All she wants to do is drink beer by the pool, play mischievous pranks on the humans, and get her hot neighbor in the sack. It’s a relaxing break from her infernal home as long as she manages to avoid the angels, who won’t hesitate to execute her on sight. But when her naughty hellhound lands her in trouble with the local werewolf pack, Sam is blackmailed into helping track and catch a killer. The steps she must take to appease the werewolves will put her right in the crosshairs of the angels. And with angels, there is no second chance. *SATAN'S SWORD* Samantha Martin is an imp, bound by an angel who allows her to live among the humans . . . as long as she follows his rules. It’s never easy for an imp to follow the rules, especially now that Sam’s brother, Dar, has found himself in hot water. He needs her help to retrieve an artifact from the vampires, or the powerful demon he owes a favor to will enslave and torture him for centuries. It should be a simple courier job, but with demons nothing is simple. Sam reluctantly attempts to help her brother, trying not antagonize the vampires or the demon gunning for him, all while chafing to comply with the restrictions her angel has placed on her as a bound demon. *ELVEN BLOOD* Samantha Martin is an imp, a lesser demon from Hel. She has been living under the radar, posing as a human for the last 40 years, but now that she’s bound to an angel and holds the title of Iblis her life is. . .complicated. Sam has become buried in angelic bureaucracy, saddled with a succubus house guest, and is fighting off a never-ending slew of demon hit-men. The powerful demon, Haagenti, won’t rest until she’s dragged back to Hel for “punishment”, and he has put a substantial price on her head – a price that threatens not only her, but the human she’s grown to love. When an elven lord offers to take care of Haagenti in return for tracking down and killing a demon half-breed , Sam thinks she’s found the solution to her most pressing problem. But finding and retrieving this hybrid monster isn't proving easy and time is running out.

    Blackface minstrelsy is the most popular form of entertainment in a nation about to be torn apart by the battle over slavery. Henry Sims, a fugitive slave and a brilliant musician, has escaped to Philadelphia, where he earns money living by his wits and performing on the street. He is befriended by James Douglass, leader of a popular minstrel troupe struggling to compete with dozens of similar ensembles, who imagines that Henry’s skill and magnetism might restore his troupe’s sagging fortunes.The problem is that black and white performers are not allowed to appear together onstage. Together, the two concoct a masquerade to protect Henry’s identity, and Henry creates a sensation in his first appearances with the troupe. Yet even as their plan begins to reverse the troupe’s decline, a brutal slave hunter named Tull Burton has been employed by Henry’s former master to track down the runaway and retrieve him, by any means necessary.Bursting with narrative tension and unforgettable characters, shot through with unexpected turns and insight, A Free State is a thrilling reimagining of the American story by a novelist at the height of his powers.

    Al Franken, as he prefers to be called, has written the first truly indispensable book of the new millennium. Filled with wisdom, observations, and practical tips you can put to work right away, Oh, the Things I Know! is a cradle-to-grave guide to living, an easy-to-follow user's manual for human existence.What does a megasuccess like Al Franken--bestselling author, Emmy-award winning television star, sitting U.S. Senator, and honorary Ph.D.--have to say to ordinary people like you? Well, as Dr. Al himself says, There's no point in getting advice from hopeless failures.Join Mr. Franken--sorry, Dr. Franken--on a journey that will take you from your first job (Oh, Are You Going to Hate Your First Job!), through the perils and pitfalls of your twenties and thirties (Oh, the Person of Your Dreams vs. the Person You Can Actually Attract!), into the joys of marriage and parenthood (Oh, Just Looking at Your Spouse Will Make Your Skin Crawl!), all the way to the golden years of senior citizenship (Oh, the Nursing Home You'll Wind Up In!). Don't travel life's lonesome highway by yourself. Take Al Franken along, if not as an infallible guide, then at least as a friend who will make you laugh.

