Alternate Fiction

Arabella Dempsey's dear friend Jane Austen warned her against teaching. But Miss Climpson's Select Seminary for Young Ladies seems the perfect place for Arabella to claim her independence while keeping an eye on her younger sisters nearby. Just before Christmas, she accepts a position at the quiet girls' school in Bath, expecting to face nothing more exciting than conducting the annual Christmas recital. She hardly imagines coming face to face with French aristocrats and international spies...

Daniel Quinn, well known for Ishmael - a life-changing book for readers the world over - once again turns the tables and creates an otherworld that is very like our own, yet fascinating beyond words. Imagine that Nazi Germany was the first to develop an atomic bomb and the Allies surrendered. America was never bombed, occupied, or even invaded, but was nonetheless forced to recognize Nazi world dominance....

One summer weekend in 1949 - but not our 1949 - the well-connected "Farthing set", a group of upper-crust English families, enjoy a country retreat. Lucy is a minor daughter in one of those families; her parents were both leading figures in the group that overthrew Churchill and negotiated peace with Herr Hitler eight years before....

There is no yellow brick road here. No emerald city. No lollipop guild. This is the Australis Penal Colony, a continent sized prison referred to the world over as the Outcast Zone. Built to contain the world's most dangerous criminals, OZ ended up the dumping ground for everything polite society deemed undesirable. From inside this place, a garbled message proves Dorothy's father is still alive, trapped in a prison with only one way in and no way out.

After Germany and Japan won WWII, the US fell under their control. Growing up in this world, Mac plays portical games, haphazardly studies for the Imperial Exam, and dreams of becoming a mecha pilot. Only problem: Mac's grades are terrible. His only hope is to pass the military exam and get into the prestigious mecha pilot training program at Berkeley Military Academy. When his friend Hideki's plan to game the test goes horribly wrong, Mac washes out of the military exam, too. Perhaps he can achieve his dream by becoming a civilian pilot.

Highly acclaimed author Ursula K. Le Guin lends a resonant voice to a pivotal yet often overlooked character of Vergil's The Aeneid. Born into peace and freedom, Lavinia is stunned to learn that she will be the cause of a great war - or so the prophecies and omens claim. Her fate is sealed, however, when she meets a man from Troy.

Bathsheba is a woman who longs for love. With her devout husband away fighting the king's wars for many months at a time, discontent and loneliness dog her steps - and make it frighteningly easy to succumb to King David's charm and attention. Though she immediately regrets her involvement with the powerful king, the pieces are set in motion that will destroy everything she holds dear. Can she find forgiveness at the feet of the Almighty? Or has her sin separated her from God - and David - forever?

In the Shadow of the Towers compiles nearly 20 works of speculative fiction responding to and inspired by the events of 9/11, from writers seeking to confront, rebuild, and carry on, even in the face of overwhelming emotion.

Russia, 1946, the Nazis recently defeated. Stalin gathers half a dozen of the top Soviet science fiction authors in a dacha in the countryside somewhere. Convinced that the defeat of America is only a few years away, and equally convinced that the Soviet Union needs a massive external threat to hold it together, to give it purpose and direction, he tells the writers: 'I want you to concoct a story about aliens poised to invade earth... I want it to be massively detailed, and completely believable. If you need props and evidence to back it up, then we can create them."

Bram Stoker kept secret a tale even more terrifying than Dracula. It begins among the Carpathian peaks, when an intrepid explorer discovers a mysterious golden box. She brings it back with her to the foggy streets of Victorian London, unaware of its dangerous power…or that an evil beyond imagining has already taken root in the city. Stoker, a successful theater manager but frustrated writer, is drawn into a deadly web spun by the wealthy founders of a mission house for the poor. Far from a safe haven, the mission harbors a dark and terrifying secret.

The Change occurred when an electrical storm centered over the island of Nantucket produced a blinding white flash that rendered all electronic devices and fuels inoperable - and plunged the world into a dark age humanity was unprepared to face....

One night in Lagos, two former friends reunite. Obinna is a dutiful and unsophisticated stay-at-home husband and father married to a powerful businesswoman. Eze is single, a cautious rebel from his university days whose arrival soon upsets the balance in Obinna’s life. In a world where men are constantly under surveillance and subject to the whims of powerful women, more than Obinna’s ordered and accustomed routine might be on the line.

In 17th-century London, two forces rule the people: the color powers and the Stone Plague. Brown masks can manipulate wood. Black masks control the night. And red mask...well, red is the color of blood. Thomas Fawkes needs a gray mask so he can remove the stone that has invaded his body and will ultimately take his life. But when he fails his color test, his only hope is to track down his father, the infamous Guy Fawkes, and demand his color mask.

When spring comes, the people leave their winter cave, foraging for honey and shoots, bulbs and grubs, the hot richness of a deer's brain. They awaken the fire to heat their naked bodies, lay down their thorn bushes and share pictures in their minds. But strange things are happening - inexplicable scents, sounds and violence - and, suddenly, unimaginable creatures are half-glimpsed in the forest: an upright new people of bone-faces and deerskins. What the early people don't know is that their season is already over....

El gran misterio de la humanidad, la inmortalidad, es la piedra angular sobre la que giran los argumentos de esta novela de Javier Sierra, "La pirámide inmortal", una versión revisada, actualizada y ampliada de su novela "El secreto egipcio de Napoleón". Después de "El maestro del Prado", Javier Sierra vuelve con más emoción, más sentimiento, más enigmas. Agosto de 1799. Un hombre ha quedado atrapado en el interior de la Gran Pirámide y se debate entre la vida y la muerte. Es el joven general Napoleón Bonaparte.

Told in parallel timelines, Kate begins to live two lives--one in which Olivia resurfaces and one in which she doesn't. In the reality that follows her daughter's death, she maneuvers through every mother's worst nightmare, facing grief, rage, and the question of purpose in the aftermath of such profound loss. She endures, day by day, in a world without her daughter. In her alternate timeline, while she explores a tremulous romance with her best friend, Jason, she finds herself grappling with the ex-husband who abandoned Kate and Olivia years prior.

Ariane has found refuge in Illinois, and now plans her rightful return to vampire society. She must stay in control while hiding in nature, while foes old and new converge on her territory.

Young Alvin returns to the town of his birth and begins his apprenticeship with Makepeace Smith, committing seven years of his life in exchange for the skills and knowledge of a blacksmith. But Alvin must also learn to control and use his own talent, that of a Maker, or else his destiny will be unfulfilled.

November 1291. Meg and Llywelyn gather their family at Rhuddlan Castle to celebrate their seventh anniversary and David's 23rd birthday. But the joyful reunion goes grievously awry when an old enemy raises the banner of rebellion, followed immediately by an even more catastrophic betrayal by an old friend. Meanwhile, facing war at every turn and still haunted by his decision to leave Cassie and Callum in the modern world, David chooses a dangerous path forward, one that will either change the course of the future forever or burn his world to ashes.

Britain, 1961: A beautiful blonde baby is born to Viscount Althorp, heir to the Spencer earldom. But Diana grows up amid the fallout of her parents’ messy divorce. She struggles at school. Her refuge throughout is romantic novels. She dreams of falling in love and being rescued by a handsome prince.