New Releases by Susan Price

In the darkest hour of a freezing Midwinter, a night-walking witch adopts a newborn baby and carries her off in her house on chicken legs. She names her Chingis and teaches her the Three Magics. She grows into such a powerful witch that she rouses the jealousy of Kuzma, the bear-shaman. The Czar of this cold realm fears his newborn son, Safa, will out do him, and so imprisons the baby at the top of a tall tower, to live and die there without ever glimpsing the real world. Loneliness and confinement drive him to rage and despair until Chingis hears the crying of his trapped spirit and frees him. But now their enemies unite against them, with steel and deadly magic. Chingis and Safa''s fight for freedom will take them even through the Ghost World into the Land of the Dead. A timeless and atmospheric tale of fierce magic.

"You love me, don''t you, Jonnie?" The Industrial Revolution blackens the countryside. Women and children hack at coal underground and drag loaded tubs like animals. "You''d better love me." Rattle is a dirty, pipe-smoking, swearing collier-wench who dresses and swaggers like a boy. She''s in love with Jonathan Turner, a young farmer and a prim, God-fearing Methodist. "I love you, Jonnie. I''ll never let you go." Rattle is determined to have Jonathan. But he''s already married. To a vengeful ghost. "I love you to death."

Sarah''s Gran Gornal is a witch. So is her Uncle Bryan. Sarah''s parents won''t let her have a dog because of the cost of feeding it and taking it to the vet. Uncle Bryan says he''ll make her one that won''t need food or the vet. He makes her a bone-dog. Sarah finds she can make it do anything she wants. Even bad things that she knows she shouldn''t do... And Sarah starts to enjoy her new-found power...

Kveldulf Witch is a promise-breaking killer. He is not a good man to deal with. When Kveldulf''s raven tells him that the Queen of Ultima-Thule is searching for a husband, Kveldulf decides that he will be the man the queen marries. He is certain the Queen will fall in love with him when she hears of the many battles he has fought in. He orders the best story-teller in Iceland to make his story and tell it before the Queen. But the story-teller, Thord Cat, refuses. Kveldulf is furious. In revenge, he makes and unleashes a terrifying monster... Set in the Iceland of the Viking Age and originally published by A&C Black, this is an exciting story for ages 8-10, written by award-winning author Susan Price, who also wrote the best-selling ''The Wolf''s Footprint.''

"I choose the slain!" A pagan king lies dying. With his last words, he leaves his kingdom to his son, Elfgift. But Elfgift is a bastard and a half-thing: the king''s son by a beautiful elf-woman. The king has other sons, legitimate sons by his saintly Christian queen. Those sons have no intention of seeing their kingdom ruled by a pagan elf''s get. They send armed men to murder Elfgift and burn his farmstead. They think themselves rid of their troublesome half-brother. But Elfgift is not alone. He has a powerful ally: the Battle-woman, Jarnseaxa. She fetches Elfgift out of this world and teaches him to fight for his life and his crown.

Kenelm is an Atheling, a prince of the Blood-Royal. A descendent of the god, Woden.His uncle is the King. Kenelm had thought to live his life as a warrior: fighting, feasting and marrying a beautiful princess. But his uncle gave him to a monastery, to live and die as a Christian monk. Kenelm feels betrayed but is bound by his oath of loyalty to his king. So he digs the monastery's vegetable garden and dreams of the life he might have had. Then comes a message from the king. He has a mission that only Kenelm can undertake. Kenelm must carry a royal message into the dark wood. To the Wolf Sisters As beautiful, fierce and terrifying as Nature itself. Originally published by Scholastic as part of their Point Horror series.

