River God follows the fate of the Egyptian Kingdom through the eyes of Taita, a multi-talented and highly skilled eunuch slave. Taita is owned by Lord Intef and primarily looks after his daughter, Lostris, but also plays a large role in the day to day running of Lord Intef''s estate. The Pharaoh of Egypt is without a male heir, and Taita inadvertently causes Pharaoh to take an interest in Lostris. Lostris meanwhile is in love with the soldier Tanus, who unbeknownst to her is hated by her father. Eventually Pharaoh marries Lostris and her father, Lord Intef, reluctantly gives Taita to her as a wedding gift. Meanwhile, Tanus has angered Pharaoh by speaking bluntly about the troubles Egypt is in&nbsp;— most prominently the growing bandit threat which terrorizes all who travel outside of the major cities. Pharaoh condemns him to death for his actions, but is convinced to allow Tanus to redeem himself by attempting to eliminate all the bandits from Egypt within two years. Since his sentence is revealed on the last day of the festival of Osiris, he is to return on that day of the next festival with his task complete or face death by strangulation. Tanus, with the help of Taita, hunts down and captures the leaders of the Shrike bandits. On presenting them to Pharaoh, it is revealed that their leader is Lord Intef. Tanus has his death sentence lifted, but Intef manages to escape before he can be punished for his crimes. After the sentence is announced a storm sweeps through allowing Lostris and Tanus time to be secretly alone together. During this time Lostris conceives Tanus'' first born, and before the secret can be discovered Taita arranges for her to resume her wifely duties to Pharaoh. When the child is born he is named Memnon and claimed by the Pharaoh as his own, and his true paternity is known only to Lostris, Taita, and Tanus. A new threat to the kingdom emerges&nbsp;— the warlike Hyksos. Equipped with the horse and chariot, as well as a superior recurved bow, their technological superiority is far greater than the Egyptian army''s. The Pharaoh is killed, forcing a majority of the Egyptian nobility (including Lostris, Tanus, and Taita) to flee Egypt by heading up the Nile with the remaining army. During their exile Lostris gives birth to two more of Tanus'' children, both daughters, but as their relationship has been a secret Taita creates a cover story where the ghost of Pharaoh sires the child. During their period in exile, they regain their technical superiority&nbsp;— Taita replicates and improves both the chariots and bows he has seen used to such great effect on the battlefield. While searching for a suitable burying place for Pharaoh''s body, Taita is taken captive by one of the Ethiopian chieftains of the area&nbsp;— the brutal Arkoun. While in captivity, Taita becomes close friends with Masara, a fellow captive and the daughter of one of the rival chieftains. Taita eventually escapes captivity due to a freak flooding, finds the father of Masara, and strikes a deal with him to rescue Masara. With the help of Tanus, Memnon, and the Egyptian army, Arkoun is defeated. Tanus is mortally wounded during the battle and dies. Masara and Memnon fall in love and become married, with a wedding gift of several thousand horses which further boost the Egyptian army. Led by their new Pharaoh Tamose (formerly Prince Memnon), they return to Egypt. With their new-found weaponry and tactics, they defeat the Hyksos invaders and regain the upper kingdom of Egypt from Elephantine to Thebes.

River God

When Cammie "The Chameleon" Morgan visits her roommate Macey in Boston, she thinks she''s in for an exciting end to her summer break. After all, she''s there to watch Macey''s father accept the nomination for Vice President of the United States. But because she goes to the world''s "best" school (for spies), ''exciting'' and ''deadly'' are never far apart. Cammie and Macey soon find themselves trapped in a kidnappers'' plot, with only their espionage skills to save them. As her junior year begins, Cammie can''t shake the memory of what happened in Boston, and even the Gallagher Academy for Young Women doesn''t feel like the safe haven it once did. Deep secrets and old boyfriends seem to lurk all around the mansion, as Cammie and her friends struggle to answer the questions: Who is after Macey? and, How can the Gallagher Girls keep her safe? Soon Cammie is joining Bex and Liz as Macey''s private security team on the campaign trail. The girls must use their spy training at every turn as the stakes are raised, and Cammie gets closer and closer to the unexpected truth.

