Butterfly In Amber

He's waiting for you... Under a blanket of snow, surrounded by dark woods and a frozen sea, lies an ogre's castle. There lives a little princess, trapped in the maze of her own mind. On a battlefield where the past meets the present stand a fairy godmother and a pirate, an old ice cream man and a knight in shining clean armor... The clock is ticking fast, and to pierce the ogre's secrets and defeat him, Island Chaptal will have to fight to remember...and stay alive. Can the Lions and the Roomba cats be stopped before it's too late?

A busy and successful travel consultant, Julie Ellisons life evolved from the most harrowing of beginnings; she married at seventeen to escape her mothers fierce Hollywood ambitions for her, only to be deserted by her husband a few months later leaving her pregnant and facing the birth of their child alone. She entered a second marriage hoping desperately to find a sustaining love for herself and her child, only to have that fail too. Now, grateful that her daughter has weathered her own difficult passage to adulthood, Julie falls in love with Paul Bassett, a young international investment banker who is about to move to London. This poignant journal-like account begins in New York and takes the reader on a roller coaster of countries and emotions that span a mere year. Their meetings are ecstatic, fleeting and bittersweet, for Paul is married and the father of two young children. Because of her own past Julie painfully identifies with his family and empathizes about the loss they will suffer if they lose him. Paul determines to leave his marriage once he stabilizes his financial life, and as the months pass he is able to achieve his goal. His wife agrees to a divorce and he departs for New York to join Julie and celebrate their future. The profound relief she finally feels intensifies Julies enormous exhilaration. But the news of a terrible plane crash in Paris gives her a sense of foreboding that turns out to be uncannily accurate; in a last minute change of plans Paul boarded the ill-fated plane. There are no survivors. In a series of brief scenes that distill Julies grief, Butterfly in Amber piercingly conveys how she manages to absorb his loss, decide to embrace life again, and commemorate their love in an act that affirms it forever. Gordon McKenzie of the London newspaper, The Mail on Sunday describes Butterfly in Amber as a modern day "Brief Encounter". Two short stories, "The Eves of Christmas "and "The Excursion" offer variations on these themes. These stories are based on the experiences, dreams, failures, disappointments and hopes of Ms. Jacobs. They combine to create "Butterfly in Amber and Other Fragments of a Life", an affecting collection about the nature of loss and the miracle of human capacity for recovery and renewal. Jacket and author photos by Ted Fine

He's waiting for you...Under a blanket of snow, surrounded by dark woods and a frozen sea, lies an ogre's castle. There lives a little princess, trapped in the maze of her own mind.On a battlefield where the past meets the present stand a fairy godmother and a pirate, an old ice cream man and a knight in shining clean armor...The clock is ticking fast, and to pierce the ogre's secrets and defeat him, Island Chaptal will have to fight to remember...and stay alive.Can the Lions and the Roomba cats be stopped before it's too late?

Life is always hard for the gypsies, who live to their own rhythm and their own rules, but since Oliver Cromwell had seized control of England, life had been harder - and drabber - than ever. But now life for the Finch tribe has gone even more horribly wrong. They have been accused of vagrancy and murder, and thrown into gaol with only three weeks to live. The only members of the family to escape are 13-year-old Emilia and her cousin Luka. They have been entrusted to find the six charms and bring them together again. Then, perhaps, the gypsies could once again have some luck... And the Finch tribe could walk free. What Emilia and Luka do not realise is that there is a price to be paid for each lucky charm, and that the cost may prove too high...28th August - 3rd September, 1658:Luka and Emilia travel to London to find the last of the Graylings tribe, who has married a Puritan lawyer and turned her back on her past. As well as all the perils of the capital city, the children must escape the vengeful Coldham, and still get to Kingston-Upon-Thames in time to rescue their families. But then, on the anniversary of his greatest victory, the Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell is mysteriously stricken down... Will everything change? And can the children save their family in time?The thrilling conclusion to the Chain of Charms series.

Delia, an independent-minded Montreal woman of sixty and sexually experienced, leaves her married lover to go on a cruise along the Volga and enters into a forbidden but lustful and satisfying liaison with Kostya, a young member of the ship's crew. Kostya, looking out for the best opportunity to leave his country, is in it for more than erotic pleasures, something Delia understands and acts accordingly. Inappropriate dalliance, however, on board and ports of call in a Russia at war with Chechnya is not the sole narrative engine of this acutely written novel. Memory and identity, the inexorable passing of time, and the desire to be more in imagination than in actuality, are driving motivators in the lives of such characters as the brilliantly conceived, and possibly lunatic Frank, an elderly gentleman who believes himself to be the son of the murdered tsarevitch Alexis and has designs on Delia. Kostya's colourful mother and the mysterious, threatening man who seems to follow Delia also have their own plans. It's Not Over Till It's Over is a novel about choices, sex, living life on unfamiliar terrain, and the courage to act according to one's desires, the consequences be damned, although discretion is always advisable, if not always followed.

From the author of Outlander... a magnificent epic that once again sweeps us back in time to the drama and passion of 18th-century Scotland... For twenty years Claire Randall has kept her secrets. But now she is returning with her grown daughter to Scotland's majestic mist-shrouded hills. Here Claire plans to reveal a truth as stunning as the events that gave it birth: about the mystery of an ancient circle of standing stones ...about a love that transcends the boundaries of time ...and about James Fraser, a Scottish warrior whose gallantry once drew a young Claire from the security of her century to the dangers of his .... Now a legacy of blood and desire will test her beautiful copper-haired daughter, Brianna, as Claire's spellbinding journey of self-discovery continues in the intrigue-ridden Paris court of Charles Stuart ...in a race to thwart a doomed Highlands uprising ...and in a desperate fight to save both the child and the man she loves....

This is a well-illustrated treatment of and guide to all the fossil and present-day species of butterflies in one of the richest areas in North America for butterfly diversity and study. For much of the year, the meadows, forests, and grassy slopes of the Florissant region of central Colorado are alive with butterflies - nearly 100 species of these fascinating and beautiful creatures. Many of them have unusual life histories: the larvae (caterpillars) of one species take two years to mature; others develop close associations with ants; and the adults of some species live only a few days, whereas others survive for months in winter hibernation. Central Colorado is also the site of the florissant Fossil Beds National Monument, which has yielded 12 of the 44 known species of butterfly fossils in the world. To find fossils of these delicate-winged creatures in such a perfect state of preservation is one of the wonders of nature, since the fossils have endured 35 million years of geologic activity, erosion, and climate change. Remarkably, most of the fossil species are closely related to various present-day species.