Blood Stone

A TIME 100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time A Time Magazine Best Fantasy Book of 2018 L. Penelope's Song of Blood & Stone is a treacherous, thrilling, epic fantasy about an outcast drawn into a war between two powerful rulers. The kingdoms of Elsira and Lagrimar have been separated for centuries by the Mantle, a magical veil that has enforced a tremulous peace between the two lands. But now, the Mantle is cracking and the True Father, ruler of Lagrimar and the most powerful Earthsinger in the world, finally sees a way into Elsira to seize power. All Jasminda ever wanted was to live quietly on her farm, away from the prying eyes of those in the nearby town. Branded an outcast by the color of her skin and her gift of Earthsong, she’s been shunned all her life and has learned to steer clear from the townsfolk...until a group of Lagrimari soldiers wander into her valley with an Elsiran spy, believing they are still in Lagrimar. Through Jack, the spy, Jasminda learns that the Mantle is weakening, allowing people to slip through without notice. And even more troubling: Lagrimar is mobilizing, and if no one finds a way to restore the Mantle, it might be too late for Elsira. Their only hope lies in uncovering the secrets of the Queen Who Sleeps and Jasminda’s Earthsong is the key to unravel them. Thrust into a hostile society and a world she doesn’t know, Jasminda and Jack race to unveil an ancient mystery that might offer salvation.

The first rule for survival when you're a child soldier carrying an AK-47 is kill or be killed. But after you look at the blood of your first victim, you realize two things: one, you hate yourself. And two, there is no turning back. When Scott discovers a pouch of stones clasped in the bony fingers of a skeleton in an African cave, the magic of the ancients is released and he and his nemesis, Bruce, are whisked to Uganda. There they meet Charlie, a former child soldier who has escaped from Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army. When Charlie is recaptured, the two teenagers set out on a daring rescue to save him and the children in a nearby village. Immersed in the insane evil of this rebel army, Scott and Bruce find themselves on a dangerous adventure beyond anything they could have ever imagined.

One diamond – a world of spies, death and deception. In Venice, the diamond promises wealth and prestige to greedy Bernardo Pagliarin. At the court of the Great Moghul in Agra, it holds the key to the throne itself. For Filippo and his family, the stone is worth far more. It could bring their father back from the dead. From the bustling markets of seventeenth-century Venice to the majestic palaces of Hindustan, acclaimed author Jamila Gavin takes the reader on an unforgettable quest across desert, sea and mountains.

The Chalmers brothers have returned in the devastating finale of the Murdery Delicious trilogy. Theyre a little older, perhaps wiser, and undoubtedly more terrified. As The Murdery Delicious Blood Stone Secret unfolds, a breezy summer getaway at their newly restored ancestral home quickly becomes a crawl through the gnarled branches of the Chalmers family tree. Reality itself is questioned, even as fear takes root center stage. Along the Chalmerses journey, readers have followed them through literary genres such as the Penny Dreadful and the classic Whodunnit?, and now the brothers, their wives, and their children find themselves subjected to perils only found in a decidedly ghastly ghost story. Who can uncover the buried secret of Blood Stone Manor? What lurks behind the drapes? The only certainty is that some houses are never meant to be left behind as much as some inhabitants pray to leave them. Do peer past the gate, wont you?

Kane. The Mystic Swordsman becomes the living link with the awesome power of a vanished superrace. In the dark swamp where toadmen croak and cower, slumbers a secret relic of the days when creatures from the stars ruled the Earth. In the booty captured in a savage raid, Kane discovers a ring, a bloodstone, which is key to the power that lies buried, inactive but not dead, within the forest. Now Kane, whose bloody sword has slashed and killed for the glory of other rulers, can scheme to rule the Earth - himself!

When an immigrant dies on a Venice street, it will take a determined detective to pursue the case to its shocking end: “[An] outstanding series.” —Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review On a cold Venetian night shortly before Christmas, a street vendor is killed in a scuffle in Campo San Stefano. The closest witnesses to the event are the tourists who had been browsing the man’s wares before his death—fake handbags of every designer label. The dead man was one of the many African immigrants purveying goods outside normal shop hours and trading without a work permit. Once Commissario Guido Brunetti begins to investigate this unfamiliar Venetian underworld, he discovers that matters of great value are at stake within the secretive society. And his boss’s warning to avoid getting involved only makes Brunetti more determined to unearth the truth behind this mysterious killing. “[A] stunning novel . . . an engrossing, complex plot.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review “The appeal of Guido Brunetti, the hero of Donna Leon’s long-running Venetian crime series, comes not from his shrewdness, though he is plenty shrewd, nor from his quick wit. It comes, instead, from his role as an Everyman . . . [his life is] not so different from our own days at the office or nights around the dinner table. Crime fiction for those willing to grapple with, rather than escape, the uncertainties of daily life.” —Booklist

Africa’s diamond wars took four million lives. ‘Blood on the Stone’ tells the story of how diamonds came to be so dangerous, describing the great diamond cartel and a dangerous pipeline leading from war-torn Africa to the glittering showrooms of Paris, London and New York. It describes the campaign that forced an industry and more than 50 governments to create a global control mechanism, and it provides a sobering prognosis on its future.

“My home is nowhere, as is yours,” the old Cajun woman said. “Bloodstone is a place to forget.” “Forget? Never,” Vanessa said. “We came from Bloodstone. We will return to it. Why prevent me from going where happiness waits for me?” “You do not belong at Bloodstone. It is dead, and if you return you too will be dead....” A crumbling castle, a haunted village--and a love that would fulfill her destiny. But first, she must overcome...The Curse of Bloodstone! A riveting tale of gothic romantic suspense and the supernatural.