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

    She goes shopping for a cheap, practical freighter, but she ends up buying a rare, beautiful, but crippled luxury ship. Getting it into space will take more than her technical skills. She'll have to go way outside her comfort zone to brave the dangers of safaris, formal dinners, a rude professor, and worst of all, a fashion designer. She may even have to make some friends... and enemies. "The Sculpted Ship" is set on the outskirts of an interstellar empire where FTL travel is commonplace but intelligent robots are rare and expensive. Though the Iris Empire has stood for a thousand years, a talented individual can find plenty of opportunity. But the nobility of this empire guards its privileges jealously.

    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.

    But far from the battlefields, Allied scientists are struggling.Intelligence reports put them a distant second behind the Germans in a competition that could determine the outcome of the war: the race to build the world's first nuclear weapon.For the Allies' top scientists, the race is deeply personal. J. Robert Oppenheimer, Enrico Fermi, and Samuel Goudsmit have known Hitler's chief atomic scientist, Werner Heisenberg, for years. A brilliant, world-renowned physicist and once a good friend, he's anti-Nazi but also a loyal German.Fear that he's put country first and is building a bomb haunts Oppenheimer and Fermi all through their months and years developing the Allied bomb. That same anxiety drives Goudsmit, now a top Allied intelligence officer, to risk his life as he attempts to track down Heisenberg and the site of Hitler's suspected atom bomb program.

    The fragile peace imposed by the conquerors has been shattered, compelling Artoria Argantel -- Lady of the Lake and Druid priestess -- to call upon the Spirit of War and Justice to deliver a champion who will unite the broken land. It is from Argantel's ancient and royal blood that the hero will spring; his sword will be forged from star-steel by ancient spells, carried by soldier-priests from the steppes of Asia to the edges of the Empire. Only one man can wield this holy steel, aided by the wizard Merlin, whose heritage is a magic wilder still. Only one man can free the sword from its prison of stone.Artor, a fosterling of unknown parentage. The promised High King.

    Kendell Summer, lead guitarist for Polly Urethane and the Strippers, has always been interested in the unexplained. So when she sets off on a paranormal research romp with Myles, a former classmate, to explore his skills in psychometry, she’s ready for a little adventure. But she gets more than she bargained for when her Lhasa apso, Cheesecake, is dognapped. Kendell will do whatever it takes to get her dog back. While rescuing the pup, Kendell and Myles learn that the touristy glitz of New Orleans’ voodoo shops hides a dark history few understand—a truth that some in the city plan to use for their own gain. Soon they uncover more than they ever wanted to know about New Orleans’ unsavory past and a curse that threatens to change everything. Only Kendell can prevent the evil they’ve uncovered from doing more damage, but she’ll need Myles’s support and psychometric abilities—and the vigilance of the ever-watchful Cheesecake.

    As she considers these adventures (a rescue mission aided by ghostly hallucinations; a secluded town of strangely shaped inhabitants; a movie star with a monstrous secret), Celia uncovers startling new truths about her family's past."Beautifully un-categorizable but wholly delightful, Odd Adventures With Your Other Father is a heady mix of the surreal, the poignant, the scary, and the heartwarming. A gleeful mash-up of genres, highly recommended!" - Peter Atkins, author of Morningstar and Big Thunder, screenwriter of Hellraiser II and III, creator of Wishmaster"Strange, darkly comic, wonderful book of two fathers and one daughter and just how weird and bright the world can be in the shadows of life." - Douglas Clegg, New York Times bestselling author

    Witch Central goes to Costa Rica for summer vacation.

    A sorcerer, sage, prophet, and teacher, Merlin’s mysterious life has inspired a vast array of classic works while giving rise to numerous conflicting legends. Here, award-winning author Jane Yolen, one of the most acclaimed fantasy writers of our time, retells Merlin’s tales as never before. Through a series of stories and poems ranging across centuries—from the days of Merlin’s childhood as a feral boy to the possible discovery of his bones in a much later era—Yolen reimagines both the glory and grimness of Camelot, recalling characters and events from Arthurian legend, while ingeniously inventing new myths and dark fables. Merlin’s Booke is a brilliant patchwork, made up of tales that explore the mysteries of King Arthur’s world and the terrible magic that pervaded it. This ebook features a personal history by Jane Yolen including rare images from the author’s personal collection, as well as a note from the author about the making of the book.

