Clayton Byrd Goes Underground

5 Starred Reviews!"This slim novel strikes a strong chord"—Publishers Weekly (starred review)"This complex tale of family and forgiveness has heart." —School Library Journal (starred review)"Strong characterizations and vivid musical scenes add layers to this warm family story." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)"An appealing, realistic story with frequent elegant turns of phrase." —The Horn Book (starred review)"Garcia-Williams skillfully finds melody in words." —Booklist (starred review)From beloved Newbery Honor winner and three-time Coretta Scott King Award winner Rita Williams-Garcia comes a powerful and heartfelt novel about loss, family, and love that will appeal to fans of Jason Reynolds and Kwame Alexander. Clayton feels most alive when he's with his grandfather, Cool Papa Byrd, and the band...
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Things Bright and Beautiful

When Bea Hanlon follows her preacher husband Max to a remote island in the Pacific, she soon sees that their mission will bring anything but salvation...Advent Island is a place beyond the reaches of Bea's most fitful imaginings. It's not just the rats and the hordes of mosquitos and the weevils in the powdered milk. Past the confines of their stuffy little house, amidst the damp and the dust and the sweltering heat, rumours are spreading of devil chasers who roam the island on the hunt for evil spirits. And then there are the noises from the church at night.Yet, to the amusement of the locals and the bafflement of her husband, Bea gradually adapts to life on the island. But with the dreadful events heralded by the arrival of an unexpected, wildly irritating and always-humming house guest, Advent Island becomes a hostile place once again. And before long, trapped in the jungle and in the growing fever of her husband's insanity, Bea finds herself fighting...
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Best Food Writing 2011

The twelfth annual edition of this classic food writing anthology—an "excellent collection" that evokes "respect for and fascination with eating."—Publishers Weekly
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The element -inth in Greek

In a small holiday village on the coast of Crete, Ingrid Laurie is researching a biography of the neglected linguist Alice Kober, who laid the basis for the decipherment of the ancient Cretan script Linear B, but died too young to reap the rewards of her work. While Ingrid struggles to decipher the life of the enigmatic scholar, on the outskirts of the village local policeman Yiannis Stephanoudakis discovers a bizarre naked corpse covered in honey and dead bees. When their paths cross in the course of the investigation erotic sparks fly. Mingling detective fiction and biography, modern romance and prehistoric marriage ritual, Alison Fell probes the mysteries of love and language in this intricately-crafted, luminous novel
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The Vengeance of Mothers

The stunning sequel to the award-winning novel One Thousand White Women.9 March 1876My name is Meggie Kelly and I take up this pencil with my twin sister, Susie. We have nothing left, less than nothing. The village of our People has been destroyed, all our possessions burned, our friends butchered by the soldiers, our baby daughters gone, frozen to death on an ungodly trek across these rocky mountains. Empty of human feeling, half-dead ourselves, all that remains of us intact are hearts turned to stone. We curse the U.S. government, we curse the Army, we curse the savagery of mankind, white and Indian alike. We curse God in his heaven. Do not underestimate the power of a mother's vengeance...So begins the Journal of Margaret Kelly, a woman who participated in the U.S. government's "Brides for Indians" program in 1873, a program whose conceit was that the way to peace between the United States and the Cheyenne Nation was...
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Venetia Kelly's Traveling Show

"She sprang from the womb and waved to the crowd. Then smiled and took a bow." And so we first meet Venetia Kelly, the beguiling actress at the center of this new, spellbinding, and epic novel by Frank Delaney, the bestselling author of Ireland and Shannon. January 1932: While Ireland roils in the run-up to the most important national election in the Republic's short history, Ben MacCarthy and his father watch a vagabond variety revue making a stop in the Irish countryside. After a two-hour kaleidoscope of low comedy, Shakespearean recitations, juggling, tumbling, and other entertainments, Ben's father, mesmerized by Venetia Kelly, the troupe's magnetic headliner, makes a fateful decision: to abandon his family and set off on the road with Miss Kelly and her caravan. Ben's mother, shattered by the desertion, exhorts, "Find him and bring him back," thereby sending the boy on a Homeric voyage into manhood, a quest that traverses the churning currents of Ireland's fractious society and splinters the MacCarthy family. Interweaving historical figures including W. B. Yeats, and a host of unforgettable creations--"King" Kelly, Venetia's violent, Mephistophelean grandfather; Sarah Kelly, Venetia's mysterious, amoral mother; and even a truth-telling ventriloquist's dummy named Blarney--Frank Delaney unfurls a splendid narrative that spans half the world and a tumultuous, eventful decade. Teeming with intrigue, pathos, and humor, Venetia Kelly's Traveling Show explores two of Ireland's great national passions: theater and politics. Writing with his signature mastery and lyrical prose, Frank Delaney once again delivers an unforgettable story as big and boisterous as the people and events it chronicles.
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Big Rock and the Masked Avenger

