Akron Public Library

Seventeen-year-old Edgar Poe's plans to escape his foster family, begin classes at the prestigious new university, and marry his beloved Elmira Royster go awry when a macabre Muse appears with a request.

In 1771, Scotsman James Fraser and his wife Claire Randall, a time-traveler from the twentieth century, have emigrated to the Royal County of North Carolina. Dissidents are stirring throughout the colonies. Claire forewarns James of the impending war and the dangers it may bring them. Will her knowledge of America's tumultuous revolution be enough to guide them through a dangerously uncertain future?

All goes well until a rival magician appears. Jonathan Strange is handsome, charming, and talkative-the very opposite of Mr Norrell. Strange thinks nothing of enduring the rigors of campaigning with Wellington's army and doing magic on battlefields. Astonished to find another practicing magician, Mr Norrell accepts Strange as a pupil. But it soon becomes clear that their ideas of what English magic ought to be are very different. For Mr Norrell, their...

When dinosaur bones from a recent dig mysteriously go missing, and an unidentifiable beast starts attacking animals and people, leaving their mangled bodies behind, Abigail and her eccentric employer R. F. Jackaby, investigators of the supernatural in 1892 New England, find themselves hunting for a thief, a monster, and a murderer.

A beautifully designed collector's edition of the second book in Diana Gabaldon's blockbuster Outlander saga (now a Starz original series), featuring a new introduction by the author and a reader's group guide A quarter century ago, Diana Gabaldon followed up her classic novel Outlander with a powerful sequel that reunited fans with her unforgettable characters-eighteenth-century Scotsman Jamie Fraser and his time-traveling wife, Claire Randall. In...

"After saving her nation of Nikan from foreign invaders and battling the evil Empress Su Daji in a brutal civil war, Fang Runin was betrayed by allies and left for dead. Despite her losses, Rin hasn’t given up on those for whom she has sacrificed so much—the people of the southern provinces and especially Tikany, the village that is her home. Returning to her roots, Rin meets difficult challenges—and unexpected opportunities. While her new allies...

"It is 1779 and Claire and Jamie are at last reunited with their daughter, Brianna, her husband, Roger, and their children on Fraser's Ridge. Having the family together is a dream the Frasers had thought impossible. Yet even in the North Carolina backcountry, the effects of war are being felt. Tensions in the Colonies are great and local feelings run hot enough to boil Hell's teakettle. Jamie knows loyalties among his tenants are split and it won't...

With her father's estate entailed, Isabelle Morton has but two options for securing her future: marriage or becoming a governess. Having no interest in her village's most eligible bachelor, she's prepared to choose the latter, until she receives an unexpected job offer involving magic, books, and best of all, no spoiled children.Thomas Hughes, the reclusive Duke of Harborough, has an ulterior motive for hiring his beautiful new magician. To break...

In 1889 Evaline Stoker, Mina Holmes, and their time traveler friend Dylan are asked by the Princess of Wales to find out what happened to Robby Ashton, who may have drowned--but the reappearance of vampires in the heart of London threatens to become a more urgent problem.

Emilia, a witch in the Kingdom of Italy, travels to Hell to uncover her twin sister's murderer while combating her growing affections for the Prince of Wrath. Emilia sold her soul to become Queen of the Wicked, and now she is traveling to the Seven Circles with the enigmatic Prince of Wrath. There she is introduced to a seductive world of vice. The first rule in the court of the Wicked? Trust no one. Can she even trust Wrath, her one-time ally in...