San Francisco Bay Area native and author, Carolyn Joyce Dodds, creates Tessa's Tall Tales, a quick-witted, whimsical tale intended for school-age children. Tessa delights in telling tall tales but has she stopped telling the truth altogether? Tessa and her parents must navigate the waters between truth and falsehood without crushing creativity. It is a challenge for all imaginative children. Readers will delight in the adventures of wolf cub Tessa, her parents and friends as fancifully drawn by Academy of Art College graduate, June Gomez.The author confesses to be an inveterate, storyteller herself. "Children are instinctive storytellers often unable or unwilling to distinguish between truths and untruths. The knowing parent encourages their young child's creative gifts while carefully guiding them away from deceit. Tessa and her parents navigate that journey as the little wolf explores space, seeks pirate treasure and awaits the tooth fairy."High Praise for Tessa's Tall Tales"Have you ever wondered what it is like for a child so full of imagination, who craves attention and views the real world as boring with no one to listen? Meet Tessa, a young wolf cub who tells tall tales of adventure, leaving everyone wondering what is true and what is not. Carolyn Dodds delivers a sweet and poignant story as she brilliantly captures the joy of Tessa, her parents' concerns and the careful way in which they come to a solution without thwarting Tessa's passion and love of storytelling."Maribeth BoettcherRetired teacher, Brentwood Elementary School District Librarian and lover of children's stories

A Picador Paperback Original Tessa Hadley's stories trace the currents of desire, desperation, and mischief that that lie hidden inside domestic relationships. A mother hears her son's confession that he's cheating on his girlfriend; a student falls in love with a professor and initiates an affair with a man who looks just like him. A boy on a seaside vacation realizes that a grown-up woman is pressing dangerously close. In Tessa Hadley's Sunstroke and Other Stories, everyone conspires to hold the loving and stable surface of family life together, as old secrets and new appetites threaten to blow it apart.

Five minutes after his birth, Johnny Kaw is over six feet tall and still growing. When he outgrows his crib and even their town, his parents decide to move west where "little" Johnny can have plenty of room to play. After the family crosses the wide Missouri River to Kansas, Johnny sits down to play with his dog. His bottom ends up making the valley where his family will settle. And when Johnny clears stones from a field so his father can plow, he ends up creating the Rocky Mountains in the process. The legendary folk hero shapes the state's landscape by carving out valleys and creating prairies with his bare hands. Why, he even takes on a tornado when it threatens the family farm. Kansas native Devin Scillian spins a rollicking, rhyming yarn based on the tall tale of Johnny Kaw. Comedic, exaggerated artwork from artist Brad Sneed brings this character to BIG life.

As the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter—and a member of Ipswitch’s Royal family—Xandra Morgan should be a witch of incredible power. But things don’t always turn out like you expect… While she hasn’t lived up to her family’s expectations, Xandra has come to terms with her latent magic and made a life for herself in Austin, Texas, running a coffee shop where she makes potions of a non-magical nature. While things aren’t perfect, Xandra is happy—until she runs into powerful warlock Declan Chumomisto. Xandra hasn’t seen Declan in years, and though she’s still overwhelmed by his power, she doesn’t trust him. And when her own powers awaken one night and lead her to the body of a woman in the woods bearing the symbol of Isis—the same one that has marked Xandra since the day she met Declan—she’s filled with a terrible suspicion, soon confirmed: the woman is connected to him. Xandra doesn’t want to believe that Declan is capable of murder, but as the body count mounts, and Xandra’s own powers spiral out of control, she’s not sure she can trust her own instincts…

Unexpected lovers find themselves together in Spindle Cove with A Week to be Wicked—the second book in Tessa Dare’s utterly delectable historical romance series. This Regency Era delight finds a restless British lord desperate to escape the quaint and too quiet small seaside resort he’s trapped in…and he gets much more than he expected when he eagerly agrees to escort a beautiful, brilliant, socially awkward lady scientist to Scotland. Concerning Tessa Dare and her irresistible romances, bestselling author Julia Quinn is spot on when she says, “Prepare to fall in love!” And anyone who loves the novels of Lisa Kleypas, Christina Dodd, and Liz Carlyle is going to adore having A Week to be Wicked.