From David Mitchell, the Booker Prize nominee, award-winning writer and one of the featured authors in Grantas̕ Best of Young British Novelists 2003 issue, comes his highly anticipated third novel, a work of mind-bending imagination and scope. A reluctant voyager crossing the Pacific in 1850; a disinherited composer blagging a precarious livelihood in between-the-wars Belgium; a high-minded journalist in Governor Reagans̕ California; a vanity publisher...

"You like it darker? Fine, so do I," writes Stephen King in the afterword to this magnificent new collection of twelve stories that delve into the darker part of life--both metaphorical and literal. These stories, about fate, mortality, luck, and the folds in reality where anything can happen, are both weighty in theme and a huge pleasure to read. "Two Talented Bastids" explores the long-hidden secret of how the eponymous gentlemen got their skills....

"Aside from a delay, there will be no problems. The flight will be smooth, it will land safely. Everyone who gets on the plane will get off. But almost all of them will be forever changed. Because on this ordinary, short, domestic flight, something extraordinary happens. People learn how and when they are going to die. For some, their death is far in the future--age 103!--and they laugh. But for six passengers, their predicted deaths are not far away...

"In a warlike land of wind and sunlight, "ringed by a restless sea," live Rhaskos and Melisto, spiritual twins with little in common beyond the violent and mysterious forces that dictate their lives. A Thracian slave in a Greek household, Rhaskos is as common as clay, a stable boy worth less than a donkey, much less a horse. Wrenched from his mother at a tender age, he nurtures in secret, aided by Socrates, his passions for art and philosophy. Melisto...

When assassins ambush her best friend, Rielle Dardenne risks everything to save him, exposing herself as one of a pair of prophesied queens: a queen of light, and a queen of blood. To prove she is the Sun Queen, Rielle must endure seven elemental magic trials. If she fails, she will be executed...unless the trials kill her first. One thousand years later, the legend of Queen Rielle is a fairy tale to Eliana Ferracora. A bounty hunter for the Undying...

Toklo, Kallik, Lusa, and Yakone trek onward toward the Melting Sea, the site of Kallik's traumatic cubhood--and prepare to be separated for the first time since their journey began.

Head-in-the-stars Audrey is about to marry down-to-earth Josh. Though they are polar opposites, they have a healthy, stable relationship; Josh is just what Audrey needs. But romance should be unpredictable and full of fireworks, and as the big day approaches, Audrey's found herself wondering if Josh really is "The One." So, when Josh's sister shows up to the rehearsal dinner with Fred, Audrey's "What If? Guy" -- the man she met six years ago and had...

Blythe Hawthorn has never let anyone tell her what to do--not society, not her overprotective father, and certainly not the man she's bound herself to, no matter how rude and insufferable he is. In fact, she's determined to be a thorn in his side for the rest of her days, even as he ensures that her new life in his palace is anything but a fairytale. But as Blythe discovers a new side to herself that links her to his past, she'll have to ask herself...

"Two teens--Daniel, the son of Korean shopkeepers, and Natasha, whose family is here illegally from Jamaica--cross paths in New York City on an eventful day in their lives--Daniel is on his way to an interview with a Yale alum, Natasha is meeting with a lawyer to try and prevent her family's deportation to Jamaica--and fall in love"-- Provided by publisher.

At the edge of the Endless Ice, the four bears Ujurak, Toklo, Lusa, and Kallik reach Star Island, where a large group of bears is in trouble but believes Lusa is destined to help bring back the favor of the spirits.