John Brownjohn

"On her sixtieth birthday, Auntie Poldi retires to Sicily, intending to while away the rest of her days with good wine, a view of the sea, and few visitors. But Sicily isn't quite the tranquil island she thought it would be, and something always seems to get in the way of her relaxation. When her handsome young handyman goes missing--and is discovered murdered--she can't help but ask questions. Soon there's an investigation, a smoldering police inspector,...

"All the beloved, irascible Auntie Poldi wanted from her Sicilian retirement was time to enjoy the sunshine, a free-flowing supply of wine, and a sultry romance with Chief Inspector Vito Montana. But then her idyll is rudely disrupted by the last person she wants to see on her doorstep: John Owenya, detective inspector with the Tanzanian Ministry of Home Affairs, who is also her estranged lying cheat of a husband. Not only is John's sudden reappearance...

Freddy is dissatisfied with his monotonous treadmill life at the pet store. He endures countless indignities in order to get himself adopted so he can lead a more civilized life--a life befitting a golden hamster. After encountering a tomcat and two guinea pigs who speak in Shakespearean couplets, Freddy teaches himself to read and write on a computer. He then pens an autobiography about his journey out of captivity and towards self-improvement.

Optimus Yarnspinner travels to Bookholm on a quest to find the anonymous author of a manuscript that he inherited from his godfather, and during his journey he encounters many strange inhabitants of the so-called City of Dreaming Books.

"Malaisea is the unhealthiest town in the whole of Zamonia, home to Echo the Crat, a multi-talented creature that resembles a cat but is capable of speaking any language under the sun. When his mistress dies and Echo finds himself starving on the street, he is compelled to sign a contract with Ghoolion the Alchemaster, Malaisea's evil alchemist-in-chief. This fateful document gives Ghoolion the right to kill Echo at the next full moon and render him...

In May of 1942, with Germany still winning the war, an improbable little band of students at Munich University began distributing the leaflets of the White Rose. In the very city where the Nazis got their start, they demanded resistance to Germany s war efforts and confronted their readers with what they had learned of Hitler s final solution: Here we see the most terrible crime committed against the dignity of humankind, a crime that has no counterpart...

A cat, two guinea pigs, and a colony of brave sewer rats band together in order to save Freddy, a golden hamster, from an evil scientist who's discovered that Freddy can read and write, and plans to hamster-nap him in order to dissect his brain.

Freddy the golden hamster and his animal cohorts, along with a computerized, robotic golden hamster, travel back in time to Assyria, where some of them are captured by crusaders and Freddy gets a taste of undomesticated living.

"It has been more than two hundred years since Bookholm was destroyed by a devastating fire, as told in Moers's The City of Dreaming Books. Optimus Yarnspinner, hailed as Zamonia's greatest writer, is on vacation in Lindworm Castle when a disturbing message reaches him, and he must return to Bookholm to investigate a mystery. The magnificently rebuilt city has once again become a metropolis of storytelling and the book trade. Yarnspinner encounters...

Vicki plans to spend her summer vacation waitressing at her father's seaside restaurant, Ye Olde Seashell Room: a must-see tourist destination with seashell-covered walls and a 230-year-old figurehead from a lost ship, the Storm Goddess. But when the bay mysteriously goes dry and the Storm Goddess suddenly appears, Vicki and her small community are thrown off course. Now the town's greedy mayor sees dollar signs from potential new tourism, a nosy

...