The start of the book begins almost exactly where the end of Switched left off, with Wendy and Rhys running away from the palace in the Trylle''s Förening. The two arrive at the home and Wendy attempts to explain to her "host brother" Matt that Rhys is his brother. He reacts with disbelief yet she tells him that she cannot tell him where she has been or Finn''s part in it all.While in the midst of trying to understand what has happened, Matt finds a disliking towards Rhys. Later that night, Finn visits her and attempts to convince her to return to Förening with him. She refuses as another tracker, Duncan, shows up with the same goal. Wendy tells both that she will not return to Förening and they leave. Two Vittra members, Loki and Kyra, attack the house as Finn and Duncan leave and take the three to the Vittra palace to the King, in which Wendy is left badly injured by Kyra.While taken as prisoner by the Vittra, Wendy is severally injured and Matt asks a guard to bring in a doctor to heal her. There (after being healed by a female Vittra), Wendy practises her power of persuasion on Rhys with an unusual side effect. She is taken to the King named Oren who informs her that he is her father and the woman who healed her her step-mother, a result from a prior union with Elora in an attempt to unify the Trylle and the Vittra. Loki allows the three to escape with help from Tove, Duncan and Finn and they return to Förening. At Förening, Wendy begins classes with Tove, the skilled Markis who possesses grand powers of psychokinesis, to strengthen and control her own power. She is also assigned Duncan as a bodyguard. One night, Elora alerts everyone nearby to the appearance of a Vittra on their perimeter. It is revealed to be Loki, and Wendy insists on imprisoning him instead of executing him. Wendy''s powers begin to grow stronger as does Matt''s relationships with Rhys and young Marksinna Willa. Using her more-controlled powers, Wendy manages to get the location of Finn from Duncan and visits his family home where his mother raises Angora goats and his father is also a tracker. Finn shuns her on the grounds of the prejudice surrounding such a relationship. Wendy confronts her mother about what Oren told her in her stay at the Vittra palace, to which Elora tells Wendy of her past and the arranged marriage between Wendy''s father and her. Elora says that her parents thought of it as a good idea, so she did it without question. She tells Wendy that she has arranged her marriage to Tove to which Wendy objects. Elora begins to bleed from her nose and collapses, later informing her that she is dying from her precognition painting. Wendy learns that the powers used by the trolls age and drain them. Wendy eventually accepts the proposal and the two become engaged. Wendy then finds that Loki has escaped now that Elora''s hold on him has weakened and he asks her to escape both the Vittra and the Trylle with him, knowing she is not happy. Wendy does not accept and instead turns her time to learn the "dead language" of the Trylle so that she can better help the commune. Finn helps her with this until they experience a brief romantic interlude which Finn''s father interrupts. Finn leaves, embarrassed and tells her that duty over love was the best choice for him. The book ends with Tove giving an engagement ring to Wendy and they enter their engagement party together.

Torn

The title character is Ralph Newton, the nephew of Squire Gregory Newton of Newton Priory. The Squire has never married; he has an illegitimate son, also named Ralph Newton, whom he loves dearly. However, the estate is entailed, and after his death will go to his nephew Ralph; he cannot leave it to his natural son. Ralph the heir is a spendthrift, and has run himself deep into debt. There are two ways in which he can extricate himself: by raising money on his future interest in the Newton estate, or by marrying Polly Neefit, the daughter of a wealthy breeches-maker who is one of his major creditors. Neither choice is a good one for him: the first might lead to the estate''s being seized by his creditors upon the old squire''s death; the second would mean allying himself to a family of a much lower social class, thus putting his own social standing at risk. The Squire, anxious to obtain full possession of the estate so that he can pass it to his son, offers to buy the heir''s reversion. Ralph vacillates, hesitatingly proposes to and is rejected twice by Polly Neefit, and eventually accepts his uncle''s offer. However, before the transaction can be completed, the Squire is killed in a hunting accident and his nephew comes into full possession of the property and its large income. Now safe from his creditors, the new Squire is nevertheless harassed by Polly Neefit''s father, who threatens him with legal action and embarrassing publicity if he does not continue seeking his daughter''s hand. The matter is eventually resolved by Polly, who accepts the oft-repeated proposals of Ontario Moggs, son of a prosperous bootmaker, and induces her father to consent to the marriage despite his preference for the Squire. In the meantime, Ralph the Squire has proposed to and been rejected by Mary Bonner, the beautiful niece and ward of Sir Thomas Bertram; soon after this, she accepts an offer of marriage from the illegitimate Ralph. The novel also describes a Parliamentary election in the fictional borough of Percycross, in which Sir Thomas, a Conservative, and Moggs, a Radical, are two of the four candidates for the two available seats. Both are eager that the election be conducted fairly and honestly. The other two candidates, one a Conservative and one a Liberal, are the incumbents; they see nothing wrong with the buying and selling of votes that has been traditional at Percycross. Sir Thomas and his fellow Conservative win the election, but it is annulled on petition, and the borough is disfranchised by Parliament because of its pervasive corruption.