    Now, the land suffers under the tyranny of King Imre, whose savage oppression of the human population weighs heavily on Camber’s heart—a heart that is about to be shattered by a tragic loss that will lead him to confront the usurpers whose dark magic haunts the realm.  Saint Camber: The yoke of tyranny has finally been lifted in Gwynedd, but Camber’s job remains unfinished. The dangerous remnants of a conquered enemy still mass at the borders, and the new ruler is desperately unhappy wearing the crown. With the stability of a fragile kingdom at stake, its greatest champion must make the ultimate sacrifice: Camber of Culdi must cease to exist.  Camber the Heretic: The king’s heir is a mere boy of twelve, and the malevolent regents who will rule until young Alroy comes of age are determined to eliminate all Deryni. Suddenly, the future of Gwynedd hangs in the balance, and Camber—once adored as a saint, but now reviled as a heretic—must find a way to protect his people before everything and everyone he loves is destroyed in the all-consuming flames of intolerance and hate.   Filled with mysticism and magic, these sagas reminds us that “Kurtz’s love of history lets her do things with her characters and their world that no non-historian could hope to do” (Chicago Sun-Times).

    But why speculate about the possibilities when you can get the real scientific scoop from someone who’s been happily living and working there for years? Straight from the not-so-distant future, this intrepid pioneer’s tips for physical, financial, and social survival on the Red Planet cover:• How to get to Mars (Cycling spacecraft offer cheap rides, but the smell is not for everyone.)• Choosing a spacesuit (The old-fashioned but reliable pneumatic Neil Armstrong style versus the sleek new—but anatomically unforgiving—elastic “skinsuit.”)• Selecting a habitat (Just like on Earth: location, location, location.)• Finding a job that pays well and doesn’t kill you (This is not a metaphor on Mars.)• How to meet the opposite sex (Master more than forty Mars-centric pickup lines.)With more than twenty original illustrations by Michael Carroll, Robert Murray, and other renowned space artists, How to Live on Mars seamlessly blends humor and real science, and is a practical and exhilarating guide to life on our first extraterrestrial home.

    Setting sail from Washington, D.C., on a schooner named the Pearl, the fugitives began a daring 225-mile journey to freedom in the North. Mary Kay Ricks's unforgettable chronicle brings to life the Underground Railroad's largest escape attempt, the seemingly immutable politics of slavery, and the individuals who struggled to end it. All the while, Ricks focuses her narrative on the intimate story of two young sisters who were onboard the Pearl, and sets their struggle for liberation against the powerful historical forces that would nearly tear the country apart.After a terrifyingly calm night, the wind came up as the sun rose the next morning, and the small schooner shot off down the Potomac River. Hours later, stunned owners—including a former first lady, a shipping magnate, a former congressman, a federal marshal, and a Baptist minister—raised the alarm. Authorities quickly formed a posse that chased the fugitives down the river. But with a head start and a robust wind that filled their sails, the Pearl raced ahead—unaware that a violent squall was moving into their path and would halt their bid for freedom.Escape on the Pearl reveals the incredible odyssey of those who were onboard, including the remarkable lives of fugitives Mary and Emily Edmonson, the two sisters at the heart of the story, who would trade servitude in elite Washington homes for slave pens in three states. Through the efforts of the sisters' father and the northern "conductor" who had helped organize the escape, an abolitionist outcry arose in the North, calling for the two girls to be rescued. Ultimately, Mary and Emily would go on to stand shoulder to shoulder with such abolitionist luminaries as Frederick Douglass and attend Oberlin College under the sponsorship of Harriet Beecher Stowe.A story of courage and determination, Escape on the Pearl revives one of the most poignant chapters of U.S. history. The Edmonsons, the other fugitives of the Pearl, and those who helped them can now take their rightful place as American heroes.

      It happened at 5:13 a.m. on April 18, 1906, in San Francisco. To this day, it remains one of the worst natural disasters in American history—and this definitive book brings the full story to vivid life.   Using previously unpublished documents from insurance companies, the military, and the Red Cross, as well as the stories of those who were there, The San Francisco Earthquake exposes villains and heroes; shows how the political powers tried to conceal the amount of damage caused by the earthquake; reveals how efforts to contain the fire actually spread it instead; and tells how the military executed people without trial. It also features personal stories of people who experienced it firsthand, including the great Italian tenor Enrico Caruso, the banker Amadeo Giannini, the writer-adventurer Jack London, the temperamental star John Barrymore, and the thousands of less famous in their struggle for survival.   From the authors of The Day the Bubble Burst, The San Francisco Earthquake is not only “gripping, can’t-put-it-down reading,” but an important look at how the city has handled catastrophe in the past—and how it may handle it in the future (Los Angeles Herald Examiner).

