Summerbird Rises

Summerbird Asii is an inept young seer, who has spent her life hiding her fractured magic from everyone around her. In a land where laws strictly prohibit magic, she hands out dull, common-sense and useless futures—and she remains safe enough from jail or even execution. Just when she agrees to marry and settle even further into her mundane life, she receives a visitor who definitely doesn’t belong in her cottage. A tiny griffin with impertinent questions. Is this--a tiny cottage and deceiving old women--all that she really wants out of life? He needs a wee favor and offers a trade. Summerbird has to wheedle answers from the evasive creature and what she hears doesn't make her feel anything but incredulous. He needs her help rescuing several highborn Fey whose magic has been compromised by an evil mage. Oh, and who might not want anyone interfering with his plans. But the griffin assures her that she will have plenty of assistants, once she rescues them! She hesitates, until the griffin makes an irresistible offer--would she like to learn her magic? Follow Summerbird as she finally finds herself in Emythor, the magical lands of her birth, as she struggles to learn who—and what—she really is. She has been lured her into a world created by an omnipotent entity who is in danger and has disappeared. Where beautiful inhabitants prove that beauty can be wicked or noble and it can be impossible to know which is which. Emythor is a land that survives by taking magic from its people. Are they willing to give the land the ultimate in magic—their very lives?

Summerbird Asii has always been an inept seer. Why try to deny it? She's spent her young life hiding her fractured magic, in a land where magic will get you a death sentence faster than any crime. The last thing she needs is a visit from a gruff griffin with a task. An evil sorcerer has impaired the magic of several highborn Fey. He needs her help to rescue them. No, she has no choice. Oh, before he goes--there's also a mystical and mythological entity, hiding from his ancient and malevolent counterpart--he needs help too. Before she can refuse or even catch her breath, the griffin is fading away. But his last words will linger in her head, making it impossible to sleep--Would you like to learn your magic? Summerbird Rises begins the tale of Summerbird, a young seer who fears that her ultimate talent is her appalling inability to be a seer. But making things up is a decent living, as the last thing she wants is to end up in prison--or executed. And she doesn't want to cross paths with the over armed men that enforced the 'no-magic' law. When a gruff, wheedling griffin shows up in her cottage, she cannot get rid of him without agreeing to perform a "small" task for him. Things will never be the same for Summerbird. Follow her as she learns who--and what--she really is and what threatens the magical land where she was born. Why was she taken away and left in this mundane hell? And why did her grandfather leave her in a non-magical world with a well-used green-crystal ball, and the words, "This is your legacy. Forget whatever you see in it."

Something dark and terrible is striking unseen in the night, bringing death and ruin to the peaceable lands of Nesht, and then vanishing back into the cold mists of the surrounding mountains. Two powerful Ring-Witches, Mayra and Wolfe, join uneasy forces to investigate the ongoing—and very puzzling—destruction. How can something be formidable enough to incinerate entire villages and tracts of forests, slaughtering people and animals, yet leave behind massive amounts of valuable gold and jewels? What do these savage invaders want? As they investigate, they hear and feel a large, powerful presence—but it refuses to show itself. When they probe, it brings scorching, mind-rending pain to Mayra—and then inconsolably apologizes for its actions! When Mayra finds a huge, bloodstained talon, she finally knows what that destructive force trying to contact them is—a dragon. A creature so long unseen they are now a myth. Once upon a time, dragons treasured witches as allies. What has changed? Why are they attacking humans? Mayra and Wolfe must learn the truth and stop a war the humans cannot possibly win. But joining the dragons would be just the beginning, for Mayra and Wolfe and their small but fierce assembly of witches quickly learn that there are some things worth more than a life. Some causes that even mighty dragons will die for.

“A lyrical novel about grief, love, and finding oneself in the wake of a tragic loss.” —Bustle “Gorgeous prose and heartbreaking storytelling.” —Paste Magazine “Grabs your heart and won’t let go.” —Book Riot A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year Three starred reviews for this stunning novel about a mixed-race teen who struggles to find her way back to her love of music in the wake of her sister’s death, from the author of the William C. Morris Award finalist Starfish. Rumi Seto spends a lot of time worrying she doesn’t have the answers to everything. What to eat, where to go, whom to love. But there is one thing she is absolutely sure of—she wants to spend the rest of her life writing music with her younger sister, Lea. Then Lea dies in a car accident, and her mother sends her away to live with her aunt in Hawaii while she deals with her own grief. Now thousands of miles from home, Rumi struggles to navigate the loss of her sister, being abandoned by her mother, and the absence of music in her life. With the help of the “boys next door”—a teenage surfer named Kai, who smiles too much and doesn’t take anything seriously, and an eighty-year-old named George Watanabe, who succumbed to his own grief years ago—Rumi attempts to find her way back to her music, to write the song she and Lea never had the chance to finish. Aching, powerful, and unflinchingly honest, Summer Bird Blue explores big truths about insurmountable grief, unconditional love, and how to forgive even when it feels impossible.

A memory-stealing cult. The ever-watchful City of Eyes. Making small talk. Join Droplet as she faces all these horrors and more… Vigilante shapeshifter Droplet has trained her entire life to take down those with more power than scruples, but she still makes mistakes. When a rescue mission goes wrong, a memory-stealing cult of blood mages escapes with kidnapped captives in tow. To save them, Droplet reluctantly teams up with the outgoing, tenacious Azera. Droplet knows better than to trust a human—she made that mistake once, and that person’s betrayal scattered her community across the known world—and she can tell Azera is hiding secrets behind her sunny smile. But if they can’t learn to work together, even Droplet’s own memories could be lost.

NEW YORK TIMES 100 NOTABLE BOOKS OF 2017: ‘masterly’ GUARDIAN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: 'An absolute tour de force' Fran may be old but she's not going without a fight. So she dyes her hair, enjoys every glass of red wine, drives around the country for her job with a housing charity and lives in an insalubrious tower block that her loved ones disapprove of. And as each of them - her pampered ex Claude, old friend Jo, flamboyant son Christopher and earnest daughter Poppet - seeks happiness in their own way, what will the last reckoning be? Will they be waving or drowning when the end comes? By turns joyous and profound, darkly sardonic and moving, The Dark Flood Rises questions what makes a good life, and a good death. This triumphant, bravura novel takes in love, death, sun-drenched islands, poetry, Maria Callas, tidal waves, surprise endings - and new beginnings.

This anthology consists of ten plays from countries involved in the First World War. It explores the historical development of theatrical conventions and genres and the historical context of social and gender issues.