Enjoy this FREE fantasy series prequel by epic action-adventure author Kenneth Brown . . . Journey with Haskell as he grows from orphan to king in this thrilling action adventure fantasy! Captured by Gadiel's thugs and thrown into a life of crime, Haskell must learn to survive in the dangerous underworld of the kingdom or face death. But as he navigates the cutthroat world of thieves and smugglers, Haskell discovers he possesses a hidden talent for magic, a power that Gadiel will stop at nothing to control. As Haskell struggles to forge his own path and escape Gadiel's clutches, he becomes enamored with Princess Noreen, the beautiful and sheltered daughter of the king. Determined to win her affection and become more than a common thief, Haskell vows to become a lord and prove his worth to the princess. As he fights for love and power in a world of danger and deceit, Haskell must find the strength and courage to seize his destiny and claim his place in the kingdom. Exciting, heart-pounding, young adult, action-adventure, fantasy book. Haskell Orphan to King is the prequel to the Mountain King Series. For fans of Pedro Urvi, David A Wells, Robin Wideman, and J Sullivan. Step into the magic world of Aloheno and experience a thrilling adventure that starts at the towering black castle and its intimidating king. Enjoy!
A collection of the first two books in the Mountain King Series, including Eclipse of the Triple Moons and Zita's Revenge. Eclipse of the Triple Moons THEY WERE JUST PLAYING A GAME Four teenagers playing a real-life fantasy game in a Montana mountain cave find a portal to another world. Alpherge, Sherry, Lily, and Erik step through the shimmering portal, and find themselves in a strange world with three moons hanging low in the sky. As they explore this new world, they come across an ancient and powerful magical staff imbued with the ability to control elemental magic. But their adventure takes a turn for the worse when they learn that a ruthless dark sorcerer seeking to harness the power of the triple moon eclipse kidnaps their friend Lily. Vowing to save their friend despite the dangers, the trio sets out to rescue Lily, using the magical staff to overcome the many obstacles and enemies they face along the way. As they journey through enchanted snow-capped mountains, they discover a hidden strength within themselves and the true power of friendship. This fast-paced Young Adult Fantasy Action-Adventure story has many twists and turns and forces the teens to use their wits and abilities to save their friend. But, will they reach their friend before the sacrifice on the day of the triple solar eclipse? Zita’s Revenge The mysterious and treacherous world of Aloheno holds many secrets, but none as powerful and sought-after as the legendary golden crown. When high school students Erik and Al discover the crown's potential to open a portal back to Earth, they must battle against the vengeful Zita and her powerful magic to capture it. With the aid of the wise mentor Gadiel and the courage of their convictions, Erik and Al must confront their inner demons and resist Zita's wrath. Will they succeed in their quest, or will Zita triumph?
High school junior, Erik Anderson, and his friend Alpherge, find themselves stranded on the distant planet of Aloheno, desperate to find a way home. They soon discover that the only way off the planet is to rescue the stone warriors, ancient guardians who have been imprisoned by the malevolent tyrant Haskell, the Mountain King. To do so, the boys must find the legendary golden crown, a powerful artifact that holds the key to unlocking the stone warriors' prison. But Zita will stop at nothing to prevent them from succeeding, and will do whatever it takes to exact her revenge on the boys. As they journey through the treacherous landscape of Aloheno, Erik and Alpherge are aided by the wise and mysterious Gadiel, a mentor to Zita's father who possesses ancient knowledge and powerful magic. But as they draw closer to the golden crown, they must also confront their own inner demons and navigate the complicated feelings that have formed between Zita and Erik. Will they be able to capture the golden crown, or will Zita's vengeful plans come to fruition?
