"Far across the ocean, many miles from the floating island of Pamperpazoo, and just west of the underground empire of the dark and terrible Kindersnitch, lies the little known nation called Very-Mixed-Upolis, where almost nothing is what you would expect it to be." Thus begins this charming children's story featuring the brave and strong-willed Princess Alice. When a giant dragon's egg lands in the middle of the Great Marshmallow Fields, no one knows what to do--except Alice. She takes cha...

On Christmas Eve, a lawyer helps a battered wife search for her kidnapped sonAs ex-husbands go, they don’t get much worse than Carl. He’s violent, drunken, and possessive—and worst of all, he’s an ex-cop. Bonnie has remarried, and done everything she can to keep their son away from his father, but when Carl comes to terrorize them—stinking drunk on Christmas Eve—she cannot call the cops for help. After years of living in fear, she visits a legal aid office to arran...

Handed a rotten case, a lawyer will risk his life to uncover the truthA young woman is abducted by six men, beaten, raped, and left for dead. She can only identify one of her assailants: Al Moroconi, a tough guy whose links to the attack are only circumstantial. And when Moroconi’s first lawyer is brutally murdered, the court appoints Travis Byrne, an ex-cop turned attorney, to defend him. In a lifetime of bad breaks, this will prove the worst piece of luck Byrne h...

Up in the sky! Look! It's Superman!Almost everyone knows about the man from Krypton who, disguised as mild-mannered reporter Clark Kent working with the fearless Lois Lane, fights for the vulnerable and the oppressed. But few know the truth about this indelible character’s creation. From mobster tactics to decades-long courtroom drama, a beloved American myth was born, betrayed, and eventually reclaimed—almost eighty years after the character first appeared.

"Writing is structure," William Goldman said, but too often aspiring writers plunge into their work without grasping this fundamental principle. Story structure is one of the most important concepts for a writer to understand—and ironically, one of the least frequently taught. In this book, New York Times-bestselling author William Bernhardt explains the elements that make stories work, using examples spanning from Gilgamesh to The Hunger Games. In each chapter, he introduces essential con...

Three teenagers hold the key to tomorrow—and the only hope for freedom.In a future world in the ruins of North America, the Laws and Ways of the Sentinel control everyone and everything. The Sentinel's rule is enforced by The Black Sentry, his ominous ever-present police force. Every aspect of the villagers' lives is dictated by the Sentinel's orderly inescapable plan--including the Winnowing, the armed combat each boy is required to undergo on his sixteenth birthd...

George Earle returns from college to his Oklahoma birthplace and finds it drastically altered. The Dust Bowl and the Depression have transformed the bucolic farm town into a desolate wasteland where few are healthy, happy, or employed. A chance encounter with Pretty Boy Floyd lands him in jail with a melancholy literary agent named Hart. They're given one chance to avoid execution by accepting an unlikely task: finding local powerbroker Doc Bennett's wayward daughter. They head east and me...

Bobby Beresford and Mark Szasz, the self-appointed "Knights Templar of the Code of Buddyhood," are undergraduates at the University of Oklahoma in 1979. There couldn't be a more unlikely pair of best friends. Bobby's cautious social ineptitude and romantic fumblings offset Mark's flamboyant, devil-may-care attitude, his irrepressible pranks, and his prowess with coeds. But the cardinal rule of the Code—"A buddy does not move in on another buddy's girl"—requires Bobby to watch quietly as Ma...

A billion-dollar inheritance. A suspicious reappearance. Can Dan dig up the secrets of the past before he's buried six feet under?Attorney Daniel Pike's flashy courtroom antics have earned him plenty of enemies—but also freed many innocent people. When he learns that the same crooked cop who got his father locked up for life is testifying in a contested-identity suit, Dan takes the case. But it won't be easy to prove his client is the long-lost heir to an immense e...

The court of public opinion found her guilty. But one attorney resolved to change the verdict…Attorney Daniel Pike knows the dire consequences of crossing the government. So when rising political star Camila Perez faces charges in a gruesome quadruple homicide, his instincts sense a frame by powerful rivals. But Dan and the Last Chance Lawyers may have a hopeless case when the police discover damning evidence scrawled at the crime scene in blood...Sorting through incriminat...

Getting his client off death row could save his career… or make him the next victim.Daniel Pike would rather fight for justice than follow the rules. His unique ability to "connect the dots," to observe what others do not, has made him the most notorious criminal lawyer in St. Petersburg. But when his courtroom career goes up in smoke, he fears his lifelong purpose is a lost cause. A mysterious job offer from a secretive boss gives him a second chance but lands him...

A struggling lawyer. A bitter custody battle. A deadly fire. This case could cost Kenzi her career—and her life.Kenzi Rivera is furious. Passed over for promotion at her own father's firm, the talented divorce lawyer is tired of fighting chauvinism every single day. When a desperate scientist begs for help getting her daughter back, Kenzi can't resist… even though this client is involved in Hexitel, a group she calls her religion but others call a cult.Kenz...