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A Lion to Guard Us

Amanda Freebold doesn't know what to do. Her father left three years ago for the new colony of Jamestown, in America, thousands of miles away. All Amanda has to remember him by is a little brass lion's head he gave his family to guard them while he is gone. Now her mother has just died, leaving Amanda to take care of her younger brother and sister.As head of the family, Amanda finally decides to take her brother and sister to America to find Father. The ocean crossing is long and hard, and the children don't know whom to trust. But with the lion's head to guard them, Amanda Knows that somehow everything will work out fine.
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How Dark the Night

How Dark the Night profiles the years 1805 to 1810, picking up where the fourth volume, A Call to Arms, ends. These years leading up to the War of 1812 are devastating ones for the young republic and for the Cutler family. The life-and-death struggle between the forces of Great Britain and France continue in Europe, and the United States is caught in a web of financial and political chaos as President Jefferson and Secretary of State Madison endeavor to keep the woefully unprepared United States out of the imbroglio while at the same time defending the nation's honor. On the home front, the embargo acts initiated by the government threaten the livelihood of the Cutler family and other New England shipping families as merchant ships rot on their moorings and sailors sit on the beach, penniless. What is far worse to the Cutler family, however, is a grave illness that threatens the life of its most beloved member.Historical figures profiled in How Dark the Night include the...
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My Former Heart

When she grew up, Ruth would say that she could place the day that her mother had decided to go awayShe didn't know the actual date, but she recalled the occasion: it was on the afternoon of a wet day, early in 1942, during a visit to the cinema. She thought she could even pinpoint the exact moment at which Iris had made up her mind to go, leaving her only child behind. Neither of them could have guessed then that they would never live together again.Spanning the second half of the last century, 'My Former Heart', Cressida Connolly's mesmerising first novel, charts the lives of three generations of Iris's family. Ruth will be deserted again, many years later, by a husband she loves, but not before she has had two children by him. She leaves London to live with her uncle, where she creates a new life for herself with another woman. And we follow the lives of her two children, trying to make a place for themselves in the world in the shadow of the family that...
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Ocean Notorious

Stories from outposts of the Southern Ocean, the windiest, roughest, most isolated and most important ocean on the planet. Venture to the deep south and you will experience a world like no other – forbidding subantarctic islands, astounding sea creatures, death-defying plants, the constant company of birds and, if you travel far enough, the towering ice cliffs and dead valleys of Antarctica. Few people visit this remote and mysterious region but for some the lure is irresistible. As an expedition guide, Matt Vance has accompanied intrepid tourists and birders, artists and writers. In Ocean Notorious he gives a moving first-person account of the lonely places where lives have been changed and history made - from the obsessive explorers of the heroic era to solo sailors in tiny yachts, marooned wartime coastwatchers and ruthless plunderers of wildlife to today's dreamers, drifters and passionate preservationists.
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Variations Three

Maine novelist and journalist Sharon Lee brings a new dimension to the old saying, "Be careful what you wish for" when she explores what happens to people who follow their dreams a step beyond the here-and-now in these unique short fictions.In the short-short "Coffeecat," Lee teases us with a fun story about the reality of morning coffee. If you think you really know the right way to go about getting your java, read this!In "The AfterImage" we get an incisive look at beauty contests of the future, when today's often hit-or-miss use of cosmetic surgery has given way to the body-sculpting perfection of microscopic nanotech reconstruction. How much are YOU willing to give to be beautiful?"Passionato" offers readers a chance to see a collector at work. This collector has sought out artists of all types: sculptors and painters, poets and authors, and in his own fey way shares their inmost dreams and passions.In a world of cookie-cutter worldbuilding and PC fantasy,...
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Revenge on the Fly

When twelve-year-old William Alton and his father sail from England for new opportunities on the Empress of Ireland, they leave behind the graves of his mother and baby sister. Will only hopes they will leave death and disease behind them, too. But a shipmate's baby falls ill and is forced into quarantine on Grosse Ile, and when they finally arrive in Hamilton - their new home - they discover that Will's Uncle Charlie is in the hospital. Why must everyone around him get sick and die? A competition at Will's new school offers an answer . . . and a challenge. In 1912, cities around the world declare war on the fly, blaming it for the spread of the diseases - summer complaint, typhus, consumption and typhoid - that are wiping out families. To avenge his mother and his sister, Will throws himself into the local fly-killing contest. Along the way, he makes enemies and friends: Fred Aitken, the wealthy classmate who hates losing; Fred's admirer, Ginny Malone, who often must skip...
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Allah's Scorpion

