Merchant of Death


Jared Mandani - 2019
    He needs to go into hiding until he can afford the surgery to get a new face. All the cash he had left, he invested to buy a hacked virtual reality collar off the black market. For a wanted man such as himself, this is the only way to make any kind of money without further jeopardizing his location and identity. There’s a problem though. When he first logs into Eternal War Online and chooses his faction, the network detects his unauthorized device and generates a bunch of critical errors. Immediately, there’s a hotfix that is applied and which erases all his selections. John is sent into the Eternal Battlefield, the highest level PvP area of the game—obviously, with no chance of survival. Limited to one character by collar, John finds himself in a dire situation. With no faction to back him up, he’s a free target for everyone. And with no fighting skills and no gear (except for a pair of cotton briefs), he’s no match for any of the players. John will keep dying and respawning in that impossible location. But as he tries to keep to the shadows and stay alive, he will soon find that his strange predicament is not without benefits. For one, his lack of ties to any faction allows him to loot every corpse—which will lead him to unlock secret classes, like: Salvager and Smuggler. Secondly, while every faction has its own language that prevents players from different groups from talking to each other, he’s not restricted by that constraint and can understand everyone. Unable to join the fight, as every blow sustained results in his instadeath, John will discover that his only chance to start earning some cash will be to partner up with the criminal underworld in the game and set up a salvaging operation. For a fee, he will loot you and return your soul-bound items—allowing you to skip the 6 hour waiting period before they materialize back in your inventory. Also, he will experiment with crafting and creating weapons and enchantments that will start to shake things up in the game. Obviously, not everyone will take kindly to his bold moves and John will attract the wrath of a few powerful players. But then, you can’t expect to please everyone when you’re making a name for yourself as a Merchant of Death!

The Gorgon's Blood Solution


Jeffrey Quyle - 2013
    But when a stranger offers him an unusual coin, he begins to understand alchemy a little better, and suddenly thinks that it could be a way to make a living after all.Marco’s problem is that fate doesn’t plan for his life to fit that plan, at least not at Algornia’s shop in the Lion City. An evil force is rising, and sending its destructive energy out to scour kingdoms and cities for some unknown purpose. Marco becomes an inadvertent pawn in the machinations of the evil, when he is caught up in the violence and drama of a Corsair raid, and taken away from everything – the Lion City, Algornia’s shop, even Constance the model.There are undreamt of allies and friends and opportunities though, and escape is possible. Starting over a new life is not quite as easy however, as Fate starts to hunt Marco down, demanding that he live up to the challenges that are thrown his way, as a champion begins to emerge to face the brunt force of evil.The Gorgon’s Blood Solution is the first volume in Alchemy’s Apprentice, a new fantasy series by Jeffrey Quyle.

The Cheater's Return


Brian McGoldrick - 2018
    In the chaos following World War III, the Patriarch of the Church of the Resurrection rebuilt Earth's society into a collection of over 500 independent city-states. With alien technology that gave him complete control over the Earth's orbital space, the Patriarch outlawed war, and introduced the Constructed Reality MMORPG Primacy Online. He only allowed the city-states to engage in military conflicts with one another inside of the game. City-state leaders that attempted to ignore Church Canon were destroyed, along with their armies, by the Church's orbital particle cannons. For more than a thousand years, there have been no wars fought on the Earth's soil. The release of Primacy Online VI: Legacy of Balor signals the beginning of World War IX. Each city-state will lock 50,000 draftees into cryogenic capsules and upload their minds into a character sheathe in the game. Until the armistice conditions have been reached, they will play Primacy Online in War Mode, with the death of the character sheathes meaning their real deaths, but this time there is a twist to the World War. Every still living perma-banned cheater from Primacy Online will be a special draftee for World War IX. They will be organized into a special contingent in the service of the Church of the Resurrection. Patrick Armagh is terminally ill. Like a large number of other Primacy Online players, he is afflicted with an incurable nervous system disorder. He has less than five years to live and should be exempted from the draft, but five years ago, he was given a permanent ban from Primacy Online for cheating. Along with the other perma-banned cheaters, he will be forced to play Primacy Online VI: Legacy of Balor in War Mode, but Patrick's actual method of cheating was never discovered. Morgan Danan, Speaker of the City of Mann, and the acknowledged number one player of Primacy Online has deal for Patrick. With her help and his undiscovered cheat, he has the chance to become a virtual God within Primacy Online. When you are already as good as dead, there is nothing better than the chance to spend your last days as a living god. What could possibly go wrong?

