Morton Martin Spell -- a once-brilliant, now-infirm seventy-five-year-old writer -- is sliding into delirium. He thinks Mount Sinai Hospital is an exclusive golf course and his catheter is a gym bag. His only link to reality is his thirty-five-year-old nephew, who makes his living as a hired gun for thirteen softball teams and still goes by the name College Boy.But College Boy's body has begun to betray him -- almost as much as his lack of ambition. (His only legitimate paycheck comes from a gig as a laugher on a morning radio show.) Not only that, the Dirt King, a small-time gangster who controls all the replacement soil in Central Park, is after College Boy. As their lives collide, College Boy takes refuge in the arms of Sheila -- his uncle's cleaning woman and a part-time call girl.And then it gets weird.

Captain Marcus James is a tall, sun-bronzed, fierce-fighting Pirate King. He and the notorious crew of the Scarlet Night are both feared and respected for their ruthless reputation. The Captain's only love is the open sea and the ship he calls home. When it comes to women, he has three rules: never sleep with another's wife, don't take virgins into bed, and most importantly, never bring a woman aboard--that brings the worst luck of all. Annalise Gatherone has to leave London--tonight! Usually her only concern is the color of her latest gown, but now she's choosing between life and death. Desperate to escape the clutches of an evil Duke, she stows away aboard the Scarlet Night, hoping she's bound for Port St. Maria. Winning Captain James' affections, she just might sneak by unharmed. But when her plans are altered in ways she never imagined, she must batten down the hatches for a journey into unknown waters...

Callum, the Earl of Aycliff, is not a man to easily give up and he’ll use that relentless drive to find Elizabeth. He’s vowed never to give up on finding her, and it’s the one vow he’ll never break.

In the carefully ordered world of seventeenth-century Japan, the Yoshiwara pleasure quarter is a place where men of all classes can drink, revel, and enjoy the favors of beautiful courtesans. But on a cold winter's dawn, Sano Ichiro--the shogun's Most Honorable Investigator of Events, Situations, and People--must visit Yoshiwara on a most unpleasant mission. Within a house of assignation reserved for the wealthiest, most prominent men, a terrible murder has occurred. In a room that reeks of liquor and sex, the shogun's cousin and heir, Lord Mitsuyoshi, lies dead, a flowered hairpin embedded in his eye, in the bed of the famous courtesan, Lady Wisteria. The shogun demands quick justice, but Sano's path is blocked by many obstacles, including the disappearance of Wisteria and her pillow book, a diary that may contain clues. The politics of court life, the whims of the shogun, and interference by his long time rival, Edo's Chief Police Commissioner Hoshina,...

The Adventure and Romance of the America, her people, her spirit, and the West. This is our story.Uncompahgre-where water turns rock red is the third book of the #1 bestselling, Threads West, An American Saga series, recipient of fifteen National Awards—Best Historical Fiction, Best Romance and Best Western! Compared by reviewers, authors and readers alike to Lonesome Dove, Centennial, and L'Amour. Called by some the "Gone with the Wind of the West," and applauded by others as "rings true and poignant, as authentic and moving as Dances with Wolves."In Uncompahgre, the time nears when the first of the next generation of Threads West characters will be born of the brave men and courageous women who have come so far and risked all. The men and women of the saga, having reached their initial destination, pre-Denver, Cherry Creek, are each faced with life-altering decisions. Some must decide to pursue or abandon torrid love affairs that have flowered on the dangerous journey from...

If she reveals herself, she will lose him. If she doesn’t, he will be hanged. Bian has been ordered to become intimate with Stuart Sutherland-Bruce in order to find the proof that he is the spy everyone is convinced he is. Falling in love with him isn't part of her orders.

The hugely popular Sleepover Club series is back! Meet Frankie, Kenny, Fliss, Rosie and Lyndz – five best friends who just want to have fun! When Lyndz’s cat disappears, the Sleepover Club girls turn detective. In their search for the cat, Frankie ends up buying a kitten, without asking her parents. Will she be allowed to keep it, and will they ever track down Lyndz’s cat… As well as a great story this book has tips on how to have your own brilliant sleepover party for you and your friends. Pack up your sleepover kit and go undercover!

Matt Harper, a television and radio personality and a former professional soccer player, has just bought Elderholm, an old stone house in Leeds in the north of England. It's ideal for him, his partner Aileen, and her three children. Even the attic space seems just right -- the perfect place for a game room or a children's retreat. But as Matt and his decorator tour the property, they find something that will put the attic off-limits for a long time to come: a tiny child's skeleton that has clearly been there for years. What happened to the child, and how did its skeleton get into the attic?Detective Sergeant Charlie Peace and his forensic team think the child's remains have been in the attic for thirty years. Thirty years? Matt remembers that time. It was 1969 and he was seven years old. He was in the neighborhood, spending the summer with an aunt. That was the summer that Elderholm's owner left her house empty when she went to visit a daughter in Australia.What happened...

Shaw Sebring is sixteen and trying to understand his father's suicide. Moving with his mother halfway across the country to distance themselves from the awful truth, Shaw lands in a new school and finds that the ghost of his father, a best-selling author, has followed him. Shaw tries to chart his own course, until circumstances force him to accept that where—and who—we come from have an impact on what we become.

From one of the great novelists of our day, a vital, brilliant new book of essays, speeches and articles essential for our times. Step Across This Line showcases the other side of one of fiction's most astonishing conjurors. On display is Salman Rushdie's incisive, thoughtful and generous mind, in prose that is as entertaining as it is topical. The world is here, captured in pieces on a dazzling array of subjects: from New York's Amadou Diallo case to the Wizard of Oz, from U2 to fifty years of Indian writing, from a tribute to Angela Carter to the struggle to film Midnight's Children. The title essay was originally delivered at Yale as the 2002 Tanner lecture on human values, and examines the changing meaning of frontiers in the modern world -- moral and metaphorical frontiers as well as physical ones.The collection chronicles Rushdie's intellectual journeys, but it is also an intimate invitation into his life: he explores his relationship...

Readers love Miss Julia, the proper lady of a certain age with a backbone of iron and perfect Steel Magnolia poise, not to mention the sharpest tongue south of the Mason-Dixon Line. In Miss Julia Throws a Wedding, we find her feeling a little wistful when Hazel Marie, once her late husband's paramour and now her best friend, prepares to move out and live in sin with that marriage-shy Mr. Pickens. Suddenly, to Miss Julia's delight, a wedding is in the offing: Handsome Deputy Coleman Bates and attorney Binkie Enloe announce their plans to run down to the courthouse and tie the knot. But Miss Julia insists they have a real wedding ceremony and vows to make it happen. When a missing preacher, a crowd of uninvited guests, and a queasy bride threaten the happy event, Miss Julia is there to restore order, confirming her undying motto: if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself!