An amulet of great power takes a great toll on the wearer. It is the king's delight and the king's burden. It shakes the foundations of the world, topples empires and builds nations. And it has fallen into the wrong hands... The world has become obsessed with King Emilio. He's young, rich and incredibly powerful. He fascinates adoring crowds with a ruthless smile, and they fawn over his slightest requests. Connor sees through the guise but fights to keep quiet about Emilio's true nature. It is his cousin, and he made an unbreakable oath... If only Maia weren't obsessed with the Aztecan king, then maybe Connor would be able to get some sleep at night. But after Emilio proposes to her, Connor's jealousy overwhelms him. The incessant noise of the palace makes him crave the peace of the battlefield again, but it isn't long before the battlefield finds him, and he has to make a choice... Every thought that he'd kept hidden even from himself emerges from the darkest corners of his mind. Maia… Who is she?

Kazu Kibuishi's #1 NEW YORK TIMES bestselling series is now available in eBook! After the tragic death of their father, Emily and Navin move with their mother to the home of her deceased great-grandfather, but the strange house proves to be dangerous. Before long, a sinister creature lures the kids' mom through a door in the basement. Em and Navin, desperate not to lose her, follow her into an underground world inhabited by strange creatures, robots, and talking animals.Eventually, they enlist the help of a small mechanical rabbit named Miskit. Together with Miskit, they face the most terrifying monster of all, and Em finally has the chance to save someone she loves.

Long ago, the Black Knights overthrew the King to steal twelve ancient pendants with untold power. As foretold, at dawn the knights rode into a village and slaughtered everyone, leaving only four young cousins alive. That day Bran, Gareth, Jason and Exandra swear to avenge their families. If successful they will break a 500-year-old curse. Now age seventeen, the cousins must activate the amulets before time runs out or they will succumb to the same fate as the Black Knights. Book 1, The Amulet: Follows the teenagers' trek across England into Wales in search of a lost castle. On their way, Bran, Gareth and Jason discover that Exandra has a secret, a mysterious power. Will she be able to use her ability to guide them to the fabled "Tree of Forever?" Beyond the horizon lies an unexpected challenge, their greatest obstacle yet.

A year after her discovery of magic trees in their local park, Isabel and best friend Jess are on a school excursion to Kew Gardens. They come across Kew Palace and, knowing nothing about its history, decide to sneak into the library. A painting on the wall in the library catches Isabel's eye and she realises the man in the painting is wearing the amulet. When they head for home to tell Isabel's brother, William, Jess disappears! Isabel must find Jess but who is the man wearing the amulet? The Amulet's Curse is the second adventure for the Pritchard children in the hugely successful Between the Trees series.

A brand new world of Elder Gods and new Gods, called the Divines. An astronomical battle ground that is set in the World of Nadine. A brave new chance for the Divines to make Nadine free of the bitter and spiteful Elder Gods, who seek the ruin and damnation of all those they can manage to enslave. Enter this enchanting World, where nothing is impossible.

Kazu Kibuishi's #1 NEW YORK TIMES bestselling series continues! Navin and his classmates journey to Lucien, a city ravaged by war and plagued by mysterious creatures, where they search for a beacon essential to their fight against the Elf King. Meanwhile, Emily heads back into the Void with Max, one of the Elf King's loyal followers, where she learns his darkest secrets. The stakes, for both Emily and Navin, are higher than ever.

THE AMULET OF KINGSThe first volume in The Banned Underground collection of stories that can be read in any order, or disorder. Perhaps disorder, for when two suburban teenagers arrive for an enforced holiday at their aunt's cottage, they find a lot more going on than they expected.Most of the local Wizards and Witches are all on holiday - sorry, that's the Annual Joint Professional Conference of course - in the South of France. It's a perfect opportunity for the local Dark Lord (who has been left behind) to summon up some goblins and try to invade the underground Mansion of the Dwarves.Can the teenagers help their new friend the King of the Dwarves save his kingdom? The Dark Lord has his goblins and his minions; the teenagers have a luminous green, jazz-loving bog troll and his rhythm-and-blues band - and an amazing collection of jokes, one-liners, and awfully bad puns, as this new fantasy series gets off to a crackling start.

In this conclusion to the Psammead Trilogy, Cyril, Anthea, Robert, and Jane are reunited with the cantankerous Sand-fairy. While the old creature can’t grant them wishes anymore, it points them towards an old Egyptian amulet that can grant their hearts’ desire—in this case the return of their parents and baby brother. While their amulet is only half of a whole, it still acts as a time portal which they use to visit locales like Ancient Egypt, Babylon, Atlantis, and even a utopian future in search of the missing other half. Perhaps one of E. Nesbit’s most personal works, The Story of the Amulet benefited from her interest in the ancient world, particularly Egypt. With the help of A. E. Wallis Budge, to whom the book is dedicated—then Head of the Assyrian Departments of the British Museum and translator of the Egyptian Book of the Dead—she conducted extensive research on the topic and is thus able to bring an exquisite attention to detail. For example, the titular amulet is shaped after the tyet, an Egyptian symbol also known as the “knot of Isis.” Likewise, the inscription at the back of the amulet is written in authentic Egyptian hieroglyphs. A staunch supporter of democratic socialism and a founding member of the Fabian Society, E. Nesbit cultivated friendships with other like-minded writers, such as George Bernard Shaw and H. G. Wells, whose influence on this book is easy to notice. She practiced what she preached, so much so that despite her literary successes, her acts of charity brought her close to bankruptcy. These political beliefs are prominently displayed in the book. The children encounter memorable characters during their adventures, chief among them the Queen of Babylon, who causes quite a stir when she later pays them a call in their contemporary London. When the visiting Queen witnesses the squalid living conditions of the London working class, she’s amazed at how poorly they’re treated compared to the slaves of her own Babylon. Likewise, the utopian future—which features a wink to her friend H. G. Wells, the “great reformer”—is a striking contrast in terms of the happiness, care, and education of the general populace. The book’s legacy can be found in the works of other writers. Most notably, C. S. Lewis incorporated several elements in his Chronicles of Narnia: the Calormene civilization of The Horse and His Boy draws heavily from The Amulet’s Babylon, and the episode in The Magician’s Nephew where Jadis, the White Witch, causes chaos during her short stay in London is also a direct homage to the aforementioned visit from the Queen. The format of these stories, where a group of people take their audience on adventures through time and space to learn about distant cultures, is an uncanny precursor to the popular British TV series Doctor Who. This book is part of the Standard Ebooks project, which produces free public domain ebooks.