Li-lin, the daughter of a renowned Daoshi exorcist, is a young widow burdened with yin eyes—the unique ability to see the spirit world. Her spiritual visions and the death of her husband bring shame to Li-lin and her father—and shame is not something this immigrant family can afford.When a sorcerer cripples her father, terrible plans are set in motion, and only Li-lin can stop them. To aid her are her martial arts and a peachwood sword, her burning paper talismans, and a wisecracking spirit in the form of a human eyeball tucked away in her pocket. Navigating the dangerous alleys and backrooms of a male-dominated Chinatown, Li-lin must confront evil spirits, gangsters, and soulstealers before the sorcerer’s ritual summons an ancient evil that could burn Chinatown to the ground.With a rich and inventive historical setting, nonstop martial arts action, authentic Chinese magic, and bizarre monsters from Asian folklore, The Girl with Ghost Eyes is also the poignant story of a young immigrant searching to find her place beside the long shadow of a demanding father and the stigma of widowhood. In a Chinatown caught between tradition and modernity, one woman may be the key to holding everything together.

    One by one, over a hundred men and women are forced by the harsh feudal officialdom to take to the hills. They band together and defeat every attempt of the government troops to crush them. Within this framework we find intrigue, adventure, murder, warfare, romance ... in a connected series of fascinating individual tales, told in the suspenseful manner of the traditional storyteller.

    With their elegant prose, witty wordplay and subtle charm, the 104 stories in this selection reveal a world in which nothing is as it seems.

     Fate and fortune. Power and passion. What does it take to be the queen of a kingdom when you're only seventeen?Maya is cursed. With a horoscope that promises a marriage of Death and Destruction, she has earned only the scorn and fear of her father's kingdom. Content to follow more scholarly pursuits, her whole world is torn apart when her father, the Raja, arranges a wedding of political convenience to quell outside rebellions. Soon Maya becomes the queen of Akaran and wife of Amar. Neither roles are what she expected: As Akaran's queen, she finds her voice and power. As Amar's wife, she finds something else entirely: Compassion. Protection. Desire...But Akaran has its own secrets -- thousands of locked doors, gardens of glass, and a tree that bears memories instead of fruit. Soon, Maya suspects her life is in danger. Yet who, besides her husband, can she trust? With the fate of the human and Otherworldly realms hanging in the balance, Maya must unravel an ancient mystery that spans reincarnated lives to save those she loves the most. . .including herself.A lush and vivid story that is steeped in Indian folklore and mythology. The Star-Touched Queen is a novel that no reader will soon forget.

     She is desperately excited to explore not only the foreign land with all its alien culture but also the role of a wife and all the pleasures that come with it… In no time at all Constance is shocked on both accounts. China stuns her with its barbaric and improper behaviour which, almost against her will, begins to tease her imagination. At the same time, Mr Henry Baird, despairing of his sinful desires, proves unable to indulge Constance’s wishes. The marriage, failing from the beginning, spirals further and further out of control as Constance, aided by her only ally Kate, inadvertently becomes a famous ‘Devil Woman’ throughout the region and faces an audience with the Empress herself. As her new life unfolds, Constance finds herself tortured by desire, teetering on the edge of love and caught up in a dangerous whirlwind of international politics. She ricochets between the Chinese extremes of complete intimacy and deadly violence as they head slowly into war. What does ‘The Crimson Pagoda’ promise? ‘The Crimson Pagoda’ is a gripping and engaging historical romance by a master of the genre. Praise for Christopher Nicole: ‘Well-researched…Evocative descriptions of scenery and edifices, and exact period dialogue’ – Historical Novels Society Christopher Nicole was born and brought up in British Guyana and the West Indies. His output of books has been prolific and many of his novels are historical with a Caribbean background.

    In preparing the legends I sought especially for weird beauty; and I could not forget this striking observation in Sir Walter Scott's "Essay on Imitations of the Ancient Ballad" "The supernatural, though appealing to certain powerful emotions very widely and deeply sown amongst the human race, is, nevertheless, a spring which is peculiarly apt to lose its elasticity by being too much pressed upon." -- Lafcadio Hearn

    Someone [the murderer?] had covered him with a small strip of carpet.Nearby, in a ditch,lay Mrs Chandler - her face and torso bafflingly blanketed in beer cartons.The discovery made international headlines. It swiftly emerged that Dr Bogle, a brilliant specialist in solid state physics, had recently accepted a research post in Washington – and had been preparing to fly there, with his wife and children. Mrs Chandler, who’d worked as a nurse before her marriage, had been at the same New Year’s party with Gilbert Bogle the evening before. They had left separately.Scientists found that the pair had died of acute heart failure – but they could suggest no cause. There were no signs of violence: no smothering or strangulation; no hypodermic marks; no evidence, in the body tissues, of poisons, or radioactive substances of any kind.From the morning the bodies were found, the Bogle-Chandler conundrum would perplex the law’s keenest forensic minds...