This funny fractured fairy tale goes behind the scenes of Rumpelstiltskin. New York Times Bestselling author Liesl Shurtliff "spins words into gold [Kirby Larson, Newbery Honor winner]." In a magic kingdom where your name is your destiny, 12-year-old Rump is the butt of everyone's joke. But when he finds an old spinning wheel, his luck seems to change. Rump discovers he has a gift for spinning straw into gold. His best friend, Red Riding Hood, warns him that magic is dangerous, and she’s right. With each thread he spins, he weaves himself deeper into a curse. To break the spell, Rump must go on a perilous quest, fighting off pixies, trolls, poison apples, and a wickedly foolish queen. The odds are against him, but with courage and friendship—and a cheeky sense of humor—he just might triumph in the end. A Texas Bluebonnet finalist and winner of the ILA award for middle grade fiction, Rump is perfect for fans of Gail Carson Levine's Ella Enchanted or Adam Gidwitz's A Tale Dark and Grimm. And don't miss Liesl Shurtliff's other fairy tale retellings: Jack: The True Story of Jack and the Beanstalk and Red: The True Story of Red Riding Hood. "A fresh riff on the Grimm Brothers' Rumpelstiltskin, told with wit from the impish point of view of the troublemaker himself." —People "Lighthearted and inventive, Rump amusingly expands a classic tale." —Brandon Mull, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Fablehaven.
A provocative dystopian thriller set in a future that seems scarily possible, Flashback proves why Dan Simmons is one of our most exciting and versatile writers. The United States is near total collapse. But 87% of the population doesn't care: they're addicted to flashback, a drug that allows its users to re-experience the best moments of their lives. After ex-detective Nick Bottom's wife died in a car accident, he went under the flash to be with her; he's lost his job, his teenage son, and his livelihood as a result. Nick may be a lost soul but he's still a good cop, so he is hired to investigate the murder of a top governmental advisor's son. This flashback-addict becomes the one man who may be able to change the course of an entire nation turning away from the future to live in the past.
This groundbreaking study explores the later lives and late-life writings of more than two dozen British women authors active during the long eighteenth century. Drawing on biographical materials, literary texts, and reception histories, Devoney Looser finds that far from fading into moribund old age, female literary greats such as Anna Letitia Barbauld, Frances Burney, Maria Edgeworth, Catharine Macaulay, Hester Lynch Piozzi, and Jane Porter toiled for decades after they achieved acclaim -- despite seemingly concerted attempts by literary gatekeepers to marginalize their later contributions. Though these remarkable women wrote and published well into old age, Looser sees in their late careers the necessity of choosing among several different paths. These included receding into the background as authors of "classics," adapting to grandmotherly standards of behavior, attempting to reshape masculinized conceptions of aged wisdom, or trying to create entirely new categories for older women writers. In assessing how these writers affected and were affected by the culture in which they lived, and in examining their varied reactions to the prospect of aging, Looser constructs careful portraits of each of her Subjects and explains why many turned toward retrospection in their later works. In illuminating the powerful and often poorly recognized legacy of the British women writers who spurred a marketplace revolution in their earlier years only to find unanticipated barriers to acceptance in later life, Looser opens up new scholarly territory in the burgeoning field of feminist age studies.
Women were dying, the blood drained from their bodies and two mysterious pinprick marks imprinted on their necks. And for all her training as a chemist, Angelina Corbett could not help wondering whether the whispers of "vampire" haunting her uncle's isolated estate might have a basis in fact -- especially after meeting their enigmatic neighbor, the earl of Trelayne ...
At a time when we are reexamining our values, reeling from the pace of change, witnessing the clash between good instincts and "pragmatism," dealing with the angst of a new millennium, Neil Postman, one of our most distinguished observers of contemporary society, provides for us a source of guidance and inspiration. In Building a Bridge to the Eighteenth Century he revisits the Enlightenment, that great flowering of ideas that provided a humane direction for the future -- ideas that formed our nation and that we would do well to embrace anew. He turns our attention to Goethe, Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, Kant, Edward Gibbon, Adam Smith, Thomas Paine, Jefferson, and Franklin, and to their then-radical thinking about inductive science, religious and political freedom, popular education, rational commerce, the nation-state, progress, and happiness. Postman calls for a future connected to traditions that provide sane authority and meaningful purpose -- as opposed to an overreliance on technology and an increasing disregard for the lessons of history. And he argues passionately for specific new guidelines in the education of our children, with renewed emphasis on developing the intellect as successfully as we are developing a computer-driven world. Witty, provocative, and brilliantly reasoned, Building a Bridge to the Eighteenth Century is Neil Postman's most radical, and most commonsensical, book yet.