Ralph the Heir

A reclusive novelist named Bill Gray works endlessly on a novel he chooses not to finish. He has chosen a lifestyle completely secluded from life to try to keep writing pure. He, along with his assistant Scott, believe that something is lost once a mass audience reads the work. Scott would prefer Bill didn''t publish the book for fear that the mass-production of the work will destroy the "real" Bill. Bill has a dalliance with Scott''s partner Karen Janney, a former member of the Unification Church who is married to Kim Jo Pak in a Unification Church Blessing ceremony in the prologue of the book. Bill, who lives as a complete recluse, accedes to be photographed by a New York photographer named Brita who is documenting writers. In dialogue with Brita and others, Bill laments that novelists are quickly becoming obsolete in an age where terrorism has supplanted art as the "raids on consciousness" that jolt and transform culture at large. Gray disappears without a word and secretly decides to accept an opportunity from Charles to travel to London to publicly speak on the behalf of a Swiss writer held hostage in war-torn Beirut. Meanhile Karen ends up living in Brita''s NY apartment and spends most of her time in the homeless slums of Tompkins Square Park. In London, Bill is introduced to George Haddad, a representative of the Maoist group responsible for kidnapping the writer. Bill decides to go to Lebanon himself and negotiate the release of the writer. Cutting himself off from Charles, he flees to Cyprus where he awaits a ship that will take him to Lebanon. In Cyprus Bill is hit by a car and suffers a lacerated liver which, exacerbated by his heavy drinking, kills him in his sleep while en route to Beirut. In the epilogue, Brita goes to Beirut to photograph Abu Rashid, the terrorist responsible for the kidnapping. The fate of the hostage is never revealed, though the implication is grim. The plot unfolds with DeLillo''s customary shifts of time, setting, and character.

Mao II

Martin Conway is an unhappy 7th-grade student at a conservative New Jersey prep school, All Souls Preparatory, that reveres the memory of such famous graduates as General "Hollerin'' Hank" Lowery. His self-sacrificing mother doesn''t listen and his father is an alcoholic and is seldom around. Their marriage is falling apart. The only person he is able to talk to is his grandmother. Martin is bullied both by students and teachers, his grades are falling and he has few friends, and is finally involved in an altercation with one of the school''s most famous students, the grandson of an important World War II veteran. Almost simultaneously, Martin''s grandmother dies. Martin becomes seriously depressed, and rarely leaves his basement room. In her will, though, she leaves him an antique radio. When he tries it out, its hidden static is ghostly signal is also a portal to the deadly past of the London Blitz. At first Martin believes he is having nightmares vision related to his stressful situation, but with the help of his older sister, an Ivy League graduate, he researches historical details from his visions. When they turn out to be true, he realizes that he is really traveling through time. A child with a British accent emerges through the radio static, and eventually leads Martin back to the streets of WWII-era England. Jimmy Harker is a boy in desperate need of help, but the help he needs will require more heart and courage from Martin than he ever knew he had. Martin complies with Jimmy''s request and sets forth on an adventure in history, revenge and redemption, couched in serious questions about death and the afterlife. He begins to discover secrets he didn''t know existed, and finds answers to questions people wanted to keep hidden. What he learns ends up changing the historical record on General Lowery, bringing peace to an old man''s life, and altering a number of lives for the better, including his own. Another important plot theme is that of how family history and what we want to believe about people doesn''t always match up with reality.

