The Phoenix and the Carpet By E. Nesbit - The Phoenix and the Carpet is a fantasy novel for children, written by E. Nesbit and first published in 1904. It is the second in a trilogy of novels that begins with Five Children and It (1902), and follows the adventures of the same five children: Cyril, Anthea, Robert, Jane and the Lamb. This middle volume of the trilogy that begins with Five Children and It and concludes with The Story of the Amulet, and deviates somewhat from the other two in that the Psammead is mentioned only briefly, and in this volume the five children live with both their parents in the family home in London. In both the other volumes, circumstances have forced the children to spend protracted periods away from their home and their father. A continuing theme throughout The Phoenix and the Carpet is the ancient element of fire. The story begins shortly before November 5, celebrated in Britain as Guy Fawkes Night. The four children have accumulated a small hoard of fireworks for the night, but they are too impatient to wait until November 5 to light them, so they set off a few samples in the nursery. This results in the fire that destroys the carpet. Their parents purchase a second-hand carpet which is found to contain an egg that emits a phosphorescent glow. The children accidentally knock this egg into the fire: it hatches, revealing a golden Phoenix who speaks perfect English.

Can a painting hold a secret safe in plain sight across seven centuries? The murder of the last member of an old Venetian family peels back the rug on a shocking truth that draws art historian and textile expert Phoebe McCabe into the fray. What she sees in the missing Renaissance symbology will shake the foundations of religious and cultural assumptions across two continents and point the way to a priceless hoard. It's a secret potent enough to pitch rival factions against Phoebe and her team while destroying history as collateral damage along the way.By the time Phoebe tracks down the truth to its final destination, she'll need to face her greatest enemy armed with nothing but wry wit, an indomitable spirit, and what's left of a broken heart. But nothing will stop this warrior of the ancient lost and found.From the dark misty canals of Venice to the vivid souks of Marrakech, Phoebe and her friends are pitched against the...

It's startling enough to have a phoenix hatch in your house, but even more startling when it talks and reveals that you have a magic carpet on the floor. The vain and ancient bird accompanies the children on a series of adventures through time and space which, magic being what it is, rarely turn out as they were meant... This sequel to Five Children and It continues the magical adventures of siblings Cyril, Anthea, Robert, Jane and their baby brother. Contains a lovely new introduction by Robin McKinley, bestselling US author of Pegasus.

For Lauren Moreau, the truth trapped her, the lies and deceit ensnared her. What she knew to be goodness and love, now a fairy-tale of despair and hopelessness. The love of her life, Cary Baine, was an Angel. Her boyfriend, Jackson Cruz, a demon groomed by Hollywood. Everything she believed in wasn’t real. Blending in, in a city as large as Paris, was Lauren's only sanctuary. A sanctuary built out of glass with the illusion of strength, protection, and sanity she wore around her. However, when Jackson surprises her, her simple Parisian life is over with a snap of a lens. Hollywood had found her, and the glass she safely looked out into the world now feels like a cage. Old rumors surface, and as Lauren fled her new life, she failed to see the crack in the glass. Lauren is forced to accept the assistance of Cary Bain and struggles with her feelings toward him. The love that was buried deep inside her begins to stir the closer they become. She starts to feel hopeful about their possibility. Hope for a maybe or a someday until Cary introduces her to his new girlfriend, and the crack in the glass grows bigger. Brokenhearted, Lauren begins down a darker path. Once driven by love, faith, and hope, now the innocence of her youth will be tossed aside. New friendships, desires, lusts, and gratifications will awaken. Yet when the crack breaks the fragile sanctuary she created, Lauren will have to decide to accept fate or bleed as it all crashes down **

He's Hollywood's hottest heartthrob...and her son's secret father.A PR stunt backfires when it reveals actor Dane Stewart's a dad. As a sperm donor, he's never met single mom Iris Turner, but they're now connected through their child. And the press is about to pounce. Having Iris act as his girlfriend is pure damage control...except their chemistry is hotter than any love scene. But is a future together just a Cinderella fantasy?

