Winston Manor is “Monster Proof.” The eccentric old millionaire that owns it has spent loads of cash on the ultimate home defense system that repels every invader, no matter what species it may be. But is he, or Winston Manor, prepared for Judy Barnes?Tucked in an empty corner of the Great Plains lies Winston Manor, the “Monster Proof” home of one Mr. Winston, a rich old eccentric who believes in all sorts of scary monsters. He also believes they’re out to get him, which is why his spacious mansion has the ultimate home defense system. Nothing can get in because nothing can even reach the building.Judy Barnes is a young journalist who has managed to wrangle an interview from the old coot. She’s determined to find out just how monster proof Winston Manor really is for reasons that will quickly become apparent, but will it be too late for the old man to see what’s hiding below her Plain Jane appearance? Views: 457
Rita Farmer knows exactly how hard it is to break into the movie business. Acting was the big dream that brought her out to L.A. in the first place. And while she never made the red carpet, that big dream did turn into a modest profession that kept her and her son afloat. So from time to time she'll lend her talents as a favor.Kenner and Lance de Sauvenard, heirs to a timber fortune, don't really need a favor to make their art film, but since Lance is dating Rita's sister, Gina, there's no way for Rita to worm her way out of a read-through. Gina is all for the project—or at least her new boyfriend—and she goes with Lance to scout locations on his family's land holdings in the Northwest. When they don't return as planned and flood waters start to rise, Rita can't help dashing into the wilds to bring her sister home, and when foul play becomes more and more likely, her sometime lover, George Rowe, is right on her heels. Views: 457
Garen, a human prisoner, struggles to survive his brutal captivity at the hands of demons. Orlon Rin, an immortal lightwielder, along with his young disciple, Temin, journeys to the demonic world, The Nightlands, to put an end to the bloody invasions into The World of Light.Imprisoned in a literal world of demons, Garen, one of the few survivors of a slaughtered village, struggles to survive the cruelty of his demon captors and escape with his life and humanity intact, but when the opportunity presents itself, its cost is dire. Meanwhile, Orlon Rin, a master lightwielder with an immortal body set on hunting the demon responsible for the wave of blood and terror, descends into the demonic world known as The Nightlands accompanied only by his young disciple, Temin. Views: 456
A classic historical novel set in Austria in the 15th century, about the struggles of a saintly heroine and her twin sons. Views: 456
Antonia Fraser’s Perilous Question is a dazzling re-creation of the tempestuous two-year period in Britain’s history leading up to the passing of the Great Reform Bill in 1832, a narrative which at times reads like a political thriller.
The era, beginning with the accession of William IV, is evoked in the novels of Trollope and Thackeray, and described by the young Charles Dickens as a cub reporter. It is lit with notable characters. The reforming heroes are the Whig aristocrats led by Lord Grey, members of the richest and most landed cabinet in history yet determined to bring liberty, which would whittle away their own power, to the country. The all-too-conservative opposition was headed by the Duke of Wellington, supported by the intransigent Queen Adelaide, with hereditary memories of the French Revolution. Finally, there were revolutionaries, like William Cobbett, the author of Rural Rides, the radical tailor Francis Place, and Thomas Attwood of Birmingham, the charismatic orator. The contest often grew violent. There were urban riots put down by soldiers and agricultural riots led by the mythical Captain Swing.
The underlying grievance was the fate of the many disfranchised people. They were ignored by a medieval system of electoral representation that gave, for example, no votes to those who lived in the new industrial cities of Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, and Birmingham, while allocating two parliamentary representatives to a village long since fallen into the sea and, most notoriously, Old Sarum, a green mound in a field. Lord John Russell, a Whig minister, said long afterwards that it was the only period when he genuinely felt popular revolution threatened the country. The Duke of Wellington declared intractably in November 1830 that “The beginning of reform is the beginning of revolution.” So it seemed that disaster must fall on the British Parliament, or the monarchy, or both.
The question was: Could a rotten system reform itself in time? On June 7, 1832, the date of the extremely reluctant royal assent by William IV to the Great Reform Bill, it did. These events led to a total change in the way Britain was governed, and set the stage for its growth as the world’s most successful industrial power; admired, among other things, for its traditions of good governance—a two-year revolution that Antonia Fraser brings to vivid dramatic life. Views: 456
This third installment of the 30,000 B.C. Chronicles is a compilation of journal entries and voice transmissions created by survivors of a shipwrecked scientific expedition sent back 32,000 years in time. Gibraltar picks up the narratives roughly 18 months after The Team’s stealth trimaran splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean during a moist pause in a glacial age. Views: 456
A young girl, who is about to discover her destiny, turns sixteen years old right after the death of her parents. Depressed and alone, she unveils her fate, which she may not want any part of. This comes when her Guardian reveals that her blood is not human, but of an ancient race. She is a Pureblood Oceain, a protector of the oceans, the last of her kind, and her name is Holidee.A young girl, who is about to discover her destiny, turns sixteen years old right after the death of her parents. She is taken in by her unknown godmother, who is awkwardly dating her science teacher. Depressed and alone, she unveils her fate, which she may not want any part of. Holidee is told that she is of an ancient race of people from the ocean, who have special skills to help and protect the ocean from humans and natural disasters. When Crix, her godmother’s boyfriend, reveals his true identity as her Guardian and father’s best friend, she begins to doubt everything she had known in her life. Friendless and still grieving her parents’ death, Holidee sets out for the beach with her Guardian. She finds that she was oblivious to her parents' lives, her abilities, and most of her world. She discovers new friends in odd places and unravels the mysteries around her birth. This comes when her Guardian reveals that her blood is not human, but of an ancient race. She is a Pureblood Oceain, a protector of the oceans and all their inhabitants, and the last of her kind. Will she be able to endure the burdens of being an outcast? Can she strengthen her race and bring them out of the depths of solitude? Will she succeed in her destiny? Can a girl lead her people and become the Pureblood she was born to be? Views: 456
