“I was given a second chance in death. Vengeance was offered and I was quick to accept." A cloaked Stranger slips into the rustic Town of Oasis, changing things forever. Ten years it has been since he ran this town with malice and harshness. Even then, there was hope for his soul. His wife and daughter were on the verge of turning him from wickedness. But they were murdered, and so was he. Now he has returned, hell-bent on killing. "THE UNTAMED promises to be an epic tale, conceived and crafted not only with a great love of comics, but also a profound understanding of the power of visionary storytelling." - CLIVE BARKER (Hellraiser) “Sebastian A. Jones is like the Robert E. Howard of our generation. THE UNTAMED is like Solomon Kane mixed with Kill Bill, only shrouded with more mystery and twice the action." - CAMERON HATHEWAY (Bleeding Cool) "What's not to love about Jones and Bertging's The Untamed: it's a Sergio Leone, Frank Frazetta, William Blake fever dream mash-up. And that's just where it begins!" - LLOYD LEVIN (Watchmen, Hellboy, Boogie Nights) "Sebastian A. Jones' THE UNTAMED is what we fantasy fans have been starving for -- a completely original dark and gritty thriller set in a brutal world that delivers on all levels." - ANDREW COSBY (Co-Founder of BOOM! Studios, 2 Guns, Creator of Eureka) "A haunting revenge saga amongst the dunes of Asunda. Jones weaves grim poetry through the Stranger's bloody mission, elevating the simple tale to grave myth.” - PAUL MONTGOMERY (iFanboy) "Peter's one of my favorite working artists today. Fluid storytelling with an eye for acting and mood." - RICK REMENDER (Fear Agent, Punisher) Hidden within the Desert of the Dying Tree lies a town run by ruthless killers, a growing cancer upon the vast and volatile fantasy world of Asunda. Some say it’s a watering hole for the Devil. For one man, it’s a second chance at revenge… and a last chance at redemption. Would you damn yourself to save the ones you love? The Untamed: A Sinner's Prayer is set in the dark fantasy world of Asunda. Asunda was created by Stranger Comics founder and president Sebastian A. Jones over a 20 year period. A true labor of love, Asunda is unlike any other fantasy setting in existence. Developed in coordination with Stranger’s art director, anthropologist Darrell May, Asunda features an honest and oftentimes beautifully violent and savage approach to the medieval sword and sorcery genre, one where the world is exactly that... an entire world, filled with a variety of races which have evolved to suit their environment, not a decades old preconception of what elves and dwarves should be or how they should appear. If you like your fantasy with a touch of Sergio Leone, The Untamed is for you. If you think Clint Eastwood, Toshiro Mifune, or Richard Roundtree would have made bad ass elves, The Untamed is for you. If you want to see a wicked man return from the dead to choose between revenge and redemption... then The Untamed is definitely for you.

    We flashback to a pair of butchers who arrive at work one morning to find not only that there is no meat in their shop but also that they have forgotten completely how to do their job. As customers arrive, they are too fearful for their livelihood to admit their dilemma, leading to increasingly disastrous events. But what has caused their strange amnesia? This often hilarious, enigmatic and uncomfortable book will establish Stechschulte as an exciting new talent."

    Once they were twelve, but loneliness fills the grand halls now that four of the girls' lives have been cut short. Each death was more tragic than the last—the plague, a plummeting fall, a drowning, a slippery plunge—and there are whispers throughout the surrounding villages that the family is cursed by the gods.Disturbed by a series of ghostly visions, Annaleigh becomes increasingly suspicious that the deaths were no accidents. Her sisters have been sneaking out every night to attend glittering balls, dancing until dawn in silk gowns and shimmering slippers, and Annaleigh isn't sure whether to try to stop them or to join their forbidden trysts. Because who—or what—are they really dancing with?When Annaleigh's involvement with a mysterious stranger who has secrets of his own intensifies, it's a race to unravel the darkness that has fallen over her family—before it claims her next.

    In the wake of her husband's haunted death, one woman must sift through the cryptic clues left behind in order to solve the mystery behind his suicide--all of which point back to the elusive author, Edgar Allan Poe.Karina soon finds that reality and nightmare have become fused onto one as she journeys from a haunted lighthouse in New England to Baltimore, where the only man who might know the answers to her many questions resides. But will she find her answers before insanity rips her grip on reality for good? Might a man she's never met hold the only key to a truth more shocking than even she could have imagined?

    Under a veil of deception and backed by natural talent, the teen then schemes his way into a school where the Empire's future leaders are trained.Within the Academy, a legendary school of magic, science, politics, and combat, he uncovers secrets kept hidden for centuries - secrets that expose cracks in the foundation of Empire society. Among his discoveries is a long forgotten magic, powerful and dangerous - a magic he is determined to wield. Caught between his continued charade and a desire to tame his frightening new abilities, one misstep on either front could destroy him._____________________________________THE EMBLEM THRONEWith the return of a lost magic...comes a dark prophecy.As they strive to become Masters within the Ministry, Brock and his friends resume their training at the Academy - an institution founded on magic, science, politics, and combat. However, an expansive web of lies resides within the Ministry, hidden behind a veil of benevolence. The exposure of one such secret forces Brock and his friends to flee the school with their lives in the balance.They soon discover that a larger threat looms...one that could end everything. Guided by the cryptic words of an ancient prophecy and backed by a forbidden magic they have yet to master, Brock and his companions embark on a quest to retrieve knowledge tied to a long lost throne, knowledge that might save humanity from extinction.______________________________________AN EMPIRE IN RUNESA powerful magic. An unstoppable army. The final battle to decide the fate of mankind.The eastern cities of Issalia lay in ruin, destroyed by an army of monsters so twisted that they devour their victims, dead or alive. Led by a boy named Brock, a group of teens scramble to find a means of stopping this dark force.Joined by fierce Tantarri warriors and a squad of raw paladin recruits, Brock leads a band of former slaves to battle. The future of mankind hinges upon a powerful, yet destructive magic...a magic they are still learning to control.As foretold in an ancient prophecy, this rag-tag force gathers upon the Tantarri plains, prepared to face an army of giants with vastly superior numbers. All the while, they must remain vigilant against a secret organization within the Ministry - one who will do anything to prevent the return of Chaos.

