a complicated story of loss, ambition, misogyny, family love and what it means to belong ... evocative and atmospheric' Irish Times 'Beautifully written and transports us to the 14th century, though its themes loudly resonate today' Eileen Dunne, RTE.ie'A beautifully absorbing novel, illuminating the remarkable story of a woman whose life has since been subsumed into folklore. Highly recommended' Hot PressThe eagerly awaited new novel from the award-winning author of No 1 bestseller, The Herbalist1324, KilkennieA woman seeks refuge for herself and her daughter in the household of a childhood friend.The friend, Alice Kytler, gives her former companion a new name, Petronelle, a job as a servant, and warns her to hide their old connection.Before long Petronelle comes to understand that in the city pride, greed and envy are as dangerous as the wolves that prowl the savage countryside. And she realizes that Alice's household is no place of safety.Once again, Petronelle decides to flee. But this time she confronts forces greater than she could ever have imagined and she finds herself fighting for more than her freedom ...Tense, moving and atmospheric, Her Kind is a vivid re-imagining of the events leading up to the Kilkenny Witch Trial.'Shines a light on women who have been silenced. This tightly paced novel confirms Boyce as an important voice in Irish literature' Louise O'Neill'The plot is pacey and menacing, and the writing is clear, sharp and studded with glistening phrases ... a wonderful shout through time' Nuala O'Connor'Pulls us into a world both seductively alien, yet uneasily, all-too-humanly, familiar' Mia Gallagher'Niamh Boyce has taken a bleak and dismal period and sent a bolt of beautiful and revealing light into the darkness' John MacKenna'Moving and atmospheric' Irish Country Magazine'Masterful ... Boyce delicately unfolds this atmospheric, magical thriller with pace and juice, while also making sure that the sentiments (vilification of women, policing of female biology, etc) echo through time' Sunday Independent '[Her Kind] sings of these modern times' RTÉ Guide'Enthralling' Irish ExaminerPraise for The Herbalist:'The most entertaining yet substantial historical novel since Joseph O'Connor's Star of the Sea' Irish Times'An elegant morality tale about the inescapable strictures of women's lives ... Her publisher describes her as "a dazzling new voice". I cannot disagree' Sunday Times'A serious new literary talent' TV3'Comparisons to Edna O'Brien and Pat McCabe are more than justified. That said, Boyce has a unique voice and sensibility, one that's entirely her own' Image Magazine

    But elsewhere, there are those experimenting with more sinister forces.Amongst the crowded, sprawling tenements of the labyrinthine Old Town, a body is found, its neck torn to pieces. Charged with investigating the murder is Adam Quire, Officer of the newly- formed Edinburgh Police. The trail will lead him into the deepest reaches of the city's criminal underclass, and to the highest echelons of the filthy rich.Soon Quire will discover that a darkness is crawling through this city of enlightenment -- and no one is safe from its corruption.The Edinburgh Dead is a powerful fusion of gothic horror, history, and the fantastical.

     An orphan, dumped into the foster care system and bullied throughout school, I tried to keep my head down until I was old enough to leave. That was the plan. At least it was, until I found out I was from one of the most prestigious magical families, the Castles, and I was to attend Merlyn Academy for Witches and Wizards. As a Castle, I am able to master all four magical elements. This makes me exceptional. As a Castle, I am also part of a notorious family who died in pursuit of power. This makes me dangerous. While everyone else treats me with suspicion, it is only my roommate, Elenore, the guy who saved me from some bullies, Harry, and the four Knight brothers, who are brave enough to befriend me. I only have three goals while at the academy; to find out who I am, learn to control my powers and to not fall in love with five guys. What could possibly go wrong? Book Two: Pre-order is now live!

    What the Twilight Says collects these pieces to form a volume of remarkable elegance, concision, and brilliance. It includes Walcott's moving and insightful examinations of the paradoxes of Caribbean culture, his Nobel lecture, and his reckoning of the work and significance of such poets as Robert Lowell, Joseph Brodsky, Robert Frost, Les Murray, and Ted Hughes, and of prose writers such as V. S. Naipaul and Patrick Chamoiseau. On every subject he takes up, Walcott the essayist brings to bear the lyric power and syncretic intelligence that have made him one of the major poetic voices of our time.

    Standards of morality and social conventions changed dramatically during the 19th century – and most of the people engaged in recording and commenting upon Highland life and tradition were puritanical ministers and priests who left out the racy bits. So, while there are many useful books that provide a wide range of Scottish Gaelic vocabulary to express many aspects of daily life – for the most part, they leave out the naughty bits.

    Alexander Armstrong and Richard Osman, two of the world's foremost experts on Things Before Their Time[3] take you on a step-by-step journey through history.From the Big Bang to the Fall of the Roman Empire, from the Ice Age to the Evolution of Language, from Henry VIII to Last of the Summer Wine: all of civilisation is here. A publishing first, this thoroughly comprehensive and highly ambitious quest through Time and Space is interspersed with questions for all the family from TV's most popular tea-time quiz show, Pointless. This is Alexander and Richard's biggest book yet.The book no historian can afford to be without[4], it comes complete with introduction and footnotes[5]. [1] Highly selective[2] Largely cobbled together from what we can remember from school [3] That's not even a thing[4] Under no circumstances to be used for reference[5] Um...

    Spontaneous and frank, they are unusual for their narrative interest: Montgomery's gifts as a storyteller are as much evidence here as in her novels.This first volume of the immensely successful Selected Journals of L.M. Montgomery launched in 1985, takes Montgomery to 1910, the year before her marriage, when she left Prince Edward Island. The autobiographical content will fascinate every devoted reader of the Anne books. But the Montgomery journals are especially interesting because they provide a unique social history and the privilege of viewing closely the life of a remarkable woman. Comprising perhaps the most vivid and detailed memoir in Canadian letters, the journals join Anne of Green Gables in ensuring Montgomery's lasting place in Canadian literature. This volume is a rich and engrossing prelude to the whole.

