In Return of the Fire Child, T.J. grudgingly accepted his destiny as the Fire Child, protector of the Inner World, a civilization located within the core of the Earth. Along with his three teen friends, Scott, Chad and Crash, he returned to the land of his birth to battle the evil that threatened not only his world but also the surface world where he had been raised. Pursued by a Gorgon and her legion of cats, they quickly learned that the Inner World was a land of myth filled with strange creatures and dangerous beasts such as the boys had never imagined. In Quest of the Fire Child, T.J. sought to establish himself as the protector of his world and faced new dangers from ruthless men and creatures that wished to destroy him. Once again he must call upon his three friends who, along with the wolf boy, Criton, risk their lives attempting to bring peace to a world in turmoil. T.J. learned that his mother was still alive and he set out to rescue her from the brutish Mordraves. He also discovered that Scott is his half-brother and the bond between the two boys becomes stronger than ever before. Now, in Fortress of the Fire Child, T.J. and his friends face further danger in the form of Aquatis, a ruthless shape shifter who once battled the Fire Child's father and who now seeks revenge against the son. Intrigue continues as Mathias, the T.J.'s arch enemy, reappears and attempts to regain the throne of Stonemass, the chief city of the Inner World. Further danger ensues as an army of mercenaries march forward to attack the Fortress, home of the Fire Child, and T.J. begins to doubt his own power pitted against such formidable odds.

Death Stalks the Fire Child is the fourth and final book of the Fire Child series. In Return of the Fire Child, T.J. grudgingly accepts his destiny as the Fire Child, protector of the Inner World, a civilization located within the core of the Earth. Along with his three teen friends, Scott, Chad and Crash, he returns to the land of his birth to battle the evil that threatens not only his world, but also the surface world where he had been raised. Pursued by a Gorgon and her legion of cats, his friends soon learn that the Inner World is a land filled with strange creatures and dangerous beasts such as the boys had never imagined. In Quest of the Fire Child, T.J. seeks to establish himself as the protector of his world and faces new dangers from ruthless men and creatures that wish to destroy him. Once again he calls upon his three friends who, along with the wolf boy, Criton, risk their lives attempting to bring peace to a world in turmoil. It is during this time that T.J. learns that Scott is his half-brother and the bond between the two boys becomes stronger than ever as they see how their fates are intertwined. Fortress of the Fire Child finds T.J. and his friends facing further dangers in the form of Aquatis, a ruthless shape shifter who once battled the Fire Childs father and who seeks revenge against the son. Intrigue also continues as Mathias, T.J.s arch enemy, reappears and attempts to regain the throne of Stonemass, the chief city of the Inner World. Additional danger ensues as an army of mercenaries attempts to attack the Fortress, the home of the Fire Child. Now in Death Stalks the Fire Child, T.J. finds himself battling enemies on two separate fronts and he must rely upon the strength of his friends and their newly acquired powers to face one enemy while he faces the other. While Scott and the others hurry to protect Stonemass from a horde of mutant lizards, T.J. travels to the swampland to face the evil Slurpus who controls Liviatin, the most powerful creature the Fire Child has ever had to face.

