A collection of wintery crime and mystery stories by thirteen of the most exciting and diverse authors in children’s books today! Co-edited by Serena Patel, the award-winning author of the Anisha: Accidental Detective series and by Robin Stevens, author of the bestselling Murder Most Unladylike series.

The tropics are the source of many of our familiar fruits, vegetables, oils, and spice, as well as such commodities as rubber and wood. Moreover, other tropical fruits and vegetables are being introduced into our markets to offer variety to our diet. Now, as tropical forests are increasingly threatened, we face a double-fold crisis: not only the loss of the plants but also rich pools of potentially useful genes. Wild populations of crop plants harbor genes that can improve the productivity and disease resistance of cultivated crops, many of which are vital to developing economies and to global commerce. Eight chapters of this book are devoted to a variety of tropical crops—beverages, fruit, starch, oil, resins, fuelwood, fodder, spices, timber, and nuts—the history of their domestication, their uses today, and the known extent of their gene pools, both domesticated and wild. Drawing on broad research, the authors also consider conservation strategies such as parks and reserves, corporate holdings, gene banks and tissue culture collections, and debt-for-nature swaps. They stress the need for a sensitive balance between conservation and the economic well-being of local populations. If economic growth is part of the conservation effort, local populations and governments will be more strongly motivated to save their natural resources. Distinctly practical and soundly informative, this book provides insight into the overwhelming abundance of tropical forests, an unsettling sense of what we may lose if they are destroyed, and a deep appreciation for the delicate relationships between tropical forest plants and people around the world.

A collection of sizzling summer-themed crime and mystery stories by thirteen of the most popular, exciting and diverse children’s book authors! Co-edited by Serena Patel, the award-winning author of the Anisha: Accidental Detective series and by Robin Stevens, author of the bestselling Murder Most Unladylike series.

Forsaken to be a killer and sent to be a destroyer, Sviska must choose his own path. Sviska is a man of the shadows, an assassin without any one place to call his own. But in the Far North, he discovers a secret. Magic, long thought lost to the world, is alive. The genocide to destroy every elf, wizard, and sacred being of old is not yet complete. Sviska's masters work the strings of the world and he has been sent for a task he does not even fully understand yet. When at last he feels he has what he has always wanted, darkness falls upon the world. He must rise to face an enemy more terrible than any he has ever met. Fate will force him into a terrible choice.

"Epic. Fast. Heroic. The Rogue Elf series is classic epic fantasy with none of the fluff. ★★★★★" War calls the elves of Urlas to battle. But Kealin, a young half-elf training to be a Sacred Blade, and his three siblings, are forbidden to go. They are not ready, or so they're told. But Kealin's lineage has a dark secret and the High Council of Urlas fears what he may become... Kealin is about to learn that secret and in the catacysm emerging, Urlas will wish they had embraced it. When the soothsayer of Urlas tells Kealin that doom comes for all that left for the war, he and his siblings set off on what may be a one way journey to the edge of the world. Darkness is upon them and a specter that dwells between the borders of the living realms has been waiting for them. The Rogue Elf awakens... but is it too late to save those he loves? A brave group of companions await you: Kealin- a defiant half-blood that has little care of the purist High Elves and their beliefs. Eager, skilled, and sometimes a bit cocky, he fights with furious zeal to protect those he cares about. Alri- The only female elf in the group. Her powers are far beyond her brothers. As a potent magic-user training under the best of the arcane masters, she knows much about her deadly art but necromancy is her natural gift. With her, a power unlike that taught in her homeland is just within her grasp yet she doesn't realize it yet. Taslun- A son after his father's image. Strong, loyal to Urlas, and at 800 years old nearly ready to go before the High Council and be christened as a Blade of Urlas. He is the last anyone expects to become defiant. As the oldest sibling, he naturally desires to look after the young ones. They'll need his skills if they are all to survive. Calak- The youngest of the males and with equal qualities of being cocky and honorable. While he is capable with a sword, his true gift is in his love of astrology, history, and ancient knowledge. Where he lacks in fighting ability he makes up for what his more 'violence-centric' brothers see as 'boring'. Valrin- Not an elf but also not a normal human. However, the greatest mystery to the half-elves is his level of knowledge of the vast Glacial Seas and what he seems to know but not say about their quest. A loyal companion that has known of the elven lands and the coming darkness on the seas far before the half-elves left their home, he is the key to much to come. He commands the Aela Sunrise, a not-so-simple sailing vessel crafted by the ancient Sea Peoples of the North.

A night at the local tavern doesn't go as planned. He went for a drink, he left covered in the blood of his friends. With a bloodthirsty elf hunter chasing him down, how can a lowly thief escape the grasp of the evil elven hunter known only by the name Bloodblade? This is a complete prequel story set in the bestselling Dwemhar Realms universe, a growing world containing over thirty novels!

He is a Ranger of the North. His fellow Rangers, those he would call friends, are dead. Now, he has been branded a deserter and a thief. He only wishes to get back to his family alive. It is said that Fadis the Ranger stole something from the king... Now a massive bounty is on his head. But in particular, is isn't the sell-swords and bounty hunters that he should worry about. There is a powerful mage on his trail and this man cares little of a reward of gold. Only a few hours from his wife's embrace and his son's smile, will he, at last, be free from his past? Nothing ever remains the same and this Ranger is about to learn that. The hard way.

WINNER OF THE WEEK JUNIOR CHILDREN’S BOOK OF THE YEAR: BREAKTHROUGH AWARD SHORTLISTED FOR THE WATERSTONES 2023 CHILDREN’S BOOK PRIZE WINNER OF THE DIVERSE BOOK AWARD FOR CHILDREN’S BOOK OF THE YEAR