Don''t Judge A Girl By Her Cover

Bean, the main character, is a homeless child living in the hellish streets of Rotterdam in roughly 2170 after escaping as an infant from an illegal genetic engineering laboratory. Being hyper-intelligent and extremely young, Bean''s experiences revolve primarily around his need for food. He joins a huge gang of children led by a girl named Poke and sets up a system in which they can all receive nourishment at a local soup kitchen. The draw-back on this is their increasing dependence on the bully Achilles, who is ruthless, mad, and methodical. Luckily for Bean, his incredible mind, creativity, and determination bring him to the attention of Sister Carlotta, a nun who is recruiting children to fight a war against the Buggers. At the training facility, Battle School, Bean''s true genius becomes apparent. Not only is he smarter than average, he is smarter than any other child at Battle School, including Ender Wiggin. Despite Bean''s intelligence, it is Ender who has been chosen to save humanity from the Buggers. Bean, being an extraordinary genius, begins to uncover secrets and truths about the school. Bean struggles to understand what quality Ender has that he does not, until he is assigned to draw up a "hypothetical" roster for Ender''s army, and adds himself to the list. At first, Ender does not appear to recognize Bean''s brilliance, but time shows that he was grooming Bean as his tactical support, putting him at the head of an unorthodox platoon challenged to outthink the teachers who designed the game, and defeat their attempts to tip the balance of advantages towards Ender''s rivals. Throughout the book, the main theme rests on Bean''s personal struggle against the IF administration, which seems bent on breaking Ender, even if it means murder. Throughout all of this, Bean has to contend with the reappearance of Achilles and his own struggle to understand what makes Ender human. He also makes friends with an older boy named Nikolai Delphiki who is drawn to Bean because of their similar looks. It is soon discovered, through Sister Carlotta''s research, that the two boys are actually genetic twins, except for Bean''s genetic enhancements. Back in the lab, the scientist Volescu had turned Anton''s Key, which meant that Bean''s body would never stop growing - including his brain - until a premature death between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five. Sister Carlotta manages to ensure that Bean will get to live with Nikolai and his parents after the war. This story takes the reader through Bean''s experiences in Battle School and shows how he, a secondary character in Ender''s Game, is much more important to the fate of Earth than it originally seemed. In addition, the book depicts the first of Bean''s encounters with Achilles. At the very end of the story, Ender leaves on a colonization ship and never returns to Earth as part of a treaty so no countries or groups on Earth can use him. Ender''s Shadow is the first of a series that includes Shadow of the Hegemon, Shadow Puppets, Shadow of the Giant, and Shadows in Flight.

Ender''s Shadow

Squirrel is a stray puppy who lives in a shed behind the summer home of a wealthy family, The Merrions, with her mother, Stream and brother, Bone. When Stream disappears, Squirrel and Bone must set off on their own. The puppies are picked up by highway travelers, but then abandoned and thrown out of a car window while the travelers were at a mall the following day. Squirrel and Bone are injured; Bone is taken away by other shoppers, leaving Squirrel, never to be seen again. Squirrel joins forces with another female stray, Moon, for a short time. Later, after being attacked by stray dogs at a gas station and being with each other for some time, healing each others wounds, the pair are struck by a car, killing Moon instantly and injuring Squirrel. This time, Squirrel is taken to the vet, where she is spayed and her broken leg is treated. She is renamed Daisy and adopted by a family for the summer(Their summer dog). In the autumn, Squirrel is once more abandoned. She continues to wander for years. Then Squirrel, now an old dog, wanders around to an old lady''s house. Then the old woman, whose name is Susan, sees Squirrel and takes her in. At the end of the story, Susan, an old woman, finds Squirrel cold and starving in her backyard, and tries to coax her in. Susan had a dog named Maxie in the past. Squirrel, now an old lady herself, refuses to come over, and Susan has to gain her trust by leaving food out and gradually moving closer each day. When she finally gets Squirrel inside, she decides to keep her and renames Squirrel "Addie". Afterwards, Susan and Squirrel, both old ladies, enjoy the rest of their lives together. They lived happily ever after

