Secrets of the Lost Ledgers


Book Description

An invisible message from a dead man resurrects a decades-old mystery. With her sharpened magical senses, Sylvia recognizes invisible writing while cataloging an obscure book for the library. She’s shocked to discover the message, written many years earlier, pleaded for help. She’s even more shocked to discover the author of the message was married to a paper magician. Could there be a connection to Sylvia’s father? With a magical mystery on her hands, Sylvia engages the help of Gabe Glass, and together they follow the clues to the location of two hidden ledgers that implicate a very dangerous individual in an illegal bookmaking scheme. Although not named, Gabe is convinced he knows who the bookmaker is, and sets out to prove it. The investigation draws them into the shady underbelly of the horseracing industry and uncovers a link to Gabe’s parents that takes everyone by surprise. As they unravel the mystery’s tangled threads, unexpected twists and turns lead them to the truth. But the greatest twist of all is the danger no one saw coming.




The Lost Scroll of the Physician


Book Description

Sesha, the daughter of the pharaoh’s royal physician, must find the precious scroll her father was transcribing before his death, not only to save the kingdom, but to also save her brother’s life.




Drinking Midnight Wine


Book Description

There is a world beyond the world It figures. Just when Bradfordian bookshop clerk, Toby Dexter, finally works up the nerve to talk to his secret crush, she darts into an open door. Toby follows, and in that second, everything changes. Though it still looks like Bradford-on-Avon, the town’s suddenly chatty ATM and river mermaids are the first clues that something is quite out of place—namely, Toby. The moment he stepped through that door, Toby entered the magical parallel world of Mysterie. Our ordinary dimension—the one Toby knew as Bradford-on-Avon—is actually Veritie, a mere shadow of its alter ego, Mysterie, where magic and myth, gods and monsters, living legends and walking nightmares reign. And Toby isn’t the only recent arrival. A cunning and vicious demon—The Serpent’s Son—has returned to Mysterie, accompanied by a malevolent new ally, intent on bringing down both dimensions. Toby can remain mortal, return to Veritie, and try to convince himself that he had a bad pint of bitter that night. Or he can stay in Mysterie, join forces with his new friends Leo Morn and his Brother Under The Hill, and try to stop The Serpent’s Son. The choices Toby makes will have dramatic consequences for both worlds. It may not be the first time Mysterie’s wars have spilled over into our reality, but if Toby fails, it could be the last. Simon R. Green, New York Times bestselling author of the Deathstalker series and the Nightside series, brings his trademark wit and inventiveness to his beloved hometown of Bradford-on-Avon, in this charming standalone urban fantasy novel.




Secrets Under the Apple Tree


Book Description

About Secrets under the Apple Tree is the first in a series of books targeting children ages twelve and up. It is written as a mystery designed to entertain as well as challenge the thinking skills of young readers. This book takes place in a small town in Upstate New York. The area is predominantly a farming community rich in growing fine New York State apples and grapes. Although this book does not discuss much about the farming industry or its growing apples, grapes, or other products, the book sets the foundation for future readings with mystery overtones. The main characters in the book are two boys. Corey spent the majority of his young years in New York City and coming up to the country to spend summers with his grandparents. Bobby was born and raised in a small town and is very curious in nature. The story is centered on the family relocating from big city life, coming back to the family roots, and a friendship between the boys' fathers that dates back to Tom Albright and the now chief of police's youth. The boys get involved with a note and map dating back years. Believing it is something their fathers buried years ago, they set out to solve the mysterious game set before them. Instead, what they find is something that involves the whole town dating back decades.




