My Ishmael
Daniel Quinn
Winner of the Turner Tomorrow Fellowship, Daniel Quinn's Ishmael is a bestseller and a testament for a burgeoning spiritual movement. Now Quinn presents an extraordinary sequel, a companion novel so startlingly original that even Ishmael's most faithful readers will not predict its outcome.... When Ishmael places an advertisement for pupils with "an earnest desire to save the world," he does not expect a child to answer him. But twelve-year-old Julie Gerchak is undaunted by Ishmael's reluctance to teach someone so young, and convinces him to take her on as his next student. Ishmael knows he can't apply the same strategies with Julie that he used with his first pupil, Alan Lomax--nor can he hope for the same outcome. But young Julie proves that she is ready to forge her own spiritual path--and arrive at her own destination. And when the time comes to choose a pupil to carry out his greatest mission yet, Ishmael makes a daring decision--a choice that just might change the world. From the Trade Paperback edition.
Transgressions
Sarah Dunant
Elizabeth is a modern woman. Smart. Independent. As sexual as she wants to be–with whomever she wants to be. But a breakup with her academic boyfriend has hit her harder than she cares to admit. And while her latest gig, translating a glitzy Czech thriller into English, offends her literary sensibilities, it arouses others with its steamy scenes of eroticism, violence, submission, and dominance. Then, when her favorite Van Morrison CD disappears from its rack and her house is inexplicably violated, Elizabeth is afraid she’s starting to lose it–she even consults a local vicar about the possibility of poltergeists. But what this woman in the lovely Victorian is experiencing is not supernatural. Nor is it madness. For in the dead of night, she will suddenly come face-to-face with her tormentor. She will smell him, she will touch him, and she will make a choice. Then the real haunting will begin.
The Wrong Man
John Katzenbach
Scott Freeman is a man of reason–a college professor grounded in the rational and practical. But he becomes uneasy after finding an anonymous love letter hidden in his daughter’s room: “No one could ever love you like I do. No one ever will. We will be together forever. One way or another.” But the reality of Ashley’s plight far exceeds Scott’s worst suspicions. One drink too many had led Ashley, a beautiful, bright art student, into what she thought was just a fling with a blue-collar bad boy. But now, no amount of pleading or reasoning can discourage his phone calls, ardent e-mails, and constant, watchful gaze. Michael O’Connell is but a malignant shadow of a man. His brash, handsome features conceal a black and empty soul. Control is his religion. Cunning and criminal skill are his stock-in-trade. Rage is his language. The harder Ashley tries to break free, the deeper Michael burrows into every aspect of her life, so she turns in desperation to her divorced parents and her mother’s new partner–three people still locked in a coldly civilized triangle of resentment. But their fierce devotion to Ashley is the common bond that will draw them together to face down a predator. For Ashley’s family, it is a test of primal love that will drive them to the extreme edge–and beyond–in a battle of wills that escalates into a life-or-death war to protect their own. From the bestselling master of suspense, John Katzenbach, The Wrong Man is an elegantly crafted and breathtakingly intense read that asks the question, “How far would you go to save the child you love?” From the Hardcover edition.
A Medal for Leroy Michael Morpurgo
Michael Morpurgo
Inspired by the true story of Walter Tull, the first black officer in the British army. A new novel about identity and loss by bestselling award-winning author of WAR HORSE. Michael doesn’t remember his father, an RAF pilot lost in the war. And his French mother, heartbroken and passionate, doesn’t like to talk about her husband. But then Auntie Snowdrop gives Michael a medal, followed by a photograph, which begin to reveal a hidden history. A story of love and loss. A story that will change everything – and reveal to Michael who he really is…
The Strain
Guillermo Del Toro
A Boeing 777 arrives at JFK and is on its way across the tarmac, when it suddenly stops dead. All window shades are pulled down. All lights are out. All communication channels have gone quiet. Crews on the ground are lost for answers, but an alert goes out to the CDC. Dr. Ephraim "Eph" Goodweather, head of their Canary project, a rapid-response team that investigates biological threats, gets the call and boards the plane. What he finds makes his blood run cold. In a pawnshop in Spanish Harlem, a former professor and survivor of the Holocaust named Abraham Setrakian knows something is happening. And he knows the time has come, that a war is brewing. So begins a battle of mammoth proportions as the vampiric virus that has infected New York begins to spill out into the streets. Eph, who is joined by Setrakian and a motley crew of fighters, must now find a way to stop the contagion and save his city - a city that includes his wife and son - before it is too late.
