The Witch of Painted Sorrows
M.J. Rose - 2015
Power. Passion. New York Times bestselling novelist M. J. Rose creates her most provocative and magical spellbinder yet in this gothic novel set against the lavish spectacle of 1890s Belle Époque Paris.Sandrine Salome flees New York for her grandmother’s Paris mansion to escape her dangerous husband, but what she finds there is even more menacing. The house, famous for its lavish art collection and elegant salons, is mysteriously closed up. Although her grandmother insists it’s dangerous for Sandrine to visit, she defies her and meets Julien Duplessi, a mesmerizing young architect. Together they explore the hidden night world of Paris, the forbidden occult underground and Sandrine’s deepest desires.Among the bohemians and the demi-monde, Sandrine discovers her erotic nature as a lover and painter. Then darker influences threaten—her cold and cruel husband is tracking her down and something sinister is taking hold, changing Sandrine, altering her. She’s become possessed by La Lune: A witch, a legend, and a sixteenth-century courtesan, who opens up her life to a darkness that may become a gift or a curse.This is Sandrine’s “wild night of the soul,” her odyssey in the magnificent city of Paris, of art, love, and witchery.
Demoniality: Incubi and Succubi: A Book of Demonology
Ludovico Maria Sinistrari - 1875
Rendered into English in the late 1800s, it speaks of demons, their composition, their mannerisms, and relates numerous tales of copulation with the same. Perhaps one of the strangest works of Demonology, this work claims that it is possible for demons to father literal offspring with humans through the use of a corpse as a vehicle, and although it is a technically Catholic work, Sinistrari even makes the claim that incubi are, in some ways, perhaps superior even to man.
Scarenthood
Nick Roche - 2021
hungry into their lives. Suddenly, their mornings go from playdates and peanut allergies, to a battle for the souls of one broken family--and one child in particular, in this original story that combines the highs of parenthood with horror movie scares.
The Camelot Shadow
Sean Gibson - 2014
Improbably, impossibly, inconceivably."Lord Alfred Fitzwilliam spends each day in much the same way: caring for his terminally ill wife and trying to lose himself in the dusty tomes that fill his library. Everything changes when he receives a visit from a man representing a clandestine organization operating with the backing of Queen Victoria herself. The group seeks his aid in finding an Arthurian artifact that, legend holds, can cure its bearer of any wound or disease.Skeptical but desperate to help his wife, Alfred is convinced that the fabled item might actually exist after witnessing a seemingly impossible display of power by the organization's leader, James Nigel. He decides to pursue the treasure, accompanied by an eccentric scholar, a deadly druid, and his best friend, a sardonic bookseller who is far more than he seems. As he follows an arcane trail of clues from the gas-lit streets of London to the wilds of Scotland and deep into ancient catacombs in Italy, Alfred becomes enmeshed in a web of hidden agendas, secret societies, and ancient enchantments. Along the way, he learns a dark secret about Nigel's past—and the true power of the artifact he seeks.Steeped in a compelling mythology and filled with unexpected twists, The Camelot Shadow will leave readers stunned, breathless, and wrestling with an impossible question: what do you do with an object that has the power to both save the world and destroy it?(Don't miss
The Strange Task Before Me
for further adventures in the Camelot Shadow world.)
The History of Magic: From Alchemy to Witchcraft, from the Ice Age to the Present
Chris Gosden - 2020
But magic - the idea that we have a connection with the universe - has developed a bad reputation.It has been with us for millennia - from the curses and charms of ancient Greek, Roman and Jewish magic, to the shamanistic traditions of Eurasia, indigenous America and Africa, and even quantum physics today. Even today seventy-five per cent of the Western world holds some belief in magic, whether snapping wishbones, buying lottery tickets or giving names to inanimate objects.Drawing on his decades of research, with incredible breadth and authority, Professor Chris Gosden provides a timely history of human thought and the role it has played in shaping civilization, and how we might use magic to rethink our understanding of the world.
Black City Saint
Richard A. Knaak - 2016
All that while, he has tried and failed to keep the woman he loves from dying over and over.Yet in the fifty years since the Night the Dragon Breathed over the city of Chicago, the Gate has not only remained fixed, but open to the trespasses of the Wyld, the darkest of the Feiriefolk. Not only does that mean an evil resurrected from Nick’s own past, but the reincarnation of his lost Cleolinda, a reincarnation destined once more to die.Nick must turn inward to that which he distrusts the most: the Dragon, the beast he slew when he was still only Saint George. He must turn to the monster residing in him, now a part of him…but ever seeking escape.The gang war brewing between Prohibition bootleggers may be the least of his concerns. If Nick cannot prevent an old evil from opening the way between realms…then not only might Chicago face a fate worse than the Great Fire, but so will the rest of the mortal realm.
The Buried Pyramid
Jane Lindskold - 2004
They're part of a team investigating the legendary Buried Pyramid, the tomb of the pharaoh Neferankhotep -- who may also have been Moses the Lawgiver.But they're not the only ones interested in the site. Another party, led by the opulent and treacherous Lady Audrey Cheshire, is shadowing theirs. Someone who signs himself "The Sphinx" has been sending threatening letters -- written entirely in hieroglyphics. In Egypt, an ancient and shadowy organization seems determined to keep the tomb from being discovered.But mortals may not be all that stands in their way.