    Archer's THE 1ST FREAK HOUSE TRILOGY in a single volume for one low price. Each book in this boxed set is available for purchase separately, but by buying them in this bundle, you're getting a better deal! DESCRIPTION It's customary for Gothic romance novels to include a mysterious girl locked in the attic. Hannah Smith just wishes she wasn't that girl. As a narcoleptic and the companion to an earl's daughter with a strange affliction of her own, Hannah knows she's lucky to have a roof over her head and food in her belly when so many orphans starve on the streets. Yet freedom is something Hannah longs for. She did not, however, want her freedom to arrive in the form of kidnapping. Taken by handsome Jack Langley to a place known as Freak House, she finds herself under the same roof as a mad scientist, his niece, a mute servant and Jack, a fire starter with a mysterious past. They assure Hannah she is not a prisoner and that they want to help her. The problem is, they think she's the earl's daughter. What will they do when they discover they took the wrong girl?

    An immediate European bestseller, optioned by Indian/German producers who commissioned a six-hour mini-series, then Canadian producers with BBC.Based on real people (ca. 1620), THE MOGHUL begins in a rip-roaring sea battle north of Bombay in which the vastly out-gunned adventurer, Brian Hawksworth, ship's captain and emissary of King James, blows away a flotilla of Portuguese galleons to gain access to an Indian port. He's come to open trade for “barbaric” England and squeeze out the Portuguese, who try to kill him at every turn. But once on land, he’s captive: the beauty and romance of the exquisite Moghul Empire seduce him from his material goals to a new quest – of supreme sensuality in music, visions, and sacred lovemaking. India, ruled by the son of great Akbar, is about to pass to one of his sons. Hawksworth must choose sides, but will he choose right? The future of England, and of India, depend on it. Assailed by intrigue and assassination, tormented by a forbidden love, enthralled by a mystic poet, Hawksworth engages war elephants, tiger hunts, the harem of the Red Fort of Agra, the Rajput warriors at Udaipur, becomes intimate champion to Shah Jahan, (builder of the Taj Mahal), and, in his supreme test, plays the sitar with a touch that elicits from the great Shah – “Finally, my English friend – you understand.”

    The Department of Time and Space steps in to manage the situation — leaving Spider asking a lot of questions that only lead to more questions; unsettling evidence, brewing trouble, and the knowledge that Spider himself might be involved in an epic battle for control of time itself.Will his knowing the future be a curse or a blessing? and will Spider Webb really find out how things turn out before they happen? With his new found knowledge, who can Spider trust?One thing is certain: it will all happen before the End of Time!

    As a medium, the prospect of tackling a haunted house is less daunting than seeing Max Baron again. Throughout their passionate college relationship, he promised to love her forever. Then, without explanation, he abandoned her on graduation day.Max never intended to break Claire's heart—a cruel ultimatum forced him to disappear from her life. While he's shocked to find her in Gull Harbor, he isn't surprised by the bitter resentment she feels for him...or the fiery attraction that remains between them.Claire is determined to rid her temporary home of its aggressive ghost, but Max soon realizes she's facing a danger beyond the paranormal. When Claire risks everything to help a desperate spirit, Max must race to save her—before another tragedy tears them apart forever.

    Elizabeth Horodowich, one of the leading historians of the city, tells the whole story, showing that Venice, alongside Florence and Rome, was one of the great Renaissance capitals. The book will also investigate the history of Venice as a multicultural trading city where Christians, Jews, and Muslims lived together at the crossroads between East and West. The narrative runs all the way to the present to the current problems with the sinking island.

    Everyone is preparing for the battle that, as Winston Churchill said, would see the “whole fury and might of the enemy turned upon us.” Everyone including the young Miss Emily Seeton, London art teacher, who finds her strangely prophetic sketches do not go unnoticed by the secret services. At first suspected of being a fifth columnist, she soon finds herself recruited by the dashing Major Gerry Haynes and sent to carry out a very special observance task at a rural Spitfire factory. Faced with bombs, sabotage and murder, Miss Seeton must summon all her courage – it is after all her nature to Keep Calm and Carry On!