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Engn

Simon Kewin

Lost in the great machine… Finn’s childhood in the valley is idyllic, but across the plains lies a threat. Engn is an ever-growing, steam-powered fortress that needs a never-ending supply of workers. Generation after generation have been taken away, escorted into its depths by the mysterious and terrifying ironclads, never to return. The Masters of Engn first take Finn’s sister, then his best friend, Connor. Finn thinks he, at least, is safe – until the day the ironclads come to haul him away, too. Yet all is not lost. In the peace of the valley Finn and Connor made a pact: a promise to join the mythical wreckers and end Engn’s tyranny. But now on his own, lost and broken in the vastness of Engn, Finn begins to have doubts. Is Connor really working to destroy Engn? Or has he become part of the machine?

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Scaramouche

Rafael Sabatini

Scaramouche tells the story of an unlikely hero during the French Revolution. Andre-Louis Moreau, a lawyer, is transformed from cynic to idealist as circumstances force him to change sides several times during the conflict in France. He becomes a revolutionary, politician, and fencing-master, confounding his enemies with his powerful orations and swordsmanship. Rafael Sabatini’s 1921 novel has been adapted numerous times, most famously in 1952 with Stewart Granger in the title role.

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The Magnificent Bastards

Wayne Kyle Spitzer

There was a single, sharp tap of the drums followed by a rapid succession of beats as the crushed velvet curtains spread and the audience gasped: for Tran had taken her position in the box and was even now being secured as Williams struck a gunfighter pose and his hand hovered next to his weapon. “Ladies and gentlemen, I think it goes without saying,” said the announcer over the speaker system, “Do not try this at home.” Williams relaxed his entire body even as his mind cycled through the calculations—altitude, the breeze, humidity, temperature, the curvature of the earth, the spinning of the earth … It was, like music, a largely mathematical proposition; a cold equation he’d had a gift for ever since he could remember, ever since he was a boy with a Daisy BB gun in the backyard of their southern California home. He focused on the knife blade as the balloons to each side of it warbled in the breeze. It was a funny thing, sharpshooting, so utterly unlike music, in that each time he did it he felt like he was doing it for the first time, felt like he was starting over from scratch. With music his fingers just automatically found the frets, just instantly knew where to begin and where to end; he never felt as though he were lost in a vortex of potentialities, never doubted his ability to perform. But sharpshooting was a different beast altogether. With sharpshooting he had to call on something outside of himself as well as from within—something which was not his to control. Something which either kissed him with its ghostly lips or turned away with perfect indifference—like love itself, he supposed. Or God. And then the drum taps stopped and he was alone with the breeze, and it was time to make the intuitive leap which would set the bullet in motion. And as he breathed out and drew his revolver and squeezed its trigger softer than he would a daisy, he knew, even before the crack! and the ka-chink! and the pop of the balloons, that the projectile had found its target. That it had found the slim blade and split like an atom—becoming two loaves rather than one—two soft but lethal slugs, which had spread like shrapnel in the Fresno heat and ruptured the red balloons—releasing their air in a vacuum-like rush and causing the audience to gasp and to cheer. And then his wife was there, having loosed her mock bonds and scrambled out of the tall wooden box (with its crushed velvet curtains and bulletproof glass), and she’d bowed to the audience before embracing him like the wind, and he had kissed her as he always did after completing their final act—when air raid sirens sounded and he looked at the sky, which had darkened with a storm front as fast-moving as it was inexplicable ...

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The Sea Hawk

Rafael Sabatini

Set against the backdrop of the Spanish invasion of England during the reign of Elizabeth I, The Sea Hawk is a classic of the pirate genre. Sir Oliver Tressilian is betrayed by a jealous half-brother and forced to serve as a slave on a galley. He is liberated when the ship is hijacked by Barbary pirates. Sir Oliver joins the pirates, gaining the name "Sakr-el-Bahr" (the hawk of the sea), and swears vengeance against his brother. The book was the basis for The Sea Hawk, the popular 1940 Errol Flynn swashbuckler. This new digital edition of The Sea Hawk by Rafael Sabatini includes an image gallery.