From the author of House of Outrageous Fortune For seventy-five years, it’s been Manhattan’s richest apartment building, and one of the most lusted-after addresses in the world. One apartment had 37 rooms, 14 bathrooms, 43 closets, 11 working fireplaces, a private elevator, and his-and-hers saunas; another at one time had a live-in service staff of 16. To this day, it is steeped in the purest luxury, the kind most of us could only imagine, until now. The last great building to go up along New York’s Gold Coast, construction on 740 Park finished in 1930. Since then, 740 has been home to an ever-evolving cadre of our wealthiest and most powerful families, some of America’s (and the world’s) oldest money—the kind attached to names like Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, Bouvier, Chrysler, Niarchos, Houghton, and Harkness—and some whose names evoke the excesses of today’s monied elite: Kravis, Koch, Bronfman, Perelman, Steinberg, and Schwarzman. All along, the building has housed titans of industry, political power brokers, international royalty, fabulous scam-artists, and even the lowest scoundrels. The book begins with the tumultuous story of the building’s construction. Conceived in the bubbling financial, artistic, and social cauldron of 1920’s Manhattan, 740 Park rose to its dizzying heights as the stock market plunged in 1929—the building was in dire financial straits before the first apartments were sold. The builders include the architectural genius Rosario Candela, the scheming businessman James T. Lee (Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’s grandfather), and a raft of financiers, many of whom were little more than white-collar crooks and grand-scale hustlers. Once finished, 740 became a magnet for the richest, oldest families in the country: the Brewsters, descendents of the leader of the Plymouth Colony; the socially-registered Bordens, Hoppins, Scovilles, Thornes, and Schermerhorns; and top executives of the Chase Bank, American Express, and U.S. Rubber. Outside the walls of 740 Park, these were the people shaping America culturally and economically. Within those walls, they were indulging in all of the Seven Deadly Sins. As the social climate evolved throughout the last century, so did 740 Park: after World War II, the building’s rulers eased their more restrictive policies and began allowing Jews (though not to this day African Americans) to reside within their hallowed walls. Nowadays, it is full to bursting with new money, people whose fortunes, though freshly-made, are large enough to buy their way in. At its core this book is a social history of the American rich, and how the locus of power and influence has shifted haltingly from old bloodlines to new money. But it’s also much more than that: filled with meaty, startling, often tragic stories of the people who lived behind 740’s walls, the book gives us an unprecedented access to worlds of wealth, privilege, and extraordinary folly that are usually hidden behind a scrim of money and influence. This is, truly, how the other half—or at least the other one hundredth of one percent—lives.
In this pathbreaking book, a well-known feminist and sociologist--who is also the Founding Editor of Gender & Society--challenges our most basic assumptions about gender. Judith Lorber views gender as wholly a product of socialization subject to human agency, organization, and interpretation. In her new paradigm, gender is an institution comparable to the economy, the family, and religion in its significance and consequences. Drawing on many schools of feminist scholarship and on research from anthropology, history, sociology, social psychology, sociolinguistics, and cultural studies, Lorber explores different paradoxes of gender: --why we speak of only two "opposite sexes" when there is such a variety of sexual behaviors and relationships; --why transvestites, transsexuals, and hermaphrodites do not affect the conceptualization of two genders and two sexes in Western societies; --why most of our cultural images of women are the way men see them and not the way women see themselves; --why all women in modern society are expected to have children and be the primary caretaker; --why domestic work is almost always the sole responsibility of wives, even when they earn more than half the family income; --why there are so few women in positions of authority, when women can be found in substantial numbers in many occupations and professions; --why women have not benefited from major social revolutions. Lorber argues that the whole point of the gender system today is to maintain structured gender inequality--to produce a subordinate class (women) that can be exploited as workers, sexual partners, childbearers, and emotional nurturers. Calling into question the inevitability and necessity of gender, she envisions a society structured for equality, where no gender, racial ethnic, or social class group is allowed to monopolize economic, educational, and cultural resources or the positions of power.
