“In The Road John Ehle’s skill as a storyteller brings an early episode of road building in the North Carolina mountains to rich and vivid life. Hardship and humor, suffering and dreams are the balance for survival in a landscape that makes harsh demands on its intruders. Ehle lets us experience this place, people, and past in a fully realized novel.”—Wilma Dykeman“The Road is a strong novel by one of our most distinguished authors. Muscular, vivid, and pungent, i...

Jak Barley, Private Inquisitor, is tired of adventures and is ready to take on only hum-drum cases offering no drama–those of missing husbands, unfaithful spouses, or fat merchants paying well for outing thieving employees–anything not involving traveling, swords, or the darker magics.Yet once again his otherworldy friend, Lorenzo Spasm, drags him into cases involving corrupt CIA (Clandestine Information Authority) agents, murderous bank robbers, nasty goblins, furious dragon chase...

Why does an asylum have so many patients in zombie-like states? Private Inquisitor Jak Barley means to find out, even though it pits him against the shadowy world of his city's elite. What to do when a swarm of bee's hivemind asks Jak to find its kidnapped queen? Take it, of course. The case takes a threatening turn when hired assassins become involved. Could anything go wrong with a free passage on a cruise ship? Yes – murder, as well as a conspiracy involving a mythical suit of armor hid...

The Owens family finally confronts the curse that has haunted them for centuries in this unforgettable conclusion to the beloved Practical Magic series by New York Times bestselling author Alice Hoffman.The family’s story began in 1620, when Maria Owens was tried for witchcraft, and every Owens descendant was cursed in love. Now, in Cambridge, seventy-eight-year-old Jet Owens hears the deathwatch beetle and knows she has only seven days to live. Before she...

With ravishing beauty and unsettling intelligence, Michael Ondaatje's Booker Prize-winning novel traces the intersection of four damaged lives in an Italian villa at the end of World War II. Hana, the exhausted nurse; the maimed thief, Caravaggio; the wary sapper, Kip: each is haunted by the riddle of the English patient, the nameless, burned man who lies in an upstairs room and whose memories of passion, betrayal,and rescue illuminates this book like flashes of heat lightening.

This haunting drama of vengeance and forgiveness crowns the group of tragicomic romances that Shakespeare composed at the end of his career. Sometimes read as his farewell to the stage, the play contains some of Shakespeare's most lyrical verse.Prospero, wise Duke of Milan, has been deposed by Antonio, his wicked brother, and exiled with his daughter Miranda to a mysterious island. But Prospero possesses supernatural powers. Aided by the spirit Ariel, Prospero uses his magical art ...

On July 22, 1796, General Moses Cleaveland established the mouth of the Cuyahoga River as the port of entry for the Ohio frontier. He could not have foretold the developments that would turn this hostile marsh into Thriving economic and community center. With its 200th anniversary, the port, now governed by the Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority, is home to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, the future Great Waters of the World Aquarium, and the Great Lakes Science Museum, as well as a Fo...

Jak Barley, private inquisitor, hates cases involving damned creatures like vampires and zombies, but that's just what he finds himself helplessly in the middle of. Jak has come to hate adventures. He would prefer the boring cases of his earlier years in the profession when dealing with errant husbands or minor pilferings. Still, somehow he finds himself eluding corrupt officials and creatures of the night that want to suck his blood and eat his brains. He does find help in his friend and ...

Private Inquisitor Jak Barley hates adventures, and with good reasons after barely surviving past cases involving vicious piss dragons, vengeful necromancers, annoying assassins, cranky goblins, gruesome ghouls and angry old gods—and that's not even including having a terrifying witch as a future mother-in-law. It's about to begin again. How is Jak to find the heir to a throne missing since an infant—and find the prince before foreign agents do? And why are Ghennison Viper Mages trying to ...

Jak Barley, Private Inquisitor, was looking for a long overdue break after solving which of the new and exotic exhibits at the Duburoake Royal Menagerie of Astounding Beasts was a covert assassin with the King of Glavendale as its intended victim. But malspell attacks upon the crystal ball network of the country's witch covens and the mysterious theft of a pixie gold shipment draws him into a tangled web of intrigue, danger and the deadly ire of viper mages. Once again he counts upon the a...

A sixth-generation North Carolinian, highly-acclaimed author John Ehle grew up on former Cherokee hunting grounds. His experience as an accomplished novelist, combined with his extensive, meticulous research, culminates in this moving tragedy rich with historical detail. The Cherokee are a proud, ancient civilization. For hundreds of years they believed themselves to be the "Principle People" residing at the center of the earth. But by the 18th century some of their leaders believed it was...

How was Private Inquisitor Jak Barley to know that bumping into the dour, dwarfish priest of his childhood would ensnare him in an investigation of a possibly kidnapped demigod, as well placing himself in the middle of a celestial conflict. Would he get help from Ninkasi, his favorite deity, the goddess of ale, despite a youthful indiscretion involving her sacramental ale? And speaking of kidnapping, how was he to carry out interviews into a stolen egg when the Bone Reaper Dragons are noto...