It is history's most feared disease.  It turned neighbor against neighbor, the civilized into the savage, and the living into the dead.  Now, in a spellbinding novel of adventure and science, romance and terror, two eras are joined by a single trace of microscopic...  more

It is history's most feared disease.  It turned neighbor against neighbor, the civilized into the savage, and the living into the dead.  Now, in a spellbinding novel of adventure and science, romance and terror, two eras are joined by a single trace of microscopic bacterium--the invisible seeds of a new bubonic plague. In the year 1348, a disgraced Spanish physician crosses a landscape of horrors to Avignon, France.  There, he will be sent on an impossible mission to England, to save the royal family from the Black Death.... Nearly seven hundred years later, a woman scientist digs up a clod of earth in London.  In a world where medicine is tightly controlled, she will unearth a terror lying dormant for centuries. From the primitive cures of the Middle Ages to the biological police state of our near future, The Plague Tales is a thrilling race against time and mass destruction.  For in 2005, humankind's last hope for survival can come only from one place: out of a dark and tortured past.

With the pandemic destruction over the last eight years of the DR SAM bacteria, few safe havens remain on the North American continent. One such place is a small sanctuary in Massachusetts founded by married couple Janie Crowe and Tom Macalester. They are still safe for now but both realize that...  more

With the pandemic destruction over the last eight years of the DR SAM bacteria, few safe havens remain on the North American continent. One such place is a small sanctuary in Massachusetts founded by married couple Janie Crowe and Tom Macalester. They are still safe for now but both realize that the deadly disease is still spreading and could reach them at any time. Janie studies the seemingly valuable journal of fourteenth century physician, Alejandro Canches, who explains how as the medical practitioner at Windsor Castle, he battled the bubonic plague ravaging Europe and threatening to do likewise to England. She believes the elixir to stopping this modern day plague lies in the journal that claims communication between then and now. At the same time, Tom and others collect specimens and survivor information from those living outside their Massachusetts colony while these aliens demand medical help especially from Janie. Meanwhile back in medieval times Alejandro and the son of his foster daughter Kate live in hiding. However, King Edward III has decided to acknowledge that Kate is his offspring and will marry mean-spirited de Coucy. Only the king’s secretary Geoffrey Chaucer can save Kate from a terrible fate but he fears intervention.

From the bestselling author of The Plague Tales comes a spellbinding new novel that sweeps from medieval France to America in the year 2007 -- interweaving two gripping stories and two extraordinary eras.... In fourteenth-century France, pockets of plague still bring death to peasants and...  more

From the bestselling author of The Plague Tales comes a spellbinding new novel that sweeps from medieval France to America in the year 2007 -- interweaving two gripping stories and two extraordinary eras.... In fourteenth-century France, pockets of plague still bring death to peasants and noblemen alike.  Amid the fury and the chaos, Dr. Alejandro Canches searches for a safe haven, accompanied by his foster child, Kate -- the illegitimate daughter of Edward Plantagenet.  But both disease and human enemies pursue them, and their only hope for survival is a rebel leader...  and medical secrets that lie hidden in an ancient manuscript. Seven hundred years later, Dr. Janie Crowe is searching for the cure for a crippling disease in a world where genetic engineering has gone mad.  A repressive government wants to stop her, unnamed benefactors want to help her, and time is running out to find answers linking two dark eras, two dedicated doctors, and one miraculous book....

With her acclaimed novels The Plague Tales and The Burning Road, Ann Benson has carved out a unique place on the literary landscape with her fascinating alchemy of mystery, history, and psychological terror. Now this gifted storyteller returns with an astounding tale of two crime waves separated...  more

