Blair I.

Getting rich and unintentionally famous has its downsides. In Dante Jacoby's case, it's the beginning of a nightmare. After returning to San Francisco, a sorry-looking bank account forces him to take the plunge into entrepreneurship to fund his vigilantism. Thanks to wicked intelligence and a sickening work ethic, his novel spin on a nightlife venue takes off. Before he knows it, he's an overnight success story.

Dante Jacoby is a slave to the trappings of the modern world. Twenty-six years old and hopelessly addicted to booze, cigarettes, and procrastination, he’s squandered every ounce of his potential. His corporate raider father, Dorian, reaches the end of his tether and cuts Dante off as heir to the Jacoby family fortune. His mother, Fiona, is smarter than her husband: she hasn’t spoken to Dante in months. But Dante’s no victim. He knows he brought this on himself.

On a routine intelligence gathering mission in Tehran, Jack Ryan, Jr., has lunch with his oldest friend, Seth Gregory, an engineer overseeing a transcontinental railway project. As they part, Seth gives Jack a key, along with a perplexing message. The next day Jack is summoned to an apartment where two men claim Seth has disappeared—gone to ground with funds for a vital intelligence operation. Jack’s oldest friend has turned, they insist.

Of the five contenders for power, one is dead, another in disfavor, and still the wars rage. Joffrey sits on the Iron Throne, the uneasy ruler of the Seven Kingdoms. His most bitter rival, Lord Stannis, stands defeated and disgraced, victim of the sorceress who holds him in her thrall. Young Robb still rules the North from the fortress of Riverrun. Meanwhile, making her way across a blood-drenched continent is the exiled queen, Daenerys, mistress of the only three dragons left in the world.

Winter is coming. Such is the stern motto of House Stark, the northernmost of the fiefdoms that owe allegiance to King Robert Baratheon in far-off King's Landing. There Eddard Stark of Winterfell rules in Robert's name. Far to the north, behind the towering Wall, lie savage Wildings and worse - unnatural things relegated to myth during the centuries-long summer, but proving all too real and all too deadly in the turning of the season. Yet a more immediate threat lurks to the south, where Jon Arryn, the Hand of the King, has died under mysterious circumstances....