In Venice, magic is not unusual. Merle is apprenticed to a magic mirror maker, and Serafin—a boy who was once a master thief—works for a weaver of magic cloth. Merle and Serafin are used to the mermaids who live in the canals of the city and to the guards who patrol the streets on living stone lions. Merle herself possesses something magical: a mirror whose surface is water. She can reach her whole arm into it and never get wet. But Venice is under siege by the Egyptian Empire; its terrifying mummy warriors are waiting to strike. All that protects the Venetians is the Flowing Queen. Nobody knows who or what she is—only that her power flows through the canals and keeps the Egyptians at bay. When Merle and Serafin overhear a plot to capture the Flowing Queen, they are catapulted into desperate danger. They must do everything they can to rescue the Queen and save the city—even if it means getting help from the Ancient Traitor himself.

Merle and her friends Junipa, with mirrors for eyes, and Serafin, a rakish master thief, live in enchanted Venice under Egyptian occupation, and are swept into a dangerous mission to face their destinies.

Lena has lived her whole life near the beach – walking for miles up and down the shore and breathing the salty air, swimming in the cold water, and watching the surfers rule the waves – the problem is, she’s spent her whole life just watching. As her sixteenth birthday approaches, Lena vows she will no longer watch from the sand: she will learn to surf. But her father – a former surfer himself – refuses to allow her to take lessons. After a near drowning in his past, he can’t bear to let Lena take up the risky sport. Yet something lures Lena to the water … an ancient, powerful magic. One morning Lena catches sight of this magic: a beautiful woman – with a silvery tail. Nothing will keep Lena from seeking the mermaid, not even the dangerous waves at Magic Crescent Cove. And soon … what she sees in the mermaid’s mirror will change her life …

A globetrotting, time-bending, wildly entertaining masterpiece hailed by the New York Times Book Review as "Audaciously well written...the book I was raving about to my friends before I'd even finished it." Publishers Weekly raved that "with near-universal appeal . . . Seay’s debut novel is a true delight, a big, beautiful cabinet of wonders that is by turns an ominous modern thriller, a supernatural mystery, and an enchanting historical adventure story." Set in three cities in three eras, The Mirror Thief calls to mind David Mitchell and Umberto Eco in its mix of entertainment and literary bravado. The core story is set in Venice in the sixteenth century, when the famed makers of Venetian glass were perfecting one of the old world's most wondrous inventions: the mirror. An object of glittering yet fearful fascination—was it reflecting simple reality, or something more spiritually revealing?—the Venetian mirrors were state of the art technology, and subject to industrial espionage by desirous sultans and royals world-wide. But for any of the development team to leave the island was a crime punishable by death. One man, however—a world-weary war hero with nothing to lose—has a scheme he thinks will allow him to outwit the city's terrifying enforcers of the edict, the ominous Council of Ten . . . Meanwhile, in two other Venices—Venice Beach, California, circa 1958, and the Venice casino in Las Vegas, circa today—two other schemers launch similarly dangerous plans to get away with a secret . . . All three stories will weave together into a spell-binding tour-de-force that is impossible to put down—an old-fashioned, stay-up-all-night novel that, in the end, returns the reader to a stunning conclusion in the original Venice . . . and the bedazzled sense of having read a truly original and thrilling work of art.

30th Anniversary Edition with a new introduction by the author Robert Pendleton is a chemical genius with a fertilizer worth a fortune to whoever controls the formula. Not surprisingly, the Bank, his notoriously exclusive backer, wants to keep an eye on its investment. But so does the CIA. And the Chinese government. And a few shadier organizations. So when Pendleton disappears from a conference in San Francisco, along with all of his research, Neal Carey enters the picture. Neal knows the Bank is calling in its chips in return for paying his grad school bills. He thinks this assignment will be a no-brainer until he meets the beguiling Li Lan and touches off a deadly game of hide-and-seek that will lead him from San Francisco’s Chinatown to the lawless back streets of Hong Kong, and finally into the dark heart of China. In a world where no one is what they seem, Neal must unravel the mystery of a beautiful woman and reach the fabled Buddha’s Mirror, a mist-shrouded lake where all secrets are revealed.

Nick Hodges had always been a troublesome boy. Growing up an orphan in his Uncle Jack's care in a small New England town wasn't easy. Everyone was a little wary, a little watchful—a little too watchful. One day, while Nick is walking in the woods, a neighbor thinks she sees him miles from where he actually is. Soon a series of events reinforcing Nick's hotheaded reputation unfold. The incidents become increasingly serious until, finally, Nick is the scapegoat for a much more sinister crime, one that he wouldn't even think of committing. As he uncovers history of the town's influenza epidemic, and as he observes a strange occurrence in the graveyard, Nick begins to suspect something out of the ordinary is happening. And when he sees a figure running in the woods wearing the mirror image of his own shirt, Nick starts to piece together some of the answers—answers no one could have imagined. James Lincoln Collier has written a haunting story of a boy and his reflection—and what happens when two souls want to inhabit the same living body.

Kare is a young South African boy trying to adjust to a new school in New York City. When his schoolmates tease him because he is different, Kare attempts to change himself in order to fit in. After struggling with peer pressure, Kare finally realizes that in order to earn the respect of his friends, he must love himself first.