NCW Libraries

"Every year on St. Walpurga's Eve, Caldella's Witch Queen lures a boy back to her palace. An innocent life to be sacrificed on the full moon to keep the island city from sinking. Lina Kirk is convinced her brother is going to be taken this year. To save him, she enlists the help of the mysterious Thomas Lin, the boy she secretly loves, and the only person to ever escape from the palace. Working together they save her brother, but they draw the queen's...

For a chance to save her people, Taliyah Skyhawk must wed the fearless leader of the Astra Planeta, Alaroc Phaethon, but the ice maiden and the merciless king never anticipated their battles turning into games that only one spouse can win.

Teenaged Kezi is to be sacrificed to the Hyte god because of a rash promise made by her father, but young Olus, Akkan god of the winds, falls in love with her and together they try to change her fate through a series of quests.

Wyatt Westlock has returned to her childhood home of Willow Heath, intending to burn it down--until she finds Peter hanging in the basement, a boy whom she considered a friend, semi-immortal and ritually sacrificed every year to keep the ancient forces in the nearby forest at bay.

Logan came to Mesmortes Coven Academy in Haelsford, Florida, to learn to control her powers, but she soon learns she has a role to play in the ancient curse of the hellmouth--whatever the cost to herself and her new friends.

Twelve-year-old Lonny Quicke and his younger brother finally leave their hidden forest home and venture into the nearby town of Farstoke, where Lonny discovers that, at first glance, the people of Farstoke are not cruel and selfish, but as he debates revealing his secret ability, he wonders whether his new friends are really as kind as they seem.

"One boy's parents travel from far-off lands to improve their son's life. But what happens next is unexpected. What does it mean when your parents are different? With humor and pathos, Sworder reflects on the strange nature of giving and receiving love and celebrates those parents who embrace a hard life for themselves in the hope of a better life for their children"--

Raised a warrior in the harsh winter country, Ryo inGara has always been willing to die for his family and his tribe. When war erupts against the summer country, the prospect of death in battle seems imminent. But when his warleader leaves Ryo as a sacrifice -- a tuyo -- to die at the hands of their enemies, he faces a fate he never imagined. Ryo's captor, a lord of the summer country, may be an enemy . . . but far worse enemies are moving, with...

"On the muddy banks of the Calumet River, a body has been found posed next to a series of mysterious glyphs and bearing wounds from a ritualistic slaying. Chicago detective Addie Bisset knows only one man who can decipher the message left by the killer: her friend Dr. Evan Wilding. A brilliant forensic semiotician, Evan decodes the etchings as Viking Age runes. They suggest either human sacrifice or righteous punishment. But to what god? And for what...

"A gorgeous fantasy in the spirit of Pan's Labyrinth and John Connolly's The Book of Lost Things. Set in a world similar to our own, during a war that parallels World War II, A Green and Ancient Light is the stunning story of a boy who is sent to stay with his grandmother for the summer in a serene fishing village. Their tranquility is shattered by the crash of a bullet-riddled enemy plane, the arrival of grandmother's friend Mr. Girandole--a man...