The Gauntlet

A trio of friends from New York City find themselves trapped inside a mechanical board game that they must dismantle in order to save themselves and generations of other children in this action-packed debut that’s a steampunk Jumanji with a Middle Eastern flair. Nothing can prepare you for The Gauntlet… It didn’t look dangerous, exactly. When twelve-year-old Farah first laid eyes on the old-fashioned board game, she thought it looked…elegant. It is made of wood, etched with exquisite images—a palace with domes and turrets, lattice-work windows that cast eerie shadows, a large spider—and at the very center of its cover, in broad letters, is written: The Gauntlet of Blood and Sand. The Gauntlet is more than a game, though. It is the most ancient, the most dangerous kind of magic. It holds worlds inside worlds. And it takes players as prisoners.

Tony Stark is known throughout the world as many things:billionaire, inventor, Avenger. But mainly for being the Invincible Iron Man. Just when Tony is about to add his pizzazz to an international eco-summit in Ireland, someone close to him forces him to question his role in making the world a more dangerous place with his high-techweaponry. But Stark doesn't have much time to reflect before an old enemy presents him with an even greater challenge: the assassination of all the eco-ministers, and Iron Man himself. Just how invincible Iron Man is when he is stripped of everything remains to be seen in this breathless adventure by the best-selling author of Artemis Fowl.

Jim Ward tells the detailed story of discovering his own fascination with body piercing, his founding of Gauntlet (the first body piercing studio), and the beginning of the modern body piercing industry.

Roger Vadim directs this remake of his own 1956 film starring Rebecca de Mornay as a wilful woman determined to have a good time. After her exuberant and carefree nature lands her in jail, Robin Shea (de Mornay) is advised by the prison governor (Frank Langella) that marriage to a respectable man will win her freedom. She duly weds carpenter Billy Moran (Vincent Spano), a responsible family man who seems certain to have problems keeping his new bride in check. Robin sets about pursuing her dream of rock stardom with the accompanying reckless behaviour, but will Billy help her develop a new perspective on life?

The game begins again in this gripping follow-up to “exciting, clever” (Booklist) The Gauntlet that’s a futuristic Middle Eastern Zathura meets Ready Player One! Four years after the events of The Gauntlet, the evil game Architect is back with a new partner-in-crime—The MasterMind—and the pair aim to get revenge on the Mirza clan. Together, they’ve rebuilt Paheli into a slick, mind-bending world with floating skyscrapers, flying rickshaws run by robots, and a digital funicular rail that doesn’t always take you exactly where you want to go. Twelve-year-old Ahmad Mirza struggles to make friends at his new middle school, but when he’s paired with his classmate Winnie for a project, he is determined to impress her and make his very first friend. At home while they’re hard at work, a gift from big sister Farah—who is away at her first year in college—arrives. It’s a high-tech game called The Battle of Blood and Iron, a cross between a video game and board game, complete with virtual reality goggles. He thinks his sister has solved his friend problem—all kids love games. He convinces Winnie to play, but as soon as they unbox the game, time freezes all over New York City. With time standing still and people frozen, all of humankind is at stake as Ahmad and Winnie face off with the MasterMind and the Architect, hoping to beat them at their own game before the evil plotters expand Paheli and take over the entire world.

Morgan the Wizard, Layla the Valkyrie, Korb the elven archer, Orlando the Warrior, and Phineas, Knight of the Order of Skye-adventurers all-must seek out and destroy the evil that is haunting the land of Viridus. In order to accomplish that, they need to gather up the four shards of the Gryphon Window, a mystical portal to the ethereal realm between the physical and the spirit worlds-that is where the great dark lord behind all their problems is hiding. But finding the shards won't be an easy task-not when the dark lord's minions are waiting in every shadow, behind every tree and stone, waiting to kill at their master's bidding!