After a taste of the brutality of army life, seventeen-year-old Aleks Vasin deserts and finds love, adventure, and a skyship full of technological discoveries, while pursued by vengeful soldiers.

Aleks Vasin doesn't want any part of the life mapped out for him: a job in his father's shop and never traveling beyond his village in the westernmost corner of Siberene. He wants adventure and the chance to experience the eye-opening technology and medical advancements that are a part of every day life in the capital city. So Aleks heads to Rudavin, headquarters of the kingsguard, and signs up for the army, sure he can handle the brutality it entails. But after only a few weeks, Aleks realizes that this garrison is full of liars and thieves; he's signed away four years of his life to a commander crueler than the life Aleks just left. After a brutal beating, Aleks escapes, hoping to find safety and a new life somewhere in the north. And, on the way, he will find love, adventure, and a skyship full of technological discoveries beyond his wildest dreams. Aleks just might just prove himself a hero after all - if he can evade the soldiers who seek to capture him.

Lindy and her doll Sally are best friends - wherever Lindy goes, Sally stays right by her side. They eat together, sleep together, and even pick cotton together. So, on the night Lindy and her mama run away in search of freedom, Sally goes too. This young girl's rag doll vividly narrates her enslaved family's courageous escape through the Underground Railroad. At once heart-wrenching and uplifting, this story about friendship and the strength of the human spirit will touch the lives of all readers long after the journey has ended.

Desperate to escape an arranged marriage and the life her high-ranking government official father planned for her, Cat Hunter does the unthinkable. She runs away from her homeland Tellus, disguises herself as a boy, and stows away on an air ship. She's ready for life in a new land where the general population isn't poverty stricken and at the mercy of the cruel officials. What she isn't quite ready for is meeting Fox, a crew member aboard the Stormdancer-which turns out to be a smugglers' ship. So begins an epic adventure that spans both land and sea. This explosive debut starts a unique six-book series. Each novel will be set in a different land within the Tellus world, with repeating characters and related, nonlinear storylines that combine to create a one-of-a-kind, addictive reading experience.

“The definitive history of the studio” created by the larger-than-life team of Spielberg, Geffen, and Katzenberg (Los Angeles Times). For sixty years, since the birth of United Artists, the studio landscape was unchanged. Then came Hollywood’s Circus Maximus—created by director Steven Spielberg, billionaire David Geffen, and Jeffrey Katzenberg, who gave the world The Lion King—an entertainment empire called DreamWorks. Now Nicole LaPorte, who covered the company for Variety, goes behind the hype to reveal for the first time the delicious truth of what happened. Readers will feel they are part of the creative calamities of moviemaking as LaPorte’s fly-on-the-wall detail shows us Hollywood’s bizarre rules of business. We see the clashes between the often-otherworldly Spielberg’s troops and Katzenberg’s warriors, the debacles and disasters, but also the Oscar-winning triumphs, including Saving Private Ryan. We watch as the studio burns through billions of dollars, its rich owners get richer, and everybody else suffers. LaPorte displays Geffen, seducing investors like Microsoft’s Paul Allen, showing his steel against CAA’s Michael Ovitz, and staging fireworks during negotiations with Paramount and Disney. Here is a blockbuster behind-the-scenes Hollywood story—up close, glamorous, and gritty.

A critical care nurse marries his patient’s widow only to later poison her in this true crime story by the author of Stolen in the Night. A Woman with A Passion For Power . . . Kathy Marie Augustine was not out to make friends. In politics, she rose to the top by playing hardball—and pushing her way through the old boy’s network of the Nevada legislature, rising to the rank of State Controller. When she died, only a few people shed tears—including the man who killed her. A Killer with A Foolproof Plan . . . Chaz Higgs was a former body-builder turned intensive care nurse who saw wealthy, sexy Kathy Marie Augustine as his meal-ticket—until he couldn’t stomach her domineering personality any longer. When Chaz decided he’d had enough, he chose a poison that would leave no evidence behind. Murder Hidden in Plain Sight . . . The death of a nationally-known politician made headlines, but one slip of the tongue came to the attention of a determined Nevada detective. Now, true-crime master Gary C. King takes us into the extraordinary life and death of a famously ambitious woman politician, behind the scenes of the investigation that unearthed shocking secrets, and into the heart and mind of a man who nearly got away with the perfect crime . . . Includes Sixteen Pages of Revealing Photos

The underground world of con men, winos, prostitutes, laborers, and artists has been an abundant source of material for great writers from Dickens to Bukowski. The underground world of Taos, New Mexico, is no different. In the late 1950s this mountain town was higher, brighter, poorer, and farther removed than London, Paris, or Los Angeles, but it was every bit as rich for the explorations of a young writer. Max Evans, the beloved New Mexican writer of such enduring classics of Western fiction as The Rounders and The Hi-Lo Country, returns to form with The King of Taos. Set in the late 1950s, the novel tells the stories of sharp-witted Zacharias Chacon, aspiring artist Shaw Spencer, and a circle of characters who drink, fight, love, argue, and—mostly—talk. Readers will enjoy this witty and moving evocation of unforgettable characters as they look for work, love, comfort, dignity, and bottomless oblivion.