Best Selling Books by Robert Beatty

Serafina''s defeat of the Man in the Black Cloak has brought her out of the shadows and into the daylight realm of her home, Biltmore Estate. Every night she visits her mother in the forest, eager to learn the ways of the cat¬amount. But Serafina finds herself caught between her two worlds: she''s too wild for Biltmore''s beautifully dressed ladies and formal customs, and too human to fully join her kin. Late one night, Serafina encounters a strange and terrifying figure in the forest, and is attacked by the vicious wolfhounds that seem to be under his control. Even worse, she''s convinced that the stranger was not alone, that he has sent his accomplice into Biltmore in disguise. Someone is wreaking havoc at the estate. A mysterious series of attacks test Serafina''s role as Biltmore''s protector, culminating in a tragedy that tears Serafina''s best friend and only ally, Braeden Vanderbilt, from her side. Heartbroken, she flees. Deep in the forest, Serafina comes face-to-face with the evil infecting Biltmore—and discovers its reach is far greater than she''d ever imagined. All the humans and creatures of the Blue Ridge Mountains are in terrible danger. For Serafina to defeat this new evil before it engulfs her beloved home, she must search deep inside herself and embrace the destiny that has always awaited her.

"Never go into the deep parts of the forest, for there are many dangers there, and they will ensnare your soul." Serafina has never had a reason to disobey her pa and venture beyond the grounds of the Biltmore estate.There''s plenty to explore in her grand home, although she must take care to never be seen. None of the rich folk upstairs know that Serafina exists; she and her pa, the estate''s maintenance man, have secretly lived in the basement for as long as Serafina can remember. But when children at the estate start disappearing, only Serafina knows who the culprit is:a terrifying man in a black cloak who stalks Biltmore''s corridors at night. Following her own harrowing escape, Serafina risks everything by joining forces with Braeden Vanderbilt, the young nephew of the Biltmore''s owners. Braeden and Serafina must uncover the Man in the Black Cloak''s true identity...before all of the children vanish one by one. Serafina''s hunt leads her into the very forest that she has been taught to fear. There she discovers a forgotten legacy of magic, one that is bound to her own identity. In order to save the children of Biltmore, Serafina must seek the answers that will unlock the puzzle of her past.

In the highly-anticipated next installment of the Serafina series, Serafina must confront the darkest threat she''s ever encountered at Biltmore Estate. She knows she can face anything with her best friend and closest ally, Braeden Vanderbilt, by her side. But when a sinister force tears them apart, Serafina scrambles to uncover the mystery of her most formidable challenge yet...and about herself and the destiny that awaits her.

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Robert Beatty comes a spooky, thrilling new series set in the magical world of Serafina. Move without a sound. Steal without a trace. Willa, a young nightspirit of the Great Smoky Mountains, is her clan''s best thief. She creeps into the homes of day-folk in the cover of darkness and takes what they won''t miss. It''s dangerous work—the day-folk kill whatever they do not understand. But when Willa''s curiosity leaves her hurt and stranded in a day-folk man''s home, everything she thought she knew about her people—and their greatest enemy—is forever changed.

Samuel Martin is not afflicted with the wanderlust that teenage boys growing into young men in isolated areas in isolated times so often are. Samuel has no desire to break out of the isolation of the remote rural farm town he was born into and see the world. He wants nothing more than to be the third generation patriarch on the farm of his ancestors, living on the land he loves in company with the family he loves. He is just facing the problem of finding the one girl he wants to share his love and life with. He thinks he has found that girl in the form of the beautiful, enigmatic young prostitute girl who hides her early life and hides herself behind the flowery contrived name of Clarinda. The girl shares her body with him but never shares her real name. Neither does she share the love she is incapable of returning. Samuel loves the girl recklessly and beyond the point of caution. In the process he learns that loving recklessly and beyond caution can invert and disrupt your life the way following any passion recklessly can. He also learns that life is what happens to you when you had other plans.

