“A rousing adventure yarn full of danger and heart and humor.” —Richard Russo An instant classic for fans of Jane Smiley and Kitchens of the Great Midwest: when two hardscrabble young boys think they’ve committed a crime, they flee into the Northwoods of Wisconsin. Will the adults trying to find and protect them reach them before it’s too late? It’s the summer of 1994 in Claypot, Wisconsin, and the lives of ten-year-old Fischer “Fish” Branson and Dale “Bread” Breadwin are shaped by the two fathers they don’t talk about. One night, tired of seeing his best friend bruised and terrorized by his no-good dad, Fish takes action. A gunshot rings out and the two boys flee the scene, believing themselves murderers. They head for the woods, where they find their way onto a raft, but the natural terrors of Ironsforge gorge threaten to overwhelm them. Four adults track them into the forest, each one on a journey of his or her own. Fish’s mother Miranda, a wise woman full of fierce faith; his granddad, Teddy, who knows the woods like the back of his hand; Tiffany, a purple-haired gas station attendant and poet looking for connection; and Sheriff Cal, who’s having doubts about a life in law enforcement. The adults track the boys toward the novel’s heart-pounding climax on the edge of the gorge and a conclusion that beautifully makes manifest the grace these characters find in the wilderness and one another. This timeless story of loss, hope, and adventure runs like the river itself amid the vividly rendered landscape of the Upper Midwest.

Stephen Baxter's highly acclaimed first novel and the beginning of his stunning Xeelee Sequence finally enters the SF Masterwork series! A spaceship from Earth accidentally crossed through a hole in space-time to a universe where the force of gravity is one billion times as strong as the gravity we know. Somehow the crew survived, aided by the fact that they emerged into a cloud of gas surrounding a black hole, which provided a breathable atmosphere. Five hundred years later, their descendants still struggle for existence, divided into two main groups. The Miners live on the Belt, a ramshackle ring of dwellings orbiting the core of a dead star, which they excavate for raw materials. These can be traded for food from the Raft, a structure built from the wreckage of the ship, on which a small group of scientists preserve the ancient knowledge which makes survival possible. Rees is a Miner whose curiosity about his world makes him stow away on a flying tree - just one of the many strange local lifeforms - carrying trade between the Belt and the Raft. And what he finds will change his world...

A “marvelously amusing” political fable in which part of the European continent breaks off and drifts away on its own (Publishers Weekly, starred review). A Nobel Prize winner who has been called “the García Márquez of Portugal” (New Statesman) chronicles world events on a human scale in this exhilarating allegorical novel. One day, quite inexplicably, the Iberian Peninsula simply breaks free from the European continent and begins to drift as if it were a sort of stone raft. Panic ensues as residents and tourists attempt to escape, while crowds gather on cliffs to watch the newly formed island sail off into the sea. Meanwhile, five people on the island are drawn together—first by a string of surreal events and then by love. Taking to the road to explore the limits of their now finite land, they find themselves adrift in a world made new by this radical shift in perspective. As bureaucrats ponder what to do about their unusual predicament, the intertwined lives of these five strangers are clarified and forever changed by a physical, spiritual, and sexual voyage to an unknown destination. At once an epic adventure and a profound fable about the state of the European project, The Stone Raft is a “hauntingly lyrical narrative with political, social, and moral underpinnings” (Booklist) that “may be Saramago’s finest work” (Los Angeles Times). Translated from the Portuguese by Giovanni Pontiero

Robbie's last-minute flight to the Midway Atoll proves to be a nightmare when the plane goes down in shark-infested waters. Fighting for her life, the co-pilot Max pulls her onto the raft, and that's when the real terror begins.

At the outbreak of World War II, thirteen-year old Miriam Feuer and her family found themselves at the mercy of the invading Red Army in Polish Galicia. But things would only get worse with the coming of the Nazis in 1941. Escaping the Nazi-built ghetto in her hometown of Kolomyia after the murder of her grandmother and seizure of other family members, young Miriam desperately flees into the countryside, struggling to hide herself amidst the local population. Finding a modicum of safety in the home of a Ukrainian priest, her relief proves short-lived when the German commandant of the town abruptly arrives as a dinner guest -- and something more. A RAFT ON THE RIVER is the true life coming-of-age story of a young girl who finds redemption and a chance for love in the shadow of one of the most horrific episodes of the twentieth century.

The Florida Straits have claimed many treasures over the centuries. Even today unusual finds can be made... Life Raft is a story of lost treasures – both personal and monetary... Sierra Cortez was told she wasn’t the only Agent on this assignment in Washington DC, but she didn’t know who to trust. There was a Mole in the FBI, and that wasn’t her only problem; First, she had developed feelings for her target – Julio Torrez; second, he was missing – presumed dead at sea; third, another agent was dead - her target may have killed him; and fourth, the marked FBI money was found in Key Largo with two teenage boys. The answers were there and so was she - undercover. It was time to see what Paul & J.J. Choate and their suave neighbor, Jack Winters, were hiding? Was Julio with them? Did they have the yacht and the million dollars? Could she figure it out before Peronne and his cronies...? Time was running out and lives were at stake...

Follows three generations of Indian women beset by hardships and torn by angry secrets, yet inextricably bound together by kinship.