Live and let dust . . . Now that Tallie Graver's cleaning business is starting to shine, she's ready to go squeegee to squeegee against Audra McNeal for a major contract at the Astercromb mansion. Tallie's not afraid of a little friendly competition from the new cleaner in town. In fact, Tallie likes Audra, though she wonders how her glamorous rival manages to clean house and maintain her fancy manicure. Tallie has her rubber-gloves full staying one step ahead of her nemesis. Until she finds a well-polished hand poking out of a rolled-up carpet, rendering her competition . . . dead. Though it lands Tallie the big job, there's nothing tidy about Audra's death. So between polishing and scrubbing, Tallie's determined to find the killer. Hopefully the police chief doesn't mind her cluttering up his investigation with the filthy dealings she discovers. Turns out Audra was not as squeaky clean as she appeared. And confronting her killer could...

In The Pattern in the Carpet the award-winning and beloved writer Margaret Drabble explores her own family story alongside the history of her favourite childhood pastime - the jigsaw. The result is an original and moving personal history about remembrance, growing older, the importance of play and the ways in which we make sense of our past by ornamenting our present.

A hidden door. A magical staircase. Discover the world of Droon! Eric, Julie, and Neal have just found something magic in Eric's basement. They have discovered a staircase to another world! The world of Droon is amazing—full of magic, flying lizards, and fun, furry creatures. But how will Eric, Julie, and Neal find their way home? Maybe their new friend, Princess Keeah, can help?

Look who’s grown up now…Valentina Romeo loved a romantic wedding, and couldn’t wait to serve as an attendant in her favorite cousin Prince Luca of Monaforte’s upcoming nuptials.  She and Luca had reveled in childhood summers at the family estate on the Ligurian Sea. Many of her fondest memories were made there, along with one of her most humiliating, when Luca’s college roommate Parker shunned her brave declaration of love.Investment banker Parker Hornsby hadn’t been back to Monaforte since he was in college. Back then he’d spent a glorious summer enjoying idyllic days at his best friend Luca’s family beach home. The fun was marred only by Luca’s obtrusive younger cousin Valentina, who could barely mask her crush on Parker, forcing him to flatly cut her off before she got her hopes up. The last thing Parker wanted was to be accused of going after his friend’s jailbait cousin, even if she was about...

WANTED: A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE No one knew his real identity...except for the unforgettable ex-girlfriend who'd just waltzed into his club's red-carpet holiday party. Gideon Maddox hadn't seen Simone Burke since he put her father away for killing his own father. The star-crossed lovers never forgave each other, but now Simone needed his help -- and his secret crime-fighting team -- to prove she was innocent of a grisly yuletide murder. But helping Simone could reignite the past and a forbidden passion that still burned between them. And perhaps shepherd a Christmas miracle neither of them expected....

Enjoy the concluding stories of the Love in the Limelight series, where four unstoppable women embark upon a quest in Hollywood to find fame, fortune and ultimately...true love. Seduced on the Red Carpet by Ann Christopher Supermodel Livia Blake has lived a life most women only dream of. But beneath the glitz and glamour is a small-town girl who yearns for a family of her own. Then she meets Hunter Chambers at his Napa Valley winery. The sexy single father tempts Livia with a desire she's never known.... Hunter knows Livia's type--and she's not his type at all. But he can't deny the passion surging between them. Will their love be strong enough to create their own private paradise far from the glare of the spotlight? Lovers Premiere by Adrianne Byrd Limelight Entertainment is Sofia Wellesley's whole life. So she's fit to be tied when she discovers her agency's plans to merge with Limelight's biggest rival. Sofia had a major...

Wild on the Red Carpet (The Hollywood Showmance Chronicles, Book Three)

After penning a series of bestselling novels, Eleanor Riley vowed to leave her past—and the man who broke her heart—far behind. As the creator of one of television’s most beloved dramas, Elle couldn’t have written a better comeback for herself. But her success doesn’t leave much room in her life for romance…until Luke Kingston enters the scene. Luke, a stunningly handsome star, is set to play the latest love interest in Elle’s show…but he’s got his eye on Elle, and she can’t deny their sizzling chemistry. Then Elle has a chance encounter with Troy Saladino—the man who had been the love of her life—and suddenly a million old feelings are rushing back. With two gorgeous men pursuing her, Elle can’t decide who holds the key to her heart: her new love or her old flame. Will her choice bring her happiness—or more heartbreak?