    Illustrated with woodcuts.With black-and-white drawings throughoutPart of the Pantheon Fairy Tale and Folklore Library

    'The Complete Works of Lao Tzu' by Hua-Ching Ni is a remarkable elucidation of the famed 'Tao Teh Ching', the core of Taoist philosophy and a bridge to the subtle truth as well as a practical guideline for natural and harmonious living. Poetic and beautifully realized, this volumn contains one of the only written translations of the 'Hua Hu Ching.'

    Some are appeased with food. But not all ghosts are successfully mollified. In this chilling collection of stories, Ying Chang Compestine takes readers on a journey through time and across different parts of China. From the building of the Great Wall in 200 BCE to the modern day of iPods, hungry ghosts continue to torment those who wronged them.At once a window into the history and culture of China and an ode to Chinese cuisine, this assortment of frightening tales—complete with historical notes and delectable recipes—will both scare and satiate!

    . . Carolyn and her eight-year-old son Jason unwittingly step into a maelstrom of horror partially brought about by their unwillingness to allow a long-standing ritual to continue. As family relationships, heritage, neighbors, and deadly forces intersect, evil becomes apparent in not only an unleashed supernatural beast, but in the hearts of men. Rural roots, supernatural horror, Native rituals, and family relationships blend seamlessly to build a nicely-paced drama that comes full circle for elderly Native John Crow, whose new neighbors have now become part of this sacred valley and its long-standing ritual practices, changing their lives forever. Meadowlarks is especially recommended for fans of Tony Hillerman-style intrigue who seek a vifgorous dose of the supernatural added into a mix of mystery and interpersonal struggle. Diane Donovan, Midwest Book Review All Carolyn Potter wanted was a safe haven in which to raise her son, Jason, not to find a night stalker lurking in the forest surrounding their new mountain home. Following the unsolved murder of her husband and a violent attack on her son, Carolyn Potter learns she has inherited a cattle ranch located in a remote valley high in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. She eagerly leaps at the opportunity to escape urban violence, move out of her oppressive mother's home and get away from her hungry eyed, lip licking employer, Tom Kirby. Kirby, buried under gambling debts, is destroying Kirby Publications, a company built by his deceased father. Learning of Carolyn's inheritance compels him to win her favor in order to marry into her newfound wealth but Carolyn chooses Shangri-la, her dead husband's family ranch. Carolyn and Jason love their new home but soon learn of a local ritual being practiced on their land where a bull calf is brutally slaughtered with each cycle of the full moon. Seeking to end this gruesome practice, Carolyn saves the young calf and unleashes a monstrous creature, not realizing this creature is the protector of Shangri-la. After the creature attempts to break into their home, Carolyn calls on Tom Kirby for help. Kirby zooms to the rescue to confront the beast, rescue the girl and inherit her wealth, with which he intends to regain his prowess as a winning gambler. After her complete failure to end the slaughter of both bull calves and her neighbors, Carolyn must now decide whether to move back to civilization, stay and try to defeat her new threat or accept a bloody ritual that keeps the beast at bay.

    Features 32 lovely illustrations.

     It also explores the circumstances surrounding the true-life event of my grandmother's gift of a concubine to my grandfather on his birthday to enhance the chance of an heir to the Family.

    You know, the type who wins. When she’s not crushing it at volleyball or hitting the books, Genie is typically working on how to crack the elusive Harvard entry code.But when her hometown comes under siege from hellspawn straight out of Chinese folklore, her priorities are dramatically rearranged. Enter Quentin Sun, a mysterious new kid in class who becomes Genie’s self-appointed guide to battling demons. While Genie knows Quentin only as an attractive transfer student with an oddly formal command of the English language, in another reality he is Sun Wukong, the mythological Monkey King incarnate—right down to the furry tail and penchant for peaches. Suddenly, acing the SATs is the least of Genie’s worries. The fates of her friends, family, and the entire Bay Area all depend on her summoning an inner power that Quentin assures her is strong enough to level the very gates of Heaven. But every second Genie spends tapping into the secret of her true nature is a second in which the lives of her loved ones hang in the balance.

    He returned with stories of exotic people, tremendous riches, and the most powerful ruler in the world – Kublai Khan. The explorer told of inventions ranging from gunpowder to paper money. The intellectual ferment and cultural diversity he described helped move Europe out of the Dark Ages and into the Renaissance. In his lifetime, people scoffed at his stories. But as this book explains, he changed the world.