At the end of the 11th century, the Byzantine capital of Constantinople was threatened by Turkic nomads from the east, and by the Franks from the west. Unable to rely on his Greek subjects to repel their incursions, the emperor was obliged to maintain a body-guard of Varangians, or mercenaries from other nations, of whom the citizens and native soldiers were very jealous. One of these, the Anglo-Saxon Hereward, had just been attacked by Sebastes, when a Varangian officer, Tatius, intervened and led him to the palace. Here he was introduced to the imperial family, surrounded by their attendants; and the Princess Anna was reading a roll of history she had written, when her husband Brennius entered to announce the approach of the armies composing the first Crusade. Convinced that he was powerless to prevent their advance, the emperor offered them hospitality on their way; and, the leaders having agreed to acknowledge his sovereignty, the various hosts marched in procession before his assembled army. As Emperor Comnenus, however, moved forward to receive the homage of Count Bohemond, his vacant throne was insolently occupied by Count Robert of Paris, who was with difficulty compelled to vacate it, and make his submission. The defiant knight, accompanied by his wife Brenhilda, afterwards met the sage Agelastes, who related the story of an enchanted princess, and decoyed them to his hermitage overlooking the Bosphorus. Here they were introduced to the empress and her daughter, who, attended by Brennius, came to visit the sage, and were invited to return with them to the palace to be presented to the emperor. At the State banquet which followed, the guests, including Sir Bohemond, were pledged by their royal host, and urged to accept the golden cups they had used. On waking next morning, Count Robert found himself in a dungeon with a tiger, and that Ursel was confined in an adjoining one. Presently an aggressive orangutan descended through a trap-door, soon followed by the armed Sebastes. Both were overpowered by the Count, when Hereward made his appearance, and undertook to release his Norman adversary. A treasonable conference was meanwhile taking place between Tatius and Agelastes, who had failed in endeavouring to tamper with the Anglo-Saxon; and the countess had been unwillingly transported by the slave Diogenes to a garden-house for a secret interview with Brennius, whom she challenged to knightly combat in the hearing of her husband. Having hidden the count, Hereward encountered his sweetheart Bertha, who had followed Brenhilda as her attendant, and then obtained an audience of the imperial family, who were discussing recent events, including a plot in which Brennius was concerned for seizing the throne, and received permission to communicate with the Duke de Bouillon. Bertha volunteered to be his messenger, and, at an interview with the council of Crusaders at Scutari, she induced them to promise that fifty knights, each with ten followers, should attend the combat to support their champion. Having made his confession to the Patriarch, while Agelastes was killed by the orangutan as he argued with Brenhilda respecting the existence of the devil, the emperor led his daughter to the cell in which Ursel was confined, with the intention of making him her husband, instead of Brennius. She had, however, been persuaded by her mother to intercede for the traitor, and Ursel was merely placed under the care of the slave doctor Douban to be restored to health after his long imprisonment. The emperor had decided that Brennius should fight the Count of Paris, instead of the countess, and all the preparations for the combat had been made, when the ships conveying the Crusaders hove in sight; and, after defeating the Greek fleet, they landed in sight of the lists. Brennius, in the meantime, was pardoned, and, in answer to shouts of discontent from the assembled crowd, Ursel was led forth to announce his restoration to liberty and the imperial favour, and the conspiracy was crushed. Hereward then appeared to do battle with Count Robert, and, saved from the knight''s axe by Bertha, he joined the Crusaders, obtaining on his return the hand of his betrothed, and, ultimately, a grant of land from William Rufus, adjacent to the New Forest in Hampshire, where he had screened her when a girl from the tusk of a wild boar.