MATCHMAKING MAMAS: Playing Cupid. Arranging dates. What are mothers for? Hollywood heartthrob and widower Lukkas Spader knows his women are just photo ops for the paparazzi. He’s sworn off real dating. But the big-time movie producer needs a gal Friday. And Yohanna desperately needs a job. So what if she’s beautiful and their relationship starts out like a typical chick flick? That doesn’t mean they’re going to fall in love… She’s never felt the sparks between herself and the parade of potential husbands her mother’s insisted she meet. But when Yohanna Andrzejewski poses for the cameras with sexy, gorgeous Lukkas—trying to keep the gossipmongers at bay—she realizes that there’s something in the air…call it sparks. Bells. Magic. Because Lukkas and Yohanna may not be looking for love, but something—or someone—is making sure it finds them!

The Pattern in the Carpet: A Personal History with Jigsaws is an original and brilliant work. Margaret Drabble weaves her own story into a history of games, in particular jigsaws, which have offered her and many others relief from melancholy and depression. Alongside curious facts and discoveries about jigsaw puzzles—did you know that the 1929 stock market crash was followed by a boom in puzzle sales?—Drabble introduces us to her beloved Auntie Phyl, and describes childhood visits to the house in Long Bennington on the Great North Road, their first trip to London together, the books they read, and the jigsaws they completed. She offers penetrating sketches of her parents, siblings, and children, and shares her thoughts on the importance of childhood play, on art and writing, and on aging and memory. And she does so with her customary intelligence, energy, and wit. This is a memoir like no other.From Publishers WeeklyStarred Review. Part memoir, part rigorously researched historical perspective, Drabble's book is a multi-layered look at jigsaw puzzles and their role through the ages for society, individuals, and herself; it's also a charming homage to Drabble's beloved Auntie Phyl, who passed her lifelong love of jigsaws on to Drabble. Alongside memories that appear "in bright colours and clear blocks, like the large pieces of a child's wooden jigsaw," Drabble takes a survey of games in literature and art, including Brueghel's 1560 "Children's Games," a complex illustration featuring more than 90 games; and spends much time considering their psychological importance. Readers will probably be surprised, as Drabble was, to learn that jigsaws were originally connected to education rather than amusement; since then, the idea has become one of the "quasi-educational apologia for the doing of jigsaws," the idea that "you learn about the brush strokes of Van Gogh, the clouds of Constable," etc., from puzzling them together. (Indeed, "Doing jigsaws stimulates bizarre theories of art history.") While fascinating, Drabble's highly intellectual, highly British study will pose a special challenge for American audiences. Readers unafraid of doing some extra work will be richly rewarded. Review"Courageous." (Michael Cunningham, New York Times Book Review )"One of a king...It will take the reader on a journey unlike anything else in the bookstore." (Christian Science Monitor )"The Pattern in the Carpet...not only looks like a memoir, it reads like one, and a fine one at that." (Montreal Gazette )

This is no simple Hollywood story of famous boy meets ordinary girl, who then fall in love and live happily ever after. This is about the town of dreamers and make believers; skilled at casting spells of deception and deceit. And what happens when the spell is lifted, and everything that you believe in is merely an illusion? When the world of happily ever after is altered and obscured, and not only by one enticing man? For Lauren Moreau, her journey is full of raw emotions that will tempt you with curiosity and intrigue, and squeeze out passion and angst until your heart bleeds. This is Hollywood, after all... A Hollywood explosion has occurred after photos sprung up of the infamous, Jackson Cruz, in an intimate embrace with an unknown named Lauren Moreau. They met while he was in New Orleans filming the Primal Darkness series with his on-screen (and rumored off-screen) love interest Zara Tilly. Reps for both Cruz and Tilly have been silent. No one knows how this will affect the highly anticipated film’s release. These two are holding all the cards for David Black, studio head and the mastermind of the Primal Darkness phenomenon. Sources say that Black is out for blood. Hollywood, nothing is ever as it seems. **

King Solomon's Carpet - a prize-winning crime classic from bestselling author Barbara Vine Winner of the Crime Writers Association Gold Dagger Award 'The tension grows ... an overwhelming sense of foreboding ... when the unravelling takes place, it is brilliantly unexpected and original' The Times Jarvis Stringer lives in a crumbling schoolhouse overlooking a tube line, compiling his obsessive, secret history of London's Underground. His presence and his strange house draw a band of misfits into his orbit: young Alice, who has run away from her husband and baby; Tom, the busker who rescues her; truant Jasper who gets his kicks on the tube; and mysterious Axel, whose dark secret later casts a shadow over all of their lives. Dispossessed and outcast, those who come to inhabit Jarvis's schoolhouse are gradually brought closer together in violent and unforeseen ways by London's forbidding and...

