Shimmering between history and legend,the biblical King David rose from obscurity to fame,from shepherd to soldier,from hero to traitor,from beloved king to murderous despot and into a remorseful and diminished dotage. In The Secret Chord, we see David through the eyes of those who love him or fear him-from the prophet Natan,voice of David's conscience, to his wives Mikhal,Avigail,and Batsheva, and finally to Solomon, the late-born son who redeems...

"The world's leading center for Shakespeare studies. Each edition includes: - Freshly edited text based on the best early printed version of the play -Scene-by-scene plot summaries -A key to the play&;s famous lines and phrases -An introduction to reading Shakespeare&;s language -An essay by a leading Shakespeare scholar providing a modern perspective -An essay by a leading Shakespeare scholar providing a modern perspective on the play -Fresh images...

"There is a legend that if the ravens at the Tower of London ever leave then Britain will fall, so when somebody steals the birds, the Queen calls for Mac B. to find the thief and retrieve them--a mission that takes him to Iceland, where he encounters secret submarines, hungry polar bears, and his arch-nemesis from the KGB."--

"Early one morning, less than a month after her eighteenth birthday, Alexandrina Victoria is roused from bed with the news that her uncle William IV has died and she is now Queen of England. The men who run the country have doubts about whether this sheltered young woman, who stands less than five feet tall, can rule the greatest nation in the world. Surely she must rely on her mother and her venal advisor, Sir John Conroy, or her uncle, the Duke...

When Queen Bitterblue took the throne of Monsea, she was a child, and her advisers ran the kingdom for her. Now she is beginning to question their decisions, especially how they handle the legacy of her father Leck, who who ruled through his Grace-a special talent for mind-altering-and his taste for darkness and violence. Bitterblue needs to know Monsea's past to lead it into the future, so she begins exploring the city sreets at night, disguised...

Peter the Great, by Robert Massie, restores to life a titanic historical figure, a maker of the modern world, who continues to hold great fascination for those living today. In so doing, it also brings alive the medieval Russia of Peter's birth and the very different Russia his energy, genius, and ruthlessness shaped, making vivid the texture of Russian life as lived by prince and peasant in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.

In a faraway land, a young warrior must protect an emperor from an uprising and train an inexperienced army, with assistance from his Ranger friends.

"A reluctant warrior on the run with an ancient goddess through a lush world full of wild magic, wondrous creatures, and hidden enemies has only five days to end an oppressive Emperor's reign in this beautiful epic fantasy from the author of The Vanished Birds. In the Land of the Strangled Throat, the people suffer under the rule of a despotic Emperor. His sons, the Three Terrors, despoil the countryside and oppress its citizens. When Keema Daware--a...

""Learn you to die," was the advice Jane wrote to her younger sister Katherine, who has no intention of dying. She intends to enjoy her beauty and her youth and fall in love. But she is heir to the insecure and infertile Queen Mary and then to her sister Queen Elizabeth, who will never allow Katherine to marry and produce a Tudor son. When Katherine's pregnancy betrays her secret marriage, she faces imprisonment in the Tower, only yards from her sister's...

"Ivy doesn't trust the Dragonslayer. He may be her father and the beloved ruler of Valor, but she knows he's hiding more than the treasure from the sand dragon he killed two decades ago. Leaf doesn't trust dragons. They're the reason his favorite sister, Wren, is dead, and now he'll do whatever it takes to slay even one. Wren doesn't trust anyone. She swore off humans after her village tried to sacrifice her to the dragons. She only has one friend,...