A wild and whimsical adventure story, perfect for fans of Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library Brian can think of a few places he'd rather spend his summer than with his aunt and uncle in Boring, Illinois. Jail, for example. Or an earplug factory. Anything would be better than doing summer school on a computer while his scientist dad is stationed at the South Pole. Boring lives up to its name until Brian and his cousin Nora have a fight, get lost, and discover a huge, wooden house in the forest. With balconies, turrets, and windows seemingly stuck on at random, it looks ready to fall over in the next stiff breeze. To the madcap, eccentric family that lives inside, it’s not just a home—it’s a castle. Suddenly, summer gets a lot more exciting. With their new friends, Brian and Nora tangle with giant wasps, sharp-tusked wild boars, and a crazed bureaucrat intent on bringing the dangerously dilapidated old house down with a wrecking ball. This funny, fantastical story will resonate with any reader who’s ever wished a little adventure would find them. "For boys and girls alike, this story sings.”—Blue Balliett, award-winning author of Chasing Vermeer

Thousands of Noras: Short Plays by Women, 1875-1920 provides an international collection of dramatic works written by women that draw attention to the power and range of voices of several generations of women writers. Sketches, monologues, duologues and plays from the United States, England, Ireland, Scotland, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada are represented. It includes works by playwrights considered marginal, as well as lesser-known works by established writers such as Elizabeth Baker, Catherine Amy Dawson-Scott, Ruth Draper, Miles Franklin, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Amy Levy, Katherine Mansfield, and Netta Syrett. Divided into three thematic sections, this volume includes plays that focus on womens aspiration for higher education, their need for paid employment, and the disillusionment often experienced in the working world. It offers pieces that address social activismcampaigns for the vote, for national independence in Ireland, for temperance, and for workers rights. And it presents lighter fare where writers satirize womens clubs, contemporary fads, and even theatre-going and playwriting.

After a man dies during a performance at Castle Dark, Nora Blake learns just how hard it is to catch a killer, especially if every suspect is a trained actor, in this exciting new Dinner and a Murder Mystery. Autumn has arrived at Castle Dark, and Nora Blake has settled into her role as an actor in Derek Corby’s castle murder-mystery troupe. She is troubled, however, by the setting of Derek’s fall mystery: the catacombs in the depths of the castle. Yes, these catacombs are part of a set, the skeletons and cobwebs mere props, but Nora feels uneasy in the shadowy passages beneath Castle Dark. When a man is killed during one of their first shows, the eerie catacombs become a place of terror. Joined by her castle companions, Nora attempts to find the motive for killing a seemingly innocent victim. Some of those answers appear to lie with the local community theater, the members of which Nora has come to know because she has joined Derek’s latest town production. As Nora practices her lines at Wood Glen’s Blue Curtain Theater, she realizes that everyone around her is an actor, and all of her suspects are perfectly capable of convincing others of their innocence. Nora soon discovers that someone else is in danger and that she may also be in the sights of the killer. With the help of her handsome boyfriend, Detective John Dashiell, Nora will have to go off-script to prevent a murderous encore. . . .

Ember Skye is a sarcastic and spunky, genetically modified teenager without a past who is charged with the dangerous task of hunting dragons. However, as she learns more about who she used to be, will she still be able to fulfill her duties as a soldier, or will she turn on the very people who made her what she is now?