The world is plunging into darkness, the days growing shorter and the nights longer. Meteor showers are falling to the earth and there are some who would take advantage of the growing darkness.For sixteen-year-old Bronte Bell, her problems are closer to home. Since her birthday she's become weaker, her bones breaking, her hair falling out and plagued with constant migraines. No one can explain why. Until a mysterious new boy arrives and tells her that everything is not as it seems. She is not what she seems.Drawn into a war that divides the sky, Bronte is torn between her desire to save the world and her growing connection with Nick. But she will have to let go of reality as she knows it, if she is to accept her role in destiny before the Hunter, who has been tracking her since birth, finds and destroys any chance she has of making the choice which is her birthright to make.Her destiny will change everything . . .

    In their long-time talks, the former eunuch told his young friend lots of inside stories about the "last emperor" and the royal family. Sun allowed Jia to record these stories with a tape-recorder and a video-tape-recorder.Jia had already published the Chinese edition of the eunuch's biography and a Japanese-language edition.So far, Jia has written six books on the royal family. Jia said he wanted to translate his books into major foreign languages to help foreign readers better understand the history of China.(Xinhua News Agency February 28, 2009)http://www.china.org.cn/books&mag...Los Angeles Times Review - "Biography of last Chinese eunuch reveals a tumultuous life"http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwor...New Phoenix Intl LlcForeign Language Teaching &Foreign Language Teaching and Research P

    They need us to keep water in their kingdom flowing, without it, their kind would surely all perish; as not even the powerful Fae have control over the waters that feed life to everything.Somewhere along the line, they all lost that ability as if that element revolted against them.For over twenty-one years I’ve been kept in the dark about my true heritage, being raised as a witch like my auntie, that can wield water with spells.Soon I would be old enough to leave my childhood home and go beyond the protection spell that has kept me safe all these years, to seek out my destiny.A vision, perhaps even a prophecy, in the castle where I was born caused my parents to secret me away under the cover of darkness. Saved by an unlikely partnership.For the first time in thousands of years, the elements are set to combine into the greatest power ever known, and somehow I am the center of it all.The power of the elements are told to bring about peace in the lands and restore life in the realm; to a greatness more than it has ever been before.No more struggles for food, no more starvation. No more taxation with penalties of death. No more hatred and fear of the rulers of the kingdom. Only prosperity, health, and maybe even something more?Please note: This is a Reverse Harem Novel. It contains explicit content intended for adults only. 18+

    Tina yearns for this new setting to bring her the zen-like inner peace she's always heard about on infomercials. Instead, she becomes a totally exasperated fish out of water, doing wacky things like stealing the shoes of a shifty delivery man, spraying local women with a bidet hose, and contemplating the murder of her new pet cricket.It takes the friendship of an elderly tai chi instructor, a hot Mandarin tutor, and several mah-jongg-tile-slinging expats to bring Tina closer to a culture she doesn't understand, the dream job she never knew existed, and the self she has always sought. Fish Heads and Duck Skin will resonate with anyone who has ever wondered who they are, why they were put here, and how they ever lived before eating pan-fried pork buns.

    After losing her parents in a fatal accident, Ryleigh moves in with an aunt she was unaware of and is introduced to family she never knew existed. With the knowledge that she is a descendant of the Fae, she embarks on a journey of self-discovery with the assistance of Tristan — a long lost cousin. Ryleigh's Uncle Finar wants nothing more than to consume her energy and become the most powerful Fae in existence. Can Ryleigh save herself and those she loves before the tyranny of her uncle reigns supreme?

    Dinh's gift is for constructing, in the manner of Italo Calvino, simple narratives that quickly frame larger questions; with a poet's timing, the author builds his stories to the one or few climactic sentences that brand them with unforgettable meaning. In one tale, a Vietnamese boy's self-guided, haphazard study of English gives way to a meditation on the universality of language: Everything seems chaotic at first, but nothing is chaotic. One can read anything: ants crawling on the ground; pimples on a face; trees in a forest. In another story, a man opens a newspaper and sees the photograph of a man he may have murdered, which he impulsively clips, only to feel that in doing so he unwittingly has sealed his crime: As soon as I finished, I realized what I had done: by cutting my father's likeness out of the newspaper, I had removed him from the world. The collection crescendoes in displays of raw creative power, as in Eight Plots, a rapid-fire of three- and four-sentence summaries, and the brilliant, impressionistic !Blood and Soap is an arresting collection from one of a small number of writers on the vanguard of American fiction.

    Disillusion soon followed, then turned to disgust and fear when Shen discovered that his compatriots had tortured and murdered a doctor whose house he’d helped raid and whose beautiful daughter he secretly adored. A story of coming of age in the midst of monumental historical upheaval, Shen’s Gang of One is more than a memoir of one young man’s harrowing experience during a time of terror. It is also, in spite of circumstances of remarkable grimness and injustice, an unlikely picaresque tale of adventure full of courage, cunning, wit, tenacity, resourcefulness, and sheer luck—the story of how Shen managed to scheme his way through a hugely oppressive system and emerge triumphant. Gang of One recounts how Shen escaped, again and again, from his appointed fate, as when he somehow found himself a doctor at sixteen and even, miraculously, saved a few lives. In such volatile times, however, good luck could quickly turn to misfortune: a transfer to the East Wind Aircraft Factory got him out of the countryside and into another terrible trap, where many people were driven to suicide; his secret self-education took him from the factory to college, where friendship with an American teacher earned him the wrath of the secret police. Following a path strewn with perils and pitfalls, twists and surprises worthy of Dickens, Shen’s story is ultimately an exuberant human comedy unlike any other.Purchase the audio edition.