Count Robert of Paris

Joe Stosh is severely insulted during one of his at-bats in a baseball game by the opposing pitcher, Bobby Fuller, and loses his temper. He charges the mound, determined to teach Fuller a lesson. Mass chaos follows, and Joe ends up getting suspended indefinitely from Little League. He then goes to school the next day to receive an assignment to write a report on an important African American figure in United States history. Being a baseball fan, he chooses Jackie Robinson. He uses his special ability to travel through time with baseball cards to go back and witness Jackie Robinson’s first [[Major League Baseball. Joe realizes he is black. After meeting the Robinsons, they take Joe to see the Opening Day game. He becomes a batboy along with Ant, a prejudiced and mental teenager. Joe also buys valuable baseball cards for his father. Soon, Ant thinks Joe is a Communist and steals his Ken Griffey Jr. card, but Joe takes it back and travels back to the present. Joe goes back in time again, this time he is white. Joe travels to Yankee Stadium for the 1947 World Series with Jackie. There, Ant discovers Joe''s Game Boy, but before he can call the cops, Joe leaves. Ant decides to break into Jackie''s house. He steals Joe''s million-dollar baseball cards. Joe wants to stay for Game 7, but with the cops after him, he knows it is not possible. Joe leaves 1947, this time for good. Back in the present, Joe gives his report and states that Jackie Robinson had to endure all the prejudice going on. It ends up being outstanding, and the teacher proclaims it the best in the class. His suspension from the Little League is lifted for the last game of the season. He again meets Bobby Fuller in the bottom of the last inning with the score tied, but this time ignores his heckling and gets a single. After that, he manages to successfully steal second base, third base, and home plate, getting the ultimate revenge. Historic baseball figures appearing in the book include Pee Wee Reese, Dan Bankhead, Hugh Casey, Dixie Walker, Bobby Bragan, Eddie Stanky, and Babe Ruth.

Jackie & Me

A young lion is living in the jungle. On a night, when all the lions are sleeping, they awaken to hear a gunshot. All the lions run away except for one named Grmmff, who is the protagonist of the story. He is confused about why the other lions are running away, until an old lion tells him that hunters are coming. He does not know what a hunter is, but thinks that he likes the sound of the word "hunters," so he stops running and hides in the tall grass. The hunters pass by wearing red caps and carrying funny sticks that make loud noises (obviously guns). The lion likes their looks, so when a hunter passes, he stands up, says hello, and tries to make friends with the hunter. This offends the hunter''s sense of the proper relationship between lion and hunter, and the hunter says he will shoot Grmmff. When the hunter finds, however, that he has not loaded his rifle, Lafcadio decides he does not like the hunter after all, and eats him up, red cap and all. He tries to eat up the gun and the bullets, but he cannot chew them. He brings them to the other lions. The old lion says to throw them away, but the young lion shoots the gun with his tail. The lions initially run away. They are angry with the young lion when they discover that he is the one shooting. However, the young lion likes shooting the gun so much that he practices to become the best shot in the whole world. A year later, another man comes walking through the jungle, the young lion wants to shoot him. However he is revealed that the man is a circus man. Finchfinger, the circus man, persuades the reluctant lion to come with him to the circus with the promise of marshmallows. They arrive in the city, which is not at all like the jungle. There are "tall square things" (buildings) and "things that look like hippopotamuses that move very fast with people inside them" (cars). The lion goes into the hotel and goes up and down the elevator many times. He then meets Uncle Shelby, (obviously Shel Silverstein, as he tells the story) goes to the barbershop, gets his paws shined, his claws manicured and a free haircut. He has dinner, and eats lots of marshmallow dishes, then finally eats his napkin for dessert. He wears a marshmallow suit, but it gets ironed and it melts all over him. He goes back to the hotel and stays up very late singing the "marshmallow song:" <poem> Marshmallows Marshmallows Marching Marshing Mellow Malling Mallows Marshing Fellows Marshy-Murshy- </poem> The young lion&#39;s name is changed to Lafcadio the Great. The next morning, there is a big parade for him. Lafcadio goes into the tent, shoots six bottles off the table, a hundred balloons off the ceiling, a marshmallow off everybody&#39;s head including some monkeys, shoots 12,322 of the Ace of Spades (but misses once), shoots in many different ways, and then joins the circus. He shoots for many different governments, becomes rich and very famous and signs six autographs at once. He then becomes more like a man, standing on his back paws, wearing clothes, playing golf and tennis, going swimming and diving, painting pictures (despite being unable to draw a straight line), doing exercises, going skating, and attempting to learn to ride a bicycle. He goes to the beach at Cannes, sings, plays the guitar, bowls and seldom says &#34;GRAUGRRR&#34; except on very special occasions. He writes his autobiography, becomes a clothes lion, and becomes very happy, rich and famous. But suddenly, Lafcadio is crying because he is tired of what he has, and wants something new. Uncle Shelby asks if he has gone up and down the elevator a few times or eaten marshmallows, but that is old stuff. Then Finchfinger gets the idea to take Lafcadio on a hunting trip in Africa. Uncle Shelby cannot come because he has to water his philodendron plant. So Lafcadio, along with Finchfinger and some other hunters, goes back to Africa and begins hunting lions. A very old lion realizes that Lafcadio is a lion too and comes up to him. Lafcadio remembers that he was a lion, and that he still is a lion. All the lions want him to come back and be a lion with them, but the hunters also want Lafcadio to stay a hunter. Lafcadio cannot make up his mind and says that he does not want to do either and that he does not think that he belongs anywhere. He puts down his gun and walks away, not knowing where he&#39;s going and not knowing what&#39;s happening to him. Lafcadio has not been heard from since.

