*Like no other suspense author in his genre, Follett reinvents the thriller with each new novel. But nothing matches the intricate, knife-edge drama of* Whiteout.... A lab technician bleeding from the eyes. Twelve missing samples of a deadly virus. Toni Gallo, the security director of a Scottish medical research firm, knows she has problems, but she has no idea of the nightmare to come. As a Christmas Eve blizzard whips out of the north, several people, Toni among them, converge on a remote family house. All have something to gain or lose from the drug developed to fight the virus. As the storm worsens, the emotional sparks - jealousies, distrust, sexual attraction, rivalries - crackle; desperate secrets are revealed; hidden traitors and unexpected heroes emerge. FIlled with startling twists at every turn, *Whiteout* rockets Follett into a class by himself.

Beginning with Wizard's First Rule and continuing with six subsequent fantasy masterpieces, Terry Goodkind has thrilled and awed millions of readers worldwide. Now, in Naked Empire, Goodkind returns with a broad-canvas adventure of epic intrigue, violent conflict, and terrifying peril for the beautiful Kahlan Amnell and her husband, the heroic Richard Rahl, the Sword of Truth. Richard Rahl has been poisoned. Saving an empire from annihilation is the price of the antidote. With the shadow of death looming near, the empire crumbling before the invading hordes, and time running out, Richard is offered not only his own life but the salvation of a people, in exchange for delivering his wife, Kahlan, into bondage to the enemy.

Shakespeare’s *King Lear* challenges us with the magnitude, intensity, and sheer duration of the pain that it represents. Its figures harden their hearts, engage in violence, or try to alleviate the suffering of others. Lear himself rages until his sanity cracks. What, then, keeps bringing us back to *King Lear*? For all the force of its language, *King Lear* is almost equally powerful when translated, suggesting that it is the story, in large part, that draws us to the play. The play tells us about families struggling between greed and cruelty, on the one hand, and support and consolation, on the other. Emotions are extreme, magnified to gigantic proportions. We also see old age portrayed in all its vulnerability, pride, and, perhaps, wisdom—one reason this most devastating of Shakespeare’s tragedies is also perhaps his most moving. The authoritative edition of *King Lear* from The Folger Shakespeare Library, the trusted and widely used Shakespeare series for students and general readers, includes: -Freshly edited text based on the best early printed version of the play -Full explanatory notes conveniently placed on pages facing the text of the play -Scene-by-scene plot summaries -A key to the play’s famous lines and phrases -An introduction to reading Shakespeare’s language -An essay by a leading Shakespeare scholar providing a modern perspective on the play -Fresh images from the Folger Shakespeare Library’s vast holdings of rare books -An annotated guide to further reading Essay by Susan Snyder The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, is home to the world’s largest collection of Shakespeare’s printed works, and a magnet for Shakespeare scholars from around the globe. In addition to exhibitions open to the public throughout the year, the Folger offers a full calendar of performances and programs. For more information, visit Folger.edu. **

BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Elizabeth Berg's Once Upon a Time, There Was You. It begins with the sudden revelation of astonishing secrets—secrets that have shaped the personalities and fates of three siblings, and now threaten to tear them apart. In renowned author Elizabeth Berg’s moving new novel, unearthed truths force one seemingly ordinary family to reexamine their disparate lives and to ask themselves: Is it too late to mend the hurts of the past? Laura Bartone anticipates her annual family reunion in Minnesota with a mixture of excitement and wariness. Yet this year’s gathering will prove to be much more trying than either she or her siblings imagined. As soon as she arrives, Laura realizes that something is not right with her sister. Forever wrapped up in events of long ago, Caroline is the family’s restless black sheep. When Caroline confronts Laura and their brother, Steve, with devastating allegations about their mother, the three have a difficult time reconciling their varying experiences in the same house. But a sudden misfortune will lead them all to face the past, their own culpability, and their common need for love and forgiveness. Readers have come to love Elizabeth Berg for the “lucent beauty of [her] prose, the verity of her insights, and the tenderness of her regard for her fellow human” (Booklist). In The Art of Mending, her most profound and emotionally satisfying novel to date, she confronts some of the deepest mysteries of life, as she explores how even the largest sins can be forgiven by the smallest gestures, and how grace can come to many through the trials of one.