London Calling

The novel is about a man named David Rain who goes to college and needs a place to stay. He finds a house on Wayward Crescent and moves in as a tenant, but little does he know that one step into the house would change his life forever. The owner of the house, Elizabeth Penykettle (also called Liz for short), gladly lets David stay with her and Lucy, her daughter. Liz earns her living by making clay dragons. The dragons are revealed to be more than meets the eye when Liz crafts David his own dragon, Gadzooks. David immediately takes a liking to his story-writing dragon, but is surprised when he begins to receive visions, almost telepathic, in his head, depicting the dragon writing words on his notebook. One day, David overhears Liz telling Lucy the story of Gawain''s Fire Tear (the story of the last dragon on Earth) which gives David and the reader a greater understanding of the dragons. After hearing this story, David ties many clues together and comes up with a theory that Liz and Lucy are descendants of Guinevere, a woman in the story who comforted Gawain as he died. As time passes, David finds his relationship with his dragon slowly declining. David must give his dragon love in order to save Zookie(Gadzooks) and prevent his fire within from diminishing forever. Lucy, an eleven year-old girl, loves squirrels. For Lucy''s birthday, David writes a book about the squirrels that has been named, and creates a made-up story about them. Some parts of the story that David writes have a funny coincidence with what happens in real life. Lucy brings it on David to help her catch a half-blind grey squirrel she named Conker. The two eventually catch Conker along with another squirrel named Snigger, and bring them to an animal shelter for help. Conker''s eye eventually heals, but it is revealed that Conker has kidney failure and could very well die soon. David and Lucy, along with a girl from the animal shelter named Sophie, let Conker free in the library gardens. Later, Conker dies a happy death, and David finishes the story, earning him Sophie''s heart.

The Fire Within

When the laptop of a terrorist mastermind falls into the possession of the Office, Gabriel Allon suspects an imminent attack upon the Pope. He warns his friend Luigi Donati, the Pope’s personal secretary, in time to tighten security and personally investigate likely terrorist suspects among the Vatican’s staff. However, the Pope ignores Gabriel’s suggestion that a large outdoor ceremony be moved into an enclosed—and more secure—structure. That disregard proves fatal when three suicide bombers cause more than 700 deaths among worshipers. Gabriel rescues the Pope just as more terrorists arrive to shoot missiles at the Basilica. As the Vatican later researches the disaster, it discovers that its council for improving relations with the Muslim world was little more than a front for inside terrorism. When the Office places the blame on a powerful terrorist network, terrorists respond by bombing the vehicle of Ari Shamron, the head of the Office and Gabriel’s close friend. As Shamron fights for his life, Gabriel joins a member of the CIA in a secret scheme to infiltrate the vast network of “Zizi,” a terrorism financier linked to both the bombing and the attack on Shamron’s life. They select Sarah Bancroft, an American art curator with a wealthy European upbringing, to penetrate Zizi’s organization. When she and art dealer Julian Isherwood sell Zizi, an art aficionado, an undiscovered Van Gogh, Zizi takes the bait and hires Sarah as his personal art director. He introduces her to his “family” by inviting her on an idyllic cruise in the Caribbean. Gabriel and his team tail Sarah with the hope that she’ll be able to identify Ahmed bin Shafiq, the man who orchestrates the many terrorist activities that Zizi funds. However, Gabriel’s team shows too much interest in Sarah, and they quickly arouse the suspicion of Zizi’s professional security team. On the night that Gabriel plans to assassinate bin Shafiq, Zizi’s party preempts his move and takes Sarah hostage. Sarah is secreted away to Switzerland, where she is heavily drugged with truth serum and forced to reveal the identities of Gabriel’s colleagues. In a desperate race against time, Gabriel’s team locates Sarah, kills her captors, and frees her. She in turn reveals that bin Shafiq, believing her death to be imminent, taunted her by stating that he was on his way to yet another terror operation at the Vatican. This shred of information sends Gabriel rushing back to Rome on the very day that the President of the United States is scheduled for a historic visit with the Pope. The target of the attack—the President—seems obvious, but Gabriel struggles to identify the operative. In an almost imperceptible move, a member of the elite Swiss Guard shoots two bullets at the President. Donati throws himself in front of the President and sustains critical injuries. Donati’s sudden movement alerts Gabriel, who kills the renegade guardsman before more shots are fired. Luigi Donati later recovers from the shooting, Ari Shamron survives the bombing and returns to the Office, Julian Isherwood retires, Sarah Bancroft receives a new life and identity from the CIA, Uzi Navot takes over the directorship of the Office’s special operations, and Gabriel Allon rekindles his romance with Chiara Zolli. Although the elaborate art plot failed, the book ends with two briefly recounted successes: Allon and his team locate and kill both Ahmed bin Shafiq and Zizi.