Serafina and Braeden make an epic return in the hotly anticipated fourth installment of Robert Beatty''s #1 New York Times best-selling series. Serafina, the Guardian of Biltmore Estate, has won battle after battle against the dark forces encroaching on her home. Now, tranquility has returned to Biltmore. Serafina doesn’t trust it. She patrols the grounds night and day, hardly sleeping, uncertain of her place after her best friend Braeden Vanderbilt''s departure for boarding school in New York. When Mr. Vanderbilt, the kind master of Biltmore, asks Serafina to move upstairs into one of the house''s grandest rooms, she''s sure it''s to keep an eye on the guests who have arrived for the estate''s annual hunt. But as Serafina investigates, she becomes more and more unsettled by what Biltmore has become—a place haunted by nameless terrors where no dark corridor is safe. Even worse, she begins to doubt her own senses. Is Braeden really hundreds of miles away, or did he return to Biltmore for one strange night before vanishing? Is the bond between them truly broken or is it stronger than ever? Then Serafina witnesses a crime that turns her world upside down. How can all that once seemed good and worthy of protection now be evil? And how can she guard those around her when she can''t even be sure of the truth of her own heart? Serafina and the Seven Stars marks the return of a heroine like no other, as master storyteller Robert Beatty weaves his darkest, most astonishing tale yet.

This enchanting companion to Robert Beatty''s instant #1 New York Times bestseller Willa of the Wood is perfect for any reader who cares deeply about the natural world. Willa and her clan are the last of the Faeran, an ancient race of forest people who have lived in the Great Smoky Mountains for as long as the trees have grown there. But as crews of newly arrived humans start cutting down great swaths of the forest she loves, she is helpless to stop them. How can she fight the destroyers of the forest and their powerful machines?When Willa discovers a mysterious dark hollow filled with strange and beautiful creatures, she comes to realize that it contains a terrifying force that seems to be hunting humans. Is unleashing these dangerous spirits the key to stopping the loggers? Willa must find a way to save the people and animals she loves and take a stand against a consuming darkness that threatens to destroy her world.Filled with a compelling mixture of history, mystery, and magic, Robert Beatty''s books are loved by readers from 8 to 108.Grow your middle grade fantasy collection with these best-selling fan favorites:Serafina and the Black Cloak by Robert BeattyWilla of the Wood by Robert BeattyIf We Were Giants by Dave Matthews and Clete Barrett SmithThe Percy Jackson and the Olympians series by Rick RiordanThe Fowl Twins by Eoin Colfer

A hurricane changes the course of a river and the life of a lonely girl in this nature-based mystery-adventure by the best-selling author of the Serafina series and the Willa series Robert Beatty, a master at telling atmospheric tales of mystery and suspense set in the natural world, has crafted another ingenious, unputdownable story. Thirteen-year-old Sylvia Doe has lived at the Highground Home for Children nearly all her life. Whenever the administrators try to place her with a foster family, she runs away—back to Mason, Highground''s caretaker and her best friend. The only place she feels like she belongs is with him and the horses he has taught her to love. When a powerful storm causes the remote mountain valley where she lives to flood, Sylvia begins to encounter strange and wondrous things floating down the river. Glittering gemstones and wild animals that don''t belong—everything''s out of place. Then she spots an unconscious boy floating in the water. As she drags him onto the shore and their adventure together begins, Sylvia wonders who he is and where he came from. And why does she feel such a strong connection to this mysterious boy?

