An upper-middle grade thriller by the New York Times bestselling Nightfall authors – perfect for fans of James Dashner's Maze Runner books.Thousands of miles south of the island of Bliss, day and night last for 72 hours. Here is one of the natural wonders of this world: a whirlpool thirty miles wide and a hundred miles around. This is the Drain. Anything sucked into its frothing, turbulent waters is never seen again. Wren has spent most of her life on Edgeland, a nearby island where people bring their dead to be blessed and prepared for the afterlife. There the dead are loaded into boats with treasure and sent over the cliff, and into the Drain. Orphaned and alone, Wren dreams of escaping Edgeland, and her chance finally comes when furriers from the Polar north arrive with their dead, and treasure for their dead. With the help of her friend Alec, Wren plans to loot one of the boats before it enters the Drain. But the boat—with...

Ever since returning from Dormia, Alfonso has enjoyed sleeping in a bed like anormal person. No more waking up at the top of a tree or the edge of a cliff. In fact,no sleepwalking at all. But then, while visiting France on a class trip, Alfonso feels that strange andfamiliar pull of sleep. Upon waking, he finds himself in the belly of a ship headedto Egypt. In his backpack are a few old books and a vial of medicine he stole whileasleep. Something is calling Alfonso back to Dormia. Perhaps it's the Founding Tree? Orperhaps it's the man he sees in his dreams—the one who looks just like his deceasedfather? Whatever it is, Alfonso is powerless to resist.Storytellers Jake Halpern and Peter Kujawinski take Alfonso on another fantasticalquest to Dormia—and beyond—to a vast underground world that holds the answerto a terrifying message: Let me tell you of a dark shadow tree and the world's end.

Introducing Alfonso Perplexon, hero of the epic fantasy tale Dormia!Alfonso Perplexon is an unusual sleeper. He climbs trees, raises falcons, even shoots deadly accurate arrows, all in his sleep. No one can figure out why.Then one evening a man arrives at Alfonso's door, claiming to be Alfonso's long-lost uncle Hill. This uncle tells a fantastical tale: Alfonso's ancestors hail from Dormia—an ancient kingdom of gifted sleepers—which is hidden in the snowy peaks of the Ural Mountains. According to Hill, Dormia exists thanks to a tree known as the Founding Tree, with roots that pump life into the frozen valley. But the Founding Tree is now dying, and in a matter of days, Dormia faces an icy apocalypse.Dormia's salvation lies with the Great Sleeper, who possesses the special powers to enter a sleep trance and grow a new Founding Tree. Hill suspects that Alfonso is just such a person. In fact, Alfonso's sleeping-self has already hatched this tree. Now the...

