The setting sun

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Jen Williams

There are some tall stories about the caverns beneath the Citadel - about magic and mages and monsters and gods. Wydrin of Crosshaven has heard them all, but she's spent long enough trawling caverns and taverns with her companion Sir Sebastian to learn that there's no money to be made in chasing rumours. But then a crippled nobleman with a dead man's name offers them a job: exploring the Citadel's darkest depths. It sounds like just another quest with gold and adventure ... if they're lucky, they might even have a tale of their own to tell once it's over. These reckless adventurers will soon learn that sometimes there is truth in rumour. Sometimes a story can save your life.

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Roland Huntford

He is a biographer's dream: Ernest Shackleton was ruthless and ambitious, an unabashed adventurer, an inspired leader, a glorious failure. Also, for much of his life, he was beset by financial and romantic entanglements. Huntford, author of Scott and Amundsen (basis of the recent PBS series The Last Place on Earth), has written a superb account of heroic adventure, of ineptitude and disappointment. Shackleton left a career in the merchant marine to join Robert Scott's expedition on the Discovery (1900); sent home for reasons of health after the first season, he determined to try for the South Pole on his own. The bitter rivalry with Scott had begun. Shackleton's charm and powers of persuasion enabled him to raise money for his 19071909 expedition that came within 100 miles of the Pole. Back home, he was a national hero with financial troubles (he always sought instant fortune). Again, he found backers and planned the "last great journey" across the Antarctic continent. This produced epic adventure: the loss of Endurance in the ice and the long, open-boat journey to safety and rescue. It is one of the greatest survival stories of all time, and Huntford gives it full treatment. Readers interested in polar exploration will find this book hard to put down.

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Mark Sceruman and Mark Moran

*Weird Civil War* delves into the peculiar history and ghastly legacy of the bloodiest period in American history, featuring the era's most gripping tragic tales, fascinating facts, spooky scenarios, and eccentric characters. This brand-new volume—which compiles the most compelling Civil War stories from the bestselling Weird series—will excite precocious history students, Civil War buffs, and the multitude of Americans-young and old-with historical ties to the Confederate and Union armies.

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T.R. Williams

In 2030, after the Great Disruption brought humanity to the brink of a second dark age, the Chronicles of Satraya were discovered, restoring hope in the world. But the secret powers in their pages remained largely unknown. There were some, however, who understood them. The Reges Hominum, the Kings of Men, a clandestine group influencing history from the shadows, sought to use their hidden gifts to regain world control. But their plans were foiled by an unlikely group: Alain Perrot, an eccentric old man and former member of the Council of Satraya; Special Agent Valerie Perrot, his daughter; and Logan Ford, a young painter who discovered he was the son of one of the Chronicles' original finders, long since murdered in an effort to protect them. Soon, seemingly unrelated global events pull Logan and his allies into another contest with those enemies determined to bring a rising world back down. The earth's still-recovering energy supply is put at risk. Illnesses spread. Earthquakes without epicenters shatter the land. And the only things holding the world together are the Chronicles, connected to a series of scattered, hidden mirrors around the globe.