As the Festival of Renewal approaches, Iellieth must choose: Stay with her distant mother and abusive stepfather or accept an arranged marriage to a cruel, power-hungry nobleman from another kingdom. But just as she faces the consequences of her decision, her father’s amulet whisks her away to a snow-covered mountainside. Hidden within is an ancient warrior waiting to be awakened—waiting for her. He holds the key to the life of adventure she’s always wanted and—most importantly of all—to her destiny. And that’s only the beginning. Prove yourself, find where you belong, and step into the person you were meant to be in this gripping, first-in-series epic fantasy novel by Beth Ball, author of Phoenix Rising.

Halli loves the old stories from when the valley was a wild and dangerous place when the legendary heroes stood together to defeat the ancient enemy, the bloodthirsty Trows. Nowadays heroics seem a thing of the past. But when a practical joke rekindles an old blood feud, Halli spots a chance for a quest of his own.

Sparks of natural magic flicker at your fingertips, ready to be unleashed. Forces awaken across the world of Azuria, ancient enmities stirring that have remained stagnant for thousands of years. Organized packs of werewolves hunt the few remaining druid conclaves that have managed to survive. The druids' forest homes do what they can to protect their caretakers, but their true hope lies beyond the woodland borders, in a young noblewoman preparing for a much different fate than the one destiny will unfurl before her. Heroes of old return to life, severed from the elemental titans they once served. A pirate queen marauds on the open seas, searching for a lost artifact and destroying any who stand in her way. A young druid woman fights for survival against a curse that threatens to possess her, body and soul. Over it all, the dark goddess Alessandra watches, waiting for the one whose time has now come. The amulet calls.

The myths of the ancient Greeks have inspired us for thousands of years. Where did the famous stories of the battles of their gods develop and spread across the world? The celebrated classicist Robin Lane Fox draws on a lifetime’s knowledge of the ancient world, and on his own travels, answering this question by pursuing it through the age of Homer. His acclaimed history explores how the intrepid seafarers of eighth-century Greece sailed around the Mediterranean, encountering strange new sights—volcanic mountains, vaporous springs, huge prehistoric bones—and weaving them into the myths of gods, monsters and heroes that would become the cornerstone of Western civilization.

Premiering in September of 2006, the weekly NBC television series Heroes was an immediate commercial and critical hit, lasting four successful seasons. Heroes follows a group of interrelated characters who discover they have superhuman powers, with each successive episode exploring how these people react to and utilize their powers for good or for evil. This collection of essays explores a variety of issues surrounding Heroes, examining the series' content, marketing and reception. Also investigated is the show's fusion of "cult" and mainstream elements of television, analyzing its ability to combine so-called lowbrow elements (comic books and superheroes) with a high-quality television form prizing such factors as moral ambiguity and depth of characterization--and what this blending process suggests about the current hybrid state of genre television, and about the medium as a whole.