With her acclaimed novels The Plague Tales and The Burning Road, Ann Benson has carved out a unique place on the literary landscape with her fascinating alchemy of mystery, history, and psychological terror. Now this gifted storyteller returns with an astounding tale of two crime waves separated by nearly 600 years. In each, the victims are children. In each, the perpetrator is a man of power and renown. And in each, the pursuit of justice is spearheaded by a woman who has seen the face of evil up close--and whose own life is entwined with a madman’s.In the city of Nantes, in the year 1440, a woman hurries through the cobblestoned streets. Her world of faith, loyalty, and family is buckling under the weight of her suspicions about a dead child…and others who may have met the same fate--all at the hands of the same killer--the infamous Gilles de Rais. Soon Guillemette le Drappière, companion to the Bishop of Nantes, is investigating the young nobleman she helped raise from infancy. To unravel the truth, Guillemette must enter a dark realm of power, perversion, bloodlust--and bring to it the unforgiving light of the church she serves.In the city of Los Angeles, in the year 2002, a detective gets the kind of call she dreads most: "My child is gone." Lany Dunbar, a mother, a cop, and a veteran of human horrors, cannot be prepared for where this search will lead her. For within days, Lany is certain that this missing-child case has exposed the work of a serial killer. At odds with her own department, sure that her killer is becoming more emboldened, Lany zeroes in on a suspect--while a suspect zeroes in on her.…Two horrific crime sprees. Two extraordinary eras. The connections between them are at once eerie, compelling, and surprising. Only Ann Benson can weave together the strands of history and suspense with such mastery. Skillfully blending past and present, myth and reality, Benson catapults us from an age when wolves ran wild through the streets of Paris to an age of high-tech criminal profiling. A riveting, rousing adventure through time, history, and forensic science, Thief of Souls introduces two unforgettable characters, separated by centuries, linked by a passionate quest for justice. For in a race to stop monsters from more monstrous crimes, both women will discover a frightening truth: that within a killer is a child, and within a child are seeds of both innocence and evil. From the Hardcover edition.

Sookie Stackhouse is a small-time cocktail waitress in small-town Louisiana. She's quiet, keeps to herself, and doesn't get out much. Not because she's not pretty. She is. It's just that, well, Sookie has this sort of "disability." She can read minds. And that...  more

Sookie Stackhouse is a small-time cocktail waitress in small-town Louisiana. She's quiet, keeps to herself, and doesn't get out much. Not because she's not pretty. She is. It's just that, well, Sookie has this sort of "disability." She can read minds. And that doesn't make her too dateable. And then along comes Bill. He's tall, dark, handsome -- and Sookie can't hear a word he's thinking. He's exactly the type of guy she's been waiting for all her life.... But Bill has a disability of his own: He's a vampire with a bad reputation. He hangs with a seriously creepy crowd, all suspected of - big surprise - murder. And when one of Sookie's coworkers is killed, she fears she's next....

Cocktail waitress Sookie Stackhouse is on a streak of real bad luck. First, her co-worker gets murdered and no one seems to care. Then Sookie is attacked -- and poisoned -- late one night by some weird and apparently mythical beast. She only survives because the local vampires roll up and...  more

Cocktail waitress Sookie Stackhouse is on a streak of real bad luck. First, her co-worker gets murdered and no one seems to care. Then Sookie is attacked -- and poisoned -- late one night by some weird and apparently mythical beast. She only survives because the local vampires roll up and graciously suck the poison from her veins (like they didn't enjoy it). But in return the blood-suckers need a favor. Which is why Sookie ends up in Dallas, using her telepathic skills to search for a missing vampire, on the condition that her undead friends don't do anything, well, vampiric while she's there. Easier said than done. All it takes is one delicious blonde and one small mistake for things to turn deadly...

Sookie Stackhouse is having man trouble. Her vampire boyfriend, Bill, has been distant and inattentive lately. Then he announces that he is going on a business trip, which clearly is more than it seems. After a werewolf tries to abduct Sookie at work, Bill's boss, Eric, tells her that Bill...  more

Sookie Stackhouse is having man trouble. Her vampire boyfriend, Bill, has been distant and inattentive lately. Then he announces that he is going on a business trip, which clearly is more than it seems. After a werewolf tries to abduct Sookie at work, Bill's boss, Eric, tells her that Bill fell under the sway of his -- Bill's, that is -- ex, a sexy vamp named Lorena, and has been kidnapped. Eric wants Sookie's help in getting Bill back, and despite her hurt over Bill's betrayal, Sookie agrees to go to Jackson, Mississippi, to find her wayward lover. Eric has persuaded Alcide, a dashing werewolf, to get Sookie access to Josephine's, aka Club Dead, the local hangout of Jackson's supernatural element. In between dodging kidnappers, the advances of amorous Eric, and her growing feelings for Alcide, Sookie has to find out who kidnapped Bill and figure out a way to rescue him.

