Bill and Renee Carroll's "Aventura Alaska Brasil" proved to be a lifetime's journey of pleasure, disappointment and achievement. For an unprecedented 24/7 durability test, their car's engine was started in Anchorage, Alaska and ran almost continuously for 125 days and nights. At the same time they drove the brand-new Mercury coupe 24,876 miles south to Brazil's Rio de Janeiro. A highlight was transiting the Panama Canal and three days of cruising the Caribbean Sea because there was no other way to travel from Panama to South America. Overnights ranged from tiny hostels welcoming every traveler with old-world courtesy to magnificent chain edifices that routinely failed to know of verified room reservations. The variety of food included chocolate-coated ants in Columbia and gourmet dinners in Venezuela. Gasoline was usually available except when a town had none, or the only pump was on the far side of a barbed wire fence. Multi-lane pavement soon became a desired treat, cobblestones rustic backbreakers, landslides in Costa Rica a dangerous hurdle and road rocks in Ecuador ripped a hole in the gasoline tank. Later, between Chile and Argentina, their route involved following rails and bouncing over ties through a railroad's "Tunel Internacional" deep in the Andes. Press conferences arranged by "Aventura" sponsors Ford Motor Company, Morton International, STP and Firestone Tire and Rubber were great fun. Most difficult was entering Brasil, where a senior Customs Inspector thought the Mercury's documents were forged, and restrained the Carrolls in his tiny border town for days. All, and more, is part of this exciting "Aventura Alaska Brasil."

Carroll has had a wonderful life and continues to be proud of his few abilities and the many supportive friends who have enhanced his way.

"Gorgeous prose, delicious magic." - V.E. Schwab YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults Selection Kids' Indie Next Pick Amazon Best Book A scrappy maid must outsmart both palace nobles and Low Gods in a new YA fantasy by Margaret Owen, author of the Merciful Crow series. Once upon a time, there was a horrible girl... Vanja Schmidt knows that no gift is freely given, not even a mother’s love—and she’s on the hook for one hell of a debt. Vanja, the adopted goddaughter of Death and Fortune, was Princess Gisele's dutiful servant up until a year ago. That was when Vanja’s otherworldly mothers demanded a terrible price for their care, and Vanja decided to steal her future back... by stealing Gisele’s life for herself. The real Gisele is left a penniless nobody while Vanja uses an enchanted string of pearls to take her place. Now, Vanja leads a lonely but lucrative double life as princess and jewel thief, charming nobility while emptying their coffers to fund her great escape. Then, one heist away from freedom, Vanja crosses the wrong god and is cursed to an untimely end: turning into jewels, stone by stone, for her greed. Vanja has just two weeks to figure out how to break her curse and make her getaway. And with a feral guardian half-god, Gisele’s sinister fiancé, and an overeager junior detective on Vanja’s tail, she’ll have to pull the biggest grift yet to save her own life. Margaret Owen, author of The Merciful Crow series, crafts a delightfully irreverent retelling of “The Goose Girl” about stolen lives, thorny truths, and the wicked girls at the heart of both.