Wanda the wanderer, practitioner of the movable feast, barroom pick-up artist, skilled technician at electronics and seduction, is a sexual adventuress who works as a repair and installer technician for a major telephone company. At an earlier age, just at the physical developmental stage where she was entering into puberty and her hormones are starting to run away with her, while on a road trip with her parents, staying in her own room at sleazy motel, she overhears a couple going at it hot and heavy in the next room over on the other side from her parents room. As Wanda listens, captivated, she longs to join the couple in the next room in their thrashing orgasmic encounter. These experiences have transformed Wanda’s life. As the second stage of her life opens, Wanda is now a mature women in her early thirties. Wanda has become fully dedicated at and skillful in the art of seduction and the quick get away without complications. Electronics is her profession and seduction is her hobby - she is dedicated to excellence in both her profession and avocation. She has no desire or intention to fall in love or get married. Both would de-rail her chosen life pattern. She is fully aware that she might find herself alone at the end of her life but she does not care. Wanda is fully ready to end up alone at the end of her life. It is a price she is willing to pay to live her life the way she prefers and wants to live it. Wanda and Chuck met each other under an assumed identity. Chuck''s assumption and Wanda''s carefully crafted procedure to avoid complications are both blown apart when they meet the next day on the installation project. Chuck is pleasantly surprised to find his lover again. Wanda is totally rattled by the unexpected complication. Things go smoothly. The two grow to like each other. More than just like each other. They make love (on the top of the completed relay tower - fresh roof tar end up on their backs). Wanda violates her rule of not having sex with a man more than once. Chuck is falling in love with Wanda. This is the kind of complication Wanda wants to avoid. Though she likes Chuck enough to violate one of her cardinal rules, Wanda still doesn''t want to give up her lifestyle. Will Wanda give up her hedonistic lifestyle to be with Chuck forever? Will true and deeper love will emerge on Wanda''s part and whether she and Chuck will come to be together for life or will Wanda''s love of the open road triumph over love and take her away from real love and leave her on the road forever moving toward a horizon that keeps receding from her?

George and Arthur are identical twins, both are in college and living in late 1930s America. They come from a rich upper class Baltimore family. Their father had been taking the family on summer vacations to Miami Beach. Finding Miami Beach to be too crowded, the father changes directions and takes the family to a remote and less known vacation resort in South Carolina. There the boys meet and fall head over rich privileged heels in love with a beautiful local girl who works as a cleaning girl who cleans the rental vacation cottages. When they return the next year they start up a full blown love and sexual affair with the girl, Melissa. The girl falls in love with them; both of them. Both brothers want to marry the girl. The situation lead to quite a rivalry between the two brothers which could lead to a serious break between them in the family. The problem is that Melissa said she wants to marry BOTH men. She says that she loves them both equally and cannot choose between them. In the end she refuses to choose between them saying that if they will not agree to a three-way marriage she will live with them both in a menage-a-twa arrangement anywhere. While that could be worked out in backwoods mountain country, it would be totally unacceptable in straight laced conservative Baltimore Brahmin society. The boys do not want to leave their family home and situation. By a series of events that include a savage barroom between the brothers and locals over the girl, a fight in which one of the brothers seriously mutilates a knife welding redneck thug, facing possible serious danger from angry locals who falsely blame the girl for provoking the fight, the girl comes home with the boys to live with them as a cleaning girl in the family home in Baltimore, much to the chagrin of the boys straight laced mother. At home behind closed doors, the boys carry on in secret the affair they started in Carolina. At their sister''s wedding reception both of the brothers propose to the girl with the one she does not choose agreeing to drop out of the picture. Sill as much of a stubborn hillbilly girl as she was when they first met her, Melissa again refuses to choose between them. The issue unresolved as ever, the affair otherwise continues in secret at the family house. The years roll on, Melissa marries out of necessity, but which one did she choose? Find out how this convoluted love affair ends.

Mindfulness for a Happy Life is a beautiful guide to what insight meditation really is. Robert''s personable, funny, sweet, sad, and ultimately human and humane teachings are told in simple terms so that anybody, from the skeptic to the monk, can access the heart and truth of mindfulness practice. If you have never meditated and can''t understand why anyone would spend time on a cushion doing nothing, this is the book for you. You will find down-to-earth instructions that give you a direct experience of mindfulness as well as ways to measure the impact of your mindfulness practice. This book will inspire you to love life and to face everything that comes your way with grace, compassion, and wisdom. If you have meditated all your life, but not found awakening, this book is for you. This book will demystify and clarify the teachings of Buddhism so that you can better understand your own process. You will find instructions and stories that will change your practice. Instructions, exercises, and stories are used to give you an experience that can shift your perspective and transform your practice so that you access happiness through insight.

