True Adventure

A gloriously moving and entertaining, picaresque debut novel about a young man’s sentimental education in late 19th-century Europe; inspired by a real historical figure: ‘Captain’ Paul Boyton - the ‘Fearless Frogman’.

When Sammy Shine’s plane takes off unexpectedly, he ends up in a whole new world; no longer does he live in comfort in his shoe box in Hank’s room. Now he’s lost in the woods with no way to get home, while a dangerous enemy lurks. Fortunately, a group of new friends, including a mouse, an injured crow, a newt, and a shrew, will help him find and repair his plane so he can try to get back home.

The unstoppable, irreverent mother-daughter team presents a new collection of funny stories and true confessions that every woman can relate to. From identity theft to the hazards of bicycling to college reunions and eating on the beach, Lisa and Francesca tackle the quirks, absurdities, and wonders of everyday life with wit and warmth.

True Raiders tells the untold true story of Monty Parker, a British rogue nobleman who, after being dared to do so by Ava Astor, the so-called “most beautiful woman in the world,” headed a secret 1909 expedition to find the fabled Ark of the Covenant. Like a real-life version of Raiders of the Lost Ark, this incredible story of adventure and mystery has almost been completely forgotten today. Using recently uncovered records from the original expedition and several newly translated sources, True Raiders is the first retelling of this group’s adventures.

Entertainment Weekly calls acclaimed author and essayist J. Maarten Troost a "funny, candid, and down-to-earth travel companion". Both witty and poignant, Headhunters on My Doorstep follows Troost as he retraces Robert Louis Stevenson’s path through the South Pacific. Somewhere between AA meetings in Tahiti and discovering how the Island of Merrymaking got its name, Troost reconnects with himself, his family, and the beauty of life.

Most young girls dream of becoming a princess. But unlike most girls, Jerramy Fine never grew out of it. Trapped in a rural Colorado with embarrassing hippie parents, Jerramy spends her childhood writing love letters to Buckingham Palace and studying modern-day princesses throughout the world. Years later, when her sense of destiny finally brings her to London, she dives headfirst into a whirlwind of society parties in search of her royal soulmate. She drinks way too many martinis and kisses far too many Hugh Grant lookalikes, yet life in England is not the fairy tale she hoped for.

For 444 years, there has been speculation about the location of Sir Francis Drake's landing site at Nova Albion and where he hid the greatest buried treasure of all time. What follows is an account of my 22 year quest to provide the answers to these questions, and to correct the historical record about Drake's Plate of Brass.

Italy, 1351. English knight Gerard Fox and the resourceful Willa have come through a death-defying journey across war-torn Europe. Now looking towards their future together, they must first find a way to reconcile with their difficult pasts. In a small village between Florence and Siena, Fox and Willa are caught up in a deadly ambush. After rescuing the enigmatic woman who is the target of the attack, they take refuge in her opulent villa and learn her heartbreaking story—a tale of loss, deception... and a burning desire for freedom.

“Sharks are as timid as rabbits,” says a superintendent of the Coast Guard, dismissing the possibility that a shark could be the culprit in an unprecedented fatal attack at the Jersey Shore. It’s July, and swimming in the sea is a popular new pastime, but people up and down the East Coast are shocked and mystified by the swimmer’s death. A prominent surgeon at the shore, Dr. Edwin Halsey is the one who examines the victim, and the only one who believes the perpetrator was a shark—and that it will strike again.

1913.Captain Scott and his four companions reach the South Pole to find their Norwegian rival Roald Amundsen has won the race. Defeated, they set out on the 850-mile journey to their ship. Apsley Cherry-Garrard, the explorer sent out to meet them at One Ton depot, peering South through thick spectacles, sees only an infinity of white, and turns back. A year later Scott's pitched tent is found, just ten miles from the depot, and the bodies within speak of hunger, the unbearable strain of hauling the sledge, and the brutal winter cold. They lie in a tomb of ice.

Chas Smith grew up deeply enmeshed in the evangelical Christian world that grew out of Southern California in the late 1960s. His family included famous missionaries and megachurch pastors, but his cousin Daniel Courson was Grandma’s favorite. Smith looked up to Cousin Danny. He was handsome, adventurous, and smart, earned a degree from Bible college, and settled into a family and a stable career. Needless to say, it was a big surprise when Cousin Danny started robbing banks.

On November 12, 1971, Bernard Patterson, a much-decorated Vietnam War hero, turned a real-life version of Don Quixote, Butch Cassidy, and Robin Hood all rolled into one package, robbed the Northern National Bank in Mars Hill, Maine. He escaped with $110,000; at the time, the largest bank robbery in the history of the state.

Best friends have become enemies. Lovers have become strangers. And deciding whose side you're on could be the difference between life and death. For Eve and Lemon, discovering the truth about themselves - and each other - was too much for their friendship to take. But with the country on the brink of a new world war - this time between the BioMaas swarm at CityHive and Daedalus' army at Megopolis - loyalties will be pushed to the brink, unlikely alliances will form, and with them, betrayals.

Leslie White knew she wanted more out of life - She found it in an unlikely place. Devastated from the loss of both parents to cancer nine months apart, Leslie vowed to change her life. She bought the neighbor’s old motorhome, found a job as a traveling histologist, and hit the road. But she found she could not trust the one person she was still holding onto.

Journalist Susan Casey was in her living room when she first glimpsed this strange place and its resident sharks, their dark fins swirling around a tiny boat in a documentary. These great whites were the alphas among alphas, the narrator said, some of them topping 18 feet in length, and each fall they congregated here off the northern California coast.

In 1967, a retired army major and self-made millionaire named Paddy Roy Bates cemented his family’s place in history when he inaugurated himself ruler of the Principality of Sealand, a tiny dominion of the high seas. And so began the peculiar story of the world’s most stubborn micronation on a World War II anti-aircraft-gun platform off the British coast. Incorporating original interviews with surviving Sealand royals, Dylan Taylor-Lehman recounts the battles and schemes as Roy and his crew engaged with diplomats and even thwarted an attempted coup.

Elora has been suspended from the council...but it’s only the beginning of her journey. Elf Elora is something of a celebrity in her home city. After being tested as a child, it’s discovered that her magical ability is off the charts - it can’t even be measured. Since working as a paranormal investigator at the royal palace and working on a cure for “half curses”, Elora has been putting her abilities to good use. Until now....

High on a cliff in Hawaii in 1807, an irrepressibly curious native boy dives into the sea and swims to an American merchant ship anchored offshore, embarking on an extraordinary adventure that will change history.

Fashion is a business of smoke and mirrors, notorious for crushing the souls of most who dare to be part of the industry. Go on a global expedition with New York City-based fashion buyer, strategist, and consultant, Mercedes Gonzalez, as she learns that there is no glamour in fashion and that only cutthroat corporate espionage prevails. From politicking with blood diamond dealers and Russian kingpins to living in indigenous villages, she has relied on her street smarts and fear of her uncle in order to outwit the industry tyrants at their own game.

In April 1861, Wayland Fuller Dunaway left his college classroom and entered the ranks of the men who fought the bloodiest war ever waged on the North American continent. A Captain in the Army of Northern Virginia, he marched hundreds of miles in Stonewall Jackson's command; saw Generals Lee and Longstreet; was among the first soldiers to fight at Gettysburg, where he also participated in Pickett's Charge; and fought against the lines of strangers in blue who, no matter how many times they were defeated, always returned to invade his beloved Virginia.