Four convicted killers, all sentenced to death, await their fate in the horrific confines of the northern dungeons. Life is brutal and hope all but extinguished when they are summoned before the governor. Expecting their sentences to be carried out, they instead find the governor struggling with a moral dilemma. Who has the right to take the life of another? The governor, under intense pressure from the magistrates and his own daughter, decides on a most unconventional solution. He will allow fate to decide who lives, and who dies. The Northern territory's annual festival is underway, and this year it coincides with the Festival of the Arrow, the archery championship of the entire kingdom. The convicted men, if they choose, will ride in a wagon used as the target for the long range archery competition. If they survive the two day ordeal, they will earn their freedom. They each reflect on how they got here, what awaits them should they earn their freedom, and how they are to deal with the onslaught of dozens of potentially lethal arrows showering down upon them. Emotions are raw, the fear tangible, and the stakes literally life and death. How will each cope, and who if anyone will fate allow to survive, the execution games.

Four convicted killers, all sentenced to death, await their fate in the horrific confines of the northern dungeons. Life is brutal and hope all but extinguished when they are summoned before the governor. Expecting their sentences to be carried out, they instead find the governor struggling with a moral dilemma. Who has the right to take the life of another? The governor, under intense pressure from the magistrates and his own daughter, decides on a most unconventional solution. He will allow fate to decide who lives, and who dies. The Northern territory's annual festival is underway, and this year it coincides with the Festival of the Arrow, the archery championship of the entire kingdom. The convicted men, if they choose, will ride in a wagon used as the target for the long range archery competition. If they survive the two day ordeal, they will earn their freedom. They each reflect on how they got here, what awaits them should they earn their freedom, and how they are to deal with the onslaught of dozens of potentially lethal arrows showering down upon them. Emotions are raw, the fear tangible, and the stakes literally life and death. How will each cope, and who if anyone will fate allow to survive, the execution games.

For more than a thousand years the King’s Knights have defended the 3rd Kingdom. An extension of the King’s power and authority, these brave men face any foe without hesitation. In all their glorious history never have they allowed a woman to join their ranks. This tradition stands in the way of Myca’s dream of becoming a knight. She posses the skills, the bravery and the determination, but she is denied the opportunity to prove herself worthy. Unwilling to simply accept her fate, Myca sets out on a grand quest to prove herself not only to her oppressors, the village bullies and the narrow-minded bureaucrats, but to herself as well. Myca, with her lifelong friend Florian, travels to Beggar’s Canyon, a refuge for all that is vial, where justice seldom visits and the lines between right and wrong are at best, blurred. Myca must venture into the depths of the tombs, visit Dragon’s Howl prison, the most haunted place in the kingdom, then do battle with inhuman beasts in the underground at Cedar’s Point. If she is successful, she will prove herself worthy. If she fails, it could cost her everything, including her life.

