Random House Inc.

The number-one bestseller from «America's most popular suspense novelist» («The New York Times») is now in paperback. Following a missing family to the edge of America, Michelina Bellsong finds herself in a place she never knew existed — a place of terror, wonder, and shattering revelation. What awaits her will change her life and the lives of everyone she knows — if she can find the key to survival.

In a searing novel of love and loyalty, guilt and honor, the acclaimed author of the New York Times bestseller The Horse Whisperer gives his millions of readers another hero... The Smoke Jumper. His name is Connor Ford and he falls like an angel of mercy from the sky, braving the flames to save the woman he loves but knows he cannot have. For Julia Bishop is the partner of his best friend and fellow smoke jumper, Ed Tully. Julia loves them both — until a fiery tragedy on Montana's Snake Mountain forces her to choose between them, and burns a brand on all their hearts. In the wake of the fire, Connor embarks on a harrowing journey to the edge of human experience, traveling the world's worst wars and disasters to take photographs that find him fame but never happiness. Reckless of a life he no longer wants, again and again he dares death to take him, until another fateful day on another continent, he must walk through fire once more...

Tracy Beaker's not exactly sure what her mother does, because Tracy has been in foster care for as long as she can remember. She has a picture of her mother, who's pretty enough to be in movies, so maybe she is. And maybe one day Tracy's mother will show up and reclaim her long-lost daughter, and together they'll have fabulous adventures. Then again, maybe she won't. In the meantime, Tracy's doing everything she can to take care of herself — even though she has to share her birthday cake. And even though the other girls she lives with are mean and nasty and rude and horrible. Mostly. Then a journalist shows up to write a story about their orphanage, and she and Tracy strike up a special friendship. In a story written with humor and sensitivity, Tracy emerges as a spirited girl who's not quite as tough as she lets everybody think she is.

It was one of the greatest human experiments ever undertaken: to populate an unknown land with the criminal, the unloved and the unwanted of English society. Amid conditions of brutality that paralleled those of slavery, 'The First Fleet' was sent to a place no European but the legendary Captain Cook had ever seen. Left to live or die on the hostile Australian continent, these convicts — and their equally isolated guards — occupy the centre of Colleen McCullough's compelling new epic. Richard Morgan — convicted felon and educated, intelligent, resourceful man — finds the will to survive, experience the joys of love, and finally make an indelible mark upon the new frontier. A thoroughly researched historical saga rich in romance, adventure and unforgettable characters, Morgan's Run has the makings of a modern classic.

Much of Peter Ackroyd's work has been concerned with the life and past of London but here, as a culmination, is his definitive account of the city. For him it is an organism with its own laws of growth and change, so this book is a biography rather than a history. Ackroyd reveals the dozens of ways in which the continuity of the city survives — in ward boundaries unchanged since the Middle Ages, in vocabulary and in various traditions — showing London as constantly changing, yet forever the same in essence.

An abused child, yet confident of her destiny to reign, a woman in a man's world, passionately sexual--though, as she maintained, a virgin — Elizabeth I is famed as England's most successful ruler. David Starkey's brilliant new biography concentrates on Elizabeth's formative years — from her birth in 1533 to her accession in 1558 — and shows how the experiences of danger and adventure formed her remarkable character and shaped her opinions and beliefs. From princess and heir-apparent to bastardized and disinherited royal, accused traitor to head of the princely household, Elizabeth experienced every vicissitude of fortune and extreme of condition — and rose above it all to reign during a watershed moment in history. A uniquely absorbing tale of one young woman's turbulent, courageous, and seemingly impossible journey toward the throne, «Elizabeth» is the exhilarating story of the making of a queen.

The Cat in the Hat takes children to the Feeling Great Clinic, where they learn about exercise, germs, healthy eating, and playing safely.

Successful London lawyer Carter Graham has power, sex appeal, and a well-ordered life. Everything has gone according to plan, including her recent marriage to Kim Betz, an investment banker with the right combination of looks and position. On the surface it appears to be a match made in heaven. The only problem is Kim's ex-wife. Sophie begins to follow Carter like a shadow, making outrageous claims about Kim's involvement in the occult. Convincing herself that Sophie is mad, Carter moves ahead with her life. But something is amiss-and as Sophie's stories are corroborated by other unwelcome disclosures from Kim's past, Carter is thrown into a terrifying web of suspicion and betrayal, pushing her sanity to the edge. In desperation, Carter seeks help from Nicholas Darrow, the charismatic priest of St. Benet's Healing Center. Though a religious skeptic, Carter hopes to stem the tide of darkness that threatens to envelop her life-and begins a compelling journey into the very nature of good and evil, wisdom and redemption...

Celia Jordan must make difficult choices between ethics and profits and between love and career as she rises to success in the pharmaceutical industry.

Combining explosive suspense with sensual passion, Nora Roberts turns up the heat in this classic tale — the sizzling story of a man and woman on the trail of a demented killer, a search that will plunge them headlong into danger... In the lazy days of summer, a merciless heat wave is the biggest story in Washington, D.C. But the weather is knocked off the front pages when a young woman is found strangled to death. A note left behind reads Her sins are forgiven her. Two more victims soon follow, and suddenly every headline is devoted to the killer the press has dubbed the Priest. When the police ask top-notch psychiatrist Dr. Tess Court to help with their investigation, she comes up with a disturbing portrait of a twisted soul. Detective Ben Paris doesn't give a damn about the killer's psyche. What he can't easily dismiss is Tess. Tall, dark, and good-looking, Ben has a legendary reputation with women, but the coolly elegant Tess doesn't react to him like other women he's known — and he finds the challenge enticing. Now, as the two are thrown together in a perilous quest to stop a serial killer, the flame of white-hot passion flares. But someone also has his eyes on the beautiful blond doctor... and Ben can only pray that if the madman strikes, he'll be able to stop him before it's too late...