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Mystery in Harare

M.J. SIMMS-MADDOX

Book #2 in The Priscilla Trilogy begins as the bride pauses for an instant before walking down the aisle to marry a man she likes but does not love; and in that hesitant moment a shot rings out, and then another. The groom falls. Blood stains the sanctuary. Priscilla J. "PJ" Austin--a magnetic, up-and-coming, baby boomer--catches a glimpse of the shooter before everything blacks out for the bride. Set in the mid1980s, "Mystery in Harare" is a stylish, fast-paced, character-driven thriller that unravels the secrets behind this carnage at a Midwestern American black church. Priscilla's fortitude is sorely tried as she awakens, sometime later--sedated and confused, on the outskirts of Harare, Zimbabwe--to face the adventure of her life. She is "stashed" away, more than once, down deep into the savannas and the wilds of southern Africa--Zimbabwe and apartheid-ruled South Africa--where she falls prey to the vicious South African Nationalist Movement's Patrol Guard. Along the way, there is mayhem, murder, mistaken identities, and a barbed reunion with Carlton Elliott Bernhardt, a swarthy, intrepid special operative, who may be her one true love.

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Dark Places: A Novel

Gillian Flynn

Libby Day was seven when her mother and two sisters were murdered in “The Satan Sacrifice of Kinnakee, Kansas.” She survived—and famously testified that her fifteen-year-old brother, Ben, was the killer. Twenty-five years later, the Kill Club—a secret society obsessed with notorious crimes—locates Libby and pumps her for details. They hope to discover proof that may free Ben. Libby hopes to turn a profit off her tragic history: She’ll reconnect with the players from that night and report her findings to the club—for a fee. As Libby’s search takes her from shabby Missouri strip clubs to abandoned Oklahoma tourist towns, the unimaginable truth emerges, and Libby finds herself right back where she started—on the run from a killer.

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She

H. Rider Haggard

She, subtitled A History of Adventure, is a novel by Henry Rider Haggard, first serialized in The Graphic magazine from October 1886 to January 1887. The book is one of the classics of imaginative literature, and with over 96 million copies sold in 44 different languages, one of the best-selling books of all time.

