HEROES AND UNICORNS AS YOU’VE NEVER SEEN THEM BEFORE. The epic adventure continues . . .

Don’t miss this sequel to Waterstones Children’s Book of the Year 2022 Skandar and the Unicorn Thief. Skandar and the Phantom Rider is the second book in the international bestselling SKANDAR series, an unmissable adventure for listeners age 9 to 99 and fans of Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, Eragon and Fireborn.

The Island shall have its revenge . . .

Skandar Smith has achieved his dream to train as a unicorn rider.

But as Skandar and his friends enter their second year at the Eyrie, a new threat arises. Immortal wild unicorns are somehow being killed, a prophecy warns of terrible danger, and elemental destruction begins to ravage the Island.

Meanwhile, Skandar’s sister, Kenna, longs to join him – and Skandar is determined to help her, no matter what. As the storm gathers, can Skandar discover how to stop the Island tearing itself apart – before it’s too late for them all?

Nina, still grieving from the loss of her father, discovers that she has inherited property in the British Virgin Islands—a vacation home she had no idea existed, until now. The house is extraordinary: state-of-the-art, all glass and marble. How did her sensible father come into enough money for this? Why did he keep it from her? And what else was he hiding?

Maria, once an ambitious medical student, is a nanny for the super-rich. The money’s better, and so are the destinations where her work takes her. Just one more gig, and she’ll be set. Finally, she’ll be secure. But when her wards never show, Maria begins to make herself at home, spending her days luxuriating by the pool and in the sauna. There’s just one rule: Don’t go in the basement. That room is off-limits. But her curiosity might just get the better of her. And soon, she’ll wish her only worry was not getting paid.

BLOODTHIRSTY UNICORNS. UNLIKELY HEROES. A DEADLY CURSE.

The epic adventure continues.

As Skandar and his friends begin their fourth year at the Eyrie, the Island’s unicorns are struck by a terrible curse that threatens to change everything. Between a Commodore determined to eliminate the spirit element for good, and a sister hellbent on revenge, nowhere is safe for Skandar.

As more and more unicorns are affected by the curse, the clock is ticking for Skandar and his quartet, who find themselves literally racing for their lives. Can they stop the curse in its tracks before the Island is lost for ever?

Get ready for unlikely heroes, elemental magic, sky battles, ancient secrets and ferocious unicorns in this highly anticipated adventure that will keep you reading after lights out!

HEROES AND UNICORNS AS YOU’VE NEVER SEEN THEM BEFORE. The epic adventure continues . . .

Don’t miss the unputdownable new book in the international bestselling SKANDAR series, for readers ages 9 to 99 and fans of Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, Eragon and Impossible Creatures.

The Island always wins…

Skandar and his sister Kenna are finally both at the Eyrie, but tensions are high.

To survive their third year of training, Skandar and his friends must complete a series of terrifying trials across the Island’s elemental zones. Friendships, allegiances and rider-unicorn bonds will be pushed to the limit – only the strongest will make it.

Meanwhile Kenna’s forged bond to a wild unicorn has left her alienated and alone. And when a terrible discovery puts the future of the Island in peril, all fingers point in one direction . . . As dark forces assemble, Skandar must decide how far is he willing to go – for Kenna, and for the Eyrie.
 
Get ready for unlikely heroes, elemental magic, sky battles, ancient secrets and ferocious unicorns in this highly anticipated adventure that will keep you reading after lights out!

The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Anatolia is a unique blend of comprehensive overviews on archaeological, philological, linguistic, and historical issues at the forefront of Anatolian scholarship in the 21st century. Anatolia is home to early complex societies and great empires, and was the destination of many migrants, visitors, and invaders. The offerings in this volume bring this reality to life as the chapters unfold nearly ten thousand years (ca. 10,000-323 B.C.E.) of peoples, languages, and diverse cultures who lived in or traversed Anatolia over these millennia. The contributors combine descriptions of current scholarship on important discussion and debates in Anatolian studies with new and cutting edge research for future directions of study. The fifty-four chapters are presented in five separate sections that range in topic from chronological and geographical overviews to anthropologically based issues of culture contact and imperial structures, and from historical settings of entire millennia to crucial data from key sites across the region. The contributors to the volume represent the best scholars in the field from North America, Europe, Turkey, and Asia. The appearance of this volume offers the very latest collection of studies on the fascinating peninsula known as Anatolia.

