Until now, Sumner has concentrated on writing three nonfiction books, about the accomplishments and challenges of Alaska’s women pilots, and mountain climbers. This book about adoption and reunion is her first fiction book on a subject she is very passionate about because she is an adoptee. Sumner began searching for her birth mother in 1980 and has never located her. However, in January, 1994, she made her initial contact with Harley Shuffler, who was Juanita’s brother from a family of ten children. Juanita has not been in contact with any of her family members since 1980. Her whereabouts unknown even today. The author and her adoptive mother never bonded in spite of Sumner’s efforts to love and understand her. Creating dialogue and open discussion about adoption is the author’s goal. School Psychologist Peg Montieth, MS, said, “All sides in adoption learn and grow from knowing other people’s stories. This book is very empowering.”

From the Dust Jacket: Barbara Hanrahan has achieved recognition as one of the most accomplished writers in Australia. Her work is well known for its individual style, startling use of detail, and brilliant evocations of exotic passions under genteel refinements. This, her seventh book, is a fascinating portrait of a young woman—her dreams, destinies, and personal history—from her portentous birth in the 1890s through to her late thirties in the early years of the Depression.

Dove Sparks had always considered herself someone special, a chosen, golden child. Growing up in the soft, safe Hills country, she heard many times the fantastic story of her birth: how she had been born amongst ease and luxury in an idyllic valley; how she had been chosen by the awesome Mrs Arden; and how a vicious little boy, Valentine Arden, prevented her from becoming an heiress... Haunted by the story, Dove knows she was meant to play a heroine’s part.

But as she approaches adulthood, things go wrong for Dove. And then her husband disappoints her—why can’t he be a hero? Out in the Mallee Dove suffers plagues, loneliness, and drought. Her schemes to regain control are constantly thwarted until finally, with her husband vanished and her daughter in an orphanage, Valentine Arden comes into her life again...

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About the Author: Barbara Hanrahan was born in Adelaide and studied printmaking in Australia and then in England where her first books appeared. She is well known not only as a novelist but also as an artist. She now lives in Adelaide.

From the Publisher: In this sequel to Circles of Stone, former international supermodel Natalia Edgerly has relocated from the United States to Lima, Peru. She now supports and works in the same orphanage from which she was adopted as an infant. Natalia experiences a maternal awakening when ten-year-old Marisol Lagos is abandoned at the orphanage gate. She nurtures and mentors the child and plans to fund her education in the U.S. Natalia’s dream for Marisol’s future is shattered when the girl’s mother, a rebel leader intent on revolution, resurfaces and demands the return of her daughter. This sets in motion a series of tragic events the reader will ponder long after turning the final page.

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By the Same Author: Secrets of a Successful International Adoption: How to Proceed from Start to Finish (1998, Bridge Learning Publishing); Finding Isabella (2000, Genesis Press); Circles of Stone (2003, Hilliard & Harris Publishers); and The Wisdom of Les Miserables: Lessons From the Heart of Jean Valjean (2008), among others.

From the Dust Jacket: Robert Rodi, the reigning king of gay satire, is back to tackle the reigning queen of gay archetypes—the bewitching, bewildering, bewigged drag queen.

In a story that crosses The Parent Trap with The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, we meet Mitchell Sayer, a stodgy, successful gay attorney. Mitchell’s well-ordered life is thrown into upheaval when his socialite mother drops a double bombshell en route to to a Buddhist convent. Mitchell, she confesses, was adopted—and Mitchell has an identical twin.

This long-lost, separated-at-birth sibling isn’t hard to find ... but he may be hard to take. For while his driver’s license reads Donald Sweet, he’s better known in Chicago’s demimonde as Kitten Kaboodle, the gloriously gowned, stupendously stiletto-heeled star of the Tam-Tam Club’s “all-girl” review.

Recovering from the shock, Mitchell doffs his Armani jacket, loosens his Hermés tie, and prepares for a battle of the wills. He sees it as his mission to haul Donald out of Bob Mackie knockoffs and into the real world—or at least into flat heels. But Kitten thinks it’s Mitchell who needs superego surgery, and she’s just the gal to wield the scalpel.

Thus Mitchell is drawn into Kitten’s world of battling divas and eye-scratching intrigue. The result is a vixenish vortex that eventually sucks in Mitchell’s leatherman [...] Napoleonic boss, his millionaire chasing, fortune-hunting sister, and an old frat brother with a kinky new secret.

When the dust clears, it is the feather boa or the button-down collar that stands triumphant? After the commingling of identities, genders, and wardrobes, you won’t be quite certain; but you will be glad you have a front-row seat.

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About the Author: Robert Rodi is the author of Fag Hag, a comic novel about obsession; Closet Case, a comic novel about paranoia; and What They Did to Princess Paragon, a comic novel about fanaticism. (He has begun work on a new novel, but hasn’t picked a disorder yet.) He lives in Chicago with his partner, Jeffrey Smith.

From the Dust Jacket: Gordon R. Dickson is an acknowledged master of science fiction. With his classic 1976 epic, The Dragon and the George, he proved himself equally adept—and equally entertaining—at heroic fantasy. His tale of Jim Eckert, a young mathematician who travels to a parallel medieval world only to be transformed into a large but none-too-bright dragon named Gorbash, was an instant success. Dickson continued the saga years later with The Dragon Knight. Now, Dickson returns to the series with a new and exciting tale of sorcery and Chivalry.

