Humor Fiction Adventure

Piers Anthony delivers another tale set in the best-selling world of Xanth, filled with magic, surprises, adventure, and a few puns. Here's what the author has to say about his new book: "Five Portraits is a kind of sequel to Board Stiff in that it picks up where the other leaves off, with the same characters. Apart from that, it's one of my favorites within the series.

Alexander Grant is a little too good at a few too many things. Two dozen martial arts. Twice that many languages. Chess, the piano, sports, forging excused absences, you name it. He graduated high school top of his class 17 times. Of course, no one knows any of this. Not that he wants to go unnoticed. It’s just safer that way.

After saving the grim and gritty alien city of Down Here from something big, mean, and mind-bendingly horrible, Dan is looking forward to unwinding in the closest available bar. Annoyingly, the universe has other ideas. Instead, Dan finds himself investigating a cheating husband, two horrible murders, and the potential enslavement of everyone in the galaxy. With his caseload stretching his woefully limited detective skills, his car in pieces, and the whole "being dead" thing not doing him any favors, Dan has no choice but to ask his friends for help.

At 14, Robert "Hutch" Hutchinson is out of luck. His charm and singing voice can't keep him out of trouble anymore. When he's arrested (again): he's given a choice: die in juvie or become a shadow: the fearless, unstoppable, and top-secret guardian of a Future Important Person, or FIP. With nothing to lose, Hutch accepts. After two grueling years at the Future Affairs Training and Education (FATE) Center, he expects to be plunged into a battle zone. Instead he learns that his FIP is someone named Ryo Enomoto, front-man of world-famous boy band International. He must join the band and change his name to Bobby Sky.

Join George Mahood, his long-suffering wife, and their three young children as they pack their bags and embark on an exciting new chapter in Devon. Picking up where Every Day Is a Holiday left off, Life’s a Beach follows George as he continues his hilarious celebration of the quirky and bizarre calendar days, proving that fun and adventure can be found in the most unlikely situations.

When out-of-shape IT technician Roen wakes up and starts hearing voices in his head, he naturally assumes he’s losing it. He isn’t. As of last night, he has a passenger in his brain - an ancient alien life-form called Tao, whose race crash-landed on Earth before the first fish crawled out of the oceans. Over the millennia his people have trained human heroes to be great leaders, to advance our species at a rate far beyond what it would have achieved on its own. Split into two opposing factions - the peace-loving, but under-represented Prophus, and the savage, powerful Genjix - the aliens have been in a state of civil war for centuries.

When a suspect explodes mid-interrogation and his office is taken over by an intergalactic despot, undead detective Dan Deadman reckons he's finally hit rock bottom. Banished to a dangerous underground hostel network, Dan becomes embroiled in a mass-murder investigation that will take him from the bowels of Down Here to the depths of the ocean. As the clues run out and the case collapses around him, Dan discovers a sinister plot that could wipe out two whole civilizations, and plunge the planet of Parloo into an endless bloody war.

Holt Box, a beloved country singer on the comeback trail is killed in Lucky’s lover, Jean-Charles’, kitchen. Mr. Box dies in Lucky’s father’s arms. Her former lover, Teddie, is accused of the murder. A heavy-hitter in the Macanese underworld is working over Lucky’s father. An old nemesis salivating for revenge gets out of jail on a technicality. Lucky’s mother is ramping up an ill-advised political campaign. And the holidays are racing to a crescendo.

Edsel Bronfman works as a junior executive shipping clerk for an importer of Korean flatware. He lives in a seedy neighborhood and spends his free time with his spirited mother. Things happen to other people, and Bronfman knows it. Until, that is, he gets a call from operator 61217 telling him that he's won a free weekend at a beachfront condo in Destin, Florida. But there's a catch: The offer is intended for a couple, and Bronfman has only 79 days to find someone to take with him.

Tuesday Mooney is a loner. She keeps to herself, begrudgingly socializes, and spends much of her time watching old Twin Peaks and X-Files DVDs. But when Vincent Pryce, Boston’s most eccentric billionaire, dies—leaving behind an epic treasure hunt through the city, with clues inspired by his hero, Edgar Allan Poe—Tuesday’s adventure finally begins.

