Search Worlds Without End

From the master of the literary supernatural and author of The Bloody Chamber, a startling tale of the redemptive power of physical and emotional love

One night Melanie walks through the garden in her mother's wedding dress. The next morning her world is shattered. Forced to leave the comfortable home of her childhood, she is sent to London to live with relatives she has never met: Aunt Margaret, beautiful and speechless, and her brothers, Francie, whose graceful music belies his clumsy nature, and the volatile Finn, who kisses Melanie in the ruins of the pleasure gardens. And brooding Uncle Philip loves only the life-sized wooden puppets he creates in his toyshop. This classic gothic novel established Angela Carter as one of our most imaginative writers and augurs the themes of her later creative work.

Twist it once, you're horned and haired;
Twist it twice and fangs are bared;
Twist it thrice? No one has dared!

Russell is sure that the ring he gets at Mr. Elives' shop is just a silly magic trick, but he follows the instructions and twists the ring twice anyway--and becomes a monster!

Sixth-grader Jeremy Thatcher discovers a strange magic shop he has never seen before. He enters, and his life is changed forever. Buying what he thinks is a marble, he discovers he has really purchased a dragon's egg.

Jennifer Murdley, a homely fifth-grader who would give anything to be beautiful, accidentally stumbles into a magic shop and purchases a very ugly toad. The toad, it turns out, can talk and ends up getting Jennifer into the worst trouble of her life. This madcap, head-spinning adventure is also a thought-provoking story about the nature of true beauty.

Mr. Elives's magic shop is back, and this time it is on the other side of Tucker's Swamp. And Tucker's Swamp is where Charlie Eggleston heads to escape a beating-for lying. Charlie can't seem to keep from lying, though sometimes his lies are for a good cause. When Charlie stumbles into Mr. Elives's magic shop, his eyes light upon The Skull. Charlie steals The Skull and it puts him under some sort of spell-he can only tell the truth. Trouble is, now no one believes him....

Shy Juliet Dove leaves Mr. Elives' magic shop with Helen of Troy's amulet--a virtual man magnet. Juliet doesn't know what she's got, but soon every boy in town is swoony for her. Yet, much as she'd like to lose all the unwanted attention, she can't: The amulet won't come off!

A sidesplittingly funny, heartbreaking whirlwind of a book about the high cost of loving, from the award-winning author of My Teacher Is an Alien and The Unicorn Chronicles.