Eckert’s daring exploits have earned him a title—Baron de Bois de Malencontri et Riveroak—and he has settled down to a peaceful life as a feudal lord, with his beloved Angela at his side. But a new peril endangers his enchanted realm as the King of the Gnarlies teams up with the Earl of Cumberland, Jim’s longtime rival, to kidnap his adopted son, Robert. Soon Sir Jim must assume the shape of the Dragon Knight once again to rescue little Robert, and he then finds himself entrenched in a magical battle royal—one he’ll have to fight harder than ever to survive!

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About the Author: Gordon R. Dickson is one of science fiction’s most popular authors, winning two Nebula Awards and four Hugo Awards in a career that spans more than four decades. His Childe Cycle, including novels such as Dorsail, The Final Encyclopedia, Young Bleys, and Other, is one of the cornerstones of modern SF. He lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

From the Publisher: Xavier, a star football player, finds his nigh starting off badly when his girlfriend’s husband charges up a flight of stairs after him and forces him to climb out onto a fire escape in order to avoid confrontation. The night is equally bad for Grace when her horrendous date assaults her, triggering her to make a mad escape. Xavier thinks it’s getting better when they meet, but things only seem to get worse after his night with her. He finds himself unable to play ball and caught in between his matchmaking mother and sister, and a paternity suit. In the midst of his teetering life, Xavier is facing an identity crisis that he continually ignores by relying on friends and family. With Grace and her ex-convicted sister in the fray, Xavier soon learns that someone has to be brave enough to face the shadows of his pain in order to save him from further disaster.

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About the Author: Haitian-American author Wanda Toby is driven to write by the passion of creation. Wanda received a Masters of Health Science from the University of Florida, and is a Certified Rehabilitation Counselor working with a statewide private rehabilitation company. She is also a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc. Wanda lives with her husband in South Florida and looks forward to writing many more stories about love, loss, relationships, and family.

From the Publisher: Buff Templeton is a Kickapoo who was adopted as a toddler. He is now a teacher in a girl’s school in Vermont. Buff is successful and engaged to be married. He lives free of prejudice because of his education, and the reputation of his respected father. Buff realizes that he has clairvoyance that others don’t. Strange recurring dreams haunt him. One day his sweetheart is spirited out of town by her father who has suddenly began to question Buff’s Indian heritage. Marrietta has other ideas and defies her father. That same day Buff sees a vision of his father’s murder. Broken-hearted, he leaves on a dreaded journey to find the killer. All clues lead to the Kickapoo around Highland, Kansas. This journey takes Buff into a world he has only dreamed about—a world in which there is no escape.

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About the Author: Florence B. Smith began telling stories as a child. She always loved to escape back in history to the 1800s. She has since written more than 50 books and has published many historical novels, articles, and short stories. Married at sixteen, Mrs. Smith was for 56 years with her husband Ike, who was her biggest fan and constructive critic. Grieving for the loss of her life partner, Florence stopped writing for over a year, but her passion for life ultimately brought her back to recounting stories that Ike himself would have loved to read and to have her tell.

Fifteen-year-old Allison has been in foster homes most of her life until she is finally adopted, along with a younger foster sister, into a loving home in Laguna Beach, CA. But her birth mother, who had given her up at birth, has decided she now wants Allison back. Extremely unstable and tortured with bipolar disorder, her birth mother begins to try and convince Allison to come live with her, finally resorting to the attempted murder of Allison’s new mother. From Southern California to Washington State, Allison is introduced to a strange world she never knew existed. It is the world of her birth mother and her illness. Finally reunited with her adoptive family again, Allison understands why she was abandoned at birth, and why she is now such a very lucky girl. About the Author: Frank Drury is the author of An Empty Sky, published in 2010. He spent the early years of his career as a struggling screenwriter in California before moving to the East Coast and finding success in the high risk world of futures trading, which is where he gained the inspiration for An Empty Sky. He currently lives in Highlands Ranch, CO, with his wife and daughters and continues to write fiction.

From the Dust Jacket: Imprisoned for life aboard a Zeppelin that floats high above a fantastic metropolis, the greeting-card writer Harold Winslow pens his memoirs. His only companions are the disembodied voice of Miranda Taligent, the only woman he has ever loved, and the cryogenically frozen body of her father, Prospero, the genius and industrial magnate who drove her insane.

The tale of Harold’s life is also one of an alternate reality, a lucid waking dream in which the well-heeled have mechanical men for servants, where the realms of fairy tales can be built from scratch, and where replicas of deserted islands exist within skyscrapers. As Harold’s childhood infatuation with Miranda changes over twenty years to love and then to obsession, the visionary inventions of her father also change Harold’s entire world, transforming. it from a place of music and miracles to one of machines and noise. And as Harold heads toward a last desperate confrontation with Prospero to save Miranda’s life, he finds himself an unwitting participant in the creation of the greatest invention of them all: the perpetual motion machine.

Beautifully written, imaginative, and funny, The Dream of Perpetual Motion is a heartfelt meditation on the place of love in a world dominated by technology.

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About the Author: Dexter Palmer holds a Ph.D. in English literature from Princeton University. He lives in Princeton, New Jersey.

