In a world cleaved in two by a massive barrier of perpetual darkness, a young soldier uncovers a power that might finally unite her country. But as she struggles to hone her power, dangerous forces plot against her. Thugs, thieves, assassins and saints are at war now, and it will take more than magic to survive.

When CIA analyst Jack Ryan stumbles upon a suspicious series of bank transfers his search for answers pulls him from the safety of his desk job and catapults him into a deadly game of cat and mouse throughout Europe and the Middle East, with a rising terrorist figurehead preparing for a massive attack against the US and her allies.

During a trip to Germany to scatter their grandfather's ashes, German-American brothers Todd and Jan discover Beerfest, the secret Olympics of downing stout, and want to enter the contest to defend their family's beer-guzzling honor. Their Old Country cousins sneer at the Yanks' chances, prompting the siblings to return to America to prepare for a showdown the following year.

The eventful life of a humble Polish priest who once decried the pomp of the Catholic Church "a circus" and labeled the Pope a "prisoner of the Vatican" before ascending to the papal throne to usher Catholicism into the 21st century. Born in Poland and forced to carry on following the untimely death of his family, Karol Wojtyla endured both personal hardships and the rape of his homeland by the Third Reich to spread the word of God through the Catholic Church. Later, as Pope John Paul II, Wojtyla was beloved by millions of Catholics worldwide. From the sexual-abuse scandal that shook the American Catholic Church in the later-20th century to the murder of Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero and the near-fatal assassination attempt made on his own life, Pope John Paul II endured to bridge the gap between various faiths until his death resulting from Parkinson's disease in April of 2005.