A Dog''s Life: The Autobiography of a Stray

The story opens as two Nazi soldiers stop Annemarie Johansen and her friend Ellen Rosen and ask them both questions on the streets of Copenhagen. That night, Annemarie reminisces about her older sister Lise, who was hit by a car and killed (it is later revealed that the Nazis intentionally hit her). She also recalls her father seeing a boy tell a Nazi soldier about how all of Denmark is King Christian X''s bodyguard. Soon after, Peter Nielsen (who was Annemarie''s sister Lise''s fiance), a man working in the Danish Resistance, visits Annemarie and her family and tells them that the Germans have started closing Jewish stores. The next day, Ellen and her parents go to the synagogue for a Jewish holiday, but come to find out that the Nazis have demanded lists of the Danish Jews. They will use these lists to arrest and relocate the entire Jewish population. Peter takes Mr. and Mrs. Rosen with him into hiding, and Ellen Rosen (disguised as Lise) comes to live with the Johansens. In the middle of the night, Nazi soldiers arrive at the Rosens'' apartment and demand that they reveal where the Rosen family is. Annemarie rips off the Star of David necklace which belongs to Ellen to conceal her idenity of being Jewish. The Nazi soldiers become suspicious because Annemarie and Kirsti have blond hair, but Ellen has dark brown hair. Mr. Johansen retrieves baby photos of his three daughters, with their names listed, which clearly show that Lise had hair similar to Ellen''s when she was a baby. The soldiers leave. After the Nazis leave, Mr. Johansen calls his brother-in-law, Henrik, and makes encoded arrangements to bring Ellen to him. Later, Annemarie, Ellen, Mrs. Johansen, and Kirsti leave by train for Uncle Henrik''s home in Gilleleje. One peaceful day goes by at Henrik''s, then Mrs. Johansen tells the girls that their Great-aunt Birte has died and they will be having a funeral. However, Annemarie knows that Great-aunt Birte does not exist, and confronts Uncle Henrik. He explains to her that she is right, and says that it is easier to be brave when you don''t know the full truth. Many strangers arrive at Uncle Henrik''s house for the funeral, among them a rabbi and several Jewish families. A group of Nazi soldiers arrive and interrupt the funeral, and Ellen''s parents and Peter Nielsen arrive shortly after. A soldier asks her mother to open the casket. Her mother told the soldier that she would love to do so, since country doctors were not reliable, and it was only the country doctor who told them that opening the casket would spread germs because Great-aunt Birte had died from typhus. The soldier slaps her face and leaves in frustration. Peter reads the beginning of Psalm 147 to the group from the Bible, recounting the Lord God numbering the stars. Annemarie thinks that it is impossible to number the stars in the sky, and that the world is cold and very cruel like the sky or the ocean, which Mrs. Rosen is scared of. Peter opens the casket and distributes warm clothing and blankets to the Jewish families who then depart, splitting up to attract less attention. Annemarie says goodbye to Ellen. In the morning her mother realizes that a package important to the Resistance was accidentally dropped by Mr. Rosen when he tripped on a flight of stairs. Mrs. Johansen, knowing the importance of the package, gives Annemarie a basket filled with food and hides the package inside. Annemarie runs off, onto a wooded path towards her uncle''s boat. When she nears the harbor, she is stopped by German soldiers on patrol, and lies that she is merely delivering lunch to her uncle. The soldiers toss some of the food onto the ground and eventually reach the package, which they tear open, finding only a handkerchief. The German soldiers walk away. Annemarie continues onward to Uncle Henrik and gives him the package. He boards his fishing boat and leaves for Sweden. Uncle Henrik returns to Denmark later that evening and explains that the Rosens and many other Jewish people were hiding in his boat and that the handkerchief contained the scent of rabbit blood and cocaine, to attract the dogs so when they sniffed it, the cocaine would temporarily numb the German dogs'' sense of smell. Two years later, the war ends, and all of Denmark celebrates. Several revelations are made: Peter was captured and executed by the Germans. The Jews who were forced to leave Denmark return and find that their friends and neighbors have kept up their apartments in anticipation of their return. Annemarie finds out how Lise died. Before the Rosens come back, Annemarie asks her father to repair Ellen''s Star of David necklace (which had been broken off the night the Nazis broke into the apartment in order to conceal her identity), wanting to wear it herself in honor of her best friend.