Lafcadio: The Lion Who Shot Back

Acacia: The Sacred Band follows the Akaran siblings as they each deal with a different theater in the coming war with the Auldek, invaders from the Other Lands that are marching across the north pole and down into Acacia. Queen Corinn has worked an act of magic, resurrecting a character from an earlier book to aid her. The person she has brought back, however, doesn''t wish to be molded to her needs. Mena Akaran has gone north with the small army sent out to have first contact with the invaders. The novel chronicles the brutal, Arctic campaign fought on the ice and in the skies above it. Dariel Akaran, still in the Other Lands (Ushen Brae) finds himself dealing with the turmoil of the Auldek''s having abandoned their slaves, the Quota children that have been a feature of all three books. There are also a host of minor characters. Rialus Neptos is dragged along with the Auldek as they invade his homeland. Kelis returns to Acacia, having retrieved Aliver Akaran''s daughter, Shen. Barad the Lesser continues to struggle with the spell Corinn has trapped him with. Also, there is another invasion to deal with. The Santoth sorcerers have found a way to break their long exile, to dire consequences. All of the major plot threads are resolved in this volume. This series is notable for the complexity of Durham''s imagined world, one in which political, economic, mythological and morally ambiguous forces all influence the fates of the ethnically and culturally diverse population.

Acacia: The Sacred Band

By 1965, the United States and Canada have been at war with the Soviet Union and the Chinese People''s Republic for three years. Both sides'' atomic weapons are ineffective as anti-aircraft missiles shoot down any bombers or guided missiles, so ground forces have done most of the fighting. The Communist nations&mdash;whose armies greatly outnumber the North Americans&mdash;conquered Western Europe, invaded South America, and are moving to Texas. All American males are required to either perform agricultural work to feed the armed forces or be drafted into military service. Food, electricity, and gasoline are rationed, and New York City is reportedly under martial law. Billy Justin, a 37 years-old commercial artist and Korean War veteran, is working as a dairy farmer in Chiunga Center, New York when the radio announces that Soviet and Chinese forces have overrun the Canadian-American line at El Paso, Texas. The last American naval forces were destroyed three months earlier but the news had been kept secret. The Communist armies destroy in Los Alamos, New Mexico the incomplete Yankee Doodle, a satellite capable of dropping hydrogen bombs from orbit that are impossible to shoot down. The President surrenders to the Communists, who over the next several months divide the United States at the Mississippi River, and together form the North American People''s Democratic Republic. Other than a military garrison, a formal disarmament, searches for fissionable material, and the establishment of production quotas for food, the surrender of the United States leaves Chiunga Center largely untouched. The Soviets kill the Communist fifth column members who had secretly aided the invasion to prevent them from organizing against the new government, but are otherwise relatively peaceful and amenable to the black market. A paraplegic comes to Justin''s farm asking for work; he is General Hollerith, a veteran of the previous war. He and Justin join a conspiracy to finish the real satellite, a manned space station buried in Chiunga County that the United States had been building for 15 years. It requires parts and engineering knowledge to launch. MVD troops arrive, shoot the corrupt Soviet soldiers, and are much more cruel. They capture, to Justin''s knowledge, all of the conspirators but himself and the general. Justin deduces that the contacts he needs to make are in Washington, Pennsylvania. With a traveling preacher, Sparhawk, Justin walks the hundreds of miles from Chiunga Center to Washington, benefiting from the Democratic Republic''s policy of respecting the Americans'' freedom of religion. At Washington Justin receives instructions from the nationwide resistance movement for an attack planned for Christmas Eve on Chiunga Center to liberate the satellite. Despite the Soviets'' arrest and torture of a local farmer, they are ignorant of what "Christmas Eve", a mild oath they have heard sworn by various citizens, means until the battle begins. Coordinated by Hollerith, bridges around the area are blown up and nearby arsenals are sabotaged. The townspeople, many of whom are veterans, battle the Soviets as the space station launches. Hollerith''s forces triumph, and the Americans transmit an ultimatum to the Soviets and Chinese: The satellite is armed and will destroy Moscow and Peiping in 24 hours if occupation soldiers do not leave American soil and free all prisoners of war. Hollerith offers Justin important positions in the new government and society, but he refuses them and kneels in prayer with Sparhawk, fearing the fulfillment of mutual assured destruction.

