Become enchanted by the fantasy world of gods and mortals in bestselling author Scarlett St. Clair's reimagined New Greece. Readers are "hopelessly addicted" to the story of Hades and Persephone told from Hades's point of view. Hades, God of the Dead, does not take sides or bend the rules. He makes no exceptions to these values-not for god or mortal, even his lover, Persephone, Goddess of Spring. Usually, fear prevents retaliation. But not this time. When Hera, Goddess of Women, approaches Hades with a plan to overthrow Zeus, he declines to offer help. As punishment, Hera sentences Hades to perform a series of labors. Each feat seems more impossible than the last and draws his attention away from Persephone-whose own tragedy has left her questioning whether she can be Queen of the Underworld. Can Hades maintain the balance he craves?

Three impossible crimes

Two unlikely detectives

One deadly voyage

It's 1634 and Samuel Pipps, the world's greatest detective, is being transported from the Dutch East Indies to Amsterdam, where he is set to face trial for a crime that no one dares speak of.

But no sooner is the ship out to sea than devilry begins to blight the voyage. Strange symbols appear on the sails. A figure stalks the decks. Livestock are slaughtered. Passengers are plagued with ominous threats, promising them three unholy miracles. First: an impossible pursuit. Second: an impossible theft.

Then: an impossible murder.

With Pipps imprisoned in the depths of the ship, can his loyal bodyguard, Arent Hayes solve the mystery before the ship descends into anarchy?

A beguiling historical mystery from the award-winning author of the dazzling The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle.

This richly illustrated collection includes five popular Russian folk tales: Vasilisa the Beautiful; Maria Morevna; The Feather of Finist the Falcon; The Frog-Tsarevna; Tsarevich Ivan, the Firebird and the Grey Wolf. The illustrations featured in this edition were created in the early 20th century by Ivan Yakovlevich Bilibin, a famous Russian illustrator and stage designer, who was inspired by Slavic folklore throughout his career. He was a prominent figure in the artistic movement Mir Iskusstva and contributed to the Ballets Russes. The tales were recorded by the renowned folklorist Alexander Nikolayevich Afanasyev (1826-1871), who collected and published more than 600 Russian folk tales in the middle 19th century.

Including brand-new paintings, this is a fully illustrated new edition of the forerunner to The Lord of the Rings, telling the earlier history of Middle-earth, recounting the events of the First and Second Ages, and introducing some of the key characters, such as Galadriel, Elrond, Elendil and the Dark Lord, Sauron. The Silmarillion is the core of J.R.R. Tolkien's imaginative writing, a collection of narratives ranging in time from the Elder Days of Middle-earth, through the Second Age and the rise of Sauron, to the end of the War of the Ring. They are set in an age when Morgoth, the first Dark Lord, dwelt in Middle-earth, and the Elves made war upon him in his impenetrable fortress in Angband for the recovery of the Silmarils, three jewels containing the last remaining pure light of Valinor, seized by Morgoth and set in his iron crown. Accompanying these tales are several shorter works. The Ainulindale is a myth of the Creation and in the Valaquenta the nature and powers of the gods is described. The Akallabeth recounts the downfall of the great island kingdom of Numenor at the end of the Second Age and Of the Rings of Power tells of the great events at the end of the Third Age, as told in The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien could not publish The Silmarillion in his lifetime, as it grew with him, so he would leave it to his son, Christopher, to edit the work from many manuscripts and bring his father's great vision to publishable form, so completing the literary achievement of a lifetime. This special edition presents anew this seminal first step towards mapping out the posthumous publishing of Middle-earth, and the beginning of an illustrious forty years and more than twenty books celebrating his father's legacy. Also included is a letter by J.R.R. Tolkien written in 1951 which provides a brilliant exposition of the earlier Ages, and almost 50 full-colour paintings by Ted Nasmith, including some which appear here for the first time.

"One day a group of young people will escape the Sorcerers of Teletsia and travel to a land in the far north to gain subtle inner power which will enable them to free their fellow country people from the evil that has held them in a stranglehold for so long."Based on the timeless tales of India, this colourful and evocative fantasy novel weaves a narrative that will entertain and delight the reader whilst simultaneously touching on the essentials of daily life; of the struggles each of us faces; and of the journey to inner enlightenment. A fantasy indeed, yet firmly encapsulated in reality.

At once epic and deeply personal, the second novel from prize-winning author Jennifer Makumbi is an intoxicating mix of Ugandan folklore and modern feminism that will linger in the memory long after the final page.

As Kirabo enters her teens, questions begin to gnaw at her – questions which the adults in her life will do anything to ignore. Where is the mother she has never known? And why would she choose to leave her daughter behind? Inquisitive, headstrong, and unwilling to take no for an answer, Kirabo sets out to find the truth for herself.

Her search will take her away from the safety of her prosperous Ugandan family, plunging her into a very different world of magic, tradition, and the haunting legend of 'The First Woman'.

Begin your journey into Middle-earth.

A new legend begins on Prime Video, in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, the new prequel series to J. R. R. Tolkien’s epic adventure THE LORD OF THE RINGS. Now is the time to get your hands on the original trilogy again, continuing with The Two Towers.

