Thanks to a rare condition, Desiree can hardly find her way across her own apartment without getting lost. How can she possibly navigate an alien environment and save two worlds from a powerful entity before time runs out? Destiny—and a blue-skinned warrior dropped in her living room—chooses her to bring salvation against all odds, aided by an enchanted and unconventional map…but what good will it do in the face of her condition? Lost in an unknown war zone, pursued by the evil Negatithesis, Desiree must battle her flawed sense of direction to try to save her own world and one other, all while confronting the tragic failure of a past for which she has no map of redemption.

The first book in the Ringlander Series, and the debut of Scottish author Michael S. Jackson, THE PATH AND THE WAY is a fast-paced, epic fantasy adventure full of games, grit and magic. THE PATH AND THE WAY is a coming-of-age, original fantasy adventure with LBGT relationships and a largely female lead cast. It is a journey of loss and discovery. Holes between worlds are tearing through Rengas. Firestorms are raging as multiple realities battle for control of the elements. Even the Way, the turbulent channel that separates Nord, Határ and Kemen, the lifeblood of the city of Tyr, has turned. Kyira's search for her missing brother draws her away from the familiar frozen lines of Nord and south into the chaotic streets of Tyr where games are played & battles fought. As reality tears Kyira must choose between her family or her path before the worlds catch up with her. The world of Rengas is tearing, but it's the people below who will suffer - the wars of the Forbringrs care not for the misgivings of the beings below. Kyira, a Nordun Pathwatcher, returns from a fight on the ice but her father and brother are missing. As she searches frantically to reunite her family she is drawn into a war between the humans and the Bohr, leaving the cold familiar lines of her frozen home to venture the narrow, winding streets of Tyr, where games are played and battles fought. The stories of Kyira, Fia (a companion like Inara in Firefly), Jagar (a deadly assassin), Captain Laeb (the foreign tactician who against all the odds keeps besting the Bohr in combat), and even the Forbringr herself converge in an explosive ending.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the author of the widely acclaimed The Book of Ruth comes a harrowing, heartbreaking drama about a rural American family and a disastrous event that forever changes their lives. "It takes a writer of rare power and discipline to carry off an achievement like A Map of the World. Hamilton proves here that she is one of the best." —Newsweek The Goodwins, Howard, Alice, and their little girls, Emma and Claire, live on a dairy farm in Wisconsin. Although suspiciously regarded by their neighbors as "that hippie couple" because of their well-educated, urban background, Howard and Alice believe they have found a source of emotional strength in the farm, he tending the barn while Alice works as a nurse in the local elementary school. But their peaceful life is shattered one day when a neighbor's two-year-old daughter drowns in the Goodwins' pond while under Alice's care. Tormented by the accident, Alice descends even further into darkness when she is accused of sexually abusing a student at the elementary school. Soon, Alice is arrested, incarcerated, and as good as convicted in the eyes of a suspicious community. As a child, Alice designed her own map of the world to find her bearings. Now, as an adult, she must find her way again, through a maze of lies, doubt and ill will. A vivid human drama of guilt and betrayal, A Map of the World chronicles the intricate geographies of the human heart and all its mysterious, uncharted terrain. The result is a piercing drama about family bonds and a disappearing rural American life.

Ten-year-old Persimmony Smudge lives a boring life on the Island in the Middle of Everything, but she longs for adventure. And she soon gets it when she overhears a life-altering secret and suddenly finds herself in the middle of an amazing journey. It turns out that Mount Majestic, the rising and falling mountain in the center of the island, is not really a mountain - it's the belly of a sleeping giant! It's up to Persimmony and her friend Worvil to convince the island's quarreling inhabitants that a giant is sleeping in their midst and must not be awakened. The question is, will she be able to do it?

Map making and, ultimately, map thinking is ubiquitous across literature, cosmology, mathematics, psychology, and genetics. We partition, summarize, organize, and clarify our world via spatialized representations. Our maps and, more generally, our representations seduce and persuade; they build and destroy. They are the ultimate record of empires and of our evolving comprehension of our world. This book is about the promises and perils of map thinking. Maps are purpose-driven abstractions, discarding detail to highlight only particular features of a territory. By preserving certain features at the expense of others, they can be used to reinforce a privileged position. When Maps Become the World shows us how the scientific theories, models, and concepts we use to intervene in the world function as maps, and explores the consequences of this, both good and bad. We increasingly understand the world around us in terms of models, to the extent that we often take the models for reality. Winther explains how in time, our historical representations in science, in cartography, and in our stories about ourselves replace individual memories and become dominant social narratives—they become reality, and they can remake the world.