Crimson Light Polished Wood illuminates with subtle ease the influence Leonora has on Anna's daughter, Lydia, introducing her to the world of literature and art.
This is a novel about the ways we all long for acceptance and how those we might feel most in touch with including parents, siblings and mentors can often have different values and views about us. As such it is a beautiful work about art, gender, inheritance, understanding and celebration.
'There is jealousy and deception in this strangely tender book that spans continents, generations and cultures. Pulsing with secrets, it stages the legacy of silence.' Dominique Hecq
'Through her protagonist, Lydia, Monica Raszewski delicately uncovers the layers of a family friend's hidden past. This is a compassionate novel about aloneness, disappointment and betrayal; and it's about a heartfelt desire for intimacy, connectedness and belonging.' Antoni Jach
]]>'the republic of letters / a veritable la la land' writes Keri Glastonbury in 51 Alterities, a collection in which cacophony rhymes with simplicity, and device notifications rebound across the desert horizon. In her poems 'nepo boys are punching above their weight', haunted by the 'spectres of unreal estate'; the senate estimate's axe / 'falls in aggregates of joy' while budgies in their natural habitat have 'no idea they are suburban pretty boys'.
Keri Glastonbury's previous collection Newcastle Sonnets was written as a riposte to Ted Berrigan's New York-based The Sonnets, and 51 Alterities began too as a loose adaptation, of British poet Sam Riviere's influential 2012 debut 81 Austerities. Riviere's collection was written in response to the impact of conservative UK austerity measures on the arts, and as a reconsideration of the function of poetry in the internet age. Wrestling with Antipodean 'alterity' more than ten years later, as a female queer poet a decade older than Riviere's millennial male, Glastonbury's 51 Alterities responds to the persistent threat of economic austerity, and to poetry's precarious place in a landscape dominated by billionaire tech bros and social media empires.
Praise for Newcastle Sonnets:
'A post-industrial love song... Glastonbury's sonnets, far from stultifying, are energetic and playful as they enact the associative freedoms of everyday speech.' Judges' citation, Prime Minister's Literary Awards
'A shifting and dangerously mesmerising simulacrum of contemporary Australian urban life... Through whip-smart core samples of observation, Glastonbury becomes the qwerty keyboard medium for social media within Newcastle and beyond.' Judges' citation, Judith Wright Calanthe Award
'Her poems are wonderful repositories of Aussie argot maggoted, grouse, fugly, bush doof, wheelie bins, sadcore, cankles, choofing and a chicken that's been stuffed up the jacksie all get a run but just as soon as you settle in, she changes gears.' Sarah Holland-Batt, The Australian
]]>The Hellebore Technical Institute for the Gifted is the premier academy for the dangerously powerful: the Anti-Christs and Ragnaroks, the world-eaters and apocalypse-makers.
Hellebore promises redemption, acceptance, and a normal life after graduation. At least, that's what Alessa Li is told when she's kidnapped and forcibly enrolled.
But there's more to Hellebore than meets the eye. On graduation day, the faculty go on a ravenous rampage, feasting on Alessa's class. Only Alessa and a group of her classmates escape the carnage. Trapped in the school's library, they must offer a human sacrifice every night, or else the faculty will break down the door and kill everyone.
]]>Vera, a bisexual statistics professor, is one of the survivors of a global disaster of a new kind the Low Probability Event. What should have been a simple family lunch turns into an absurd catastrophe raining fish, parade balloons, exploding manholes and brutally violent animal attacks.
Washed up the aftermath, it's only when the handsome, but problematic, government agent Layne knocks on her door that she is offered a glimpse of meaning to life. Layne is investigating the Low Probability Event, and believes the deadly absurd events may be linked to an improbably lucky casino. As they hit the road to try and make sense of the meaningless chaos of life, only one thing is clear what happens in Vegas isn't staying there...
]]>Misha is a jaded scriptwriter who has been working in Hollywood for decades, and has just been nominated for his first Oscar. But when he's pressured by his producers to kill off a gay character in the upcoming season finale 'for the algorithm' Misha discovers that it's not that simple.
