Fiction

At a very young age, Paul Fisher suffered eye damage in a mysterious accident that he can't remember. But his thick glasses can't keep him from being a great soccer goalie for his middle school team. He is, however, overshadowed by his older brother Erik, a high school football star with an evil temper few people know about.

Artemis is at boarding school in Ireland when he receives an urgent e-mail from Russia. In it is a plea from a man who has been kidnapped by the Russian Mafia: his father. As Artemis rushes to his rescue, he is stopped by a familiar nemesis, Captain Holly Short of the LEPrecon fairy police.

"That fool of a fairy Lucinda did not intend to lay a curse on me. She meant to bestow a gift. When I cried inconsolably through my first hour of life, my tears were her inspiration. Shaking her head sympathetically at Mother, the fairy touched my nose. 'My gift is obedience. Ella will always be obedient. Now stop crying, child.' I stopped."

Before she went to join Sam and Mogget downstairs, Lirael paused for a moment to look at herself in the tall silver mirror that hung on the wall of her room. The image that faced her bore little resemblance to the Second Assistant Librarian of the Clayr. She saw a warlike and grim young woman, dark hair bound back with a silver cord rather than hanging free to disguise her face.