Named a New York Times Best Book to Give!“This house of correction is booby-trapped with twists, thefloors paved with trapdoors, quicksand churning in the garden. Enter if youdare.” –A.J. Finn, #1 New York Times bestsellingauthor of The Woman in the Window“Full of unexpected turns . . . Immensely satisfying.” – TheNew York T...

A widowed peasant man was left to raise his two twin children, a boy and a girl. He tried his best but nothing seemed to go right without a woman's touch. And so, he remarried and had more children but things were still not right - the stepmother was very mean to the twins, beating and starving them. This wasn't enough for the wicked stepmother and she decided to send them off into the woods where an evil witch lived. She tells the twins they are to go off and serve her sweet granny. Befor...

A young princess, Fairer-than-a-Fairy, is kidnapped by a jealous, mean, old fairy named Lagree, who locks her away because none of the fairies can stand to have a mortal girl said to be more beautiful than them. Lagree locks her away in a palace, with her dog and cat, and tells her to tend to a fire and to never let it burn out. In her solitude, she one day meets a prince whom Lagree has captured and changed into the form of a rainbow that she discovers in a fountain. Rainbow and Fairer-th...

Hermod and Havdor were foster brother and sister, raised by a King and Queen, and very close. They long had plans to wed each other when they were old enough. When the Queen fell ill, she made her husband promise that if he remarried, it must be to the Queen of Hetland. After his wife died, the King traveled to find this Queen of Hetland and ask for her hand in marriage. She quickly agreed and returned home with him. Upon their arrival back, Hermod and Havdor discover this new Queen isn't ...

Includes an audiobook-exclusive interview with Leanne and Steve!How did a couple of quirky siblings from suburban Pittsburgh end up as the king and queen of eclectic-design chic with their own HGTV show? They never let fear get in the way of a great idea. Leanne and Steve Ford share their secrets for how to turn dreams into reality.Leanne and Steve were middle-class kids growing up in Pittsburgh in the 80s and 90s. There was nothing particularly glamorous or unusual about t...

The Ivory Tower is and can often be a lonely place for faculty of color. Social injustices run deep and are entrenched within academia. Faculty of color (FOC), more specifically Black and Hispanic, often lament about the ‘Black/Brown’ tax that frequently takes its toll both personally and professionally, and pushes them out of the academy. Similar to trends in P-12 settings, educators of color in postsecondary contexts represent less than 10% of the profession. In essence, we are an anomal...

Against the backdrop of the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan, the 1980 Moscow Olympics was always going to be political.Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser wanted Australia's Olympic athletes to boycott the Games, in line with the USA, but many of the athletes had a different view and competed anyway.Athletes were the victims - and most of them female.According to Ford, who was Australia's first and founding member of the International Olympic Committee's...

An unexpected surprise awaits the children and families who show up for Storytime with Mel at the Fernandina Beach Branch Library! Mel and Gunner (Her Boxer Puppy Friend) lead their friends on an exciting adventure exploring Historic Downtown Fernandina Beach, Florida, on a quest to find Colorful Eggs. This is the first of many Adventures with Mel!My Action/Song Picture Book What an adventure. This fun activity, created by Michelle E. Forde, has parents, relatives and friends, sing...

A chilling and spooky Gothic historical thriller reminiscent of Rebecca and The Turn of the Screw, dripping with the dark twists and eerie surprises that are the hallmarks of Edgar Allan Poe, from the New York Times and internationally bestselling author of Citadel.In a remote village near the English coast, residents gather in a misty churchyard. More than a decade into the twentieth century, superstition still holds sway: It is St. Mark’s Eve, ...

From Stephanie Hemphill, author of the Printz Honor winner Your Own, Sylvia and the acclaimed novel Wicked Girls: A Novel of the Salem Witch Trials, comes the fascinating story of gothic novelist Mary Shelley, most famous for the classic Frankenstein.An all-consuming love affair with famed poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, a family torn apart by scandal, a young author on the brink of greatness: Hideous Love is the story of the mastermind behind one of ...

There was an old couple who were not able to have children and so they constantly prayed to be blessed with one -- even one the size of a hazelnut. And that is exactly what they were given -- a child the size of a hazelnut who never grew! When he reached the age of 15, his mother asked him what he planned on doing with his life, as he was so small but clever. He replied that he wanted to be a messenger, a thing which made his mother laugh because of his size. He proved her wrong though and...

In the spirit of Zoë Heller’s Notes on a Scandal and Tom Perrotta’s Mrs. Fletcher, an explosive and thought-provoking novel about the far-reaching repercussions of an illicit relationship between a young girl and a man twenty years her senior.A rising star in the London arts scene of the early 1970s, gifted composer Ralph Boyd is approached by renowned novelist Edmund Greenslay to score a stage adaptation of his most famous work. Welcomed into Greenslay’s sprawlin...