Sour Cherry
Named a Best Book by Chicago Review of Books, Lithub, GoodReads and Ms. Magazine A Best Book of Summer by Barnes & Noble "Harrowing . . . a fairytale for the ages, subverting the tale of Bluebeard to deconstruct the systems of gender, power, and the excuses people make for bad men." ―Chicago Review of Books "A murder ballad sung in a dark room―it's slow, haunting and strangely beautiful." ―The New York Times Book Review The tale begins with Agnes. After losing her baby, Agnes is called to the great manor house to nurse the local lord's baby boy. But something is wrong with the child: his nails grow too fast, his skin smells of soil, and his eyes remind her of the dark forest. As he grows into a boy, then into man, a plague seems to follow him everywhere. Trees wither at the roots, fruits rot on their branches, and the town turns against him. The man takes a wife, who bears him a son. But tragedy strikes in cycles and his family is forced to consider their own malignancy--until wife after wife, death after death, plague after plague, every woman he touches becomes a ghost. The ghosts become a chorus, and they call urgently to our narrator as she tries to explain, in our very real world, exactly what has happened to her. The ghosts can all agree on one thing, an inescapable truth about this man, this powerful lord who has loved them and led them each to ruin: If you leave, you die. But if you die, you stay. Natalia Theodoridou's haunting and unforgettable debut novel, Sour Cherry, confronts age-old systems of gender and power, long-held excuses made for bad men, and the complicated reasons we stay captive to the monsters we love.
Go to Hell!
Volume 3 - Divine ApocalypseDetermined to take revenge, Freyja and Milow travel the nine worlds in search of support and reinforcements to bolster their cause. From Ni簸avellir to Midgard, via Swarthalfheim, they join forces with the strength and wisdom of new companions. From obstacles to trials, enslaved by their carnivorous nature, it's only through superhuman efforts that they manage to return to ?sgar簸r. On the plain of V穩gr穩簸r, the destiny of the powers will be played out-the dreadful Ragnar繹k, where the gods and their allies will have to face Loki and his monstrous followers. A divine apocalypse as endless as it is devastating... And what if fate alone can put an end to it?
Dark Crescent
An omen of spirits dance across the sky. A lonely woman befriends a sea witch as the world ends. The last whale in the world travels north in search of hope. A grandmother seeks revenge on the sea monster that took her family.DARK CRESCENT is a collection of seasonal tales inspired by Scottish folklore, landscapes, superstitions, and omens. In this book, readers will find reinterpretations of common folklore creatures and phenomenon, like the Kelpie, Selkie, and Will-o'-the-Wisps, as well as lesser known, such as the Sea Mither, Ceasg, Marool, Sluagh, Ghillie Dhu, Nuckelavee, Baobhan Sith, and The Frittening, all with dark and strange lore around them.Moving through the seasons, from a darker Autumn and Winter to a more optimistic Summer, the often-interconnected stories cover a wide range of genres, including gothic, weird horror, speculative, dark fantasy, and solarpunk. Many of the tales are also inspired by nature, climate, and the environment, with feminist and eco themes throughout.
Shift
A fantasy of political intrigue and long suppressed magic, religious strife and ancient enemies, and the price of the faery tale.For the country-raised, the capitol is a frightening place, full of noise and smells and the unfamiliar. It is the home of a new and oppressive religion that seeks to objectify and infantilize the female and overshadow the faith of the Great Mother. It is the slow fading out of the feudal system, full of people who are beholden only to themselves and the crown. It is the centre of politics and back-handed compliments, where what a person shows is nothing at all what they feel.Caelerys is the only daughter of one of Elanthus's four dukes, sent to the capitol to her eldest brother who has lived at court since she was born, in hopes of his finding her a suitable match. She is an accomplished huntress, archer, and horsewoman; fair of countenance and... painfully shy amongst strangers. Her brother Willam is overprotective, taciturn and generally at a loss as to how to deal with this female creature who is now his responsibility. Cae can handle herself in the wilderness and wood, but a royal court is a different kind of forest, with altogether more dangerous and insidious beasts than any she has ever known. Enemies lurk seeking advantage, both ancient and newly made, and highly skilled in social warfare.Not dreaming of the faery tale romance, determined only to find 'someone who'll suit', Caelerys finds instead that hearts never listen to reason. She knows the faery tale never comes easy, knows the price of failure as well as victory. It is hard won, and long suffering, and always inevitable.The kingdom is old, and secrets have been long lost; things which refuse to be forgotten; things which can become violent if denied, and no oppressive, newfangled religion can change that... for long.
Enchanted Creatures
A fascinating journey through 15,000 years of human imagination and mythology, exploring the incredible variety of monstrous creatures we have created and what they can tell us about ourselves. The hydra rears its many heads in a flurry of teeth and poisonous fumes. The cyborg lays waste to humanity with a ruthless, expressionless stare. From ancient mythology to modern science fiction, we have had to confront the monsters that lurk in the depths of our collective imagination. They embody our anxieties and our irrational terrors, giving form to what we don't wish to know or understand. For millennia, monsters have helped us to manage the extraordinary complexity of our minds and to deal with the challenges of being human. In Enchanted Creatures, Natalie Lawrence delves into 15,000 years of imaginary beasts and uncovers the other-worldly natural history that has evolved with our deepest fears and fascinations. Join Lawrence on a tour of prehistoric cave monsters, serpentine hybrids, deep-sea leviathans and fire-breathing Kaiju. Discover how this monstrous menagerie has shaped our minds, our societies and how we see our place in nature.
