To help teachers decide if Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express is right for their students, we’ve created this free e-book that features sample chapters from the book and a teaching guide.

     See how they each conquered and held the rich, fertile kingdoms of the Stormlands, Dorne, and the Reach, and just why it is that the families of Game of Thrones are eager to avenge themselves on one another. Here is the story of how Orys Baratheon founded House Baratheon through fury and the fire of dragons and how that house eventually produced the Kings Robert and Stannis of the beloved series. Why is it that House Martell hates the Lannisters and all of the other Houses fear dealing with them? How did House Tyrell come to command the richest and greatest armies of all Westeros from their lowly origins as stewards? Game of Thrones: A Family History Volume II has all of these answers and more!

    She's the Chief of Staff at a retirement home, which doesn't sound odd on its own, but when you consider it's a retirement home for witches and other paranormals, the strange factor ratchets up.  And, with a facility full of partly senile but still powerful witches, things go hilariously awry fast. This e-book contains the first three books in the Sunnyside Retired Witches Community series. Book 1: A Bottle Full of Djinn: Zoey Rivers has a pretty great job as Head of Staff at Sunnyside Retired Witches Community. She's good at handling the magical messes that are part and parcel of providing a home for elderly (and some slightly senile) witches. But when the messes turn from slightly sloppy to hugely horrible, Zoey realizes there's more involved than just her residents. If she doesn't figure out who's causing havoc at the Home, the place might not be standing for much longer. If you love crime capers with magic, mayhem, and mystery, you'll adore Zoey Rivers and her comical crew of witch retirees. Please note: This book is a crime caper, not a murder mystery. Book 2: Loony Town: Caring for elderly witches at the retirement home in Sunnyside, California is a full-time job for Zoey Rivers. But when one of them is blitzing, causing magic to act even weirder than normal, things get…well, downright wacky. And when a local insurance agent winds up dead, some of the people Zoey is responsible for become the prime suspects. As the zaniness of the magical blips continues and things get crazier and crazier, Zoey has to work fast and try to stay one step ahead to keep her charges out of jail, figure out who is causing the chaotic blitzing so she can fix it, and also figure out who the real killer is. It’s a tough job, but she's determined to do it. The people who live at Sunnyside Retired Witches Community are counting on her. And she’s not about to let them down now. Book 3: Mummy Issues: Sunnyside Retirement Witches Community gets its fair share of visitors. Some of them like the entertainment and others enjoy volunteering. But when one of the sight-seers ends up dead, Zoey Rivers has to figure out what happened. The residents come up with a fantastic idea: Since the retirement complex seems to have more than its fair share of murders, they figure it might be a good idea to have a psychic on staff. So, Zoey hires Iris. And all the information she pulls from the ghosts of the growing list of victims points to Zoey herself. Except the clues aren't pointing to her. They're fingering someone she'd thought was long dead.Sunnyside Retirement Witches Community gets its fair share of visitors. Some of them like the entertainment and others enjoy volunteering. But when one of the sight-seers ends up dead, Zoey Rivers has to figure out what happened. The residents come up with a fantastic idea: Since the retirement complex seems to have more than its fair share of murders, they figure it might be a good idea to have a psychic on staff. So, Zoey hires Iris. And all the information she pulls from the ghosts of the growing list of victims points to Zoey herself. Except the clues aren't pointing to her. They're fingering someone she'd thought was long dead.