Number the Stars

CIA field agent Mitch Rapp''s cover has been blown following his last assignment, preventing Saddam Hussein from obtaining nuclear weapons. Rapp receives public acknowledgment by the president in response to the latest Congressional leak to the media. Though the praise is of the highest quality, the President might as well have placed a bulls-eye on Rapp''s chest and that of his loved ones by singling him out as the most important person in the fight to counter terrorism. The spotlight makes the former covert operator an ideal international target for eradication by terrorists as the symbol he has become. Rapp moves from CIA operative duties to that of a counter-terrorism bureaucrat. As special advisor on counter-terrorism to CIA director Dr. Irene Kennedy, Rapp uncomfortably sits in an office. However, everything changes when radical Islamic terrorists ambush Navy SEALS on a top-secret rescue mission in the Philippines. The leak had to be in either the State Department or the Philippine diplomatic corps, but nobody knows for sure. However, worse yet is that someone is trying to cause a Jihad on a scale never before seen and that unknown invisible individual is close to achieving the goal with only a too visible Rapp in the way. Rapp leads a team to avenge that loss by defeating the Philippine terrorist network that killed two SEAL team members and rescuing the American hostages. In order to successfully accomplish this mission he must keep its existence from the turncoats who betrayed those who went before him. The coincidental plot-line has forces plotting to upset the tenuous balance in the Middle East''s geopolitical situation. A flamboyant Saudi Prince, who is banished from the Kingdom, elicits the help of a Palestinian assassin to murder the leaders of Islamic terrorist cells as well as Saudi and Palestinian Ambassadors in the hopes of dissolving US support for Israel and the eventual establishment of an official Palestinian state.

Executive Power

The novel begins with a scene in which the first-person narrator undergoes an episode of "mesmerism," or hypnosis, and wakes up in the far future; he has suddenly passed "from the nineteenth to the ninety-sixth century...." In the company of a friend and guide named Utis Estai, the narrator begins to learn the nature of this future world. He is introduced to the massive city of "Nuiore," the future development of New York City; and he travels with his guide to Utis''s home in the suburbs. He learns from Utis and others about the structure and institutions of this future society. The book concentrates most of its attention on the social and technological advances of the ninety-sixth century; and some of Macnie''s forecasts and predictions are notably prescient. The one most often cited in criticism and commentary is Macnie''s prediction that the paved roads of the future will have white lines running down their centers to divide the traffic flow. Macnie also forecasts advances in communication, with a global telephone network, and recorded lectures by college professors, among other developments that have come to pass in the ensuing centuries. Some of Macnie''s anticipations are more characteristic of the early twenty-first century, like electric cars, and rooftop gardens on public and private buildings (a feature of the modern "green building" movement). At one point in The Diothas, the narrator meets an elderly astronomer who has developed a "calculating machine" that can draw geometric figures, and can also begin with a geometric curve and then display the formula it represents&mdash;tasks done by modern computers and computer graphics. Macnie''s future has progressive, egalitarian, and semi-socialist elements. The genders have fairly similar rights (though only males have to perform a type of national service). Some gender roles persist; all men are given some training in law, and all women in medicine. The majority of scientists are male, the majority of artists are female. Yet women inventors have been primarily responsible for the development of varzeo and lizeo ("far-seeing" and "live-seeing")&mdash;that is, television and motion pictures. Women do domestic laundry and cooking&mdash;but communally. The average work day is three hours long; people devote their abundant leisure time to the arts and sciences and to further education. A form of capitalism exists, though there are limits on inherited wealth. Workers in business enterprises are often shareholders also. Macnie does envision a significant element of Puritanism in his future society, with Prohibition of alcohol and laws against marital infidelity. The author''s conservative opinions are partly represented by his future. He condemns the authors Victor Hugo and Charles Dickens as "maudlin sympathizers with crime...." He even includes in his future the old Roman practice in which "the father had unquestioned power of life and death over his children." There are personal aspects to the novel as well: the narrator meets and becomes enamored of a young woman named Reva Diotha. (She and her female relatives are "the Diothas" of the title). Cleverly, Macnie complicates the frame of his narrative: the narrator is, in his own perception, a time-traveller from the nineteenth century&mdash;but he is known by the other characters as a friend and relative named Ismar Thiusen who has developed a mental illness, and who has the delusion that he is a time-traveller from the nineteenth century. (The narrator arrives in the 96th century able to speak its altered English language, in which the name of West Point has devolved into "Uespa," St. Louis into "Salu," and Buffalo into "Falo.") Utis treats Thiusen rather like a psychiatric patient; Utis humors his friend''s delusion and explains the features of their world, as a kind of therapy meant to restore Thiusen to his proper wits. Once Thiusen and Reva Diotha are matched as a couple, they interpret his situation in terms of reincarnation. In the end, however, Thiusen returns to the nineteenth century, after an accidental plunge over Niagara Falls. There, he is united with Edith Alston, the woman he loves.

