Of all the struggles that took place along the border between the United States and the British provinces of Canada during the War of 1812, the one that lasted the longest was the crucial battle for control of Lake Ontario. Because the armies on both sides depended on it for transportation and supply, control of the lake was a key element in American invasion attempts and the defensive actions of the British. Lords of the Lake tells the story of the contest from the days of the incompetent Provincial Marine to the launch of the 104-gun ship St Lawrence, larger than Nelson's Victory. Robert Malcomson's absorbing narrative is readable, vivid, yet impeccable in its scholarship.

In the Mojave Desert, at the southern end of the isolated Moapa Valley, sat the town of St. Thomas, Nevada. A small community that thrived despite scorching temperatures and scarce water, St. Thomas was home to hardy railroad workers, farmers, shopkeepers, teachers, and a lone auto mechanic named Henry Lord. Lords of St. Thomas details the tragedies and conflicts endured by a family fighting an unwinnable battle, and their hectic and terrifying escape from the flood waters that finally surge across the threshold of their front door. Surprisingly, it also shows that, sometimes, you can go home again, as Little Henry returns to St. Thomas 60 years later, after Lake Mead recedes, to retrieve a treasure he left behind?and to fulfill a promise he made as a child.

Leland was a Post Office, an elementary school, a telephone central, a lake and a bridge. All are gone except the lake. Mary Beth Munn Yntema became the keeper of data of the pioneers, their homes and farms, their children and their school. She writes down her memories so Leland would not be forgotten. Lake Leland with a post office at the end of its bridge is the focus of a community of families that arrived from many places. They carved farms out of the virgin timber and shared a simple life of fishing and swimming in the summer, cattle care and timber tasks the rest of the time. The main stories occur from 1890 to 1940. A railroad logging company, two sawmill operations and family dairy farms were the economic base. A unique society centered on the one-room school that built life-long friendships and an extended social family. The children were welcome in neighbor homes as if they were relatives. Everyone cooperated in the farm and timber tasks. Everyone rejoiced in successes of the children and shared the sorrows of the many untimely deaths or loss of house or barn to fires. The virgin timber cut was over. The Great Depression came. The story closes with the Second World War, its draft, internment camp and casualties. The school and post office closed as families moved to new jobs. Mary Beth's own coming of age experiences play out against this framework of houses and people of Leland.

"In the remote and timeless hamlet of Callow, nothing is what it seems. As villagers go about their daily routine, an ancient and bloodthirsty evil lurks beneath this pristine village. When people are murdered under unusual and gruesome circumstances, Jack Goodfellow comes back to his hometown of Callow to investigate the death of his friend and ex-lover. As Jack begins his investigation, he uncovers secrets about his town, his family and his life that lead him into horrifying danger-- secrets that will change his life forever. This definitive tale of horror from John Tomlinson, Dan Abnett, and Steve White returns for a whole new generation, in color for the first time, featuring over 60 previously uncollected pages"--Publisher's web site

From the bestselling author of Saban, 4th and Goal, and Sowbelly comes the thrilling, untold story of the quest for the world record tarpon on a fly rod—a tale that reveals as much about Man as it does about the fish. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, something unique happened in the quiet little town on the west coast of Florida known as Homosassa. The best fly anglers in the world—Lefty Kreh, Stu Apte, Ted Williams, Tom Evans, Billy Pate and others—all gathered together to chase the same Holy Grail: The world record for the world’s most glamorous and sought-after fly rod species, the tarpon. The anglers would meet each morning for breakfast. They would compete out on the water during the day, eat dinner together at night, socialize and party. Some harder than others. The world record fell nearly every year. But records weren’t the only things that were broken. Hooks, lines, rods, reels, hearts and marriages didn’t survive, either. The egos involved made the atmosphere electric. The difficulty of the quest made it legitimate. The drugs and romantic entaglements that were swept in with the tide would finally make it all veer out of control. It was a confluence of people and place that had never happened before in the world of fishing and will never happen again. It was a collision of the top anglers and the top species of fish which would lead to smashed lives for nearly all involved, man and fish alike. In Lords of the Fly, Burke, an obsessed tarpon fly angler himself, delves into this incredible moment. He examines the growing popularity of the tarpon, an amazing fish has been around for 50 million years, can live to 80 years old and can grow to 300 pounds in weight. It is a massive, leaping, bullet train of a fish. When hooked in shallow water, it produces “immediate unreality,” as the late poet and tarpon obsessive, Richard Brautigan, once described it. Burke also chronicles the heartbreaking destruction that exists as a result—brought on by greed, environmental degradation and the shenanigans of a notorious Miami gangster—and how all of it has shaped our contemporary fishery. Filled with larger-than-life characters and vivid prose, Lords of the Fly is not only a must read for anglers of all stripes, but also for those interested in the desperate yearning of the human condition.