''Long, long ago, not in your time, nor in my time, but once upon a time, a poor old donkey led a sad, sad life.'' So begins this lively new version of the classic fairy-tale, ''The Bremen Town Musicians'' retold by Carnegie medal winning author Susan Price and gorgeously illustrated by Andrew Price. The tale tells of four old animals, a donkey, a dog, a cat and a cockerel, thrown out of their homes because they are too old and worn out to work anymore. But, led by the ever-cheerful donkey, the animals refuse to give into despair. They make a plan: they will go to Bremen and become famous musicians. Full of new hope, they take to the road together, ''much happier than they had been before.'' They never do reach Bremen but by sticking together and being brave, they succeed in making a happy new life for themselves.''Why should they make music on cold street corners in Bremen when they could play and sing in comfort at their own fireside?'' This story of friendship and hope is richly illustrated by Andrew Price in colourful panels full of detail. At the corner of each panel are mysterious little shuttered windows from which many different characters peep at the action. A delightful picture book to share with children aged 2 to 5.

All life is sorrowful, but very, very sweet. Ice apples and firelight. Wolves, darkness and the road to the Ghost World. Ghost Spell, the fourth haunting book in the Ghost World Sequence. Under a freezing arctic sky, a wolf carries a dying baby to a village door. The villagers adopt him, naming him Vulchanok, ''Little Wolf.'' He grows to be a happy child but, by night, the wolf enters his dreams. She leads him to the Ghost World and makes him a shaman. The villagers begin to fear him. Vulchanok becomes a lonely man. By night he looks for visions in a spinning ice-apple. He sees a beautiful, red-headed girl who is also alone. Taking up his goshawk skin, he flies to her window. Hundreds of miles away, the penniless orphans, Glev and Kristiana, live in the Czar''s palace. Every day Glev searches for a nobleman to marry his sister and make them both rich while Kristiana remains alone in their room. A noblewoman must not be seen in public. Kristiana comes to love Vulchanok but to be with him she must shame and dishonour both herself and her brother. She must learn to work, though she has never lifted anything heavier than the page of a book. Can the love between Kristiana and Vulchanok survive Glev''s anger and Vulchanok''s enemies? If you enjoyed the Carnegie medal winning The Ghost Drum, then you''ll enjoy this story of ice, firelight, love and revenge.

This study, first published in 1990, presents a comprehensive description of the comparative constructions of Spanish and French, and shows that the apparently numerous differences in their syntactic realisations can be accounted for by general constraints on the expression of comparison. There is also a discussion of parallel constructions in other Romance languages, showing that these languages display a range of constructions equally compatible with the suggested pattern of possibilities resulting from the general constraints proposed. This title will be of interest to students of language and linguistics.

A twenty-first-century corporation invades the domain of a warlike sixteenth-century Scottish clan in this “brilliantly imagined” time-travel adventure (Philip Pullman). The miraculous invention of a Time Tube has given Great Britain’s mighty FUP corporation unprecedented power, granting it unlimited access to the rich natural resources of the past. Opening a portal into sixteenth-century Scotland, the company has sent representatives back five hundred years to deal with the Sterkarms, a lawless barbarian clan that has plundered both sides of the English-Scottish border for generations. Among the first of the company’s representatives to arrive from the future, young anthropologist Andrea Mitchell finds herself strangely drawn to this primitive tribe of raiders and pillagers who, not surprisingly, view her as magical. As translator and liaison, she becomes enmeshed in the personal lives of these proud, savage folk, developing an especially strong emotional bond with Per, the handsome son of the ruthless Sterkarm chieftain, Toorkild. But the Sterkarms’ welcome does not extend to the FUP corporate despoilers from the future—and soon a fragile agreement between the untamable Scots and the interloping “Elves” begins to crumble. Suddenly war looms on the horizon, and when treachery on both sides ignites a firestorm of violence, Andrea will have to choose where her loyalties truly lie: with her coldhearted employers or with the barbarous kinfolk of the man she has come to love. A winner of the Guardian Fiction Prize and a finalist for the Carnegie Medal, called “enthralling” by Philip Pullman, the author of the His Dark Materials novels, Susan Price’s Sterkarm Handshake is a masterful blend of historical and science fiction critics have called “dazzling,” “exciting,” “memorable,” “thought provoking,” and “a thumping good page-turner.”

