A magician called Valerian must save his own life within those few days or pay the price for the pact he made with evil so many years ago. But alchemy and sorcery are no match against the demonic power pursuing him. Helping him is his servant, Boy, a child with no name and no past. The quick-witted orphan girl, Willow, is with them as they dig in death fields at midnight, and as they are swept into the sprawling blackness of a subterranean city on a journey from which there is no escape.

    One night British Sea Harriers reduced his Beirut headquarters to rubble and his evil empire to ruins. But Abdul Habib still had money, and hate, enough hate to spare to construct an elaborate plan which would destroy Gibraltar and the British Aircraft carrier which had committed the fatal strike. All he needed was luck to thread a nuclear warhead through the complicated network of the Middle East terrorist rings, get it on a Libyan freighter and head west across the Med-And enough luck to avoid the one man whose hate is even greater than his, Captain Peter Brodrick of the Royal Marines. A man Habib foolishly left alive, though he killed all his friends. A man whose fate is inextricably entwined with his.

    Then she is sent to Norfolk to stay with old Mr and Mrs Pegg, where she runs wild on the sand dunes and around the water. There is a house, the Marsh House, which she feels she recognises - and she soon meets a strange little girl called Marnie, who becomes Anna's first ever friend. Then one day, Marnie vanishes. A new family, the Lindsays, move into the Marsh House. Having learnt so much from Marnie about friendship, Anna makes firm friends with the Lindsays - and learns some strange truths about Marnie, who was not all she seemed...

    On his journey, Parsifal—a wise fool if there ever was one—encounters several librarians, a therapist, numerous blind people, and Misty, a beautiful woman who may well be under the influence of recreational drugs.Head-spinning and hilarious, Parsifal is a book like no other about the entanglement of the past and present, as well as the limitations of the future.

    In a succession of vividly recalled episodes Violet contemplates the circumstances of her life as the initially beloved youngest child of seven Kerrigan children who inadvertently “informs” on her brothers, setting into motion their arrests and convictions and her own long estrangement.Arresting and poignant, My Life as a Rat traces a life of banishment from a family—banishment from parents, siblings, and the Church—that forces Violet to discover her own identity, to break the powerful spell of family, and to emerge from her long exile as a “rat” into a transformed life.

    He is opposed by Niels Nielsen, a melancholy intellectual who hurls invective at the dictator and the hypocrisy and moral bankruptcy of society. Barutanski himself despises the sycophants beneath him and recognizes in Nielsen a genuine foe; but Nielsen, haunted by his own lapses of conscience, struggles to escape both the regime and the role of opposition leader that is thrust upon him.Miroslav Krleza is considered one of the most important Central European authors of the twentieth century. In his career he was a poet, playwright, screenwriter, novelist, essayist, journalist, and travel writer. He also suffered condemnation as a leftist and a practitioner of modernism and his books were proscribed in the 1930s. The first two books of the trilogy The Banquet in Blitva were written in the thirties and their comments on political, psychological, artistic, and ethical issues earned him the enmity of Yugoslavia's increasingly fascist government. He did not write and publish the third book in the trilogy until 1962.

    Marshal Raylan Givens of TV’s Justified fame), and, quite simply, some of the very best suspense novels written over the past century. Killshot is prime Leonard—a riveting story of a husband and wife caught in the crossfire when they foil a criminal act and are forced to defend themselves when the legal system fails them from the murderous wrath of a pair of vengeful killers. When it comes to cops and criminals stories, Killshot and Leonard are as good as it gets—further proof why “the King Daddy of crime writers” (Seattle Times) deserves his current place among John D. MacDonald, Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain, and the other legendary greats of the noir fiction genre.

    Millions of readers around the world have relished Jeffrey Archer's short stories. His first collection, A Quiver Full of Arrows, was acclaimed by The Times as 'stylish, witty and entertaining." Of his second collection, A Twist in the Tale, the New York Times said: 'Jeffrey Archer plays a subtle cat-and-mouse game with the reader in twelve original stories that end, more often than not, with our collective whiskers twitching in surprise.' His third, Twelve Red Herrings, was described by the Daily Mail as 'an exemplary collection of short stories.'

    Follow the naughty Goldilocks into the house of the three bears, and see what happens when they come home and find her! Part of the Ladybird "First Favourite Tales" series, this hardback book contains lots of funny rhythm and rhyme to delight young children. It is ideal for reading aloud and sharing with preschoolers.

    Eva's great desire is to go aboveground, and her wish comes true, though not as she had imagined. On the surface, Eva goes in search of other humans--she has never met one--and soon meets both friend and foe.

    They are there for one last time, one last weekend, and one last party – but in the course of this weekend, their connections will be affirmed, and their frailties and secrets revealed – to the reader at least, if not to each other. The Hope Fault is a novel about extended family: about steps and exes and fairy godmothers; about parents and partners who are missing, and the people who replace them.

    At first, things seem marvelous. The food is better than at home, and the toy box is filled with fluttering wind-up angels and dinosaur skulls that crawl and rattle their teeth.But there's another mother there and another father, and they want her to stay and be their little girl. They want to change her and never let her go. Coraline will have to fight with all her wit and all the tools she can find if she is to save herself and return to her ordinary life.This beloved tale has now become a visual feast. Acclaimed artist P. Craig Russell brings Neil Gaiman's enchanting nationally bestselling children's book Coraline to new life in this gorgeously illustrated graphic novel adaptation

    Eighteenth century Admiralty Regulations forbade women living on board ship, but many found ways around this. George served on a number of ships, both as a man and unmasked. As Nan narrates her mother’s history she becomes obsessed by the idea that Nelson could have been her father. She meets a young man, Baltic Nelson, who clings to the same belief. Could her mother’s wild stories really be true?

    Leaving the Bronx far behind, she's headed for sunny Weeki Wachee Springs, frayed roadside attraction in danger of becoming obsolete with the opening of Walt Disney's latest creation, only miles up the road. Always more suited for a life underwater, Delores joins a group of other aquatic hopefuls in this City of Live Mermaids, where she discovers a world of sequined tails and amphibious theme shows that even Disney couldn't dream up. It's in this fantastic place of make-believe and reinvention that Delores Walker becomes Delores Taurus, Florida's most unlikely celebrity. Bringing together an eccentric assortment of outcasts, poseurs, and underdogs, this wise and poignant novel conjures up a time in America when anything was possible, especially in the Sunshine State. A story of family, chasing dreams and finding your way, Swim To Me will have you believing the impossible—even in mermaids from the Bronx.

    As the self-proclaimed King of the Griefers, Gameknight played the game for himself at the expense of everyone else, keeping the list of his friends in the game short, extremely short. But when one of his father’s inventions teleports him into the game, Gameknight is forced to live out a real-life adventure within the digital world of Minecraft. Unsure if he would respawn if killed in the game . . . maybe he’d just disconnect . . . or maybe he’d really die . . . Gameknight must play the game with all of his skill and knowledge in order to avoid the sharp claws of zombies and pointed fangs of spider. While living out this terrible and painful adventure, he discovers the most well-kept secret about Minecraft, something not even the programmers realize; the creatures within the game are alive! His emergence into the game triggers a war that threatens to consume all of Minecraft and possible the physical world as well. Gameknight must fight through the electronic world, with his new NPC friend, Crafter, and his only user friend, Shawny, as he fights epic battles, the mobs on the server seeking to destroy everything, stuffing out all life, everywhere. Gameknight is the key to salvation for all the electronic lives in Minecraft and possibly in the physical world as well . . . or maybe he’d not the key at all, maybe he’s the fuse to destruction.