En el año 2007 Jorge Magano presentó al mundo a Jaime Azcárate: un licenciado en Historia del Arte metido a periodista -y héroe ocasional- que vive las más asombrosas aventuras en territorio desconocido tratando de desentrañar los más complicados misterios relacionados con nuestras creencias, nuestros orígenes...y las relaciones sociales, aunque no siempre con el mismo éxito. Por el momento es el protagonista de tres novelas.

Witness the epic battle of the cyclops! Visit the endangered dragon preserve! Please, no slaying. Solve the mystery of The Mystery Cottage, if you dare! Buy some knickknacks from The Fates! They might come in handy later. On a road trip across an enchanted America, Helen and Troy will discover all this and more. If the curse placed upon them by an ancient god doesn't kill them or the pack of reluctant orc assassins don't catch up to them, Helen and Troy might reach the end their journey in one piece, where they might just end up destroying the world.

Hank is fairly happy that his uncle was murdered. The man had been nothing but a source of endless sorrow and hardships since they first met. Nevertheless, Hank is forced to investigate the killing and comes to realize it is connected to a much larger collection of miseries than even his uncle could manage. This episode marks a huge shift for Hank as he ventures into unknown regions of the cosmos and is confronted with the harsh truths of his reality.

More than anything, Tom Raines wants to be important, though his shadowy life is anything but that. For years, Tom's drifted from casino to casino with his unlucky gambler of a dad, gaming for their survival. Keeping a roof over their heads depends on a careful combination of skill, luck, con artistry, and staying invisible. Then one day, Tom stops being invisible. Someone's been watching his virtual-reality prowess, and he's offered the incredible - a place at the Pentagonal Spire, an elite military academy. There, Tom's instincts for combat will be put to the test and if he passes, he'll become a member of the Intrasolar Forces.

When the body of a mysterious woman is found to be carrying the phone number of James Bond, Bond is called in by M to help the investigation. But before he can even reach headquarters he is nearly run off the road in a high-speed motorway chase. Someone wants Bond dead.

Daniel O'Dwyer, ex-hospital pharmacist, accidental detective is back. Content to be unemployed and spend his days in the sun and sand of his Oak Island paradise, Daniel is once again drawn back to the local hospital and the mysteries that surround it. Construction on the hospital grounds unearths human remains, which are quickly dismissed as being part of a Native American burial ground. A young, clumsy medical resident who runs into Daniel, thinks otherwise. Meanwhile, Daniel's socially imbalanced sidekick, Willie, has a problem of his own.

After the death of his fiancee due to medical errors, hospital pharmacist Daniel O'Dwyer escapes to Oak Island, North Carolina. The only things on his mind are fresh sea air, fresh seafood, Fat Tire Amber Ale, and the avoidance of any type of healthcare institution. But fate and jellyfish draw him back, and reluctantly, he agrees to go undercover to combat narcotic drug diversion at nearby Boiling Grove Community Hospital.

When a neurotic statistics geek gets invited to his twenty-five-year high school reunion, he spends his life savings remaking his identity to wow his old classmates. Only one tiny problem: his new persona gets him mistaken for a drug kingpin and sends him running for his life with the very people who used to make it miserable.

In an alien city torn apart by crooked cops and ruthless criminals, private detective Dan Deadman specializes in cases unusual and bizarre. Sure, he doesn't smell great, and he's technically been dead for quite some time, but if you've got a rampaging Hell-beast tearing up your street, or a portal to another dimension appearing in your bathroom, Dan's your man. After saving a mysterious young woman named Ollie from the clutches of something big, slimy, and unpleasant, Dan gets entangled in a missing child case.

Rescued from torpor and poverty by the need to help a good friend deal with the murder of her beloved granddaughter, our downsized-social-worker protagonist and her cat, Bunnywit, are jolted into a harsh, street-wise world of sex, lies, and betrayal, to which they respond with irony, wit, intelligence (except for the cat), and tenacity.