Jimmy DiAnno is a thirty-four-year-old, hard-charging prosecutor in the homicide unit of the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office. A talented trial attorney, he takes great pride in his ethical responsibility to see that justice is served. Jerry T. Savitch is not just the mayor of Philadelphia-he is "America's" mayor. He took a shattered city on the brink of fiscal and social ruin and turned it into a thriving metropolis. In Philadelphia, there is no one more beloved-or with more political connections-than Jerry T. Savitch. When Mayor Savitch is charged with a brutal murder, DiAnno is the man tapped to try the case. But for DiAnno, this will not be a simple test of his trial skills. He will learn that there is little difficulty in choosing between right and wrong; but, when faced with two wrongs, the true difficulty lies in choosing which wrong is more right.

Romance. Magic. Lies. For fans of elves, shapeshifters and elemental control.

Graeme McCaig is thirteen and going to spend Christmas with his uncle. Lord Raversham, head of the Raversham family and ensconced in his castle on Raversham Isle, is dying (so they say) and seemingly powerless to stop his grown-up children from vanishing. Could these disappearances have anything to do with the strangers with large sacks who are gathering at night, down on the beach? Who is their cloaked, silver-masked leader and what is his plan? Graeme starts to investigate and finds himself caught up in an adventure that will see him collide with the Raversham family in more ways than one. He will make new friends. He will hate Calamara Jones. He will fly. He will fall. He will meet royalty. He will meet cannibalistic child assassins. He will learn of the legend of the Pyn King. He will find a new world. But can he save ours? For ages 10 and up, including unashamed adults. Parental guidance advised for those at the younger end of the recommended age range.

Told in the first person by the author of the Gospel of Mark, The Cloak and the Parchments relates the story of how the earliest gospel came to be written against the backdrop of emergent Christianity's doctrinal tensions. But it is also the story of one man's struggle of faith, especially with the remarkable notion--at least for a first-century Jew steeped in monotheistic tradition--of the divinity of Jesus Christ. The year is 64 CE, and Paul has summoned Mark and Timothy from Ephesus to his prison cell in Rome. On their journey, the travelers discuss many of Paul's teachings, including that Jesus is truly the Son of God. After reaching Italy they meet up with Peter, whose own account of Jesus's ministry quickly poses a challenge to Paul's views. But there will be no opportunity to hear Peter and Paul debate their differences, for they arrive in Rome at the outbreak of the Great Fire. Amid the turmoil of the resulting Christian persecution, Paul urges Mark to escape and write Peter's account of Jesus's ministry consistently with Paul's own teaching. Mark finds himself conflicted by his promises to both men, and by the disparity between Peter's eyewitness testimony and Paul's claim to direct revelation. In the end, he finds the answer he seeks hidden in the depths of his own soul--as ultimately, we all must. The Cloak and the Parchments brings these New Testament characters to life in all of their humanity, and presents a cogent argument for the necessity of mystical experience in religious belief.

'A diary is an assassin's cloak which we wear when we stab a comrade in the back with a pen', wrote William Soutar in 1934. But a diary is also a place for recording everyday thoughts and special occasions, private fears and hopeful dreams. The Assassin's Cloak gathers together some of the most entertaining and inspiring entries for each day of the year, as writers ranging from Queen Victoria to Andy Warhol, Samuel Pepys to Adrian Mole, pen their musings on the historic and the mundane. Spanning centuries and international in scope, this peerless anthology pays tribute to a genre that is at once the most intimate and public of all literary forms. This new updated edition is published to mark the twentieth anniversary of the book's original publication.

I'm not your average hero. I actually wasn't your average anything. Just a poor guy working an after-school job at a South Beach shoe repair shop to help his mom make ends meet. But a little magic changed it all. It all started with a curse. And a frognapping. And one hot-looking princess, who asked me to lead a rescue mission. There wasn't a fairy godmother or any of that. And even though I fell in love along the way, what happened to me is unlike any fairy tale I've ever heard. Before I knew it, I was spying with a flock of enchanted swans, talking (yes, talking!) to a fox named Todd, and nearly trampled by giants in the Everglades. Don't believe me? I didn't believe it either. But you'll see. Because I knew it all was true, the second I got cloaked.