Why is gorgeous, rich movie star, Quinn Roberts, sharing his space with a baby he calls “Junior”, if it isn’t his own? Susanna Barnes, his beautiful live-in nanny, can’t figure him out and Quinn refuses to comment. Though wildly attracted to him, his distance from the adorable child puts Susanna off.Daughter of “Coach Joe”, famous college basketball coach and an assistant art curator at a well-known art museum, Susanna lost it all at the hands of a drunk driver. Her dad was killed and her job given away while she recovered in the hospital.Forced to find another job, she relies on her experience with her sister’s three kids to show Quinn she can take charge. Their overwhelming mutual heat melts his guarded heart and her reserve until a slip of the tongue shatters his dreams. Will she unravel the mystery of Junior’s birth and will they regain lost trust?

BEACON STREET GIRLS

Caprice and Maren are best friends, roommates and Germany's hottest tabloid journalists in more ways than one. In this episode, French redhead Caprice and blonde German country girl Maren are sent to London and L.A. respectively to uncover the truth about rumors surrounding the casting of male leads for the new erotic movie Dreams of Passion. — Caprice is an erotic series that follows best friends Maren and Caprice - two journalists at Germany's biggest tabloid magazine FLASH. Reporting on events around the world, they jet-set to meet celebrities, aristocracy, and members of high society. Maren and Caprice research their stories with hard-hitting dedication and even physically involved ... — Each episode is unique: sometimes gentle and other times a little rough. Different writers ensure each story's individual flair. Since each author maintains her own writing style, Caprice is a completely new erotic experience from one glamorous event to the next.

The Mamur Zapt, head of Cairo's CID in the heyday of (the indirect) British rule, focused on political, not police, matters. With the bustling new century, the loosening of imperial ties, and the rise of nationalism, his was a busy office. The attempted assassination of a veteran politician raises the spectre of a major terrorist statement at the capital's principal religious festival where the faithful celebrate the Return of the Holy Carpet from Mecca.Easily navigating multiple nationalities, three principal languages, and four competing legal systems, not to mention the intricacies of shadow and actual governments, Captain Owen, the Welsh incumbent, bolsters the Mamur Zapt's office with the aid of a host of memorable characters.

This is a unique, beautiful and moving account of seven years living in the remote Uzbek desert. "The Silk Road" conjures images of the exotic and the unknown. Most travellers simply pass along it. Brit Chris Alexander chose to live there. Ostensibly writing a guidebook, Alexander found life at the heart of the glittering madrassahs, mosques and minarets of the walled city of Khiva - a remote desert oasis in Uzbekistan - immensely alluring, and stayed. Immersing himself in the language and rich cultural traditions Alexander discovers a world torn between Marx and Mohammed - a place where veils and vodka, pork and polygamy freely mingle - against a backdrop of forgotten carpet designs, crumbling but magnificent Islamic architecture and scenes drawn straight from "The Arabian Nights". Accompanied by a large green parrot, a ginger cat and his adoptive Uzbek family, Alexander recounts his efforts to rediscover the lost art of traditional weaving and dyeing, and the process establishing a self-sufficient carpet workshop, employing local women and disabled people to train as apprentices. "A Carpet Ride to Khiva" sees Alexander being stripped naked at a former Soviet youth camp, crawling through silkworm droppings in an attempt to record their life-cycle, holed up in the British Museum discovering carpet designs dormant for half a millennia, tackling a carpet-thieving mayor, distinguishing natural dyes from sacks of opium in Northern Afghanistan, bluffing his way through an impromptu version of "My Heart Will Go On" for national Uzbek TV and seeking sanctuary as an anti-Western riot consumed the Kabul carpet bazaar. It is an unforgettable true travel story of a journey to the heart of the unknown and the unexpected friendship one man found there.

Addison Mattingly has spent her life living in her twin sister’s shadow, so when her sister blows off a chance to be actor Trevor Braden’s personal assistant, Addison decides it’s time to step into the spotlight.Pretending to be her twin, Addison goes to LA to take the job. Trevor is even hunkier and more gorgeous in person than he is on film, and it’s all Addison can do not to give into her inner fan girl.That fascination makes a difficult job even harder, and soon she’s making one mistake after another. That’s when Addison learns Trevor has a unique way of getting her to focus on her job—he puts her over his knee and spanks her.

