From Publishers WeeklyIn this eighth book in the Judge Deborah Knott series (after 2000's Storm Track), Maron employs spare, straightforward prose and the languid language of the Carolina Piedmont to spin an exceptionally gripping tale of hate, jealousy and murder. Still smarting from the betrayal of her lover, Kidd Chapin, the redoubtable jurist travels to Randolph County, N.C., in order to settle the equitable distribution of the marital property of a pair of freshly divorced potters, Sandra Kay Nordan and James Lucas Nordan. Before she can finish her legal duties, however, somebody bakes James Lucas in a kiln. Deborah's own sense of loss in the wake of Kidd's rejection helps her empathize with patriarch Amos Nordan's multiple tragedies (another son died two years earlier) as well as a hired woman's grief over her retarded son. Amidst a beautifully evoked flowering spring countryside, Deborah pursues the murderer with her usual keen eye and common sense. If the book fairly swells with passion, a healthy dose of Southern humor keeps things from getting too maudlin. By the time the story reaches its dramatic conclusion, readers will be in mourning, wishing the end hadn't come so soon. Maron's mastery of jurisprudence, her well-researched depiction of the potting world but especially her sensitive portrayal of human relationships raise this novel far above the ordinary run of mysteries. (May 22)all four top mystery awards the Edgar, the Anthony, the Agatha and the Macavity. Maron, who's also the author of the Sigrid Harald series, will be the guest of honor at this year's Malice Domestic Convention.Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.From Library JournalThe famous Nordan family, who live in an area of North Carolina known for its pottery, is being torn apart by a traumatic and bitter divorce. Judge Deborah Knotts (Storm Track) oversees distribution of the marital property, but her work is interrupted by a tragic death in the family reminiscent of a terrible suicide two years earlier. Heady stuff from a talented author. Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

We are in an epidemic. An epidemic of unhappiness. ... Friends, here is the good news: HappyHead has the answer.When Seb is offered a place on a radical retreat designed to solve the national crisis of teenage unhappiness, he is determined to change how people see him and make his parents proud. But as he finds himself drawn to the enigmatic Finn, Seb starts to question the true nature of the challenges they must undergo. The deeper into the programme the boys get, the more disturbing the assessments become, until it's clear there may be no escape... The first in a thrilling, thought-provoking new series for fans of They Both Die at the End and Squid Game

David doesn't know how to handle his Dad when he pushes David and his horse too hard during training for a competition.

It was awful. All those eyes, all looking at him. It was straight out of Luke's worst nightmares. Panic rooted him to the spot, but every muscle in his body was screaming for him to run, to hide anywhere he could. For twelve years‹his entire life‹he'd had to hide. To be seen was death. "Don't!" he wanted to scream. "Don't look at me! Don't report me! Please!" But the muscles that controlled his mouth were as frozen as the rest of him. The tiny part of his mind that wasn't flooded with panic knew that that was good -- now that he had a fake I.D., the last thing he should do was act like a boy who's had to hide. But to act normal, he needed to move, to obey the man at the front and sit down. And he couldn't make his body do that, either. -- from Among the Impostors Luke Garner is terrified. Out of hiding for the first time in his life, he knows that any minute one of his new classmates at Hendricks School for Boys could discover his secret: that he's a third child passing as the recently deceased Lee Grant. And in a society where it's illegal for families to have more than two children, being a third child means certain death at the hands of the dreaded Population Police. His first experience outside the safety of his home is bewildering. There's not a single window anywhere in the school; Luke can't tell his classmates apart (even as they subject him to brutal hazing); and the teachers seem oblivious to it all. Desperate to fit in, Luke endures the confusion and teasing until he discovers an unlocked door to the outside, and a chance to understand what is really going on. But to take this chance -- to find out the secrets of Hendricks -- Luke will need to put aside his fears and discover a courage that a lifetime in hiding couldn't thwart. Once again, best-selling author Margaret Peterson Haddix delights her fans with this spine-tingling account of an all-too-possible future. Among the Impostors is a worthy companion to Among the Hidden and a heart-stopping thriller in its own right.

James Preller's wry, witty, Jigsaw Jones chapter book mysteries are once again available to inspire the next generation of young readers, featuring both new titles and classroom classics!The Case of the Smelly SneakerIt's girls versus boys in the biggest football game of the year! Jigsaw Jones is referee, while his partner, Mila Yeh, is coaching the girls' team. Bobby Solofsky has no doubt the boys will win, but the girls have a secret weapon. Then one of Bigs Maloney's sneakers goes missing, and Bobby wants to call off the whole game. Can Jigsaw and Mila find this sneaker thief in time to save the game?