From the Dust Jacket: Horty Bluett ate ants because every once in a while he just had to. This was because he wasn’t human. He didn’t know it—not even when he lost three fingers and they grew back.

Two women loved Horty. One was Kay—courageous, whimsical, and frighteningly inexperienced. The other was Zena, exquisitely beautiful; warm, generous, and somewhat under four feet tall.

Around these strange but completely believable characters, Theodore Sturgeon has woven a skilled narrative of excitement and passion, hatred and fear and vengeance. And through it all runs one of the most amazing conceptions in recent literature—the dreaming jewels ... living, thinking, alien crystals which you, reader, have s often mistaken for clods and pebbles ... crystals whose dreams are the living flesh-and-blood creatures which sometimes don’t quite get finished ... jewels from another planet, with the power to create duplicates of whatever is near them.

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About the Author: Born in 1918 in New York City, Theodore Sturgeon has, he claims, “a completely conventional” background for writing. This conventionality includes choosing a writer and artist for a mother, training for six years to be a circus aerialist, spending three years at sea and another three years operating bulldozers and power shovels in a Puerto Rican quarry; managing a luxury resort hotel in the British West Indies, and writing promotion copy for Fortune magazine.

He has been a glass-worker, a truck-driver, a door-to-door salesman of magazines, silk hose, and refrigerators. For a time he was Copy Chief of the advertising division of a large electronics corporation. He plays the guitar fluently and has composed several songs, and swears that one day he is going to learn to read music.

He has written some two million words of science fiction, fantasy, radio, TV, and “comic” continuities. The Dreaming Jewels is is second book and first novel.

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Compiler’s Note: The Complete Works of Theodore Sturgeon are presently being published by North Atlantic Books in a multi-volume series: The Ultimate Egoist (Volume 1, 1937-1940); Microcosmic God (Volume 2, 1940-1941); Killdozer! (Volume 3, 1941-1946); Thunder and Roses (Volume 4, 1946-1948); The Perfect Host (Volume 5, 1948-1950); Baby Is Three (Volume 6, 1950-1952); A Saucer of Loneliness (Volume 7, 1953); Bright Segment (Volume 8, 1953-1955); And Now the News... (Volume 9, 1955-1957); The Man Who Lost the Sea (Volume 10, 1957-1960); and The Nail and the Oracle (Volume 11, 1957-1970).

From the Dust Jacket (U.S. edition): There was a village somewhere in the south of England, a village cut off from the rest of the country, a village no one had ever left. Over time the habit of staying put had become so deeply ingrained that even dreams of leaving had all but disappeared. Yet on the chance a renegade spirit might one day emerge, harboring hopes of crossing over into the world at large, a loyal and diligent police force—headed up by the sinister Chief Inspector Peach—had been established to squelch even half-hatched plots of defection. They were very good, they knew all the signs; a smile on the face of a villager was usually the first clue...

Mr. and Mrs. Highness decided one day to change all that. They would give to their infant son, Moses, something they had always been denied—freedom.

Twenty-four years later Moses Highness is marking time in London’s fast track, almost content in an oblivion sustained by nonstop sex&drugs&rock&roll. Scouring phonebooks for some clue to his origins, Moses finds none, but does turn up a roommate, Eddie, who is so beautiful he can make people faint, and Gloria, a jazz singer, with whom he falls immediately and deeply in love because her eyebrows tell time like the hands on a clock.

Yet soon enough accident, chance, and the machinations of the maniacal Inspector Peach will conspire to awaken Moses to the chilling secrets of his past: Of his mother who ate raw yeast to rise out of her misery, his father who took to his bed for eight years, the greengrocer who very nearly got away by disguising himself as a section of ploughed field. And, most terrifying of all, the brutal Inspector Peach, who still has an old score to settle with the one who got away.

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About the Author: Rupert Thomson was born in Eastbourne, England, on November 5, 1955. He was educated at Christ’s Hospital and Cambridge University. After graduating in 1976, he traveled throughout the United States, Canada and Mexico, and taught English in Athens. When he finally returned to London, he spent four years working as a copywriter for various advertising agencies. He retired in 1982. Since then he has helped build a road in Italy, checked coats in a nightclub in West Berlin, and sold books on Forty-second Street in New York City. He has also lived in Tokyo and Sydney. Dreams of Leaving is his first novel.

From the Back Cover: Helicopter pilot Vladimir Yurish is a man of his word. The last thing he wants is to leave the safety of the USS Nimitz and abandon his newly adopted son, Ben. Still, a promise is a promise, no matter how close to death it brings him....

Angie West has fought hard to keep strangers alive, but now it’s time to tend to her own. Only, when she finds her family missing and their hideout burned and looted, she realizes the threat to her loved ones isn’t just the undead—the living can do so much worse....

Halsey has done well for himself, given the circumstances. Thanks to his secluded ranch and precise shooting, the plague hasn’t touched him—until a Black Hawk crashes on his property, bringing the war to his front door....

Amid the chaos of a destroyed civilization, the survivors encounter a new threat. And these new monsters can’t be outrun—or outwitted....

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About the Author: John L. Campbell, author of the Omega Days novels, including Omega Days and Ship of the Dead, was born in Chicago and attended college in North Carolina and New York. His short fiction has appeared in numerous anthologies, literary magazines, and e-zines, as well as in two of the author’s own collections. He lives with his family in the New York area, where he is at work on his next novel.

