Family Adventure

Siblings Kate, Michael, and Emma have been in one orphanage after another for the last ten years, passed along like lost baggage. Yet these unwanted children are more remarkable than they could possibly imagine. Ripped from their parents as babies, they are being protected from a horrible evil of devastating power, an evil they know nothing about.

A landmark feat of innovation is about to change the American West forever. With electric cables stretching from the Colorado River to Gallup, New Mexico, a new telegraph system will connect the settlers of the Arizona Territory to the rest of the country — a dream come true for rancher Chet Byrnes and his family. But laying 400 miles of steel wire can be a deadly task. Chet has to face off with hired henchmen who would kill to sabotage the project. Chet’s nephew JD has his hands full with cutthroat rustlers on the Mexican border.

Building a ranching empire is one thing - keeping it out of the hands of robbers, kidnappers, murderers, embezzlers, and every no good opportunist crawling through the Arizona desert is a daily grind for Chet Byrnes. He’s just as likely to rescue a stolen daughter as he is to recover rustled cattle on any given day. But with a family to keep safe and enough real target practice to keep his aim deadly, nothing’s going to stop Chet from bringing his ranch into a bold new era.

For Vega and her family, salmon is life. And Vega is learning to be a salmon finder, preparing for the day when she will be her family’s matriarch. But then she and her brother Deneb are separated from their pod when a devastating earthquake and tsunami render the seascape unrecognizable. Vega must use every skill she has to lead her brother back to their family. The young orcas face a shark attack, hunger, the deep ocean, and polluted waters on their journey. Will Vega become the leader she’s destined to be?

Speed and self-confidence, that’s Astrid’s motto. Nicknamed “the little thunderbolt,” she loves to spend her days racing down the hillside on her sled, singing loudly as she goes, and visiting Gunnvald, her grumpy, septuagenarian best friend and godfather, who makes hot chocolate from real chocolate bars. She just wishes there were other children to share her hair-raising adventures with. But Astrid’s world is about to be turned upside down by two startling arrivals to the village of Glimmerdal: first a new family, then a mysterious, towering woman who everyone seems to know.

Two-time Spur Award winner and member of the Arkansas Writers Hall of Fame, Dusty Richards pens gritty Western tales packed with period authenticity. Texas Blood Feud stars Chet Byrnes, a third generation Texan looking to save his family’s ranch with one more big cattle drive. But his plans are dashed after he strings up three horse thieves, sparking a deadly feud with a family bent on revenge.

While learning the art of ancient warfare in an exotic location, Amy and Dan uncover a devastating secret about their family that changes everything in this high-stakes adventure.

Gregor is summoned back to the Underland by the terms of a second prophecy. Spies have reported the sighting of a Rat King, a character who has been legendary since the Middle Ages. Recognizable by its tremendous size and snow-white coat, the Rat King is destined to bring a World War to the Underland. Gregor eventually comes face to face with the Rat King, and to his surprise, he finds he is unable to kill this creature. His heart tells him he's making the right decision.

The Big Wander is a trip 14-year-old Clay Lancaster and his older brother Mike have planned for years. It’s Clay’s dream to find his ex-rodeo-star uncle, who quit the tour and disappeared somewhere in the vast and colorful Monument Valley. But Mike - heartbroken and unfocused after losing his girlfriend - soon heads for home. Clay, however, will not give up. He finds a job in a remote trading post, and follows a lead on his uncle’s whereabouts that takes him deep into Navajo country.

The nightmare continues for the new vampire's assistant in the second installment of the New York Times best-selling Saga of Darren Shan.

Darren Shan was just an ordinary schoolboy until his visit to the Cirque du Freak. Now, as he struggles with his new life as a vampire's assistant, he tries desperately to resist the one temptation that sickens him, the one thing that can keep him alive. But destiny is calling. The Wolf Man is waiting.

Tom Tin, an innocent convict, is aboard a ship bound for Australia where he will serve a lengthy sentence in prison. To avoid this horrible fate, Tom jumps ship to nearby islands, but finds that the refuge he hoped for may just be another struggle for his freedom - and his life. Acclaimed author Iain Lawrence delivers another exotic adventure tale for young readers.

Like the previous books in A Series of Unfortunate Events, there is nothing to be heard here but misery, despair, and discomfort, and you still have time to choose something else to listen to.

Meet Malice Morbid Malign. She’s from Underland, land of sorcery, spooks and skulduggery. But, she and her family live in Topside, and mischief is their business. And the business of mischief is a very serious matter! The Malign family hate books, they hate bathing and they especially hate helping. But when grandad ghosts mysteriously start disappearing, including her own beloved grandad, Malice has no choice but to help. She partners up with her uncle Vexatious, to solve the case of the missing grandad-ghosts.

When 17-year-old Iranian American Kamran Smith learns that his brother has been labeled a terrorist, he knows something isn't right. In a race against time, it is up to Kamran to prove his brother's innocence, even as the country has turned against him and his family. With the help of a ragtag team of underground intelligence professionals, Kamran must piece together the clues and the codes that will save his brother's life - and save his country from possibly the largest terrorist attack since 9/11.

For years, the Empress of Namorn has pressed her young cousin, Lady Sandrilene fa Toren, to visit her vast lands within the Empire's borders. Sandry has avoided the invitation for as long as it was possible. Now, Sandry has agreed to pay that overdue visit. Sandry's uncle promises guards to accompany her. But they're hardly a group of warriors! They're her old friends from Winding Circle: Daja, Tris, and Briar. Sandry hardly knows them now. They've grown up and grown apart.

Famed inventor Henry "Hank" Witherspoon has gone missing, and it's up to Jack and his brilliant siblings, Ava and Matt, to find him. At Hank's ransacked lab, the siblings discover clues to the project he's been working on - a new way to generate and store electricity, inspired by the electric eels of the Amazon.

Sure to enchant fans of the Lemony Snicket series, this wonderful sequel to Peppermints in the Parlor is an exciting tale that follows the adventures of young orphan Emily Luccock. Finally free from a dark and dangerous boarding school, Emily learns that she is to be sent away again. Award-winning author Barbara Brooks Wallace has written many suspenseful books for children, including Sparrows in the Scullery.

In Never Say Die, 15-year-old Inuit hunter Nick Thrasher takes a trip downriver with his half-brother Ryan, who’s visiting Canada’s Arctic to photograph the caribou migration. But when disaster strikes, Nick is forced to survive alone in a landscape filled with dangerous predators. Most of all, he fears the terrifying “grolar bear”, the half-grizzly, half-polar-bear hybrid that isn’t supposed to exist - except Nick has seen it with his own eyes.

If you have not read anything about the Baudelaire orphans, then before you read even one more sentence, you should know this: Violet, Klaus, and Sunny are kindhearted and quick-witted, but their lives, I am sorry to say, are filled with bad luck and misery. All of the stories about these three children are unhappy and wretched, and this one may be the worst of them all.

While Jude fought for power in the Court of Elfhame against the cruel Prince Cardan, her sister, Taryn, began to fall in love with the trickster Locke. Half-apology and half-explanation, it turns out Taryn has some secrets of her own to reveal.