Retired Virginia obstetrician John Livesey, recently widowed and discouraged by the world's crumbling morals, meets a man who has just performed an unnecessary cesarean section on his wife so as to be the one to deliver their child. Though initially appalled by the act. Livesey finds himself recalling it later when he learns a friend is dying of cancer, when his affair with a younger woman ends in disillusionment, and when, during an extended visit to his son and his family in Oregon, he realizes his daughter-in-law's unborn baby does not belong to her husband. Coming to admire the calm directness with which the man took matters of life and death into his own hands, Livesey begins to reconsider what he values and what he will protect.

Young fans of Star Wars and silliness will toad-ally love Commander Toad! The Star Warts is on a dangerous mission to an intergalactic spy convention, to find Agent 007½. Not only is he Space Fleet's greatest spy and a master of disguise, but he is also Commander Toad's cousin, Tip Toad. It's essential that no other spy see Agent 007½ without his disguise. Will Commander Toad be able to recognize his cousin in time?.

During one of her blackouts, Charity McAdams Farnese walks into a downtown bar named Duo's and into the life of Joe Doyle, second-rate piano player and a man with a bum heart. Yancy the bartender knows that she's trouble, a rich girl with an itch, but Joe won't listen. All he knows is that Charity wants to love him. But Charity has a husband Oliver Alton Farnese. Oliver is a creature of habit and allows Charity her flings. But when this fling turns serious, Oliver has his own way of dealing with the situation.

Frank Cotton's insatiable appetite for the dark pleasures of pain led him to the puzzle of Lemarchand's box, and from there, to a death only a sick-minded soul could invent. But his brother's love-crazed wife, Julia, has discovered a way to bring Frank back — though the price will be bloody and terrible . . . and there will certainly be hell to pay.

When penniless young widow Diana Pentland befriended a rich and terrified girl who was about to bear a child out of wedlock, she never dreamed this small act of kindness would change her life. It was arranged that she should adopt the child, promising never to reveal the truth. Diana was content with motherhood.New romance and marriage were far from her mind until she accepted an invitation to Brandham Castle, where she witnessed the astonishing resemblance between her son and the arrogant young heir to Brandham. Nor was this the only surprise. Something else was waiting for her. Love... and a stranger who would no longer be a stranger.

Poised between empires, the people of Nuala are survivors. They have fought the deadly radiation levels of their world, battling frightening mutations and genetic shift. An Axis Empire soldier is about to marry a Nualan princess. But there are those who would kill to keep an Axis warrior from marrying a Nualan . . . and those who think it's the perfect smoke screen to keep anyone from noticing where the border is about to shift. Nuala means survival. Survival against all odds, all enemies, all fortune. They're going to have to prove it.

In a classic contemporary romance from bestselling author Emilie Richards, a small town English teacher, certain the boy she loved seventeen years ago has forgotten her, learns that she couldn't be more wrong. The man returns, and he remembers her well.Elise Ramsey has made peace with her quiet life. She's a beloved high school English teacher in Miracle Springs, Florida, where the only genuine miracle is that nothing ever changes. Caring for a self-centered mother, Elise hasn't had time or inclination to change, either. Her one chance to break free came when her teenage lover, Sloane Tyson, begged her to leave town after their high school graduation. When she refused, Sloane never looked back.Now Elise's mother has died and the tie that bound her to the small town is severed. Before she can consider a different future, the past returns. Sloane moves back to town for one year, bringing Clay, the son he's only just discovered. Sloane and Clay need their own miracle, a chance to...

HE IS A MAN POSSESSED—BY A WOMAN WHOSE BEAUTY DRIVES MEN TO MADNESS. If there was ever a devil who could lure and seduce the innocent, Lord Sloan Treveryan is that man. Captain of the Sea Hawk and bound to the king’s business, Treveryan may be a lord but he is no gentleman. Yet even he cannot ignore a lady in distress—or the temptation she provides. Bewitched by Brianna MacCardle’s beauty, Scottish inquisitors have called her the devil’s own. Though Treveryan saves her from the witch-hunter’s clutches, how can she be grateful? He has carried Brianna off to America, claimed her, and taken her innocence. She vows that he will never capture her heart. But against her will she begins to fall in love—while swearing to reap revenge against the arrogant lord who has made her the devil’s mistress.