A perfect introduction to reading Spanish! Simple English words and sentences are introduced by pictures. Then the words and sentences are translated into Spanish with the translation of the featured word in capital letters. It's that easy. And for the child who wants to go further — a two-page, basic key to the pronunciation of the language. Great for introducing Spanish to English-speaking children and for introducing English to Spanish-speaking children!

Puss helps his master, Jacques, to find happiness and fortune. This re-telling of a classic tale is based on Philip Pullman's script for a production at the Polka Children's Theatre in Wimbledon. Philip Pullman is one of the most highly acclaimed children's authors of the decade. Illustrated with humour and aplomb by Ian Beck. Ages 9-12.

At the age of twenty-three, Charlie Mason is endowed with good looks, good manners and a happy disposition. Following three years at Cambridge and one in his father's business, he is now looking forward to a jaunt in Paris with Simon Fenimore, his oldest friend. Yet Paris is not what he expects. And in just a few days his young eyes are opened to the horror and ugly drama of its underworld. Published before the outbreak of war in 1939, Maugham's purpose in Christmas Holiday was to warn the complacent, insular British middle-class of the immense upheavals taking place on the Continent.

Grendel prowled in, hating all men and all joy and hungry for human life. So swift was his attack that no man heard an outcry; but when the dawn came, thirty of Hothgar's best and noblest thanes were missing. Only Beowulf, foremost among warriors, has the strength and courage to battle with Grendel the Night-stalker. In this thrilling re-telling of the Anglo-Saxon legend, Rosemary Sutcliff recounts Beowulf's most terrifying quests: against Grendel the man-wolf, against the hideous sea-hag and, most courageous of all — his fight to the death with the monstrous fire-drake.

With the able assistance of Thing 1 and Thing 2 — and a fleet of Rube Goldbergian vehicles — the Cat in the Hat examines various parts of plants, seeds and flowers; basic photosynthesis and pollination; and seed dispersal.

Help children recognize basic shapes and colors, a necessary step in developing pre-math and pre-reading skills.

Double-sided cards with pictures and upper and lower case letters.

This book includes an introduction by Paul Theroux. Somerset Maugham's success as a writer enabled him to indulge his adventurous love of travel, and he recorded the sights and sounds of his wide-ranging journeys with an urbane, wry style all his own. «The Gentleman in the Parlour» is an account of the author's trip through what was then Burma and Siam, ending in Haiphong, Vietnam. Whether by river to Mandalay, on horse through the mountains and forests of the Shan States to Bangkok, or onwards by sea, Maugham's vivid descriptions bring a lost world to life.

They call themselves the Brethren: three disgraced former judges doing time in a Florida federal prison. One was sent up for tax evasion. Another, for skimming bingo profits. And the third, for a career-ending drunken joyride. Meeting daily in the prison law library, taking exercise walks in their boxer shorts, these judges-turned-felons can reminisce about old court cases, dispense a little jailhouse justice, and contemplate where their lives went wrong. Or they can use their time in prison to get very rich — very fast. And so they sit, sprawled in the prison library, furiously writing letters, fine-tuning a wickedly brilliant extortion scam...while events outside their prison walls begin to erupt. A bizarre presidential election is holding the nation in its grips — and a powerful government figure is pulling some very hidden strings. For the Brethren, the timing couldn't be better. Because they've just found the perfect victim...

Written over a period of more than half a century, these stories reflect every aspect of Tolstoy's art and personality. They cover his experiences as a soldier in the Caucasus, his married life, his passionate interest in the peasantry, his cult of truth adn simplicity, and, above all, his growing preoccupation with religion. Ranging in scope from novellas like The Kreutzer Sonata and Hadji Murad to folk-tales only a few pages long, they provide a marvelous opportunity to become closely acquainted with Russia's great novelist. Aylmer and Louise Maude's classic translations are supplemented by new translations by Nigel J. Cooper of six stories, including two that have never before appeared in English.

The only comprehensive hardcover edition of Tolstoy's shorter fiction — 57 stories and novellas, including two that have never before appeared in English. In these two handsome volumes, every aspect of Tolstoy's art and personality is reflected: his experiences as a soldier in the Caucasus, his married life, his passionate interest in the peasantry, his belief in truth and simplicity, and above all, his growing preoccupation with religion. Ranging in scope from the short novels «Hadj Murad» and «The Kreutzer Sonata» to folktales only a few pages long, they bring us intimately into the world of the great Russian novelist.

The Blind Assassin is a tale of two sisters, one of whom dies under ambiguous circumstances in the opening pages. The survivor, Iris Chase Griffen, initially seems a little cold-blooded about this death in the family. But as Margaret Atwood's most ambitious work unfolds--a tricky process, in fact, with several nested narratives and even an entire novel-within-a-novel--we're reminded of just how complicated the familial game of hide-and-seek can be...

Invited to a high society party by a former client, Archie Goodwin is shocked to witness the death of another guest by cyanide poisoning.

When Fathers and Sons was first published in Russia, in 1862, it was met with a blaze of controversy about where Turgenev stood in relation to his account of generational misunderstanding. Was he criticizing the worldview of the conservative aesthete, Pavel Kirsanov, and the older generation, or that of the radical, cerebral medical student, Evgenii Bazarov, representing the younger one. The critic Dmitrii Pisarev wrote at the time that the novel «stirs the mind...because everything is permeated with the most complete and most touching sincerity». N. N. Strakhov, a close friend of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, praised its «profound vitality». It is this profound vitality in Turgenev's characters that carry his novel of ideas to its rightful place as a work of art and as one of the classics of Russian literature.