“Like the druidic life force Jack taps, this hearty adventure, as personal as it is epic, will cradle readers in the ‘hollow of its hand’ (Booklist, starred review). Jack has caused an earthquake. He was trying to save his sister Lucy from being thrown down a well, but sometimes the magic doesn’t quite work out. Not only does Jack demolish a monastery, but Lucy is carried off by the Lady of the Lake, and Jack has to follow her through the Hollow Road, which lies underground. Aided by Pega, a slave, and the berserker Thorgil, Jack encounters hobgoblins, kelpies, yarthkins, and elves—not the enchanted sprites one would expect, but fallen angels who steal human children for pets. In the eighth century, the world is caught between belief in the Old Gods and Christianity, and what Jack and his companions do will decide the fate of both religions. From National Book Award winner Nancy Farmer, this second book in the Sea of Trolls trilogy brilliantly enlarges the world of the first story. Look for the conclusion in The Islands of the Blessed.

Silver Treasures from the Land of Sheba documents a disappearing artistic and cultural tradition with over three hundred photographs showing individual pieces, rare images of women wearing their jewelry with traditional dress, and the various regions in Yemen where the author did her field research. Amulet cases, hair ornaments, bridal headdresses, earrings, necklaces, ankle and wrist bracelets are all beautifully photographed in intricate detail. A chapter on the history of silversmithing in Yemen tells the surprising story of the famed Jewish Yemeni silversmiths, many of whom left Yemen in the late 1940s.

In this timely, insightful, and concise introduction to the history and development of Argentina, Dr. Walter Molano takes a pragmatic look at the major variables that shape the country's political and economic policies. Dr. Molano particularly emphasizes the role that geography played in the formation of the country's economic institutions and political traditions. In the Land of Silver transcends two hundred years of economic and political development of one of the most complex countries in Latin America and the developing world—a country that only a century ago was as prosperous as the United States and many European countries, but is now on the bottom rung of the emerging world. Dr. Molano brings to light Argentina’s position as a country that is intriguing, yet full of contradictions. A century ago, Argentina was a preeminent destination for waves of immigrants looking for a new home and chances for a better life. It remained neutral during the two world wars, selling agricultural products, at inflated prices, to the warring sides. However, the second half of the twentieth century saw the country slip into poverty, transitioning from a veritable land of opportunity to a virtual graveyard of bad economic policies. The Argentine case has been the subject of derision, broad simplifications, and stereotypes. However, its history was a complex process that underscored the importance of geography and the role that external forces had in shaping its formation. Its unique location at the extreme limits of a vast empire distant from the centers of civilization imbued it with a yearning to react to what was happening abroad. By analyzing the geographical and external factors integral to the development of the country's political and economic institutions, readers will gain a better understanding of the forces that shape the country's policy decisions.

As the 10th Sea witch unfolds her evil plan to ensnare the life of Sirius, the Prince of Unicorns, Misty-Rain struggles with her school work. Sirius grows more and more popular, but begins to deteriorate physically as the witch's deadly potions take effect. Desperate to save his life, the Unicorn Kingdom tries to retrieve the Prince, but the only ting standing in their way is the life of Misty-Rain.

After Jack becomes apprenticed to a Druid bard, he and his little sister Lucy are captured by Viking Berserkers and taken to the home of King Ivar the Boneless and his half-troll queen, leading Jack to undertake a vital quest to Jotunheim, home of the trolls.

From the late nineteenth century to the 1920's, from Kwangtung, China to Wellington and Dunedin and the Battlefields of the Western Front ? A story of two families. Yung faces a new land that does not welcome the Chinese.? Alone, Katherine struggles to raise her children and find her place in the world. In a climate of hostility towards the foreign newcomers, Katherine and Yung embark on a poignant and far-reaching love affair . . . . Alison's debut novel, As the Earth Turns Silver, was over a decade in the making. The novel achieved instant success overseas, with international rights and foreign language editions being sold in the UK, Australia, and parts of Europe and Asia. At home, it was shortlisted for the 2010 Nielsen BookData Booksellers' Choice Award, and won the 2010 New Zealand Post Book Award for Fiction, establishing Alison as a major new voice in contemporary New Zealand fiction. ?Alison currently lives in Geelong, Australia, where As the Earth Turns Silver was shortlisted for the 2010 Australian Prime Minister's Literary Awards. The novel has also been longlisted for the 2011 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.