    Those secrets, along with the bulge in her belly, land her in a Boston insane asylum.When her voice returns in a burst of violence, Grace is banished to the dark cellars, where her mind is discovered by a visiting doctor who dabbles in the new study of criminal psychology. With her keen eyes and sharp memory, Grace will make the perfect assistant at crime scenes. Escaping from Boston to the safety of an ethical Ohio asylum, Grace finds friendship and hope, hints of a life she should have had. But gruesome nights bring Grace and the doctor into the circle of a killer who stalks young women. Grace, continuing to operate under the cloak of madness, must hunt a murderer while she confronts the demons in her own past.In this beautifully twisted historical thriller, Mindy McGinnis, acclaimed author of Not a Drop to Drink and In a Handful of Dust, explores the fine line between sanity and insanity, good and evil—and the madness that exists in all of us.

    

    HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics.

    According to historical records, 50,000 soldiers marched into the desert from Luxor and vanished into a sandstorm.Never to be seen againHoping to discover the lost army’s fate, a team of scientists utilizes satellite archeology to locate ancient ruins hidden beneath the dunes. Subsequent excavation reveals a temple devoted to Sekhmet, warrior goddess of destruction. Hidden within it are chambers filled with bones.They never stood a chanceThe scientists quickly realize that they’re not alone. Something is hunting them inside the buried tomb, a creature that has evolved to live in complete darkness, an extant species that will stop at nothing to make sure that no one ever learns of its existence, because in the end…

    Summer 1763.Anne Jaccob is coming of age, the daughter of a wealthy merchant. When she is taken advantage of by her tutor — a great friend of her father’s — and is set up to marry a squeamish snob named Simeon Onions, she begins to realize just how powerless she is in Georgian society. Anne is watchful, cunning, and bored.Her saviour appears in the form of Fub, the butcher’s boy. Their romance is both a great spur and an excitement. Anne knows she is doomed to a loveless marriage to Onions and she is determined to escape with Fub and be his mistress. But will Fub ultimately be her salvation or damnation? And how far will she go to get what she wants?Dark and sweeping, The Butcher’s Hook is a richly textured debut featuring one of the most memorable characters in fiction.

    After the release of three startling, award-winning movies that have played around the world and been added to the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, S. Craig Zahler wanted to return to his first artistic passion―illustration.With tools that he had developed as a director, screenwriter, cinematographer, novelist, and songwriter, he committed himself to writing, drawing, inking, and lettering his graphic novel debut, a full-length work of noir horror entitled, Forbidden Surgeries of the Hideous Dr. Divinus.Here’s the setup…Homeless people are disappearing in New Bastion, and occasionally, a dismantled corpse turns up in a dumpster. These crimes are left alone, until the day a comatose woman named Lillian Driscoll is kidnapped from the hospital. Her brothers―a grumpy detective named Leo and a slick mobster named Tommy―seek answers that lead them to darkness, arcane medicine, and pain.Fans of Bone Tomahawk (recently named best film of the decade by Conan O’Brien) will enjoy Zahler’s return to the supernatural, and the idiosyncratic, tough guy dialogue found in his crime pictures Dragged Across Concrete and Brawl in Cell Block 99 (both of which premiered at the Venice Film Festival) is also present in this starkly rendered, black-and-white graphic novel, a stylistic confluence of pre-code horror, vintage comic strip, and modern indie art styles.

    She is awake...Norfolk, 1643. With civil war tearing England apart, reluctant soldier Thomas Treadwater is summoned home by his sister, who accuses a new servant of improper conduct with their widowed father. By the time Thomas returns home, his father is insensible, felled by a stroke, and their new servant is in prison, facing charges of witchcraft.Thomas prides himself on being a rational, modern man, but as he unravels the mystery of what has happened, he uncovers not a tale of superstition but something dark and ancient, linked to a shipwreck years before.Something has awoken, and now it will not rest.Richly researched, incredibly atmospheric, and deliciously unsettling, The Leviathan is set in England during a time of political turbulence and religious zealotry. It is a tale of family and loyalty, superstition and sacrifice, but most of all it is a spellbinding story of impossible things.

    Instead of the skills proper young ladies studied, Saint Melissa was adept at the bringing on of migraines, the refinement of lust, and the involutions of penmanship and calligrams. And as Gorey wrote, "letters she wrote are still to be delivered, traps she set are still to be sprung, pronouncements she devised are still to be promulgated, objects she hid are still to be found."

    . . to hide a secret.When young Daniel Whitman is killed at a high-school party, the community is ripped apart. The death of Sanctuary's star quarterback seems to be a tragic accident, but everyone knows his ex-girlfriend Harper Fenn is the daughter of a witch--and she was there when he died.VV James weaves a spellbinding tale of a town cracking into pieces and the devastating power of a mother's love. Was Daniel's death an accident, revenge--or something even more sinister?As accusations fly, paranoia grips the town, culminating in a witch-hunt...and the town becomes no sanctuary at all.

    Each story is accompanied by a ghastly illustration from the mind of Andy Sciazko... the kind of illustrations that will disturb you in the best way possible.