Most Popular 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.

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.

In this sequel to The Spy Princess, Lilah, newly made a princess, teams up with Atan, the hidden princess of the oldest country in the world, Sartor, to free the kingdom from a century of enchantment. Capture, escape, a forest beyond time, ancient beings, civilizations secreted in caves, and a deadly enemy await the girls. Atan knows that if she survives, the challenges facing a fifteen-year-old queen are only beginning.

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.

In this fantasy, Clair travels about the universe looking for girls who need a home. She finds CJ on Earth and takes her to another world to live as a princess.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 . . .

PRAISE FOR THE SARTORIAS-DELES SERIES: "The book is set in a world so intricate and real that it''s hard to step out of and hard to forget. Filled with magic and glamour, it houses a culture unique for its openness and warlike ability.... Smith''s rich details and imagery tie this story together. Complex and compelling." -San Jose Mercury News "Smith deftly stage-manages the wide-ranging plots with brisk pacing, spare yet complex characterizations, and a narrative that balances sweeping action and uneasy intimacy." -Publishers Weekly "A damned good book.... A compelling protagonist with a vivid voice, a master''s control of pacing and tension." -Tor.com The second volume of four begins with the loose alliance of young rulers, mages, scribes, friends, and ex-enemies on the run. The only place of safety is a tiny agrarian kingdom no one has ever heard of, though hints begin to surface that nothing there is quite what it seems. Some venture on quests for ancient magical artifacts that might aid them-but all those quests turn . . . sideways. Some are deadly. Some races turn into chases. Meanwhile, Senrid, the Marloven warrior king, goes covert, staying one step ahead of the conquerors who want him dead. Atan, the queen who prides herself on peaceful solutions, discovers she has a talent for strategic thinking And Jilo, the nerdy son of a lowly sergeant who has been singlehandedly striving to save the once-great Chwahir nation from an insane king, crosses a continent to carry a message-the easiest quest of all-with utterly unforeseen results.