In a world where guardian angels are celebrities who save people for money, Maddy's life was transformed when she became the girlfriend of the hottest Angel around. But she never imagined that she'd become even more famous than Jackson. Unfortunately for Maddy, she's an irresistible PR opportunity - and soon her popularity soars higher than any Angel. Her relationship is cracking under the pressure. And as tension starts to mount between Angels and humans, she finds herself an ambassador for humankind. With Jackson at the helm of the Immortals, the two ex-lovers must become sworn enemies. It's Angels in one corner, humans on the other - until an evil force, greater than anything on Earth, forces them to stand united if they want to survive.
We pay them to protect us. And we're their biggest fans. They are our celebrities, and we worship them with paparazzi and endless gossip and speculation. To us, they are glamour. To them, we're an assignment. Their job is to guard us-that is, those of us who can afford them . . . Because the only thing stronger than a Guardian Angel is the rule they must obey. So what happens when one of them falls for one of us? In the City Angels, the rules are about to be broken.
It's going to take a lot more than fame to save the Immortal City in its darkest hour. . . . With Maddy torn between two loves, Guardian Jackson and heroic pilot Tom, and Angels and humans on the brink of an epic war, the Immortal City is more vulnerable than ever. And when demons descend upon Angel City with the intent to destroy, the humans don't stand a fighting chance without the Angels on their side. Will Jacks find the strength and forgiveness to enter the fray and fight the demons as a stronger-than-ever Battle Angel? Or has the damage been so great that the Guardians will set off for the next place, abandoning Angel City in its darkest hour? It all comes down to love-wrecked half-Angel Maddy and the strength of her bond with Jackson in this game-changing, thrice-as-sultry series finale that blends beautiful themes of redemption and renewal with heart-pounding action scenes and jaw-dropping twists.
Anna Pigeon, a ranger for the U.S. Park Services, sets off on vacation—an autumn canoe trip in the to the Iron Range in upstate Minnesota. With Anna is her friend Heath, a paraplegic; Heath's fifteen-year-old daughter, Elizabeth; Leah, a wealthy designer of outdoor equipment; and her daughter, Katie, who is thirteen. For Heath and Leah, this is a shakedown cruise to test a new cutting edge line of camping equipment. The equipment, designed by Leah, will make camping and canoeing more accessible to disabled outdoorsmen. On their second night out, Anna goes off on her own for a solo evening float on the Fox River. When she comes back, she finds that four thugs, armed with rifles, pistols, and knives, have taken the two women and their teenaged daughters captive. With limited resources and no access to the outside world, Anna has only two days to rescue them before her friends are either killed or flown out of the country, in Destroyer Angel, the New York Times bestseller by Nevada Barr.
Maddy has been juggling her life of high school, family, and friends with the demands of being Angel Jacks Godspeed's girlfriend, but as war threatens, she must choose her Angel side or her human one, once and for all.
Speaking with the Angel is a collection of short stories, edited by Nick Hornby Hear the Prime Minister explain to the House why he did a runner from Greenford Park service station and hitched a lift with a fifteen-year-old girl, as imagined by Robert Harris. Listen to someone who has a small hostile creature in his room, as told by Roddy Doyle. Twelve voices, twelve completely new stories, narrated by twelve different characters. And all written by twelve of the most exciting and popular writers around: Robert Harris, Melissa Bank, Giles Smith, Patrick Marber, Colin Frith, Zadie Smith, Dave Eggers, Helen Fielding, Roddy Doyle, Irvine Welsh, John O'Farrell and Nick Hornby himself. This sparkling collection has been put together by bestselling novelist Nick Hornby, who also contributes an Introduction about TreeHouse, an organisation that offers a unique and pioneering approach to the education of children with autism. £1 will go to TreeHouse with every copy sold of Speaking with the Angel.
