The Magpies Return

Kayla perceives her world in vectors and variables, in quantities given and determined. She's a prodigy. A genius. Yet there are equations she can't solve. The vexing interactions of high school. The religious and populist politics that engulf the country. The nuclear exchanges that have darkened half the Earth. When the terrible tides crash into her life, Kayla is whisked from all she's known and deposited in a home for abandoned girls. Here, she finds love and acceptance and a sorrowful kinship-and also, the same violent divisions that tore apart her old life. Rendered in lyrical prose and vivid imagery, The Magpie's Return paints a picture of revenge, redemption, and the quest for survival of one strong soul lost in a world gone mad.

Meet the neighbors from hell, in the gripping thriller that reviewers and readers describe as "fast-paced," "chilling," and "impossible to put down." When Jamie and Kirsty move into their first home together, they are full of optimism. The future, in which they plan to get married and start a family, is bright. The other residents of their building seem friendly too, including the Newtons, a married couple who welcome them to the building with open arms. But then strange things start to happen. Dead rats are left on their doorstep. They hear disturbing noises, and much worse, in the night. After Jamie's best friend is injured in a horrific accident, Jamie and Kirsty find themselves targeted by a campaign of terror. As they are driven to the edge of despair, Jamie vows to fight back--but he has no idea what he is really up against... The Magpies is a gripping psychological thriller in which the monsters are not vampires or demons but the people who live next door. It is a nightmare that could happen to anyone. Praise for The Magpies "Mark Edwards achieves what other writers yearn for, by creating characters that genuinely feel like real people, individuals you know personally--and then puts them into the scariest of situations so that we cannot help but suffer with them. Edwards takes the places that should feel safe and subverts them, shifting the ground beneath our feet, until we're left clinging to the book, hoping against hope for a positive conclusion. There's something deeply unsettling about The Magpies--and that's exactly as it should be." --Elizabeth Haynes, author of Into the Darkest Corner "The Magpies is absorbing, claustrophobic and terrifying. Read this book! Then get a top notch alarm system fitted in your house." --Helen Fitzgerald, author of The Cry

Two species of magpie feature in this book, the Black-billed Magpie, familiar to most Europeans, which occurs throughout much of the northern hemisphere, and the Yellow-billed Magpie, which is confined to California. Magpies are unmistakable in their appearance, voice and extrovert, arrogant manner. While their persecution at the hands of gamekeepers over the last hundred years has made them wary and difficult to approach, a number of recent field studies, both in Europe and North America, have successfully revealed the intricacies of the magpie way of life. Tim Birkhead has studied both species, and has produced a fascinating account of their ecology and behaviour. Many of the results from his ten-year study of magpies in northern England are published here for the first time. Particularly revealing however is his comparison of the two species and of their different races. Magpies occur in a wide range of habitats, including English farmland, the deserts of North America, the mountains of Saudi Arabia and the windswept plateaus of Tibet. As this book explains, magpies are able to exploit this diversity of habitats largely through their remarkably flexible social behaviour. The Magpies covers all aspects of their lives, including their marital relationships, food hoarding behaviour, longevity and survival, nesting behaviour, breeding success and their controversial relationship with man. The text is supported by numerous photographs, diagrams and tables, and superb illustrations by David Quinn.

They saved a little bird . . . And in return she saved them tooAfter a near-fatal fall left Sam Bloom paralysed, no one - not her husband Cameron, nor their three boys - could reach her in the darkest days of her struggle. But everything changed when a new member of the family unexpectedly landed in their lives: an injured magpie chick abandoned after she fell from her nest, whom they named Penguin Bloom. Powerful and tender, Penguin Bloom is a beautifully written account of how compassion, friendship and family can come from unexpected places.

Kayla perceives her world in vectors and variables, in quantities given and determined. She's a prodigy. A genius. Yet there are equations she can't solve.

Brings together everything we know about the biology and behaviour of this unusual species.

This collects the stories from Vol. 3 of the Love and Rockets comic book, including the LA Times Book Prize-winning Love Bunglers, and much more. The sublime, the superpowered, and the senior citizen converge in Angels and Magpies, which collects the Gods and Science: Return of the Ti-Girls and Love Bunglers storylines from the Love and Rockets: New Stories series, as well as Hernandez’s 2006 serial for the New York Times. In the latter, Maggie pays a visit to Queen Rena, who is living out her twilight days on an island after a lifetime as a wrestler and an adventuress. In the Ti-Girls segment, superheroics get a screwball spin when Angel of Tarzana and Maggie square off against Dark Penny Century. In the "Love Bunglers," held as perhaps Hernandez’s greatest masterpiece in his thirty-five-year career, and one of the great graphic novels of all time (it was hailed by Slate and Publishers Weekly as one of the best stories of the year), the past and present converge as Maggie and Ray’s reunion is threatened by long-buried family secrets.

From crowded train stations to quiet woods and from city centres to our own back gardens, birds remind us that nature is everywhere. But do you know which is the king of the birds? Has anyone ever told you how the brave swallow got its forked tail? And what of the owl, who was really a baker's daughter? Take a look inside The Magpie's Nest, where a hoard of stories, riddles and rhymes is waiting for you. Suitable for all ages and charmingly illustrated by Lakeland artist Becca Hall, this is an essential collection of stories for all who love the natural world.