"It all begins with the sound of lone footsteps clacking down the blacktop on a hot, lazy summer afternoon. The black-cloaked man arrives at the sleepy town of Paradise and manages to become the talk of the town within the hour. Bearing the power to grant any unfulfilled dream, he is irresistible." "Seems like bliss...but is it? Or is all hell about to break loose in Paradise?"--BOOK JACKET

"Make me beautiful." That's what Marci wants from the old woman. Not "inner beauty," but real, physical attractiveness to save her from being a teenage outcast. The woman offers a gift in the form of a story, a strange tale from 1940s Bosnia about a group of soldiers who terrorize a town of women and children, brutalize their priest, and murder a child. Somehow, in the midst of the horror, a window opens to another reality, a world of impossible beauty,...

A truly inspiring story of one ordinary family's extraordinary journey. An orphaned boy named Tomas is adopted by Maire O'Donnell to live on a whimsical Irish isle filled with new friends, secret caves and a lost baby pup seal stranded on the coast. But when Maire's reluctant husband Alec refuses to accept Tomas as his own son, the boy drifts down a fateful path of adventure and self-discovery, illuminating how rainbows can shine around, and within,...

Tells the story of Syracuse, a simple fisherman who catches a beautiful and mysterious woman in his trawler nets. The woman seems to be dead, but then she comes alive before Syracuse's eyes and he thinks he may be seeing things. However, with the help of his ailing yet irrepressible daughter, Annie, he comes to believe that the fantastical might be possible and that the woman (Ondine) might be a myth come true.

Vanessa Ives accepting her demons could exact a terrible cost and plunge the world into darkness, while Ethan Chandler, Dr. Frankenstein, Dorian Gray, Sir Malcolm, the Creature, and Lily must each face their own monstrous selves.

Henry, now forty-five, marries Jane Seymour. Jane helps to reconcile Mary with her father, but only after Mary signs a paper admitting that she is illegitimate. Jane gives birth to a son, but dies shortly thereafter. Devastated by Jane's death, Henry locks himself away, drawing fantasy palaces, with caustic court jester Will Sommers as his sole companion, and much more.