Vanished


Cheryl Gorman - 2015
     Devlin Morgan, the reclusive owner of Morgan’s Keep, coolly turns away her inquiries, and the villagers, who respect Devlin, refuse to cooperate, as well. Worse still is her own unwanted attraction to him. Especially once she begins to suspect he’s involved with her sister’s disappearance and the mysterious “Chiming Ghost.” In order to solve the mystery of her missing sister, she’ll also have to probe Devlin’s dark past, discover the truth about the “ghost.” and decide whether to trust the passion in her heart or play it safe and return to England. Whatever happens, she’ll never be the same when she leaves the island.

Santa Muerte: The History, Rituals, and Magic of Our Lady of the Holy Death


Tracey Rollin - 2017
    This is the foundation for the veneration of Santa Muerte, or "Holy Death." Considered to be the female personification of death, she is associated with protection and safe passage to the afterlife. She is also the patron saint of people who live on the fringes of society and often face violence and death. In recent years her constituency has expanded to include the LGBT community and people who are marginalized or whose jobs put them at significant risk of death such as military and police personnel. Santa Muerte is hailed as their potent and powerful protector, capable of delivering them from harm and even granting miracles.Santa Muerte is a complete ritual guide to working with this famous--and infamous!--Mexican folk saint. It takes us beyond the sensational headlines to reveal the truth about why Santa Muerte is so beloved by so many. Author Tracey Rollin presents simple, straightforward methods for working with Holy Death that may be used alone or easily incorporated into your own magical practice.

The Mailman


Bentley Little - 1991
    We meet a school teacher, his wife, and their young son, Billy. One thing, one seemingly minor thing, goes wrong. And all that was safe and ordinary slowly unravels into nightmare. This familiar premise for the contemporary horror novel has rarely, if ever, been developed so brilliantly as in Bentley Little's The Mailman. A tall, pale postal carrier with carrot-red hair may seem an unlikely candidate for the embodiment of evil, but Little reveals the personality behind the mailman's ever-present smile with such finesse, you'll be more than happy to fall under his spell. By the time the frightened town folk are chanting, "No mail! No mail! No mail! No mail!"--and Billy ends up half-naked in a dark room, next to a soiled wedding dress--you'll be jumping right out of your skin.

Hare House


Sally Hinchcliffe - 2022
    I have, if you will forgive me, kept names to a minimum here, for reasons that will become understandable...In the first brisk days of autumn, a woman arrives in Scotland having left her job at an all-girls school in London in mysterious circumstances. Moving into a cottage on the remote estate of Hare House, she begins to explore her new home – a patchwork of hills, moorland and forest. But among the tiny roads, dykes and scattered houses, something more sinister lurks: local tales of witchcraft, clay figures and young men sent mad.Striking up a friendship with her landlord, Grant, and his younger sister, Cass, she begins to suspect that all might not be quite as it seems at Hare House. And as autumn turns to winter, and a heavy snowfall traps the inhabitants of the estate within its walls, tensions rise to fever pitch.

Lovely Digits


Jeanine Englert - 2019
    But can the killer be found before there is a third?Lovely Digits is the town oddity…But quirky spinster Lucy Wycliffe prefers to ignore gossip and embrace her position as the town’s layer out of the dead, despite how her parents’ deaths thrust her into such unlikely work. Lovely Digits, as she’s known to the local townspeople, no longer dreams of marriage, but takes pride in providing dignity to the dead. Desperate to hold on to her family’s cottage and support her widowed sister and young niece, an unexpected offer of employment as assistant to the constable arrives at the perfect time. Former sailor John Brodie is the mysterious new constable… But John Brodie is far from a stranger to Clun or the events of its past. Accepting the position as constable in the small town is a double edged sword meant to heal his past and redeem his future, but falling for the beautiful and intelligent Lucy Wycliffe was never part of his plan. As the killer closes in, will John reveal his secret and risk losing everything to save Lucy’s life?

The Richest Man in Babylon


Robert B. Goodman - 1974
    Goodman & Robert A. Spicer from an original story by George S. Clason ; illustrated by Joseph Feher.-WorldCat

A Period of Juvenile Prosperity


Mike Brodie - 2013
    Two weeks later I was gone, witnessing my new world wizz by, especially at dusk, then darkness as I watched the sum of all the city lights cast my silhouette across the pine trees of the Florida panhandle. This was it, I was riding my very first freight train. And soon, what would begin as mere natural curiosity and self-discovery would evolve into a casting call of sorts, taking photographs of my newfound friends. — Mike Brodie11 x 13 Inches60 Four-color Plates104 Pages

Image Makers, Image Takers: Interviews with Today's Leading Curators, Editors and Photographers


Anne-Celine Jaeger - 2007
    Who are the makers and who are the takers? Readers can judge from themselves?