Knowledge Lost


Book Description

A compelling alternative account of the history of knowledge from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment Until now the history of knowledge has largely been about formal and documented accumulation, concentrating on systems, collections, academies, and institutions. The central narrative has been one of advancement, refinement, and expansion. Martin Mulsow tells a different story. Knowledge can be lost: manuscripts are burned, oral learning dies with its bearers, new ideas are suppressed by censors. Knowledge Lost is a history of efforts, from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment, to counter such loss. It describes how critics of ruling political and religious regimes developed tactics to preserve their views; how they buried their ideas in footnotes and allusions; how they circulated their tracts and treatises in handwritten copies; and how they commissioned younger scholars to spread their writings after death. Filled with exciting stories, Knowledge Lost follows the trail of precarious knowledge through a series of richly detailed episodes. It deals not with the major themes of metaphysics and epistemology, but rather with interpretations of the Bible, Orientalism, and such marginal zones as magic. And it focuses not on the usual major thinkers, but rather on forgotten or half-forgotten members of the “knowledge underclass,” such as Pietro della Vecchia, a libertine painter and intellectual; Charles-César Baudelot, an antiquarian and numismatist; and Johann Christoph Wolf, a pastor, Hebrew scholar, and witness to the persecution of heretics. Offering a fascinating new approach to the intellectual history of early modern Europe, Knowledge Lost is also an ambitious attempt to rethink the very concept of knowledge.




Keeper of the Celtic Secrets


Book Description

WRITTEN AS A BOOK OF FICTION - BUT IS IT Revealed in this book, is the mystery behind the Missing Link, the answer to the 'creation or evolution' question, the origins of the races, the origins of Rh-Negative blood; the Red Thread, the Origin of the Hebrew people, the wandering planet of Hibiru - yes, Hibiru, and much more. See, how patterns can reveal the future, what the Garden of Eden really was, and learn about the ancient Gods of Sumer, the Mazzaroth trail, and much more. This book has a heart wrenching love story, and is full of mystery, danger, and excitement, but more importantly, it contains the unveiling of secret knowledge from some old secret journals. Journals, scribed in 1650, have passed down to 'the keeper of the secrets', Samantha O'Brian, who decides to share these amazing secrets with the world. These secrets will open your eyes to wisdom so astounding, that you won't believe your eyes.




Gordon of the Lost Lagoon


Book Description

"Gordon of the Lost Lagoon" is a romance novel set in the Pacific Coast. Douglas Gordon had been orphaned as a little child when first his mother died and then his father disappeared never to be seen again. He finally ended up in the care of the kind but poor Berry family. But on her deathbed Mrs. Berry told Douglas of a letter that his real father had left him. When he grows up the young man seeks to find love and fortune, working as a seaman. But not everyone is happy with his progress in life, as his family's old enemies, the Ganns Family, are keen on suppressing it.




The Lost Daughter


Book Description

'Bold and powerful, filled with emotion, tension and vivid characters in a setting that is rich in historical detail' Kate Furnivall A Russian princess. An extraordinary sacrifice. A captivating secret... From the author of The Secret Wife, a gripping journey through decades and across continents, of love, devastating loss and courage against all odds. 1918 With the country they once ruled turned against them, the future of Russia's imperial family hangs in the balance. When middle daughter Maria Romanova captivates two of the guards, it will lead to a fateful choice between right and wrong. Fifty-five years later . . . Val rushes to her father's side when she hears of his troubling end-of-life confession: 'I didn't want to kill her.' As she unravels the secrets behind her mother's disappearance when she was twelve years old, she finds herself caught up in one of the world's greatest mysteries. Readers adore the novels of Gill Paul: 'A brilliantly emotional read' Woman's Own 'As rich in historical detail as it is captivating ****' Heat 'One of my favourite books of this year. Fascinating, glamorous and utterly compelling... historical fiction at its best' Tracy Rees, author of The Hourglass 'A marvellous, perfect read' The Sun 'Cleverly crafted and enthralling. A triumph' Dinah Jeffries 'A wonderful book. Loved the seamless blend of fact and fiction' Kathryn Hughes 'Compelling and full of surprises ****' The Lady 'This engrossing, heart-wrenching novel moves between the decades, combining history with fiction to portray the tragic events of the Russian Revolution' Sunday Express 'Riveting! I thoroughly enjoyed this intriguing tale of friendship and betrayal' Rosanna Ley 'With superb story-telling and a lush backdrop of period detail...a novel that is impossible to put down, abouttwo women who are impossible to forget. I loved it!' Hazel Gaynor 'I devoured Another Woman's Husband in a few days. This has bestseller written all over it' Louise Beech 'With seamless ease Gill evokes the events and characters of two eras...with great verve and a smattering of delicious fictional licence. Delightful' Liz Trenow 'Gill Paul has taken two of the twentieth century's most enigmatic women, one revered, the other reviled, and woven them into a deft story of friendship and betrayal' Kate Riordan