    The Dying Hour 2. Every Fear 3. A Perfect Grave. Meet Jason Wade, a rookie crime reporter with The Seattle Mirror, a loner who grew up in the shadow of a brewery in one of the city's blue-collar neighborhoods. BOOK 1 THE DYING HOUR: After its publication, the International Thriller Writers (ITW) selected The Dying Hour as a Finalist for a 2006 Thriller Award in the category of Best Paperback Original. The book introduces Jason Wade who is working at The Seattle Mirror, in a competition for the single full-time job being offered through the paper's intense intern program. But unlike the program's other young reporters, who attended big name schools and worked at big metro dailies, Wade put himself through community college, and lacked the same experience. Wade struggles with his troubled past as he pursues the story of Karen Harding, a college student whose car was found abandoned on a lonely stretch of highway in the Pacific Northwest. How could this beloved young woman with the altruistic nature simply vanish? Wade battles mounting odds and cut-throat competition to unearth the truth behind Karen Harding's disturbing case. Her disappearance is a story he cannot give up, never realizing the toll it could exact from him. The Dying Hour is a bone-chilling, mesmerizing page-turner that introduces readers to an all-too-human young hero who journeys into the darkest regions of the human heart to confront a nightmare. BOOK 2 EVERY FEAR: On an ordinary morning Maria Colson takes her baby son Dylan to the corner store. She turns her back for only a few seconds. When she looks again, she sees his empty stroller as Dylan is being abducted into a waiting van. Maria climbs into the van but is violently thrown to the road where she is left for dead as the vehicle vanishes without a trace. As Maria fights for her life and her anguished young husband keeps a beside vigil, the FBI and police across metro Sea-Tac and Washington State search for Dylan. Seattle Mirror reporter Jason Wade is under pressure to bring in a big story, and the Colson kidnapping could be it. It’s a bizarre case with pieces that just don’t add up: The Colsons are a hard-working couple. Former high school sweethearts. No problems. No enemies. Then Jason and his dad, a private detective haunted by his former life as a cop, discover a grisly murder of a young woman that is somehow connected to the Colsons. Now, in a dark Seattle underground of desperate dreamers and ex-convicts, Jason embarks on an investigation that parallels one led by Homicide Detective Grace Garner. They're both hunting for the one piece of the puzzle that connects the baby’s disappearance with a spine-tingling case of revenge. And time is running out, because whoever took little Dylan Colson is more dangerous than anyone could ever imagine. Every Fear takes suspense to a whole new level in a heart-pounding story that moves like a true crime case torn from today's headlines. BOOK 3 A PERFECT GRAVE: Rookie crime reporter Jason Wade, a loner from the wrong side of the tracks, pursues the story of a murdered Seattle nun. The case leads him to a hermit nun who founded a mysterious religious order; and ultimately to the dark secret that has tormented his ex-cop father for decades. It culminates in a life-and-death struggle against the clock. With time running out, Jason and his father battle the odds to confront a terrible truth.

    She hears planes flying overhead. A flyer warning of an impending assault by American bombers lands near her, but she is blind and cannot read it.Chapter 4Private Werner Pfennig wakes in the Hotel of Bees where his unit is billeted in Saint-Malo. A corporal orders him to go to the cellar. The hotel once was a privateer’s lair. It is fortress-like and houses an antiaircraft gun manned by a crew of Austrians.Chapter 5The townspeople who have not evacuated awake to the noise of guns and planes amid the shower of leaflets. In a fortress, the last German bastion on the Breton coast, French prisoners peer up at the sky. Other sieges have rocked the city of Saint-Malo over the centuries, but none like this...  About the Author With Instaread Summaries, you can get the summary of a book in 30 minutes or less. We read every chapter, summarize and analyze it for your convenience.

    When empath Jade Calhoun moves into an apartment above a strip bar on Bourbon Street, she expects life to get interesting. What she doesn't count on is making friends with an exotic dancer, attracting a powerful spirit, and developing feelings for Kane, her sexy landlord. Being an empath has never been easy on Jade's relationships. It's no wonder she keeps her gift a secret. But when the ghost moves from spooking Jade to terrorizing Pyper, the dancer, it's up to Jade to use her unique ability to save her. Except she'll need Kane's help--and he's betrayed her with a secret of his own--to do it. Can she find a way to trust him and herself before Pyper is lost?Witches of Bourbon StreetJade Calhoun was never fond of her empath abilities. Now she's discovered she has another gift she'd rather not unwrap--magic. But when her mentor, Bea, becomes gravely ill and insists Jade's the only one who can help, she's forced to embrace her witchy side.It's too bad she spent a decade shunning the magical community and never learned to harness her powers. Because time's run out. A trapped spirit has revealed a clue to Jade's long-lost mother. The resident angel has gone rogue and disappeared with Jade's boyfriend, Kane. And if that wasn't enough, her ex appears to be possessed.To save any of them, Jade will need to find a way to control her inner white witch--without succumbing to black magic. Otherwise, she'll lose everything...including her soul.

    He's young. He's bright. He's ambitious. Mitch could have the pick of the big firms in New York and Chicago, but he's chosen the Memphis tax firm of Bendini, Lambert & Locke. They're selective. They pay outrageous salaries. They have a turnover rate of zero. And Mitch is about to find out why.Several events fuel Mitch's growing suspicions: two of the partners die in a suspicious diving accident off Grand Cayman; the senior partners seem unduly proud of the fact that no one has ever resigned; and security measures at the office are, even for a company with billionaire clients, more than a little extreme. Then Mitch makes an explosive discovery: The firm is owned and operated by the most powerful organized crime family in Chicago. Even as Mitch discovers the truth, he finds himself caught between the FBI, who wants an informant inside the firm, and the firm itself, which will make him a very rich man—or a very dead one.The ChamberAdam Hill is in his first year at a top Chicago law firm. He volunteers for the toughest assignment any lawyer could ask for. His prospective client doesn't want Adam or his law firm. He is an unrepentent and outspoken racist with a violent past. He is on Death Row for the murder of two Jewish children in a horrific bombing in 1967.Why would he take on Adam, a complete novice, to defend him? And why would Adam want his case so desperately? The answer lies in the past, in a twenty-year-old secret buried in the madness of another time...

