Deadly Vines

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Trapped in the Mexican jungle, a group of friends stumble upon a creeping horror unlike anything they could ever imagine in "the best horror novel of the new century" (Stephen King). Also a major motion picture! Two young couples are on a lazy Mexican vacation—sun-drenched days, drunken nights, making friends with fellow tourists. When the brother of one of those friends disappears, they decide to venture into the jungle to look for him. What started out as a fun day-trip slowly spirals into a nightmare when they find an ancient ruins site ... and the terrifying presence that lurks there. "The Ruins does for Mexican vacations what Jaws did for New England beaches.” —Entertainment Weekly “Smith’s nail-biting tension is a pleasure all its own.... This stuff isn’t for the faint of heart.” —New York Post “A story so scary you may never want to go on vacation, or dig around in your garden, again.” —USA Today

What causes a society/civilization to stand or fall? Forces that are external or internal? For the Hanfivans, it's not that black and white, especially when much of the truth is unknown - at present. But the goddess Kuykki is coming. There is no magic to stop them. But there is truth and faith. Maybe not enough. A new world is being reframed.

Charlotte Harkness has (quite cheerfully) accepted that she’ll never find love. An undertaker’s daughter who reads embalming manuals and hears the dearly departed? It’s enough to make any Victorian patriarch despair. When Lavinia Everly’s corpse arrives at Harkness and Sons, Charlotte is tormented by the girl’s final memories, her death at the hands of the mysterious “Jack.” Charlotte knows she must find the killer before madness consumes her. Dr. James Everly shuns society’s rules to find out who killed his little sister. When he joins forces with the undertaker’s daughter, he never expected his new ally to be so quick-witted and beautiful. James and Charlotte agree to pose as a courting couple to continue their investigations. Falling in love wasn’t part of the plan. As danger mounts, Charlotte and James race to stop “Jack” before he can strike again. Will they succeed, or become the next victims on his list?

An eye-popping fact book with a LEGO twist – discover amazing information about the world around us with the help of LEGO minifigures and bricks! Did you know a Goliath spider weighs the same as 75 2x4 LEGO bricks? Or that LEGO bricks and minifigures in various forms have travelled to Saturn, Mars, and the International Space Station? And did you know the Taj Mahal gets a mud pack treatment to remove pollution stains? Or that hummingbirds are the only birds that fly backwards? From unbelievable space and nature facts, to mind-boggling inventions and technology trivia, children will be amazed and entertained with incredible information about the LEGO world and our own. ©2022 The LEGO Group.

Before twelve moons turn, else the realm will burn. Elsie’s childhood sweetheart turned out to be the scourge of Alvheim. When she has the opportunity to enter the annual Thunder Tournament, she impresses the king with her archery skills, drawing his attention—and she’s not sorry. But he will be. If anyone knew the secret Asher guards, they’d understand why he rules with a fist as strong as elven iron. He does his duty, hunting and haunting the murkast, until someone from the past threatens to expose the truth. And he’s not sure he should stop them. With the future of the fae under threat, Elsie has been waiting for her sisters to penetrate the Eastlands stronghold so they can fulfill the age-old prophecy. They must embark on a journey to the library of memory, stop a war, and save the realm or grim powers will destroy them all. While Elsie and Asher each have secrets and want answers, what they really need is the truth...and that includes how they feel about each other. This is book 4 of 4, the spellbinding conclusion of the Court of Crown and Compass series. It’s romantic fantasy perfect for fans of The Cruel Prince, from the Folk of the Air series, by Holly Black as well as K.F. Breene’s Demon Days, Vampire Nights world and is chock full of mystery, danger, and sizzling kisses.