The Haunting at Blackwood Hall


Barrymore Tebbs - 2012
    Nine-year-old Alice Fenn communicates only through her music. Jonathan Fenn and his sister Judith guard a terrifying family secret. The servants refuse to discuss the mysterious disappearance of a former governess. A drawing room séance attempts to make contact with the spirit of Elizabeth Blackwood. And when a diabolic madman holds the residents of Blackwood Hall hostage to an insidious reign of terror, governess Claire Ashby finds herself in a living nightmare of drug addiction, pagan rituals, and murder. In the tradition of the great Gothic Romances, The Haunting at Blackwood Hall is a thrilling ghost story brimming with bold new twists on the beloved conventions of a bygone era: drawing room seances, rumors of witchcraft, phantom lights in the abbey ruins, mysterious piano music in the night, and plenty of inclement weather. Perfect reading for chilly autumn nights.

Wartime Girls


Anne Baker - 2014
    In a cruel twist of Fate, Susie discovers she is carrying Danny's child and, shunned by his parents, she turns to her mother for support. Louise Ingram, widowed during the First World War, knows how hard it is to bring up a family alone, but with the help of her eldest daughter, Martha, who lives next door, they manage to survive. When little Rosie is born there is no doubt that she is Danny's daughter, but it is destined to take many more years of heartache before the two families are united again...

The Secret Lives of Color


Kassia St. Clair - 2016
    From blonde to ginger, the brown that changed the way battles were fought to the white that protected against the plague, Picasso's blue period to the charcoal on the cave walls at Lascaux, acid yellow to kelly green, and from scarlet women to imperial purple, these surprising stories run like a bright thread throughout history.In this book, Kassia St. Clair has turned her lifelong obsession with colors and where they come from (whether Van Gogh's chrome yellow sunflowers or punk's fluorescent pink) into a unique study of human civilization. Across fashion and politics, art and war, the secret lives of color tell the vivid story of our culture.

PRACTICE OF BRAHMACHARYA


Sivananda Saraswati - 1988
    Sense impulses and biological urges are common to animal and man alike. Sex is one of the prominent, most important and absolutely essential aspects of human, animal as well as plant life. Sex is an integral part of life—human, animal and plant. While this aspect of life is regulated by nature in plants and by instinct in animals, in man it is left to his common-sense, intelligence and his developed reason to control and regulate the same. The vast and ancient scriptures of the world offer human society specific rules and regulations in this respect. With regard to India, as a nation, our forefathers followed the do’s and don’ts of the Dharma Sastras in meticulous detail and this, in large measure, contributed to their health, longevity and spiritual welfare.But alas, in the present-day world, and more particularly among the educated class, in all walks of society and in all age groups, norms of conduct laid down by the scriptures are flouted with so much impunity that we see, all around us, the number of physical, mental and moral wrecks increasing every day. One reason for this sad state of affairs is modern man’s ignorance of his own scriptural treasures.Swami Sivananda came on the Indian scene, in the early thirties, to blast this ignorance of the people by offering the hoary wisdom of the ancients through the media of his simple English writings. It is well known that spiritual treatises apart, the great Master, whose love for mankind knew no bounds, wrote a number of books concerning health, hygiene and medicine. One such book was "Practice of Brahmacharya" which dealt mostly with the subject of celibacy, and where celibacy was not possible, a regulated sex life. This book has been popular with the public.This apart, the Swamiji’s thoughts on the subject of sex and sex sublimation are also to be seen here and there spread over his voluminous writings. In the present volume, all of Swamiji’s thoughts and instructions on the subject of sex and celibacy have been gathered up from "Practice of Brahmacharya" and elsewhere, and thoroughly edited, with a view to offering the public, and especially to the younger generation, a working guide to the vital subject of sex sublimation. This has been done as an act of loving service to modern youth who are often left groping in the dark by an irresponsible society. These days we often hear about "juvenile delinquency," but this juvenile delinquency itself is the result of adult irresponsibility. The youth of the world craves for guidance which is often not forthcoming from the parents, teachers or society.It is hoped that this book of holy Master Swami Sivananda will fill the above-mentioned lacuna and offer the youth of the world the knowledge and guidance which they so richly deserve in a vital area which affects their physical, mental, ethical and spiritual well-being.We pray that the blessings of the holy Master may pour on all those who may chance to go through the following pages and open up a new chapter in their lives. May all be healthy, happy and spiritually blessed. Loka Samastha Sukhino Bhavantu!8th September, 1988.—THE DIVINE LIFE SOCIETY