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By the Same Author: Omega Days (2013); Ship of the Dead (2014); Crossbones (2015); The Feral Road (2016); and Red Queen (2019).

From the Publisher: Throughout his life, Moses Swart, shepherd from the Bredasdorp Strandveld, felt he never belonged to this land with its people from the sea and from the veld. He washed up on the beach as a young child, but where does this unabating feeling of another identity come from? Until he met Lord and Lady Springfield and instantly realised: they have also been washed up on these shores, just like him.

Dalene Matthee’s very last novel is a charming historic story from the 1950s. Like her other highly successful novels, it also gives shape to the mystical connection between people–that which lies on an unspoken level.

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About the Author: Dalene Matthee, author of 13 books, is best known for her four “Forest books” on the Knysna Forest: Circles in a Forest, Fiela’s Child, The Mulberry Forest and Dreamforest.

Dalene was born in Riversdale in the Southern Cape, South Africa, in 1938. She began her writing career with children’s stories and short stories before taking on her first novel after a hiking trip through the Outeniqua hiking trail around Knysna. Her curiosity led to a journey through the stories and studies of these indigenous forests. In the end, she gathered enough material for four books.

Each book is underpinned by thorough research. Her books have been translated into fourteen languages, and some of her books have been used as prescribed books in schools for over 20 years. Dalene has received various awards, including the ATKV Prose Award (four times), the Southern African Institute of Forestry Award (twice), the Swiss Stab Award and the Department of Arts and Culture’s SA Literary Award (posthumously). She is the only South African author of whom over one million Afrikaans books have been sold.

She died in 20 February 2005 and a memorial has been erected for her in the Knysna Forest.

From the Back Cover: When Holton lost his wife, Adele, in a freak accident, he shut himself off from the world, living a life of seclusion, making driftwood sculptures and drowning his pain in gin. Until twenty-three-year-old Libby knocks on his door, asking for a job and claiming to be a friend of his late wife. When he discovers Libby is actually his late wife’s illegitimate daughter, given up for adoption without his knowledge, his life is turned upside down as he struggles to accept that the wife he’d given saint status to was not the woman he thought he knew.

Together Holton and Libby form an unlikely bond as the two struggle to learn the identity of Libby’s father and the truth about Adele, themselves, and each other.

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About the Author: Gina Holmes is the founder of popular literary site, Novel Rocket and the author of award-winning novels: Crossing Oceans, Dry as Rain, Wings of Glass and Driftwood Tides. Holmes writes about flawed people living in a flawed world with the help of a perfect God. She and her family make their home among the Blue Ridge Mountains in South-Western Virginia.

From the Back Cover: Alex was three and a bit when he killed his parents; he didn’t mean to.

If he’d known that he would end up being adopted by his father’s ex-mistress he’d have done things differently. If he’d known that his adopted family included a temperamental artist, a mad Mad Nana Mags, a strange Albert Strange, a pair of silent twins, a drug-addicted butler called Mister Goodley and the monolithic and incompetent nurse McMurphy then he definitely would have done things differently. If he’d known that his adopted younger brother would turn out to be a serial killer then he wouldn’t have gone near the Wave Monster at the end of the world.

Alex has the Hullabaloo Blues and wants his mum and dad back. All he has to remind him of them is a trunk full of old photographs and Jasper God Walker.

Jasper’s a stuffed dog on wheels.

You can’t have everything.

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About the Author: Born in Dublin in 1964, Michael O’Dwyer attended school and pool halls until the Leaving Cert, at which time he graduated to pubs and cinema and bookshops and college, which he left with an advanced diploma and a girlfriend. He worked as a freelance designer and photographer until he started sitting up in bed late at night writing a novel about a stuffed dog on wheels.

From the Dust Jacket: Mr. Menen refers to his new novel as “this first work of my maturity.” He is right to do so. The gaiety, the unexpected turns of incident and dialogue, the quick-footed satire, the underlying seriousness which we found in his earlier novels are all present here; but there is a mellowness about The Duke of Gallodoro, and a masterly ease in its storytelling, which mark a great stride of development. Gallodoro is a small township near Naples. The narrator, an English writer, comes there to research for a book on the Dark Ages, but stays to soak himself in the sunnier aspect of Mediterranean Man. His education in the un-Nordic values of Gallodoro is undertaken by three of its inhabitants—the tough, charming ragamuffin, Peppin; the old scholar, Salvator, who has a genius for writing begging letters; and the Duke himself. The Duke, an Englishman of the ripest Edwardian vintage, with an Italian title, a villa above the town, and a consummate skill in cheating at cards, is Mr. Menen’s happiest invention to date. He is a Machiavelli born out of his time, but still immensely formidable. So, when it is discovered that Peppin is his illegitimate son, and the narrator conspires with Salvator to compel the Duke to acknowledge Peppin, we shall clearly enjoy an all-in contest of wits. This is a delicious novel, with the firmness of mature thought beneath its shimmering surface. It should establish the reputation which Mr. Menen has been steadily building up with The Backward Bride and The Stumbling Stone, since The Prevalence of Witches revealed him as a writer of exceptional talent.

From the Dust Jacket: A wintry dawn, and a hurrying mole...