Stepping back beyond the Classical Age by some 200 years, one will find the Age of the Great Queens. Before the Wizard Wars, the kingdom was led by a number of powerful and brilliant women. The first, Queen Eunice, took the throne upon the death of the king. She reigned for fifteen years and was considered a fair and just ruler. Soon afterwards, Queen Hester ascended to the throne. Hester's reign lasted fifty years, one of the longest reigns of any monarch. Her time has been recorded as one of peace and great prosperity. Queen Megan never ascended to the throne, but after the first war with the Eastern Raiders, Megan was overwhelmed with the horrific casualties and the struggles of those who had been injured in battle. She was solely responsible for a major medical reform which insured the proper care and long-term treatment of battlefield injuries. Queen Catherine also never sat upon the throne, but her desire to expand the kingdom’s knowledge and education system continues to be felt even today. Her greatest legacy, the Library of Lady Catherine, remains a center of learning and knowledge. The last of the great queen’s was Airien. The times were troubled and filled with uncertainty, treachery and famine. She was the wife and queen to Felix II and they had a son, Felix III. Airien was a strong, intelligent and vibrant woman. She would be forced to deal with severe famine, betrayal, threats to both herself and her infant son, and a new war with the eastern raiders.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING MICHAEL B. JORDAN AND JAMIE FOXX • A powerful true story about the potential for mercy to redeem us, and a clarion call to fix our broken system of justice—from one of the most brilliant and influential lawyers of our time. “[Bryan Stevenson’s] dedication to fighting for justice and equality has inspired me and many others and made a lasting impact on our country.”—John Legend NAMED ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL BOOKS OF THE DECADE BY CNN • Named One of the Best Books of the Year by The New York Times • The Washington Post • The Boston Globe • The Seattle Times • Esquire • Time Bryan Stevenson was a young lawyer when he founded the Equal Justice Initiative, a legal practice dedicated to defending those most desperate and in need: the poor, the wrongly condemned, and women and children trapped in the farthest reaches of our criminal justice system. One of his first cases was that of Walter McMillian, a young man who was sentenced to die for a notorious murder he insisted he didn’t commit. The case drew Bryan into a tangle of conspiracy, political machination, and legal brinksmanship—and transformed his understanding of mercy and justice forever. Just Mercy is at once an unforgettable account of an idealistic, gifted young lawyer’s coming of age, a moving window into the lives of those he has defended, and an inspiring argument for compassion in the pursuit of true justice. Winner of the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction • Winner of the NAACP Image Award for Nonfiction • Winner of a Books for a Better Life Award • Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize • Finalist for the Kirkus Reviews Prize • An American Library Association Notable Book “Every bit as moving as To Kill a Mockingbird, and in some ways more so . . . a searing indictment of American criminal justice and a stirring testament to the salvation that fighting for the vulnerable sometimes yields.”—David Cole, The New York Review of Books “Searing, moving . . . Bryan Stevenson may, indeed, be America’s Mandela.”—Nicholas Kristof, The New York Times “You don’t have to read too long to start cheering for this man. . . . The message of this book . . . is that evil can be overcome, a difference can be made. Just Mercy will make you upset and it will make you hopeful.”—Ted Conover, The New York Times Book Review “Inspiring . . . a work of style, substance and clarity . . . Stevenson is not only a great lawyer, he’s also a gifted writer and storyteller.”—The Washington Post “As deeply moving, poignant and powerful a book as has been, and maybe ever can be, written about the death penalty.”—The Financial Times “Brilliant.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A searing, deeply moving memoir of illness and recovery that traces one young woman’s journey from diagnosis to remission to re-entry into “normal” life—from the author of the Life, Interrupted column in The New York Times ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, Bloomberg, The Rumpus, She Reads, Library Journal, Booklist • “I was immersed for the whole ride and would follow Jaouad anywhere. . . . Her writing restores the moon, lights the way as we learn to endure the unknown.”—Chanel Miller, The New York Times Book Review “Beautifully crafted . . . affecting . . . a transformative read . . . Jaouad’s insights about the self, connectedness, uncertainty and time speak to all of us.”—The Washington Post In the summer after graduating from college, Suleika Jaouad was preparing, as they say in commencement speeches, to enter “the real world.” She had fallen in love and moved to Paris to pursue her dream of becoming a war correspondent. The real world she found, however, would take her into a very different kind of conflict zone. It started with an itch—first on her feet, then up her legs, like a thousand invisible mosquito bites. Next came the exhaustion, and the six-hour naps that only deepened her fatigue. Then a trip to the doctor and, a few weeks shy of her twenty-third birthday, a diagnosis: leukemia, with a 35 percent chance of survival. Just like that, the life she had imagined for herself had gone up in flames. By the time Jaouad flew home to New York, she had lost her job, her apartment, and her independence. She would spend much of the next four years in a hospital bed, fighting for her life and chronicling the saga in a column for The New York Times. When Jaouad finally walked out of the cancer ward—after countless rounds of chemo, a clinical trial, and a bone marrow transplant—she was, according to the doctors, cured. But as she would soon learn, a cure is not where the work of healing ends; it’s where it begins. She had spent the past 1,500 days in desperate pursuit of one goal—to survive. And now that she’d done so, she realized that she had no idea how to live. How would she reenter the world and live again? How could she reclaim what had been lost? Jaouad embarked—with her new best friend, Oscar, a scruffy terrier mutt—on a 100-day, 15,000-mile road trip across the country. She set out to meet some of the strangers who had written to her during her years in the hospital: a teenage girl in Florida also recovering from cancer; a teacher in California grieving the death of her son; a death-row inmate in Texas who’d spent his own years confined to a room. What she learned on this trip is that the divide between sick and well is porous, that the vast majority of us will travel back and forth between these realms throughout our lives. Between Two Kingdoms is a profound chronicle of survivorship and a fierce, tender, and inspiring exploration of what it means to begin again.