The Aldens are exploring an old house in Michigan. When they arrive at the mansion, they can't wait to start looking through all the rooms. They find an old diary that tells that a diamond and pearl ring is hidden in the house.

A great king faces the ultimate challenge: a dangerous quest through realms of magic and the undead toward a confrontation with his destiny Drought, plague, and war have left the Isle of the Mighty battered and its heart, the beloved Arthur, grievously injured—until a secret relic is brought before the dying King; a Holy Grail that heals his wounds and restores his vigor. But soon evil enters the royal court in the guise of a beautiful maiden; a soulless, malevolent force capable of seducing the King’s loyal champion, confounding the sage whom some call Merlin, and carrying the sacred Grail—and Arthur’s adored Queen—off into the dark unknown. GRAIL “Suspenseful . . . soulful, philosophical . . . engagingly drawn . . . Arthurian Britain is invoked with robust verisimilitude.” –Publishers Weekly

On a shimmeringly hot Sunday in May, the Delaneys opened their pool to all the village for charity. Louise was there, so were her daughters Amelia and Katie - and so, glaring at her resentfully, was her estranged husband Barnaby. This was supposed to be his day with the girls. But Louise ignored his angry glowers - it wasn't her fault they'd wanted to come swimming with her, was it? While the children splashed and shrieked in the cool, blue waters, she lay blissfully back in the sun and dreamed of Cassian, the charismatic new lawyer in her life. The day seemed perfect. But suddenly the perfect day was shattered, as tragedy struck. And the consequences of a terrible accident developed into a drama of recriminations, jealousy and legal power-play, in which Louise found herself pulled in three directions all at once. Friendships crumbled, the village was split, and the needs of a child became secondary to the dangerous contest in which the grown-ups were engaged.

In South Florida, everyone wants to get a head. But not just any head. A very famous human head--severed and snugged away in a cryonic container. A head that could spark a revolution and change the course of history. Everybody wants a piece of the noggin: rotund gangster Big Joey G., a 102-year-old environmentalist, hard-boiled Miami reporter Britt Montero, lawyer Jake Lassiter, and a would-be dictator in exile--with ex-president Jimmy Carter and a lovable manatee named Booger thrown in for good measure. With bodies piling up it's anybody's guess what will happen from one chapter to the next, as an all-star line-up of Florida's finest writers take turns at taking this outrageously original novel to the limit--and beyond.

Now that she is setting into eighth grade, the class she used to envy, Alice discovers it isn't as exciting as she thought. She's tired of being the same old Alice, and longs to be a bit outrageous. Instead, she finds herself in situations that are more embarrassing than they are thrilling. She likes dressing up as a showgirl for Halloween, but hasn't counted on what happens in the broom closet at school. And she's delighted to be a bridesmaid, but feels awkward at the bridal shower. Even Patrick begins to seem childish to her. Elizabeth and Pamela, however, her two best friends, feel that life is changing too much for them. Elizabeth finds that a new a boy at school is attracted to her, while Pamela faces a serious problem at home. Lester, too, Alice's brother, can't quite believe he's losing his old girlfriend, Crystal. When Alice dials Miss Summers, however, the woman her father loves, there is always the hope that this time she will get the mother she has always wanted.

As part of their science fair project, Bobby Gianelli and his group are studying a mouse named Harriet, but their project is threatened when Harriet suddenly vanishes, until the mouse turns up with her nine new babies.

The second volume of Doris Lessing's extraordinary autobiography covers the years 1949-62, from her arrival in war-weary London with her son, Peter, and the manuscript for her first novel, The Grass is Singing, under her arm to the publication of her most famous work of fiction, The Golden Notebook. She describes how communism dominated the intellectual life of the 1950s and how she, like nearly all communists, became disillusioned with extreme and rhetorical politics and left communism behind. Evoking the bohemian days of a young writer and single mother, Lessing speaks openly about her writing process, her friends and lovers, her involvement in the theater, and her political activities. Walking in the Shade is an invaluable social history as well as Doris Lessing's Sentimental Education.

Following the runaway success of his first nonfiction book, The Sea Hunters, Clive Cussler returns with his legendary fictional hero Dirk Pitt" - in a masterfully crafted tale of villainy on the high seas and the Mississippi River that can only enhance his status as the grand master of adventure fiction. The coin of the realm for the wealthy, insatiably greedy Chinese smuggler who is Dirk Pitt's adversary in Flood Tide is human lives: much of his vast fortune has been made smuggling Chinese immigrants into countries around the globe, including the United States. Tracking the smuggler's activities leads Pitt from Washington State to Louisiana, where his quarry is constructing a huge shipping port in the middle of nowhere. Why has he chosen this unlikely location? The trail then leads to the race to find the site of the mysterious sinking of the ship that Chiang Kai-shek filled with treasure when he fled China in 1949, including the legendary boxes containing the bones of Peking Man that had vanished at the beginning of World War 1. As Pitt prepares for a final showdown, he is faced with the most formidable foe he has ever encountered. With a dozen consecutive New York Times bestsellers and over 70 million copies of his books in print, Clive Cussler is one of America's most popular novelists. His latest book is enthralling, intricately plotted, and supremely suspenseful.