The Messenger

During a visit from her daughter, Niki, Etsuko reflects back on her own life as a young woman in Japan, and how she left that country to live in Britain. As she describes it, she and her Japanese husband, Jiro, had a daughter together, and a few years later Etsuko met a British man and moved with him to Britain. She took her elder daughter, Keiko, to Britain to live with her and the new husband. When Etsuko and her new husband have a daughter, Etsuko wants to call her something "modern" and her husband wants an Eastern-sounding name, so they compromise with the name "Niki," which seems to Etsuko to be perfectly British, but sounds to her husband at least slightly Japanese. In Britain, Keiko becomes increasingly solitary and antisocial. Etsuko recalls how, as Keiko grew older, she would lock herself in her room and emerge only to pick up the dinner-plate that her mother would leave for her in the kitchen. This disturbing behavior ends, as the reader already has learned, in Keiko''s suicide. "Your father," Etsuko tells Niki, "was rather idealistic at times...[H]e really believed we could give her a happy life over here... But you see, Niki, I knew all along. I knew all along she wouldn''t be happy over here." Etsuko tells her daughter, Niki, that she had a friend in Japan named Sachiko. Sachiko had a daughter named Mariko, a girl whom Etsuko''s memory paints as exceptionally solitary and antisocial. Sachiko, Etsuko recalls, had planned to take Mariko to America with an American soldier identified only as "Frank." Clearly, Sachiko''s story bears striking similarities to Etsuko''s.

A Pale View of Hills

A New England Nun" is the story of Louisa Ellis, a woman who has lived alone for many years. Louisa is somewhat of an eccentric, as she likes to keep her house meticulously clean, wear multiple aprons, and eat from her nicest china every day. She has an old dog named Caesar who she feels must be kept chained up because he bit a neighbor 8 years ago as a puppy. Louisa promised Joe Dagget 14 years ago that she would marry him when he returned from his fortune-hunting adventures in Australia, and now that he has returned it is time for her to fulfill her promise. When Joe arrives, however, it becomes obvious that Louisa sees him as a disruption of the life that she has made for herself. When Joe arrives, Louisa attempts to have a conversation with him, but is distracted when he tracks dirt on the floor, re-arranges her books, and accidentally knocks things over. The two have a cool and slightly awkward conversation when Louisa inquires after Joe''s mother''s health and Joe blushes and tells Louisa that Lily Dyer has been taking care of her. Clearly, she is only planning on marrying Joe because she promised that she would, since it would mean that Louisa would have to give up the life that she has made for herself. Later that night, as Louisa is enjoying a moonlit stroll, she happens to overhear a conversation between Joe and Lily. Through this conversation, Louisa learns that Joe and Lily have been seeing each other in the short time that Joe has been back, and that Joe is in love with Lily but refuses to break his promise to Louisa. Lily supports Joe''s decision, and though Joe encourages her to find someone else, Lily says, "I''ll never marry any other man as long as I live." The next day, when Joe comes to visit, Louisa releases Joe from his promise without letting him know that she is aware of his relationship with Lily. Joe and Louisa then part tenderly, and Louisa is left alone to maintain her present lifestyle. The last line of the story is: "Louisa sat, prayerfully numbering her days, like an uncloistered nun.

