Food writer Paul Stuart is heading to the idyllic town of Montalcino in the Tuscan hills to escape a failed relationship and to finish an already late book. But on arrival in Italy things quickly take a turn for the worse when he discovers that his hire car is nowhere to be found and it looks like he will be stuck at the airport. What happens thereafter is a mixture of adventure, romance and some very Italian goings-on. As the story unfolds were are...

Six young magicians are chosen for greatness. But as they study to become the best among rivals, the stakes are higher than they know.

Heart of Darkness is a novella written in 1899 by Anglo-Polish novelist Joseph Conrad. It is about a voyage into the Congo Free State in the heart of Africa, by the story's narrator Marlow, an introspective sailor who takes a job as a riverboat captain with the Company, a Belgian concern organized to trade in the Congo. Marlow, aboard a boat anchored on the River Thames in London, recounts to his friends the story of his assignment to journey up the...

The lion rose lightly into the air, and settled like a huge yellow bird on the horse's back, crushing Jan Cheroot beneath his massive, blood-streaked body. At that instant, horse and rider and lion seemed to disappear into the very earth, and there was only a swirling column of dust to mark where they had been. A new generation. An age-old struggle. Ralph Ballantyne is following in his father Zouga's footsteps, as a hunter, gold prospector and promoter...

Ben is bored beyond belief after he is made to stay at his grandma's house. All she wants to do is to play Scrabble, and eat cabbage soup. But there are two things Ben doesn't know about his grandma: she was once an international jewel thief and she has been plotting to steal the crown jewels. Now she needs Ben's help.

The tall wave of green water that raced across the pit hit the Land Rover, upending her, throwing Johnny into the jubilant frothing water, while the Land Rover rolled over on her back, pointing all four wheels to the sky in surrender. Johnny went under. Some people will never have enough . . . Johnny Lance, taken in by the Van Der Byls when he was an orphaned boy, has always done everything to please the Old Man and his adoptive siblings: jealous...

She glanced down at the drawer in which she kept all her floppy disks. That and all the other drawers had been pulled out and thrown on the floor. They were empty, of course; along with the disks, all her notebooks and photographs were missing. Her last connections with the seventh scroll were lost. After three years of work, gone was the proof it had ever existed. A hunt for treasure. A battle to stay alive. When Royan Al Simma is the victim of a...

Zouga was left alone, as alone in spirit as he had ever been in any of his wanderings across the vast African continent. He had spent almost the last penny he owned on these few square feet of yellow earth at the bottom of this hot and dusty pit. He had no men to help him work it, no experience, no capital. A tribal battle. An Empire's war. Zouga Ballantyne has in his blood a fanatic's need to find diamonds, one that will take him to Southern Africa's...

Mark picked the weapon off the rack and the shape and feel of it brought memories crowding back. He thrust them aside. He would need a rifle where he was going. A father builds. A son destroys. General Sean Courtney returns from the horrors of the Great War in France, his mind on his heirs and his legacy. He is watching three potential successors: his beautiful but spoiled daughter, Storm. His corrupt, disgraced son Dirk. And his new young assistant,...

Shasa closed his mouth slowly. The very foundations of his political beliefs and principles were shaken, and the walls cracked through. They had led him up into a high place and shown him the prize that was his for the taking. The future of a country. The end of a family. Shasa Courtney, heir to the Courtney fortunes, dreams only of uniting his divided, beloved country. Against all his principles, he allows his half-brother Manfred to persuade him...