Characters: Do your characters have no obvious signs of life, nothing that gives them unique personality, perspective, and passion? Plots: Are plots and conflicts created spur of the moment with no set up, build up, curiosity, or tension? Relationships: Are your characters merely going through the motions with each other? All of these and more are signs of dead or lifeless stories. The three core elements of story--Characters, Plots, and Relationships (CPR)--need to be developed three dimensionally. To truly be living, characters aren't simply existing and going through the motions. They possess fully developed external and internal conflicts. They're interacting in dynamic, realistic, and believable relationships. They have multidimensional character attributes that give them both vitality and voice. Finally, they're engaged in what makes life worthwhile with definable goals and motivations. This resource teaches writers how to identify dead or lifeless characters, plots, and relationships; establish proper setup; plant the seeds early with in-depth sketches; and pinpoint weak areas in CPR development. The only one-stop, everything-you-need-to-know 9-1-1 for deep, multifaceted Character, Plot, and Relationship development!

The world as Hadge knows it seems to unravel around him, as the mystery of a strange book is thrust upon him along with what it really means to him, and the survival of Elysium. HADAGERY! The book of Elysium has been opened, and darkness will unfold, bleeding upon the land like a plague. WORLD CAST IN DARKNESS. Elysium is the remnants of a dying world, dimmed by evil, and the ignorance of mankind. SURVIVORS ARE BEING ISOLATED AND DEVOURED. Those that have survived the turmoil have devolved into scavengers, even as their bodies have adjusted to the cold dark climate, and dangers around every corner. WHERE HOPE FALLS. Is in the hands of an ordinary hairy little man named the Hadge. He is the only one who can seal the evil book of Elysium, and save the world. Throughout his journey he learns that he is a divine being, born upon every world with life, as a safeguard to guide each world from evil. He is the only hope. HADGE’S DARK JOURNEY. Startling events are set into motion during a trip to Ennead Mountains, as his friend Uwee quickly vanishes, and giant glowing spiders appear. Hadge and Uwee barely escape the mountain alive, however he comes to the conclusion that a book had beset Elysium into this age of darkness. A mysterious whispering book he discovers he cannot read, and is determined to find someone to reveal its secrets. Hadge journeys through the mountain where the deadly scyphus live, beyond the giant mountain troll that saves his life, and into the lost woods where his life is turned upside down. He at last identifies the voices from the book, as they read from the pages, telling Hadge he's a divine being, and that sealing the book would be Elysium's only hope for a future. Disturbingly to seal the book he has to journey straight into hordes of demons, and into the bowels of Hell, where he will be related a terrible fact, "Oh shit kid. You're not even real."

“James Baldwin meets Aldous Huxley” in this “highly original” speculative fable (Chicago Tribune). Nominated for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award in Fiction In a post-human world, creatures called oafs keep humanlike “mans” as beloved pets. One day, a poor boy oaf brings home a man, whom he hides under his bed in the hopes his parents won’t find out . . . “Much like Pierre Boulle’s 1963 novel Planet of the Apes, this novel is a sardonic parable on the nature and destiny of the species. A nimble fable whose bold narrative experiment is elevated by its near-biblical language and affectionate embrace of our inherent flaws.” —Kirkus Reviews “An imaginative and honest epic, weaving together biblical stories, fantasy, poetry, and fairy tales with a touch of realism. . . . Allen asks us to question the assumptions, -isms, and contradictions of the modern world. . . . Recalling the humanitarian concerns of Octavia Butler’s Fledgling and the poetry of Ovid’s Metamorphosis [sic], this book will appeal to readers of literary fiction and fantasy.” —Library Journal “Imaginative, versatile, and daring, Allen raids the realms of myth and fairy tales in this topsy-turvy speculative fable. . . . With canny improvisations on ‘Jack and the Beanstalk,’ the ‘Epic of Gilgamesh,’ and Alice in Wonderland, Allen sharpens our perceptions of class divides, racism, enslavement, and abrupt and devastating climate change to create a delectably adventurous, wily, funny, and wise cautionary parable.” —Booklist “It is one thing to devise a fable dealing so adroitly with such concepts as racism, war, religion, and the very nature of civilization itself, but Preston’s true triumph is the infusion of each page and every astonishing episode with palpable emotional resonance.” —Les Standiford, New York Times–bestselling author of Last Train to Paradise A Chicago Tribune Noteworthy Fiction Pick