The magic of Naples during Carnival inspires love between a disparate group of local citizens and visiting Englishmen.

Edgewick Lamplighter (Wick to his friends) is a humble librarian in the isolated halls of Greydawn Moors until dreams of wanderlust and a bit of dereliction in his duties result in his being shanghaied to a far-off land. Captured by pirates, sold into slavery, and adopted by a gang of thieves, Wick soon finds himself with more adventures than even a halfling librarian can imagine. Rival gangs, goblin marauders, evil wizards, and monstrous dragons are soon after the wee adventurer and his newfound allies in a tale of treasures and treachery, magic and mystery, where even a little guy can rise to the occasion and save the day. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

A tale of intrigue in the opening days of the Napoleonic wars. Peyrol, a French pirate from the Indian seas, returns to his home country to find himself threatened by both British and French forces. His flight through Imperial France, his daring mission carrying dispatches through the British blockade, and his doomed love affair with the daughter of a French sailor are all related in Conrad's irresistibly atmospheric and suspenseful style.

For centuries humankind has fantasized about life on Mars, whether it’s intelligent Martian life invading our planet (immortalized in H.G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds) or humanity colonizing Mars (the late Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles). The Red Planet’s proximity and likeness to Earth make it a magnet for our collective imagination. Yet the question of whether life exists on Mars—or has ever existed there—remains an open one. Science has not caught up to science fiction—at least not yet. This summer we will be one step closer to finding the answer. On August 5th, Curiosity—a one-ton, Mini Cooper-sized nuclear-powered rover—is scheduled to land on Mars, with the primary mission of determining whether the red planet has ever been physically capable of supporting life. In Getting to Mars, Roger Wiens, the principal investigator for the ChemCam instrument on the rover—the main tool for measuring Mars’s past habitability—will tell the unlikely story of the development of this payload and rover now blasting towards a planet 354 million miles from Earth. ChemCam (short for Chemistry and Camera) is an instrument onboard the Curiosity designed to vaporize and measure the chemical makeup of Martian rocks. Different elements give off uniquely colored light when zapped with a laser; the light is then read by the instrument’s spectrometer and identified. The idea is to use ChemCam to detect life-supporting elements such as carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen to evaluate whether conditions on Mars have ever been favorable for microbial life. This is not only an inside story about sending fantastic lasers to Mars, however. It’s the story of a new era in space exploration. Starting with NASA’s introduction of the Discovery Program in 1992, smaller, scrappier, more nimble missions won out as behemoth manned projects went extinct. This strategic shift presented huge opportunities—but also presented huge risks for shutdown and failure. And as Wiens recounts, his project came close to being closed down on numerous occasions. Getting to Mars is the inspiring account of how Wiens and his team overcame incredible challenges—logistical, financial, and political—to successfully launch a rover in an effort to answer the eternal question: is there life on Mars?

A novel of naval life in Napoleonic France. After forty years of piracy on Eastern seas, Citizen Peyrol returns to his native France, a country now ravaged and scarred by revolution and war. Looking for peace in which to end his days, he withdraws to a safe harbor in a remote farmhouse on Escampobar Peninsula, which looks out to the distant Mediterranean, where the lovely Arlette lives with her aunt and the revolutionary Scevola. But the arrival of young Lieutenant Real calls Peyrol once again to action in a mission of danger, patriotism and heroism.

In his debut picture book, Motum brings the story of NASA's beloved Mars rover Curiosity to life in vivid color. Full of eye-catching retro illustrations, this book is sure to fascinate budding space explorers and set inquisitive minds soaring. Full color.