The Diothas

Sandor (''Sandy'') Kreja is the sole survivor of a moderately prosperous merchanter family that had operated in Union space. When he was a young boy, all but two of his relatives were killed or taken by the renegade Mazianni, once soldiers in the service of Earth, who had refused to accept the end of the Company War and turned pirate in order to keep on fighting. The three remaining Krejas had continued to run their aged freighter, Le Cygne, as best they could, but an accident had killed one and a shady deal gone bad the other, leaving Sandy both impoverished and preposterously wealthy — the sole owner of a starship. By the dangerous expedient of hiring crewmen when possible and running solo when not, the young man had kept his ship running (under constantly changing names), but as unpaid debts piled up, he had begun to run out of safe Union ports. At Viking station, as Edward Stevens of Lucy, Sandy has a chance sleepover with another merchanter, Allison Reilly, which proves to be pivotal to his future. Allison, one of the powerful Reillys of the superfreighter Dublin Again, lets slip that she is going "across the line" to Pell, the Alliance star system. Having heard rumours that trade between Pell and Earth might be re-established and wanting desperately to see her again, he decides to try his luck in Alliance space. Sandy races Dublin Again to her next port, but the only way he can catch the much faster ship is by taking chances. He performs a dangerous double-jump and arrives at Pell groggy, causing a stir when he barely manages to dock. As a result, he is questioned by Alliance security, but is released when the Reillys come to his aid, not for his sake, but to protect their reputation. At Allison''s suggestion, they offer to refit Sandy''s ship and provide a crew and cargo as a loan. The Reillys are also interested in the Earth trade, and the small ship would be an ideal conduit. Sandy swallows his pride and accepts the generous deal. As it turns out, Allison has an ulterior motive. She is a junior officer in charge of her own small group within the much larger group in command of Dublin Again, but many, many years stand between her and a ''posted'' position with real responsibility. By transferring with her crew to the smaller ship, she can satisfy her ambition immediately. Things seem to be going well for once. Then Sandy is called in to meet the head of the Alliance military, the notorious Signy Mallory, who had once been one of the renegade Mazian''s captains. She gives him a sealed priority military cargo to be delivered to stations being reopened Earthward. The trip is tense; Sandy and his new crew do not trust each other. He refuses to release the computer safeguards that have protected him in the past, preferring to size up the Reillys first. Curran, Allison''s second in command, tries to force him to give up the security codes, but Sandy refuses to back down and a fight breaks out. The result is an ugly, festering stalemate. When they arrive at the Venture star system, they are intercepted and boarded by Mazianni from the warship Australia. Sandy orders his crew to hide, while he and Curran try to talk their way out. He is taken to Tom Edger, Mazian''s senior captain. Sandy offers to work for him and is then told that his cargo is worthless scrap. Mallory had used him as bait to flush out her enemy. Edger decides he might have a use for Sandy, but Curran is taken away. Fighting to get his crewman back, both Sandy and Curran are shot and left for dead as the Mazianni begin to evacuate. At that moment, Mallory''s Norway, the armed Alliance superfreighter Finity''s End, and Dublin Again rush in to engage the fleeing Edger (although he gets away) and free the station. Sandy and Curran survive the battle. When the dust settles, Mallory clears Sandy''s name and title to his ship in return for having put him in mortal danger. His crew now trust him wholeheartedly and Sandy has the nucleus he needs to revive the Kreja family, returning his ship to its original name, Le Cygne.