Descubre la novela juvenil de suspense y misterio protagonizada por Serafina, una chica excepcional. Un libro que ha conquistado las listas de The New York Times nada más ver la luz y que está destinado a convertiste en un clásico. No son las batallas que ganamos o perdemos las que nos definen, sino aquellas que estamos dispuestos a librar. Serafina nunca ha tenido motivos para desobedecer a su padre y aventurarse más allá de los confines de la mansión donde se esconden. Hay mucho que explorar en sus sombríos pasillos, pero tiene que tener cuidado de que sus habitantes no la vean. Pero cuando empiezan a desaparecer niños, solo ella sabe quién es el culpable: un terrorífico desconocido envuelto en una capa negra que recorre la mansión al caer la noche. La búsqueda de la verdad la llevará junto a sus nuevos amigos al corazón del bosque, donde deberá encontrar las respuestas a su propio enigma:¿Quién esSerafina? Mejor libro Middle Grade 2015 por Goodreads. Bestseller por The New York Times, Amazon y Publishers Weekly. Reseñas: «Inquietante. La narración tiene un ritmo trepidante, suspense y una imaginería preciosa.» Goodreads «Niños y adultos seguirán con entusiasmo a Serafina a un mundo de despertares, justicia y nuevas amistades.» Kirkus Reviews «Una historia que raciona el suspense gota a gota, envolviendo a los lectores en la narración con la misma facilidad con la que el hombre de la capa negra envuelve a sus víctimas. La amistad de Serafina con Braeden es conmovedora y verosímil.» Library Journal ENGLISH DESCRIPTION "Never go into the deep parts of the forest, for there are many dangers there, and they will ensnare your soul." Serafina has never had a reason to disobey her pa and venture beyond the grounds of Biltmore Estate.There''s plenty to explore in her grand home, although she must take care to never be seen. None of the rich folk upstairs know that Serafina exists; she and her pa, the estate''s maintenance man, have secretly lived in the basement for as long as Serafina can remember. But when children at the estate start disappearing, only Serafina knows who the culprit is:a terrifying man in a black cloak who stalks Biltmore''s corridors at night. Following her own harrowing escape, Serafina risks everything by joining forces with Braeden Vanderbilt, the young nephew of Biltmore''s owners. Braeden and Serafina must uncover the Man in the Black Cloak''s true identity before all of the children vanish one by one. Serafina''s hunt leads her into the very forest that she has been taught to fear. There she discovers a forgotten legacy of magic, one that is bound to her own identity. In order to save the children of Biltmore, Serafina must seek the answers that will unlock the puzzle of her past.

The #1 New York Times best-selling Serafina series by Robert Beatty is now available in a paperback boxed set! Serafina and the Black Cloak "Never go into the deep parts of the forest, for there are many dangers there, and they will ensnare your soul."Serafina has never had a reason to disobey her pa and venture beyond the grounds of Biltmore Estate.There''s plenty to explore in her grand home, although she must take care to never be seen. None of the rich folk upstairs know that Serafina exists; she and her pa, the estate''s maintenance man, have secretly lived in the basement for as long as Serafina can remember.But when children at the estate start disappearing, only Serafina knows who the culprit is:a terrifying man in a black cloak who stalks Biltmore''s corridors at night. Serafina and the Twisted Staff Serafina''s defeat of the Man in the Black Cloak has brought her out of the shadows and into the daylight realm of her home, Biltmore Estate. Every night she visits her mother in the forest, eager to learn the ways of the catamount. But Serafina finds herself caught between her two worlds: she''s too wild for Biltmore and too human to fully join her kin. For Serafina to defeat this new evil, she must search deep inside herself and embrace the destiny that has always awaited her. Serafina and the Splintered Heart The storms are coming.... Something has happened to Serafina. She has awoken into a darkness she does not understand, scarred from a terrible battle, only to find that life at Biltmore Estate has changed in unimaginable ways. Old friends do unthinkable things and enemies seem all around.With only days to achieve the impossible, Serafina fights to reclaim herself as the Guardian of Biltmore, friend of Braeden, daughter of her Pa, and heroine of the Blue Ridge Mountains and all the folk and creatures that call it home.

