Before pagers and cell phones, and before Facebook and YouTube even existed, five strangers in Chicago meet in a car on the ride of their life. Vi is a songwriter on the verge of moving to Nashville, and Tom is her silent admirer. Sean is a drunken Irish boy ogling every skirt in the bar, and Sarah is a young, rich socialite trying to avoid Sean's gaze. The four strangers leave Baker's Tap in William's Towncar, caught up in his weekly superstitious quest for purchasing lottery tickets at an old country diner. On their journey, Tom will try to stop Sean from making obnoxious passes at Sarah...

Will she become king? In the mountain kingdom of Fontanasia, Avalon Hall is born a girl, but secretly raised as a boy so the king will have a rightful heir to the throne. At fourteen, Avalon is a strong prince and wants only to become king when it is her time, but she is worried that as she gets older, it will be more difficult to conceal her gender. Avalon travels to the distant land of Cormicks, and in unveiling a plot to kill her father, she must survive slow devouring sand eels, gigantic, crushing anthracites, and a terrifying hoard of everred spiders. In a race with time to return to...