"Wonderful . . . J. V. Jones is a striking writer." So says Robert Jordan, the author of The Wheel of Time epic fantasy series. And Jones lives up to that praise in the highly charged epic adventure of Ash March and Raif Sevrance, two outcasts whose fate are entwined by ancient prophecies and need, in the cold, dark world that threatens to be torn asunder by a war to end all wars. Isolated by their birthrights, they are but two who fight the dreaded Endlords, and their strength and courage will be needed if the world is to be saved from darkness." Raif, wrongly accused and cut off from his clan by the treachery of their new headsman, has a talent for killing that is part of his curse and his burden. But he bears another burden of greater weight. Ash is a sacred warrior to the Sull, an ancient race whose numbers have declined. Raised as a foundling, never knowing her true history, she must learn to accept the terrible gifts of her heritage. But as Ash learns more of her greater fate, Raif's task looms dark and desperate, for he must journey through the nightmare realm of the Want, a place where even the Sull now fear to tread. For deep within the Want is the Fortress of Grey Ice, and there he must heal the breach in the Blindwall that already threatens the world. Should he fail, not even Ash's powers can save them. . . . At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Ordinary people don't experience history as it is taught by historians. They live across the convenient chronological divides we impose on the past. The same people who lived through the Civil War and the eradication of slavery also dealt with the hardships of Reconstruction, so why do we almost always treat them separately? In Children of Fire, renowned historian Thomas C. Holt challenges this form to tell the story of generations of African Americans through the lived experience of the subjects themselves, with all of the nuances, ironies, contradictions, and complexities one might expect. Building on seminal books like John Hope Franklin's From Slavery to Freedom and many others, Holt captures the entire African American experience from the moment the first twenty African slaves were sold at Jamestown in 1619. Each chapter focuses on a generation of individuals who shaped the course of American history, hoping for a better life for their children but often confronting the ebb and flow of their civil rights and status within society. Many familiar faces grace these pages—Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. DuBois, Martin Luther King, and Barack Obama—but also some overlooked ones. Figures like Anthony Johnson, a slave who bought his freedom in late seventeenth century Virginia and built a sizable plantation, only to have it stolen away from his children by an increasingly racist court system. Or Frank Moore, a WWI veteran and sharecropper who sued his landlord for unfair practices, but found himself charged with murder after fighting off an angry white posse. Taken together, their stories tell how African Americans fashioned a culture and identity amid the turmoil of four centuries of American history.

The barrier has fallen. The king is gone. Tan has secured the artifact, but now the Fortress of Fire in Incendin burns more brightly than it has in a generation. To master his connection to the elementals, Tan needs to rediscover knowledge about the elemental power that has been lost for centuries. When the draasin bonded to him is injured, Tan must rely on everything he’s learned to save him and discovers a new threat to the kingdoms more powerful than anything he's ever faced.

What happens when King Everard and Queen Isabelle rescue two abandoned children...only to learn that these children might be the greatest threat the kingdom has seen in 500 years? Henri and his little sister, Genny, have lost their father in Destin's forest when something dark beckons to them. Something sweet. And though Henri tries to use his mysterious abilities to protect his sister, the call soon becomes too strong for even him to ignore. Back at the Fortress, King Everard and Queen Isabelle are enjoying a reign of peace, but their joy is marred by the pain of being childless. So when Isa and Ever find themselves in charge of two forsaken children with unusual abilities, it seems like a dream come true. Unfortunately, young Henri and Genny carry ancient secrets that just might be Destin’s undoing. So when Ever and Isa are called to face this new evil, one with unexpected connections to Ever's past, they must trust the Fortress once again if they wish to hold onto their kingdom, their new little family, and ultimately, one another. If you love the magic of Narnia and the romance of traditional fairy tales, The Classical Kingdoms Collection is the series for you. Beauty Beheld, a clean fantasy fairy tale retelling of Hansel and Gretel is the final book in The Becoming Beauty Trilogy and the third book in the Classical Kingdoms Collection. Read it today to discover magical mystery, clean, passionate romance, and heroic happily-ever-afters. Author's Note: Many books in this series can be read as standalones, but this one is best read after Blinding Beauty, Book #2.

