7881 books
In this stunning bridge book between Cress and Winter in the bestselling Lunar Chronicles, Queen Levana’s story is finally told. Mirror, mirror on the wall, Who is the fairest of them all? Fans of the Lunar Chronicles know Queen Levana as a ruler who uses her “glamour” to gain power. But long before she crossed paths with Cinder, Scarlet, and Cress, Levana lived a very different story – a story that has never been told . . . until now.
"Young Hiram Walker was born into bondage -- and lost his mother and all memory of her when he was a child -- but he is also gifted with a mysterious power. Hiram almost drowns when he crashes a carriage into a river, but is saved from the depths by a force he doesn't understand, a blue light that lifts him up and lands him a mile away. This strange brush with death forces a new urgency on Hiram's private rebellion. Spurred on by his improvised plantation family, Thena, his chosen mother, a woman of few words and many secrets, and Sophia, a young woman fighting her own war even as she and Hiram fall in love, he becomes determined to escape the only home he's ever known. So begins an unexpected journey into the covert war on slavery that takes Hiram from the corrupt grandeur of Virginia's proud plantations to desperate guerrilla cells in the wilderness, from the coffin of the deep South to dangerously utopic movements in the North. Even as he's enlisted in the underground war between slavers and the enslaved, all Hiram wants is to return to the Walker Plantation to free the family he left behind -- but to do so, he must first master his magical gift and reconstruct the story of his greatest loss."--
Londonite Bridget Jones faces the challenges of maintaining sex appeal as the years roll by, the nightmares of drunken texting, the skinny jean, the disastrous e-mail cc, total lack of Twitter followers, and TVs that need ninety buttons and three remotes to simply turn on, all while raising two children, attempting to date again, and writing a screenplay.
In spring AD 235, a surprise attack and the brutal murder of Emperor Alexander and his mother ends the Severan dynasty and shatters four decades of Roman certainty. Military hero Maximinus Thrax is the first Caesar risen from the barracks. A simple man of steel and violence, he will fight for Rome unconditionally. The Senators praise the new Emperor with elaborate oratory, but will any of them accept a Caesar who was once a shepherd boy? In the north, as the merciless war against the barbarians consumes men and treasure, rebellion and personal tragedy drive Maximinus to desperate extremes, bloody revenge, and the borders of sanity.
A "haunting psychological thriller that blends the twists and turns of Gillian Flynn with the driving suspense of Harlan Coben, in which a man is troubled by odd sounds for which there is no rational explanation"--
When the man who raised and trained him warns him that secret government forces are trying to eliminate all surviving members of the Orphan Program, Evan Smoak is challenged to track down and protect his teacher's last protege from a brutal new Programleader. "Taken from a group home at age twelve, Evan Smoak was raised and trained as an off-the-books government assassin: Orphan X. After he broke with the Orphan Program, Evan disappeared and reinvented himself as the Nowhere Man, a man spoken about only in whispers, reachable only at a secret phone number passed around by those in need, and dedicated to helping the truly desperate. But this time, the desperate voice on the other end is Jack Johns, the man who raised and trained him, the only father Evan has ever known. Secret government forces are busy trying to scrub the remaining assets and traces of the Orphan Program and they have finally tracked down Jack. With little time remaining, Jack gives Evan his last assignment: find and protect his last protégé and recruit for the program. But Evan isn't the only one after this last Orphan--the new head of the Orphan Program, Van Sciver, is mustering all the assets at his disposal to take out both Evan (Orphan X) and the target he is trying to protect." --
Having left the military, Dakota Jones is at a crossroads in his life. With his elder brother and youngest sister happily settled in Sullivan's Crossing, he shows up hoping to clear his head before moving on to his next adventure. But, like every visitor to the Crossing, he's immediately drawn to the down-to-earth people and the seemingly simple way of life. Dakota is unprepared for how quickly things get complicated.
