Anne Bronte's debut novel tells the story of Agnes Grey, a young woman who is determined to seek work as a governess after her family become impoverished. Drawing upon her own experiences as a governess, Anne describes the isolation, insensitivity and occasional harsh treatment bestowed on women in her position by their employers and, through Agnes, demonstrates the resilience, integrity and survival of one woman in the face of upper class snobbery and changing social values.

The Mini Archive series is a new series capturing the best of the best of ancient, rare, and significant volumes. Each book in the series will focus on a single topic through abundant illustration and documentation. The topics will cover a wide range of subjects including art, architecture, fashion, heraldry, geography, navigation, medicine, and the natural world. Drawing from the roses depicted in Pierre Joseph Redoute's three volume masterpiece, Les Roses (first published in installments between 1817 and 1824) and James Sowerby's thirty-six volume botanical monolith English Botany (1790-1813), Roses will feature 170 of both artists' magnificent hand-colored engravings in all their blooming glory. To bring this lovely volume into the 21st Century, the paperback format and low price will keep the book fun and affordable. A visual index will categorize each rose according to name, species, class, and genome; and an accompanying DVD containing all of the images in the book (in Tiff and Jpeg format) will be supplied copyright free to be used in any manner the reader sees fit, completing this unique package. Roses will appeal to horticulturists, collectors, students, teachers, artists and rose-lovers alike, for no one will be able to resist the undeniable beauty of these two artists' absolutely breathtaking illustrations.

Worldwide bestseller Camilla Lackberg weaves together another brilliant contemporary psychological thriller with the chilling struggle of a young woman facing the darkest chapter of Europe's past! Erica Falck's mind is racked by a single question. Why did her mother save an old Nazi medal? The only person who might provide clues about its origins is a retired history teacher. He unnerves Erica with his bizarre and evasive behaviour. Disappointed with his lack of answers, Erica is unsure whether he couldn't tell her anything! or wouldn't. Two days later he is found dead. Murdered. Erica is appalled that her meeting with him might have triggered his violent death. With hesitation and guilt, she reads her mother's wartime diary and discovers the truly horrible experiences she endured. The tragic circumstances and the uncontainable damage the war did goes some way to explaining why her mother was never able to bond with her daughters. A seed of an investigation is planted. During the Second World War, her mother had the same circle of friends as the murdered teacher. But who would still be prepared to kill so ruthlessly to conceal secrets so old? And, could what little knowledge she has be enough to endanger her husband and newborn baby? The dark past is coming to light, and no one will escape the truth of how they came to be!

Based on the hit ABC series Castle. When New York's most vicious gossip columnist is found dead, NYPD detective Nikki Heat uncovers a gallery of high-profile suspects. Her investigation is complicated by her surprise reunion with superstar magazine journalist Jameson Rook. Available in a tall Premium Edition.

In the middle of the South Pacific, a thousand feet below the surface of the water, a huge vessel is discovered resting on the ocean floor. It is a spaceship of phenomenal dimensions, apparently undamaged by its fall from the sky. And, most startling, it appears to be at least three hundred years old. But even more fantastic — and frightening — is what waits inside...

The Circle's power has lured her home... Forced to move from sunny California to gloomy New England, Cassie longs for her old life. Even so, she feels a strange kinship to a terrifying group of teens who seem to rule her school. Initiated into the coven of witches that's controlled New Salem for hundreds of years, she's drawn into the Secret Circle, a thrill that's both intoxicating and deadly. But when she falls for the mysterious and intriguing Adam, Cassie must choose whether to resist temptation or risk dark forces to get what she wants — even if it means that one wrong move could ultimately destroy her.

The past is never far... Elena Gilbert and her friends saved Fell's Church from evil spirits bent on destroying it, but the town's freedom came at a price: Damon Salvatore's life. Damon's death changes everything. He and his vampire brother, Stefan, had been locked in a vicious battle for Elena's heart. Now that he's gone, Elena and Stefan can finally be together. So why can't Elena stop dreaming of Damon? As Elena's feelings for Damon grow, a new darkness is brewing in Fell's Church. Elena has been to hell and back, but this demon is like nothing she's ever seen. It's only goal is to kill Elena and everyone she loves.

The eagerly anticipated, thrilling, and satisfying conclusion to Melissa Marrs New York Times bestselling Wicked Lovely series.

