Structured in seven sections with poems written in the period between 1962 and 2009, this collection showcases the work of iconic New Zealand poet, political activist, and impresario David Mitchell. Literate and amusing, this compilation, which assembles widely scattered poems in one work for the first time, reintroduces Mitchell to a new generation. Drawn from magazines, journals, and private papers, Mitchell's work presents afresh the lyrical, intense rhythm of this antipodean hipster. Poems featured include &“at pakiri beach,&” &“mad dog errol,&” &“night through the orange window,&” and &“poem to my unborn son.&”

When Dana uncovers a skeleton hidden in the wall of her home, she also uncovers a dark secret that stretches back years. When twelve-year-old Dana Shannon starts to strip away wallpaper in her family’s old house, she’s unprepared for the surprise that awaits her. A hidden room—containing a human skeleton! How did such a thing get there? And why was the tiny room sealed up? With the help of a diary found in the room, Dana learns her house was once a station on the Underground Railroad. The young woman whose remains Dana discovered was Lizbet Charles, a conductor and former slave. As the scene shifts between Dana’s world and 1856, the story of the families that lived in the house unfolds. But as pieces of the puzzle begin to fall into place, one haunting question remains—why did Lizbet Charles die?

"David Mitchell is a New Zealand original: poet, lover, political activist, cricketer, traveller and impresario. With this generous selection of poems and comprehensive introduction, Martin Edmond and Nigel Roberts present afresh the lyrical, beat intensity of an antipodean hipster and iconic poet." -- Back cover.

Thomas Johnson and Charles Spurgeon lived worlds apart. Johnson, an American slave, born into captivity and longing for freedom--- Spurgeon, an Englishman born into relative ease and comfort, but, longing too for a freedom of his own. Their respective journeys led to an unlikely meeting and an even more unlikely friendship, forged by fate and mutual love for the mission of Christ. Steal Away Home is a new kind of book based on historical research, which tells a previously untold story set in the 1800s of the relationship between an African-American missionary and one of the greatest preachers to ever live.

Ischiano Scalo. A place where even the main road out to the nearest big town gives up after a couple of miles, where escape from a life of boredom and emptiness is almost impossible. Forced into crimes he never wanted to commit, Pietro reaches crisis point when his parents ignore his pleas for help and his schoolteacher turns her back on him - in desperation, he reaches out for attention, and finds instead a terrible revenge. Escape from Ischiano Scalo comes at a price. Life there will never be the same again.

Set during the Civil War Era, this heartwrenching novel of two girls--one African American, one white--and their flight North to freedom, was called powerful, moving, and thought-provoking by Publishers Weekly. An American Bookseller Pick of the Lists in Orchard hardcover.

In 1855 two thirteen-year-old girls, one white and one black, run away from a southern farm and make the difficult journey north to freedom, living to recount their story forty-one years later to two similar young girls.

“This is a powerful story of grief, love, forgiveness, and holy mystery, and I loved it. Billy Coffey is a master storyteller.” —Lauren Denton, USA Today bestselling author of The Hideaway Owen Cross grew up with two loves: one a game, the other a girl. One of his loves ruined him. Now he’s counting on the other to save him. Owen Cross’s father is a hard man, proud in his brokenness, who wants nothing more than for Owen to succeed where he failed. With his innate talents and his father’s firm hand guiding him, Owen goes to college with dreams of the major leagues—and an emptiness full of a girl named Micky Dullahan. Owen loved Micky from the first time they met on the hill between their two worlds: his middle-class home and her troubled Shantytown. Years later he leaves her for the dugouts and the autographs, but their days together follow him. When he finally returns home, he discovers that even peace comes at a cost. And that the hardest things to say are to the ones we love the most. From bestselling author Billy Coffey comes a haunting story of small-town love, blinding ambition, and the risk of giving it all for one last chance. “In one evening, a single baseball game, Coffey invites us into a lifetime. With lyrical prose and aching description we join Owen Cross on a journey of love, loss, faith, the unexpected—and America’s favorite pastime.” —Katherine Reay, author of Dear Mr. Knightley and The Austen Escape

Two slave boys run away from their South Carolina plantation in an attempt to reach their freed father five hundred miles to the north.

Children’s book illustrator Rachel Stark is living every parent’s nightmare: her nine-year-old son, David, has been snatched off the street in broad daylight with no apparent motive, his red bicycle left lying on the side of the road. Now, already bearing the strain of a troubled marriage, Rachel must channel every ounce of strength into a desperate search for David. Complicating everything are Rachel’s recently divorced sister, a bombshell who conceals explosive secrets; an icy, by-the-book detective, infuriating in his professional detachment; Rachel’s own lawyer husband, Stephen, who believes he can manage the situation through bullying and logic; and a deceptive “saint” from the Missing Child Foundation, who harbors his own hidden agenda. Through it all there is David, crying out to be found. But are Rachel’s visions of her terrified child something real or the cruel trick of a mother’s heart consumed with love and fear? “Beautifully written and heartwrenching... Searingly memorable.” New York Times bestselling author Tess Gerritsen “This first-rate thriller... moves convincingly to its cliffhanger conclusion.” Library Journal