Merchanter''s Luck

Eilis Lacey is a young woman who is unable to find work in 1950s Ireland. Her older sister Rose organizes a meeting with a Catholic priest Father Flood on a visit from New York City, who tells Eilis of the wonderful opportunities awaiting her in New York with excellent employment prospects. Because of this she emigrates to Brooklyn, New York and takes up a job in a department store while undertaking night classes in bookkeeping. Her initial experiences working in a boring job and living in a repressive boardinghouse, run by the strict Mrs Madge Kehoe, make her doubt her initial decision. Letters from Rose, her mother and her brother brought about severe homesickness but soon she begins to settle into a routine. Eilis meets and falls in love with a young Italian plumber called Tony at the local Friday night dances. This leads to her first sexual encounter and some social consequences as they are overheard by Mrs Kehoe. Eilis qualifies easily from her night school course. Her relationship evolves further and Tony proposes marriage and brings Eilis to meet his family. One day while Eilis is working she receives unwelcome news from Father Flood informing her that her sister Rose has died in her sleep from a pre-existing heart condition. She has to return to Ireland to mourn, and she secretly marries Tony before she leaves. In Ireland she falls back into the town society easily. She goes to the beach with Nancy, George and their friend Jim Farrell, who is interested in her. Eilis is forced to spend time with Jim and eventually starts a brief relationship with him. He is a local pub owner, to whom she had been attracted to before emigrating to America. Eilis''s mother is desperate for her to settle back in Ireland and marry Jim, as Eilis has not confided in her or her friends about her marriage. Eilis procrastinates about a return to her new life by extending her stay. She saves Tony''s letters unopened thinking at times that she no longer loves him. Eventually a local busybody, Miss Kelly, tells Eilis she knows her secret because Madge Kehoe is her cousin and somehow the story is out in New York. This is the turning point for Eilis and she immediately books her return passage, telling her mother the whole truth and posting a farewell note to Jim as she leaves town by taxi for the docks.

Brooklyn

Three Junes follows the McLeods, a Scottish family, throughout their lives and relationships. Its members are Paul and Maureen, and their sons: Fenno, and twins David and Dennis. At the opening of the book, Paul is on a tour of Greece, Maureen has died from lung cancer, and Fenno is running a bookstore in New York City. Other important characters include Malachy, Fenno''s friend who is a music critic and suffering from AIDS, and Fern, an unwed pregnant woman, who Paul formerly met on his trip to Greece, trying to recover from his wife''s death. Finally, another important character of the book is Tony, a photographer, who is a house-sitter, never living in the same house for more than a few months. He is a catalyst in the narative development of Fern and Fenno. He is an old friend with Fern and he develops a tumultuous relationship with Fenno. The novel is written in three parts, using the flashback technique. The first takes place in 1989 and is told from Paul''s perspective; the second, in 1995 and from Fenno''s point of view; the third, in 1999 and from Fern''s perspective. As Julia Glass has said herself, the book should be viewed not as a trilogy but rather a triptych - elements that may seem small in one section play a large role in another, like a triptych, rather than a consecutive series of novels in a trilogy.

Three Junes

The story begins with an introduction to the character of Ed Kennedy, a down-and-out underage taxi driver who is hopelessly in love with his best friend Audrey, who, to his dismay, feels that she cares about him too much to date him. Ed is standing in a bank queue when a robbery takes place. He accidentally foils the robbers'' escape, and is proclaimed a hero. Shortly after, he receives an Ace of Diamonds in the mail. The ace is from an unknown source. On the ace is written a list of addresses and times. These represent a series of tasks that Ed must complete. His tasks are as follows: # He must save a woman who is raped by her husband almost every night. # He must comfort a lonely old lady. # He must show a teenage girl how to take control of her life and become more confident. Throughout the book, Ed receives different playing cards in the mail. Each card is a different ace, and each ace contains a series of tasks, often in the form of cryptic clues. On the second to last card, he receives a list with movie titles on it and deciphers the names of his three best friends. From these cards he learns the greatest message of all: That he isn''t the messenger, but instead the message. The last card is a Joker and has his own address written on it. But as it is made clear in the last lines of the novel it''s all about the realisation of chances and potential because as Ed finally says:"I''m not the messenger at all. I''m the message."

