Torak circled the fire and Thiazzi came after him: slowly, cracking his whip, playing with his prey as a lynx plays with a lemming. Torak was exhausted. He wasn't going to last much longer.
When he was outcast, Torak was the hunted one. Nine moons later he becomes the hunter, when he vows to avenge the killing of one of his closest friends.
Racked by guilt and grief, he follows the killer into the Deep Forest, where the World Spirit stalks the hidden valleys as a tall man with the antlers of a stag. But there is a rottenness at the heart of the Forest, for its clans have succumbed to the lies of the Soul-Eaters. Here Torak must face fire, war, and overwhelming evil.
The fifth book in the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series, Oath Breaker is a story about keeping promises and the true cost of vengeance.
Alice's life is about to change.
She's a skinny orphan. She's never been able to hear too well. And she can't speak too well, either. The only person who seems to care for her-one of the nuns at the orphanage-gets taken away from Alice in a freak accident.
And then one day somebody calls Alice by the wrong name.
Miami, she says.
Miami Shaw.
Miami Shaw, who may be Alice's twin sister.
Who lives only a few miles away.
Who has what Alice has always dreamed of-a whole wonderful family. But is there a place in that family for Alice?
From bestselling author Gregory Maguire comes a funny, heartrending story of the strength of sisterhood and the struggle to find a family of one's own.
Bat 6-that's the softball game played every year between the sixth-grade girls of Barlow and Bear Creek Ridge. All the girls-Beautiful Hair Hallie, Manzanita who gets the spirit, the twins Lola and Lila, Tootie, Shadean-they've been waiting for their turn at Bat 6 since they could first toss a ball.
This time there's a newcomer on each team: Aki, at first base for the Ridgers, who just returned with her family from a place she's too embarrassed to talk about. And Shazam, center field for Barlow, who's been shunted around by her mother since her father was killed on December 7, 1941.
The adukts of the two towns would rather not speak about why Aki's family had to "go away." They can't quite admit just how "different" Shazam is. And that is why the two girls are on a collision course that explodes catastrophically on the morning Bat 6, the day they've been preparing for all their lives.
When Ellen Carr abandons grey, dreary London to become housekeeper at an experimental school in Austria, she finds her destiny.
Swept into an idyllic world of mountains, music, eccentric teachers and wayward children, Ellen brings order and joy to all around her. But it's the handsome, mysterious gardener, Marek, who intrigues her - Marek, who has a dangerous secret. As Hitler's troops spread across Europe, Ellen has promises to keep, even if they mean she must sacrifice her future happiness . . .
A Song for Summer is an unforgettable love story from Eva Ibbotson, the award-winning author of Journey to the River Sea and The Star of Kazan.
Anne Green can't move a muscle, can't open her eyes, can't scream. She lies paralyzed in absolute darkness, terrified by her final memory - being hanged. Is she in purgatory? Hell? Was she buried alive? An innocent woman caught up in a nightmare, Anne Green is trapped with her racing thoughts, her burning need to revisit the events - and the man - that led her to the scaffold. Meanwhile, a shy young medical student attends his first dissection and notices something strange as the doctors prepare their tools...Did her eyelids just flutter? Could this corpse be alive? Haunting, thrilling, and impossible to put down, Newes from the Dead is based on the true story of the real Anne Green, a servant who survived a hanging in 1650 England only to awaken on the dissection table. Newes from the Dead concludes with an excerpt from an original 1651 document that recounts this chilling medical phenomenon.
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. . .
Magic Flutes is an enchanting story of love, music and secret princesses from Eva Ibbotson.