Not every fallen angel comes from heaven... The ancient menace has finally escaped from Lalonde, shattering the Confederation's peaceful existence. Those who succumbed to it have acquired godlike powers, but now follow a far from divine gospel as they advance inexorably from world to world. On planets and asteroids, individuals battle for survival against the strange and brutal forces unleashed upon the universe. Governments teeter on the brink of anarchy, the Conferderation Navy is dangerously over-stretched, and a dark messiah prepares to invoke his own version of the final Night. In such desperate times the last thing the galaxy needs is a new and terrifyingly powerful weapon. Yet Dr Alkad Mzu is determined to retrieve the Alchemist - so she can complete her thirty-year vendetta to slay a star. Which means Joshua Calvert has to find Dr. Mzu and bring her back before the alchemist can be reactivated. But he's not alone in the chase, and there are people on both sides who have their own ideas about how to use the ultimate doomsday device.

School is always fun in Ms.Colman's class!

Derek Masters, child star and friend of the BSC, is about to board a special "mystery train" publicizing his latest movie...and he wants a bunch of his Stoneybrook friends, including three baby-sitters, to join him! It sounds like a blast, but problems appear before the train even leaves the station. Someone seems determined to ruin the trip - no matter what. Good thing the BSC is on the case, because this is turning into one dangerous ride!

The guide of choice for anyone who plans to die someday--are YOU ready for the AFTERLIFE? To find out, take this simple quiz: 1.  Like Earth, the Afterlife has celebrities, outcasts, deadheads, losers, and busybodies.   True False 2.  Is there an Afterlife after the Afterlife? Yes No 3.  When you first arrive on "the Other Side," you will be given: a) a set of wings b) a toaster c) a copy of A Newcomer's Guide to the Afterlife Don't worry if you're not sure how to respond. A Newcomer's Guide to the Afterlife has answers to these questions and more--and if you're lucky, some of them may turn out to be right! An irreverent, one-of-a-kind compendium from the award-winning author of Ishmael, A Newcomer's Guide to the Afterlife can be read as a parable, an allegory, a work of fiction--or exactly what it claims to be: a helpful handbook for the recently deceased.  It is filled with uncommon wisdom, bizarre imaginings, uncanny perceptions, and unexpected humor.  Is it fantastic escapism or a seminal event in human history? Read it and find out.... Face it.  The Afterlife is the ultimate test.  You might as well study. From the Trade Paperback edition.

This year, as in other years, Lily has planned a spectacular summer in Rockaway, in her family's cozy house on stilts over the Atlantic Ocean. But by the summer of 1944, World War II has changed almost everyone's life. Lily's best friend, Margaret, and her family have moved to a wartime factory town, and worse, much worse, Lily's father is on his way overseas to the war. There's no one else Lily's age in Rockaway until Albert comes, a refugee from Hungary, a boy with a secret sewn into his coat. Albert has lost most of his family in the war; he's been through things Lily can't imagine. But when they join together to rescue and care for a kitten, they begin a special friendship. For Lily and Albert have their own secrets to share: they both have told lies, and Lily has told a lie that may cost Albert his life. From the Hardcover edition.

In the final book of the Fault Lines Trilogy, the race is on to resurrect the murdered Fisher King of the American West and save the life of his successor from supernatural enemies Scott Crane, the Fisher King of the American West, is dead, killed by a possessed Janis Cordelia Plumtree. Crane’s lifeless but uncorrupted body now lies in state at the Solville apartment complex, protected from spirits and dark magic by powerful charms and watched over by Pete and Angelica Sullivan. The Sullivans’ adopted son, Koot Hoomie, is Crane’s most likely successor. But Koot is only thirteen years old, and unprepared to assume the magical role for which he is destined. The most advantageous path would be to revive the dead king, but that will require the cooperation of the young woman who killed him, and the aid of a newly widowed winemaker touched by the god Dionysus. And with the evil supernatural opposition massing powerfully all around them, continued death seems far more likely than Crane’s resurrection. Earthquake Weather concludes the astonishing Fault Lines Trilogy, which also includes Expiration Date and *Last Call. *

"Rumors had been whispered for more than a year. Outrages that had been accumulating all along took shape as evidence. A mother was knocked down the stairs by her cold-eyed daughter. Four damaged infants were born in one family. Daughters refused to get out of bed. Brides disappeared on their honeymoons. Two brothers shot each other on New Year's Day. Trips to Demby for VD shots common. And what went on at the Oven these days was not to be believed . . . The proof they had been collecting since the terrible discovery in the spring could not be denied: the one thing that connected all these catastrophes was in the Convent. And in the Convent were those women." In Paradise--her first novel since she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature--Toni Morrison gives us a bravura performance. As the book begins deep in Oklahoma early one morning in 1976, nine men from Ruby (pop. 360), in defense of "the one all-black town worth the pain," assault the nearby Convent and the women in it. From the town's ancestral origins in 1890 to the fateful day of the assault, Paradise tells the story of a people ever mindful of the relationship between their spectacular history and a void "Out There . . . where random and organized evil erupted when and where it chose." Richly imagined and elegantly composed, Paradise weaves a powerful mystery.