NCW Libraries

"A captivating, atmospheric return to historical fiction that is every bit as convincing and engrossing as Martin's landmark Mary Reilly. In 1872 the American merchant vessel Mary Celeste was discovered adrift off the coast of Spain. Her cargo was intact and there was no sign of struggle, but the crew was gone. They were never found. This maritime mystery lies at the center of an intricate narrative branching through the highest levels of late- nineteenth-century...

Captain MacWhirr cannot fathom anything outside the facts of his own life. His first mate, Mr. Jukes, is the perfect contrast as an imaginative man prone to speaking in figurative language. Though they are opposites, MacWhirr and Jukes respect each other and run a tight ship, until the crew notices the barometer predicting a serve storm. Jukes and the crew suggest alternate paths to MacWhirr, but he is unconvinced. Since MacWhirr has not experienced...

"The latest in David Poyer's acclaimed novels about the modern Navy and Marine Corps, Onslaught chronicles Dan Lenson's latest challenge as the U.S. Navy struggles to hold Taiwan, Korea, and Japan against a massive Chinese offensive. The prize: domination of Asia and the Western Pacific. As the United States' computer, satellite, and financial networks are ravaged by coordinated digital attacks, China and its associated powers begin to roll up and...

"Franny Stone has always been a wanderer. By following the ocean's tides and the birds that soar above, she can forget the losses that have haunted her life. But when the wild she so loves begins to disappear, Franny can no longer wander without a destination. She arrives in remote Greenland with one purpose: to find the world's last flock of Arctic terns and follow them on their final migration. She convinces Ennis Malone, captain of the Saghani,...

A strange glowing stone picked up on a sea voyage captivates a ship's crew and has a terrible transforming effect on them.

"Nostromo, A Tale of the Seaboard" is set in the South American country of Costaguana, and more specifically in that country's Occidental Province and its port city of Sulaco. Though Costaguana is a fictional nation, its geography as described in the book resembles real-life Colombia. Costaguana has a long history of tyranny, revolution and warfare, but has recently experienced a period of stability under the dictator Ribiera. Charles Gould is a native...

Clive Cussler debuted his new series, The Oregon Files, with the incredible adventure of Golden Buddha. Now he follows that triumph with Sacred Stone, a rollicking new tale featuring the enigmatic captain of The Oregon, Juan Cabrillo. In the remote wastes of Greenland, an ancient artifact possessing catastrophic radioactive power is unearthed. But the astounding find puts the world at risk. Caught between two militant factions bent on wholesale slaughter,...

Almayer, an immigrant living on the Malayan continent with his native wife and his daughter, Nina, dreams of riches, and so pursues hidden gold mines and begins construction on a mansion to impress the British forces that he believes are coming to conquer the region. However, none of Almayer's schemes come through for him, and his recklessness results in a desperate situation for him and his family. Almayer's Folly was Joseph Conrad's first novel....

But strange as the journey may be, it's nowhere near as strange as what they will find waiting at its end. One of the lesser known novels by Jules Verne, but certainly a novel that is worth reading, An Antarctic Mystery or The Sphinx of the Ice Fields is a fictional travelogue that describes the narrator's adventures as he travels from Kerguelen Islands, a group of islands in the Indian Ocean, towards the South Pole. The novel is the account of the...

From Washington Irving (1783—1859) to F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896—1940), the authors represented in this expansive American short story anthology invite you to see the world as they saw it. Irving's culture-defining tales of American life-"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip Van Winkle"-offer a turn of events that both surprises and chills the reader. In "Bartleby," Herman Melville introduces us to a lawyer whose easy way of life is upended by...