Timeless, beautiful, and haunting, spirals connect the four episodes of The Ghosts of Heaven, the mesmerizing new novel from Printz Award winner Marcus Sedgwick. They are there in prehistory, when a girl picks up a charred stick and makes the first written signs; there tens of centuries later, hiding in the treacherous waters of Golden Beck that take Anna, who people call a witch; there in the halls of a Long Island hospital at the beginning of the 20th century, where a mad poet watches the oceans and knows the horrors it hides; and there in the far future, as an astronaut faces his destiny on the first spaceship sent from earth to colonize another world. Each of the characters in these mysterious linked stories embarks on a journey of discovery and survival; carried forward through the spiral of time, none will return to the same place. This title has Common Core connections.

One couple's inspiring memoir of healing a Rwandan village, raising a family near the old killing fields, and building a restaurant named Heaven. Newlyweds Josh and Alissa were at a party and received a challenge that shook them to the core: do you think you can really make a difference? Especially in a place like Rwanda, where the scars of genocide linger and poverty is rampant? While Josh worked hard bringing food and health care to the country's rural villages, Alissa was determined to put their foodie expertise to work. The couple opened Heaven, a gourmet restaurant overlooking Kigali, which became an instant success. Remarkably, they found that between helping youth marry their own local ingredients with gourmet recipes (and mix up "the best guacamole in Africa") and teaching them how to help themselves, they created much-needed jobs while showing that genocide's survivors really could work together. While first a memoir of love, adventure, and family, A Thousand Hills to Heaven also provides a remarkable view of how, through health, jobs, and economic growth, our foreign aid programs can be quickly remodeled and work to end poverty worldwide.

Barroom brawler ghosts, a ghost prayer group, Peeping Tom ghosts, a ghost who hates children, and even a ghost who didn't know he was dead are just a few of the wild assortment of characters in Echo Bodine's delightful new collection of true ghost stories. A psychic who has been hunting ghosts for 40 years, Bodine shares her story of how she became a ghost buster along with the stories of ghosts, hauntings, and possessions she encountered along the way. Wondering if those flickering lights, jangling door knobs, and mumbling sounds in the middle of the night mean you have a ghost? Bodine offers step-by-step instructions for getting rid of them along with clearing and protection prayers to keep them away. These funny, sometimes unnerving, and always entertaining stories will provide reassurance to anyone who has ever encountered things that go bump in the night.

Slipknot and Stone Sour singer Corey Taylor's New York Times bestselling journey into the world of ghosts and the supernatural Corey Taylor has seen a lot of unbelievable things. However, many of his most incredible experiences might just shock you. For much of his life, the Grammy Award-winning singer of Slipknot and Stone Sour and New York Times bestselling author of Seven Deadly Sins has brushed up against the supernatural world. Those encounters impacted his own personal evolution just as much as headlining at Castle Donington in front of 100,000 people at Download Festival or debuting at #1 on the Billboard Top 200. Since growing up in Iowa, his own curiosity drew him into situations that would've sent most people screaming scared and running for the hills. He's ballsy enough to go into the darkness and deal with the consequences, though. As a result, he's seen ghosts up close and personal, whether while combing through an abandoned house in his native Iowa as a child or recording an album in the fabled Houdini Hollywood Hills mansion. He's also got the memories (and scars) to prove it. For some reason, he can't seem to shake these spectral stories, and that brings us to this little tome right here... At the same time, being an erudite, tattooed, modern Renaissance Man, he was never one for Sunday Service. Simply put, he's seen ghosts, but he hasn't seen Jesus. Taylor especially can't find a reason why people do the insane things they do in HIS name. That's where everything gets really interesting. His second book, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Heaven, compiles Taylor's most intimate, incredible, and insane moments with the supernatural. His memories are as vivid as they are vicious. As he recounts these stories, he questions the validity of religious belief systems and two-thousand-year-old dogma. As always, his rapid-fire writing, razor sharp sense of humor, unbridled honesty, and cozy anecdotes make quite the case for his point. You might end up believing him or not. That's up to you, of course. Either way, you're in for a hell of a ride.

