There's an island up in Gold Country at the northern end of Snapdragon Lake. It's named Manchester for the family that owns it, but the locals call it Spite Island. There's a single lonely mansion on that island and a group of authors have been invited to write about its ghosts and its mysteries. But the real mystery is, who will survive this luxurious but deadly retreat?

When Zach Tully leaves Los Angeles to take over as sheriff of Eternity, a tiny mountain town in northern California, he's expecting to find peace and quiet in his own private Mayberry. But he's in for a surprise. Curmudgeonly Mayor Abbott is a ringer for long-missing writer Ambrose Bierce. There are two Elvises in town, a shirtless Jim Morrison, and a woman who has more than a passing resemblance to Amelia Earhardt. And that's only the beginning.

Priscilla Martin. She’s the diva of Morning Glory Circle, and a driving force in the quaint California town of Snapdragon. Overseer of garage sales and neighborhood Christmas decorations, she is widely admired. But few people know the real woman behind the perfectly coiffed hair and Opium perfume.

Dr. Meiling Chen, a brilliant young virologist from the Hong Kong Medical School, is on the verge of a major breakthrough for manipulating the entire class of RNA viruses that would make gain of function hardly more than child’s play. She is offered an attractive postdoctoral fellowship at the Wuhan Institute of Virology to complete her work, and she accepts.

For four aging men in the terror-stricken town of Milburn, New York, an act inadvertently carried out in their youth has come back to haunt them. Now they are about to learn what happens to those who believe they can bury the past - and get away with murder. Peter Straub's classic best seller is a work of "superb horror" ( Washington Post Book World) that, like any good ghost story, stands the test of time - and conjures our darkest fears and nightmares.

On a weekend vacation, Beth Anderson is unnerved when a stroll on the beach reveals what appears to be a skull. When a stranger approaches, Beth panics and covers the evidence. But when she later returns to the beach, the skull is gone. Beth digs deeper into the mystery of the skull, and everywhere she goes, Keith Henson, the stranger from the beach, seems to appear. A body washes ashore, and Beth begins to think she needs more help than she bargained for.

Adrift in a raft after a deadly ship explosion, 10 people struggle for survival at sea. Three days pass. Short on water, food, and hope, they spot a man floating in the waves. They pull him in. “Thank the Lord we found you,” a passenger says. “I am the Lord,” the man whispers. So begins Mitch Albom’s most beguiling and inspiring novel yet.

Murphy Shepherd is a man with many secrets. He lives alone on an island, tending the grounds of a church with no parishioners, and he’s dedicated his life to rescuing those in peril. But as he mourns the loss of his mentor and friend, Murph himself may be more lost than he realizes. When he pulls a beautiful woman named Summer out of Florida’s Intracoastal Waterway, Murph’s mission to lay his mentor to rest at the end of the world takes a dangerous turn.

This bundle contains first four books in the best-selling series Sunset SEALs. Great way to get started exploring Sunset Beach with the four couples in this series, which is ongoing.

Mira is a mermaid on a mission. It’s time to leave the ocean. Mira Belshaw has been at sea for...well, she doesn’t know how many years. It’s hard to keep track of time when you live in the ocean. But after enough time, the salt water triggers the desire to procreate, and her time is up. Finding a mate is the most important thing to her right now, and to do that, she has to return to the place where she was last human - the coastal city of Saltford.

Jemima Jago has moved back home to the enchanting Isles of Scilly. Ready for a fresh start in a quaint coastal village, she can be found in the stacks of Cornwall’s oldest library by day and stargazing in the cove at night. Jem finds the slower pace of life suits her perfectly, until she stumbles across a very curious crime.....

After an easy day studying coral in the Bahamian ocean, Amanda Blayne returns to shore looking forward to a cool drink and a lazy afternoon. But the tranquil waters turn dark and treacherous when Amanda is ruthlessly abducted in broad daylight. Sean Ramiro, an undercover cop from Miami, is tasked to covertly observe the safe arrival of the senator. Instead, he witnesses Amanda's abduction and immediately throws himself into danger, pretending to be Amanda's lover to try to protect her. The two are playing a perilous game, but find it easy to play along when irresistible tension builds.

Juliet is failing to juggle motherhood and her stalled-out dissertation on confessional poetry when her husband, Michael, informs her that he wants to leave his job and buy a sailboat. With their two kids - Sybil, age seven, and George, age two - Juliet and Michael set off for Panama, where their 44 foot sailboat awaits them. The initial result is transformative; the marriage is given a gust of energy, Juliet emerges from her depression, and the children quickly embrace the joys of being feral children at sea.

Ex-SEAL and US Coast Guard aviation rescue swimmer Marcus Holt has never lost a victim to the frigid waters of Alaska until a rescue spirals out of control, and he loses a man he loved like a father. When the dead man’s sexy daughter - a former assistant district attorney from New York - blows into Sitka asking questions, Marcus admits she may just have a case to sue him. Too many things went wrong out there. And he can’t remember a thing.

With Chicago winters in the rearview mirror, Chloe Jackson is making good on a promise: helping her late friend’s grandmother run the Sea Glass Saloon in the Florida Panhandle. To Chloe’s surprise, feisty Vivi Slidell isn’t the frail retiree Chloe expects - nor is Emerald Cove. It’s less a sleepy fishing village than a panhandle hot spot overrun with land developers and tourists. But it’s a Sea Glass regular who’s mysteriously crossed the cranky Vivi. When their bitter argument comes to a head and he’s found dead behind the bar, guess who’s the number one suspect?

Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission - and if he fails, humanity and the Earth itself will perish. Except that right now, he doesn't know that. He can't even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it. All he knows is that he's been asleep for a very, very long time. And he's just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.

Inheriting your uncle's supervillain business is more complicated than you might think. Particularly when you discover who's running the place. Charlie's life is going nowhere fast. A divorced substitute teacher living with his cat in a house his siblings want to sell, all he wants is to open a pub downtown, if only the bank will approve his loan. Then his long-lost uncle Jake dies and leaves his supervillain business (complete with island volcano lair) to Charlie. But becoming a supervillain isn't all giant laser death rays and lava pits.

Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars. Now, he's sure he'll be the first person to die there. After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive - and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive. But Mark isn't ready to give up yet.

It’s 1984, and life has changed beyond recognition. Airstrip One, formerly known as Great Britain, is a place where Big Brother is always watching, and nobody can hide. Except, perhaps, for Winston Smith. Whilst working at the Ministry of Truth, rewriting history, he secretly dreams of freedom. And in a world where love and sex are forbidden, where it’s hard to distinguish between friend and foe, he meets Julia and O’Brien and vows to rebel.

Ashley Perrin is fresh out of college and starting a job as a community liaison for the Third District–the city’s only sector with more alien residents than humans. Ashley’s barely found where the paper clips are kept when she’s beset with constituent complaints–from too much noise at the Annual Lupidian Celebration Parade to a trip-and-fall chicken to a very particular type of alien hornet that threatens the very city itself. And if that’s not terrifying enough, Ashley is next up at the office karaoke night.