Synopsis: All of the world is kept in a delicate balance under the supervision of the Wizard Lord. It is his duty to govern lightly and protect his domain…but if he should stray from the way of the just then it is up to the Chosen to intercede. The Chosen are the Leader, the Seer, the Swordsman, the Beauty, the Thief, the Scholar, the Archer, and the Speaker, magically infused mortal individuals who for the term of their service have only one function--to remove an errant Wizard Lord. 
 But the new Wizard Lord has now changed the playing field by neutralizing all magic in his domain (both his own and that of the Chosen) and has successfully killed and/or blocked his adversaries and their challenges to his omnipotence. Sword (now on the run) must work alone to restore order to their fair land and unravel the mystery of the Ninth Talisman--which might be the salvation or downfall of all that is good in their well ordered land.

Synopsis: Uwem Akpan's stunning stories humanize the perils of poverty and violence so piercingly that few readers will feel they've ever encountered Africa so immediately.  The eight-year-old narrator of "An Ex-Mas Feast" needs only enough money to buy books and pay fees in order to attend school. Even when his twelve-year-old sister takes to the streets to raise these meager funds, his dream can't be granted. Food comes first. His family lives in a street shanty in Nairobi, Kenya, but their way of both loving and taking advantage of each other strikes a universal chord.
In the second of his stories published in a New Yorker special fiction issue, Akpan takes us far beyond what we thought we knew about the tribal conflict in Rwanda. The story is told by a young girl, who, with her little brother, witnesses the worst possible scenario between parents. They are asked to do the previously unimaginable in order to protect their children. This singular collection will also take the reader inside Nigeria, Benin, and Ethiopia, revealing in beautiful prose the harsh consequences for children of life in Africa.
Akpan's voice is a literary miracle, rendering lives of almost unimaginable deprivation and terror into stories that are nothing short of transcendent. 

Synopsis: As the civil war escalates, Sevryn and Rivergrace are separated from each other as Rivergrace battles the warrior queen Lariel's accusations of high treason, with only her Dweller sister and the mysterious Dark Ferryman as her allies, in the sequel to The Four Forges.

Synopsis: From the top, you can see everything?except yourself.

When Casey McCloy steps into the elegant Bramford building, she?s overwhelmed. Fresh from the Midwest, she?s moved to New York?s Upper East Side to live with her grandmother and attend the prestigious Meadowlark Academy. Here all that matters is who you know. The girl to know is Madison Macallister: popular, pretty, platinumblond. She?s not just Casey?s new classmate and neighbor; she?s an icon. So Casey aims to get in with Madison and her gorgeous gal-pals from the start. As the reigning queen of coolness, Madison is capable of destroying reputations with one welltimed whisper. Better to be on her good side.

But after a city-haute makeover from her new frenemy Madison, Casey is wearing the right clothes, saying the right things, and meeting the right people?including Drew, the boy-about-town who Madison thinks belongs to her and her alone.

Synopsis: Predicting the future has long been a cornerstone of science fiction. Now seventeen farseeing authors have taken up the challenge of gazing into the future and seeing where America may be the day after tomorrow. From an America where hsitory has become myth and misinformation amid the ruins of a once-vast land...to a place where the only existence for genetic misfits is as slaves to the "Gawders"...to a company intent on cloning the world's species, both extinct and endangered, back to a balanced ecosystem, here are original stories that will have readers thinking about the future, and about how their own actions now could make a difference tomorrow.

Synopsis: "My mother had four daughters by four different men."

There's only one way Shelby and her sisters can describe their mother: She's a sexpot. Helen Kimura collects men (and loans, spending money, and gifts of all kinds) from all over the country. Sure, she's not your typical role model, but she's also not just a pretty face and nail polish. She is confident and brave; she lives life on her own terms, and her four daughters simply adore her. These girls have been raised outside the traditional boundaries. They know how to take the back exit. They know how to dodge crazed lovers in highway car chases. They do not, however, know how to function without one another.

Then suddenly they must. A late-night phone call unexpectedly shreds the family apart, catapulting the girls across the country to live with their respective fathers. But these strong-willed sisters are, like their mother, determined to live life on their own terms, and what they do to pull their family back together is nothing short of beautiful.

At turns wickedly funny and insistently thought-provoking, Outside Beauty showcases Cynthia Kadohata's unerring ability to explore the bonds that bind.