The remarkable reality of this wondrous character is not what you might expect: it is a perilous adventure full of the kinds of frightful and extraordinary things you read about in farfetched novels authored by dusty old professors with extremely vivid imaginations. The difference here is that this is not fantasy. Through an extensive, quite dangerous and very expensive venture I have catalogued all the details; thus it is in the following pages that I am able to present, quite faithfully, an accurate narrative of the birth and marvelous triumph of that indomitable spirit who has, through the ages, been the bearer of gifts and magic for young and old and who will always be the greatest champion of that most miraculous of holidays which happily never fails to fall on the 25th of December. Before I continue, however, I must provide a clear warning: the true story of Santa Claus is perilous, indeed. There are no frolicking reindeer, no jingling elves, no tidy ribbons or bows... Santa was a hero, and as such his tale is epic. So if you want to avoid being frightened nearly out of your wits then do not proceed. But if it is your wish, I respectfully give you the true story of Santa Claus.From internationally bestselling author B.C.CHASE comes an imaginatively fantastical take on the man in red featuring fiery dragons, swashbuckling swords, and of course elves. This not-to-be-missed tale of courage, determination, and selfless love has been critically acclaimed as an instant classic destined to be passed down for generations to come.This tale is allegorical in the spirit of The Chronicles of Narnia.

    But when an unexpected event forces Karen to move in with Joel, things start to go wrong. Karen soon realizes that she and Joel are not the only ones inhabiting his house. There is something very dark living there, and it wants her gone. As Karen is stalked through the night by an ancient assailant, her focus starts to shift from unraveling the house’s mysteries to just making it out alive. Inspired by chilling real events, The Cold Room is a frightening thriller. You may want to sleep with the lights on after reading this.

    Raised by her Scottish grandmother deep in the Blue Ridge Mountains, Sarah grew up with one foot in the old world and one foot in the new world. Her childhood friends were the stuff of ancient Celtic legends. But Sarah’s seemingly idyllic past hides a horrifying secret. As a little girl she watched her mother’s inexorable slide into madness. But she hasn’t let her past stop her from reaching for her dreams. She has managed to put together a pretty good life for herself. She has great friends, a boyfriend, and her career as a folklorist is all planned out. That is until she meets Dermot Sinclair. The handsome Scot seems to be dogging her every step. At best he’s a fellow folklorist who can help her research. At worst, he could be there to steal her work. All she has to do is find one song that proves her thesis and her dissertation will be done. Unfortunately, unlocking that song may also mean unlocking some buried memories and a dangerous destiny set in motion generations ago.

    Aside from the herd of cats that follow Ronnie everywhere she goes, she can also see and communicate with the ghosts of the dead, which would be hard enough without her foster family thinking she was crazy. When a strange man that may be stalking Ronnie tells her that she is a necromancer, and part of a secret society of supernatural beings, she thinks he's as crazy as she is...but deep down, she knows he's telling the truth. When she is abducted in the middle of the night and brought before the Council, they tell her that a necromancer is trying to raise an army of the undead, and they think she's the one responsible! But the Council is about to find out how wrong they are...and it may be too late to stop the real monster. Ages 14+

    In No Time to Die, Jenny is devastated by the recent death of her sister, Liza. Looking for a sense of closure, she secretly signs up for the drama camp where Liza died. Jenny knows that someone here holds the key to what really happened to Liza that night, but if she doesn’t find out the truth soon, she may become the next victim. In The Deep End of Fear, Kate has tried to bury the horrible memories associated with the Westbrook estate. After her best friend Ashley drowned on the estate, Kate vowed never to return. But now, twelve years later, she is drawn back towards the house and that fatal icy pond. There, Kate still feels Ashley’s presence and the past seems to be pulling her back towards Ashley’s life-threatening dares.