With his friends and family on the line, Clayson must find a way to heal the world. Rimduum is shattered. Stranded on the surface, my friends and I search for survivors of the mithrium crown's terrible power. Desperately, we track down refugees as we build a network of safe houses to shelter the vulnerable from roaming bands of darksmiths. But the more we help, the more our power shrinks. Until new clues force me to strike a strange alliance. My search for a power strong enough to fight back will lead us all into dangerous territory. To the forest of Gamgim, filled with wraiths. To a city of fallout where the living buildings want nothing more than to absorb you into the machine. And to the dungeon of the champion Erikzin Brightstorm. Though darksmiths lie around every corner, the fate of the mithrium poses an even greater danger. Uncovering its origin could lead us to a power that would make the world right again. But...

A Land Remembered has become Florida's favorite novel. Now this Student Edition in two volumes makes this rich, rugged story of the American pioneer spirit more accessible to young readers. Patrick Smith tells of three generations of the MacIveys, a Florida family battling the hardships of the frontier. The story opens in 1858, when Tobias and Emma MacIvey arrive in the Florida wilderness with their son, Zech, to start a new life, and ends in 1968 with Solomon MacIvey, who realizes that his wealth has not been worth the cost to the land. Between is a sweeping story rich in Florida history with a cast of memorable characters who battle wild animals, rustlers, Confederate deserters, mosquitoes, starvation, hurricanes, and freezes to carve a kingdom out of the Florida swamp.In this volume, meet young Zech MacIvey, who learns to ride like the wind through the Florida scrub on Ishmael, his marshtackie horse, his dogs, Nip and Tuck, at this side. His parents, Tobias and...

At the start of this edgy and ambitiously multilayered novel, a fashion model named Charlotte Swenson emerges from a car accident in her Illinois hometown with her face so badly shattered that it takes eighty titanium screws to reassemble it. She returns to New York still beautiful but oddly unrecognizable, a virtual stranger in the world she once effortlessly occupied. With the surreal authority of a David Lynch, Jennifer Egan threads Charlotte’s narrative with those of other casualties of our infatuation with the image. There’s a deceptively plain teenaged girl embarking on a dangerous secret life, an alcoholic private eye, and an enigmatic stranger who changes names and accents as he prepares an apocalyptic blow against American society. As these narratives inexorably converge, Look at Me becomes a coolly mesmerizing intellectual thriller of identity and imposture. From the Trade Paperback edition.

An unidentified flying object has been shot down from the sky-and a single strange pod has survived intact. Now Team Proteus-a U.S.-Russian crew of scientists, doctors and technicians-will be reduced in size using new miniaturization techniques and injected through the surface of the pod. So begins the most startling voyage of exploration in human history... Inside the body of an alien. Praise for Kevin J. Anderson: Arguably the most prolific, most successful author working in [science fiction] today. (Algis Budrys) The heir apparent to Arthur C. Clarke. (Daniel Keys Moran, author of The Last Dancer ) A rare combination of talent and practicality. ( Starlog ) The hottest writer on (or off) the planet. ( Fort Worth Star-Telegram )

Most of us think of the 1970s as an "in-between" decade, the uninspiring years that happened to fall between the excitement of the 1960s and the Reagan Revolution. A kitschy period summed up as the "Me Decade," it was the time of Watergate and the end of Vietnam, of malaise and gas lines, but of nothing revolutionary, nothing with long-lasting significance.In the first full history of the period, Bruce Schulman, a rising young cultural and political historian, sweeps away misconception after misconception about the 1970s. In a fast-paced, wide-ranging, and brilliant reexamination of the decade's politics, culture, and social and religious upheaval, he argues that the Seventies were one of the most important of the postwar twentieth-century decades. The Seventies witnessed a profound shift in the balance of power in American politics, economics, and culture, all driven by the vast growth of the Sunbelt. Country music, a southern silent majority, a boom in "enthusiastic" religio...

Be careful what you wish for.... On her thirty-fourth birthday, Daisy Minor decides to make over her entire life. The small-town librarian has had it with her boring clothes, her ordinary looks, and nearly a decade without so much as a date. It's time to get a life—and a sex life. The perennial good girl, Daisy transforms herself into a party girl extraordinaire—dancing the night away at clubs, laughing and flirting with abandon—and she's declared open season for manhunting. But her free-spirited fun turns to shattering danger when she witnesses something she shouldn't—and becomes the target of a killer. Now, before she can meet the one man who can share her life, first she may need him to save it. Seamlessly blending heart-pounding romance and breathless intrigue, Linda Howard delivers a stylish and provocative novel that absolutely defies readers to put it down.