Mia's life had gone badly wrong after the loss of her husband and a betrayal that affects her career prospects and self respect. In the middle of one night she experiences a frightening and life-changing event that sees her life rewound to the previous year. But can she manage the challenges and dangers of this new strand of time and change the way her life turns out? When Mia slips through a crack in the fabric of time her life is not only rewound but she also faces opportunities and challenges that stretch her resilience and inventiveness to a level she has never before experienced. She has to find her feet in a strange and confusing existence where she dares trust nobody. All the rules she previously believe in seem to have changed. Mia realized she now has a chance to improve the things that went badly wrong in her original life in another strand of time, but this involves risks of a kind she has never encountered before. Her first object is to try and prove that she... Views: 456
Mankind flourishes in a distant future ruled by densely populated Cities. After the biggest arrest of his life, Detective Ben Reiner plays a dangerous game with a psychopathic cult member of the Cullers.Reiner soon discovers the truth of their plot, and faces an unspeakable choice. Aid in the Cullers' grisly work, or allow the world's last renewable resource to run out forever: the human soul.And you thought your boss was cold! At the age of 24, Deidre finds herself unemployed with few job skills and a growing pile of overdue bills. When a perky career counselor suggests an open housekeeping position, Deidre knows this could be her only chance for a decent job.She doesn't bother asking many questions...like what the career counselor meant when she said the employer had certain "peculiarities".Deidre is in for a very unpleasant surprise. Not only is her prospective boss a vampire, but he's also cranky, adamantly prefers the telegraph over the telephone and gets dangerous when his prune juice isn't delivered on time. Oh, and he also has a strong fondness for another kind of liquid refreshment, one that he prefers warm and fresh.In this hilarious and satirical short story (approx. 4,300 words), author J. Bennett takes on the wildly popular vampire mythology and gives it a certain grizzled spin. As Deidre will discover, not all vampires are eternally-young , virile romantics who effortlessly keep up with the times. Some of them delight in wearing bow-ties, continue to enthusiastically vote for Eisenhower in each election, and consider the television to be witch magic.Can Deidre make it as a vampire's housekeeper? To find out, she'll first have to survive the job interview! Views: 456
Scarred. Scared. Alone. Can sixteen-year-old Shawna Stone overcome her inner suffering and transcend the past? Shawna spent her first 16 years in Vegas, learning to handle anything from a Vegas hustle to skipping out on rent. Damaged, she's survived . When her mom abandons her with only a bus ticket, she ends up on a CA horse ranch with a grandmother she's never known. Can they heal each other?Scarred. Scared. Alone. Can sixteen-year-old Shawna Stone overcome her inner suffering and transcend the past? Shawna has spent the first sixteen years of her life in Las Vegas and learned to handle anything from a Las Vegas hustle to skipping out on the rent. Damaged inside and out, she's survived with a tough, hardened attitude. When her mother abandons her, with only a bus ticket and the name and number of stranger to call, this troubled , desperate teen finds herself on a California horse ranch with Kay Stone, the steely, youngish grandmother she's never known. Kay overwhelms Shawna with rules and daily barn chores, and Shawna baffles Kay with her foul-mouthed anger and shrugging indifference to everything--except the maltreated horse on the ranch next door. But it's worse than even Kay suspects: Shawna's driven to cut herself by Monster, that strange voice inside her head. Kay struggles to keep the ranch going and fears that unless she helps this girl, she could lose her last living family member.As this unlikely pair struggles to co-exist, will they overcome their suffering and transcend the past? Blurbs from authors:“Sliding on the Edge is the compelling, courageous chronicle of one girl—destined to be a no one—who fights back against her secret grief and pain and finds her life.” Judy Gregerson, author of Bad Girls Club“C. Lee McKenzie’s extraordinarily moving novel accomplishes a rare feat: It manages to be a coming -of-age story for both its troubled teen protagonist and the grandmother who takes her in. But Sliding on the Edge’s beating heart is Shawna Stone: a girl you can’t help rooting for, even when she doesn’t see much point in rooting for herself. Readers won’t likely forget her.”Dan Ehrenhaft, author of The Afterlife and Tell It to Naomi Views: 455
"Quitman" is a fantasy set in the middle of reality. The bar, the characters, the memories are real; the narrative is fiction. This story is about a journey backward in my life, to a place I thought was simpler and a place from where I could take a different path. Or so I thought.From outside, the bar was just as I remembered it.When I walked inside, I started a journey backward in my life, to a place I thought was simpler and a place from where I could take a different path. Or so I thought. It turned out to be a journey right back to where I ended up, but with new ways of looking at the adventure. "Quitman" is a fantasy set in the middle of reality. The bar, the characters, the memories are real; the narrative is fiction. This could be the start of a larger story.Or the ending. Views: 455
A heartfelt gift for every family, sure to be shared over and over each year.Eight-year-old Tess is convinced this is the year she will finally meet Santa and experience the "Christmas magic." She also wishes with all her heart that her best friend's ill father will recover. Tess's faith in the season results in a Christmas Eve so wondrous, so sparkling, readers won't be able to help but feel transformed. Like trimming the tree and "It's a Wonderful Life"; baking cookies and "White Christmas"; ON CHRISTMAS EVE is sure to bring new holiday magic to readers' lives. Views: 455