A rollicking, laugh-out-loud funny-novel set to sizzle in summer 2011. Julian Corkle's got small-screenability. His mother tells him he'll be a star one day. 'Twinkle, twinkle,' she says, giving his hair a ruffle. Not everyone shares Julian's dreams of stardom. Television is too much like hairdressing for his father's tastes. A Tasmanian man wants a son for sporting purposes. 'Boys don't like dolls,' he tells Julian, 'They like Dinky Toys.' Not this boy, thinks Julian, who knows better than to tell the truth. Besides, the family already has a sporting hero, Julian's sister Carmel aka 'The Locomotive'. Julian likes his sister, but knows better than to tangle with her bowling arm. It's the same one she uses for punching. Julian Corkle is a Filthy Liar is the ultimate feel-good novel, a book that will have the reader laughing out loud on the back of a bus as it follows Julian's bumpy journey through adolescence, fibbing his way through school and a series of dead-end jobs, to find his ultimate calling as creator of 'The Hog'. It's as if Crocodile Dundee has crashed Muriel's wedding and run off into the desert with Priscilla.

A gripping psychological suspense read Cupboards were sticky from spilt jam and honey, and the oven smoked when you turned it on because of the fat that had built up over the years. Agatha would never, ever let her future home end up like this. She would never leave it every day like Ruth did. She would never put her trust in strangers. Ruth and Christian are — just — holding their marriage together, after Christian's disastrous affair a year ago. But chaos beckons, and when the family are suddenly left without any childcare, Agatha comes into their lives to solve all their problems. But Agatha is not as perfect as she seems and her love for the children masks a deeper secret. Everything and Nothing is a stunningly assured debut, superbly evoking an atmosphere of inexorable and sinister menace that builds to a mesmerising climax in a story that is, at its heart, about thwarted and damaged love.

Enter a world of darkness and danger, honour, daring and destiny in David Chandler's magnificent epic trilogy: The Ancient Blades. One thief against the world! When allies become enemies, to whom can a clever thief turn? Armed with one of seven swords forged at the dawn of time, Malden was chosen by Fate to act as saviour!and failed dismally. Deceived by the trickery of his one-time ally, Morget, the young thief employed his newfound might to help destroy the naturally barrier protecting the kingdom of Skrae — and now there will be no stopping Morget's barbarian hordes from pillaging the land. Suddenly friends and former supporters alike covet the young hero's magic while seeking his destruction — from the treacherous King and leaders of the City of Ness to the rogue knight Cloy, who owes Malden his life. It will take more than Malden's makeshift army of harlots and cutpurses to preserve a realm. Luckily the sorceress Cythera fights at his side, along with the ingenious, irascible dwarf Slag. And the wily thief still has a desperate and daring plan or two up his larcenous sleeve!

This is a step-by-step guide to all the tricks — both freehand and digital — to create the best manga characters! Here is an amazing manual of manga for artists of all ages! Concentrating on Shojo manga and anime (a genre targeting female audiences), Shojo Manga is a practical, hands-on guide to learning the skills of Shojo drawing. It includes detailed information on how to apply digital colour, 3D designs, vectorial drawing, and a host of other fascinating and useful design applications. And each project in Kodomo Manga includes step-by-step instructions specifying software, tools, and professional tricks to achieve the big eyes, tiny noses, and love torn expressions central to shojo manga characters. Shojo Manga takes manga artists, illustrators, and graphic designers from initial black-and-white sketches to a vibrant, fully costumed collection of characters. In five chapters, its content will be broken down as follows: Vintage Romance; Love and Pop; Gothic; Magic Lovers; and, History and Legends.

This abridged paperback edition of The Sourcebook of Contemporary Architecture presents more than 60 noteworthy case studies in a portable format, showcasing a complete and diverse range of structures worldwide. Incorporating every type of architectural project possible — private, commercial and public — this lushly illustrated, information-rich book is an invaluable resource that architects and architectural students will turn to again and again. This book features the work of world-renowned architects such as Gehry Partners, Ateliers Jean Nouvel, Santiago Calatrava, Daniele Claudio Taddei, and Philippe Starck.

Amanda McCready was four years old when she vanished from her blue-collar Boston neighborhood. Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro risked everything to find her-only to orchestrate her return to a neglectful mother and broken home. Twelve years later, Amanda, now sixteen, is gone again. The disappearance of little Amanda was the case that troubled Kenzie and Gennaro more than any other. Still haunted by their consciences, they must now revisit the nightmare that once tore them apart-following the trail of a lost teenager into a world of identity thieves, methamphetamine dealers, and Russian gangsters, right up to the doorstep of a dangerously unstable crime boss and his demented wife. Once again Patrick and Angie will be putting everything that matters to them on the line in pursuit of the answer to the burning question: Is it possible to do the right thing and still be dead wrong?

