A fire rages out of control at Criton Chemical Company, a large fertilizer plant in Chatterton, Virginia, owned by a powerful Iranian businessman. With thousands of lives at stake, Patrick and Shane Meagher fight to contain the blaze before dozens of ammonium nitrate tanks explode. When arson is detected, both firefighters are drawn into an international web of deception and death, intended to destabilize an already volatile Middle East. "A great read for the brothers and sisters of the Fire Service, and for everyone who follows the courageous men and women in this proud profession."
Hilarious, non-stop adventure, a mysterious jewel heist, and a detective team like no other make this a must-have middle grade series starter. Perfect for fans of A Series of Unfortunate Events and Enola Holmes. After twelve-year-old John Boarhog’s mom dies, the last thing he wants is to be schlepped off to the Jersey Home for Boys, where kids are forced to make skinny jeans for hipsters and are fed nothing but kale. Instead, he makes himself a snug home in the ceiling of the New York Museum of Natural History, where he reads anything he get his hands on and explores the artifacts afterhours. But when a rare Egyptian ruby—the highlight of the museum’s new exhibit—goes missing, John is accused of the crime. That is until the unpredictable Inspector Toadius McGee sweeps in to wrestle control of the case, certain that the true culprit is a notorious criminal he’s been tracking for years. John quickly becomes the Watson to Toadius’s Holmes as they race from Broadway to back alleys to a speak-easy that only serves root beer. And along the way, John uncovers secrets about his own past, including that he’s a lot more involved in this web of endearing ne'er-do-wells than he ever could have imagined. A love letter to classic middle grade, Egypt's Fire introduces a remarkable new duo that will steal your heart as surely as it leaves you begging for their next grand adventure. A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection
The heart-pounding conclusion to the daring Smoke Thieves trilogy. In this conclusion to the epic Smoke Thieves trilogy, the world has erupted into all-out war. King Aloysius is mining powerful demon smoke and using it to fuel an unstoppable army of children. March, now banished for treason, has joined up with this boy army. Forbidden from ever seeing Edyon again, and overwhelmed by his own betrayal, March no longer cares if he lives or dies. Catherine--now queen of Pitoria--must find a way to defeat the boy army, while also grappling with her own troubles: her secret demon smoke addiction, and unresolved tension with her former lover, Ambrose. Catherine seeks military support from Calidor by reaching out to her illegitimate cousin Edyon, who has been proclaimed heir to the Calidorian throne. But Edyon has almost no power as he's entangled in the unfamiliar machinations and manipulations of the royal court, finding that being the claimed son of a prince may be no easier than being a bastard. With Catherine, his love, now married off and moving on, and his brother and sister tortured and executed before him, Ambrose doesn't know what his role in this world is any more. He leads an expedition into the demon world, hoping to destroy the boy army's stores of demon smoke. In this underground world, he runs into Tash, whom everyone had believed dead. She has survived in this new world using magical abilities that, prior to now, only demons had. Aloysius will send his demon smoke-powered boy army to kill them all, if he can. But what nobody knows is that there is more to the smoke than meets the eye...
Following hot on the heels of the events of It Takes a Thief To Catch a Sunrise, ...To Start a Fire sees Jacques Revou and Isabel de Rosier adapting to life in Great Turlain while competing against murderous fences, shadowy secret police, and a group of thieves who can control the very elements. We started our lives together with barely a coin to our name. We have won fortunes and lost them. We have stolen the un-stealable, survived plots and schemes determined to see us fall, and saved a Queen from certain death. But sometimes a fresh start is exactly what is needed and here we can have just that. Free from devious machinations and troublesome reputations alike. Here we can go back to our roots. A good thief gets out without being caught. A great thief makes it look as though they were never there. But we are neither good, nor great. We are the best.
In the latest installment of the chronicles of Carding, Vermont, Edie Wolfe comes to appreciate the truth in one of her father's favorite sayings: "Old sins cast long shadows." As the green of a Vermont summer deepens and the cool waters of Half Moon Lake beckon, Edie and her friends uncover more questions than answers when they start digging into the town's past. Why did Carding's most famous son, the renowned painter Joseph Stillman Croft, leave town so suddenly in 1929? Why does his strange will mandate that his masterpiece, Thieves of Fire, always hang on the wall of the Carding Academy of Traditional Arts? As she starts to probe Croft's secret life, Edie comes face to face with her own past when the father of her children, the man she knew in Paris as Jean-Paul Vallone, turns out to be very much alive and very interested in the comings and goings of her little town in Vermont. Then there's the business of Gideon Brown's resurrection tour, the problem of unpaid taxes, and a forgotten woman who holds the key to Carding's future. Edie would like you to believe that she's as calm on the inside as she appears on the outside. But with so much change swirling through the streets of the town at the heart of the Corvus River Valley, Edie Wolfe's renowned wisdom and foresight are about to be challenged. If you're in the mood for the kind of story that keeps you reading late into the night because you just have to know what happens next, then you're in for a treat in Thieves of Fire, a tale about the bonds of love and the fundamental goodness of human beings.