As he is haunted by his past, and past mistakes, Misha must risk everything to find a way to do what's right before it's too late.
]]>A thousand years ago in an ancient Scottish landscape, a woman is on the run with her three companions a healer, a weaver and a seer. The men hunting her will kill her because she is the only one who stands between them and their violent ambition. She is no lady: she is the first queen of Scotland, married to a king called Macbeth.
As the net closes in, we discover a tale of passion, forced marriage, bloody massacre and the harsh realities of medieval Scotland. At the heart of it is one strong, charismatic woman, who survived loss and jeopardy to outwit the endless plotting of a string of ruthless and power-hungry men. Her struggle won her a country. But now it could cost her life.
Part of Polygon's DARKLAND TALES series.
]]>Daughter. Mother. Glory. Wife of The Devil O' Th' Moor. Hope Gleason has many names. The child of a shepherd raised in the remote moors of Northern England, Hope has always understood the satanic brutality of the land.
But when an ear-splitting, unknowable sound destroys the nearby village, Hope must embark on a dangerous journey to survive through the ravaged land with a lad, newly orphaned and alone, under her wing.
As they trek the wilds together to find her husband, her violent past chases her at every turn and long-buried memories begin to resurface.
A pitch-black, magnetic, and unforgettable meditation on the nature of love, evil, and the power of redemption, Land of Hope mixes history and the myths of the English moors to tell a compelling modern English fable of serial killers at the end of the world.
'Cate Baum has exceptional talent.' Claire Fuller, author ofUnsettled Ground
'Cate Baum's writing takes you into a mysterious, murderous, sometimes frightening world and never lets go. A journey through many extraordinary emotions with one abiding feeling: hope. An extraordinary book.' Jonathan Myerson, Oscar-nominated writer of The Canterbury Tales and Nuremberg
'This muscular, disquieting twist on survival stories such as The Road asks whether the end of the world is a chance for a new beginning, or whether some acts stain the soul too deeply ever to be left behind.' The Guardian
'Land of Hope folds a dystopian fable into an Emily Bronte-like gothic novel. It's a fascinating idea for a crossover, and the central character, Hope Gleason, seems to emanate from the wild and windswept moors as if she were a ghost already.' Sydney Morning Herald / The Age
]]>She attended UCLA to study Screenwriting, and then City University, London, gaining a Masters with Distinction in Creative Writing. There, she was mentored by Claire Fuller (The Memory of Animals), Clare Allan (Poppy Shakespeare) and Jonathan Myerson (Nuremberg). She now lives in Spain.
]]>The day before Murray McBride moves Jenny, his beloved wife of eighty years, into a memory care center, she convinces him to search for a case her grandfather buried long ago, said to contain 'a treasure worth more than gold'. With the help of some new friends, Murray and Jenny retrace their steps from years before. Over the course of the day, Murray tenderly retells their love story how they met, the challenges they faced and overcame, and their initial attempt at the quest.
But the closer they get to the treasure, the more clearly Murray remembers why they abandoned the search the first time. With the exhilaratingdiscovery at hand, Murray must decide whether to unearth the treasure, even if it means bringing up painful events from the past.
This heartwarming novel is perfect for fans of Fredrik Backman's A Man Called Ove and Lisa Wingate'sThe Prayer Box.
]]>With all his family and friends gone except an estranged grandson, retired Major League ballplayer Murray McBride is looking for a reason to live. He finds it in Jason Cashman, a spirited 10-year-old boy with a terminal heart defect and a list of five things he wants to do before he dies. Murray is determined to help Jason fulfill his dreams. Together, they race against the limited time each has left, ticking off Jason's wishes one by one. Along the way, Murray remembers what it's like to be young, and Jason fights for the opportunity to grow old. But when tragedy strikes, their worlds are turned upside-down, and an unexpected gift is the only thing that can make Jason's final wish come true.
This heartwarming coming-of-old-age novel is perfect for fans of Fredrik Backman's A Man Called Ove and Mike Gayle's All the Lonely People.