Not This August

The whole book being 95 pages, it is about a boy who tries to overcome his fear of the sea. The summary is below. Call It Courage is a story set in the Pacific Islands. It chronicles the journey of Mafatu, the son of the chief of Hikueru Island, Tavana Nui. Mafatu is afraid of the sea due to witnessing his mother die as a young child, which makes him a shame to his father, and referred to as a coward among his tribe. One night Mafatu takes a dugout canoe and sets sail into the ocean without knowing where he will end up. He is caught in a storm and the canoe is lost. He lands on a deserted island and learns to hunt and fish for himself, along with his companions Uri, a yellow dog, and Kivi, an albatross. Soon Mafatu finds a sacrificial altar built by cannibals from a neighboring island. Mafatu realizes his days on the island are numbered and he begins designing his escape by making a canoe. He gathers things he will need to survive a trip across the ocean. He finds a spear point on the terrible altar and uses it to hunt. After a number of encounters with natural foes, including a shark, a wild boar and an octopus, all of which he successfully kills, he realizes he is gaining courage and learning to deal with the things that have frightened him. The cannibals return and he makes a daring escape from them, returning home at last to his village. He has become transformed by the experience into an imposing figure. His father does not recognize him at first, then proudly accepts him on his return.This is the main summary.

Call It Courage

During Prince Pompadore of Pumperdink''s eighteenth birthday celebration, his birthday cake explodes, revealing a magic scroll, a magic mirror, and a doorknob. The scroll warns the prince that if the he doesn''t wed a "proper princess" within seven days, his entire kingdom will disappear. The prince, along with the kingdom''s wise elephant Kabumpo, set off on an adventure to the Emerald City so Pompa can marry Princess Ozma, the only "proper princess" the Elegant Elephant can think of as worthy of his prince. Meanwhile, Ruggedo the Gnome King (Thompson "corrected" Baum''s spelling of "Nome") finds Glegg''s Box of Mixed Magic while tunnelling under the Emerald City. After he brings a wooden doll, Peg Amy, to life, and makes Wag the rabbit the size of a man, Ruggedo turns himself into a giant. This means that Ozma''s palace gets stuck on his head, and in a panic he runs off to Ev with it. After many adventures in the strange lands of Rith Metic, the Illumi Nation, and the Soup Sea, Pompadore and Kabumpo arrive in the Emerald City to find Ozma missing. They set off to find her and eventually meet up with Wag and Peg Amy. The group reaches the edge of the Deadly Desert and is hijacked by the Runaway Country, a piece of land that has feet. It carries them over the desert to Ev. Eventually, Peg Amy is revealed to be a princess, and Pompadore marries her.