Originally published in 1986 in the Vintage Contemporaries paperback series—and reissued now in hardcover alongside his masterful new novel, Empire Falls—Richard Russo’s Mohawk remains today as it was described then: A first novel with all the assurance of a mature writer at the peak of form and ambition, Mohawk is set in upstate New York and chronicles over a dozen lives in a leather town, long after the tanneries have started closing down. Ranging over three generations—and clustered mainly in two clans, the Grouses and the Gaffneys—these remarkably various lives share only the common human dilemmas and the awesome physical and emotional presence of Mohawk itself. For this is a town like Winesburg, Ohio or Our Town, in our time, that encompasses a plethora of characters, events and mysteries. At once honestly tragic and sharply, genuinely funny, Mohawk captures life, then affirms it. From the Hardcover edition.

Aldric too was an honourable man, not only as the Albans defined the word, but also as the Prokrator himself regarded it. That made him deadly dangerous, a whetted blade poised and ready to fall. But where? On his captors? Or on the king who had betrayed him? In the service of the crook-shouldered King Rynert, Aldric has been dishonoured and sold into the Drusalan Empire in an example of Machiavellian statecraft. Here in the hated Empire, he lies at the mercy of those who have loathed him and all he stands for, for generations. But Aldric is a High-Clan Lord, skilled in the art of the sword, a scholar and an expert in Art Matic, a warrior who has seen the best and seen the worst. And even in the Drusalan Empire there are allies which include Ymareth, The Dragon. The Dragon Lord is a gripping epic fantasy adventure from renowned author Peter Morwood. It is the third of the Book of Years Series. Praise for Peter Morwood: " The Dragon Lord involves shifting alliances and betrayals centred on an elaborate Code of Honour...Morwood works up a tense and exciting atmosphere." White Dwarf "Full of rich descriptive passages, a fast-flowing storyline and an exciting plot that makes it hard to put the book down until you reach the last page." Belfast Telegraph "A tale heavy with menace and brilliantly thought out." Liverpool Daily Post** Peter Morwood is primarily a fantasy novelist and screenwriter, though he has also written works of science fiction. His best-known works include the Horse Lords series (in two sequences) and the Tales of Old Russia series. His other works with Venture Press include Widowmaker, Greylady , and Prince Ivan.

A classic Christmas tale from the bestselling Queen of Suspense At the heart of the novel are two of Mary Higgins Clark's most loved characters: Alvirah, the lottery winner turned amateur sleuth, and her husband, Willy, who are caught up in a Christmas mystery that calls on all of their skills and experience. Willy has been looking forward to playing Santa at the after-school centre recently set up to care for the children of working parents on New York's Upper West Side, and Alvirah has been busy with rehearsals for the Christmas pageant. But suddenly a shadow falls upon the Christmas cheer. The centre is threatened with closure, a substitute promised for the play is mysteriously withdrawn, a valuable chalice is stolen from a neighborhood church, and a desperate young woman turns up, begging for Alvirah's help in finding the baby she abandoned seven years earlier. In a final blow, the young girl who is to play Mary in the Christmas pageant disappears… A missing child. A stolen chalice. A desperate mother. Can Alvirah reach the truth in time for Christmas?

Here between two covers you will find an inexhaustible source of delight for children and adults alike: the world's best folktales, chosen by the internationally known storyteller Jane Yolen. Over 150 tales are compiled from Iceland to Syria, Cuba to Papua. Part of the Pantheon Fairy Tale and Folklore Library

A mysterious house harbors an unimaginable secret. . . . It’s wartime, and the Carver family decides to leave the capital where they live and move to a small coastal village where they’ve recently bought a home. But from the minute they cross the threshold, strange things begin to happen. In that mysterious house there still lurks the spirit of Jacob, the previous owners’ son, who died by drowning. With the help of their new friend Roland, Max and Alicia Carver begin to explore the suspicious circumstances of that death and discover the existence of a mysterious being called The Prince of Mist—a diabolical character who has returned from the shadows to collect on a debt from the past. Soon the three friends find themselves caught up in an adventure of sunken ships and an enchanted stone garden, which will change their lives forever.

The only novel written by the legendary songwriter and performer, Johnny Cash."When [The Man in White] was first published several years ago, my wife and I both read it—then read it again!" —Billy GrahamJohnny Cash. The Apostle Paul.Two legendary men. Two thousand years apart-yet remarkably similar.Both struggled with a "thorn in the flesh." And both had powerful visions from God.Paul's encounter with the Man in White knocked him to the ground and struck him blind. It also turned him into one of the most influential men in history.Johnny Cash's vision was of another man entirely-his recently deceased father-a vision that helped spark his imagination to write this historical novel about the amazing life of the intriguing figure with whom Cash identified so deeply-the Apostle Paul.See Paul as you've never seen him before—through the creative imagination of one of...