An enthralling story for younger readers, from double award winning author, Susan Price. A bad summer, and the crops didn''t grow. Now winter is coming. Everyone is hungry. People search desperately for the last of the nettles and acorns. Elka and her little brother Daw huddle under their blankets, trying to keep warm. Elka is too hungry to sleep. Awake in the dark, she overhears her parents whispering. "I don''t want to watch them starve. Take them into the wood and leave them. Take them far in, so they won''t find their way back, and leave them." The next day their father takes them into the wood, to look for mushrooms. Daw goes along innocently, holding his father''s hand. Elka follows because she doesn''t want Daw to be alone. The light fades. Their father vanishes into the darkness among the trees. He doesn''t come back. And then come the wolves... Where do these lost children belong - in the village with the people who left them to starve? Or, in the wood, with the wolves? REVIEWS ''No one writes this kind of dark tale better than Price... brilliantly reworks folk themes... an atmospheric and poignant story. Not a word is wasted.'' Books For Keeps. ''This is a powerful piece of writing - a folk tale where difficult issues are confronted, no compromises allowed and no happy ending guaranteed. There''s no escaping the anger of the little girl who decides to leave the world of her parents and remain with the pack of wolves who looked after her - nor the loneliness of the brother who pines for her at the edge of the forest. This is a classic.'' Carousel. Because of the continued demand for this book from schools and parents, it has been republished by the author, with new illustrations by Andrew Price. Susan Price is an acclaimed, prize-winning author who won the Carnegie Medal in 1987 with Ghost Drum and the 1998 Guardian Children''s Fiction Award for The Sterkarm Handshake. She wrote her first book aged 16 and became a full time writer aged 22. She now has over twenty children''s novels to her name and has been described as ''one of the best contemporary writers for children'' by Susan Hill in the Daily Telegraph.

Harken! This is the saga of Aslak Ottarssen, born a slave. Aslak, and his beloved sister, Astrid, are the children of a Norwegian farmer. Their mother was an English slave. Their father chooses to free Aslak. But Astrid remains a slave. Aslak promises that he will buy her freedom when he is a man and can earn enough silver. At fifteen, he goes viking to earn his fortune. Returning from sea, he finds that his father has died. Worse: his step-brothers have sold his sister. Furious, Aslak leaves his home forever, and calls on his ship-brothers to help him find and free his sister. He pursues Astrid across the North: a violent and dangerous place in the Viking Age. His hot temper leads to him being sold into slavery himself, in Jorvik, capital of England''s Danelaw. But, captive among strangers, he finds unexpected help, faces death, sees a ghost - and meets still more danger. Can Aslak regain his own freedom and rescue his lost sister?

Here are nine powerful stories written by acclaimed, award winning author, Susan Price. Voices whisper in a graveyard... ''Who weeps on my grave, who keeps me from sleep? - Is it you who unearths me to this cold rain, this dark, this wind and all its grief?'' A lost sister speaks in a dream... ''She said,"I''m on Mow Top. But you won''t find me now. Don''t look. Forget me." A supermarket is haunted by a murdered baby... Footsteps climb the stairs of a darknened cottage... A voice whispers in a museum... Nine short, haunting stories of the supernatural, of loss and longing, of those who walk between this world and the next... Review ''...The opening tale is...creepy, to the extent that the words crawl like cold fingers down your back. ''Mow Top'' is heartbreakingly sad... This is how it works in real life. Children see ghosts and tell us. We reassure them, and ourselves, that there are no such things... ''The Familiar'' is all about the cost of power, and cuts deep. The final story, ''Overheard in a Museum'', is a thing of beauty, like the ship itself. You can feel the swell of the sea beneath you as you read. It speaks of a distant era and reminds us that objects so often outlast people by a long, long time. Except that the ship is not an object - it''s the spirit of an age. - Rosalie Warren on " Awfully Big Blog Adventure Reviews"

People have told stories since the world began - and everybody has a story. Old Mr. Grimsby, retired and a widower, makes a hobby of collecting stories. He collects stories from his housemaid, and from the housemaid''s grandmother, from an old soldier, and from a dying woman. Late one night, as he walks home past a churchyard, he''s joined by a large black dog, a Churchyard Grim, which leads him out of this world to Heaven''s Gate - and tells him a story to pass the time as they walk. And in Heaven, the Virgin Herself pours the tea and tells a tale... From the beginning to the end, we tell stories. Everybody has a story. The Story Collector is a collection of folk-tales, retold by the acclaimed writer, Susan Price. Here are old stories, wise stories, funny and sad stories, of life, death and rebirth; of loss and love.