Kabumpo in Oz

Kendra and Seth Sorenson are shipped off by their parents to Grandma and Grandpa Sorensons house for seventeen days while their parents go on a cruise set up by Grandma and Grandpa Larson for their children and spouses after they died. When they get to the house, Grandpa Sorenson tells them that their grandmother is visiting their dying Great Aunt Edna and introduces them to Lena, the half-Asian housekeeper, and Dale, a man who helps Grandpa Sorenson tend to the grounds. Once Seth and Kendra''s parents are gone, Grandpa Sorenson sets up two rules, which are that they must keep out of the woods, and that they cannot go in the barn. They visit their attic bedroom, and much to Kendra and Seth''s delight, it is filled with many toys and activities to keep them busy. Also, there is a pet chicken named Goldilocks. Before he leaves, Grandpa Sorenson gives Kendra three keys so that they can, as Grandpa says: "See if you can figure out what each unlocks." Seth and Kendra go swimming the next day and Kendra brings out a mirror to shine light in Seth''s eyes. When she leaves it out, hoards of butterflies, bumblebees, and hummingbirds flock over to it. When Kendra and Seth flip over the mirror, the obsessed critters flip it back over again. Later, Kendra finds that the biggest key unlocks a jewelry box full of costume jewelry, and the tiniest key unlocks an armoire inside the dollhouse. In the armoire is a piece of chocolate shaped like a rosebud, and a small golden key, bigger than the key that opened the armoire, but smaller than the key that opened the jewelry box. Kendra searches a telescope that stands near a window for keyholes, but finds nothing. She is about to turn away when she sees Dale carrying something in both hands. When she goes to the yard to confront him, it turns out that it is just milk. Dale tells Kendra that their milking cows make a little extra milk than they need, so he puts it out for the insects, and also not to tell Grandpa Sorenson in case he disapproves. Seth disobeyed direct rules and was wandering the woods when he found a creepy old lady in an ivy shack. He ran back to the yard once she dared him to do something almost certainly dangerous. Back at the house, Kendra finds the Journal of Secrets with 3 keyholes, but none of the keys she has fits except the golden one she found in the dollhouse. Seth shows Kendra a hidden pond with gazebos, a boardwalk, and a boathouse. That night at dinner, Grandpa asks a rhetorical question, stating, "What do you suppose makes people so eager to break rules?" When Seth says that they weren''t afraid of ticks, Grandpa tells them the real reason why they have to stay out of the woods: He really runs a preserve full of endangered, poisonous animals. Seth goes into lawyer mode and manages to worm out of trouble. Since they have disobeyed his orders, they have to stay inside the house until their parents come to get them, but luckily, Kendra talks him out of it and they get partial punishment as a warning. Soon after, Kendra figures out how to open the journal completely, and inside all she finds is a single phrase, ''drink the milk''. Deciding that she needed a guinea pig to test the milk that Dale claimed to be hazardous, Kendra dared Seth to drink the milk. When Kendra drinks the milk, the insects flying around suddenly turn into fairies. Grandpa explains that his property is not a preserve for endangered animals, but for magical creatures such as fairies, trolls, and centaurs. This piece of information would completely turn their visit around, though not at first. Seth made a bad choice concerning a fairy, and was turned into some sort of mutated walrus. Luckily, the old lady Seth found in the woods managed to sort him out, though at a high price to his family. Later, Grandpa explains that Midsummer Eve is a time when all creatures, light or dark, can roam into the yard and warns to not, never, open the window, for whatever reason. Seth, giving in to his curious, disobedient reality, opened the window. That single action put his grandparents in danger, his sister in danger, and ultimately, he put the world in danger.

Fablehaven

William Mandella, protagonist of The Forever War, lives with his wife Marygay on the icy world Middle Finger. Still dissatisfied with the state of society, they eventually decide to jump forward in time again, using the time dilation of interstellar travel. Their intention is to travel for 10 subjective years at relativistic speeds, during which 40,000 Earth years will pass on Middle Finger. They, along with other Forever War veterans and other disenchanted humans on Middle Finger, hope that whatever they will find upon their return will be more to their liking. This "experiment" requires the consent of the posthuman group mind now known as Man, and of the alien Tauran race. While it appears that they refuse permission, forcing the humans to take the ship by force, neither Man nor Tauran put up much of a fight indicating that those resident on Middle Finger did not share the views of the larger group mind. Taking their daughter and leaving their son who has decided to join Man, they head away from their planet. However before they have gotten very far many unexplained occurrences happen and the ship starts to lose antimatter mysteriously. They abandon the ship and return home on fighters that have been converted into escape pods (although some people who believe it all to be a test by some deity remain aboard the drifting ship and are not mentioned in the text again). Instead of the intended 40,000 years, they have only been away 24 Earth years. Upon arrival, they find the planet still intact, but seemingly vacant with everyone having literally disappeared at the same time as the incident on their ship. They then return to Earth and in the course of the investigation they discover a shape-shifting being (similar to the "Chameleon" in his later novel Camouflage) posing as an android cowboy at a western-themed amusement park. This being has been on Earth and the other inhabited planets for millennia and is not certain of its own origin. It also has no idea what happened to the denizens of Earth. The resolution involves an archetypal deus ex machina, a childish god who evidently created the universe on a whim but doesn''t really understand it. This god recognizes Mandella as a scientist and explains that his action of leaving the galaxy on a 40,000 year round-trip is similar to a laboratory mouse escaping its cage. The galaxy would appear to be one large experiment controlled by these gods, an experiment damaged by Mandella''s actions. Eventually "God" restores the inhabitants, who have been stored in stasis. The story also focuses on William''s and Marygay''s relationship to their children, who do not agree with their parents'' views, but still have to deal with their parents ''fleeing'' into the future. Forever Free is much shorter than the preceding book and also contained many printing errors in its first edition. The comic A New Beginning, the sequel to the comic version of The Forever War, was connected to Forever Free.

