"Astrid struggles with a shameful secret, Ling discovers courage in a prison camp, and Serafina lines up allies to help fight the final battle for her underwater realm"--

From Avi, the 2003 Newbery Award-winning author of "Crispin: The Cross of Lead," comes the story of Thorston, an alchemist who works to concoct a potion that will enable him to live forever--and keep dying and rising from the dead as a result.

Megan longs to leave her new boarding school where all of the students and teachers have a virus that turns them into zombies, but she is stuck there until a cure is found.

The continuing adventures of Tom, the seventh son of a seventh son and apprentice to the local Spook, who faces danger and death daily in his job protecting the region from evil.

"Astrid must confront her ancestor, Orfeo, the evil force behind the rise of the monster Abbadon, while Sera and her Black Fins train goblin troops for battle against her uncle Vallerio's death riders"--

"After suffering a tragic loss, eleven-year-old Ollie only finds solace in books. So when she happens upon a crazed woman at the river threatening to throw a book into the water, Ollie doesn't think--she just acts, stealing the book and running away. As she begins to read the slender volume, Ollie discovers a chilling story about a girl named Beth, the two brothers who both loved her, and a peculiar deal made with "the smiling man, " a sinister specter...

Apprentice Tom and the Spook for whom he works flee to Ireland, where a powerful witch has joined forces with the dark mages trying to call forth ancient powers to destroy Tom.

Twig, aged twelve, is practically ignored by classmates and other residents of Sidwell, Massachusetts, but gets along fine with just her mother and brother, whose presence must be kept secret, until descendants of the witch who cursed her family move in next door and want to be her friends.

Will Wilder yearns to join the Perilous Falls Middle School football team. But he was never big enough or strong enough to make the cut, until he comes in contact with a talisman containing the fabled locks of Samson. But using the Amulet of Power attracts dark forces to Perilous Falls like moths to a flame. Suddenly, hunched creatures are shadowing people around town, graves are being disturbed, the music of a mysterious DJ lulls half of Perilous...

Returning from Greece, Tom and the Spook find that their home, including the Spook's precious library of knowledge, has been burned to the ground, and that their battle against the denizens of the dark must continue.