A powerful new fantasy from Hugo award–winning author Elizabeth Bear, Range of Ghosts creates a world both deep and broad, where a sorcerer-prince seeks world domination for the glory of his God. Temur, grandson of the Great Khan, is walking from a battlefield where he was left for dead. All around lie the fallen armies of his cousin and his brother who made war to rule the Khaganate. Temur is now the legitimate heir by blood to his grandfather's throne, but he is not the strongest. Going into exile is the only way to survive his ruthless cousin. Once-Princess Samarkar is climbing the thousand steps of the Citadel of the Wizards of Tsarepheth. She was heir to the Rasan Empire until her father got a son on a new wife. Then she was sent to be the wife of a Prince in Song, but that marriage ended in battle and blood. Now she has renounced her worldly power to seek the magical power of the wizards. These two will come together to stand against the hidden cult that has so carefully brought all the empires of the Celadon Highway to strife and civil war through guile and deceit and sorcerous power. The Eternal Sky Trilogy #1 Range of Ghosts #2 Shattered Pillars #3 Steles of the Sky At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Set in a girls' boarding school in Massachusetts a haunting and sinister story YA story for World Book Day from prize-winning author Marcus Sedgwick. 1963. Foxgrove School near Stockbridge, Massachusetts. One of the oldest and finest academies in the country - but what really goes on behind closed doors? Nathaniel Drake, the new young English teacher, Isobel Milewski, the quiet girl who loved to draw spirals, her fingers stained with green ink, Jack Lewis, who lent Isobel books - just words, just ink on paper, Margot Leya, the girl with those eyes - who are they, what part have they played in killing the dead? Follow the dark, dark path Into the dark, dark woods To the dark, dark bridge By the dark, dark water. Linger. Let the ghosts of heaven tell their story. A stylish and creepy story for World Book Day from prize-winning author Marcus Sedgwick.

“The work of a young writer with tremendous ambition, a bildungsroman of religion and revolution set during an obscure chapter of American history.” —The Washington Post A powerful and impressive debut novel from the winner of the Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival Prize for fiction—first in the Woolsack family saga that continues with Secessia and The New Inheritors. The Blood of Heaven is the story of Angel Woolsack, a preacher’s son, who flees the hardscrabble life of his itinerant father, falls in with a charismatic highwayman, then settles with his adopted brothers on the rough frontier of West Florida, where American settlers are carving their place out of lands held by the Spaniards and the French. The novel moves from the bordellos of Natchez, where Angel meets his love Red Kate to the Mississippi River plantations, where the brutal system of slave labor is creating fantastic wealth along with terrible suffering, and finally to the back rooms of New Orleans among schemers, dreamers, and would-be revolutionaries plotting to break away from the young United States and create a new country under the leadership of the renegade founding father Aaron Burr. The Blood of Heaven is a remarkable portrait of a young man seizing his place in a violent new world, a moving love story, and a vivid tale of ambition and political machinations that brilliantly captures the energy and wildness of a young America where anything was possible. It is a startling debut. “Wascom is a craftsman, and each of his lengthy, winding sentences shimmers with the tang of blood and bone and sweat, and the archaic splendor of his language.” —The Boston Globe