“Dogs are blameless, devoid of calculation, neither blessed nor cursed with human motives. They can’t really be held responsible for what they do. But we can.”–from The Dogs of Bedlam FarmWhen Jon Katz adopted a border collie named Orson, his whole world changed. Gone...  more

“Dogs are blameless, devoid of calculation, neither blessed nor cursed with human motives. They can’t really be held responsible for what they do. But we can.”–from The Dogs of Bedlam FarmWhen Jon Katz adopted a border collie named Orson, his whole world changed. Gone were the two yellow Labs he wrote about in A Dog Year, as was the mountaintop cabin they loved. Katz moved into an old farmhouse on forty-two acres of pasture and woods with a menagerie: a ram named Nesbitt, fifteen ewes, a lonely donkey named Carol, a baby donkey named Fanny, and three border collies. Training Orson was a demanding project. But a perceptive dog trainer and friend told Katz: “If you want to have a better dog, you will just have to be a better goddamned human.” It was a lesson Katz took to heart. He now sees his dogs as a reflection of his willingness to improve, as well as a critical reminder of his shortcomings. Katz shows us that dogs are often what we make them: They may have their own traits and personalities, but in the end, they are mirrors of our own lives–living, breathing testaments to our strengths and frustrations, our families and our pasts.The Dogs of Bedlam Farm recounts a harrowing winter Katz spent on a remote, windswept hillside in upstate New York with a few life-saving friends, ugly ghosts from the past, and more livestock than any novice should attempt to manage. Heartwarming, and full of drama, insight, and hard-won wisdom, it is the story of his several dogs forced Katz to confront his sense of humanity, and how he learned the places a dog could lead him and the ways a doge could change him.From the Hardcover edition.

Sometimes, change comes on four legs. In his popular and widely praised Running to the Mountain, Jon Katz wrote of the strength and support he found in the massive forms of his two yellow Labrador retrievers, Julius and Stanley. When the Labs were six and seven, a breeder who’d read...  more

Sometimes, change comes on four legs. In his popular and widely praised Running to the Mountain, Jon Katz wrote of the strength and support he found in the massive forms of his two yellow Labrador retrievers, Julius and Stanley. When the Labs were six and seven, a breeder who’d read his book contacted Katz to say she had a dog that was meant for him—a two-year-old border collie named Devon, well bred but high-strung and homeless. Katz already had a full canine complement—but, as he writes, “Change loves me. . . . It comes in all forms. . . . Sometimes, change comes on four legs.” Shortly thereafter he brought Devon home. A Dog Year shows how a man discovered much about himself through one dog (and then another), whose temperament seemed as different from his own as day from night. It is a story of trust and understanding, of life and death, of continuity and change. It is by turns insightful, hilarious, and deeply moving.

Not only has Katz written 16 books, he cohosts Dog Talk on public radio, freelances for a variety of newspapers and magazines, and operates the eponymous Bedlam Farm in upstate New York?sometimes with his wife, but always with dogs and chickens and sheep and even a few donkeys and cows. Readers...  more

Not only has Katz written 16 books, he cohosts Dog Talk on public radio, freelances for a variety of newspapers and magazines, and operates the eponymous Bedlam Farm in upstate New York?sometimes with his wife, but always with dogs and chickens and sheep and even a few donkeys and cows. Readers familiar only with Katz's suburban mystery novels will find that his farm memoirs set out to do basically the same thing, bring order to chaos. His goal in running Bedlam Farm is to find ways for his various animals and their humans to work together in harmonious synchronicity. Everything requires balance. He must be mindful of his own tendency to anthropomorphize, while remaining open to the emotional bonds his animals invite. He must remember that many awful things?flies, freezing weather, disease?are normal in the lives of animals, even as he struggles to give his animals the best life possible. He has to balance his focus on the farm with his relationship with his wife, who never particularly approved of the farm idea, even if she supported his need to do it. Anyone who loves animals or country life, but maybe can't have a pet or actually live in the country, will find Katz a perfect armchair companion.

