"Whaddya say you boys and me take five and poke around a bit?" "Poke around where?" I asked. "Around our new house. I'll bet if we look in every nook and cranny, we'll uncover a secret or two." "A secret?" asked Aaron. "What kind of secret?" "I don't know." Dad grinned as he struggled to get up from the tilting couch. "A house built with tilting floors has got to have secrets."Talking ratsGrowth potionsBuried treasureBrothers Josh and Aaron Peshik are about to discover that their new home with the tilting floors hides many mysteries. When the boys and their neighbor Lola discover the hidden diary of F.T. Tilton, the brilliant but deranged inventor who built the house, they learn a dark secret that may mean disaster for the Peshik family. Can the kids solve the riddles of the tilting house before time runs out?Mad science, mischief, and mishaps combine in the suspenseful and imaginative tale of...

A delightfully dark middle-grade novel reminiscent of the Newbery-winning classic, The Westing Game.When thirteen-year-old Gabe Silver's dad is laid off from his job, his family is forced to move to the run-down Bright House Apartments. Gabe's bummed—but maybe there's a way out of this mess. In a strange encounter with a stressed-out millionaire, Gabe becomes the owner of an old, glass bottle with an imp inside who can grant wishes. But there's a catch: for everything the wisher gains, someone, somewhere loses something. Each wish is an ethical dilemma, but as Gabe scores a Ferrari, gets his dad's old job back, and more, he's certain a guilty conscience is worth it . . . isn't it? Meanwhile, his bizarre neighbors at Bright House have caught wind that something strange is afoot. As the bottle imp's power weaves its way through Bright House and beyond, it reveals unseen connections, ambitions, and desires, provoking questions about the...

Sixteen-year-old Seth Anomundy is a product of his environment: in this case, Tacoma, Washington. What L.A. was to Chandler, Tacoma—a working-class port city now undergoing urban renewal—is to author Tom Llewellyn.Seth has grown up in Tacoma's tough neighborhoods, where he's perfectly at home in Choo-Choo's boxing gym and Miss Irene's soul food palace, the Shotgun Shack. With his mom working nights as a cleaner, Seth goes to high school, gets decent grades, and makes money where he can: filling in as cook at the Shotgun Shack, working as a sparring partner, and running errands for Nadel, the clock repairman. Life is hand-to-mouth, but okay—until he gets the news that his mother has been killed. The police don't care about the death of just another drug addict, so a bewildered Seth takes it upon himself to find the killer. On a clock delivery run, he meets a beautiful rich girl named Azura Lear, who encourages Seth and tries to help track down the killer. But...