The Federal Trade Commission receives more complaints about rogue debt collecting than about any activity besides identity theft. Dramatically and entertainingly, Bad Paper reveals why. It tells the story of Aaron Siegel, a former banking executive, and Brandon Wilson, a former armed robber, who become partners and go in quest of “paper”—the uncollected debts that are sold off by banks for pennies on the dollar. As Aaron and Brandon learn, the world of consumer debt collection is an unregulated shadowland where operators often make unwarranted threats and even collect debts that are not theirs. Introducing an unforgettable cast of strivers and rogues, Jake Halpern chronicles their lives as they manage high-pressure call centers, hunt for paper in Las Vegas casinos, and meet in parked cars to sell the social security numbers and account information of unsuspecting consumers. He also tracks a “package” of debt that is stolen by unscrupulous collectors, leading to a dramatic showdown with guns in a Buffalo corner store. Along the way, he reveals the human cost of a system that compounds the troubles of hardworking Americans and permits banks to ignore their former customers. The result is a vital exposé that is also a bravura feat of storytelling. Amazon.com ReviewAn Amazon Best Book of the Month, October 2014: Everyone knows about collections agencies, but how they actually operate is much more interesting than you probably think. Falling somewhere between Glengarry Glen Ross and Mean Streets, Jake Halpern's Bad Paper introduces us to an economy spanning many shades of gray. Halpern's book tracks the descent of "paper" (spreadsheets containing the information of millions of debtors and their debts) as it's sold for pennies on the dollar by banks and credit companies and passed through a network of collectors. Files are often bought and sold multiple times, each transaction stripping away the best remaining prospects as collectors wring paper dry through all manners of persuasion and coercion. Along the way, Halpern encounters first-hand the game's players, from the financiers at the top of the pyramid to mid-level "brokers" and the ground-level phone-jockeys; these are all hard men within their contexts, as one tale of a Tarantino-grade stand-off over stolen information attests. This book is unexpected, and unexpectedly fun. --Jon ForoReview“Bad Paper gives readers an intimate knowledge of the debt-collecting industry, but more important, it gives a comprehensive profile of the people in our country who live and die by the industry. This, ultimately, is the book's power and attraction.”—Frank Tempone, Chicago Tribune “[A] wonderful inquiry into the seamy, multilayered world of consumer debt collection . . . both an entertaining sociology of the debt-collecting fraternity and a picaresque romp through the industry’s most unsavory byways.”—Julia M. Klein, The Boston Globe “An enjoyable and educational read, with stories that sound too good to be true and word-for-word conversations that a Hollywood screenwriter couldn’t make up.”—Jonathan Epstein, Buffalo News “A dramatic rise-and-fall tale . . . Halpern brings unexpected literary heft to the world of debt collection.”—*Kirkus “By fostering a greater understanding of the workings of debt collection, [Bad Paper] sheds enough light into the shadows to compel readers to push for change.”—Publishers Weekly*“Bad Paper is nonfiction that reads like the finest thriller: suspenseful and frightening, eye-opening, and even, at times, funny. Jake Halpern’s fascinating, fearless tour of the underworld of debt collections introduces us to a cast of characters—the (mostly) men behind the scary phone calls—who deserve to be the stars of the next great HBO drama.”—Joseph Finder, bestselling author of Suspicion and *Paranoia “Bad Paper is a riveting tale, fast-paced and filled with unforgettable characters. It is also a deeply reported and powerful exploration of America’s shadow economy.”—David Grann, author of The Lost City of Z and staff writer for The New Yorker “Jake Halpern knows how to follow the money. Only a consummate reporter could have achieved such an intimateview of the two debt collectors he chronicles here. And because he really knows how to tell a story, we can’t take our eyes off this nasty business.”—Anne Fadiman, National Book Critics Circle Award–winning author of The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down*“Bad Paper is a terrific achievement—for the wonderful Ponzi-scheme absurdity of the story, for the outsized characters and the skeptical sympathy they elicit. It’s a book that hangs out in that gray and widening zone where the civilization we take for granted starts to break down, and it reads like Michael Lewis with a sense of the abyss. It’s about downward mobility and the subtle apocalypse and it feels important—important in the way few books ever are.”—Gideon Lewis-Kraus, author of A Sense of Direction“Jake Halpern’s gripping tale provides an unprecedented view into the criminal underbelly of consumer finance. It’s required reading not only for everybody with creditors on the line, but for anybody who cares about money or debt.”—Felix Salmon, senior editor, FusionPraise for *Braving Home *“The old homily ‘there is no place like home’ has never been more poignantly and wittily revealed than by Jake Halpern in these lovely vignettes.” —Studs Terkel “Strangely fascinating and endearing . . . In short, it’s terrific.” —Bill Bryson “Not for a long time have I read a book so good and so wise.” —Robert Stone

In this long-awaited finale to the Dormia trilogy, the dreaded nursery rhyme comes to life at last as a “dark shadow tree" threatens to cause the “world's end." And who will stop it? Alfonso is now an ageling, Resuza and Hill are slaves, Bilblox appears to be a traitor, and Leif is shipwrecked on the edge of a forbidding forest. An ancient prophecy states that the tree can be destroyed, but the price must be paid in blood, and whoever tries faces certain death. Nonetheless, a hero must journey northward, across the great polar expanse, to Dargora – the mythical city built of ice and human bones – and make the sacrifice before it's too late.All hope rests with a hooded girl, trudging her way through miles of desolate land. She walks slowly, carefully, methodically. Every so often, she stops to listen. She senses that she is being followed, but she is more concerned with the contents of her backpack. Nestled inside is a newborn baby, and he must be...

Funny, moving, and utterly unique, Braving Home introduces us to five unforgettable modern American pioneers. When Jake Halpern was a cub reporter, he became obsessed with stories about "some outlandish and often hellish place inhabited by a handful of stalwarts who refused to leave." His fellow reporters joked with him and nicknamed him the Bad Homes Correspondent. But the more he learned about these people, the more he was drawn to them. Determined to understand their fierce devotion to home, Halpern set off on a journey to five of the most punishing towns in America. Braving Home is his irresistible portrait of these hometowns and his friendships with their most loyal residents. In North Carolina, he meets a retired mill worker who single-handedly manned his hometown in the wake of a devastating flood. In Alaska, Halpern works for a spunky woman who runs a video store/tanning salon and delivers newspapers to an "indoor town" – a lone snowbound high-rise at the foot...

A story where edge-of-your-seat horror meets post-apocalyptic thriller, perfect for fans of Lois Lowry and The MazerunnerNight is coming.On Marin's island, sunrise doesn't come every twenty-four hours—it comes every twenty-eight years. Each sunset, the townspeople sail to the south, where they wait out the long Night. None of the adults will tell Marin, Kana, or their friend Line exactly what happens when they leave the island, but when the three are accidentally left behind in the gathering dusk, they learn the truth: at Night, their town belongs to others, and those others want them gone.Fleeing through the now-alien landscape that used to be their home, the three confront shocking transformations and uncomfortable truths about themselves. They are challenged to trust one another or perish. Marin, Kana, and Line must find their way off the island . . . before the Night finds them.From the Hardcover edition.