It is the spring of 1930, and Maisie has been hired to find a runaway heiress. When three of the heiress's old friends are found dead, Maisie must race to find out who would want to kill these seemingly respectable young women before it's too late. As Maisie investigates, she discovers that the answers lie in the unforgettable agony of the Great War.

Memoirs of a Cavalier - A Military Journal of the Wars in Germany, and the Wars in England. - From the Year 1632 to the Year 1648. is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This popular classic work by Daniel Defoe is in the English language, and may not include graphics or images from the original edition. If you enjoy the works of Daniel Defoe then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection.

This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

This collection of literature attempts to compile many of the classic, timeless works that have stood the test of time and offer them at a reduced, affordable price, in an attractive volume so that everyone can enjoy them.

fictional short stories.

15-year-old Jessica Day moves with her family to Bixby, Oklahoma after her mother gets a job offer at a high-tech aerospace company. Soon after the move, Jessica awakens to find time frozen, rain stopped in mid air. Although she thinks it is a dream, she is suspicious when she wakes to find her clothes wet. The next night, it happens again; leaving her room, she finds that her family is frozen, and the only other living thing is a cat, which leads her out of her house before transforming into a snake, revealing that it is really a slither and, with the help of more snakes that are also called slithers, and a darkling in the form large cat, attack her. Jessica is rescued by the "Midnighters": Dess, Rex and Melissa, who chase away the animals using thirteen letter words and steel.

Hannah Coulter is Wendell Berry's seventh novel and his first to employ the voice of a woman character in its telling. Hannah, the now-elderly narrator, recounts the love she has for the land and for her community. She remembers each of her two husbands, and all places and community connections threatened by twentieth-century technologies. At risk is the whole culture of family farming, hope redeemed when her wayward and once lost grandson, Virgil, returns to his rural home place to work the farm.

In his first-ever work of nonfiction, Graham Swift—Booker Prize-winning author of Waterland and Last Orders—gives us a highly personal book: a singular and open-spirited account of a writer’s life. Here Kazuo Ishiguro advises on how to choose a guitar; Salman Rushdie arrives for Christmas under guard; Caryl Phillips shares a beer with the author at a nightclub in Toronto. There are private moments with Swift’s father and with his own younger self, as well as musings—on history, memory, and imagination—that illuminate his work. As generous in its scope as it is acute in its observations, Making an Elephant brings together a richly varied selection of essays, portraits, poetry and interviews, full of insights into Swift’s passions and motivations, and wise about the friends, family and other writers who have mattered to him over the years. From the Trade Paperback edition.

Achim is eleven years old when he moves from the orphanage to the house by the sea. Here everything is strange and new. But one day he discovers an unusual door that leads to a circular room with walls made of rough stone. The light coming through the window is hazy, as if the room is under water. It is a magic room—which he calls “The Adopted Room”—belonging to another world. And on a bed in the room sits a boy who is waiting to take Achim with him into the realm of the powerful Nameless One. Achim learns that the boy, Arnim, is the long-dead son of Achim’s new parents. When he died in a car accident at the age of four, Arnim was supposed to have become a bird and flown free to the land of the dead, which can be seen through the window of The Adopted Room. But the Nameless One has somehow locked Arnim inside, so he cannot leave. Achim, however, finds he can turn into a bird, slip through the window, and fly across the strange land. And thus begins a journey in which Achim must fight the Nameless One and free Arnim so he can finally leave his parents and they can let go of their grief. Antonia Michaelis’s fresh voice helps to address the delicate issues of death, grief, and mourning, portraying them as an essential part of life. The Secret Room is full of humor and adventure, but also brings to light these difficult life issues in a way that young readers can understand. The first in a trilogy, with its sequel, The Secret of the Twelfth Continent, to follow next spring, this captivating mid-grade novel is sure to become a favorite series with young readers.

Kent Haruf, award-winning, bestselling author of Plainsong returns to the high-plains town of Holt, Colorado, with a novel of masterful authority. The aging McPheron brothers are learning to live without Victoria Roubideaux, the single mother they took in and who has now left their ranch to start college. A lonely young boy stoically cares for his grandfather while a disabled couple tries to protect their a violent relative. As these lives unfold and intersect, Eventide unveils the immemorial truths about human beings: their fragility and resilience, their selfishness and goodness, and their ability to find family in one another. From the Trade Paperback edition.