The spacefaring Barque Cats are valued members of every vessel’s crew, thanks to their special bond with humans. Then Pshaw-Ra, a mysterious cat with highly advanced knowledge, gives the felines the power of telepathy. When panic over a virulent plague drives the government to exterminate animals, Pshaw-Ra guides the cats and humans of the starship Ranzo to safety on his home planet, Mau. But Pshaw-Ra has a hidden agenda. His ultimate goal? Mate the Barque Cats with their godlike counterparts who rule on Mau and create a superior race to conquer the universe. His plans, however, may be doomed by his daughters’ battle royal to become queen, by a suspicious Barque Cat with an equally curious human friend—and by something stirring deep beneath the city with a hunger to devour all life . . . and an undying hatred for cats.

Pilot, engineer, doctor—ship’s cat? Since the early days of interstellar travel, the so-called Barque Cats have become essential to the well-staffed space vessel. Assisted by humans—Cat Persons—with whom they share a deep and loving bond, the Barque Cats are responsible for keeping spacecraft free of vermin, for alerting crews to environmental hazards, and for acting as morale officers.

But a widespread epidemic affecting livestock on numerous planets throws the felines’ future into doubt. Suddenly the galactic government announces a plan to impound and possibly destroy all exposed animals, including the Barque Cats. With the clock racing against them, a handful of very special kittens and their humans will join forces to save the Barque Cats, and quite possibly the universe as they know it, from total destruction.

In her latest spellbinding escapade, Jane Austen arrives in London to watch over the printing of her first novel, and finds herself embroiled in a crime that could end more than her career. For it is up to Jane to tease a murderer out of the ton, lest she—and her country—suffer a dastardly demise.…

On the heels of completing Sense and Sensibility, Jane heads to Sloane Street for a monthlong visit with her brother Henry and his wife, Eliza. Hobnobbing with the Fashionable Great at the height of the Season, Jane is well aware of their secrets and peccadilloes. But even she is surprised when the intimate correspondence between a Russian princess and a prominent Tory minister is published in the papers for all to see. More shocking, the disgraced beauty is soon found with her throat slit on Lord Castlereagh’s very doorstep.

Everyone who’s anyone in high society is certain the spurned princess committed the violence upon herself. But Jane is unconvinced. Nor does she believe the minister guilty of so grisly and public a crime. Jane, however, is willing to let someone else investigate—until a quirk of fate thrusts her and Eliza into the heart of the case…as prime suspects!

Striking a bargain with the authorities, Jane secures seven days to save herself and Eliza from hanging. But as her quest to unmask a killer takes her from the halls of government to the drawing rooms of London’s most celebrated courtesan, only one thing is sure: her failure will not only cut short her life. It could lead to England’s downfall. A compulsively readable, uncommonly elegant novel of historical suspense, Jane and the Barque of Frailty once again proves Jane Austen a sleuth to be reckoned with.


From the Hardcover edition.

The Stargate SG-1 team find themselves transported to a world where they must solve a series of riddles and avoid deadly traps in order to travel home. Pursued by Goa'uld and Jaffa, it is a race against death to the finish line.

"Lawhill" was one of the last of the great four-masted barques to make a living in the 20th century, is closely associated in people's minds with the last grain races and the twilight period of the age of sail. Between the middle of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, sailing ships rose to their peak in design; the four-masted barques and the larger five-masted vessels were the ultimate sailing ships, and "Lawhill" was one of the giants. "Lawhill" was launched at Dundee in 1892 for the jute trade from India, but this was soon abandoned as steamships took over. Owners of the big sailing ships had to look for new trades where slow passage was not a disadvantage. For a time she was owned by the Anglo American Oil Company, but she is generally associated with the ownership of Gustaf Erikson of Marieham and the grain races from Australia. These have captured the imagination of writers and readers for they represented the last stand of the steam ship, and were a glorious, though short, final flowering of the sailing ship era. This collection contains a range of contemporary material - photographs, drawings and records. It should be a useful reference book for all those with an interest in the last days of the great sailing ships.

A grandson recounts the story of his grandfather's experiences as a shipwrecked sailor on a barren cape of Australia, where he and another survivor almost starved to death before being rescued by aborigines.