In the year 793, siblings Jack and Lucy are captured by fearsome Vikings with a thirst for battle and pillaging. Taken to the court of Ivar the Boneless, Jack and Lucy are sent on a perilous journey - full of dragons and giant spiders - deep into the magical kingdom of the trolls!

Heralded as an instant classic of fantasy literature, Maguire has written a wonderfully imaginative retelling of The Wizard of Oz told from the Wicked Witch's point of view. More than just a fairy tale for adults, Wicked is a meditation on the nature of good and evil.

In the late 17th century, two young Frenchmen, René Sel and Charles Duquet, arrive in New France. Bound to a feudal lord for three years in exchange for land, they become wood-cutters — barkskins. René suffers extraordinary hardship, oppressed by the forest he is charged with clearing. He is forced to marry a native woman and their descendants live trapped between two cultures. But Duquet runs away, becomes a fur trader, then sets up a timber business. Annie Proulx tells the stories of the descendants of Sel and Duquet over 300 years.

One evening in 1951, an itinerant storyteller arrives unannounced at a house in the Irish countryside. In exchange for a bed and a warm meal, he invites his hosts and their neighbors to join him by the wintry fireside and begins to tell formative stories of Ireland's history. Ronan, a nine-year-old boy, grows so entranced by the storytelling that, when the old man leaves abruptly under mysterious circumstances, the boy devotes himself to finding him again.

Combined into one volume, this is the definitive collection of Tolkien's five acclaimed modern classic 'fairie' tales in the vein of The Hobbit, read by Derek Jacobi. The five tales are written with the same skill, quality and charm that made The Hobbit a classic. Largely overlooked because of their short lengths, they are joined here in one volume which reaffirms Tolkien's place as a master storyteller for listeners young and old.

One of the most acclaimed novels in recent memory, Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain is a masterpiece that is at once an enthralling adventure, a stirring love story, and a luminous evocation of a vanished American in all its savagery, solitude, and splendor.

Thomas McNulty, having fled the Great Famine in Ireland and now barely 17 years old, signs up for the US Army in the 1850s and with his brother in arms, John Cole, goes to fight in the Indian Wars - against the Sioux and the Yurok - and, ultimately, in the Civil War. Orphans of terrible hardships themselves, they find these days to be vivid and alive, despite the horrors they see and are complicit in. Moving from the plains of Wyoming to Tennessee, Sebastian Barry's latest work is a masterpiece of atmosphere and language.

This magnificent novel by one of America's finest writers is the epic of one man's remarkable journey, set in 19th-century America against the background of a vanishing people and a rich way of life. At the age of 12, under the Wind moon, Will is given a horse, a key, and a map, and sent alone into the Indian Nation to run a trading post as a bound boy. It is during this time that he grows into a man, learning, as he does, of the raw power it takes to create a life, to find a home.

Tiana was a Cherokee woman. She grew up learning the magic, spells, and nature religion of her people. Before Sam Houston became the father of Texas, he was a young man who had run away from his home in Tennessee to live among the Cherokee. He came to love Tiana. As the Cherokee would say, she walked in his soul. But Sam was a white man, and Tiana, a Cherokee. And the dreams each had for their land and their people were far apart.

David Carson's personal story of his initiation into the mysterious healing rites of the Choctaw with medicine woman Mary Gardener. Through her teachings and his own mind-bending experiences, he gives us a glimpse into an alternate reality.

Hot on the heels of Gardner Dozois's acclaimed anthology The Book of Swords comes this companion volume devoted to magic. How could it be otherwise? For every Frodo, there is a Gandalf... and a Saruman. For every Dorothy, a Glinda... and a Wicked Witch of the West. What would Harry Potter be without Albus Dumbledore... and Severus Snape? Figures of wisdom and power, possessing arcane, often forbidden knowledge, wizards and sorcerers are shaped - or misshaped - by the potent magic they seek to wield.

In this much-anticipated conclusion to the Sea of Trolls trilogy, Notland is no place to seek one's true calling. Or is it?

A moving love story set in the Canadian wilderness, Mrs. Mike is a classic tale that has enchanted millions of readers worldwide. It brings the fierce, stunning landscape of Canada to life and tenderly evokes the love that blossoms between Sergeant Mike Flannigan and beautiful young Katherine Mary O'Fallon.

Jack has caused an earthquake. He was trying to save his sister, Lucy, from being thrown down a well, but he is, after all, only a 13-year-old bard in training. Sometimes the magic doesn't quite work out. Not only does Jack demolish a monastery, but Lucy is carried off by the Lady of the Lake. Jack has to follow her through the Hollow Road that lies underground. It leads to all sorts of unexpected places: caves full of dragon poop, knucker holes (you do not want to know what knuckers are), and Elfland.

High in the mountains, deep in the safety of a cave, a brood of dragons is born. The four young ones are among the last of a dying breed---the final hope for dragons' survival. But hope shatters when a murderous group of slave-trading dwarves breaks into the cave, leaving death and destruction in its wake. Only young Auron, a rare scaleless gray dragon, manages to escape.