The new novel from the author of The Corrections. Patty and Walter Berglund were the new pioneers of old St. Paul — the gentrifiers, the hands-on parents, the avant-garde of the Whole Foods generation. Patty was the ideal sort of neighbour who could tell you where to recycle your batteries and how to get the local cops to actually do their job. She was an enviably perfect mother and the wife of Walter's dreams. Together with Walter — environmental lawyer, commuter cyclist, family man — she was doing her small part to build a better world. But now, in the new millennium, the Berglunds have become a mystery. Why has their teenage son moved in with the aggressively Republican family next door? Why has Walter taken a job working with Big Coal? What exactly is Richard Katz — outre rocker and Walter's old college friend and rival — still doing in the picture? Most of all, what has happened to poor Patty? Why has the bright star of Barrier Street become a very different kind of neighbour, an implacable Fury coming unhinged before the street's attentive eyes? In his first novel since The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen has given us an epic of contemporary love and marriage. Freedom comically and tragically captures the temptations and burdens of too much liberty: the thrills of teenage lust, the shaken compromises of middle age, the wages of suburban sprawl, the heavy weight of empire. In charting the mistakes and joys of Freedom's intensely realized characters, as they struggle to learn how to live in an ever more confusing world, Franzen has produced an indelible and deeply moving portrait of our time.

In Branding USA No. 4, 24 design firms from cities across the United States showcase their best brand-building work. In over 650 full-color images on 200 beautifully reproduced pages are featured the most innovative examples of the branding art. Whether a brand is presented on an interactive website or a business card, it must be recognizable and help build customer loyalty. Experts agree that branding isn't about getting prospects to choose your firm over the competition. The consensus is that branding should result in your customers seeing your firm or product as the singular solution to their problem, and see this solution through all of the media clutter and confusion. In Branding USA No. 4 all aspects of branding and image building are presented. A brief overview of each participating firm's strengths and purpose as it relates to their work in branding, advertising and promotion is also featured. The branding and multidisciplinary design firms included in this volume definitively illustrate the amazing results which occur when the most creative and successful minds in the business portray the brand identity process in action.

This is a Victorian steampunk adventure novel, featuring two secret agents from the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences, who investigate a startling conspiracy.

Too much time has passed since the powerful dragon Tintaglia helped the people of the Trader cities stave off an invasion of their enemies. The Traders have forgotten their promises, weary of the labor and expense of tending earthbound dragons who were hatched weak and deformed by a river turned toxic. If neglected, the creatures will rampage — or die — so it is decreed that they must move farther upriver toward Kelsingra, the mythical homeland whose location is locked deep within the dragons' uncertain ancestral memories. Thymara, an unschooled forest girl, and Alise, wife of an unloving and wealthy Trader, are among the disparate group entrusted with escorting the dragons to their new home. And on an extraordinary odyssey with no promise of return, many lessons will be learned — as dragons and tenders alike experience hardships, betrayals... and joys beyond their wildest imaginings.

Based on the popular CW TV show inspired by the bestselling novels, Stefan's Diaries reveals the truth about what really happened between Stefan, Damon, and Katherine — and how the Vampire Diaries love triangle began.

Three men are found dead in the locked second-floor office of a Honolulu building, with no sign of struggle except for the ultrafine, razor-sharp cuts covering their bodies. The only clue left behind is a tiny bladed robot, nearly invisible to the human eye. In the lush forests of Oahu, groundbreaking technology has ushered in a revolutionary era of biological prospecting. Trillions of microorganisms, tens of thousands of bacteria species, are being discovered; they are feeding a search for priceless drugs and applications on a scale beyond anything previously imagined. In Cambridge, Massachusetts, seven graduate students at the forefront of their fields are recruited by a pioneering microbiology start-up. Nanigen MicroTechnologies dispatches the group to a mysterious lab in Hawaii, where they are promised access to tools that will open a whole new scientific frontier. But once in the Oahu rain forest, the scientists are thrust into a hostile wilderness that reveals profound and surprising dangers at every turn. Armed only with their knowledge of the natural world, they find themselves prey to a technology of radical and unbridled power. To survive, they must harness the inherent forces of nature itself.