Tells the story of James Boyle's close friendship, in his teens, with James Lafferty, who joined his class at the local grammar school. This friendship allowed John and Laff to escape from the harshness of their lives in the worst housing scheme in the West of Scotland - as well as from the pariah status this conferred on them at school.

A fallen angel decides her enslaved daughter, Sachi, needs a husband who can appreciate her good qualities and overlook her tiny-little flaw. Traveling to Earth, the angel discovers a perfect specimen on a sinking trawler and hopes she can get away with a little karmic interference. Matthew Sharpe, an American descendent of the rebellious Jamaican Maroons, has major issues with waking up in a slave-owning culture on another world. However, he finds the cute slave girl, who's assigned to nurse him back to heath, the most desirable female he's ever encountered. But the city is at war with a...

Prince Haruko only wants to be left alone to build steam engines and mechanical devices, but his sister, the witch Tanoshi, has a problem. After turning people into frogs and single-handedly defeating an army, everyone fears and avoids her. But, as she approaches marriageable age, Haruko realizes she needs a husband, or face death from the Moon Goddess' curse. Their lives become even more complicated after Haruko is ordered to the capitol to marry a noble's daughter who thinks anything mechanical is stupid. There is one answer, but can kids raised in a steampunk world survive in modern-day...

The intoxicating smell of a cube of Walnut pipe tobacco. The watery taste of the cream on the offered sweet. The 'Hello, little boy' as the man steps out of a copse of trees. These, the boy's addiction to the smell of gas, deep poverty, alienation and the 11+ exam build the terrain that explodes into a quarter of a century of political violence. This is life seen through the inquisitive eye of a young boy, his older seven sisters and his band of brothers - who are drawn ever closer by the brutal murder of one of their number. His mother, the epicentre of his childhood, is hostage to the...

Science for Geography and Environment introduces students (and academics who need to brush up their knowledge ) to scientific principles in a lively and accessible way, allowing them to proceed through the text at their own pace. The book is structured thematically with a logical development of key topics, all linked by a comprehensive cross-referencing system. Concepts and principles will be grounded in everyday experience and exemplified by reference to geographical/environmental processes. The authors are also testing each stage of the text on their own students, thereby ensuring that...

The witch, Tanoshi, just wants to take her brother, his wife and her Earth-born husband home. But the once-beautiful fallen-angel Lucifer, his face scared by Tanoshi's father, seeks revenge. The path from Earth to the land of the Jeweled Moon requires magically traveling through the Nowhere place between worlds. Lucifer seizes his chance. He makes his plans, his back-up plans, and plots the greatest revenge of all. He'll lure the four of them onto an unpleasant, dystopian world where, once trapped, they can never leave. Tanoshi, Haruko, Airi and Kenji now must battle overwhelming odds. Their...