Under the cover of a moonless night, al-Quaida operatives made their way inside the infamous Camp Delta prison on the American base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Their goal was to free five prisoners. But their attempt fails. The rescuers and prisoners, all former Iranian Navy submarine crewmen, were all killed. Their freedom was to be the first step in unleashing a deadly act of terrorism--a mission codenamed Allah's Scorpion.The CIA and Kirk McGarvey are called in, but first McGarvey must stop the destruction of the Panama Canal by a Venezuelan oil tanker rigged to explode in one of the locks. What seems to be an unrelated attack turns up the same cryptic code name.But this mission may prove to be the ultimate strike against America, a grand finale to what began on 9/11. A pair of Russian nuclear warhead missiles that were spirited into Lybia just before the invasion of Iraq have turned up on the radar, and they are in transit by sea to a undisclosed launch site in the Atlantic Ocean. Once again, Kirk McGarvey is the only man in the position to stop them--the only man capable of knocking out Allah's Scorpion.From Publishers WeeklyAt the vivid start of Hagberg's latest thriller to feature former CIA director Kirk McGarvey, al-Qaeda terrorists attack Camp Echo—the part of the U.S. base at Guantánamo where detainees deemed to be harmless are held while their release is arranged—and help some of these prisoners escape. It appears that Osama bin Laden is putting together a crew of naval experts to pull off an attack on a seaport on America's West Coast that will dwarf even the horrors of 9/11. As McGarvey, who comes out of retirement, and a tough, sexy Cuban-born CIA agent, Gloria Ibenez, prepare to fight off what al-Qaeda has code-named Allah's Scorpion, Hagberg (Soldier of God) once again displays his wide and deep inside knowledge of intelligence and military tradecraft—including details of how Osama and his men hide from American spy satellites. Too many tongue-twisting names of weapons and equipment might slow down the action for some readers, but the full thrust of the narrative soon takes on a life of its own. (Jan.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From BooklistWhen the U.S. discovers that a series of apparently unrelated terrorist activities may be connected by a mysterious code phrase, "Allah's Scorpion," former CIA director Kirk McGarvey is called back into action. Soon he is hot on the trail of a couple of hijacked nuclear missiles that could fuel a terrorist strike on U.S. soil bigger than 9/11. Hagberg's muscular thriller moves too fast for such subtleties as elegant dialogue or stylish narrative, but what it lacks in finesse it makes up for in sheer, breathless enthusiasm. Fans of the author's slick international thrillers (The Kill Zone, 2002) will find no surprises here, but they probably aren't looking for any. David PittCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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J.M. Barrie and the Lost Boys

J.M. Barrie, novelist, playwright, and author of "Peter Pan or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up", led a life almost as magical and interesting as his famous creation. Childless in his marriage, Barrie grew close to the five young boys of the Llewelyn Davies family, ultimately becoming their guardian and devoted surrogate father when they were orphaned. Andrew Birkin draws extensively on a vast range of material by and about Barrie, including notebooks, memoirs, and hours of recorded interviews with the Llewelyn Davies family and their circle, to describe Barrie's life and the wonderful world he created for the boys. Originally published in 1979, this illustrated account is reissued with a new preface to mark the release of "Neverland", the film of Barrie's life, and the centenary of "Peter Pan".
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Troublemakers

In three years I will be able to vote and I will still have less power than I did at the moment that I saw that email, which was such a tiny thing but look what happened.Fifteen-year-old Alena never really knew her political activist mother, who died when she was a baby. She has grown up with her older half-brother Danny and his boyfriend Nick in the east end of London. Now the area is threatened by a bomber who has been leaving explosive devices in supermarkets. It is only a matter of time before a bomb goes off. Against this increasingly fearful backdrop, Alena seeks to discover more about her past, while Danny takes a job working for a controversial politician. As her family life implodes, and the threat to Londoners mounts, Alena starts getting into trouble. Then she does something truly rebellious.A searing, heartbreaking coming-of-age tale for fans of Lisa Williamson, Jenny Downham and Sarah Crossan.
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Run Away Home

Samantha can't wait for the holiday break from school. But there's no time to relax: Brynna's baby is due any day; the local authorities are gathering more mustangs from the range; and her best friend Jen's ranch is in upheaval–its owner, Linc Slocum, has just been arrested, and no one is sure what will happen to Jen and her family. But then, disaster strikes: A terrible blizzard traps the Phantom Stallion's band. Sam has to help them, but she's terrified they'll be captured. Can she save her beloved mustangs and keep them free–for good?
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You Can't Read This

Wherever people can read, there are stories about the magic, mystery, and power of what they read. Val Ross presents a history of reading that is, in fact, the story of the monumental, on-going struggle to read. From Enheduanna, daughter of Sargon the Great, the world's oldest signed author to Empress Shotoku of Japan who in 764 ordered the printing of one million Buddhist prayers; from the story of Hulagu, Ghengis Khan's nasty brother who destroyed the library of Baghdad to Bowdler and the censorship of Shakespeare, there have been barriers to reading ranging from the physical to the economical, social, and political.Written for children ages ten and up, You Can't Read This explores the development of alphabets, the decoding of ancient languages, and censorship in Ancient Rome and modern America. It's about secret writing, trashed libraries, writers on the run, writers in hiding, books that are thought to have magical powers and mistranslations that started...
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