A remarkable novel about myth-making and survival, In the Land of Birdfishes opens in rural Nova Scotia, where twin sisters witness the death of their wild, beautiful mother. Their father, sick with grief, blindfolds them to shield them from the misery of the world. Left that way for years, each sister is scarred in her own way: Mara is rendered fully blind, Aileen partly so. When a neighbour discovers their condition, the girls are immediately separated for treatment. It isn’t until decades later, after Aileen’s marriage has fallen apart, that she decides to seek out her lost sister. She heads to Dawson City, Yukon, where Mara is rumoured to be living, but she instead finds Mara’s twenty-four-year-old son, Jason, a sullen gold miner with a reputation for violence and lies. As the summer unfolds, Aileen slowly earns her nephew’s trust and unravels the tangle of stories he tells her, unearthing at last the secret of what happened to her sister. Hypnotic, haunting and compelling, In the Land of Birdfishes builds inevitably to a shocking and heartbreaking conclusion.

A tale of spies and skulduggery in the Napoleonic Wars as Britain invades Argentina. James Burke joins the army determined to work his way up through the ranks and become a gentleman. He never set out to be a spy. But with Napoleon rampaging through Europe, the Duke of York needs agents and Burke is plucked from the infantry and sent on a mission to the Spanish colonial backwater of Argentina. His mission is to give the country?s freedom fighters aid so that they may break free from Spanish rule at an opportune moment for Britain. Yet when Burke arrives, he finds himself falling in love, both with the Land of Silver, and Ana O?Gorman, lover of a rebel leader determined to bring about Burke?s downfall ?

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • The Washington Post • Publishers Weekly New Hyde Hospital’s psychiatric ward has a new resident. It also has a very, very old one. Pepper is a rambunctious big man, minor-league troublemaker, working-class hero (in his own mind), and, suddenly, the surprised inmate of a budget-strapped mental institution in Queens, New York. He’s not mentally ill, but that doesn’t seem to matter. He is accused of a crime he can’t quite square with his memory. In the darkness of his room on his first night, he’s visited by a terrifying creature with the body of an old man and the head of a bison who nearly kills him before being hustled away by the hospital staff. It’s no delusion: The other patients confirm that a hungry devil roams the hallways when the sun goes down. Pepper rallies three other inmates in a plot to fight back: Dorry, an octogenarian schizophrenic who’s been on the ward for decades and knows all its secrets; Coffee, an African immigrant with severe OCD, who tries desperately to send alarms to the outside world; and Loochie, a bipolar teenage girl who acts as the group’s enforcer. Battling the pill-pushing staff, one another, and their own minds, they try to kill the monster that’s stalking them. But can the Devil die? The Devil in Silver brilliantly brings together the compelling themes that spark all of Victor LaValle’s radiant fiction: faith, race, class, madness, and our relationship with the unseen and the uncanny. More than that, it’s a thrillingly suspenseful work of literary horror about friendship, love, and the courage to slay our own demons. Praise for The Devil in Silver “A fearless exploration of America’s heart of darkness . . . a dizzying high-wire act.”—The Washington Post “LaValle never writes the same book and his recent is a stunner. . . . Fantastical, hellish and hilarious.”—Los Angeles Times “It’s simply too bighearted, too gentle, too kind, too culturally observant and too idiosyncratic to squash into the small cupboard of any one genre, or even two.”—The New York Times Book Review “Embeds a sophisticated critique of contemporary America’s inhumane treatment of madness in a fast-paced story that is by turns horrifying, suspenseful, and comic.”—The Boston Globe “LaValle uses the thrills of horror to draw attention to timely matters. And he does so without sucking the joy out of the genre. . . . A striking and original American novelist.”—The New Republic

A collection of nineteen tales from the Indians of various South American countries.