ELEPHANT BOX a fantasy for teens and adults who are young at heart.Elephant Box, a story which ranges across continents and time.From Africa to India, to England and back to Africa, the box journeys through the centuries. Lovingly constructed around a small enchanted ivory carving, the box calls to men and to elephants, meeting many on the way.Prophesy surrounds the box. Oaths sworn on it, take on great power. Voices of the prophesy come through in dreams and the li...

Emily is a young girl who can hear other people's thoughts. She lives in Natal in the late 1900s.Ben lives in England five centuries earlier. From his dying father he inherits the powers of flight and telepathy. Untrained, he starts experimenting with both. He flies further and further afield until one day he passes through a time barrier.Young Emily is gardening when she becomes aware of Ben, a hazy youth in strange, pixie-like clothes. He is different from other people an...

This is the story which sets in motion the events of Nadine Dorries's brilliant new novel Ruby Flynn.It is 1846, famine is gripping Ireland and nowhere is it crueller than in Mayo on the west coast. Owen FitzDeane of Ballyford Castle is a good landlord, but even he is powerless to save all his tenants. When he comes upon a half-dead girl beside the road, he insists on taking her back to the castle, to see if they can save her. But Eilinora is no ordinary girl and soon superstition ...

Mukiwa opens with Peter Godwin, six years old, describing the murder of his neighbor by African guerillas, in 1964, pre-war Rhodesia. Godwin's parents are liberal whites, his mother a governement-employed doctor, his father an engineer. Through his innocent, young eyes, the story of the beginning of the end of white rule in Africa unfolds. The memoir follows Godwin's personal journey from the eve of war in Rhodesia to his experience fighting in the civil war that he detests to his...

"The skillful first collection by prolific New Zealand fantasist Marillier (the Bridei Chronicles and others for adults and teens) includes 14 short stories, as well as an introduction by Sophie Masson and detailed author's notes. The book starts well with "Prickle Moon," a tale of the wise forced to choose between moral compromises, and mostly maintains a consistent level of quality throughout. Of particular interest are "The Angel of Death," about a veterinarian whose compassion for hope...

Winner of the CWA Gold Dagger: Scotland Yard's James Pibble puzzles over the murder of a pygmy tribesman in the middle of London in this "first class" mystery ( The Times Literary Supplement).Oddball cases are James Pibble's specialty. But the brutal bludgeoning of the revered elder of a New Guinea tribesman may be his strangest yet.The corpse, in striped pajamas, lies in the middle of a room completely absent of furniture. Seven women squat on the f...

The Sunday Times bestseller full of inspiring tales of life as a shepherdess, by the star of More4's Our Farm Next Door: Amanda, Clive & The Kids and Channel 5’s Our Yorkshire Farm.From bestselling author Amanda Owen come more stories of life at Ravenseat, the remote Yorkshire hill farm she shares with husband Clive, eight children and 1,000 sheep. In A Year in the Life of the Yorkshire Shepherdess she describes the age-old cycle...

Everyone's favourite troublemaker is back in Richmal Crompton's William's New Year's Day.Just William makes his mark in this hilarious collection of twelve classic stories. Whether it's trying to arrange a marriage for his sister or taking a job as a boot boy as step one in his grand plan to run away, William manages to cause chaos wherever he goes.Features a charming introduction by one of William's famous fans, the wonderful comic writer Sue Town...

Sam and his family are in New Delhi watching big brother Nathan make his international cricketing debut (he hits a six, of course) when a young pickpocket steals Sam's backpack. Sam gives chase and runs foul of the boss of a pickpocket gang, who's also involved in the illegal trade of exotic pets, including tiger cubs taken from the wild. When a pair of cubs is to be smuggled through Pakistan to Iran, Sam and the young pickpocket, now his ally, set out in the cause of wildlife conservation...

With the help of a Maratha nobleman, Mark Shand bought an elephant named Tara and rode her over six hundred miles across India to the Sonepur Mela, the world's oldest elephant market. From Bhim, a drink-racked mahout, Shand learned to ride and care for her. From his friend Aditya Patankar he learned Indian ways. And with Tara, his new companion, he fell in love. Travels on My Elephant is the story of their epic journey across India, from packed highways to dusty back roads where communitie...

Emily was like her ninety-nine brothers and sisters, until she won all the eight-legged races at spider sports. People grew suspicious. And then, they counted her legs. She had ten!It's not her fault, but everyone turns against her. But there's something very special about Emily's legs that will change her life for ever . . .

No one sees the world quite like John Gimlette. As The New York Times once noted, “he writes with enormous wit, indignation, and a heightened sense of the absurd.” Writing for both the adventurer and the armchair traveler, he has an eye for unusually telling detail, a sense of wonder, and compelling curiosity for the inside story. This time, he travels to Sri Lanka, a country only now emerging from twenty-six years of civil war. Delving deep into the nation’s story, Gimlette provi...