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Ancient Echoes

Joanne Pence

Past and present collide in this spellbinding tale by USA Today bestselling author Joanne Pence. Over two hundred years ago, a covert expedition shadowing Lewis and Clark disappeared into the wilderness of Central Idaho. Now, seven anthropology students and their professor vanish in the same area. The key to finding them lies in an ancient secret, one involving alchemy, gold, and immortality...a secret that men throughout history have sought to unveil.Michael Rempart is a brilliant archeologist whose colorful and controversial career has earned him admiring fans and implacable foes, but he is plagued by a troubling sense of the supernatural and a mysterious spiritual intuitiveness. Joining Rempart in this adventure are a CIA consultant on paranormal phenomena, a washed-up local sheriff, and a former scholar of Egyptology. All must overcome their personal demons as they attempt to save the students and, ultimately, the world. From the Journal of Francis Masterson, 1806-- All hope is gone. Evil is victorious. In the time I have remaining I will, herewith, impart a tale so filled with Dread and Terror that my heart overflows with immeasurable Sorrow to tell it. It began with the highest of Good Will and Promise and, on my part, great Excitement. I can only trust to Providence that one day this small account which I leave in a land of unimaginable desolation and Wildness, may be discovered, and that it will serve to warn others of the wickedness that may ensnare Good men. Ours was to be a Secret Expedition... “Joanne Pence's highly enjoyable paranormal novel...narrates a story of occult secrets centuries old and mortally dangerous to explore, all focusing on the granite wildness of central Idaho [and] confronting the coldest of all mysteries--Death itself. “An intriguing blend of history, action-adventure, religious speculation, alchemy (theoretical, philosophical, and practical), and horror, with occasional touches of psychological thriller and romance, Ancient Echoes is a well-crafted tale designed to entertain and perhaps even enlighten. Highly recommended.” --Hellnotes “Ancient Echoes engages the reader as it explores greed, deception, love, betrayal, and the human condition through the search for the one thing it seems every generation longs to find: immortality.” --Reviews with TLC What readers are saying: “Lost Horizons meets Indiana Jones...suspend your disbelief and enjoy this tale of heroes, villains and creepy crawlies.” “Right up there with Lincoln and Child.” “This is a mind bender, watch the characters closely.” “An adventure book for the historical. There was a good pace set through the whole story, hard to put down.” “Wouldn't this be a great movie? … I would definitely recommend this for the intelligent suspense reader.” “This book grabbed my interest from page one. The book takes the reader from Mongolia, to NYC, Jerusalem, Paris, DC, Beijing and Idaho.” ”Before anything else, the style and beauty of this book is remarkable.” “The amount of research that had to be done to write this book staggers the imagination: alchemy; Nicholas Flamel; The Book of Abraham the Jew.” “This romance/adventure reads like an Indiana Jones movie. I could hardly put it down.” “This would make a blockbuster movie.” “I will never think of Idaho the same way again.” “Very unique.” “A historical and supernatural theme while being a thriller, mystery, and dealing with romance under one cover.…I highly recommend this book for all readers who enjoy a well written adventure.” “What a great book....it kept me on the edge of my seat throughout. The story was so interesting and I loved the descriptions of the Idaho wilderness!... this thriller was truly amazing.”

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Agent Zero (An Agent Zero Spy Thriller—Book #1)

Jack Mars

“You will not sleep until you are finished with AGENT ZERO. The author did a superb job creating a set of characters who are fully developed and very much enjoyable. The description of the action scenes transport us into a reality that is almost like sitting in a movie theater with surround sound and 3D (it would make an incredible Hollywood movie). I can hardly wait for the sequel.” --Roberto Mattos, Books and Movie Reviews In this much-anticipated debut of an epic spy thriller series by #1 bestseller Jack Mars, readers are taken on an action thriller across Europe as presumed-CIA operative Kent Steele, hunted by terrorists, by the CIA, and by his own identity, must solve the mystery of who is after him, of the terrorists’ pending target—and of the beautiful woman he keeps seeing in his mind. Kent Steele, 38, a brilliant professor of European History at Columbia University, lives a quiet life in a New York suburb with his two teenage daughters. All that changes when late one night he gets a knock on his door and is abducted by three terrorists—and finds himself flown across the ocean to be interrogated in a basement in Paris. They are convinced that Kent is the most lethal spy the CIA has ever known. He is convinced they have the wrong man. Do they? With a conspiracy around him, adversaries as smart as he is, and an assassin on his tail, the wild game of cat and mouse leads Kent on a perilous road—one that may lead back to Langley—and to a shocking discovery of his own identity. AGENT ZERO is an espionage thriller that will keep you turning pages late into the night. “One of the best thrillers I have read this year.” --Books and Movie Reviews (re Any Means Necessary ) Also available is Jack Mars’ #1 bestselling LUKE STONE THRILLER series (7 books), which begins with Any Means Necessary (Book #1), a free download with over 800 five star reviews!

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Gulliver’s Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World

Jonathan Swift

With original illustrations by Arthur Rackham. Gulliver"s Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World (with the original color illustrations by Arthur Rackham). In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships, commonly known as GULLIVER"S TRAVELS (1726, amended 1735), is a prose satire by Irish writer and clergyman Jonathan Swift, that is both a satire on human nature and a parody of the "travellers" tales" literary subgenre. It is Swift"s best known full-length work, and a classic of English literature. The book became popular as soon as it was published. John Gay wrote in a 1726 letter to Swift that "It is universally read, from the cabinet council to the nursery." Since then, it has never been out of print.

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