    That crusade almost wiped out the Cathars, a group of heretical Christians whose beliefs threatened the authority of the Catholic Church. But decades of harrowing repression-enforced by the ruthless Pope Boniface VIII , the Machiavellian French King Philip the Fair of France, and the pitiless grand inquisitor of Toulouse, Bernard Gui (the villain in The Name of the Rose)-had bred resentment. In the city of Carcassonne, anger at the abuses of the Inquisition reached a boiling point and a great orator and fearless rebel emerged to unite the resistance among Cathar and Catholic alike. The people rose up, led by the charismatic Franciscan friar Bernard Délicieux and for a time reclaimed control of their lives and communities. Having written the acclaimed chronicle of the Cathars The Perfect Heresy , Stephen O'Shea returns to the medieval world to chronicle a rare and remarkable story of personal courage and principle standing up to power, amidst the last vestiges of the endlessly fascinating Cathar world.Praise for The Perfect Heresy :"At once a cautionary tale about the corruption of temporal power...and an accounting of the power of faith ...It is also just a darn good read."-Baltimore Sun "An accessible, readable history with lessons ...that were not learned by broad humanity until it saw 20th-century tyrants applying the goals and methods of the Inquisition on a universal scale."-New York Times

    Buck set in war-time China. Dr. Gray Thompson, an American missionary doctor, works alongside Dr. Sara Durand in a hospital he has built in a small Chinese village, as Japanese forces approach. When Gray returns from a visit to America a trip, he shocks Sara (who is in love with him) by introducing his new socialite wife, Louise. In the midst of bombing attacks on the village, Dr. Thompson continues to help the local residents, and especially the insurgent leader Chen-Ta. To protect the hospital, a high-ranking Japanese prisoner gets a message to the Japanese commander which stops the bombing but, eventually, Japanese paratroopers land in the village, and fierce fighting ensues. China Sky was also the subject of a 1945 movie of the same name. Pearl S. Buck (1892-1973) received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1938 and was the author of numerous novels, short-stories and works of non-fiction.

    Willingly, he lets himself become intoxicated by the surreal beauty of a fairy-woman who offers to take him to a far away, forbidden land where all his desires will be fulfilled. He welcomes the opportunity to be away from the gruesome war that has consumed his life for so long, but what price will the warrior pay to be in a land void of death, loss and pain? Does the pleasure of the company of the stunning stranger outweigh the price he must pay to remain in The Isles of the Blest?

    Deford joined Sports Illustrated in 1962, fresh, and fresh out of Princeton. In 1990, he was Editor-in-Chief of The National Sports Daily, one of the most ambitious--and ill-fated--projects in the history of American print journalism. But then, he's endured: writing ten novels, winning an Emmy (not to mention being a fabled Lite Beer All-Star), and last week he read something like his fourteen-hundredth commentary on NPR's "Morning Edition."From the Mad Men-like days of SI in the '60s, and the "bush" years of the early NBA, to Deford's visit to apartheid South Africa with Arthur Ashe, and his friend's brave and tragic death, Over Time is packed with intriguing people and stories. Interwoven through his personal history, Deford lovingly traces the entire arc of American sportswriting from the lurid early days of the Police Gazette, through Grantland Rice and Red Smith and on up to ESPN. This is a wonderful, inspired book--equal parts funny and touching--a treasure for sports fans. Just like Frank Deford.

    A richly atmospheric tale of religion, mystery, and intrigue, The Fifth Servant recreates life in the era when Emperor Rudolph II occupied the throne—a time of uncertainty and fear viewed through the eyes of an intrepid rabbinical student on a quest for truth and justice.

    In both countryside and towns, from peasants to the bourgeoisie to nobility, no aspect of life in this era is left unexplored.

    Bury's history is indispensable to anyone who seeks to understand the connection between the barbarian migrations of the third to the ninth century and the framework of modern Europe.

    Don’t believe us? Download a free sample and see for yourself!The Dying for a Living Boxset Vol. 2 includes Dying Light, Worth Dying For, Dying Breath, and Dying Day (Books 4-7) in the Dying for a Living series. If you like "supernatural thrill-rides" and a quirky team that can't be beat, you'll love this series. Jesse Sullivan’s father is a sadistic murder with plans to rule the world. Given his ability to control minds and teleport at will, it seems his dark vision is coming to fruition. All that stands in his way is Jesse.Yet no matter how badly he has hurt her and the ones she loves, Jesse can’t seem to forget he is her father. She must somehow forget the man she remembers from her childhood and see him for the monster he truly is. And she almost can…until he offers her the one thing she can’t refuse.