The Map Maker is the story of a young adventurer who travels to Paradise Island with the aid of a magical map. Here, he begins his own “knowledge quest” to better understand why people see the world just the way they do. Using simple prose, this illustrated short story introduces and explores the meaning behind the phrase “the subjectivity of truth and the relativity of reality.” Target Audience: This story is ideally suited to high school or college students studying English literature or philosophy and lends itself to classroom or group discussion. It is a think piece that explores the topic of human perspective and shows the folly in believing that we can see the world in an objective manner. “The Map Maker is a short story as playful as it is poignant. The marriage of whimsical images and thought-provoking text creates a unique tapestry: one that weaves storytelling and philosophy with literary verve. Royal challenges us to think about the key role that perspective plays in our lives. He also shows how literature, acting as both an art form and a pragmatic tool, can help us gain critical insights.” —Rachel Metalin, B.A. M.A., English Instructor, Upper Canada College (UCC), Toronto, Canada

"Vividly detailed and beautifully written, this is a pleasure to read, a thoughtful, deeply engaging story of the power of faith to navigate history's rough terrain."—Booklist How Far Would You Go To Stay True to Yourself? Spain, 1492. On the eve of the Jewish expulsion from Spain, Amalia Riba stands at a crossroads. In a country violently divided by religion, she must either convert to Christianity and stay safe, or remain a Jew and risk everything. It's a choice she's been walking toward her whole life, from the days of her youth when her family lit the Shabbat candles in secret. Back then, she saw the vast possibility of the world, outlined in the beautiful pen and ink maps her father created. But the world has shifted and contracted since then. The Mapmaker's Daughter is a stirring novel about identity, exile, and what it means to be home. "A close look at the great costs and greater rewards of being true to who you really are. A lyrical journey to the time when the Jews of Spain were faced with the wrenching choice of deciding their future as Jews—a pivotal period of history and inspiration today."—Margaret George, New York Times bestselling author of Elizabeth I "The many twists and turns in the life of the mapmaker's daughter, Amalia, mirror the tenuous and harrowing journey of the Jewish community in fifteenth-century Iberia, showing how family and faith overcame even the worst the Inquisition could inflict on them."—Anne Easter Smith, author of Royal Mistress and A Rose for the Crown "A powerful love story ignites these pages, making the reader yearn for more as they come to know Amalia and Jamil, two of the most compelling characters in recent historical fiction. An absolute must-read!"—Michelle Moran, author of The Second Empress and Madam Tussaud

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Baker's Daughter and Marilla of Green Gables, a story of family, love, and courage When Sarah Brown, daughter of abolitionist John Brown, realizes that her artistic talents may be able to help save the lives of slaves fleeing north, she becomes one of the Underground Railroad’s leading mapmakers, taking her cues from the slave code quilts and hiding her maps within her paintings. She boldly embraces this calling after being told the shocking news that she can’t bear children, but as the country steers toward bloody civil war, Sarah faces difficult sacrifices that could put all she loves in peril. Eden, a modern woman desperate to conceive a child with her husband, moves to an old house in the suburbs and discovers a porcelain head hidden in the root cellar—the remains of an Underground Railroad doll with an extraordinary past of secret messages, danger and deliverance. Ingeniously plotted to a riveting end, Sarah and Eden’s woven lives connect the past to the present, forcing each of them to define courage, family, love, and legacy in a new way.

After being given an apprenticeship to chart her entire kingdom, young Aoife encounters a secretive culture of wealthy and peaceful people who she protects by enduring a harrowing exile.

In the early years of the 18th century, a band of French scientists set off on a daring, decade-long expedition to South America in a race to measure the precise shape of the earth. Like Lewis and Clark's exploration of the American West, their incredible mission revealed the mysteries of a little-known continent to a world hungry for discovery. Scaling 16,000foot mountains in the Peruvian Andes, and braving jaguars, pumas, insects, and vampire bats in the jungle, the scientists barely completed their mission. One was murdered, another perished from fever, and a third-Jean Godin-nearly died of heartbreak. At the expedition's end, Jean and his Peruvian wife, Isabel Gramesen, became stranded at opposite ends of the Amazon, victims of a tangled web of international politics. Isabel's solo journey to reunite with Jean after their calamitous twenty-year separation was so dramatic that it left all of 18th-century Europe spellbound. Her survival-unprecedented in the annals of Amazon exploration-was a testament to human endurance, female resourcefulness, and the power of devotion. Drawing on the original writings of the French mapmakers, as well as his own experience retracing Isabel's journey, acclaimed writer Robert Whitaker weaves a riveting tale rich in adventure, intrigue, and scientific achievement. Never before told, The Mapmaker's Wife is an epic love story that unfolds against the backdrop of "the greatest expedition the world has ever known."

IN A TOWN IN THE HEART OF LA MANCHA, home to Don Quijote and his windmills, the Clemente family lived for centuries, their fortunes tied to those of a plant... So begins the grand tale that is The Mapmaker's Opera. Born in Seville, Spain to a dishonored governess, a young Diego Clemente finds solace in the world of books, in particular John James Audubon's Birds of America. Mesmerized by the wondrous images in Audobon's magnificent volume, he longs to travel to the New World to find his destiny and see these amazing creatures for himself. When renowned American naturalist Edward Nelson enlists him by chance to create a guide to Yucatan's birds, Diego's dream comes true. Arriving on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula on the eve of the Mexican Revolution, Diego finds himself in a world that is as precarious as it is beautiful, where opulent henequen plantations are built on the backs of slave labor and the social order is on the brink of imploding. And there, Diego falls for the young Sofia, a woman who longs to be as free as the birds she also loves. He tries with all his might to win her and, with Nelson's help, to save the last pair of passenger pigeons in existence. A mesmerizing tale of star-crossed passions, a pair of mysterious birds, and a young man's quest to honor both his passions, The Mapmaker's Opera transports its audience with stunning vistas, magical storytelling, and a universal story of love.

Narrating the spectacular story of her rise to the pinnacle of imperial power, Queen Mother Nurbanu, on her sickbed, is determined to understand how her bond with the greatest of all Ottoman sultans, Suleiman the Magnificent, shaped her destiny – not only as the wife of his successor but as the appointed enforcer of one of the Empire’s most crucial and shocking laws. Nurbanu spares nothing as she dissects the desires and motives that have propelled and harmed her; as she considers her role as devoted and manipulative mother; as she reckons her relations with the women of the Harem; and as she details the fate of the most sophisticated observatory in the world. Nurbanu sets out to “see” the causes and effects of her loves and choices, and she succeeds by means of unflinching candor – right up to the last shattering revelation.