Lost Girls


Book Description

In 1554, a group of idealistic laywomen founded a home for homeless and orphaned adolescent girls in one of the worst neighborhoods in Florence. Of the 526 girls who lived in the home during its fourteen-year tenure, only 202 left there alive. Struck by the unusually high mortality rate, Nicholas Terpstra sets out to determine what killed the lost girls of the House of Compassion shelter (Casa della Pietà). Reaching deep into the archives' letters, ledgers, and records from both inside and outside the home, he slowly pieces together the tragic story. The Casa welcomed girls in bad health and with little future, hoping to save them from an almost certain life of poverty and drudgery. Yet this "safe" house was cruelly dangerous. Victims of Renaissance Florence’s sexual politics, these young women were at the disposal of the city’s elite men, who treated them as property meant for their personal pleasure. With scholarly precision and journalistic style, Terpstra uncovers and chronicles a series of disturbing leads that point to possible reasons so many girls died: hints of routine abortions, basic medical care for sexually transmitted diseases, and appalling conditions in the textile factories where the girls worked. Church authorities eventually took the Casa della Pietà away from the women who had founded it and moved it to a better part of Florence. Its sordid past was hidden, until now, in an official history that bore little resemblance to the orphanage’s true origins. Terpstra’s meticulous investigation not only uncovers the sad fate of the lost girls of the Casa della Pietà but also explores broader themes, including gender relations, public health, church politics, and the challenges girls and adolescent women faced in Renaissance Florence.




The Book of Lost Friends


Book Description

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the bestselling author of Before We Were Yours comes a dramatic historical novel of three young women searching for family amid the destruction of the post–Civil War South, and of a modern-day teacher who learns of their story and its vital connection to her students’ lives. “An absorbing historical . . . enthralling.”—Library Journal Bestselling author Lisa Wingate brings to life startling stories from actual “Lost Friends” advertisements that appeared in Southern newspapers after the Civil War, as newly freed slaves desperately searched for loved ones who had been sold away. Louisiana, 1875: In the tumultuous era of Reconstruction, three young women set off as unwilling companions on a perilous quest: Hannie, a freed slave; Lavinia, the pampered heir to a now destitute plantation; and Juneau Jane, Lavinia’s Creole half sister. Each carries private wounds and powerful secrets as they head for Texas, following roads rife with vigilantes and soldiers still fighting a war lost a decade before. For Lavinia and Juneau Jane, the journey is one of stolen inheritance and financial desperation, but for Hannie, torn from her mother and siblings before slavery’s end, the pilgrimage west reignites an agonizing question: Could her long-lost family still be out there? Beyond the swamps lie the limitless frontiers of Texas and, improbably, hope. Louisiana, 1987: For first-year teacher Benedetta Silva, a subsidized job at a poor rural school seems like the ticket to canceling her hefty student debt—until she lands in a tiny, out-of-step Mississippi River town. Augustine, Louisiana, is suspicious of new ideas and new people, and Benny can scarcely comprehend the lives of her poverty-stricken students. But amid the gnarled live oaks and run-down plantation homes lie the century-old history of three young women, a long-ago journey, and a hidden book that could change everything.