When cocktail waitress Sookie Stackhouse sees a naked man on the side of the road, she doesn't just drive on by. Turns out the poor thing hasn't a clue who he is, but Sookie does. It's Eric the vampire -- but now he's a kinder, gentler Eric. And a scared Eric, because whoever...  more

When cocktail waitress Sookie Stackhouse sees a naked man on the side of the road, she doesn't just drive on by. Turns out the poor thing hasn't a clue who he is, but Sookie does. It's Eric the vampire -- but now he's a kinder, gentler Eric. And a scared Eric, because whoever took his memory now wants his life.

Sookie Stackhouse is a cocktail waitress in a little bar in a small town deep in Louisiana. She's funny and pretty and well-mannered, but she doesn't have that many close friends -- mind you, that's not so surprising when you consider how few people can appreciate her abilities as a...  more

Sookie Stackhouse is a cocktail waitress in a little bar in a small town deep in Louisiana. She's funny and pretty and well-mannered, but she doesn't have that many close friends -- mind you, that's not so surprising when you consider how few people can appreciate her abilities as a mind-reader. It's not a quality that has the guys beating down her door - well, unless they're vampires or werewolves or the like... but they're not just supernatural freaks, some of them are friends, even family... And much as Sookie might want a quiet life, when she's around, things just seem to happen... like her brother, who appears to be changing into a were-panther. He's not that bothered, but someone doesn't like it -- someone's trying to wipe him out, as well as the rest of the shape-changing population, and that mean's Sookie's got just a month, before the next full moon, to find out who wants her brother dead, and stop the fiend.

As a person with so few living relatives, Louisiana cocktail waitress Sookie Stackhouse really hated to lose one. But she never guessed that it would be her cousin Hadley -- a consort of the Vampire Queen of New Orleans. After all, technically speaking, Hadley was already dead. And now, as...  more

As a person with so few living relatives, Louisiana cocktail waitress Sookie Stackhouse really hated to lose one. But she never guessed that it would be her cousin Hadley -- a consort of the Vampire Queen of New Orleans. After all, technically speaking, Hadley was already dead. And now, as unexpected heir to Hadley' s estate, Sookie discovers the inheritance definitely comes with a risk. Someone doesn't want Sookie looking too deeply into Hadley' s past -- or for that matter, Hadley's possessions. And they're prepared to do anything in their power to stop her. But who? The range of suspects runs from the rogue weres who reject Sookie as a friend of the pack to the vampire queen herself, who could be working through a particularly vulnerable subject--Sookie's first love, Bill. Whoever it is, they're definitely dangerous--and Sookie's life is definitely on the line.

Louisiana cocktail waitress Sookie Stackhouse has her hands full dealing with every sort of undead and paranormal creature imaginable. And after being betrayed by her longtime vampire love, Sookie must not only deal with a new man in her life -- the shapeshifter Quinn -- but also contend with...  more

Louisiana cocktail waitress Sookie Stackhouse has her hands full dealing with every sort of undead and paranormal creature imaginable. And after being betrayed by her longtime vampire love, Sookie must not only deal with a new man in her life -- the shapeshifter Quinn -- but also contend with the long-planned vampire summit. The summit is a tense situation. The vampire queen of Louisiana is in a precarious position, her power base weakened by hurricane damage to New Orleans. And there are some vamps who would like to finish what nature started. Soon, Sookie must decide what side she'll stand with. And her choice may mean the difference between survival and all-out catastrophe.

The supernatural community in Bon Temps, Louisiana, is reeling from two hard blows - the natural disaster of Hurricane Katrina and the man-made horror of the explosion at the vampire summit the month before in the up-north city of Rhodes. Sookie Stackhouse is safe but dazed, yearning for things...  more

The supernatural community in Bon Temps, Louisiana, is reeling from two hard blows - the natural disaster of Hurricane Katrina and the man-made horror of the explosion at the vampire summit the month before in the up-north city of Rhodes. Sookie Stackhouse is safe but dazed, yearning for things to get back to normal. But that's just not happening. Too many vampires -- some friends, some not -- were killed or injured, and her weretiger boyfriend, Quinn, is among the missing. It's clear that things are changing, whether the Weres and vamps of her corner of Louisiana like it or not. And Sookie -- friend of the pack and blood-bonded to Eric Northman, the leader of the local vampire community -- is caught up in the changes. In the ensuing battles, Sookie faces danger, death ... and, once more, betrayal by someone she loves. And when the fur has finished flying and the cold blood flowing, her world will be forever altered...  

