Best Selling Books by Sherwood Smith

The effective use of information technology is seen by many as the key differentiator between the successful enterprise and the mediocre although it has always been difficult to demonstrate the actual value of IT investment. However, this situation is no longer acceptable. Today, as management faces increasing pressure to cut costs and increase margins, even the most essential IT investment comes under scrutiny. Achieving Maximum Value from Information Systems argues that to realise business benefits successfully, technology must be carefully integrated with the business strategy of the enterprise and its corporate culture. The book then proposes a unique approach to this crucial process called Active Benefit Realisation. This involves continuous participative evaluation to manage inevitable changes in the business, and a shifting of the focus of information systems to the shared responsibility of a group of the main information systems stakeholders.

While Wren and Prince Connor set off to uncover her parentage, a sinister wizard creates havoc back home in Cantimoor and threatens to kidnap Wren's best friend, Princess Teressa. Sequel to Wren to the Rescue.

In a time of change and danger, peace sparks to war, and sons become daughters... It's nearly a century after the death of Inda, the unbeatable Marlovan commander. This is the first half of an epic story of politics, war, family and magic in the beloved world of Sartorias-deles.

When the evil Andreus's hunger for power leads to war, Wren and her friends are thrust into the middle of the struggle. Teressa is heir to the throne, Tyron her chief magicmaker, and Prince Connor a reluctant warrior. As allies die and others disappear, they must put aside their feelings for one another if they are to defeat the sorcerous Andreus. They know they need magic to save them. Can they turn the bloody tide?NY Public Library Best Books for Teen Age List, 1995; Finalist for Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children's Literature, 1995. Anne Spencer Lindbergh Honor Book, 1996.

Rhis, a princess of a small kingdom is invited to the party for the Crown Prince of Vesarja, but when Iardith is kidnapped, Rhis and her friends start a rescue plan.

"In this sequel to Lhind the Thief, Lhind has gone from castoffs to silks, back alleys to palace halls--and is not having an easy time of it. That's before she's snatched by an angry prince she'd robbed twice, who is determined to turn her over to the enemy who frightens her most, the sinister Emperor Jardis Dhes-Andis. When her own dear Hlanan comes to rescue her, it's Lhind who has to do the rescuing, setting off a wild chase to fend off mercenaries and then to confront an entire army intent on invasion. Lhind and Hlanan try to negotiate the perilous waters of a relationship while on the run--straight into a trap. Just when Lhind is beginning to figure out where she might fit into the world, she finds herself alone again, surrounded by enemies, in one of the most dangerous courts in the world. And she begins to find out who she really is."--Amazon.com.

Swashbuckling in a magic world-L.A. style! Sasharia en Garde! book 1. Sasha's mother, Sun, was once swept away from a Ren Faire to another world by a prince-literally-but there was no happy ending. Sun's prince disappeared, and a wicked king took the Khanerenth throne. In the years since, Sasha and Sun have been back on Earth and on the run. Mom and daughter don't quite see eye to eye on the situation-Sasha wants to stand and fight. Sun insists her prince will return for them one day; it's safer to stay hidden. Then Sasha is tricked into crossing the portal to Khanerenth. She's more than ready to join the resistance, kick some bad-guy butt, and fix the broken kingdom. But...is the stylish pirate Zathdar the bad guy? Or artistic, dreamy Prince Jehan? Back on Earth, Sun is furious Sasha has been kidnapped. Sun might once have been a rotten princess, but nobody messes with Mom! Warning: This title contains a kick-butt mother-daughter team, a wicked king, a witty pirate with an unfortunate taste for neon colors, inept resistance fighters, a dreamy prince who gallops earnestly hither and yon, and a kick-butt princess in waiting.

In a time of rising danger, women go to war, and ghosts walk the walls... A few years have passed since the Night of Four Kings, when the least expected candidates for rulership found themselves in charge of a disintegrating kingdom. These years of tenuous peace see their children reach adulthood. Threats from the border become raids, led by an idle noble with an eye to kingship. The two princes, Noddy and Connar, newly emerged from the military academy, are dispatched to patrol the troubled area until they find themselves under attack. Their loyalty to one another is strong, but what happens when one brother discovers a taste for war and the other a loathing for it? Matters of marriage and love tangle up with the menace of war. But the greatest threat of all comes when the world's strongest army faces enemies from within. This is the concluding half of an epic story of politics, war, family and magic in the beloved world of Sartorias-deles.

When Sherwood Smith was eight years old, a girl named Clair walked into her dreams, bringing hints of a world where girls could adventure, live on their own, and best of all, didn't have to grow up. Clair traveled about looking for girls who needed a home and found CJ, who found herself not only taken to another world to live, but she became the princess - Clair's "left hand splat." One of her jobs as princess was to write down their records. Another was to serve as leader for the girls when Clair was busy learning to become queen. The girls had jobs, too, using their imaginations and their wits to foil villains who tried to take a kingdom away from a mere girl. From the shadowy Kwenz, a powerful mage with a very wicked past, to the usurper Glotulae and her son Prince Jonicake, who in their ridiculous way were just as determined to boot Clair out, there were plenty of chances for adventure. And mystery, like why did kids from other times and worlds show up every now and then? These are the early stories - how Clair found her gang of girls, and how the M girls developed the fine art of the Prune Pie of Justice.

