SUMMARY:Gordon Sunday, an unemployed ex-football player, enters a strange fantasy world where he must help the Lady Glorian, her brother, Tag, and the telepathic lorra, Red, defeat the evil Tide of Blood.

Is the decaying Victorian mansion on Crabtree Hill really haunted? Identical twins Chris and Susan Pratt decide there's no time like Halloween to find out. Then another mystery arises: what to do when they both fall for the same boy. A third mystery: how to make the annual Halloween Dance special. The girls encounter unexpected tricks and treats as they cleverly solve all three mysteries. Young Adult Fiction by Cynthia Blair; originally published by Fawcett Juniper

Seattle: a place as magical as the Emerald City. Subtle magic seeps through the cracks in the paving stones of the sprawling metropolis. But only the inhabitants who possess special gifts are open to the city's consciousness; finding portents in the graffiti, reading messages in the rubbish or listening to warnings in the skipping-rope chants of children. Wizard is bound to Seattle and her magic. His gift is the Knowing -- a powerful enchantment allowing him to know the truth of things; to hear the life-stories of ancient mummies locked behind glass cabinets, to receive true fortunes from the carnival machines, to reveal to ordinary people the answers to their troubles and to safeguard the city's equilibrium. The magic has its price; Wizard must never have more than a dollar in his pocket, must remain celibate, and he must feed and protect the pigeons. But a threat to Seattle has begun to emerge in the portents. A malevolent force born of Wizard's forgotten past has returned to prey upon his power and taunt him with images of his obscure history; and he is the only wizard in Seattle who can face the evil and save the city, his friends and himself.

Beth Pearson has never much liked her younger sister Francie, and it is with great reluctance that she returns home to Maine to attend the funeral of her equally unlovable father. Francie, now fourteen, is as sullen and pouty as ever and, now that both parents are dead, she may become Beth’s responsibility—the last thing Beth wants. But the bonds of family loyalty are stronger than Beth expected, and she finds herself deeply upset about the clearly unsuitable 21-year-old boy named Andrew whom Francie has been dating. Beth decides to take Francie back with her to Philadelphia—but Francie wants to stay behind with Andrew. Why, after all, should she listen to a sister who has always hated her? Beth takes matters into her own hands and visits Andrew’s mother to ask her to help break up the relationship. But what she unleashes in the name of sisterly love is an orgy of violence and death, for Andrew loves Francie obsessively and, deeply troubled since childhood, will stop at nothing to keep her by his side… The story races to a shattering climax when Beth realizes the full extent of Andrew’s madness…and that it is up to her to save her little sister’s life!

Cincinnati Cougars' Billy Parks was All-Pro and a hero to many...and now he's missing. P.I. Harry Stoner's job is to find him, as hired by the Cougars who say Billy's disappearing act is part of a contract dispute. Leads in the form of Parks' soon-to-be-cut teammate Bluerock and a pretty little number from a dance club point to some questionable influences in Parks' life, including Cougars' management, a reverend, agents, his mother, a pregnant stripper-turned-holly-roller girlfriend – and there seems to be something more much more deadly at hand that a contract renegotiation.

Masochism is out and feminism is in, Jews are out and Germans are in, race is out and gender is in, and everyone's fighting (and rewriting) for a piece of the pie. Jewish director Jim Minsk disappears during a trip to the South. Black playwright Ian Ball writes the all-female play Reckless Eyeballing in hopes of getting off the "sex-list." Preeminent playwright Jack Brashford, claiming the Jews stole all his black material, decides to write about Armenians. In the background, an unknown assailant dubbed the "Flower Phantom" runs loose through the city shaving heads of prominent black feminists (to the secret delight of black men).In this hilarious, devastating, but also deeply sympathetic novel, Ishmael Reed turns characters on the backs, sides, tops and bottoms to expose the multiple hypocrisies at the heart of American culture.

