In 1928, a fire spread through Twin Springs Hotel and stole General Rockwell's greatest treasures, his three daughters; Emerald, Ruby and Amethyst. How they really died has remained a secret until now. If Isabella Fairbanks had known that morning would change her life, she would’ve hidden better. But, at the tender age of eight, her friends called her Izzy, her father was larger than life, dreams were make believe, boys were gross, and ghosts lived only in books. Most of all, she’d be able to live within the safe walls of Twin Springs Hotel and Spa forever and ever. All grown up, Isabella chases her dream of becoming a chef. She returns home for her father's funeral and finds Theo Beaumont, the jerk who held her under the water as a sick joke, not only sitting behind her father's desk as the new General Manager but also a half owner of Twin Springs. Fighting to regain full ownership, she discovers that boys aren't always gross, and ghosts don't only live in books. After a string of strange accidents, another deep dark secret begins to emerge and a frightening thought occurs to Isabella, what if nightmares are real?
In The Emerald Horizon, Cornelia Mutel combines lyrical writing with meticulous scientific research to portray the environmental past, present, and future of Iowa. In doing so, she ties all of Iowa's natural features into one comprehensive whole. Since so much of the tallgrass state has been transformed into an agricultural landscape, Mutel focuses on understanding today’s natural environment by understanding yesterday’s changes. After summarizing the geological, archaeological, and ecological features that shaped Iowa’s modern landscape, she recreates the once-wild native communities that existed prior to Euroamerican settlement. Next she examines the dramatic changes that overtook native plant and animal communities as Iowa’s prairies, woodlands, and wetlands were transformed. Finally she presents realistic techniques for restoring native species and ecological processes as well as a broad variety of ways in which Iowans can reconnect with the natural world. Throughout, in addition to the many illustrations commissioned for this book, she offers careful scientific exposition, a strong sense of respect for the land, and encouragement to protect the future by learning from the past. The “emerald prairie” that “gleamed and shone to the horizon’s edge,” as botanist Thomas Macbride described it in 1895, has vanished. Cornelia Mutel’s passionate dedication to restoring this damaged landscape—and by extension the transformed landscape of the entire Corn Belt—invigorates her blend of natural history and human history. Believing that citizens who are knowledgeable about native species, communities, and ecological processes will better care for them, she gives us hope—and sound suggestions—for the future.
In elegant, precise prose Donald Antrim crafts funny, tender stories of men and women disorientated by love, loss, and bouts of sorrow. An unfaithful husband goes out to buy flowers for his wife, while across town a new couple, both survivors of difficult childhoods, find comfort together in other people's apartments. On the edge of a university campus, a group of students are brought together by their ageing drama professor, whose predilection for pot and crush on his star pupil threaten to tip their performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream into a surreal and dangerous farce. And in the title story, a bereaved art teacher drives into the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia intending to throw away his ex-girlfriend's paintings.
Karianna doesn't have to think long to decide how she will fight Malevente, an evil magician who has vowed to take control of the world. She knows that the only one capable of stopping him is the Emerald Dragon. There is only one problem: The dragon has not been seen in years. Some wonder whether the creature even exists, but Karianna remembers her mother speaking about the creature as a child. The dragon had saved her village from a band of outlaws, displaying tremendous powers. Now, Karianna must journey across an unknown land as she searches for the dragon's hiding place. Along the way, she meets Tyatu, another warrior trying to find the elusive creature. But they aren't the only ones looking. Malevente knows that if he finds the dragon first and steals its powers, he will be invincible. As Karianna journeys with Tyatu, she learns secrets not only about the Emerald Dragon but herself as well. She must understand what they mean and fast if she has any hope of defeating the evil magician and succeeding in her Quest for the Emerald Dragon.
Twenty years ago, in England, author Richard Leviton "discovered the planet." Following quite specific guidance, he began a long process that amounted to an apprenticeship. "My mentors dispatched me to various specific locations in the Somerset landscape, and at all hours of the night and day. I sat on hills and valleys and rocks under sunlight, moonlight, rain, snow, and fog, and had visions. I started to see another landscape behind the apparent landscape. It was an apparitional landscape with stars, planets, galaxies, angels, spirits of Nature, mythic deities, divinity." As time went on, he found himself talking with angels, visiting celestial cities, and following gnomes. He came to understand that at one level we are the planet, and that both we and it have an intimate relationship with our galaxy. "I found myself living inside the myths of the world as if they were expert scripts for real-life inner adventures. I never once thought I was crazy. Why should I? Quite the opposite. I believed I was finally getting grounded in something real. But it would take me twenty years to make sense of it. That sense is embodied in The Emerald Modem." The Emerald Modem includes: direct correspondences between human chakras and the Earth's energy features--and the galactic originalstables listing locations of sacred sites around the planet where you may experience this relationshipexplanations of world myths, which provide clues to this unsuspected visionary world around us This is the first book to synthesize all the fragments of geomantic perception (sacred sites, energy points, vertexes, etc.) into a global interactive model that ties human consciousness directly to it. Leviton describes 85 subtle features in the planetary landscape, places you can go for mystical experiences. They are features of the Earth's energy body, almost all invisible to conventional sight. But psychic cognition can be trained, and you can usefully interact with any of these types of sites today without seeing what you're doing. Your intent to interact for the benefit of yourself and the planet is all that's required. Just as modems dial us into the Internet, so the features of the Earth's energy body described in The Emerald Modem help us get online with the galaxy. You can learn to visit Grail Castles, experience a Mount Olympus, or walk through the stars in a landscape zodiac--and you can learn enough to become confident that you're not traveling alone.
When the government created 250 telepathic infants to train as warriors, the children were nurtured as only the most valuable of slaves can be. But now these rare children have come of age, and they demand the same freedom as all men and women--and possess a unique power with which to fight for it.
Visions from the Past is a clear and comprehensive examination of Aboriginal rock art. It also provides a practical overview of precisely how and why archaeologist study prehistoric art.