A New England Nun

Max Jones works the family farm in the Ozark Mountains. With his father dead and his stepmother remarrying a man he detests, Max runs away from home, taking his uncle''s astrogation manuals. Most occupations are tightly controlled by guilds, most with hereditary memberships. One such is the Astrogators Guild. Since his uncle had been a member and had no children, Max hopes that before he died, his uncle had named him his heir. He begins hitchhiking towards Earthport to find out. Along the way, he finds a friendly face in hobo Sam Anderson, who later alludes to being a deserter from the Imperial Marines. Sam feeds Max and offers advice, though he later departs with Max''s valuable manuals. At the guild''s headquarters, Max is disappointed to find that he had not been named as an heir, but he is returned his uncle''s substantial security deposit for his manuals. Max learns that Sam had tried to claim the deposit for himself. By chance, he runs into an apologetic Sam. With Max''s money, Sam is able to finagle them a one way job/trip aboard a starship using forged papers. Max signs on as a steward''s mate third class, and then he absorbs the contents of the Stewards'' Guild manual using his eidetic memory. Among his duties is caring for several animals, including passengers'' pets—work with which he is comfortable. When passenger Eldreth "Ellie" Coburn visits her pet, an alien, semi-intelligent "spider puppy" that Max has befriended, she learns that he can play three-dimensional chess, and she challenges him to a game. A champion player, she diplomatically lets him win. Meanwhile, Sam manages to rise to the position of master-at-arms. When, through Ellie''s machinations, the ship''s officers discover that Max had learned astrogation from his uncle, Max is promoted to the command deck. Under the tutelage of Chief Astrogator Hendrix and Chief Computerman Kelly, he becomes a probationary apprentice chartsman, then a probationary astrogator. In a meeting with Hendrix, Max reluctantly admits to faking his record to get into space. Hendrix defers the matter until their return to Earth. The Asgard then departs for Halcyon, a human colony planet orbiting Nu Pegasi. When Hendrix dies, the astrogation department is left dangerously shorthanded. The aging captain tries to take his place, but is not up to the task. When Max detects an error in his real-time calculations leading up to a "transition", neither the captain nor Assistant Astrogator Simes believe him, and the ship winds up lost. They locate a habitable world, and the passengers become colonists. Meanwhile, the crew continues to try to figure out where they are, and if they can get back to the Earth. Unfortunately, it turns out the planet is already inhabited by intelligent centaurs. Max and Ellie are captured, but Ellie''s pet is able to guide Sam and a rescue party to them. They escape, though Sam is killed covering their retreat. Upon his return, Max is informed that the captain has died. Simes tried to illegally take command and was killed by Sam, leaving Max as the only remaining astrogator. To make matters worse, Simes hid or destroyed the astrogation manuals. Vastly outnumbered by the hostile natives, the humans are forced to attempt a perilous return to known space by reversing the erroneous transition. Max must not only pilot the ship, he must supply the missing astrogation tables from his eidetic memory. To add to his burdens, the remaining officers inform Max that he must take charge, as only an astrogator can be the captain. The pressure is immense, but Max succeeds and the ship returns to known space. Max pays heavy fines for breaking guild regulations, but he becomes a member of the Astrogators Guild. However, he loses any chance for a relationship with Eldreth: she returns home to marry her boyfriend. Max accepts this with mixed feelings, but looks forward to his new career.

Starman Jones

A woman named Monica makes an appointment with Dresden to discuss a missing persons case later in the day. Dresden also gets a call from Lieutenant Karrin Murphy, director of Special Investigations (SI) Unit of the Chicago Police Department. Murphy''s partner shows him the bodies of two gruesomely murdered people with their hearts ripped out. Later that day, he is hired to find the husband of Monica Sells, Victor, a beginning magician who was acting oddly. Eventually, Dresden, despite encounters with vampires, the warlock, and Warden Morgan, learns that the affair centers around the drug "ThirdEye," which allows normal humans to temporarily use The Sight, which can drive them insane. Victor Sells manufactured ThirdEye to hedge out Johnny Marcone. Using the power of thunder storms and the orgies held at his home, he powered the spells to remove his enemies, namely Marcone''s men and people threatening his operation, in order to gradually bring down Marcone. Interrupting Victor''s last spell, Dresden attacks Victor, eventually burning down Victor''s house while Victor is still inside grappling with monster-sized scorpions and a demon he summoned to kill Dresden. Dresden wins, but finds himself trapped on the balcony of the burning house until Morgan steps in to rescue him. Morgan witnessed the fight with Victor and, knowing now that Dresden is innocent, reluctantly testifies on Dresden''s behalf to the White Council.