    A true believer--and one of only two Westerners permitted to enroll at Beijing University--her education included wielding a pneumatic drill at the Number One Machine Tool Factory. In the name of the Revolution, she renounced rock & roll, hauled pig manure in the paddy fields, and turned in a fellow student who sought her help in getting to the United States. She also met and married the only American draft dodger from the Vietnam War to seek asylum in China.Red China Blues is Wong's startling--and ironic--memoir of her rocky six-year romance with Maoism (which crumbled as she became aware of the harsh realities of Chinese communism); her dramatic firsthand account of the devastating Tiananmen Square uprising; and her engaging portrait of the individuals and events she covered as a correspondent in China during the tumultuous era of capitalist reform under Deng Xiaoping. In a frank, captivating, deeply personal narrative she relates the horrors that led to her disillusionment with the "worker's paradise." And through the stories of the people--an unhappy young woman who was sold into marriage, China's most famous dissident, a doctor who lengthens penises--Wong reveals long-hidden dimensions of the world's most populous nation.In setting out to show readers in the Western world what life is like in China, and why we should care, she reacquaints herself with the old friends--and enemies of her radical past, and comes to terms with the legacy of her ancestral homeland.

    Their father, moved by an incredible dream of optimism, decides to migrate from the lush green fields of British Columbia to Alberta. There, he is determined to deny the hard-pan limitations of the prairie and to grow rice. Despite a dearth of both water and love, the family discovers, through sorrow and fear, the green kiss of the Kappa Child, a mythical creature who blesses those who can imagine its magic... James Tiptree Jr. Memorial Award for Science Fiction and Commonwealth Writers' Prize Winner, 2001Sunburst Award Nomination for Canadian Literature of the Fantastic, 2002

    The phone rings. A grandfather he never knew is dying. He rushes to the old man's bedside and finds himself promising to find the Ark of the Covenant, missing for over 2,500 years. In Israel Alex picks up a partner in his quest—archeologist Rivka Golan. Within days they are targeted by a sniper, chased through the streets of Jersualem by a bulldozer, interrogated by Israeli intelligence, and trapped in a tunnel under the world's most sacred site—the Temple Mount.

     She is desperately excited to explore not only the foreign land with all its alien culture but also the role of a wife and all the pleasures that come with it… In no time at all Constance is shocked on both accounts. China stuns her with its barbaric and improper behaviour which, almost against her will, begins to tease her imagination. At the same time, Mr Henry Baird, despairing of his sinful desires, proves unable to indulge Constance’s wishes. The marriage, failing from the beginning, spirals further and further out of control as Constance, aided by her only ally Kate, inadvertently becomes a famous ‘Devil Woman’ throughout the region and faces an audience with the Empress herself. As her new life unfolds, Constance finds herself tortured by desire, teetering on the edge of love and caught up in a dangerous whirlwind of international politics. She ricochets between the Chinese extremes of complete intimacy and deadly violence as they head slowly into war. What does ‘The Crimson Pagoda’ promise? ‘The Crimson Pagoda’ is a gripping and engaging historical romance by a master of the genre. Praise for Christopher Nicole: ‘Well-researched…Evocative descriptions of scenery and edifices, and exact period dialogue’ – Historical Novels Society Christopher Nicole was born and brought up in British Guyana and the West Indies. His output of books has been prolific and many of his novels are historical with a Caribbean background.

    He's handsome, sexy, and knows what he wants. He steals cars. He doesn't do relationships. And he has the hottest green eyes in River Valley.Maddie Wright is a good girl with a wild streak. She's confident, strong, and goes after whatever or whoever she wants. And Maddie wants Logan Martelli with a passion.One fateful night brings Logan and Maddie together and electricity sparks between them. Maddie and Logan make a real connection, but when Logan finds out who she is, he wants nothing to do with her. However, he soon realizes he can get the ultimate revenge for his family if he continues to date Maddie. The problem is he's starting to fall for Maddie, and he knows that a relationship will mess up everything.Logan has to decide if revenge is worth losing his one shot at real love. What price will he pay if he betrays the one woman who may finally see behind his bad boy image?

     It's here: the landmark debut thriller from superstar Ant Middleton, million-selling, number one Sunday Times author of First Man In and The Fear Bubble and star of SAS: Who Dares Wins. Mallory, ex-Special Forces, is forced to leave the military after a fatal, vengeful decision. Now he walks the world, helping those in need, running away from a past he'd rather forget and the killer inside him.

    Linde…I didn’t have a game plan when I decided to leave St. Louis on a Chicago-bound train for the summer.Just a reason. One I couldn’t share with anyone.Not Hadley, my best friend from college, who lets me stay in the guest bedroom with no questions asked. Or Hadley’s boyfriend Garrett who befriends me when I have no one else to turn to. Or Brennan, the local bartender, who I find myself falling head over heels for. Desperate to hide, I’m plunged into a new life in the city. Everyone around me starts to reveal sides of themselves I never expected.And just when I start to get comfortable, I find that my past just won’t stop…following me.

    After their deaths, each year on the anniversary of the broadcast, their souls would return to the Chinese village of their younger days. It’s where they had fought—and survived—a war that shook the world and changed their own lives in unimaginable ways. Now, seventy years later, the pledge is being fulfilled by American missionary Pastor Billy, brash gunner’s mate Ian Ferguson, and local soldier Liu Zhaohu.All that’s missing is Ah Yan—also known as Swallow—the girl each man loved, each in his own profound way.As they unravel their personal stories of the war, and of the woman who touched them so deeply during that unforgiving time, the story of Ah Yan’s life begins to take shape, woven into view by their memories. A woman who had suffered unspeakable atrocities, and yet found the grace and dignity to survive, she’d been the one to bring them together. And it is her spark of humanity, still burning brightly, that gives these ghosts of the past the courage to look back on everything they endured and remember the woman they lost.