The Fellowship is scattered. Some prepare for war against the Dark Lord. Some fight against the treachery of the corrupt wizard Saruman. Only Frodo and Sam are left to take the accursed Ring to be destroyed in the fires of Mount Doom.

Mount Doom lies in the very heart of the Dark Lord's realm. Their only guide on the perilous journey is Gollum, a deceitful and obsessive creature who once possessed the Ring and longs to wield its power once again. As dark forces assemble, the fate of Middle-earth rests with two lonely hobbits - but is Gollum leading them to their deaths?

THE BOOKS THAT INSPIRED THE EPIC MOTION PICTURES
J.R.R. TOLKIEN
THE LORD OF THE RINGS
THE HOBBIT
THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING
THE TWO TOWERS
THE RETURN OF THE KING
(c) New Line Productions, Inc. All rights reserved. THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY and the names of the characters, items, events and places therein are trademarks of The Saul Zaentz Company d/b/a Middle-earth Enterprises under license to New Line Productions, Inc. (s12)
Motion Picture Artwork (c) 2012 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All Rights Reserved.

First ever standalone edition of one of J.R.R. Tolkien's most important poetic dramas, that explores timely themes such as the nature of heroism and chivalry during war, and which features unpublished and never-before-seen texts and drafts. In 991 AD, vikings attacked an Anglo-Saxon defence-force led by their duke, Beorhtnoth, resulting in brutal fighting along the banks of the river Blackwater, near Maldon in Essex. The attack is widely considered one of the defining conflicts of tenth-century England, due to it being immortalised in the poem, The Battle of Maldon. Written shortly after the battle, the poem now survives only as a 325-line fragment, but its value to today is incalculable, not just as an heroic tale but in vividly expressing the lost language of our ancestors and celebrating ideals of loyalty and friendship. J.R.R. Tolkien considered The Battle of Maldon 'the last surviving fragment of ancient English heroic minstrelsy'. It would inspire him to compose, during the 1930s, his own dramatic verse-dialogue, The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son, which imagines the aftermath of the great battle when two of Beorhtnoth's retainers come to retrieve their duke's body. Leading Tolkien scholar, Peter Grybauskas, presents for the very first time J.R.R. Tolkien's own prose translation of The Battle of Maldon together with the definitive treatment of The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth and its accompanying essays; also included and never before published is Tolkien's bravura lecture, 'The Tradition of Versification in Old English', a wide-ranging essay on the nature of poetic tradition. Illuminated with insightful notes and commentary, he has produced a definitive critical edition of these works, and argues compellingly that, Beowulf excepted, The Battle of Maldon may well have been 'the Old English poem that most influenced Tolkien's fiction', most dramatically within the pages of The Lord of the Rings.

"The Hudson River Valley, 1769: "A man mysteriously disappears without a trace, abandoning his wife and children on their farm at the foot of the Catskill Mountains. At first many believe that his wife, who has the reputation of being a scold, has driven her husband away, but as the strange circumstances of his disappearance circulate, a darker story unfolds. And as the lines between myth and reality fade in the wilderness, and an American nation struggles to emerge, the lost man's wife embarks on a desperate journey to find the means to ensure her family's survival . . .

He was supposed to be a myth. But from the moment I crossed the River Styx and fell under his dark spell...he was, quite simply, mine. *A scorchingly hot modern retelling of Hades and Persephone that's as sinful as it is sweet.* Society darling Persephone Dimitriou plans to flee the ultra-modern city of Olympus and start over far from the backstabbing politics of the Thirteen Houses. But all that's ripped away when her mother ambushes her with an engagement to Zeus, the dangerous power behind their glittering city's dark facade. With no options left, Persephone flees to the forbidden undercity and makes a devil's bargain with a man she once believed a myth...a man who awakens her to a world she never knew existed. Hades has spent his life in the shadows, and he has no intention of stepping into the light. But when he finds that Persephone can offer a little slice of the revenge he's spent years craving, it's all the excuse he needs to help her-for a price. Yet every breathless night spent tangled together has given Hades a taste for Persephone, and he'll go to war with Olympus itself to keep her close... "Deliciously inventive...Red-hot."-Publishers Weekly STARRED "I get shivers just thinking of their interactions. SHIVERS."-Mimi Koehler for The Nerd Daily The World of Dark Olympus: Neon Gods (Hades & Persephone) Electric Idol (Eros & Psyche) Wicked Beauty (Achilles & Patroclus & Helen) Radiant Sin (Apollo & Cassandra)

Large print hardback edition of the final volume of J.R.R. Tolkien's epic adventure, The Lord of the Rings. The climactic volume of the trilogy, wherein the little hobbit and his trusty companions make a terrible journey to the heart of the land of the Shadow in a final reckoning with the power of Sauron. Impossible to describe in a few words, J.R.R. Tolkien's great work of imaginative fiction has been labelled both a heroic romance and a classic fantasy fiction. By turns comic and homely, epic and diabolic, the narrative moves through countless changes of scene and character in an imaginary world which is totally convincing in its detail. Tolkien created a vast new mythology in an invented world which has proved timeless in its appeal.