Lilah is bursting with questions. Why are the local kids outside the palace so ragged? Why do they hate her? Why does her older brother Peitar--heir to their cold, controlling uncle, the king--write so many secret letters, and WHY won't anyone tell her what the revolutionary slogan 'slam justice' means? She disguises herself to find out. For the first time she makes friends, and meets the heroic young revolutionary leader, Derek.Then revolution breaks out.Lilah and her new friends become spies in order to help Peitar and Derek, who have been swept into the middle of unrest and danger.While no one on either side could have predicted that Lilah would be key to the new meaning of slam justice.

A light-hearted romantic comedy of manners set in Jane Austen's Regency period as our two heroines step in time to the dance of love.

Nobody sane wants war, but what happens when war comes to you?In this first volume of The Norsunder War, the allies we met in The Rise of the Alliance series are faced with the news that their border has been invaded. For Atan, Queen of Sartor, preserving lives and knowledge come before fleeing to safety. Jilo of Chwahirsland risks his life to resist the return of an evil king. And for Senrid of Marloven Hess, it means fighting for every bloody inch against a combined army whose might hasn't been seen for eight hundred years.Do they endure? Resist? How do they fight back?While one the run, they may discover that even when life is most dire, there is still hope . . .

The war is over, all but the cleanup. And the emotional recovery, with its scars both visible and invisible. Liere Fer Eider learns on the run how to become a queen, while Andri adjusts to life this side of the law. Senrid, in devastated Marloven Hess, has to straight-arm a rage-filled populace into peace. While on a faraway mountain Detlev at last oversees the rebuilding of his school for training re-emerging psychic powers after four millennia. . A few years pass, and everything seems to be settling into the new norm--until Liere wakes from a drugged sleep to an enemy who offers an impossible choice.

Sasha's prince is wicked, Sun's is missing-they take up the sword, L.A. style! Sasharia En Garde Book 2 In the magical world of Khanerenth, there's a long way to go before Sasha and her dream prince, Jehan, can get to perfect. Jehan's deception has left her unable to trust him, and grimly determined to search for her missing father. Jehan only wants to protect Sasha from the dangerous undercover mission he's undertaken to heal the broken kingdom, but he knows she can't afford to listen to him-not when he's the one living a lie. Enemies, allies-and temptation-make the ballroom floor as dangerous as pirate raids. In a world where love is danger and honor is difficult to define, the crown is not the only thing on the line for a wicked prince and a princess with a core of steel. There's a royal price for love.

The first summer of peace brings Wren on her weekly visit to the young Queen Teressa, where she encounters the derisive, upsetting Hawk Rhiscarlan riding in! Wren races to warn Teressa, which causes the girls' first argument. Tyron gives Wren a chance to leave Meldreth by sending her on a new journeymage project - to find Connor, who had wandered off to the Summer Isles. When Wren vanishes, Teressa veers between regret over the argument, worry about Wren, and the beguilement of attraction as Hawk skillfully upsets her court. When pirates attack, Wren faces the villain she hates most, aided by the boy she... what do you call these feelings? Once again the four - Wren, Teressa, Connor, and Tyron - find themselves deep in adventure, as they try to navigate the treacherous waters of growing up.

First written when Sherwood Smith was a teen, the series called CJ's Notebooks feature a gang of girls around thirteen-year-old Queen Clair of Mearsies Heili. The M girls, as they come to be known, prefer their villains silly, their throwing pies gloppy, and their adventures fun. But villains don't ask first if the girls want to be dragged into dangerous escapades, so they've had more than their share. Sometimes they are not the center of the dangerous escapades. Hunt Across Worlds, a prelude to Fleeing Peace, is about two kids from Earth who discover a boy from another world being kept prisoner. When they rescue him, they end up having to cross the USA before being blasted by magic to Mearsies Heili, where they meet a sailor girl who's been stuck in charge of a Mysterious Magical Object. CJ and the gang try to come to the rescue, discovering that being on the edge of someone else's story can sometimes lead to bigger adventures.

While attending the King's Military Academy, Inda unwittingly becomes a pawn in a vicious political struggle among the nobility after he tries to save the life of a classmate, which compromises his honor and sparks a civil war, forcing him to start a new life as a ship's boy on a merchant vessel where he must hide his true identity as he grows into manhood. Reprint.

In the third volume of The Norsunder War, the invaders' command structure is fracturing, but they are no less dangerous. Amid widespread and wanton destruction, it seems the world itself is fighting back. A pair of brothers, one on each side, begin a duel of wit and danger searching for a girl who could change the world.Meanwhile, slowly, hints of what really happened four thousand years ago begin to emerge, making this fight not just universal, but personal for those who claim power . . .Revelation. Betrayal. Sacrifice.The beginning of the end.

In this fantasy of manners we have two displaced young kings, one shopkeeper's daughter who went away an ugly duckling and returns five years later a beautiful and highly skilled swan, and a young queen who is master of all she surveys . . . until she isn't. The result is the last summer of love and adventure on the eve of cataclysm. The Wicked Skill, from a poem by John Donne, duels and dances with discovery of the many facets of love-set against a background of revolution, one conducted through manners, the other by swashbuckling youths who think life is a game . . .