As cruel flurries of wind harry the highest and most ancient trees of Duncton Wood, timid Pumpkin reaches the Stone to pray for help. Only he and the venerable Master Librarian Stour have been left to defend Moiedom’s greatest library against the Newborn Inquisitors who have taken over the system. But Pumpkin’s best hopes rest with Privet, scholar and scribemole, and her adopted son Whillan, who have escaped from Duncton Wood in search of the Book of Silence, seventh and last of the ancient books of Moledom.

To find it, Privet and her friends must go to Caer Caradoc, centre of the Newborns’ power, and face their sinister leader, Thripp of Blagrove Slide. Harder still, she must reveal the grim secrets of her past and give up all hope of reconciliation with the only mole she has ever truly loved: Rooster, Master of the Delve. And only then can she embark on the most daunting journey of all...

William Horwood’s Duncton Rising, Volume Two of The Book of Silence, is an unforgettable tale of courage, love and faith which will introduce countless new readers to Duncton Wood and its brave moles. A million devotees have already discovered the books that make up his classic imaginative epic, Duncton Chronicles.

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About the Author: William Horwood was born in Oxford and grew up on the south coast. After taking a geography degree at Bristol University, he went on to become a journalist. His first novel, Duncton Wood, was published in 1980 and was followed by The Stonor Eagles, Calianish, Skallagrigg, Duncton Quest, Duncton Found and, most recently, Duncton Tales.

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By the Same Author: Duncton Tales (1991) and Duncton Stone (1993), among many others.

From the Dust Jacket: William Horwood’s magnificent second trilogy about the moles of Duncton Wood, The Book of Silence, now reaches its inspiring and triumphant climax with the publication of Duncton Stone.

Under the cruel leadership of Quail, the sectarian Newborns have taken control of many key systems of Moledon, including Duncton Wood.

But the loyal followers of the Stone have not given up. In Duncton Wood itself the library aide Pumpkin has bravely led some followers into the mysterious Ancient System; and in fabled Uffington, Fieldfare inspires resistance to the Newborns. Even in dread Wildenhope, headquarters of the Newborn leadership, the deposed Elder Senior Brother Thripp strives to undermine Quail’s position and right the wrongs he originally inspired.

Meanwhile, followers wait for news of Privet, female scholar and scribemole, and of her quest for the lost Book of Silence. Any hope of their final survival and victory may depend on her. But now she has disappeared, and nomole can tell what sacrifices she must make to find the lost Book, and whether she will have the strength and faith to bring it back to its rightful place beneath the Duncton Stone.

Since Duncton Wood was first published in 1980, this extraordinary modern classic has entered the hearts of millions of readers worldwide. Here, now, is Duncton Stone, the last tale of great moles, whose faith, courage and loyalty lead them always towards the Stone’s Silence. Join them on a journey into a world you will never forget.

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About the Author: William Horwood was born in Oxford and grew up on the south coast. After taking a geography degree at Bristol University, he went on to become a journalist. His first novel, Duncton Wood, was published in 1980 and was followed by The Stonor Eagles, Callanish, Skallugrigg, Duncton Quest and Duncton Found. Duncton Stone is the third volume in the Book of Silence trilogy, which began in 1991 with Duncton Tales and continued with Duncton Rising.

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By the Same Author: Duncton Tales (1991) and Duncton Rising (1992), among many others.

From the Dust Jacket: In Duncton Tales William Horwood has created an epic story that will introduce a new generation of readers to his now classic Duncton Chronicles. For the many who have already discovered the joys of his magical world of rich characters and stirring action, Duncton Tales will continue perhaps the finest imaginative journey of our time.

When Privet, a lonely female scribe from the North, makes a pilgrimage to fabled Duncton Wood, only old Stour, Master of the great library, realizes the importance of her quest. For Privet seeks an answer to moledom’s final mystery: where and what is the Book of Silence, whose scribe nomole knows, whose contents none can guess, whose existence many still doubt?

Decades of harmony have passed since the magnificent days described in William Horwood’s trilogy Duncton Chronicles when the brave moles of Duncton saved moledom’s peaceful Stone followers from the disciples of the evil Word. But now all is net well. Duncton Wood has grown sleepy, while moledom is dangerously complacent about the spread of zealots from Caer Caradoc. Led by the sinister Thripp of Blagrove Slide, the Newborns believe that any other way to the Stone’s Silence is blasphemy and deserves death.

As the Caradocian moles gain power, shy Privet, aided by Stour and inspired by the strange and inarticulate Rooster, finds herself the agent for change and renewal in Duncton Wood. Its moles must discover that to honour their noble heritage they will need even greater courage and faith than their forbears. And if she is ever to find the truth of the Book of Silence, Privet herself must not only confront her dark past, but also learn to love at last ...

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About the Author: William Horwood was born in Oxford and grew up on the south coast. After taking a geography. degree at Bristol University, he went on to become a journalist. His first novel, Duncton Wood, was published in 1980 and was followed by The Stonor Eagles, Callanish, Skallagrigg, Duncton Quest and Duncton Found.

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By the Same Author: Duncton Rising (1992) and Duncton Stone (1993), among many others.

