Every star in the Galaxy is enclosed in a transparent sphere which can be shattered only from within. Won Hugo Award for Best Short Story in 1985.

A contemporary couple journeys back in time to ancient Ireland in this delightful fantasy by the author of Tea with the Black Dragon. John Thornburn is an artist, mild-mannered and nonviolent. To make ends meet, he teaches some courses in Celtic design. And although his background is half Micmac Indian, he lives in Ireland for two reasons: his far more confrontational and warrior-like girlfriend, Derval O'Keane, and his fascination with the beautiful illuminated manuscript known as the Book of Kells. But he's about to take a journey to a far more distant place, one that he could not have imagined. Along with Derval, John will find himself in an ancient Celtic realm, where a Viking attack begs to be avenged and a fantastic—and sometimes terrifying—adventure awaits . . . From a master of magical fantasy, the author of the Damiano Trilogy and a winner of the John W. Campbell Award, this is a tale of warriors, love, danger,...

Penny Jordan needs no introduction as arguably the most recognisable name writing for Mills & Boon. We have celebrated her wonderful writing with a special collection, many of which for the first time in eBook format and all available right now. His honor left him no choice. Sienna had been swept off her feet by the handsome, powerful Greek, Alexis Stefanides. "I shall imprint myself on your heart and body so that you will never forget me, " he'd said once he'd won her heart. She'd been chosen—not for love—but in vengeance for the wrong he believed her brother had done his sister. Too late the truth came out-too late to save Sienna's whole world from exploding in pain. Still deep in shock, Sienna found herself married to Alexis—with her mind instinctively fearful of her body's intimate cravings ....

Re-read this classic romance by USA Today bestselling author Carole Mortimer Artist Danielle Smith is shocked to learn that wealthy, arrogant oil tycoon Nicholas Andracas has plans for her: he wants a portrait painted...and to seduce her with his lethal charm! Nicholas obviously doesn't recognize her as the innocent young woman who gave him her virginity seven years ago. And Danielle soon sees her chance to pay him back for the pain he'd caused... But how can she keep Nicholas at arm's length, when all she wants is to succumb to his powerful seduction? Originally published in 1984

Beyond the majestic Rockies lay the promise of land, the promise of love. Beautiful Emmalee Alder was escaping a Cincinnati orphanage when a black-eyed rogue spirited her aboard a Missouri-bound riverboat. Blind to Garn Lander's true passion, she does what she must to escape his bold advances; she sells herself into servitude to a wagon train heading West. Obsessed by a proud dream of independence, swept-up in the fever of land rush, she has yet to learn that claiming land was only half the battle. There is farming, ranching, and bone-deep toil. And there is Garn, the man who may just help her grasp her golden future.

A photographer borrows his friend's New York apartment and is introduced to Manhattan's spectral underworld by a beautiful woman ghost, with whom he falls in love. Reissue. Movie tie-in.Amazon.com ReviewIn the late 1970s and early 1980s, T. M. Wright earned praise from critics for a series of ghost novels about isolated houses in upstate New York. A Manhattan Ghost Story, first published in 1984, moved the action to New York City. And the tale is not about a single building, but about an all-pervasive layer of reality in which the shades of the living mark their days in a listless state, until finally they fall apart. A commercial photographer gets slowly pulled, while still living, over to the "other side"--a plight that leads to a profoundly unsettling and surreal chain of events. "And if you get stuck in that other city, that other Manhattan, you find yourself getting awfully desperate and mean-spirited, the way some people are affected by too much heat or the crying of small children." Wright's ghosts are evocatively described, with their awkward movements and stares of "quiet, studied indifference." But be forewarned that A Manhattan Ghost Story, while justly celebrated, has a couple of minor flaws: a weak love story and slipshod editing that didn't catch place names that change partway through. Review"T M Wright is a rare and blazing talent." Stephen King"Wright convincingly proves that he understands, as few do, how to givea scare without spilling blood all over the page." Publishers Weekly"T M Wright is the best ghost story writer alive today." American Fantasy Magazine

"Do I Dare Disturb the Universe?" is Madeleine L'Engle's spirited defense of the responsibility of children's literature to confront difficult questions, as she did in all her work, particularly her masterpiece A Wrinkle in Time. This e-book contains the text of her famous speech as well as her introduction to the twenty-fifth anniversary of A Wrinkle in Time and a facsimile of a chapter from the original manuscript with Madeleine's notations.

Like much of Niven's work, the story is heavily influenced by the setting: a gas torus, a ring of air around a neutron star. The gas giant Goldblatt's World (abbreviated "Gold") orbits this star just outside its Roche sphere. Thus, Gold's gravity is insufficient to hold its atmosphere, which is pulled loose into an independent orbit around Voy. This orbiting air forms a ring known as the Gas Torus. The Gas Torus is huge — one million kilometers thick — but most of it is too thin to be habitable. The central part of the Gas Torus, where the air is thicker, is known as the Smoke Ring. The Smoke Ring supports a wide variety of life. There is no “ground” in the Smoke Ring; it is a world consisting entirely of sky. Thus, most animals can fly, even the fish. Furthermore, since the Smoke Ring is in orbit, it is in free fall — there is no “up” or “down”… First publiched in Analog in 1983. Nominated for Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1984. Nominated for Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1985.