Gargantua and Pantagruel
François Rabelais
The dazzling and exuberant moral stories of Rabelais (c.1471-1553) expose human follies with their mischievous and often obscene humour, while intertwining the realistic with carnivalesque fantasy to make us look afresh at the world. Gargantua depicts a young giant, reduced to laughable insanity by an education at the hands of paternal ignorance, old crones and syphilitic professors, who is rescued and turned into a cultured Christian knight. And in Pantagruel and its three sequels, Rabelais parodied tall tales of chivalry and satirized the law, theology and academia to portray the bookish son of Gargantua who becomes a Renaissance Socrates, divinely guided in his wisdom, and his idiotic, self-loving companion Panurge.
The Map That Changed the World
Simon Winchester
In 1793, a canal digger named William Smith made a startling discovery. He found that by tracing the placement of fossils, which he uncovered in his excavations, one could follow layers of rocks as they dipped and rose and fell -- clear across England and, indeed, clear across the world -- making it possible, for the first time ever, to draw a chart of the hidden underside of the earth. Determined to expose what he realized was the landscape's secret fourth dimension, Smith spent twenty-two years piecing together the fragments of this unseen universe to create an epochal and remarkably beautiful hand-painted map. But instead of receiving accolades and honors, he ended up in debtors' prison, the victim of plagiarism, and virtually homeless for ten years more. Finally, in 1831, this quiet genius -- now known as the father of modern geology -- received the Geological Society of London's highest award and King William IV offered him a lifetime pension. The Map That Changed the World is a very human tale of endurance and achievement, of one man's dedication in the face of ruin. With a keen eye and thoughtful detail, Simon Winchester unfolds the poignant sacrifice behind this world-changing discovery.
Outside the Lines: A Sons of Templar Novella 2.5
Anne Malcom
My life's not easy. I'll tell you that now. It's not neat. I don't fit into society the way most people expect me to and I don't color studiously between the lines, outside the lines is where I reside. The fringes of society is where I found my place, with the Sons of Templar MC. The life they lived gave me everything I wanted, and everything I needed. Most importantly, it gave me something I'd been lacking for over a decade--family. A place to belong. Club girl--that was my title. There were other words for what I was, but I preferred the less derogatory version. Sure, I'd love to be an Old Lady. It's the dream. But, as someone who escaped into fantasy worlds when life got too much, I knew the difference between dreams and reality. I had resigned myself to the fact, I'd always belong to the club. It didn't mean I didn't crave one man in particular to claim me. To put me on the back of his bike and ride off into the sunset with the man who'd captured my heart the first day I saw him--Hansen. The dream where he'd finally see me and make me his, existed strictly in Macy's world of wonder. Until now. Until somehow my fantasy world and reality world collided and he looks at me in the way I'd dreamt of for a year. Fairy tales usually had neat and happy endings once the hero and heroine got together. This wasn't a fairy tale. Hansen wasn't your traditional hero and I was the furthest you could get from a heroine. I feared my past might dictate my future. That my world outside the lines would go from messy to complete disaster. Outside the Lines is a 35,000 word novella that can be read as a standalone. HEA and no cliffhangers.**
Drifter (MC Sinners Next Generation #2)
Bella Jewel
They say opposites attract. In my world that isn’t a good thing. I did everything I could to escape the motorcycle club I grew up in when I turned twenty-one. It wasn’t about fear, or betrayal, or even lack of love. I just needed my own life. I had to know how it felt to stand on my own two feet without their protection. Then I met Diesel. Mysterious, dark, with eyes that screamed to be understood. From the second I met him, I knew I needed to be in his life. There’s just one problem – he’s a member of a different motorcycle club. Two things that should never be combined. Yet I can’t stay away. No matter how hard he pushes. I can see beyond his mask. I need to know who he is and I’ll overcome any obstacle to be in his life. A friendship is born, followed by an epic love. Our relationship is forbidden. But I’ll do anything to be in his life. Anything.
Ginger Breadhouse and the Candy Fish Wish
Suzanne Selfors
This short story by Suzanne Selfors is a companion to her novel Kiss and Spell. At Ever After High, Ginger Breadhouse is working on some hextra credit for Science and Sorcery class when a bit of potion spills on a gummy candy fish and brings it to life! Now Ginger has to figure out how to care for a pet made out of sugar! Read this original short story about how Ginger got her pet fish, Jelly.
Nowhere but Home
Liza Palmer
The strategy on the gridiron of Friday Night Lights is nothing compared to the savagery of coming home . . .Queenie Wake has just been fired from her job as a chef for not allowing a customer to use ketchup . . . again. Now the only place she has to go is North Star, Texas, the hometown she left in disgrace. Maybe things will be different this time around. After all, her mother--notorious for stealing your man, your car, and your rent money--has been dead for years. And Queenie's sister, once the local teenage harlot who fooled around with the town golden boy, is now the mother of the high school football captain.Queenie's new job, cooking last meals at the nearby prison, is going well . . . at least the inmates don't complain! But apparently small-town Texas has a long memory for bad reputations. And when Queenie bumps into Everett Coburn, the high school sweetheart who broke her heart, she wishes her own memory was a little spottier. But before...