From the Dust Jacket: “Lee was in the ladies’ room when the bomb went off.” So begins John Gregory Dunne’s first novel since his triumphant best seller True Confessions. Lee is the ex-wife of Dutch Shea, Jr., a criminal lawyer ravaged by memory, assaulted by the past. The victim of this random act of terrorism is their daughter, Cat. “SHEA, Catherine Liggett,” reads the police report. “Female; Caucasian; 18.” Reading forensic reports is a habit Dutch (Jack) Shea cannot break, even when the chance victim is his own daughter. It is a death no more and no less violent than those caused by the criminals Dutch Shea, Jr., defends, but it is the one that shatters defenses he has erected over a lifetime.

Jack Shea is a man who has never questioned his past because he has never wanted to know the answers. His father committed suicide in prison, Lee was unfaithful, but in both cases Jack carefully refused to ask why. He regarded his law practice as defender of arsonists and murderers and tycoon pimps as “chemotherapy for a metastasizing memory.” Only with the death of Cat does he begin to scrutinize his life with the objectivity of a stranger.

As the fragments of memory shift into focus, we meet a vast assortment of vibrant and raucous characters. There are Dutch Shea’s surrogate father, D.F. Campion, a tiny, furious man who is a repository of secrets; and D.F.’s son, Father Hugh Campion, a celebrity priest who won the $100,000 Golden Medley on “Name That Tune.” There are Marty Cagney, the private detective (DISCREETLY DETERMINING WHAT WAS DONE—WHERE+WITH WHOM) who uncovered Lee Shea’s adultery; and Judge Martha Sweeney, Dutch Shea’s mistress, who was a virgin until she was 31 and who wears a .38 on the bench.

In five previous books, John Gregory Dunne has produced a rich and mordantly funny body of work. All the hallmarks of Mr. Dunne’s work are present in Dutch Shea, Jr.—a riotous sense of humor, a microscopic sense of personal betrayal, and a private code of honor that prevails even in the face of public dishonor. Dutch Shea is a stunning character, and Dutch Shea, Jr. is a stunning novel.

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About the Author: John Gregory Dunne lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Joan Didion, and their daughter, Quintana. He is the author of, among other books, The Studio, Vegas, and True Confessions.

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By the Same Author: Quintana and Friends (1978, EP Dutton & Co.); Playland (1994, Random House); and Regards: The Selected Nonfiction of John Gregry Dunne (2006, Thunder’s Mouth Press), among others.

From the Dust Jacket: Fleeing the wiles of a San Francisco woman in March 1880, Jake Hollander arrives in a New Mexico mining town as the incredulous and outraged custodian of a pair of Mexican orphans. He’s a hard, mean man of forty-five, former gunslinger, present cardsharp, whose plan is to dump Paco and Urraca and keep right on going to El Paso and a new career as saloonkeeper. But out of Jake’s strenuous past step the publisher of the Arredondo newspaper and his sister, Carrie. And even Jake has second thoughts about entrusting two small children to the ladies of the Golden Moon. What with one thing and another, then, he settles down for a spell in Arredondo, takes up his old calling of marshal, and finds his hands full with a whole lot more than just gun butts.

There’s the proprietress of the Golden Moon, voluptuous and possibly willing, and there’s Carrie Hand, a spinster of unexpected spirit. There’s a complicated matter of some mailorder brides, long overdue. There is at large a desperado named Frank Becker, escaped from the Territorial Prison in Yuma. And there are always those two Mexican orphans....

Dutch Uncle proves that The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing, a notable success of 1972, was no accident. Marilyn Durham displays again her brilliant gift for swift, taut storytelling, and this time the wit that enlivened her first novel has blossomed into comedy. Dutch Uncle has its share of menace, violence, and sudden death, but it is wryly, rather than tragically, romantic, it is sometimes deeply touching, and after the high suspense of its climax it comes to an undeniably happy ending. An altogether splendid entertainment, it will delight the thousands who discovered The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing, and win Marilyn Durham a host of new readers.

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About the Author: Marilyn Durham is a native of Evansville, Indiana, where she had all her formal education, and where she has continued to live since her marriage. The publication of The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing led to a good deal of travel, from New York to the Pacific Northwest to the Colorado Rockies, and as far afield as London. But the chief business of a writer ts writing, Mrs. Durham believes, and she is now back at home in Evansville getting on with her next novel.

From the Back Cover: Life has taken an unexpected turn for the women in a mothers’ coffee group. Baby Amy has disappeared, and her mother, Evelyn, broken and distant in a psychiatric hospital, won’t utter a word.

Desperate to find Amy, desperate to understand, the women cope with the loss in their own ways. But Evelyn’s withdrawal has altered them irreversibly, and each begins to look for something to satiate the cravings they had not allowed to surface before ...

Joanna is dying for cake. Clare is longing to paint again. Susan wants to claw back all the time she’s lost. Wendy is trying to forget the past. Then there’s Evelyn. Nobody knows what Evelyn wants. But how can she not want her baby back?

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From the Dust Jacket (U.S. Edition): Five women, all of them mothers, meet regularly for tea and cake. Their lives are consumed by children, school drop-offs, and casual conversations.

Until the day that Evelyn’s baby disappears.

Suffering severe postpartum depression, Evelyn is now in a psychiatric hospital refusing to utter a word—not even any information regarding the whereabouts of her newborn daughter, Amy—leaving her remaining four friends at a loss. In her absence, they begin to piece together Evelyn’s life, as a mother and as a woman, and start to take a look at their own lives. What ensues is each woman’s uncovering of her own lapsed desires—those dreams and wants that were slowly sidelined or put off for a later date as husband, marriage, and child-rearing became full-time occupations.