Susan Neville combines a gift for language with a subtle eye and a fine instinct for character. Her characters—and her settings—are, most of them, midwestern. There is the staunchly midwestern wife in the story "Kentucky People," for instance. She was born in this house in this Indiana town, a world far removed from people like Mrs. Lovelace, next door, transient people "who have followed the industrial revolution from Kentucky to Indiana and most of whom are now in Texas." Nothing really out of the way has ever happened to her. Now she "shivers with excitement" when she is called upon to help Mrs. Lovelace throw her husband out—helps her haul all of his belongings out onto the porch: underwear, shoes, whiskey bottles, rolltop desk, even "wedding presents from his side of the family."The collection moves from the playful tone of "Johnny Appleseed," in which the author takes an old fecundity myth and does something different with it, to the wise and poignant story of an elderly woman attending a family gathering at which she recognizes the separateness from her children and grandchildren that the cancer within her has given her. It has been months since any one of them has kissed her on the mouth. There are so many things that she would like to tell them, "but they don't want to talk about it, each one of them positive that he is the one human being in the history of the earth who will never ever die."All of the stories in this unusual first collection stick in the reader's mind long after he has read them.Review“The people in The Invention of Flight are real. . . . Their interior lives are as complicated as anyone’s—filled with the vanities, the confusions of motives, the unfathomable mysteries of human nature. . . . Neville’s stories are so ‘fantastic’ that they cannot be mistaken for anything but the truth.”—NewsdayAbout the AuthorSusan Neville’s collection of short fiction In the House of Blue Lights won the Richard Sullivan Prize and was listed as a Notable Book by the Chicago Tribune. Her stories have appeared in many anthologies including the Pushcart Prize anthology. She is the author of several works of creative nonfiction. Neville teaches writing at Butler University and in the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers.

He’s got one extraordinary chance at the dream of a lifetime. Alex Rogan is a small-town teenager with big-time dreams. He’s just like everyone else, except Alex has a very special talent . . . Tonight, a mysterious stranger will call on Alex. He comes from a galaxy that’s under attack by a alien force. And Alex’s unique ability is their last hope.

She needed to be loved, not merely desired Lenore had gone to Maine to rebuild her life after her involvement with Herzel Rubin had ended in rejection. Then all too soon her heart went out to Adam Jonson, a half-blind man who was more bitter and mistrustful of people than Lenore could ever be. Electrifying passion flared between them--too sudden and overpowering to be called love--but an undeniable attraction nevertheless. Lenore was afraid. Once the infatuation burned itself out, Adam might again desire his girlfriend Valerie... and Lenore would be more desperately unhappy than ever.

Anra is a solitary. She was born without the power to mindspeak and cannot, like all of her fellows can, communicate in unspoken thoughts. In the past, she would have been killed at birth but the arrival of the Wanderer, the comet controlled by the cybernetic intelligence known as the Homesmind has changed everything. The people of the comet, the skydwellers, now supply solitaries with implants that allow artificial mindspeaking. The solitaries are sequestered in a single village willing to care for such children.   Anra and her new brethren were thought to be the possible bridge between the people of Earth and the skydwellers but the gap may be too great since the people of Earth consider solitaries an abomination and the skydwellers as soulless. The solitaries are, instead, outcasts in two worlds, part of each but fully accepted in neither.   Another comet enters the system, refusing to communicate with Homesmind and speaking to the people of Earth with the voices of their own dead, seducing them into a submission of their individual wills and trying to lure them to oblivion. Anra and he fellow solitaries have the power to resist their call but can they unite in time to save everyone else?

The children had been sent to watch the road. Rumor said the Lady meant to break the Rebel movement in Tally province. And here her soldiers came. Closer now. Grim, hard-looking men. Veterans. “It’s them!” the boy gasped. Fear and awe filled his voice. Grudging admiration edged it. “That’s the Black Company.” He touched the girl’s wrist. “Let’s go.” They scurried through the weeds. A shadow lay upon their path. They looked and went pale. Three horsemen stared down at them. The boy gaped. Nobody could have slipped up unheard. “Goblin!” The small, frog-faced man in the middle grinned. “At your service, laddy-boy.” The boy was terrified. He shouted, “Run!” If his sister could escape... Goblin made a circular gesture. Pale pink fire tangled his fingers. He made a throwing motion. The boy fell, fighting invisible bonds like a fly caught in a spider’s web. His sister whimpered. “Pick them up,” Goblin told his companions. “They should tell an interesting tale.” The second volume of THE BLACK COMPANY trilogy.