Muscle Man McGinty has finally done the unthinkable. He's bragged that he can beat the ENTIRE block in a game of kickball. On Ramble Street, tough talk about kickball cannot be ignored. For Tamara Ann Simpson, however, this is great news. Now she'll finally be able to prove to everyone what a wormy little liar Muscle Man really is. It's the summer of 1969, and the world is getting ready to watch a man named Neil Armstrong make history by taking the first step on the moon. But change happens a bit more slowly on Ramble Street, and it'll take one giant leap for Tamara to understand the likes of Muscle Man McGinty. "Nan Marino may be a debut author, but she's obviously a born storyteller. You will immediately feel at home with her characters, you'll ache right along with them, and you won't be able to leave their stories behind." - Patricia Reilly Giff
In March 2000, a suitcase arrived at a children's Holocaust education center in Tokyo, Japan. On the outside, in white paint, were these words: Hana Brady, May 16, 1931, and Waisenkind - the German word for orphan. Children who saw the suitcase on display were full of questions. Who was Hana Brady? What happened to her? They wanted Fumiko Ishioka, the center's curator, to find the answers. In a suspenseful journey, Fumiko searches for clues across Europe and North America. The mystery of the suitcase takes her back through seventy years, to a young Hana and her family, whose happy life in a small Czech town was turned upside down by the invasion of the Nazis. "Like the very best of museum exhibits, Hana's Suitcase shows how facts and objects can be put together to honour its subject in a very personal and loving way. Highly recommended." - The Toronto Star "Skillfully, and with great sensitivity, Levine weaves together the two stories, alternating that of a young life shattered in increments and that of Fumiko Ishioka's relentless search for answers." - The Globe and Mail
Three warnings for listeners who hate surprises: 1. Beware of slivers, 2. and gamblers, 3. and aces. Zebulon Crabtree found all that out the hard way back in 1849 when his mother and father shipped him off to St. Louis to apprentice with a tanner. Too bad he had serious allergies to fur and advice from his parents. Hearing the beat of a different drummer, Zeb takes up with a riverboat gambler who has some special plans for him, crosses paths with a slave who turns out to be a better friend than cook, and learns that some Indian medicine men can see even though blind. And then there's the Brotherhood - the one that Zeb can't seem to get out of...
In 1909, every continent had been thoroughly explored . . . except one. That September, Captain Robert F. Scott announced a new scientific expedition that would put Antarctica firmly on the map at last and claim the South Pole for Great Britain.
Twenty-three-year-old Apsley Cherry-Garrard was asked to join. With no special skills, and terrible eyesight, he seemed a surprising choice. Yet in the most lethal wilderness on earth, where temperatures plummet to -77°F and even bacteria can't survive, "Cherry" proved himself so capable that he became a key member of the expedition. He volunteered for the infamous "Winter Journey" in 1911 - a horrific month long trek through storm-lashed darkness to collect the eggs of the Emperor penguin - and this half-mad outing in the name of science became the central experience of his life.
The following spring, he was among the members chosen to support the 800-mile march to the South Pole - and then he was sent on another nearly disastrous mission, a doomed attempt to resupply the five men who had reached the Pole but never returned. Emperors of the Ice is based on extensive research, and incorporates dozens of photographs and other material from the actual expedition. But this is no mere history: recreating the story in Cherry's own voice, Richard Farr places listeners right inside this horrifying ordeal - and the amazing feats of courage and camaraderie that survival required. The result is inspiring and heartbreaking: a narrative you will never forget.
Did you know that women once wore corsets under their bathing suits? Or that “semi-drowning”—the strip and plunge practice—was thought to be good for one’s health? Or that Pudgy Stockton, the body-building queen of Muscle Beach, California, opened the country’s first gym for women? From the bathhouses of the ancient Greeks to Venice Beach and Coney Island, Let’s Go to the Beach takes a multifaceted and well-researched look at beaches and their attendant customs. The text explores such historical transformations as the evolution of the waterways from places of commerce to venues of health and recreation, as well as the bathing suit's revealing journey from full-body cover-up to string bikini. Information about environmental concerns (including beach safety and preservation), along with quirky facts and trivia, round out this intriguing volume.
“[A] fun grab bag of history, trivia, and useful information…Fields reads with vivacity, sounding exactly like a beach enthusiast eager to share her passion.”—Publishers Weekly
