The Fourth Descendant

When Michelle gets a phone call from a historian of Richmond, sees an opportunity to be part of an adventure that will be essential. All you have to do is find a key more than a century old. Three more people -- a guitarist, an engineer and a retiree -- receive similar calls. Each family owns one of the four keys needed to open the lock of a safe that was found buried in a courthouse in Virginia, although the connection between these people is as mysterious as the safe itself. It was not supposed that their ancestors interacted, there was no apparent reason to bury the box and should not be gone forever after hiding the box. With your keys, Michelle and the other descendants converge in the basement of the courthouse and open the safe, revealing the truth about their ancestors: a strange, most fatal and most likely to change the world forever true than any other they could have imagined.

Mal, Evie, Jay, and Carlos may have once been the baddest of the bad, but their wicked ways are (mostly) behind them—and now graduation is almost here! But before the seniors can don their custom-designed caps and gowns, courtesy of Evie, they've got an epic plan to put into action. There are tons of villain kids on the Isle of the Lost who are eager for their chance to come to Auradon Prep—even Celia, Dr. Facilier's trickster daughter, wants in on the deal!—and Mal's crew is using their upcoming visit to the Isle to help make it happen. But Auradon's biggest threat is still at large... Trapped on the other side of the barrier, Uma is more desperate than ever to get her long-awaited revenge against Mal. When she discovers an underground lair belonging to Hades, god of the underworld, Uma realizes she's found the perfect partner in crime. Together, they can defeat Mal, bring down the barrier, and escape the Isle for good. Mal and Uma have a score to settle, and they'll come face to face in an explosive underwater battle that could determine the fates of Auradon and the Isle of the Lost once and for all. Praise for The Isle of the Lost "Disney lovers and fairy-tale fans alike will need to get their hands on this book." — School Library Journal Praise for Return to the Isle of the Lost "Packed with plenty of humor and adventure, this sequel spinoff is destined to please. With a second movie in the works and a bevy of loyal readers, it certainly won't stay on shelves for long." — Booklist

Jay Benton returns to Brazil for the first time since his birth. Recently graduating from the Harvard Business School, he feels empty and rudderless and is anxious to learn as much as he can about his saint-like Brazilian father who was killed when Jay was only two. He also wants to discover more about his Confederate ancestors who emigrated to Brazil shortly after the Civil War. During Jays ten-day visit to Campo Feliz, a city founded by one of his forefathers, Jay falls in love, is almost killed in a land dispute, and discovers facts about himself and his family that change his life. The Descendant is a book with strong spiritual themes of suffering, prejudice, forgiveness, and grace. It is an informative book that tells the story of leprosy and of the Confederate emigration to Brazil.

"Everyone knows about Noah, Moses, and Paul. But what about Hagar, Michal, and Priscilla, all women who had a direct influence in the story of God's people? The Bible is full of fascinating, powerful, and faithful women, as well as lessons that have unique meaning for women today." "In The Women's Study Bible, respected Bible scholars draw out these often overlooked stories and reveal the lives of women at the time and share lessons for women of today. Separate sidebars cover topics such as midwifery, women disciples, and female images of God. The Women's Study Bible doesn't shy away from the difficult issues, but helps readers to understand them better in both their original context and the modern world." "The New Living Translation of the Bible uses inclusive language for humanity and where it is clear that both male and female are meant to be included." --Book Jacket.

From antiquity to the eve of the modern era, rulers of Western empires inspired hero worship by proclaiming their divine origins. In this fascinating original study, Marie Tanner presents the history of the emperor's mythic image and its continuing influence on Western political thought. She shows that these pretensions to divinity were based on the Trojan legend and the myth of Rome as developed in Vergil's Aeneid and that later Christian emperors expanded these claims by tracing their lineage not only to the pagan gods but also to the priest-kings of the Old Testament. Through this amalgam of heritages each successive Holy Roman emperor proclaimed that he was the last descendant of Aeneas, destined to yield the terrestrial rule of Rome to Christ and thereby inaugurate millennial peace. By examining a wide range of literary, artistic, and historical sources plus a corpus of new illustrations, Tanner discovers remarkable chains of evidence for this process, one that culminates with the Renaissance Hapsburgs who imbued the holiest symbols of the faith with dynastic meaning as they attempted to consolidate all priestly and secular powers in their grip. On these foundations Philip II of Spain, son of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and the first monarch to rule the four known continents, created a new concept of absolute monarchy that shaped the principles of modern statecraft and determined the dominant form of government in Europe for the next two centuries.