Joanna confronts her halfhearted efforts to lose the baby weight from her second child, Sam, who is now three years old. Clare’s lifestyle is as unkempt as her hair, a fact that usually has her buying the newest day planner but now makes her question her early beginnings as an artist. Susan is the stereotypical supermom who is never late to pick up her kids, yet she cannot seem to take the same charge when it comes to her own life. And Wendy, though the quietest among them, perhaps has the biggest secrets. In a darkly humorous manner, guilty secrets and lives are entwined as the suspense builds during the desperate search for Evelyn’s missing daughter.

Louise Limerick’s Friends & Mothers is a vivid and honest portrayal of real motherhood and the challenges and joys that face the women who occupy this role—a contemporary story of the extraordinary strength of love.

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About the Author: Louise Limerick was born in 1970 in Brisbane. She is the youngest of five children four girls and a boy. Married in 1992, she abandoned a short teaching career to become a full-time mother. She now has three children. She pursues her writing whenever she can, while her husband looks after the kids. Dying for Cake is her first novel. Her other interests include reading, drawing and, of course, baking.

From the Back Cover: Attanasio’s The Dragon and the Unicorn began with the Dawn of Time. This equally ambitious and magical epic begins with the Dawn of History.

The demon Lailoken, Merlin to humankind, has groomed Pendragon’s son, the Eagle of Thor, to lead the doomed Celts against the Saxon, Pict, and Angle conquerors. In defeat will Arthor find his victory, and Camelot its triumph. Their light will shine across the ages, a beacon to humankind. But Merlin is shocked to discover that his Eagle is a vicious, callow youth whose only joy is killing. With his Roman sword “Short-Life,” Arthor will bathe Tintagel in blood, unless another sword offers itself to his gore-slick hand. A sword that must be pulled from the star-stone at Creation’s radiant heart...

And so A.A. Attanasio’s mordant, lyrical retelling of the West’s most beloved story continues—the first to weave together the hallowed yarn of legend and the shimmering strands of quantum science. It is an achievement already being hailed as “strikingly unconventional ... passionate ... a remarkable work-in-progress!”

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About the Author: A.A. Attanasio is the author of The Dragon and the Unicorn, Solis, Kingdom of the Grail, Hunting the Ghost Dancer, Wyvern, Radix, and The Moon’s Wife. He lives in Hawaii.

Told through carefully braided character-driven vignettes, this gripping novella recounts the story of Maggie Milford as it unfolds during the final days of her father’s life. The bright-eyed victim of abuse, Maggie becomes one of the most powerful voices for handicapped children in recent years. As each new character adds another aspect to the puzzles surrounding Maggie, we start to witness the true horrors going on and cringe all the way to the nail-biting, gut-wrenching conclusion!

From the Dust Jacket: A thundering “space opera” in the old-fashioned tradition of Science Fiction: redolent with people who vault across galactic distances, villainous engines of destruction, and a universe populated by humans, humanoids, monsters—tailed, scaled, and properly tentacled.

The story begins in the year 18,000 A.D. The central character is Roan, a pure-strain human, who, as a boy, is kidnapped by the owner of a freak show and sent on a “summer stock” tour by means of spaceship. This weird interplanetary circus troupe is suddenly pirated by another vessel. But its outlaw Commander, the dashing Henry Dread, turns out to be a pure-strain human, and he instantly takes a liking to our youthful hero.

From here on out, Earthblood explodes with wild cascades of pure adventure and excitement—the reader follows Dread and Roan as they wander through the universe, sacking planets, keeping a sharp look-out for errant pure-strains, landing at last on the planet Terra, where—to their endless horror—the two realize exactly who the broken-down, corrupt, and decadent inhabitants are: their fellow human-beings.

This romping, rumbustious adventure will seem like an old friend to those readers who have been hunting in vain for a complete work of science fiction.

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About the Author: Keith Laumer, who is the author of many science fiction novels including Galactic Diplomat and Retief’s War, studied at the American college of Stockholms Hogskolan.

Rosel George Brown received her M.A. in Greek at the University of Minnesota. Mrs. Brown has also written Sibyl Sue Blue.

From the Dust Jacket: A young woman possessed by a ghost has slain the Fisher King of the West, Scott Crane. Now, temporarily freed from the malevolent spirit, she seeks to restore the King to life and thwart the would-be usurper. She has found an ally in “Scant” Cochran, whose wife died tragically and strangely a few months ago.

But Crane’s body has been taken by his loyal servants to the magically protected home of Pete and Angelica Sullivan, where their adopted son, Koot Hoomie, is bleeding from a wound that will not heal. Kootie is destined to be the next King, but he is only thirteen years old—too young, his mother thinks, to perform the rituals to assume the Kingship. But not too young, perhaps, to assist in reuniting Scott Crane’s body and spirit and restoring him to life.

And meanwhile, from north to south in the Kingdom of the West, the land is in upheaval. Earthquakes, fires, floods, and riots plague California. Powerful ghosts wander the cities too strong for even the cleverest hunters. Only the restoration of the King can restore the balance, and it must be done soon. Old King or new, there must be a King in the West, or the land will fail.

