Friendship

School's out,a nd Lucy is off to her favorite place: Pierson Point, Maine. Pierson Point is where she feels most like herself, and where memories of her mother, who died when Lucy was six, are strong and sacred. But this summer, nothing is the same. Ian, a boy from home in Boston, comes to Pierson Point with his family. Ian is loud, popular, and mean. He and Lucy can't stand each other. To top it off, Dad wants his girlfriend to become a bigger part of Lucy's life.

Pip is in hiding, trapped in the great walled city of Hangman's Hollow. The sinister Jarvis roams the streets, seeking out children wherever he can find them. And now he has a deadly ally. With his friends Toad and Frankie, Pip must seek out Jarvis in his dark forest stronghold, and strike a blow for the city's lost children.

With their father en route to Africa for Doctors Without Borders, city-kids Nicholas and younger twin sisters Haley and Hetty are off to spend the summer with their Great-Uncle Nick at his house on Forsaken Lake. Nicholas discovers an old movie that his father made as a boy: it tells the story of the local legend, The Seaweed Strangler, but was never finished. Before long Nicholas wants answers both about the legend, and about the movie.

When Jared, Shireen and Miranda are each given one glittering gift from an old Venetian shopkeeper, they never fathom the powers they are now able to unleash.For centuries earlier, another trio --- Rashid, Maria and Francesca --- have been kidnapped and will be sold into child slavery. Unless, that is, they can find some way to save them all. Danger, it seems, has a way of spanning centuries.