A new collection of linked short stories from Charlaine Harris, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Sookie Stackhouse books, the basis for HBO’s True Blood, and the Midnight Crossroad series, the inspiration for Midnight, Texas on NBC. Principal Anne DeWitt knew her past could catch up with her, but she didn’t expect it would make her late for school. Killing a man does take time though; so does disposing the body . . . if you do it right. After three relatively quiet years at Travis High School, it seems Anne is in danger of being exposed—even the baseball coach knows more about her former life than she ever imagined. Now, she must find out who else holds her secrets and who wants her to pay for them. . .without letting it make her tardy again. Anne still has a school to run, parents to manage, and a few students who might benefit from her unique—and deadly—experience. Collected together for the first time in Small Kingdoms and Other Stories, “Small Kingdoms,” “Sarah Smiles,” “Small Chances,” and “Small Signs” are sure to delight fans of Charlaine Harris.

From the author of City of Bohane and Dark Lies the Island, a debut collection that "could easily have been titled ‘These Are Little Masterpieces'" (The Irish Times) This award-winning story collection by Kevin Barry summons all the laughter, darkness, and intensity of contemporary Irish life. A pair of fast girls court trouble as they cool their heels on a slow night in a small town. Lonesome hillwalkers take to the high reaches in pursuit of a saving embrace. A bewildered man steps off a country bus in search of his identity—and a stiff drink. These stories, filled with a grand sense of life's absurdity, form a remarkably surefooted collection that reads like a modern-day Dubliners. Winner of the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, and a 2007 book of the year in the Irish Times, the Sunday Tribune, and Metro, There Are Little Kingdoms marks the stunning entrance of a writer who burst onto the literary scene fully formed.

Set in Kuwait during the ominous years between the two Gulf wars, Small Kingdoms traces the intersecting lives of five people--rich and poor, native and foreigner, Muslim, Christian, and non-believer--when they discover that a teenaged Indian housemaid is being brutally abused by her employer.

This enthralling modern fairy tale from Caldecott and Newbery Honor winner Tomie dePaola and debut illustrator Doug Salati celebrates the greatest power of all: love. In a small kingdom along an ancient road, a bell rings out. The beloved king has died, leaving his magnificent and powerful Imperial Robe to his heir, the young prince. But when the prince’s jealous older half-brother steals the Imperial Robe, slashing it to bits, the prince can no longer rule—and the small kingdom is in great danger. Now the young prince must find another source of power and of strength—and he finds it in a surprising place.

Kentucky's counties though theoretically provinces of the state were in reality powerful semi-sovereign entities during the latter half of the 19th century. Their positive accomplishments were many. Government funds were wisely invested in internal improvements, road construction, law enforcement, tax collection, and relief of the poor. Keen competition for county offices, placed on an electoral basis by the Constitution of 1850, brought added vitality to Kentucky's uniquely intense political life, and the official day on which the county courts met continued to be the foremost social and economic day of the month. Despite these positive facets and the good intentions of the reformers of 1849-1850, however, Kentucky's counties retained a tradition of parochialism, corruption, and inefficiency. The establishment of elective offices eliminated few of the deficiencies of the county system. The railroads were the focus of rivalry and scandal. Prevailing lawlessness compounded the semi-anarchical condition of many of the counties. Rising crime rates rendered insecure the lives of many Kentuckians. Nineteenth-century Kentucky left no legacy of law and order. A grasp of this paradoxical situation is essential to an understanding of late 19th-century Kentucky history. In this probing study, Robert M. Ireland offers the first thorough examination of the impact of Kentucky's counties on the state's constitutional, political, social, and economic development during this period.

Cartoons that draw their creator into another world; demonic paintings that exert a sinister influence on our own. Fairy tales that express the secret losses and anxieties of their tellers. These are the elements that Steven Millhauser employs to such marvelous—and often disquieting—effect in Little Kingdoms, a collection whose three novellas suggest magical companion pieces to his acclaimed longer fictions. In "The Little Kingdom of J. Franklin Payne," a gentle eccentric constructs an elaborate alternate universe that is all the more appealing for being transparently unreal. "The Princess, the Dwarf, and the Dungeon" is at once a gothic tale of nightmarish jealousy and a meditation on the human need for exaltation and horror. And "Catalogue of the Exhibition" introduces us to the oeuvre of Edmund Moorash, a Romantic painter who might have been imagined by Nabokov or Poe. Exuberantly inventive, as mysterious as dreams, these novellas will delight, mesmerize, and transport anyone who reads them.