    The Glass Demon bridges the world of the traditional Grimm fairytale with the darker world of Angela Carter's adult fairytales. The first deathSeventeen-year-old Lin Fox finds a body in an orchard. As she backs away in horror, she steps on broken glass.The second deathThen blood appears on her doorstep - blood, and broken glass.The third deathSomething terrible is found in the cemetery. Shards of broken glass lie by a grave.Who will be next?As the attacks become more sinister, Lin doesn't know who to trust. She's getting closer to the truth behind these chilling discoveries, but with each move the danger deepens.Because someone wants Lin gone - and won't give up until he's got rid of her and her family. Forever.Helen Grant's first teen novel The Vanishing of Katharina Linden was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal; her other darkly thrilling young adult novels, The Vanishing of Katharina Linden and Wish Me Dead, are also available from Penguin.

    An amateur ghost hunter has just woken him up. Now that he stalks the night once more, he's traveling east. Although the monster's actions are pure evil, he may be the only thing that can save humanity from extinction.This edition collects Books One, Two, and Three together in one volume.Book One: Stage of PossibilitiesBook Two: Stage of HungerBook Three: Stage of the Hunt

    Bharatvarsh’s political landscape is in turmoil. The Northern Sultanate has moved its capital back to Delhi from Daulatabad and is bleeding from economic losses. The southern states, coming together as the Sujaynagar Empire, have pushed back the Northern Sultanate. Amidst this chaos, Jazeera, a fort island on Bharatvasrh’s west coast and a vassal state under the Sultanate, is tormented by a mysterious Shadow, who is kidnapping Jazeera’s children. Whispers suggest that there’s black magic at play to invoke the mighty Timingila. Jazeera’s ambitious Sultan and the pragmatic Wazir summon an Officer from the Sultanate to solve this mystery. Meanwhile, tribes in the dense forest near the fort island are feeling the ripple effects of Jazeera’s troubles, and are seeking alliances and formulating secret plans. The island has a haunting past, a turbulent present, and a prophetic future. Jazeera: Legend of the Fort Island unravels it all in a thrilling manner.

    Kaylee has only seven days left to prepare for the end. To say goodbye. And yeah, to stop an incubus from preying on her high school. Tick tock... BEFORE I WAKEDying wasn't easy for Kaylee, but faking life is a whole new kind of struggle. The only good moments are those spent in Tod's arms. But death hasn't stopped her old enemies, and now everyone Kaylee loves is in danger....  NEVER TO SLEEP First time in print!Sophie Cavanaugh is sick of the social fallout from her cousin Kaylee's mental issues. Doesn't she realize people think "crazy" runs in the family? But then a cute boy, a fateful scream and a trip to a nightmare world leave Sophie wondering just what's real-and how to get home.... Soul Screamers... The last thing you hear before you die.

    But is he real?HUNTED (Book 1)Kayla Rowe and her little sister are running for their lives. Chased from town to town by a gang of bikers that no one else sees, Kayla is down to her last dollar and out of ideas. But when she stumbles into the winter camp of a man who is larger than life, her world changes.Although Fae warrior Ryan Sheridan is entranced by Kayla’s beauty and courage, he has a band of fellow exiles he must protect. Disguised as performers in a Renaissance fair, he and his comrades hide in plain sight. But when evil follows Kayla, Ryan can no longer turn her away—or deny the passion that will upend both their worlds.OUTCAST (Book 2)The man of her dreams may be exactly that.Though Kayla Rowe and her sister seem to have landed among friends, there is more to the men of Forever Faire than meets the eye—particularly Ryan. Kayla has fallen hard for him but can’t trust her senses. Their passionate encounters don’t just leave her breathless. They have her questioning the difference between the real world and her dreams.Fae warrior Ryan Sheridan would like nothing better than to make the lovely mortal his own. But in his painful past, he was punished for just such a thing. Though his men caution him against her, it’s her sister that worries them more. Her mystery grows deeper and darker with every fact they learn. Though Ryan would do anything to keep Kayla, if she is to stay, her sister must go.HIDDEN (Book 3)A safe haven becomes a killing field.Though Fae warrior Ryan Sheridan can’t regret giving protection to Kayla and her sister, their enemies have not rested. When their Dark Fae pursuers breach Forever Faire’s defenses, a bloody melee ensues. In the aftermath, Ryan reconsiders the cost of harboring his mysterious charges.For Kayla, the fallout is not something she could not have predicted. Even as Ryan opens his heart to her, her sister shuts her out. Although Kayla discovers love, as well as her real heritage, both may come at a price.DENIED (Book 4)Though she loses a sister, she finds a new life.For the first time ever, Kayla has no family. Though her heart tells her otherwise, she can no longer deny the truth. The young woman she had thought was her sister betrays her at every turn. But as Kayla’s life is turned inside out, one constant emerges: Ryan and his pledge of love.With their winter refuge destroyed, Ryan moves his Fae warriors south. Although it allows them to escape the Dark Fae, he has another purpose. Once and for all he determines to get to the bottom of his lover’s mysterious past, and dispel the long shadow it casts on their future.DESTINED (Book 5)Can their love survive the battle?As Kayla tries to come to grips with her true nature, the Dark Fae attack. In an all out bid for supremacy, the sadistic enemies unleash new evil. If she and the warriors of Forever Faire are to survive, she must find a way to master her powers.Ryan would do anything to protect his brave band of outcasts, but placing Kayla in danger is something he won’t do. Beleaguered and outnumbered, he leads them into what may be their final battle—when help arrives from an unexpected and unwanted quarter.

