"Out in the desert in a place called the Palace, a young man tends to a dying soul, someone he once knew briefly but who has haunted the edges of his life: Juan Gay. Playful raconteur, child lost and found and lost, guardian of the institutionalized, Juan has a project to pass along, one built around a true artifact of a book--Sex Variants: A Study of Homosexual Patterns--and its devastating history. This book contains accounts collected in the early...

"Sixteen-year-old dock boy Will is on the run, pursued by the men who killed his mother. Then an old servant tells him of his destiny to fight beside the Stewards, who have sworn to protect humanity if the Dark King ever returns. Will is thrust into a world of magic, where he starts training for a vital role in the oncoming battle against the Dark"--

"In 17th-century London, unnatural babies are being born, with eyes made for the dark and webbed digits suited to the sea. Sarah Davis is intimately familiar with such strangeness-having hidden her uncanny nature all her life and fled to London under suspicious circumstances, Sarah starts over as a midwife's apprentice to a member of the illegal Worshipful Company of Midwives, hoping to carve out for herself an independent life. But with each new...

"The story of one special man, a soldier named Sam Damon, and his adversary over a lifetime, fellow officer Courtney Massengale. Damon is a professional who puts duty, honor, and the men he commands above self interest. Massengale, however, brilliantly advances by making the right connections behind the lines and in Washington's corridors of power. Beginning in the French countryside during the Great War, the conflict between these adversaries solidifies...

"This enchanting and eye-opening new novel from Caine Prize winner Leila Aboulela follows an embattled young woman coming of age during the Mahdist War in nineteenth-century Sudan, and illuminates the tensions that shape her course: between Britain and Sudan, Christianity and Islam, colonizer and colonized. In River Spirit, Aboulela gives us the unforgettable story of a people who--against the odds and for a brief time--gained independence from foreign...

"From the National Book Award finalist Khaled Khalifa, the story of two friends whose lives are altered by a 1907 flood that devastates their Syrian village"-- December, 1907. Close friends Hanna and Zakariya return to their village near Aleppo after a night of drunken carousing in the city, only to discover that there has been a massive flood. Their neighbors, families, children-- nearly all of them are dead. Their homes, shops, and places of worship...

"Toba Peres can speak, but not shout; sleep, but not dream. She can write with both hands at once, in different languages, but she keeps her talents hidden at her grandparents' behest. Naftaly Cresques sees things that aren't real, and dreams things that are. Always the family disappointment, Naftaly would still risk his life to honor his father's last wishes. After the Queen demands every Jew convert or face banishment, Toba and Naftaly are among...

"She didn't paint women like the men painted women. Her close friends included Van Gogh, Degas, and Renoir. Paris celebrated her as a sought-after model, until she picked up the brush herself, at a time when art schools refused to accept female students. By the time Suzanne Valadon was 15 years old, she'd been a horse walker, a milliner, a funeral wreath maker, and a circus acrobat, but that was just the beginning of her adventures. Here is her story,...

"The story of Winter de Ballesteros, a beautiful English heiress who has come to India to be married. It is also the tale of Captain Alex Randall, her escort and protector, who knows that Winter's husband-to-be has become a debauched wreck of a man. When India bursts into flaming hatreds and bitter bloodshed during the dark days of the Mutiny, Alex and Winter are thrown unwillingly together in the brutal and urgent struggle for survival"--From back...

"Métis teenager Echo Desjardins is struggling to adjust to a new school and a new home. When an ordinary history class turns extraordinary, Echo is pulled into a time-travelling adventure. Follow Echo as she experiences pivotal events from Métis history and imagines what the future might hold. This omnibus edition includes all four volumes in the A Girl Called Echo series: In Pemmican Wars, Echo finds herself transported to the prairies of 1814....