"It has been years since Helen Franklin left England. In Prague, working as a translator, she has found a home of sorts--or, at least, refuge. That changes when her friend Karel discovers a mysterious letter in the library, a strange confession and a curious warning that speaks of Melmoth the Witness, a dark legend found in obscure fairy tales and antique village lore. As such superstition has it, Melmoth travels through the ages, dooming those she...

In Fortune Falls, where superstitions are real, and all children must pass regular "luck tests" to see if they are worthy, ill-fortuned Sadie has always been deemed as unlucky, and shunted aside for her luckier younger brother--but when she finds an unusually intelligent black cat named Jinx, her fortunes begin to change for the better.

Master of the moor: As a boy, Stephen Whalby took to his beloved moor to escape trouble at home. Trouble follows him there as an adult, however, when women's bodies begin turning up among the rocks, heather, and bogs. Stephen finds no refuge when D.I. Manciple--a rude outsider, unwelcome in the village of Vangmoor--targets him as the prime suspect. Vanity dies hard: In the town of Salstead, the lives of two friends seem to take different trajectories....

"If Mari Feijoo could, she would turn her family's Peak Cubanity down a notch, just enough so that her snooping neighbor and classmate Mykenzye wouldn't have anything to tease her about. That's why this year, there's no way that Mari's joining in on one of the big-gest Feijoo family traditions-burning the New Year's Eve effigy her abuela makes. Only Mari never suspects that failing to toss her effigy in the fire would bring something much worse than...