Sons of Heaven is an epic novel set against the backdrop of one of modern history's most haunting events: the Tiananmen Square Massacre. In June 1989, the world watched in horror as China's military was mobilized to suppress a student movement that stood for peaceful democracy. Hundreds were killed; others say thousands. No one knows for sure. But the image that remains most powerful is that of a lone young man, looking confused yet terribly brave, as he held his ground before a rolling line of tanks. Who was he, and why did he do what he did? No one has ever been able to determine his identity or fate. Within the pages of Sons of Heaven, in a stunning blend of history and fiction, Terrence Cheng has vividly created a life for this young hero and given him a voice. Cheng imagines the young man's life as he goes away to America to complete his education. He falls in love with a beautiful young American girl who opens up to him a free life filled with opportunity. When he returns to China he is embittered and disillusioned; only the potential for political change seems to revive him. Also unraveled is the story of the young man's older brother, an ardent member of the Red Army, who is ordered to capture his little brother. In the end, their political differences turn deadly. On one level this is a novel of history as played out in modern China, but first and foremost, it is about the universal ties of family and the difficult process of boys learning to become men. Also under scrutiny is the life and history of Deng Xiaoping, China's leader who is suspected of giving the final orders to turn the People's Army against its own people. What historical and political factors affected his decisions that fateful summer? Was Deng the monster that the world made him out to be? A revolving narrative of family, faith, and courage, Sons of Heaven braids the lives of peasants and soldiers, politicians and gods. It is a powerful novel of one of the most memorable and moving moments of our time. Praise for SONS OF HEAVEN "This remarkably structured and textured debut epic seeks to attach a face to the mysterious man who, by stepping in front of the rolling army tanks, became the most recognizable symbol of the massacres. Cheng succeeds in his endeavor...a multifaceted and sophisticated portrait of the Chinese people is rendered. This is a rare find...This is not the first novel to center around Tiananmen, but it may be the best." -Publishers Weekly (starred review) [A] superb first novel...Sons of Heaven succeeds...because its focus is relentlessly personal, and moral." -San Francisco Chronicle "Filled with carefully measured doses of history, romance, and adventure...Stylistically and thematically daring." -Miami Herald "Terrence Cheng enters history in such a profound and provocative way-his retelling of the events in and around Tiananmen Square is subversive, lyrical, and full of control. Cheng is a painter and a cinematographer and a wordsmith all at once." -Colum McCann, author of Dancer "[T]his brave, insightful and gifted writer...seeks to compassionately understand these fictional (and actual but fictionalized) characters' backgrounds, motivations and uncertainties to help readers grasp the moment from divergent perspectives." -Eugene Weekly "Compelling...powerful...a first-class thriller set on the stage of world history that is hard to put down." -Pittsburgh Post-Gazette "Cinematic...powerful." -Atlanta Journal-Constitution "Who cannot think of those days in June 1989 without recalling the image of an unknown protester facing off against a tank...thanks to Terrence Cheng's Sons of Heaven, we shall have an enduring reminder." -Denver Post "An irresistible peek...into the human face of modern China." -USA Today "The writing here is terse and often beautiful...this clash between pole

Award-winning author Guy Gavriel Kay evokes the dazzling Tang Dynasty of 8th-century China in an masterful story of honor and power. It begins simply. Shen Tai, son of an illustrious general serving the Emperor of Kitai, has spent two years honoring the memory of his late father by burying the bones of the dead from both armies at the site of one of his father's last great battles. In recognition of his labors and his filial piety, an unlikely source has sent him a dangerous gift: 250 Sardian horses. You give a man one of the famed Sardian horses to reward him greatly. You give him four or five to exalt him above his fellows, propel him towards rank, and earn him jealousy, possibly mortal jealousy. Two hundred and fifty is an unthinkable gift, a gift to overwhelm an emperor. Wisely, the gift comes with the stipulation that Tai must claim the horses in person. Otherwise he would probably be dead already...

Seven stories of passion and love separated by centuries but mysteriously intertwined—this is a tale of horror and beauty, tenderness and sacrifice. An archaeologist who unearths a mysterious artifact, an airman who finds himself far from home, a painter, a ghost, a vampire, and a Viking: the seven stories in this compelling novel all take place on the remote Scandinavian island of Blessed where a curiously powerful plant that resembles a dragon grows. What binds these stories together? What secrets lurk beneath the surface of this idyllic countryside? And what might be powerful enough to break the cycle of midwinterblood? From award-winning author Marcus Sedgwick comes a book about passion and preservation and ultimately an exploration of the bounds of love. This title has Common Core connections. A Publishers Weekly Best Children's Book of 2013 A Kirkus Reviews Best Teen Book of 2013