Smoke Screen
Kyle Mills - 2003
Plaintiff's attorneys have finally found the weakness they'd been searching for and filed a $200 billion lawsuit that the industry will be unable to appeal.America's tobacco companies react by doing the unthinkable—they close their plants and recall their product from retailer's shelves. Trevor is charged with going on national television and making the announcement: Not another cigarette will be manufactured or sold until the industry is given ironclad protection from the courts.As the economy falters and chaos takes hold, Trevor becomes the target of enraged smokers, gun-toting cigarette smugglers, and a government that has been cut off from one of its largest sources of revenue. Soon it becomes clear that this had always been his function—to take the brunt of the backlash and shield the men in power from the maelstrom they'd created.Abandoned by his friends, his family, and the industry his own ancestors helped build, Trevor finds an unlikely ally in a beautiful anti-tobacco lobbyist who he's secretly loved for years. Together they hatch a plan to fight back...
The Secrets of Jin-shei
Alma Alexander - 2003
And as one of them becomes Dragon Empress, her determination to hold power against the sages of the temple, against the marauding forces from other kingdoms, drags the sisterhood into a dangerous world of court intrigue, plot and counterplot, and brings them into conflict with each other from which only the one who remains true to all the vows she made at the very beginning to the dying Princess Empress can rescue them.An amazing and unusual book, based on some historical fact, full of drama, adventure and conflict like a Shakespearean history play, it's a novel about kinship and a society of women, of mysticism, jealousy, fate, destiny, all set in the wonderful, swirling background of medieval China.
Lady of the Forest
Jennifer Roberson - 1992
Against a medieval tapestry of color and pageantry, Jennifer Roberson has woven a rich, sweeping tale of a woman whose courage and passion could forever alter the destiny of that mist-shrouded land of lore we know in our hearts and see in our dreams...
1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue
Francis Grose - 1811
If you need to extend your verbal eloquence to include vulgarity from 1811, this is the book for you.
Creatures of Will and Temper
Molly Tanzer - 2017
. . Molly Tanzer is at the top of her form in this beautifully constructed novel.”—Jeff VanderMeer, best-selling author of the Southern Reach trilogy Victorian London is a place of fluid social roles, vibrant arts culture, fin-de-siècle wonders . . . and dangerous underground diabolic cults. Fencer Evadne Gray cares for none of the former and knows nothing of the latter when she’s sent to London to chaperone her younger sister, aspiring art critic Dorina.At loose ends after Dorina becomes enamored with their uncle’s friend, Lady Henrietta “Henry” Wotton, a local aristocrat and aesthete, Evadne enrolls in a fencing school. There, she meets George Cantrell, an experienced fencing master like she’s always dreamed of studying under. But soon, George shows her something more than fancy footwork—he reveals to Evadne a secret, hidden world of devilish demons and their obedient servants. George has dedicated himself to eradicating demons and diabolists alike, and now he needs Evadne’s help. But as she learns more, Evadne begins to believe that Lady Henry might actually be a diabolist . . . and even worse, she suspects Dorina might have become one too.Combining swordplay, the supernatural, and Victorian high society, Creatures of Will and Temper reveals a familiar but strange London in a riff on Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray that readers won't soon forget. “An artful, witty, Oscar Wilde pastiche with the heart of a paranormal thriller.”—Diana Gabaldon, best-selling author of Outlander
A Book Of Ghosts
Sabine Baring-Gould - 1904
You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.
The Mask of Nostradamus
James Randi - 1990
In his superb study of Nostradamus' life and times, Randi shows the extent to which contemporary beliefs in magic and astrology adulterated sixteenth-century science, and how Nostradamus used his skills as a physician and poet to become a cherished counselor to the courts of Europe. Finally, Randi exposes some of the tricks used by Nostradamus to make his prophecies seem authentic, and the rationalizations of his predictions by his followers through the centuries.Four hundred years after his death, Nostradamus continues to fascinate us. This is the first serious exploration of this complex figure whose fame still echoes in our own time.
Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson
G.I. Gurdjieff - 1950
I. Gurdjieff (1866-1949) has come to be recognized as one of the most original, enduring, and penetrating of our century. While Gurdjieff used many different means to transmit his vision of the human dilemma and human possibility, he gave special importance to his acknowledged masterwork, Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson. Beelzebub's Tales is an "ocean of story" and of ideas that one can explore for a lifetime. It is majestic in scale and content, challengingly inventive in prose style, and, for those very reasons, often approached with apprehension. The first English language edition of the Russian original appeared in 1950. Since then, readers have recognized the need for a revised translation that would clarify the verbal surface while respecting the author's own thought and style. This revised edition, in preparation for many years under the direction of Gurdjieff's closest pupil, Jeanne de Salzmann, meets this need. Originally published in 1992, this translation offers a new experience of Gurdjieff's masterpiece for contemporary readers. It is presented in a sturdy cloth edition that echoes its original publication.