáneamente posible.

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    The Undead Next Door

      Kerrelyn Sparks
     The Undead Next Door

Three signs that something is very different with your new man: 1. He sleeps all day. . . which would be annoying except he's so attentive at night. 2. He's attacked by sword-wielding assailants, yet insists he can handle it on his own. 3. He never seems to age. Heather Westfield has always lived a quiet life, but that all changes when she helps a very handsome, very mysterious stranger. There's something not quite right about Jean-Luc, but still, she's never been with a man so charming, so attractive. . . so wonderful. Now if only a murderous villain wasn't after them, they might get their happily-ever-after.

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    Into the Flame

      Christina Dodd
     Into the Flame

Meet Doug Black—the Wilder brother who’s been missing for centuries. With no idea of where he’s from, he’s become an angry young cop with the ability to transform into a cougar. in search of others like him, he comes across a beautiful woman who may hold the secret to his destiny...

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    For the Love of God

      Michelle Sagara
     For the Love of God

A young Henry. A young Thomas of London. One, by politics, determination, and birth, the King, and one, a commoner, and outsider at Court. We know how their friendship played out, in the end: with the murder of Thomas Beket. But where would the friendship have ended had the murder not occurred, had there been no death in the cathedral? This is one possibility, an alternate history.

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    Freeze Frames

      Katharine Kerr
     Freeze Frames

The first book in a sweeping family saga from the author of the popular Deverry series. From San Francisco's Summer of Love through revolution and war to the most unexpected challenge of all, five generations of Corey mothers and daughters face the past and the future.

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    Burning Dawn

      Gena Showalter
     Burning Dawn

New York Times bestselling author Gena Showalter returns with a sizzling Angels of the Dark tale about a winged warrior renowned for his ruthlessness, and the woman who becomes his obsession.... A tormented past has left Thane with an insatiable need for violence, making him the most dangerous assassin in the skies. He lives by a single code: no mercy. And as he unleashes his fury on his most recent captor, he learns no battle could have prepared him for the slave he rescues from his enemy's clutches--a beauty who stokes the fires of his darkest desires. Elin Vale has her own deep-rooted scars, and her attraction to the exquisite warrior who freed her challenges her every boundary. But Thane's unwavering determination to protect her means she must face her greatest fears--and enter a world in which passion is power, and victory means breathtaking surrender.

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