Ben's nanna is going crazy. At least, that's what the rest of his family think. She's been sharing Ben's room since his grandad went to work overseas. The black stone in the pendant around her neck talks to her, tells her stories from its life. She retells the stories to Ben after dark. Each story has the clarity of a fable and a message about life tucked within its whispered words. Ben's nanna explains that the stone is neither good luck nor bad luck, but an amplifier of the heart-song of the owner. If they were nasty, it drew nasty things into their lives. If they were kind, it showered them with kindness. As she leaves to join her husband overseas, she gives Ben the stone and tells him to watch his thoughts . . .

Bold, colourful readers with kid-friendly characters and subjects they'd choose for themselves.

Vera was prim and fastidious. Eden was beautiful and adored. Like most families they had their secrets...and they hid them under a genteelly respectable veneer. Yet their sisterly bond was strained by obsession, manipulation and murderous jealousy. Buried secrets rarely stay buried, and their past still wields the power to tear their family apart. The Green Popular Penguins Story It was in 1935 when Allen Lane stood on a British railway platform looking for something good to read on his journey. His choice was limited to popular magazines and poor quality paperbacks. Lane's disappointment at the range of books available led him to found a company - and change the world. In 1935 the Penguin was born, but it took until the late 1940s for the Crime and Mystery series to emerge. The genre thrived in the post-war austerity of the 1940s, and reached heights of popularity by the 1960s. Suspense, compelling plots and captivating characters ensure that once again you need look no further than the Penguin logo for the scene of the perfect crime.

A broken man, Khraen awakens alone and lost. His stone heart has been shattered, littered across the world. With each piece, he regains some small shard of the man he once was. He follows the trail, fragment by fragment, remembering his terrible past. There was a woman. There was a sword. There was an end to sorrow. Khraen walks the obsidian path.

In the twelfth century AD, Venice is little more than an agglomeration of small islands snatched from the muddy tides. The magnificent city-lagoon of Venice, the rich and powerful Serene Republic, is yet to be born. Here, in this northern backwater, a group of artisans have proven themselves to be unrivalled in an art form that produces works of such astounding beauty that many consider it mystical in nature and think its practitioners possessed of otherworldly gifts. They are glassmakers. Presciently aware of the power they wield and the role they will play in the Venice of the future, the Venetian glassmakers inhabit a world of esoteric practices and secret knowledge that they protect at all costs. Into this world steps Edgardo D’Arduino, a cleric and a professional copyist. Edgardo’s eyesight has begun to waver—a curse for a man who makes his living copying sacred texts. But he has heard stories, perhaps legends, that in Venice, city of glassmakers, there exists a stone, the lapides ad legendum, that can restore one’s sight. However, finding men who have knowledge of this wondrous stone proves almost impossible. After much searching, Edgardo meets a mysterious man who offers him a deal: he will lead him to the makers of the lapides ad legendum in exchange for Edgardo’s stealing a secret Arabic scientific text that is kept in the abbey where Edgardo lodges. When a series of horrific crimes shakes the cloistered world of the glassmakers, Edgardo realizes that there is much more at stake than his faltering eyesight. Equal parts The Name of the Rose and The Da Vinci Code, Roberto Tiraboschi’s English-language debut is a gripping historical thriller and a magnificent recreation of Venice in the Middle Ages.

Emory and Tostan had every right to believe that the defeat of the sorcerer Tolrak had restored peace to their homeland. Yet as they celebrated, the Mishwa Empire and Delta Kingdom were locked in a death struggle in a land far to their west. This ancient conflict had already reached out and touched their lives at the gates of Sea City. All too soon, it would draw them into its fire. Join Emory and Tostan as they face challenges that will either enhance their skills as wizard and warrior-or strike them dead. Travel with them as they encounter the slave traders of Fortun, stride through the gates of Tarbu Fortress, and descend into the dungeons of Zalgar. Bryunzet gives you a glimpse of the time that preceded Wizardmont, introducing you to the mad sorcerer Mellette and Grand Wizard Tarawak, and then propels you into a world where arrows scream, daimen roam the land, the Dark Cloud blocks the sun, and the Promise of the Stones lures one and all.

Ruth Stone has earned many honors for her poetry, including the National Book Award.

Stone Heart Deep is a compelling and claustrophobic thriller with a remarkable twist, as if Iain Banks had rewritten The Wicker Man. When burned-out investigative journalist Adam Budd's estranged mother dies, he inherits her estate. This includes Stone Heart House, a huge, ramshackle mansion on a remote Scottish island. He visits the island to sort out her tangled affairs, and at first it seems like a charming haven of tranquillity. But after he witnesses a strange accident, he begins to develop suspicions about the inhabitants. Why does everyone seem so eerily calm, even under stress? What is stopping Harriet, the lawyer helping him with his affairs, from leaving the island when she so clearly wants to? Is he making a big mistake by falling for her? And why have so many children gone missing?

#1 BESTSELLER • The apocalyptic vision of a world blasted by plague and tangled in an elemental struggle between good and evil remains as riveting—and eerily plausible—as when it was first published. • The tie-in edition of the nine-part CBS All Access series starring Whoopi Goldberg, Alexander Skarsgard, and James Marsden. A patient escapes from a biological testing facility, unknowingly carrying a deadly weapon: a mutated strain of super-flu that will wipe out 99 percent of the world’s population within a few weeks. Those who remain are scared, bewildered, and in need of a leader. Two emerge—Mother Abagail, the benevolent 108-year-old woman who urges them to build a peaceful community in Boulder, Colorado; and Randall Flagg, the nefarious “Dark Man,” who delights in chaos and violence. As the dark man and the peaceful woman gather power, the survivors will have to choose between them—and ultimately decide the fate of all humanity.