The Witch and the Wolf
Discover the sequel to gothic fantasy sensation The Bell Witches from Sunday Times bestseller, Lindsey Kelk. Blood is thicker than water... Since arriving in Savannah, Emily Bell has faced prophecies, werewolves, family secrets and her own grandmother's attempt to take her life.But, strangely, surrounded by her friends and new family, Savannah has never felt more like home.Now, faced with the absence of her love, Wyn, as he wrestles with his new abilities as a werewolf, and burdened with the task of finding her fellow witches to avert the prophecy that surrounds her, Emily is attacked by a new threat. A lone wolf that will stop at nothing to destroy her.Emily must act fast and find out the wolf's identity before it kills her and all those she cares about. She will soon find out she can't do everything alone, and that a burden shared is a burden halved...
The Midwives
An Edge-of-Your-Seat Folk Horror Novel from the Author of Woom.On tour with his latest book, true crime writer Martin Savage discovers one of his most dangerous subjects has escaped. The so-called "Witch Hunter," a delusional murderer of women and their unborn children, holds a deadly grudge. He'll stop at nothing to get his revenge, and destroy everything Martin cares about.With nowhere to run, Martin and forensic psychologist Sheila Tanner flee to the town he left when he was a boy, after his mother was locked away in a psychiatric facility. A town hidden deep in his past, where no one would think to look for them.But things are not what they seem in Barrows Bay. The idyllic island holds terrible secrets. An ancient evil lived here long before the first Irish settlers crashed upon its shores in a coffin ship. An evil wearing the innocent faces of elderly midwives who've delivered every child in the Bay for two hundred and fifty years.Martin and Sheila think they're safe in his childhood home. But Martin's mother has plans for them. Plans that require sacrifice. And sacrifice requires blood.
The Moorings of Mackerel Sky
Debut novelist MZ marries fantasy with the everyday in her contemporary novel of a Maine lobstering town whose local mermaid myths come to life. They say Mackerel Sky was founded when Captain Burrbank first saw Nimu禱 the Mermaid and forgot the sea. Stricken by love, he moored his tall ship and made camp on the highest cliff, hoping to forever gaze upon her beauty. That camp became a settlement, the settlement a town, the town a community both blessed and cursed by their tempestuous affair. Three hundred years later, the legend of the Mermaid and the Captain who loved her still invigorates and haunts the inhabitants of the small Maine lobstering town. Take gruff widow Myra Kelley, who finds herself the de facto guardian of Leo Beale and knows his drunken antics are really attempts to escape an opiate-addicted mother and her boyfriends. Or Derrick Stowe, the town's star pitcher, who wants nothing more than to read his mother's musings on mermaids, write poetry to his secret boyfriend, and come out to his father, though he will learn how devastatingly small small towns can be. Or the oft-institutionalized Manon Perle, whose gorgeous, detailed quilts of the Mackerel Sky legend belie the terrible pain of--as she claims--having given her only child to the women in the waves. In this close-knit town famous for its infamous mermaids, community is built through love and lore--willful elements that the townsfolk will have to harness if Mackerel Sky is to endure for another three hundred years.
Kalendergeschichten (Entdecken Sie die Sch繹nheit und Magie der Umgebung - Die Naturgeschichten & Sagen f羹r das ganze Jahr)
Ludwig Anzengruber (1839-1889) war ein 繹sterreichischer Schriftsteller. Er gilt als bedeutender Dramatiker des 繹sterreichischen Volksst羹cks in der Tradition Johann Nestroys und Ferdinand Raimunds. Unter dem Pseudonym Ludwig Gruber gelang ihm 1870 der Durchbruch mit dem St羹ck Der Pfarrer von Kirchfeld, das am Theater an der Wien uraufgef羹hrt wurde und ihn 羹ber Nacht ber羹hmt machte. Heinrich Laube, der Leiter des Burgtheaters, schrieb eine enthusiastische Kritik, Peter Rosegger suchte die Freundschaft Anzengrubers. Anzengrubers Werk ist dem ausgehenden Realismus zuzurechnen. Anzengruber verstand sich als Volksaufkl瓣rer und Sozialreformer, liberal und antiklerikal eingestellt; er konzentrierte sich in seinen St羹cken auf die Darstellung sozialer Beziehungen in einer 羹berschaubaren Umwelt und versuchte im Rahmen der tradierten Dramaturgie, aktuelle soziale und politische Probleme deutlich zu machen. Er vertiefte die Charakterzeichnung psychologisch und stilisierte Milieu und Dialekt. ?hnlich verfuhr er mit der Dorfgeschichte. Sein Ansatz war dabei aufkl瓣rerisch, er wollte die Welt entg繹ttern und vermenschlichen. Einige seiner sp瓣ten Prosatexte sind bereits dem Naturalismus zuzurechnen. Inhalt: - Eine kleine Plauderei als Vorrede - Die drei Prinzen - Wie mit dem Herrgott umgegangen wird - Treff-A? - Die M瓣rchen des Steinklopferhanns - Vom Hanns und der Gretl - Die Gschicht vom J羹ngsten Tag - Die Gschicht von der Maschin - Die Versuchung - Die Gschicht von d繹 alten Himmeln - Eins vom Teufel - Der Verschollene - Der Hoisel-Loisel - Eine Geschichte von b繹sen Sprichw繹rtern - 's Moorhofers Traum
The Waterford Boy
On King John's command, all convicted male felons from England's jails are being sent to fight in France.Word reaches Nottingham Castle that the King's Chief Recruiter is paying a visit, and the Sheriff orders Sir Guy of Gisburne to gather a few men from each local village to make up the numbers. Gisburne has recently become enraged by a young boy's ritualistic chants to Herne the Hunter and vows to capture him for this very purpose.Robin is angered by this new people tax... but his rage is nothing compared to that of Will Scarlet when he hears the chief recruiter's name: James D'Marelle.For Will and the recruiter have met before... many years ago...