Way upstairs there are four secrets hidden. Blond, beautiful, innocent little secrets, struggling to stay alive. Flowers In the Attic The four Dollanganger children had such perfect lives -- a beautiful mother, a doting father, a lovely home. Then Daddy was killed in a car accident, and...  more

Way upstairs there are four secrets hidden. Blond, beautiful, innocent little secrets, struggling to stay alive. Flowers In the Attic The four Dollanganger children had such perfect lives -- a beautiful mother, a doting father, a lovely home. Then Daddy was killed in a car accident, and Momma could no longer support the family. So she began writing letters to her parents, her millionaire parents, whom the children had never heard of before. Momma tells the children all about their rich grandparents, and how Chris and Cathy and the twins will live like princes and princesses in their grandparents' fancy mansion. The children are only too delighted by the prospect. But there are a few things that Momma hasn't told them. She hasn't told them that their grandmother considers them "devil's spawn" who should never have been born. She hasn't told them that she has to hide them from their grandfather if she wants to inherit his fortune. She hasn't told them that they are to be locked away in an abandoned wing of the house with only the dark, airless attic to play in. But, Momma promises, it's only for a few days.... Then the days stretch into months, and the months into years. Desperately isolated, terrified of their grandmother, and increasingly convinced that their mother no longer cares about them, Chris and Cathy become all things to the twins and to each other. They cling to their love as their only hope, their only strength -- a love that is almost stronger than death.

For Carrie, Chris and Cathy the attic was a dark horror that would not leave their minds. Of course mother had to pretend they didn't exist and grandmother was convinced they had the devil in them. But that wasn't their fault. Was it? Cathy knew what to do. She knew it was time to show...  more

For Carrie, Chris and Cathy the attic was a dark horror that would not leave their minds. Of course mother had to pretend they didn't exist and grandmother was convinced they had the devil in them. But that wasn't their fault. Was it? Cathy knew what to do. She knew it was time to show her mother and grandmother that the pain and terror of the attic could not be forgotten...Show them. Show them -- once and for all.

Chris and Cathy made such a loving home for fourteen-year-old Jory -- so handsome, so gentle. And for Bart,who had such a dazzling imagination for a nine year old. Then the lights came on in the house next door. Soon the Old Lady in Black was there, watching them, guarded by her strange old...  more

Chris and Cathy made such a loving home for fourteen-year-old Jory -- so handsome, so gentle. And for Bart,who had such a dazzling imagination for a nine year old. Then the lights came on in the house next door. Soon the Old Lady in Black was there, watching them, guarded by her strange old butler. Soon she had Bart over for cookies and ice cream and asked him to call her "Grandmother". And soon Bart's transformation began... Fed by the hint of terrible things about his mother and father... leading him into shocking acts of violence. Now while this little boy trembles on the edge of madness, his anguished parents await the climax to a horror that flowered in an attic long ago, a horror whose thorns are still wet with blood, still tipped with fire.

Cathy and Chris, haunted by the tragedies and sins of the past, return at last to Foxworth Hall, where they were hidden long ago. Despite every endeavour, they find that they are prisoners of a past they cannot escape and the past comes back to prey upon them once more.

Olivia dreamed of a sun-filled love, a happy life. Then she entered Foxworth Hall... V.C. Andrews' thrilling new novel spins a tale of dreadful secrets and dark, forbidden passions -- of the time before Flowers in the Attic began. Long before terror flowered in the attic, thin, spinsterish...  more

Olivia dreamed of a sun-filled love, a happy life. Then she entered Foxworth Hall... V.C. Andrews' thrilling new novel spins a tale of dreadful secrets and dark, forbidden passions -- of the time before Flowers in the Attic began. Long before terror flowered in the attic, thin, spinsterish Olivia came to Virginia as Malcolm Foxworth's bride. At last, with her tall handsome husband, she would find the joy she had waited for, longed for. But in the gloomy mansion filled with hidden rooms and festering desires, a stain of jealous obsession begins to spread...an evil that will threaten her children, two lovely boys and one very special, beautiful girl. For within one innocent child, a shocking secret lives... a secret that will taint the proud Foxworth name, and haunt all their lives forever!