Susan Perabo's short-story collection, Who I Was Supposed to Be, was named a Best Book of 1999 by the Los Angeles Times, The Miami Herald, and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The Boston Globe proclaimed the debut "a stunning introduction to a fresh new literary talent." Now Susan Perabo returns with The Broken Places, her eagerly anticipated novel about love and honor and how the aftermath of one terrifying night -- and one heroic act -- affects a close-knit family. Twelve-year-old Paul Tucker knows his family is something akin to royalty in small-town Casey, Pennsylvania. His father, Sonny, is a dedicated career fireman, in line for the position of chief, long held by Paul's late grandfather, a local legend whose heroics continue to occupy the hearts and minds of all who knew and worked with him. Paul's mother, Laura, is a math teacher at the high school; Paul is sometimes annoyed by her worries over him (and her apparent lack of worry over his father), but his life is generally untroubled, his future bright, his time measured by sport seasons. But on a windy October day, the collapse of an abandoned farmhouse forever alters the fates and perceptions of Paul, his family, and those closest to them. Sonny and the other Casey firemen attempt a dangerous rescue to reach a teenager buried under the rubble, and when Sonny himself is trapped by a secondary collapse, Paul, his mother, and the crowd of onlookers believe the worst. The wait is excruciating; it's baby Jessica all over again, but this time the "innocent victim" is sixteen-year-old Ian Finch, a swastika-tattooed hoodlum who may have brought the house down on himself while building bombs. Still, when Sonny emerges from the rubble hours later, the maimed teenager in his arms, the rescue becomes a minor miracle and a major public relations event, a validation of all things American and true. Sonny is immediately hailed as a national hero. And Paul's life is suddenly, and irrevocably, changed. Beyond the limelight, the parades, and the intrusion of the national media into a quiet and predictable life, the Tucker household balance is upset. And Ian Finch's curious and continued involvement in Sonny's life creates a new and troubling set of hurdles for Paul to overcome. Somehow, though his father has been saved, he continues to slip through Paul's fingers. Secrets, lies, and changing alliances threaten Paul's relationship with his father and his mother and his understanding of what holds a family -- and a town -- together. The Broken Places is a brilliant meditation on the psychology of heroism, the definition of family, and the true meaning of honor. With pitch-perfect dialogue, subtle but stunning insights, and a dazzling ability to uncork the quiet power of each character, Susan Perabo's The Broken Places uncovers and celebrates the unsettling truths of human nature.

The seemingly peaceful country village of Hayslope is the setting for this ambitious first novel by one of the nineteenth century’s great novelists. With sympathy, wit, and unflinching realism, Adam Bede tells a story that would have been familiar to Eliot’s first readers: the seduction of a pretty farm girl by the young squire of the district. Eliot uses this story, with its tragic implications, to explore the dangers of reliance on religious and social norms to govern destructive desires. As this edition demonstrates, Adam Bede addresses profound questions of morality, religion, and the role of women in society, while at the same time seeking to establish a new aesthetic for fiction. This Broadview edition includes a critical introduction and a rich selection of appendices, including selections from Eliot’s letters and journals, contemporary reviews of the novel, and accounts of the murder trial of Mary Voce, the woman whose story formed part of the inspiration for the novel.

THE TIME HAS COME...for a new era of exploration. With the Dominion War behind them, the crew of the U.S.S. Defiant journeys through the wormhole as Commander Elias Vaughn leads a "corps of discovery" to blaze new trails into the unexplored reaches of the Gamma Quadrant. THE TIME HAS COME ...for a civilization to reach a crossroads. As political forces throughout the Alpha Quadrant intersect at Deep Space 9™ to determine the future of Bajor, the planet's theological unity threatens to shatter. And for Colonel Kira Nerys, the path of the Prophets may become a road to ruin. THE TIME HAS COME...for a father and daughter to confront their past while a mother and son fight for the future, for lovers to be tested and for friendships to transform, and for worlds on opposite ends of the galaxy to face the dusk...or the dawn. TWILIGHT

Edward Bond Plays:8 brings together recent work by the writer of the classic stage plays Saved, Lear, The Pope's Wedding, and Early Morning. The volume comprises five new plays and two prose essays: Two Cups: introductory essay Born: the third play in the Colline Tetralogy (the first two of which appear in Edward Bond Plays:7); premiering at the Avignon Festival in July 2006. People: the fourth play in the Colline Tetralogy Chair: first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in April 2000. Existence: first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in April 2002. The Under Room: first staged by Big Brum in October 2005; 'an intricate puzzle that is compelling in both its intellectual and emotional intensity'5 stars (Guardian) Freedom and Drama: an extended disquisition on the relationship of drama to the self and society in which Bond argues that drama alone can create human meaning.

Chu Wanning has slumbered for five years since Mo Ran rescued his soul from the underworld. He wakes to find the world changed--and the greatest change of all is to his disciple Mo Ran. Now grown up, Mo Ran is nothing like the callow youth he remembers, and Chu Wanning finds himself drawn to his disciple with a force he never anticipated. Meanwhile, Mo Ran has at last set aside the misunderstandings of two lifetimes. When his hatred for his teacher falls away, he finds the feelings beneath are not respect between master and disciple, but fiery passion. Yet even as the two wrestle with their own hearts, Mo Ran begins to realize that this world is diverging from the past life he remembers in strange new ways.

Praised as “a work of wild, vaulting ambition and achievement” by Entertainment Weekly, Jamie O’Neill’s first novel invites comparison to such literary greats as James Joyce, Samuel Beckett and Charles Dickens. Jim Mack is a naïve young scholar and the son of a foolish, aspiring shopkeeper. Doyler Doyle is the rough-diamond son—revolutionary and blasphemous—of Mr. Mack’s old army pal. Out at the Forty Foot, that great jut of rock where gentlemen bathe in the nude, the two boys make a pact: Doyler will teach Jim to swim, and in a year, on Easter of 1916, they will swim to the distant beacon of Muglins Rock and claim that island for themselves. All the while Mr. Mack, who has grand plans for a corner shop empire, remains unaware of the depth of the boys’ burgeoning friendship and of the changing landscape of a nation. Set during the year preceding the Easter Uprising of 1916—Ireland’s brave but fractured revolt against British rule—At Swim, Two Boys is a tender, tragic love story and a brilliant depiction of people caught in the tide of history. Powerful and artful, and ten years in the writing, it is a masterwork from Jamie O’Neill.