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About the Author: Tim Powers is the author of The Anubis Gates, On Stranger Tides, The Stress of Her Regard, the World Fantasy Award-winning Last Call, and the Locus Award-winning Expiration Date. He lives in San Bernardino, California.

From the Dust Jacket (U.S. Edition): Easy Peasy is a vicious taunt that escalates into terror when the cruelties of children mimic the brutalities of war, in Lesley Glaister’s chilling tale of two families and their secrets.

The sudden suicide of Griselda’s father releases a flood of memories. Daddy had been a captive of the Japanese during World War II and, though he would not discuss the war with his daughters, the repercussions of his imprisonment and torture had darkened her childhood years. Only after Daddy’s death does the adult Griselda begin to piece together the true source of his pain, fractured across long-lost diary pages and her father’s mysterious relationship with the family that used to live next door.

As she struggles to salvage a collapsing love affair, Griselda must find the strength to face the worst things about herself if she is ever to make peace with her father’s life and death.

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About the Author: Leslie Glaister was born in Wellingborough in 1956. She is the author of Honour Thy Father, which won a Somerset Maugham and a Betty Trask award; Trick or Treat; Digging to Australia; Limestone and Clay; Partial Eclipse; and The Private Parts of Women. She lives in England.

From the Dust Jacket: In this rich, deeply resonant literary debut, twenty-eight-year-old William Kowalski explores the power of family, the meaning of history, and the bonds of individuals united and shaped by love—a wondrous novel in the grand storytelling tradition of John Irving and Wally Lamb.

“Eddie’s Bastard” is one William Amos Mann IV, fondly known as Billy, the illegitimate blue-eyed son of “Ready Eddie” Mann—a legendary golden athlete and brave pilot killed in Vietnam—and an unknown mother. The last in a line of proud, fiercely individualistic Irish-American men, Billy is discovered in a basket on the doorstep of the once grand farmhouse that is his ancestral family home, now a dusty, haunted mansion. The sole inhabitant is Billy’s grandfather, Thomas, a bitter and lonely recluse who will raise Billy on love, fried baloney sandwiches, and the fascinating lore of the Mann family itself. While his birth may have been inauspicious, Billy’s life is destined for greatness. He is a Mann, Grandpa reminds him daily, the progeny of an indomitable family scarred by success and tragedy.

Through the whisky-tinged tales of his grandfather, Billy learns how the clan’s fortune was discovered by his great-great-grandfather and namesake, Willie, a hero of the Civil War, and how it was lost by Thomas himself, a veteran of World War II, in a scheme known as the Great Ostrich Fiasco of 1946. As he matures into adolescence, Billy will eventually capture these stories on paper, a tradition begun by his great-great-grandfather, who confessed his secrets in a journal he kept throughout his life.

Through the tales of his ancestors and his own experiences, Billy learns of bravery and cowardice, of life and death, of the heart’s capacity for love and for unremitting hatred, eventually grasping the meaning and true beauty of family and history and their power to shape destiny.

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About the Author: William Kowalksi was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1970 and was raised in Erie, Pennsylvania. He now lives in Nova Scotia with his wife and daughter.

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By the Same Author: Somewhere South of Here (2001), among others.

From the Back Cover: Molly “Moon Pie” Monroe is swept up in a whirlwind of intrigue and adventure after meeting her idol, rock star Marty Steele, lead singer of the worldwide sensation “The Knights.” When Moon Pie enters a contest through her local radio station, the world of a small town, high school girl and that of a globe-trotting rock star collide, changing their lives forever. Through trials and tribulation, through adventure and despair, their passion continues to blossom, like a rose.

From the Dust Jacket: As the decisions made in the corridors of power bring the world to the brink of oblivion, five families from across the globe are brought together in an unforgettable tale of passion and conflict during the Cold War.

When Rebecca Hoffmann, a teacher in East Germany, finds herself pursued by the secret police, she discovers that she has been living a lie. Her younger brother, Walli, longs to escape across the Berlin Wall to Britain to become part of the burgeoning music scene.

In the United States, George Jakes, a bright young lawyer in the Kennedy administration, is a fierce supporter of the Civil Rights movement as is the woman he is in love with, Verena, who works for, Martin Luther King, Jr. Boarding a Greyhound bus in Washington to protest against segregation, they begin a fateful journey together.

Russian activist, Tania Dvorkin, narrowly evades capture for producing an illegal news sheet. Her actions are made all the more perilous as her brother, Dimka, is a rising star in the heart of the Communist Party in the Kremlin.

From the deep south of America to the vast expanses of Siberia, and from the shores of Cuba to the swinging streets of Sixties London, Edge of Eternity is a sweeping tale of the fight for individual freedom in a world gripped by the mightiest clash of superpowers anyone has ever known.

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About the Author: Ken Follett was twenty-seven when he wrote Eye of the Needle, an award-winning thriller that became an international bestseller. He then surprised everyone with The Pillars of the Earth, about the building of a cathedral in the Middle Ages, which continues to captivate millions of readers all over the world. Its long-awaited sequel, World Without End, was a number one bestseller in the US, UK and Europe. Edge of Eternity, the epic finale to the Century trilogy, follows on from bestselling books, Fall of Giants and Winter of the World.