Storm Front

The novel''s protagonist, Aiah, is a minor functionary for the Plasm Authority in the metropolis of Jaspeer; the Authority is the public utility company that taps plasm wells and sells the plasm (at very high rates) to those who would use it. Aiah is one of the Barkazi, an ethnic group whose metropolis, Barkazil, was engulfed by civil war several generations ago, its territory partitioned and occupied by the adjacent metropolises and its population dispersed as refugees. Barkazi religion centers around a trickster god, Karlo, who is constantly running scams on others, and the tradition of the scam, or chonah, is central to their culture. Aiah briefly studied plasm use at university, but ended her studies because of the high cost of the plasm required to continue them. Working for an emergency response team investigating a huge flaming apparition of a woman that damages several city blocks, she discovers a previously unknown plasm well of tremendous power (the apparition being caused by a woman who blundered into the well and tapped the plasm directly, killing herself in the process). Instead of disclosing its location, she leads the Authority on a wild goose chase while trying to decide on how best to use it to her advantage. She decides to reveal it to Constantine, a resident of a luxury apartment complex near her own. Constantine is a skilled mage and visionary political theorist with dreams of moving the world beyond its stagnant situation. He became Metropolitan of his home metropolis and attempted to implement many reforms, but was betrayed, forced from power, and exiled by those closest to him. Aiah, an admirer of his political thought, discloses the plasm source to him so that he might make another attempt at realizing his plans for the "New City", asking only that she be made a part of whatever he carries out. Aiah then effectively runs a chonah of enormous scale, misleading the Authority, dealing with her Barkazi extended family (who want a piece of whatever action she is in on) and the local organized crime group, keeping her Jaspeeri husband (working in a distant metropolis) in the dark, and avoiding the potentially lethal attentions of Constantine''s right-hand-woman, Sorya. Through all of this she has a love affair with Constantine and receives training in magery from him, for which she has a great deal of natural talent. At the novel''s climax, Aiah''s plasm source, and her own magical assistance, is a crucial element when Constantine orchestrates a revolution in the metropolis of Caraqui and installs himself in its post-revolutionary power structure, from which position he hopes to enact his New City reforms. Realizing that she has no hope of using her full potential as a bureaucrat in Jaspeer, Aiah leaves her job, family, and marriage behind and travels to Caraqui to help Constantine achieve his dream. fr:Plasma (roman) pl:Metropolita (powieść)

Metropolitan

The book tells two separate but related tales: first, the romance between Nacib Saad, a respectable bar owner of Syrian origin, and Gabriela, an innocent and captivating migrant worker from the impoverished interior. And second, the political struggle between the old guard of Cacao growers, led by the Bastos clan, and the forces of modernization, in the person of Mundinho Falcão, a wealthy young man from Rio de Janeiro. It can be read simultaneously as an unusual, charming love story, a description of the political and social forces at work in 1920s Brazil, a somewhat satirical depiction of Latin American aspirations to "modernity", and a celebration of the local culture and pleasures of Bahia. The book was made into series for Brazilian television in 1960, in 1976 and again in 2012. A feature film of the novel was directed by Bruno Barreto in 1983. The feature version starred Sonia Braga as Gabriela and Marcello Mastroianni as Nacib, and featured original music by Antonio Carlos Jobim.

Over 8000 Takeaways For Your Brain!

Read - Listen - Learn

Torn

By Amanda Hocking

Ralph the Heir

By Anthony Trollope

Mao II

By Don DeLillo

London Calling

By Edward Bloor

The Fire Within

By Chris D''Lacey

The Messenger

No Author Listed

A Pale View of Hills

By Kazuo Ishiguro

A New England Nun

By Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman

Starman Jones

By Robert A. Heinlein

Storm Front

By Jim Butcher

Metropolitan

By Walter Jon Williams

Gabriela, Cravo e Canela

By Jorge Amado