Tricia Hedge

Everybody knows about the United States of America. You can see its films, hear its music, and eat its food just about everywhere in the world. Cowboys, jazz, hamburgers, the Stars and Stripes - that's the United States. But it's a country with many stories to tell. Stories of busy cities, and quiet, beautiful forests and parks. Stories of a country that fought against Britain, and then against itself, to make the United States of today. Stories of rich and poor, black and white, Native American and immigrant. And the story of what it is really like to be an American today ...

Little Mary Lennox is a bad-tempered, disagreeable child. When her parents die in India, she is sent back to England to live with her uncle in a big, lonely, old house. There is nothing to do all day except walk in the gardens - and watch the robin flying over the high walls of the secret garden ...which has been locked for ten years. And no one has the key.

When a large plane is hijacked, the Prime Minister looks at the list of passengers and suddenly becomes very, very frightened. There is a name on the list that the Prime Minister knows very well - too well. There is someone on that plane who will soon be dead - if the hijackers can find out who he is! And there isn't much time. One man lies dead on the runway. In a few minutes the hijackers will use their guns again. And the Prime Minister knows who they are going to kill.

Life in the small English town of Cranford seems very quiet and peaceful. The ladies of Cranford lead tidy, regular lives. They make their visits between the hours of twelve and three, give little evening parties, and worry about their maid-servants. But life is not always smooth - there are little arguments and jealousies, sudden deaths and unexpected marriages ...Mrs Gaskell's timeless picture of small-town life in the first half of the nineteenth century has delighted readers for nearly 150 years.

It was a very inconvenient time for murder. Florence was full of Christmas shoppers and half the police force was already on holiday. At first it seemed quite an ordinary murder. Of course, there are always a few mysteries. In this case, the dead man had been in the habit of moving his furniture at three o'clock in the morning. Naturally, the police wanted to know why. The case became more complicated. But all the time, the answer was right under their noses. They just couldn't see it. It was, after all, a very ordinary murder.

Three different parts of the world, but all of them dangerous, lonely places. Three different women, but all of them determined to go - and to come back alive! Robyn Davidson walked nearly 3,000 kilometres across the Australian desert - with a dog and four camels. Arlene Blum led a team of ten women to the top of Annapurna - one of the highest mountains in the world. Only eight came down again. Naomi James sailed around the world alone, on a journey lasting more than 250 days. Three real adventures - three really adventurous women.

In the second century AD, when the Ninth Roman Legion marched into the mists of northern Britain, not one man came back. Four thousand men disappeared, and the Eagle, the symbol of the Legion's honour, was lost. Years later there is a story that the Eagle has been seen again. So Marcus Aquila, whose father disappeared with the Ninth, travels north, to find the Eagle and bring it back, and to learn how his father died. But the tribes of the north are wild and dangerous, and they hate the Romans ...

The Marquis lay there, like stone, with a knife pushed into his heart. On his chest lay a piece of paper, with the words: 'Drive him fast to the grave. This is from JACQUES.' The French Revolution brings terror and death to many people. But even in these troubled times people can still love and be kind. They can be generous and true-hearted ...and brave.

I don't know that you have done anything wrong,' Miss Hepplewhite said. 'But it is possible that you have done something rather dangerous.' William and Susie thought they were just playing a game when they cooked a witch's brew in the old barn and said a spell over it, but Martha was not so sure. And indeed, the three friends soon learn that they have called up something dark and evil out of the distant past ...

You look exactly like him! You can take the dead boy's place and no one will ever know the difference. You'll be rich for life!' And so the plan was born. At first Brat Farrar fought against the idea; it was criminal, it was dangerous. But in the end he was persuaded, and a few weeks later Patrick Ashby came back from the dead and went home to inherit the family house and fortune. The Ashby family seemed happy to welcome Patrick home, but Brat soon realized that somewhere there was a time-bomb ticking away, waiting to explode ...

Bathsheba Everdene is young, proud, and beautiful. She is an independent woman and can marry any man she chooses - if she chooses. In fact, she likes her independence, and she likes fighting her own battles in a man's world. But it is never wise to ignore the power of love. There are three men who would very much like to marry Bathsheba. When she falls in love with one of them, she soon wishes she had kept her independence. She learns that love brings misery, pain, and violent passions that can destroy lives ...

Heat and dust - these simple, terrible words describe the Indian summer. Year after year, endlessly, it is the same. And everyone who experiences this heat and dust is changed for ever. We often say, in these modern times, that sexual relationships have changed, for better or for worse. But in this book we see that things have not changed. Whether we look back sixty years, or a hundred and sixty, we see that it is not things that change, but people. And, in the heat and dust of an Indian summer, even people are not very different after all.