The year is 1936. Political tension is escalating in Europe, as Hitler's troops march into the Rhineland and break the Treaty of Versailles.

During a special meeting between Rudolf Hess and a key Nazi strategist, documents outlining a plot to invade Switzerland are stolen, and a British Commander is taken prisoner by the Germans. They use him as a pawn to lure his sister, Victoria Méliès, into helping them retrieve the encrypted documents.

However, even without the documents, the Nazis are able to begin launching their deadly scheme, and as its implementation draws closer, the need to keep Victoria's brother alive, fades.

Like most people, we’ve never experienced a pandemic that has shut down our country and made us fear for our future, our friends, and our families — both health-wise and economically.

COVID-19 is serious stuff. It’s devastating. And our hearts go out to everyone who has suffered through it or lost someone to it. It is not our intention that anything published in this book diminishes that loss.

That said, it is our belief that life with all its treacherous dips and turns is easier to take with a spoonful of sugar. We like to look for the humor in everything because we believe it knocks the things that scare us down to size, making us feel more in control. That way, we can deal with our fears more easily.

So, come experience the coronavirus through the eyes of a couple of old farts. We tried to keep the print large because squinting adds to our wrinkles.

And, yes, there are cartoons!

There's no getting around it: with every breath we take—we're a couple of seconds older, and there's no going back. The last census showed nearly 60-million people in the United States are now older than 60. Face it, that's a lot of gray hair and bad teeth. 

Many of the things older adults once took for granted may be dramatically changing, which could be disturbing. But no one should suffer in silence unnecessarily, thinking what they're experiencing is somehow unique. We're all in the "embarrassed to death" stage, so get over it! It's time for everyone past a certain age to be embarrassed together. 

Don't worry about relinquishing your individuality. We have a lot in common, but as our self-help book on aging shows, there are still many shades of gray we can embrace.

There’s something about holding a puzzle in your hands that makes you want to solve it.

Particularly if it’s very old…
Especially if the solution is locked inside an intriguing piece of art…
Most importantly, if you believe it could change your life.

Who wouldn’t want to know what’s inside?

Imprisoned on a distant realm—her love life in a shambles—Johanna Charette wonders how to extract herself from Nero 51’s grasp. She needs to resolve the threats against the Library of Illumination and protect the people she holds dear. But how? 

She’s felt different, ever since meeting a secret society of wizards, and believes magic is growing inside her. Meanwhile, her feelings about Jackson are still unresolved. Unfortunately, the battle to control all the Libraries of Illumination is about to explode. 

Their lives are all in peril. And everything everyone on every realm once believed, could be stripped away, plunging future generations into stone-age ignorance. 

’Tis the season to be jolly, however, Johanna Charette and Jackson Roth, curators of the Library of Illumination, are finding it hard to get into the holiday spirit.

They have incredibly busy schedules, now that they’ve started college, and the weather is unseasonably warm—hardly Christmas-like at all. Not even a tree can lift their spirits. But then, a spark ignites something inside them.

Unfortunately, it may be too late to save the season.

Life is falling apart at the Library of Illumination.

Johanna and Jackson have allowed a sneaky shapeshifter to slip through their fingers—

Unfortunately, he hitches a ride with the Terrorians in a stolen time machine which escapes into the layers between time and space.

Meanwhile, Johanna and Jackson are having problems of a more personal nature: their relationship is falling apart.

No wonder teenagers have angst!

When an alien invasion threatens the existence of all the knowledge in the universe, eighteen-year-old Johanna Charette and seventeen-year-old Jackson Roth must rely on their wits, guts, and pluck to save the fantasy-come-to-life world of the Library of Illumination.

It wouldn’t be so bad if Johanna and Jackson weren’t the ones responsible for breaching the portals to a dozen distant worlds. Now, outside forces are causing shock waves in the space-time continuum, and if that isn’t awful enough, someone from another dimension is trying to steal a book of powerful spells created by a very famous wizard.

At first, traveling to other realms in a time machine seems like a fun perk. However, discovering some inhabitants want to obliterate the teens doesn’t leave them with a warm, fuzzy feeling. Instead, they find themselves forced to sacrifice their own welfare and the safety of their loved ones for the greater good.

Within the walls of a centuries-old building lies the magical Library of Illumination where books literally come to life. What makes this library even more unusual are the two teenagers chosen to oversee its operation. Johanna Charette and Jackson Roth must use their wits to deal with the sometimes humorous, sometimes dangerous situations that arise when characters and scenes from enchanted books become real.

As the teens learn about the library, themselves, and each other—their fates become intertwined. And when they stumble upon a scheme by someone in a distant realm to take control of all the knowledge in the universe, Johanna and Jackson are forced to put their lives on the line to battle an ancient foe.

Since the age of three, the austere conditions and strict directives of a group home have ruled Josefina Charo's life. Her inquisitive nature and love of books underscore an intelligence that allows her to graduate high school two years early. However, she's crestfallen to learn her caretakers cannot provide a higher education, nor will they allow her to leave because she's too young.

She searches for a way to escape her prison, without ever stopping to consider how difficult life might be for a teenage girl with no real-world experience.