Read this classic romance by New York Times bestselling author Penny Jordan, now available for the first time in e-book! Previously published as Capable of Feeling in 1986. Claiming his convenient bride! Jon Phillips needs a wife in name only to help care for his niece and nephew, and his beautiful employee Sophy already loves the children as if they were her own. So it isn't hard for Sophy to agree to what seems like the perfect convenient arrangement. But in sharing a roof together, Sophy becomes increasingly aware of her husband and her desire to make their marriage real in every sense. Can she ever be more than his untouched bride?

Ithkar, site of the Temple of the Three Lordly Ones and the scene of an annual celebration, is the setting for a rich collection of fantasy tales by Lin Carter, Andre Norton, Nancy Springer, Morgan Llywelyn, C.J. Cherryh, and other masters of the genre

Simon Winchester, struck by a sudden need to discover exactly what was left of the British Empire, set out across the globe to visit the far-flung islands that are all that remain of what once made Britain great. He traveled 100,000 miles back and forth, from Antarctica to the Caribbean, from the Mediterranean to the Far East, to capture a last glint of imperial glory.His adventures in these distant and forgotten ends of the earth make compelling, often funny reading and tell a story most of us had thought was over: a tale of the last outposts in Britain's imperial career and those who keep the flag flying.With a new introduction, this updated edition tells us what has happened to these extraordinary places while the author's been away.About the AuthorSimon Winchester was born and educated in England, has lived in Africa, Ireland, India and China, and now lives in US. He was a foreign correspondent for 30 years and now contributes to a variety of American and British magazines and newspapers. Hismost recent books have been the two international bestsellers, The Surgeon of Crowthorne and The Map that Changed the World. His new book, Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded is published in June 2002. From AudioFileSimon Winchester travels to the far reaches of the British Empire. Winchester reads his own sometimes oddball tales. He tells of a cricket match on St. Helena in which a fielder falls off the edge and thus is "retired, dead." On Ascension Island, an island so small it was considered a ship--the H.M.S. ASCENSION--any baby born was considered born at sea. Winchester's nicely modulated voice is perfect for reading this history/travelogue. He is engaging while narrating the history and perpetually amused at the quirks of keeping the Empire alive no matter the discomfort. The production concludes with an interview in which Winchester discusses his delight at discovering that readers share his fascination with geology. A.B. © AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

‘Fable, intellectual thriller, Gothic extravaganza, symbolist conundrum . . . a true work of art’ Sunday Independent Is there a numerical solution to the quest for the meaning of life? A brilliant reworking of the classic Dr Faustus theme, Mefisto focuses on the mathematically gifted Gabriel Swan, who seeks a numerical solution to his quest for order and meaning in life. ‘Mefisto renders all superlatives woefully inadequate . . . Undisputed master of language, the laconic pause and the blackly comic, Banville is a supreme stylist . . . He is a magician . . . Another expectedly astonishing and very daring display from this richly, almost wickedly, gifted artist’ Time Out ‘An excellent novel, beautifully written. The sort of thing you have to read more than once – wonderful stuff’ Punch ‘Few writers in Ireland today can arouse such expectation by the advent of a new novel . . . A profound beauty of words displayed by their lover . . . Banville’s great enterprise does not falter . . . read Mefisto straight through; it deserves it’ Irish TimesReviewA novel of virtuosic scope, written in a style as pristine as the rarefied mountain air atop the Brocken. --The New York TimesIntense, cerebral, linguistically inventive. --Cleveland Plain Dealer About the AuthorJohn Banville was born in Wexford, Ireland, in 1945. He is the author of fourteen previous novels including The Sea, which won the 2005 Man Booker Prize. He has received a literary award from the Lannan Foundation. He lives in Dublin.

The superbly crafted stories collected in Alistair MacLeod's As Birds Bring Forth the Sun and Other Stories depict men and women acting out their “own peculiar mortality” against the haunting landscape of Cape Breton Island. In a voice at once elegiac and life-affirming, MacLeod describes a vital present inhabited by the unquiet spirits of a Highland past, invoking memory and myth to celebrate the continuity of the generations even in the midst of unremitting change.His second collection, As Birds Bring Forth the Sun and Other Stories confirms MacLeod's international reputation as a storyteller of rare talent and inspiration.