Herein are 39 Kalmyk-Mongolian children’s fairy and folktales which are Mongolian in origin. Herein you wind stories like: The Saga Of The Well-And-Wise-Walking Khan The Woman Who Sought Her Husband In The Palace Of Erlik-Khan The Gold-Spitting Prince Five To One The Fortunes Of Shrikantha The Use Of Magic Language The Wife Who Loved Butter Bhîxu Life The Saga Of Ardschi-Bordschi And Vikramâditja’s Throne The Boy-King Schalû the Wolf-boy Vikramâditja acquires another Kingdom The Voice-charmer How Naran Gerel swore falsely and yet told the Truth ….plus many, many more. Kalmyk folklore, fairy tales, omens and sayings are a little-researched genre of folklore. Since early times the Kalmyk people, surveyed nature, animals, and the birds around them, from which they created tales, legends, myths, songs, proverbs, and sayings that are notable for their keen observation, which, over time, have been infused with a healthy dose of deep wisdom, which is highly complementary to their commonly held practise of Tengric Bhuddism, or Mongolian Buddhism. The Kalmyk people are members of the Oirat clan which is Mongolian in origin. The Kalmyks (also spelled Kalmouk) migrated 3,700km/2,300miles from the steppes of southern Siberia on the banks of the Irtysh River to the Lower Volga region, bordering on the northern Caspian sea, arriving in about 1630AD. The most compelling reason was to escape the growing dominance of the neighboring Dzungar Mongol tribe. Along the route of their migration, the Kalmyks would have met and mixed with pagans and shamans, the Jewish Khazars, Islam from the Alans and Nogais, and Christianity from the Russians and other Slavic tribes. As such their folklore and fairytales are interwoven with elements of all these cultures creating a rich and diverse tapestry of lore which is reflected in this volume. ============== KEYWORDS/TAGS: Kalmykian, Mongolian, folklore, fairytales, Ananda, ancient, ape, Ardschi-Bordschi, ARDSCHI, BORDSCHI, arrows, ass, barley-corns, beasts, beautiful, birdcatcher, bird, catcher, Bodhisattva, bones, Boy-king, Buddha, Buddhist, butter, capital, caravan, chief, children, children’s books, children’s stories, Churmusta, companions, cunning, dancing, demons, eight, endowed, enemy, feathers, fifteenth century, 15th C., free, friends, Gandharva, garuda-bird, Gerel, grandparents with children, gratitude, Hermit, honour, horse, India, jewel, Khan, Khanin, King, kingdom, Kun-dgah, Lama, lioness, love, magicians, magnanimous, maiden, majesty, mango tree, marry, Massang, Master, merchandize, merchandise, merchant, Minister, Moonshine, mother-o’-pearl, mothers to be, mothers with children, mountain, Nâgârg′una, Naran, Naran-Dâkinî, Naran Dâkinî, noble, oxen, palace, parents to be, parents with children, parrot, peace, possessed, Prince, Princess, Queen, reading to children, sacred, sacrifice, Schimnu, Schimnu Khan, Schimnus, Serpent, Serpent king, seventy-one, Shanggasba, Siddhi-kür, soothsayer, Ssaran, Sunshine, Suta, tales, talisman, Teacher, temple, thousand, throne, token, transform, treasure, Vikramâditja, water, Well-and-wise-walking, Well and wise walking, weep, wisdom, wise, wolves, wood-carver, wood carver, youth

“Jones’s radical, detailed vision of what extremes it might take to unlearn misogyny is rendered with insight, immediacy, and painful honesty. This gut-punch of a story is sure to start conversations.” — Publishers Weekly, starred review A searing examination of the dark heart of masculinity confronted by a women-led society. The Handmaid’s Tale meets Herland at a party thrown by Anaïs Nin. Jonathon Bridge has a corner office in a top-tier software firm, tailored suits, and an impeccable pedigree. He has a fascinating wife, Adalia; a child on the way; and a string of pretty young interns as lovers on the side. He’s a man who’s going places. His world is our world: the same chaos and sprawl, haves and have-nots, men and women, skyscrapers and billboards. But it also exists alongside a vast, self-sustaining city-state called The Fortress where the indigenous inhabitants—the Vaik, a society run and populated exclusively by women—live in isolation. When Adalia discovers his indiscretions and the ugly sexual violence pervading his firm, she agrees to continue their fractured marriage only on the condition that Jonathan voluntarily offers himself to The Fortress as a supplicant and stay there for a year. Jonathon’s arrival at The Fortress begins with a recitation of the conditions of his stay: He is forbidden to ask questions, to raise his hand in anger, and to refuse sex. Jonathon is utterly unprepared for what will happen to him over the course of the year—not only to his body, but to his mind and his heart. This absorbing, confronting, and moving novel asks questions about consent, power, love, and fulfillment. It asks what it takes for a man to change, and whether change is possible without a radical reversal of the conditions that seem normal.