A total troll smack-down wrestle-fest. Just don't get in the way...Jack knows every wrestling move there is to know, and his dreams come true when he's recruited as a training assistant to Waldo's Wrestling Trolls. Little does Jack know that he's actually part troll, and that when his new family is in trouble he morphs into the terrifying Thud! He'll have to rescue princesses that don't need rescuing, avoid ambushes by goblins and build a team of Wrestling Trolls to take on Lord Veto's evil orcs in a battle for the tournament money. With eight full-colour pages of extra activities included.ABOUT THE AUTHORJim Eldridge was born in London in 1944, and after leaving school at the age of sixteen, worked in a variety of jobs, including a stoker at a blast furnace, on a production line and as a transport manager before going to teacher training college. Jim taught in a variety of schools, both primary and secondary, working particularly with children with reading...
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Just as I Am

In this romantic 19th century-set short fiction follow-up to What Once Was Lost, while setting the stage for Sawyer's next novel, Echoes of Mercy, a young woman must let go of past rejections to find hope in the meaningful future God wants for her.Daisy Forrester has been raised in Brambleville, Kansas at Dunnigan's Orphan Asylum by Levi and Christina Jonnson. As she has watched younger, more appealing orphans come and go on to new families, Daisy has spent years becoming a valued helper for Ma and Pa Jonnson, as the orphans call them. However, she is coming up on her sixteenth birthday, and it will soon be time for her to make her own way in the world.  Nervous about leaving the farm, she turns to the one connection she has out in the world--Robby, a friend who left the asylum before her and is now employed in Sinclair, Kansas at Dinsmore's World Famous Chocolate Factory. Daisy heads for the safe harbor that is his friendship, but the outside world doesn't offer the friendly welcome  that Daisy dreams of and Robby faces unique challenges of his own in the form of an eager co-worker bent on sending Daisy back to Brambleville.  Can Daisy look beyond her own insecurities to embrace a young man with great affection for her, and a God who calls her 'beloved'--just as she is?
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Ben H. Winters

What's the point of solving murders if we're all going to die soon, anyway? Hank Palace, a homicide detective in Concord, New Hampshire, asks this question every day. Most people have stopped doing whatever it is they did before the asteroid 2011L47J hovered into view. Stopped selling real estate; stopped working at hospitals; stopped slinging hash or driving cabs or trading high-yield securities. A lot of folks spend their days on bended knee, praying to Jesus or Allah or whoever they think might save them. Others have gone the other way, roaming the streets, enjoying what pleasures they can before the grand finale. Government services are beginning to slip into disarray, crops are left to rot. When it first appeared, 2011L47J was just a speck, somewhere beyond Jupiter's orbit. By mid-October it revealed itself to be seven kilometers in diameter, and on a crash course with the Earth. Now it's March, and sometime in September, 2011L47J will slam into our planet and kill half the population immediately, and most of the rest in the miserable decades that follow.All of humanity now, every person in the world--we're like a bunch of little kids, in deep, deep trouble, just waiting till our dad gets home. So what do I do while I wait? I work. Today, Hank Palace is working the case of Peter Zell, an insurance man who has comitted suicide. To his fellow police officers, it's just one more death-by-hanging in a city that sees a dozen of suicides every week. But Palace senses something wrong. There's something odd about the crime scene. Something off. Palace becomes convinced that it's murder. And he's the only one who cares.What's the difference, Palace? We're all gonna die soon, anyway.As Palace digs deeper, we are drawn into his world. We meet his sister Nico and her screwup boyfriend, Derek, who are trying to beam S.O.S messages into outer space; we meet Erik Littlejohn, a "spiritual advisor" helping his clients through these difficult times. Palace's investigation plays out under the long shadow of 2011L47J, forcing everyone in the book -- and those reading it-- to confront hard questions way beyond "whodunnit." What basis does civilization rest upon? What is life worth? What would any of us do, what would we really do, if our days were numbered?
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Christmastime 1940: A Love Story

An uplifting and romantic Christmas story full of old-fashioned charm. A tale of transformation involving a struggling single mother who is trying to make a fresh start in life and a man who has lost his connection to humanity.
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Buscadero

Johnny Montana was tall and dark, and sport a thin, neatly trimmed mustache and he had midnight black eyes. He was particular about his person; he shaved regular and put rosewater in his hair and preferred clean shirts when he could get them...Johnny Montana was the kind of man who made things happen."You planning on sticking around these parts for the rest of your days?" That question completely changed Katie Swensen's life....She knew in an instant that her answer would be 'no' if Johnny Montana was asking her to go away with him. They left in the late hours of a warm evening, her daddy snoring in the other room. Johnny Montana was the handsomest man she'd ever met. It wasn't until a few days later that she learned he was also a gambler, a road agent and a killer.Henry Dollar was a man that knew horses and knew how to ride them, and he knew guns and how to use them. He'd been tested by gunfire in the sixteen years he'd spent with the D Company of the Texas Rangers....
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