    . . DISCOVER AN EXCITING NEW VOICE IN AUSTRALIAN FICTIONIona Balfour's life is turned upside down when her beloved aunt Grizel is executed for the crime of witchcraft. Before she dies, Grizel appoints Iona as guardian of a precious family bloodstone and tells her she must flee their village and deliver the stone to the mysterious Guild of the Green Lion.Accompanied by a new friend, Cal, Iona soon realises that she's awakened the powers of the bloodstone. But it promises to be a perilous journey. The wolf month is no time to be on the road. And there's a witch hunter on Iona's trail, who has a strange obsession with the stone.When a devastating betrayal throws her into the hands of her enemies, Iona soon finds herself in the fight of her life. Will she suffer the same fate as her aunt, or will she escape the witch hunter and fulfil her destiny?

    English authors such as J.R.R.Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Terry Pratchett, and J.K.Rowling, dominate the world of magic in fiction, but from the earliest times, England has also acted as home to generations of eccentrics and scholars who have researched and explored every conceivable kind of occult art. Most people are torn between a fascination with magic and an almost instinctive fear of the occult, of a world redolent with superstition and illusion. And yet more people now practice magic in England than at any time in her history. The Book of English Magic explores this hidden story, from its first stirrings to our present-day fascination with all things magical. Along the way readers are offered a rich menu of magical things to do and places to visit.

    When you think of a witch, what do you picture? Pointy black hat, maybe a broomstick. But witches in various guises have been with us for millennia. In Waking the Witch, Pam Grossman explores the cultural and historical impact of the world’s most magical icon. From the idea of the femme fatale in league with the devil in early modern Europe and Salem, to the bewitching pop culture archetypes in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and Harry Potter; from the spooky ladies in fairy tales and horror films to the rise of feminist covens and contemporary witchcraft, witches reflect the power and potential of women. In this fascinating read that is part cultural analysis, part memoir, Pam opens up about her own journey on the path to witchcraft, and how her personal embrace of the witch helped her find strength, self-empowerment, and a deeper purpose. A comprehensive meditation on one of the most mysterious and captivating figures of all time, Waking the Witch celebrates witches past, present, and future, and reveals the critical role they have played—and will continue to play—in shaping the world as we know it.

    Rose Gallagher might dream of bigger things, but she’s content enough with her life as a housemaid. After all, it’s not every girl from Five Points who gets to spend her days in a posh Fifth Avenue brownstone, even if only to sweep its floors. But all that changes on the day her boss, Mr. Thomas Wiltshire, disappears. Rose is certain Mr. Wiltshire is in trouble, but the police treat his disappearance as nothing more than the whims of a rich young man behaving badly. Meanwhile, the friend who reported him missing is suspiciously unhelpful. With nowhere left to turn, Rose takes it upon herself to find her handsome young employer.The investigation takes her from the marble palaces of Fifth Avenue to the sordid streets of Five Points. When a ghostly apparition accosts her on the street, Rose begins to realize that the world around her isn’t at all as it seems―and her place in it is about to change forever.

    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

    Her stern Puritan father has withdrawn from his family; and her aunt, Susannah Morrow, who has just arrived from London, is struggling to find her place in the family.But it quickly becomes clear that Susannah has chosen the wrong time to be a part of this rigidly religious community. Her beauty, independence and obvious sensuality challenge its established ways. As the suspicions against her mount, the fanaticism, repressed emotions and sexual guilt in Salem explode into a form of hysteria that will make its name infamous and touch everyone she loves.Charity will have to come to grips with or be controlled by her deepest fears. Charity’s father will have to choose between his terror of temptation and his feelings for the woman who questions the beliefs at the core of his life. And Susannah herself must face condemnation and the horror of the witch trials. Peopled by real-life figures including Elizabeth Proctor, Judge Danforth, and the spell-casting West Indian slave Tituba; and expertly capturing the rhythms and cadences of seventeenth-century colonial life, Susannah Morrow is both a timeless parable on good and evil and a luminous love story.

     Tales of Spiral Castle brings back beloved characters from Kennealy-Morrison's books of The Keltiad (The Copper Crown, The Throne of Scone, Blackmantle) in four stirring short stories that remind the reader of the original stories. The Last Voyage takes place long ago, in a time of great religious struggle on Earth, and is a hitherto untold part of Keltic history and Earth history alike, incidentally detailing how the great Clann Douglas, as well as the fabled Knights Templar, arrived in Keltia. Touchstone tells the story of Aeron Aoibhell, a young princess, who is set to a test that will determine not only her future as queen to follow in her ancestor’s footsteps but the fate of worlds and empires beside… Alembic brings tales of Gwydion as a youth from fourteen to eighteen as he learns his pathway to his destiny. Crucible tells us the story of the Terran lieutenant Sarah O’Reilly, just after her arrival in Keltia with Captain Haruko and the rest of the crew of the Sword. Return to the world and time of the Kelts, the beautifully crafted world of Patricia Kennealy-Morrison as she rediscovers the future worlds you've loved and waited to return. Patricia Kennealy-Morrison is also author of The Rennie Stride Murder Series, Rock Chick, Strange Days: My Life With and Without Jim Morrison, and the forthcoming Viking novel, Son of the Northern Star.

    She fell in love with the silence, and in this profound, frank memoir she describes how she explored this new love, searching for silence and solitude.