HEROES AND UNICORNS AS YOU’VE NEVER SEEN THEM BEFORE. The first book in the award-winning, international hit fantasy adventure series for children age 9+, and fans of Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, Eragon and Fireborn. Give the gift of adventure this Christmas!

Thirteen-year-old Skandar Smith has only ever wanted to be a unicorn rider. To be one of the lucky few selected to hatch a unicorn. To bond with it for life; to train together and race for glory; to be a hero.

But just as Skandar’s dream is about to come true, things start to take a more dangerous turn than he could ever have imagined. A dark and twisted enemy has stolen the Island’s most powerful unicorn – and as the threat grows ever closer, Skandar discovers a secret that could blow apart his world forever . . .

Get ready for unlikely HEROES, elemental MAGIC, sky battles, ancient secrets, nail-biting races and FEROCIOUS UNICORNS, in this EPIC ADVENTURE series that will have your heart soaring.

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

Steadman fills an empty niche in the offerings on how archaeology interprets past religions with this useful textbook. The book includes case studies from around the world, from the study of Upper Paleolithic religions and of shamans in foraging societies to formal religious structures in advanced complex societies of Mesopotamia, Egypt, India and the Andes. Steadman also includes key contemporary religions--Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism, among others--to provide an historical and comparative context. This is an ideal text for a archaeology of religion courses and classes that include a significant component on "past religions," as well as an excellent guide for general readers.

The Washington financier who first proposed creation of a trust fund to retire the national debt has written a book outlining a new plan that would prevent Congress from raiding the fund to supplement the cost of regular government programs. In 1982 he suggested a temporary 5% tax on manufacturers sales. The income would go into a debt trust fund similar to the highway trust fund. The $1 trillion federal debt would have been retired in five years (by 1985 or 1986) under that proposal. In the past decade, however, federal trust fund have not fared as well. For example, contributions to the social security fund essentially are borrowed for the regular budget. The trust fund contains federal I.O.U.s. A special tax that raised secure funds exclusively for debt retirement might well get public support. Without federal interest payments, the 1992 federal deficit would have been cut to $114 billion from $314 billion.

Washington banker and attorney Charles W. Steadman, who made the 1982 proposal, now has eliminated the trust fund from his method of paying off the debt. In "The National Debt Conclusion: Establishing the Debt Repayment Plan," (Praeger Publishers, November 1993), Steadman lays out his proposal to eliminate the debt in ten years. Steadman would issue new debt bonds for existing federal government debt securities in a single exchange. A sales tax at the producers' level would be dedicated solely to paying off the new debt bonds on schedule. There would be no trust fund. The rate of the sales tax would be scheduled to raise only enough money each year to call the bonds scheduled for retirement in that year. The debt bonds could be retired only by income from the special purpose tax. Steadman's plan establishes a contract between the government and the bondholders, who would have no claim on general funds of the United States. The Congress would have no way to borrow from the debt retirement receipts. Steadman argues that America must adopt a fundamentally different fiscal structure before the debt burden ultimately causes collapse of the nation's financial structure.

Stylish reissue of a classic novel first published in the 1970s: Hunter S Thompson's ether-fuelled, savage journey to the heart of the American Dream. 'We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold...And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas...' As knights of old buckled on armour of supernatural power, so Hunter S. Thompson enters Las Vegas armed with a veritable arsenal of 'heinous chemicals'. His perilous, drug-enhanced confrontations with casino operators, bartenders, police officers and assorted representatives of the Silent Majority have a hallucinatory humour and nightmare terror never before seen on the printed page.