A summer they'll never forget. Each summer Joey and his sister, Mary Alice—two city slickers from Chicago—visit Grandma Dowdel's seemingly sleepy Illinois town. Soon enough, they find that it's far from sleepy...and Grandma is far from your typical grandmother. From seeing their first corpse (and he isn't resting easy) to helping Grandma trespass, catch the sheriff in his underwear, and feed the hungry—all in one day—Joey and Mary Alice have nine summers they'll never forget! "A rollicking celebration of an eccentric grandmother and childhood memories." —School Library Journal, starred review "Each tale is a small masterpiece of storytelling." —The Horn Book, starred review "Grandma Dowdel embodies not only the heart of a small town but the spirit of an era gone by...Remarkable and fine." —Kirkus Reviews, starred review A Newbery Honor BookA... Views: 65
Fourteen years ago, famous Pakistani activist Samina Akram disappeared. Two years earlier, her lover, Pakistan's greatest poet, was beaten to death by government thugs. In present-day Karachi, her daughter Aasmaani has just discovered a letter in the couple's private code-a letter that could only have been written recently.Aasmaani is thirty, single, drifting from job to job. Always left behind whenever Samina followed the Poet into exile, she had assumed that her mother's disappearance was simply another abandonment. Then, while working at Pakistan's first independent TV station, Aasmaani runs into an old friend of Samina's who gives her the first letter, then many more. Where could the letters have come from? And will they lead her to her mother?Merging the personal with the political, Broken Verses is at once a sharp, thrilling journey through modern-day Pakistan, a carefully coded mystery, and an intimate mother-daughter story that asks how we forgive a mother who leaves. Views: 65
She thought they had the perfect marriage...Tamra never dreamed she would marry someone like Mike Mitchell: handsome, rich, a wonderful husband… until she finds out that Mike is having an affair.But Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, and Mike Mitchell should have remembered that before he made a fool of her. Because Tamra knows something about Mike. Something he did. Something evil. And she was prepared to carry the secret to her grave.Not anymore.To make matters worse, Mike's daughter Madison has come to stay for a few days, and Madison doesn't like Tamra. Well, that's too bad, because Tamra doesn't have time to argue. She's too busy ruining Mike's life while remaining–on the surface at least–the perfect, loyal wife.But when Tamra's plan spirals out of control, she finds that things are not what they seem.And now, it's too late. Views: 65
In this self-published bestselling e-book by a real illusionist--the first thriller in a sensational series--now available in paperback, FBI agent Jessica Blackwood believes she has successfully left her complicated life as a gifted magician behind her . . . until a killer with seemingly supernatural powers puts her talents to the ultimate test.A mysterious hacker, who identifies himself only as "Warlock," brings down the FBI's website and posts a code in its place. It hides the GPS coordinates of a Michigan cemetery, where a dead girl is discovered rising from the ground . . . as if she tried to crawl out of her own grave.Born into a dynasty of illusionists, Jessica Blackwood is destined to become its next star--until she turns her back on her troubled family, and her legacy, to begin a new life in law enforcement. But FBI consultant Dr. Jeffrey Ailes's discovery of an old copy of Magician Magazine will turn Jessica's carefully constructed world upside... Views: 65
After years of bullying and cajoling others as a high-flying public relations boss, Agatha Raisin's early retirement to the picture-postcard village of Carsely in the Cotswolds is a dream come true. And how better to begin making herself a local leading light than by entering the village quiche-making competition? Unburdened by old-fashioned ideas of fair play, the ruthless Agatha decides to ensure she wins first prize by buying her entry from a London delicatessen. Alas, Agatha's perfect product is soon exposed as not only store-bought but poisoned. The contest judge, rumoured to be connoisseur of women as well as food, succumbs after eating it, and with him go Agatha's reputation and her chances of rural bliss unless she can expose the poisoner. So in a reckless game of village quiche-and-tell, Agatha rushes in where others fear to tread, infuriating and entertaining her neighbours, but gradually gaining on her prey unaware that her success may lead her to become the prey herself .. . This is the first in the Agatha Raisin mystery series, a stylish and amusing whodunnit, with a leading lady of real character. Views: 65
PROSPEROUS HAGIA'S VAULTS BRIMMED WITH GOLD. HER WAREHOUSES BULGED WITH THE GOODS OF THE SOUTHERN SEAS. SHE HAD THE SPIDER-GOD TO THANK FOR HER PROSPERITY.But beneath Hagia's ancient bargain with the A'Rak lay the direst danger. That mercenary kingdom had mortgaged its soul in its pact with the giant arachnoid. When the note fell due, death of the most hideous kind awaited the multitudes of that affluent and bustling nation.As Hagia's debt falls due, two foreigners arrive in Big Quay, her capital: Lagademe and her team, foremost among the world's Nuncios -- deliverers of anything to anywhere -- and Nifft the Lean, thief and rogue extraordinaire.Nifft and Lagademe, strangers to one another at the outset, will soon be struggling side by side for their lives -- and a nation's survival -- against the most hideous foe in the annals of Sword and Sorcery fiction. Views: 65
Will the ties that bound these three families for generations finally tear them apart? New York Timesbestselling author Barbara Delinsky's classic novel Twilight Whispers now available as an e-book for the first time.Linked for years through friendship and intermarriage, the Warren and Whyte families find their charmed world is marred when Mark Whyte and his wife Deborah Warren are found murdered. Police detective Robert Cavanaugh, working on a tip about dissension within the families, sets out to examine the mystique behind their wealth and power.Katia Morell is part of that mystique. Daughter of the Whyte's housekeeper but now a successful advertising executive, she is drawn back into the home where she never quite belonged, and is forced to face her life-long, unrequited love for Jordan Whyte. As the police investigation uncovers secret after secret and, finally, boils to a shocking conclusion, Katia and Jordan are but two of... Views: 65
The Colt fell the short distance onto the worn carpet and Herne's body straightened up like a whiplash. But the hand that had dropped the gun didn't come back up empty. It had the hilt of the bayonet in it and midway through the movement the blade was unleashed across the room. Seth's mouth stayed open, words drained in mid-sentence; he moved the gun to fire but something plunged its way into his shoulder blade and pinned him to the door. His hand opened in spite of itself and the pistol slipped out. Views: 65
The Babylonians invented it, the Greeks banned it, the Hindus worshiped it, and the Church used it to fend off heretics. Now it threatens the foundations of modern physics. For centuries the power of zero savored of the demonic; once harnessed, it became the most important tool in mathematics. For zero, infinity's twin, is not like other numbers. It is both nothing and everything.In Zero, Science Journalist Charles Seife follows this innocent-looking number from its birth as an Eastern philosophical concept to its struggle for acceptance in Europe, its rise and transcendence in the West, and its ever-present threat to modern physics. Here are the legendary thinkers—from Pythagoras to Newton to Heisenberg, from the Kabalists to today's astrophysicists—who have tried to understand it and whose clashes shook the foundations of philosophy, science, mathematics, and religion. Zero has pitted East against West and faith against reason, and its intransigence persists in... Views: 65