The second installment in the all-new series from the masterful, #1 NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author Maggie Stiefvater! Ronan Lynch has secrets. Some he keeps from others. Some he keeps from himself.One secret: Ronan can bring things out of his dreams.And sometimes he's not the only one who wants those things.Ronan is one of the raven boys - a group of friends, practically brothers, searching for a dead king named Glendower, who they think is hidden somewhere in the hills by their elite private school, Aglionby Academy. The path to Glendower has long lived as an undercurrent beneath town. But now, like Ronan's secrets, it is beginning to rise to the surface - changing everything in its wake.Of THE RAVEN BOYS, ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY wrote, "Maggie Stiefvater's can't-put-it-down paranormal adventure will leave you clamoring for book two." Now the second book is here, with the same wild imagination, dark romance, and heart-stopping twists that only Maggie Stiefvater can conjure.
Unforgiveable betrayals, devious motives, and forbidden love collide in the first installment of internationally bestselling author Sally Green's epic new fantasy series, perfect for Game of Thrones fans. In a land tinged with magic and a bustling trade in an illicit supernatural substance, destiny will intertwine the fates of five players: A visionary princess determined to forge her own path. An idealistic solider whose heart is at odds with his duty. A streetwise hunter tracking the most dangerous prey. A charming thief with a powerful hidden identity. A loyal servant on a quest to avenge his kingdom. Their lives intersect with a stolen bottle of demon smoke. As war approaches, they must navigate a tangled web of political intrigue, shifting alliances, and forbidden love in order to uncover the dangerous truth about the strangely powerful smoke that interwines their fates.
Gripping historical adventure set during the Great Fire of London. A young boy orphaned by the Plague learns to survive as a thief on the streets of London - until fire breaks out... London, 1666. Orphaned by the Great Plague, Sam is soon starving on the streets - and desperate enough to steal some bread. He's quickly recruited as one of sinister Uncle Jack's children, and taught to pick pockets. If he gets caught by the law, the punishment will be death - and if he crosses Uncle Jack, it could be just as bad. Still, it's a living for Sam and his fellow thief Catherine... until the long, hot London summer means a blaze at the Pudding Lane bakery runs out of control... and they learn that Uncle Jack's schemes are far more evil than they knew. Running for their lives from thiefmasters, thieftakers and the Great Fire of London itself, can two reluctant criminals save an innocent life - and their own skins?
"A chilling reminder of Hitler’s twisted power." —BBC For readers of The Monuments Men and The Hare with Amber Eyes, the story of the Nazis' systematic pillaging of Europe's libraries, and the small team of heroic librarians now working to return the stolen books to their rightful owners. While the Nazi party was being condemned by much of the world for burning books, they were already hard at work perpetrating an even greater literary crime. Through extensive new research that included records saved by the Monuments Men themselves—Anders Rydell tells the untold story of Nazi book theft, as he himself joins the effort to return the stolen books. When the Nazi soldiers ransacked Europe’s libraries and bookshops, large and small, the books they stole were not burned. Instead, the Nazis began to compile a library of their own that they could use to wage an intellectual war on literature and history. In this secret war, the libraries of Jews, Communists, Liberal politicians, LGBT activists, Catholics, Freemasons, and many other opposition groups were appropriated for Nazi research, and used as an intellectual weapon against their owners. But when the war was over, most of the books were never returned. Instead many found their way into the public library system, where they remain to this day. Now, Rydell finds himself entrusted with one of these stolen volumes, setting out to return it to its rightful owner. It was passed to him by the small team of heroic librarians who have begun the monumental task of combing through Berlin’s public libraries to identify the looted books and reunite them with the families of their original owners. For those who lost relatives in the Holocaust, these books are often the only remaining possession of their relatives they have ever held. And as Rydell travels to return the volume he was given, he shows just how much a single book can mean to those who own it.