"Narrated by 'Eddie' who receives a chalk drawing of a stick figure that hurtles him back to an innocent childhood game 30 years before which went terribly, terribly wrong. As history begins to repeat itself, it seems the game was never really over" --
<p>By the mid-nineteenth century, the transition of textile production in England from a cottage craft to mechanized factories was complete. Still, the effects of the industrial revolution remain distant from the idyllic rural parish in the New Forest where Margaret Hale grows up. But with her father’s crisis of conscience in ministry, the country lanes of Hampshire give way to the crowded urban streets of the industrial North of England. Mr. Hale’s new role as a private tutor brings Margaret into contact not only with her father’s favorite student—one of the “masters” of a factory—but also leads to her meeting, and caring for, the poor families of factory workers.</p> <p>Margaret finds her sympathies torn as she grows to understand the differing outlooks and interests of “masters and men,” especially as an industrial dispute brings the lives of both classes into crisis. But there is much more to Margaret’s life than politics and economics. An accomplished and beautiful young woman, she finds her abilities stretched by personal family tragedies, and her affections tested by differing claims on her life, both from intimate family members, and from suitors smitten by her unstudied charms.</p> <p><i>North and South</i> would have been titled <i>Margaret Hale</i>, if <a href="https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/elizabeth-gaskell">Elizabeth Gaskell</a> had had her way. She was overruled by <a href="https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/charles-dickens">Charles Dickens</a> in whose magazine Gaskell’s novel was first serialized, and who insisted on the present title. Dynamics between the leading characters have often reminded readers of <a href="https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/jane-austen">Jane Austen’s</a> <a href="https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/jane-austen/pride-and-prejudice"><i>Pride and Prejudice</i></a>, although in the case of Gaskell’s protagonists, these qualities are more evenly distributed.</p> <p>Contemporary critics were less than enthusiastic about the “women’s perspective” in the book, but appreciation has grown steadily and significantly for Gaskell’s writing and insights in <i>North and South</i>. Her sensitive handling of Mr. Hale’s religious scruples, her unsentimental portrayal of the urban working poor, and her prescient depiction of shifting social and gender roles all find a contemporary appeal. Although once neglected among Gaskell’s works, successive adaptations for television—the latest in 2004—have won for the book a higher profile and wider readership.</p>
Whispers of the Dead is the third novel in the Dr David Hunter series, created by Simon Beckett. It was published in January 2009 by Bantam Press. Preceded by: [Written in Bone](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL3475315W) Followed by: [The Calling of the Grave](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL19093522W)
One afternoon, single mother Sara Weston says that she's going to the store--and never returns. In her absence, she leaves her teenaged son alone with his damaged past and a legacy of secrets.Keith Weston nearly lost his life in an act of arson. He survived--but with devastating physical and emotional scars. Without his mother, he has no one to help him heal, no money, nothing to live for but the medications that numb his pain. Isolated and angry, his hatred has one tight focus: his half-sister, Maggie Lockwood.Nineteen-year-old Maggie Lockwood spent a year in prison for the acts that led up to the fire. Now she's back home. But her release cannot free her from the burden of guilt she carries. She grew up with Keith Weston, played with him as a child...and recently learned they share the same father.Now the person Keith despises most is the closest thing he has to family--until Sara returns. If Sara returns....
Emily, Navin, and their crew of resistance fighters charter an airship and set off in search of the lost city of Cielis. There they hope to find help from the Guardian Council's powerful Stonekeepers. It's a mission that Alledia's survival depends on, and time is running out—Emily's got to find Cielis before the Elf King finds her.
City-girl Talia misunderstands her grandmother's request that she go to the garden for "root vegetables" but manages to find some she thinks are rude, as well as a good use for the rest she harvests. Includes a recipe for Rude Vegetable Stew.
One night The Great Freddie, a young ventriloquist, is possessed by a dybbuk.A what?A Jewish spirit. A scrappy demon who glows as if spray-painted by moonlight.The dybbuk is revealed to be the ghost of a twelve-year-old boy named Avrom Amos, a victim of the Nazis during World War II. In a plucky scheme to seek revenge, he commandeers The Great Freddie's stage act and entraps the entertainer in the postwar ashes of Germany. Behind the footlights, the dybbuk lights up the terrible fate of a million and a half Jewish children, including Avrom himself.What tricks does the dybbuk have up his ghostly sleeve? Prepare to be astonished. . . .
After Troy falls, Neoptolemus claims Polyxena as his prize, but she rejects his advances. In a fit of rage, Neoptolemus contrives a story that dooms the ill-fated Polyxena. She knows what she must do to survive, but she cannot changer her destiny.
Teased in school for being pink, Patrick the penguin leaves the South Pole to live with the flamingos in Africa.
Rhyming text compares babies born in different places and in different circumstances, but they all share the commonality of ten little fingers and ten little toes.
Fourth-grade ninjas Tiger Moth and Kung Pow and their classmates are celebrating the Chinese New Year. Tiger's rivals, the Fruit Fly Boys, enter the kite-flying contest, and the result is sky-high disaster!
How far would you go for someone you love? Would you sacrifice your beliefs? Would you commit a federal crime? Would you risk everything you have? James Siegel's electrifying thriller, Derailed, captivated readers with its emotionally charged twists and turns, racing up national bestseller lists and landing a major motion picture deal. The Washington Post called it "spectacularly inventive," and James Patterson raved, "James Siegel has arrived in high style." Now this acclaimed new master of suspense returns with the explosive story of a mother's love, a father's devotion-and an adopted daughter who turns their lives upside down. They want what every young couple wants: a child of their own. But Paul and Joanna Breidbart have been trying to conceive for five long years-a torturous process of failed medical procedures that nearly tore their marriage apart. When they finally decide to adopt, American agencies tell them they will have to wait years for their dream to come true. The couple agrees to fly to war-torn Colombia to adopt a baby girl. Paul knows all about risks. As an insurance executive, he routinely calculates the odds of dying in a plane crash or being hit by a bus. Yet all the accident statistics in the world can't prepare him for what is about to happen. Paul and Joanna receive the baby girl of their dreams and their world seems perfect. Then one afternoon they briefly leave their baby daughter alone with their new nanny. When they return, something is disturbingly different about their child...and suddenly everything Paul values is in jeopardy. Again, James Siegel gives us a tale of ordinary men and women thrust into extraordinary circumstances-and a novel that confirms him as one of today's most powerful writers of psychological suspense.