When children face physical or emotional challenges, what do they need to heal? Recovery and redirection are often mysterious, filled with uncertainity and doubt. It's me! As good as I can be had its origins in the real experience of the author's son. It presents a vivid interpretation of the healing process. Invoking the powers of love and friendship, as well as an extravagant dose of magic, this story illuminates Zachary's journey and the special friends who helped him become as good as he can be.

A story based on a North American tale about a fox who tricks a bear out of his tail.

This is the English edition of the classic Russian textbook designed for parents to teach their children "all the fundamental points of the Orthodox Christian faith and way of life." Because children are growing up quickly in a society that raises serious and agonizing questions the author does not teach in naive stories that remain stories only. It offers an overview of the whole of the Old and New Testaments as well as instruction on prayer, worship and what it means to live by the teaching of the Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes. Lavishly bound and made to last. Well illustrated with black and white photographs and icons.

Discusses new laws affecting crime and public safety enacted during the 2012 regular and June and Dec. 12 special sessions.

Discusses cooperative agreements between or among school districts under CGS 10-158a.

Discusses liability protections for Connecticut volunteers.

Discusses the use of telemedicine and telehealth to deliver health care services.

Discusses laws making cyberstalking a crime represent state and congressional efforts to keep pace with stalking in the digital age.

Elfling ist ein Halbblut, eine Teufelsbrut, wie die christlichen Priester sagen, das illegitime Kind einer Elfenfrau. Aber er ist auch der Sohn eines Königs, der von der Schönheit der Elfin verhext war - eine Schönheit, die ihr Kind geerbt hat. Von seinem sterbenden Vater als Erbe benannt, hat Elfling die Krone errungen - nicht von Gottes Gnaden, sondern im Zeichen der alten Götter. Doch Elflings verhasster Halbbruder Unwin hebt unter dem Schutz der Kirche ein Heer gegen ihn aus und hat ihm einen grausamen Tod geschworen. Und er ist sogar bereit, den heiligen Frieden zu brechen, um seinen Schwur zu erfüllen. Aber das ist noch nicht das Ende der Geschichte. Denn manchmal kehren die Toten zurück.

Er ist von einer unmenschlichen Schönheit und zieht alle in seinen Bann. Seine Mutter war eine Elfenfrau. Doch er ist auch der Sohn eines Königs, und jetzt hat Elflings sterbender Vater ihn als seinen Erben benannt. Doch Elfling hat Brüder, legitime Kinder des Königs, die an Hofe aufgewachsen sind. Kein dreckiges Elfenbalg wird sie ihres Geburtsrechts berauben. Die Brüder glauben mit Elfling leichtes Spiel zu haben. Doch Elfling hat eine Verbündete, eine Kriegsmaid aus der Schar von Wodens Walküren. Und er ist bereit, sein Recht einzufordern.

Discusses whether there were any senior transportation programs for residents of Union, Connecticut.

Discusses child support in Connecticut.

Discusses a bill currently before the New York Assembly''s Committee on Codes making criminal street gang recruitment on school grounds a felony punishable by imprisonment for three to seven years.

Discusses Kerrigan v. Dept. of Public Health, 289 Conn. 135 (2008), the recent state Supreme Court case holding it to be unconstitutional to deny same-sex couples the right to marry.

This wide-ranging collection of twenty-four spine-tingling stories draws on the best traditions of classic horror, from powerful myths and folktales to contemporary stories of man-made terrors. With contributions by writers of the caliber of Philip K. Dick, Stephen King, and Edgar Allan Poe, this is a truly chilling anthology.