    

    Only tough mountain men like Nathaniel King had the strength and knowledge to carve out a life in that savage region. But when a war party of Blackfoot Indians kidnapped his friend Shakespeare McNair, Nathaniel found his survival skills tested as never before. If King made one mistake, neither he nor Shakespeare would ever tell anyone their tale.Black Powder JusticeIn 1828, few white men dared to venture into the immense, unsettled region west of the Mississippi. And of those who did, only courageous men like Nathaniel King had the skills and strength to survive the harsh, frozen wilderness. But when three vicious trappers ambushed him and kidnapped his pregnant wife, Winona, King faced the greatest challenge of his life. For if Nate did not rescue Winona and their unborn child, the life he had worked so hard to build would be worthless.ABOUT THE AUTHOR David L. Robbins was born on Independence Day 1950. He has written more than three hundred books under his own name and many pen names, among them: David Thompson, Jake McMasters, Jon Sharpe, Don Pendleton, Franklin W. Dixon, Ralph Compton, Dean L. McElwain, J.D. Cameron and John Killdeer. Robbins was raised in Pennsylvania. When he was seventeen he enlisted in the United States Air Force and eventually rose to the rank of sergeant. After his honorable discharge he attended college and went into broadcasting, working as an announcer and engineer (and later as a program director) at various radio stations. Later still he entered law enforcement and then took to writing full-time. At one time or another Robbins has lived in Pennsylvania, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Montana, Colorado and the Pacific Northwest. He spent a year and a half in Europe, traveling through France, Italy, Greece and Germany. He lived for more than a year in Turkey. Today he is best known for two current long-running series – Wilderness, the generational saga of a Mountain Man and his Shoshone wife – and Endworld is a science fiction series under his own name started in 1986. Among his many other books, Piccadilly Publishing is pleased to be reissuing ebook editions of Wilderness, Davy Crockett and, of course, White Apache. Check us out at www.piccadillypublishing.org

    

    And certainly what Melville did for whaling Austen does for marriage--tracing the intricacies (not to mention the economics) of 19th-century British mating rituals with a sure hand and an unblinking eye. As usual, Austen trains her sights on a country village and a few families--in this case, the Bennets, the Philips, and the Lucases. Into their midst comes Mr. Bingley, a single man of good fortune, and his friend, Mr. Darcy, who is even richer. Mrs. Bennet, who married above her station, sees their arrival as an opportunity to marry off at least one of her five daughters. Bingley is complaisant and easily charmed by the eldest Bennet girl, Jane; Darcy, however, is harder to please. Put off by Mrs. Bennet's vulgarity and the untoward behavior of the three younger daughters, he is unable to see the true worth of the older girls, Jane and Elizabeth. His excessive pride offends Lizzy, who is more than willing to believe the worst that other people have to say of him; when George Wickham, a soldier stationed in the village, does indeed have a discreditable tale to tell, his words fall on fertile ground. Having set up the central misunderstanding of the novel, Austen then brings in her cast of fascinating secondary characters: Mr. Collins, the sycophantic clergyman who aspires to Lizzy's hand but settles for her best friend, Charlotte, instead; Lady Catherine de Bourgh, Mr. Darcy's insufferably snobbish aunt; and the Gardiners, Jane and Elizabeth's low-born but noble-hearted aunt and uncle. Some of Austen's best comedy comes from mixing and matching these representatives of different classes and economic strata, demonstrating the hypocrisy at the heart of so many social interactions. And though the novel is rife with romantic misunderstandings, rejected proposals, disastrous elopements, and a requisite happy ending for those who deserve one, Austen never gets so carried away with the romance that she loses sight of the hard economic realities of 19th-century matrimonial maneuvering. Good marriages for penniless girls such as the Bennets are hard to come by, and even Lizzy, who comes to sincerely value Mr. Darcy, remarks when asked when she first began to love him: "It has been coming on so gradually, that I hardly know when it began. But I believe I must date it from my first seeing his beautiful grounds at Pemberley." She may be joking, but there's more than a little truth to her sentiment, as well. Jane Austen considered Elizabeth Bennet "as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print". Readers of Pride and Prejudice would be hard-pressed to disagree. --Alix Wilber

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    A once up-and-coming detective, she's been given this beat as punishment after filing a sexual harassment complaint against a supervisor.But one night she catches two assignments she doesn't want to part with: the brutal beating of a prostitute left for dead in a parking lot and the killing of a young woman in a nightclub shooting. Ballard is determined not to give up at dawn. Against orders and her partner's wishes, she works both cases by day while maintaining her shift by night. As the investigations entwine, they pull her closer to her own demons and the reason she won't give up her job, no matter what the department throws at her.

    With American economic and military might eradicated, husband and wife become the unfortunate focus for years of subjugation and resentment.