GOOD OMENS meets FANGIRL in this urban fantasy dramedy about good, evil, friendship, and the end of the world.Iofiel is an ideal candidate to become a guardian angel, and help steer humans away from sin: she's helpful, cheery, and utterly loyal. And, as the 'angel of beauty', it's not like she has anything better to do.Heaven and Hell long ago ran out of space: there are too many humans these days, so both have come to a shaky truce - one school sheltered in the forests of Canada, hidden from humanity, where their young can study.All seems well for Iofiel's first days at university - her Archangel roommate is a bit uptight, and dealing with demons feels weird- but when a picked on demon confesses he's too nervous to pursue his true passion of soul stealing... Iofiel promises she'll major in it with him!So much for being a proper angel. Her helpful impulse has repercussions that shake the school, and may just change the world forever. Or just end it.Because that's a possibility too.
Faced with the ceaseless stream of news about war, crime, and terrorism, one could easily think this is the most violent age ever seen. Yet as bestselling author Pinker shows in this startling and engaging new work, just the opposite is true.
“That is Brooks’ way of casting spells—transporting his readers into plausible realms where sorcery is alive, whether those places are in other ages or right in the middle of our own. As a result, he's reaped more than a few magical moments . . .”—Seattle Times As a Knight of the Word, John Ross has struggled against the dark forces of the Void and his minions for twenty-five years. The grim future he dreams each night—a world reduced to blood and ashes—will come true, unless he can stop them now, in the present. The birth of a gypsy morph, a rare and dangerous creature that could be an invaluable weapon in his fight against the Void, brings John Ross and Nest Freemark together again. Twice before, with the fate of the world hanging in the balance, the lives of Ross and Nest have intersected. Together, they have prevailed. But now they will face an ancient evil beyond anything they have ever encountered, a demon of ruthless intelligence and feral cunning. As a firestorm of evil erupts, threatening to consume lives and shatter dreams, they have but a single chance to solve the mystery of the Gypsy morph—and their own profound connection. “Superior to most of the fantasy fiction being published today.”—Rocky Mountain News
Haderlap is an accomplished poet, and that lyricism leaves clear traces on this ravishing debut, which won the prestigious Bachmann Prize in 2011. The descriptions are sensual, and the unusual similes and metaphors occasionally change perspective unexpectedly. Angel of Oblivion deals with harrowing subjects - murder, torture, persecution and discrimination of an ethnic minority - in intricate and lyrical prose. The novel tells the story of a family from the Slovenian minority in Austria. The first-person narrator starts off with her childhood memories of rural life, in a community anchored in the past. Yet behind this rural idyll, an unresolved conflict is smouldering. At first, the child wonders about the border to Yugoslavia, which runs not far away from her home. Then gradually the stories that the adults tell at every opportunity start to make sense. All the locals are scarred by the war. Her grandfather, we find out, was a partisan fighting the Nazis from forest hideouts. Her grandmother was arrested and survived Ravensbrück. As the narrator grows older, she finds out more. Through conversations at family gatherings and long nights talking to her grandmother, she learns that her father was arrested by the Austrian police and tortured - at the age of ten - to extract information on the whereabouts of his father. Her grandmother lost her foster-daughter and many friends and relatives in Ravensbrück and only escaped the gas chamber by hiding inside the camp itself. The narrator begins to notice the frequent suicides and violent deaths in her home region, and she develops an eye for how the Slovenians are treated by the majority of German-speaking Austrians. As an adult, the narrator becomes politicised and openly criticises the way in which Austria deals with the war and its own Nazi past. In the closing section, she visits Ravensbrück and finds it strangely lifeless - realising that her personal memories of her grandmother are stronger. Illuminating an almost forgotten chapter of European history and the European present, the book deals with family dynamics scarred by war and torture - a dominant grandmother, a long-suffering mother, a violent father who loves his children but is impossible to live with. And interwoven with this is compelling reflection on storytelling: the narrator hoping to rid herself of the emotional burden of her past and to tell stories on behalf of those who cannot.
