Chasing North Star

Germany, 1940. While struggling to survive at an orphanage, young Didi crosses paths with a rebellious, quirky girl who will either help her escape a life of abuse and uncertainty or lead her down an even darker path. Fast-forward to 1970. With help from a worn leather journal, another young girl learns the story of Didi, who escaped war-torn Germany for a better life in America—except her life didn’t turn out as expected. The stories of these two girls intertwine and eventually collide one Christmas night when Didi, all grown up, finally remembers the secret she buried long ago. Chasing North Star looks back at a time when four free-range siblings, cigarettes in hand, roamed the streets ’til sunrise and hid from a gun-toting, mentally ill mother who couldn’t help herself. Stingray bicycles, transistor radios, and late nights in the cemetery—just another day in Alamo. That is, until the youngest sibling stumbles upon Didi’s story.

In his latest historical novel, bestselling author Robert Morgan brings to full and vivid life the story of Jonah Williams, who, in 1850, on his eighteenth birthday, flees the South Carolina plantation on which he was born a slave. He takes with him only a few stolen coins, a knife, and the clothes on his back--no shoes, no map, no clear idea of where to head, except north, following a star that he prays will be his guide. Hiding during the day and running through the night, Jonah must elude the men sent to capture him and the bounty hunters out to claim the reward on his head. There is one person, however, who, once on his trail, never lets him fully out of sight: Angel, herself a slave, yet with a remarkably free spirit. In Jonah, she sees her own way to freedom, and so sets out to follow him. Bristling with breathtaking adventure, Chasing the North Star is deftly grounded in historical fact yet always gripping and poignant as the story follows Jonah and Angel through the close calls and narrow escapes of a fearsome world. It is a celebration of the power of the human spirit to persevere in the face of great adversity. And it is Robert Morgan at his considerable best.

True stories of fugitive slaves.

In this #1 New York Times bestseller, Nora Roberts delves into the world of elite firefighters who thrive on danger and adrenaline—men and women who wouldn’t know how to live life if it wasn’t on the edge. Little else in life is as dangerous as fire jumping. But there’s also little else as thrilling—at least to Rowan Tripp. Being a Missoula smoke jumper is in Rowan’s blood: her father is a legend in the field. At this point, returning to the wilds of Montana for the season feels like coming home—even with reminders of the partner she lost last season still lingering in the air. One of the best of this year’s rookie crop, Gulliver Curry is a walking contradiction, a hotshot firefighter with a big vocabulary and a winter job at a kids’ arcade. And though Rowan, as a rule, doesn’t hook up with other smoke jumpers, Gull is convinced he can change her mind... But everything is thrown off balance when a dark presence lashes out against Rowan, looking to blame someone for last year’s tragedy. Rowan knows she can’t complicate things with Gull—any distractions in the air or on the ground could be lethal. But if she doesn’t find someone she can lean on when the heat gets intense, her life may go down in flames.

Dumped with relatives in a small Minnesota town for the summer, Sadie Lester is relying on her mountain bike to save her from total boredom. Then she meets Allie, a spiky-haired off-road mountain biker who's training for a major race. Allie leads Sadie and Joe, a cute fellow cyclist, up and down Mount Kato, and the three become close friends. But the exhilarating rush comes to a halt when they find a priest in the woods, badly beaten and near death. After calling for help, Allie disappears from their lives. As they search for Allie and try to find out why she left so suddenly, Sadie and Joe discover more about Allie's past, including her connection to the priest. Only on the day of the big race does Sadie finally learn the complete, startling truth about Allie—and the terrible secret that forced her into hiding. A Junior Library Guild Selection Praise: "Using an authentic adolescent voice with an observant sense of humor, Davis creates an engaging, increasingly gritty (also brutal) bike-centric mystery (and romance)...a suspenseful ride." —KIRKUS REVIEWS "Davis constructs a succinct, compelling story that combines romance, suspense, and the theme of overcoming challenges. The strong sense of place, character development, and love triangle dynamics should engage cycling enthusiasts as well as a broader audience." —PUBLISHERS WEEKLY "A wonderful, tough, and totally believable story . . . Hang on tight. This is quite a ride."—Chris Crutcher, author of Angry Management "Dangerous"—TERRY DAVIS, AUTHOR OF VISION QUEST "I love Chasing AllieCat. It's proof again of what a tremendous writer Becky Davis is, smart, touching and generous in spirit. She creates in Sadie, Allie, Joe, Siren and these other characters a magnficent group of survivors, that everyone will love getting to know!" —TERRY TRUEMAN, AUTHOR OF THE PRINTZ HONOR NOVEL STUCK IN NEUTRAL

The Sun is so powerful, so much bigger than us, that it is a terrifying subject. Yet though we depend on it, we take it for granted. Amazingly the first book of its kind, CHASING THE SUNis a cultural and scientific history of our relationship with the star that gives us life. Richard Cohen, applying the same mix of wide-ranging reference and intimate detail that won outstanding reviews for By the Sword, travels from the ancient Greek astronomers to modern-day solar scientists, from Stonehenge to Antarctica (site of the solar eclipse of 2003, when penguins were said to sing), Mexico's Aztecs to the Norwegian city of Tromso, where for two months of the year there is no Sun at all. He introduces us to the crucial 'sunspot cycle' in modern economics, the religious dances of Indian tribesmen, the histories of sundials and calendars, the plight of migrating birds, the latest theories of global warming, and Galileo recording his discoveries in code, for fear of persecution. And throughout, there is the rich Sun literature -- from the writings of Homer through Dante and Nietzsche to Keats, Shelley and beyond. Blindingly impressive and hugely readable, this is a tour de force of narrative non-fiction.

When a diligent young female laywer, a resort and casino builder, and a Cambodian refugee's lives collide, anything can happen.

“You have a very lovely little girl,” breathed the voice on the phone. And just like that, Susan Young is drawn into a living nightmare. A stranger has kidnapped Sue’s daughter, Veda. But he doesn’t want her money, only her suffering–and he will kill Veda if Sue doesn’t follow his every command. With detailed instructions, the faceless abductor leads Sue into a blinding snowstorm on the longest night of the year, to a place she has not traveled to since childhood. The voice on the other end of the line somehow knows Sue’s deepest, most chilling secret–an ominous incident from her past, buried long ago... Across the loneliest back roads of Massachusetts, in the black expanse of a New England winter, Sue is forced to confront her most awful fears as she is met at each step by ever increasing horrors created by a monster who is surely something less than human. In the hope of saving her daughter from a kidnapper whose origin seems darker than anything she could ever have imagined, Sue will discover just how much trauma and fright the human body is capable of absorbing. Set over the course of a single night, Chasing the Dead is a fast-paced, ferociously tense supernatural thriller. With the skill of masters like Dean Koontz and David Morrell, Joe Schreiber has created a tableau of shock and horror, death and destruction, that will draw you in and never let you go.