This comprehensive volume collects the findings of researchers who did a deep dive into the medical science of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. These experts in medicine, vaccines, chemistry and public policy present a cogent case against the corruption and exploitation of the innocent public by politicians, big pharma, liberal social media and progressive activists. Unless we understand what happened and why, we will be unprepared for the next fake crisis when it is used as a manipulative tool for power-grabbing bureaucrats. The authors cut through the fog of propaganda to summarize objective facts, information and data in a reader-friendly way. With truth as our weapon, we invite you to join in the battle against the Virus and Vaccine Dragon-in all of its global forms.

Floodgate Companion is Robert Beatty''s debut monograph, a cosmic and immersive collection of artwork from the renowned album cover artist.

The #1 New York Times best-selling series by Robert Beatty is now available in one spooky hardcover boxed set. Follow the brave and beloved heroine through her hair-raising adventures at the Biltmore estate in Serafina and the Black Cloak, Serafina and the Twisted Staff, Serafina and the Splintered Heart, and Serafina and the Seven Stars. This gorgeous set will delight loyal fans and new readers alike. Praise for the Serafina series:"The story drips with suspense, wrapping readers in to the narrative just as easily as the man in the black cloak binds his young victims. Serafina''s friendship with Braeden is heartfelt and believable... mystery fans will enjoy this book... A creepy, suspenseful read."--School Library Journal *"From the first gripping page, the book pulses with action and intrigue... Each character continues to surprise both one another and readers with their emotional complexity. A captivating, edge-of-your-seat, action-packed fantasy."--Kirkus Reviews, starred review

Track your combat in style. This full-color 52 card deck complements and enhances your 5E RPG combat!Contains four of each:Cover, Concentration, Dying, Exhaustion, Flanking, Hidden, Incorporeal, Mounted, Prone, UnderwaterAnd contains six:Death Saves and Initiative Cards

Advanced technologies derive many of their capabilities from the advanced materials that they are made from. Complex oxides are a class of materials which are driving technological advancement in a host of di erent directions. These highly functional materials have a great variety of useful properties, which can be chosen and even engineered. Advanced materials require advanced deposition methods. Atomic layer deposition (ALD), a variant of chemical vapor deposition (CVD), is gaining more use in industry for its ability to provide ultra-high lm thickness resolution (down to 0.1 nm), capability to conformally coat three-dimensional structures, and its high uniformity across large surface areas. Additionally, ALD processes provide a possibility to improve economic and environmental viability of the process as compared to CVD by using and wasting less toxic reactants and expelling fewer nano-particulate byproducts. ALD processes are highly mature for many binary oxides commonly used in the semiconductor industries, however processes for depositing heavy metal oxides and complex oxides - oxides containing two or more separate metallic cations - are sorely lacking in literature. The primary focus of this work is the development of a process for depositing the complex perovskite oxide lead titanate (PbTiO3), an end group of the lead zirconate titanate family (PbZrxTi1-xO3), which has valuable technical applications as well as serves as a template for applying this research into other material systems. The author gratefully acknowledges the Army Research O ce (ARO) for their support of this project under the funding provided by Grant # W911NF-08-1-0067.

Interest in the levels of international migration in the United Kingdom (UK) and in Northern Ireland (NI) has increased following the accession of eight Central and Eastern European countries (referred to as the "A8" countries) to the European Union in May 2004. This paper describes research undertaken by the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) to assist measurement of the levels of international migration in Northern Ireland in the period 2004-5. Migration is the most difficult component of population change to measure, due to the absence of a direct measure, the impact of illegal migration, the presence of visitors/short-term migrant workers which can create differences between the official migration estimates and the perceived level of migration in an area. Whilst migration can be estimated using administrative and statistical systems, significant effort is required in understanding the nature and coverage of these systems. Moreover no estimate of migration within the current administrative and statistical infrastructure can be definitive. The remainder of this paper describes the sources available to measure international migration with summary statistics for Northern Ireland. Finally information is presented on the levels of migration included in the 2005 population estimate series and possible further research is discussed.