    0 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more – everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of Dead Witch Walking. This detailed literature summary also contains Topics for Discussion on Dead Witch Walking by Kim Harrison.

    . . In a quest for a simpler life, Helen and Nate have abandoned the comforts of suburbia to take up residence on forty-four acres of rural land where they will begin the ultimate, aspirational do-it-yourself project: building the house of their dreams. When they discover that this beautiful property has a dark and violent past, Helen, a former history teacher, becomes consumed by the local legend of Hattie Breckenridge, a woman who lived and died there a century ago. With her passion for artifacts, Helen finds special materials to incorporate into the house--a beam from an old schoolroom, bricks from a mill, a mantel from a farmhouse--objects that draw her deeper into the story of Hattie and her descendants, three generations of Breckenridge women, each of whom died suspiciously. As the building project progresses, the house will become a place of menace and unfinished business: a new home, now haunted, that beckons its owners and their neighbors toward unimaginable danger.

    World War Two is over, but the recovery from the most intimate of its horrors has only just begun for Annaliese Lange, a German ballerina desperate to escape her past, and Simone Deveraux, the wronged daughter of a French Resistance spy.Now the two women are joining hundreds of other European war brides aboard the renowned RMS Queen Mary to cross the Atlantic and be reunited with their American husbands. Their new lives in the United States brightly beckon until their tightly-held secrets are laid bare in their shared stateroom. When the voyage ends at New York Harbor, only one of them will disembark... Present day. Facing a crossroads in her own life, Brette Caslake visits the famously haunted Queen Mary at the request of an old friend. What she finds will set her on a course to solve a seventy-year-old tragedy that will draw her into the heartaches and triumphs of the courageous war brides and will ultimately lead her to reconsider what she has to sacrifice to achieve her own deepest longings.

    The gift she possessed was just a hint of something far beyond her wildest imagination.Sophia will be pulled, kicking and screaming, into an unseen, ancient world that challenges all that she thought to be true of herself, her family and the origins of humanity.Original sin, forbidden love and her life in constant danger.Will Sophia survive this dark twist of fate?Will the devil be her saviour?Will an Angel be her downfall?

    For Nena, Death comes for her, but doesn't collect. She's instead picked up by a mysterious group led by a man named Scratch, and they won't let her go now that she's Death Touched. As Nena tries to understand what that means she learns that a threat has arisen that promises to upset the delicate balance between the living and the undead. The threat proves especially dangerous to her when she becomes the target of one of the Corrupted, a creature of Death who's sole purpose is to destroy living and undead alike. Her only solace amid the dark is the hope that she can somehow escape the Agency and her own changes before she finds herself too deep in the supernatural world.