Pierre Bezukhov, the illegitimate son of a count who is fighting for his inheritance and yearning for spiritual fulfillment; Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, who leaves behind his family to fight in the war against Napoleon; and Natasha Rostov, the beautiful young daughter of a nobleman, who intrigues both men. As Napoleon’s army invades, Tolstoy vividly follows characters from diverse backgrounds—peasants and nobility, civilians and soldiers—as they struggle with the problems unique to their era, their history, and their culture.
As the hours tick by, Amy grows increasingly convinced something terrible is happening within the ward's tightly secured walls. When patients and staff start to vanish without a trace, it becomes clear that everyone on the unit is in grave danger.
Amy never wanted to spend the night on Ward D. Now she might not make it out alive.
Dear Reader,
Just when you think it can't get any worse, the universe seems to take that as a personal challenge. The Devil's Backbone Society has their fingers everywhere. It's more than a secret society―it's a leash and a prison sentence. The elders insist it's about making connections that will help you for the rest of your life, but what they don't tell you is how long―or, in this case, short―your life might be.
The society has already cost me―cost us. Blood. Sweat. Tears.
Lives.
Now, it may take more than what I have to give. A part of me wants to be here, wants to see this through to the end. But the rest of me?
The rest of me worries that even if I watch my back, it won't be enough. How do I protect them? How do I protect these handsome, crazy, over-the-top men that I'm falling for?
How do I save them from the society and themselves? And more importantly, how do I save myself?
Lila Kennedy has a lot on her plate. A broken marriage, two wayward daughters, a house that is falling apart, and an elderly stepfather who seems to have quietly moved in. Her career is in freefall and her love life is . . . complicated. So when her real dad—a man she has barely seen since he ran off to Hollywood thirty-five years ago—suddenly appears on her doorstep, it feels like the final straw. But it turns out even the family you thought you could never forgive might have something to teach you: about love, and what it actually means to be family.
Vic Wood has her priorities: scrape by on her restaurant wages, take care of her younger brother Henry, and forget their mother ever existed. But Vic’s careful life crumbles when she discovers that their long-missing mother belonged to the Acheron Order—a secret society of witches tasked with keeping the dead at bay. What’s worse, Henry inherited their mother’s magical abilities while Vic did not, and he has been chosen as the Order’s newest recruit.
Determined to keep him safe, Vic accompanies Henry to the isolated woods in upstate New York that host the sprawling and eerie Avalon Castle. When she joins the academy despite lacking powers of her own, she risks not only the Order’s wrath, but also her brother’s. And then there is the imposing, ruthless, and frustrating Xan, the head Sentinel in charge of protecting Avalon. He makes no secret of wanting Vic to leave.
Flavia de Luce has taken on the mentorship of her odious moon-faced cousin Undine, who has come to live at Buckshaw following the death of her mother. Undine’s main talent, aside from cultivating disgusting habits, seems to be raising Flavia’s hackles, although in her best moments she shows potential for trespassing, trickery, and other assorted mayhem.
When Major Greyleigh, a local recluse and former hangman, is found dead after a breakfast of poisonous mushrooms, suspicion falls on the de Luce family’s longtime cook, Mrs. Mullet. After all, wasn’t it she who’d picked the mushrooms, cooked the omelet, and served it to Greyleigh moments before his death? “I have to admit,” says Flavia, an expert in the chemical nature of poisons, “that I’d been praying to God for a jolly good old-fashioned mushroom poisoning. Not that I wanted anyone to die, but why give a girl a gift such as mine without giving her the opportunity to use it?”