A Red Carpet Catering Mystery

Fifteen years after losing most of his family to a devastating, pudding-related tragedy, Simon Debovar has settled into a life of self-imposed exile from the stinking, selfish morass of humanity. Content that his daily highlights will include hazelnut coffee, a long bath and the occasional jar of olives, his life is completely upturned by the discovery that his ornate living room carpet is the deciding factor in a bet between God and Satan.When mysteriously well-timed carpet thieves deprive him of the crucial heirloom, Simon is forced to leave his hermit's existence behind for a world of angels, demons, witches and immortals.And then it gets complicated.

A Red Carpet Catering Mystery

As the Queen of the Red Carpet, Joan Rivers has been eyewitness to Hollywood's most heinous crimes (okay, so they're fashionrelated). And in this uber-stylish mystery, she enlists her no-holdsbarred, slightly blonder literary counterpart, Maxine Taylor, to solve a crime of a different sort. When a gorgeous young actress dies on the Red Carpet, some in Tinseltown call it bad publicity. Max calls it murder.

An unforgettable portrait of a place and a people shaped by centuries of art, trade, and war.In the middle of the salt-frosted Afghan desert, in a village so remote that Google can't find it, a woman squats on top of a loom, making flowers bloom in the thousand threads she knots by hand. Here, where heroin is cheaper than rice, every day is a fast day. B-52s pass overhead—a sign of America's omnipotence or its vulnerability, the villagers are unsure. They know, though, that the earth is flat—like a carpet.Anna Badkhen first traveled to this country in 2001, as a war correspondent. She has returned many times since, drawn by a land that geography has made a perpetual battleground, and by a people who sustain an exquisite tradition there. Through the four seasons in which a new carpet is woven by the women and children of Oqa, she immortalizes their way of life much as the carpet does—from the petal half-finished where a hungry infant needs care...

The brutal murder of a Swedish carpet dealer on a business trip to Turkey is the start of a story about an unknown daughter, an exclusive carpet and – as always when Karin Wahlberg writes – the everyday life and dreams of the people we meet in her stories.Read by every doctor and nurse in Sweden and often compared to New York Times bestselling author of medical thrillers, Tess Gerritsen, Death of a Carpet Dealer is one of seven in Wahlberg's series featuring Police Commissioner Claes Claesson and his wife Veronika Lundborg, doctor at Oskarshamn hospital. Her books have sold over 1.5 million total copies worldwide.

Detective Joan Lambert works within the fabric of the LA landscape, solving cases with a combined tapestry of plodding police work, bang-on perceptions of the human psyche and guts. For the last five years, media madness has created fresh hell for LAPD's imminent Homicide investigator, Joan Lambert. She thinks she's seen everything until the victim in her latest case gets up and walks out of the morgue. Ten missing women, a small boy, and a fanatical voodoo cult thrust Joan into an investigation that will put her life and her career on the line. She has got to shut it all down before eleven people are sacrificed for the film and music career of a young starlet. When a connection is made to a private pharmaceutical experiment that suspends the very essence of life, creating real-life zombies, Joan avails every resource she has--black dog hairs, a posh transvestite, a psychic who offers dubious insights and the clues given to her by Hector, a dying pimp whose specialty is runaways. To make it work, Joan takes matters into her own hands, proving her grit as one of LA's elite investigators.

Behind the PR girl's smile…Lexi Robbins is determined to throw off her ditzy, daughter-of-a-celebrity image and make her own name as Head of PR for the Hunter Clinic. And if that means pestering gruff, supersexy Scottish surgeon Iain MacKenzie till she gets his cooperation she'll do it! She's going to shine up this rough diamond and make him a star! But Lexi soon learns that's the last thing long-grieving Iain wants…. And, with her own secrets to hide behind her dazzling Hollywood smile, getting too close to Iain is the last thing that she wants…!

Rumors on the Red Carpet Learning at the hands of a billionaire When a dream holiday propels Thia into the glittering world of New York's scandalous elite, she catches the eye of renowned businessman Lucien Steele. For the first time, Alicia's determined to take what she really wants...love and life in the fast lane! The Talk of Hollywood Lights, Camera, Bedroom! From his latest sports car to his latest blonde, gossip surrounds infamous Hollywood director Jaxon Wilder. Infuriatingly, Stazy Bromley proves resistant to Jaxon's usual charms--and demands an equal stake in his project! Is it only a matter of time before another scandalous affair rocks the tabloids?