Aux portes de l’enfer

Brash, young Telemachus continues his search for his father on the Island of Aeaea, where the witch Circe entertains him and his friends with banquets full of fresh, roasted pork. Circe’s daughter, Cassiphone, has her own reasons for joining Mac and his friends as they look for Ulysses, and she knows just where to go: Hades, the land of the dead, in search of the seer Tiresias, who can show them the way. So Telemachus and his growing band of friends head off across Terra Incognita, in the hope of finally catching up with his father.

Olive spends much of her days in the elaborate dream world that she has created, escaping the tedium of her boarding school. It is her private space where no one can bother her. Until one day when an astronaut named Lenny appears, crashing into the water in his space capsule. Olive’s surprise deepens when she realizes that Lenny exists in real life, and a desperate search is underway to locate him following a failed reentry. With the help of her new friend Charlie, Olive will have to sift through the clues quickly in order to find Lenny and save his life. And when the girls decide to spend Christmas at Olive’s house, they find a key to the mysteries of her dream world in the most unexpected of places: right at home.

After the devastating fire that destroyed Moscow and drove out Napoleon’s troops, what can the French general possibly do next? He had originally planned to continue all the way to Asia. For a man wrapped up in his dreams of greatness, it is quite simply out of the question to go back to France at this point. But winter’s on its way, and each attempt to move forward results in death by the thousands.

After discovering the stunning truth about Olive’s past during Christmas break, Olive and her roommate Charlie are back at boarding school. Olive’s link to missing astronaut Lenny Popincourt is growing stronger by the day, but he’s still as far away as ever. When Lenny falls into an endless sleep, the girls formulate a rescue plan almost too risky to consider—except they’re the only people on earth who can save him!

Belgium, 1940. The German army is spreading across Europe, and tiny Belgium is conquered in 18 days. During the four long years of the Nazi occupation, the women of La Louvière have to figure out some way to stay alive, to live their lives, and to keep up hope. Their world is drawn through teenage Marcelle’s journal: What does she do? How do her family members endure? Which women in town collaborate with the occupying forces, and which women choose to fight? As always in wartime, the women take over for the absent men and keep their world spinning.