Forever Free

Jack Sawyer, twelve years old, sets out from Arcadia Beach, New Hampshire in a bid to save his mother, who is dying from cancer, by finding a crystal called "the Talisman." Jack''s journey takes him simultaneously through the American heartland and "the Territories", a strange fantasy land which is set in a universe parallel to that of Jack''s America. Individuals in the Territories have "twinners," or parallel individuals, in our world. Twinners'' births, deaths, and (it is intimated) other major life events are usually paralleled. Twinners can also "flip" or migrate to the other world, but only share the body of their alternate universe''s analogue. In rare instances (such as Jack''s), a person may die in one world but not the other, making the survivor "single-natured" with the ability to switch back and forth, body and mind, between the two worlds. Jack is taught how to flip by a mysterious figure known as Speedy Parker, who is the twinner of a gunslinger named Parkus in the Territories. In Parkus''s world, the beloved Queen Laura DeLoessian, the twinner of Jack''s mother (a movie actress known as the "Queen of the B Movies") is also dying. Various people help or hinder Jack in his quest. Of particular importance are the werewolves, known simply as Wolfs, who inhabit the Territories. These are not the savage killers of tradition: they serve as royal herdsmen or bodyguards, and can sometimes under stress voluntarily change to wolf form. A sixteen-year-old Wolf, simply named Wolf, is accidentally pulled into America by Jack Sawyer and adopts Jack as his herd, serving as his companion. Wolf is extremely likeable, kind, loyal and friendly, much like a dog, though his wolf nature shows through on occasion. On the other hand, some Wolfs have joined the malevolent faction which is trying to stop Jack. As the story goes back and forth between the Territories and the familiar United States, or "American Territories" as Jack comes to call them, Jack escapes from one life-threatening situation after another. Accompanied by Wolf and later by his childhood friend Richard, Jack must retrieve the Talisman before it falls into the hands of evil schemer Morgan Sloat, Richard''s father, who, we later learn, was Jack''s father''s business partner before arranging to have the latter murdered. He wants to seize their business from Jack''s mother. Morgan Sloat''s twinner, Morgan of Orris, also plans to seize the Territories in the event of Queen Laura''s death.

The Talisman

She becomes obsessed with her uncle, Danny Farrell, who has always been a black sheep of sorts in the family. Danny is believed to have died in an airplane flying over China while working for the CIA. Roger''s mother, Brigid, is a powerful widow with a lot of dirty secrets. The family is an example of an Irish Catholic family''s ascent into the upper middle class, perhaps even the upper class, after a few generations, reflecting a common theme of sociologist Greeley. However, aside from Danny, there have been other mysterious deaths in this family, and Noelle courageously probes this dark side of her ancestry, leading to the truth about who she really is. Noelle is clearly the most significant character in the book. Greeley has said that she is meant to embody the Church. She is a spunky girl who once takes over a church service with her guitar-playing rendition of the hymn "Lord of the Dance", much to the dismay of her folk group leader, and gives a spontaneous, powerful homily about life being a dance where God chooses the partners. Sometimes, however, God wants to dance alone, with just us.

Lord of the Dance

It is 1540 and the hottest summer of the sixteenth century. Matthew Shardlake, believing himself out of favour with Thomas Cromwell, is busy trying to maintain his legal practice and keep a discreet profile. But his involvement with a murder case, defending a girl accused of brutally murdering her young cousin, brings him once again into contact with the king''s chief minister &ndash; and a new assignment ... The secret of Greek Fire, the legendary substance with which the Byzantines destroyed the Arab navies, has been lost for centuries. Now an official of the Court of Augmentations has discovered the formula in the library of a dissolved London monastery. When Shardlake is sent to recover it, he finds the official and his alchemist brother brutally murdered &ndash; the formula has disappeared. Now Shardlake must follow the trail of Greek Fire across Tudor London, while trying at the same time to prove his young client''s innocence. But very soon he discovers nothing is as it seems ...

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

Read - Listen - Learn

Count Robert of Paris

By Walter Scott

Jackie & Me

By Dan Gutman

Lafcadio: The Lion Who Shot Back

By Shel Silverstein

Acacia: The Sacred Band

By David Anthony Durham

Not This August

By Cyril M. Kornbluth

Call It Courage

By Armstrong Sperry

Kabumpo in Oz

By Ruth Plumly Thompson

Fablehaven

By Brandon Mull

Forever Free

By Joe Haldeman

The Talisman

By Stephen King

Lord of the Dance

No Author Listed

Dark Fire

By C. J. Sansom