I Am the Messenger

When staying at home with his sick grandmother, and 2-year old sister, nicknamed Boots'' (but whose birth name is Margaret), adolescent Gregor struggles with the apparent death of his father. Gregor is left home alone with Boots and his grandmother while his mother, Grace, takes his other sister, Lizzie, off to summer camp. Gregor goes down to his apartment complex''s laundry room to do laundry, and takes Boots down with him. Boots starts messing with a grate behind one of the washing machine''s. Gregor sees this, and dives after her, but is too late, and Boots falls through the hole, with Gregor falling behind her. They fall miles and miles beneath the earth, very fast, but as they near the bottom of their descent, they miraculously begin to slow down, and land gently on the ground. They land in the Underland, an underground world, hidden miles beneath our world, where humans and giant-talking bats, cockroaches, and even mice coexist in peace, but also a place where a conflict with giant-talking rats exist. The story revolves around a prophecy that centers around young Gregor himself, and how he, the "Warrior", as the Underlanders call him, will fulfill this prophecy. * Gregor: The protagonist of the story. He falls into the Underland with his sister. * Luxa: An Underlander, and the soon to be queen of Regalia. * Ripred: A trustworthy gnawer with deadly fighting skills and sharp intelligence, he fights alongside the humans. * Ares: A flier, first Henry''s bond, then Gregor''s. He is described as jet black, and strong. * Henry: An Underlander, and Luxa''s cousin on the Royal side. * Vikus: Luxa''s grandfather and Solovet''s husband * Aurora: A flier, Luxa''s bond. A golden color. * Boots (Margaret): Named after her grandma, Boots is Gregor''s cheerful, two-year-old sister who is afraid of very little. * Nerissa: Luxa''s cousin who foresees what either is going to happen or what already did. Ripred describes her flip flopping through time like a fish in the shallows. * Solovet: Luxa''s grandmother and Vikus''s wife; head of the Regalian army. * Dulcet: a servant in Regalia * Perdita: an Underland soldier. * Gregor''s father * Grace: Gregor, Lizzie and Boots'' mother * Grandma: Gregor, Lizzie and Boots'' grandmother after whom Boots (Margaret) was named. * Mrs. Cormaci: A family friend to Gregor''s family * King Gorger: The king of the gnawers (rats) * Queen Wevox: a giant spider. * Gox and Treflex: two spiders * Lizzie: Gregor and Boots'' sister, mentioned more than once. * Mareth: One of Regalia''s soldiers * Temp & Tick: Cockroaches who call Boots the "Princess". Beware, Underlanders, time hangs by a thread. The hunters are hunted, white water runs red. The gnawers are sent to extinguish the rest. The hope of the hopeless resides in a quest. An Overlander Warrior, a son of the sun, May bring us back light, he may bring us back none. But gather your neighbors and follow his call or rats will most surely devour us all. Two over, two under, of royal descent, Two fliers, two crawlers, two spinners assent. One gnawer beside and one lost up ahead. And eight will be left when we count up the dead. The last who will die must decide where he stands. The fate of the eight is contained in his hands. So bid him take care, bid him look where he leaps, As life may be death, and death life again reaps. * Bartholomew of Sandwich, who led a group of humans down from the Overland into the Underland, saw into the future and carved prophecies – which called Gregor the "Warrior" – into stone walls in a room filled with Prophecies * Luxa''s parents, who are described as being killed by rats, which is why Luxa holds a grudge against all rats, good and bad. * Ripred''s mate and pups * Henry and Nerissa''s parents The creatures in the series resemble their real-life counterparts in almost every way, aside from being very large (most of them being bigger than the humans) and able to speak in the novels. * Humans: Sometimes referred to as the "Killers" by certain Underland species, Underland Humans live, mainly, in the city of Regalia. * Crawlers (Cockroaches): They call Boots the "Princess". * Spinners (Spiders): They provide several types of silk. * Fliers (Bats): These creatures "bond" with their human counterparts in a ceremony. * Gnawers (Rats): They are the antagonists of the story. Most of the Gnawers are violent and aggressive. * Shiners (Fireflies): Eat too much, are lazy and unreliable. * Nibblers (Mice): Are allied to the humans. * Stingers (Scorpions): Are allied by the humans by book 4. * Diggers (Moles): Introduced in book 5. They are the true founders of the Underland. * Twisters (Snakes): Introduced in book 4. * Hissers (Lizards): Introduced in book 3. * Cutters (Ants): Enemies of all warmbloods. Introduced in book 3. * Slimers: (Snails): Are mentioned by Howard in book 4. * Lobsters: They are briefly mentioned by Vikus in book 3; Ripred had tried to invade the Fount with an army of them.

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

Read - Listen - Learn

River God

By Wilbur A. Smith

Don't Judge A Girl By Her Cover

By Ally Carter

Ender's Shadow

By Orson Scott Card

A Dog's Life: The Autobiography of a Stray

By Ann M. Martin

Number the Stars

By Lois Lowry

Executive Power

By Vince Flynn

The Diothas

No Author Listed

Merchanter's Luck

By C. J. Cherryh

Brooklyn

By Colm Tóibín

Three Junes

By Julia Glass

I Am the Messenger

By Markus Zusak

Gregor the Overlander

By Suzanne Collins