]]>Jason Cashman has reached the goal he spent the last twenty years seeking: raising a million dollars forcharity. But instead of feeling content, henowfeels empty.What comes next?When he meets Alexandra Lopez - adeterminedten-year-old girl facing deportationand uncertainty - he is inspired by his old friend, Murray McBride, tohelpherfulfillfive wishes before she must leave. Jason and Alexandra set out to check off as many of her wishes as possible, but when his transplanted heart begins to fail, he must choose between his obligations to the past and his hope for a future.
The married woman of the manor. The stranger outside. An intoxicating novel of dark temptation and dangerous desire by the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the Cat and Mouse Duet.
November 12, 1944. This house holds on to souls for a lifetime. I thought I had given it to my husband when I vowed to love him until the end of time. I lied. Nothing could have prepared me for the day my phantom appeared outside my window. He was terrifying, yet hypnotising, and I couldn't deny my intrigue. I never intended to fall into a whirlwind romance with my stalker. Especially because he's so much more than that. A criminal. A mobster. The man who offers me solace from the monster in Parsons Manor. There are many that haunt these halls, yet it's only my husband I fear.
Recommended Reading Order for the C&M Universe:
Satan's Affair
Haunting Adeline
Hunting Adeline
Where's Molly
The Manipulator
I can manipulate the emotions of anyone who lets me.
I will make you hurt, make you cry, make you laugh and sigh.
But my words don't affect him. Especially not when I plead for him to leave.
He's always there, watching and waiting.
And I can never look away.
Not when I want him to come closer.
The Shadow
I didn't mean to fall in love.
But now that I have, I can't stay away.
I'm mesmerised by her smile, by her eyes, and the way she moves.
The way she undresses...
I'll keep watching and waiting. Until I can make her mine.
And once she is, I'll never let her go.
Not even when she begs me to.
While not required, it is highly suggested to read the novella, Satan's Affair, first.
Author's Note: This book ends on a cliffhanger. For CWs, please check the author's website.
]]>The conclusion to the Cat and Mouse Duet is here...
The Diamond
Death walks alongside me,
But the reaper is no match for me.
I'm trapped in a world full of monsters dressed as men, and those who aren't as they seem.
They won't keep me forever.
I no longer recognise the person I've become,
And I'm fighting to find my way back to the beast who hunts me in the night.
They call me a diamond,
But they've only created an angel of death.
The Hunter
I was born a predator,
With ruthlessness ingrained in my bones.
When what's mine is stolen from me in the night,
Like a diamond hidden within a fortress,
I find that I can no longer contain the beast.
Blood will paint the ground as I tear apart this world to find her.
And bring her back to where she belongs.
No one will escape my wrath,
Especially not those who have betrayed me.
Warning: This is the second and final installment to the Duet. You must read Haunting Adeline first.
'Molly Devereaux has been missing for more than two weeks, and police are still searching for the girl who seemed to vanish out of thin air. The world still wants to know... Where's Molly?'
In my dreams, I never escaped the Oregon woods.
Life after death isn't easy to accept, especially when I still feel like a ghost.
Now, I live deep in the mountains of Montana the paradigm of beauty. But they are also the home of horrors.
Horrors that I only unleash at night.
When my pigs are allowed to feast.
It is strongly recommended to read Haunting Adeline and Hunting Adeline before reading Where's Molly.
Important Note: This is a dark romance that contains dark subject matter. Please refer to the author's website for content warnings.
]]>Who am I?
I've forgotten the answer to that question long ago. Ever since I ran from that house, so desperate to escape, I left with only the clothes on my back and socks on my feet. After that day, I've only ever walked in stolen shoes.
Could I be a girl who is searching for the meaning of life in faceless men? They were all so forgettable. Until he came along. He took me under a waterfall and made me forget my name, and in return, I took his instead.
Enzo Vitale.
An enigmatic man that will only ever love the deep sea. Or rather the predators that inhabit it. Turns out, he's not so different than the monsters he feeds. He lured me onto his boat like a fish in the ocean, seeking vengeance for my crime. Had I realised his intentions, and that a massive storm would leave us shipwrecked, I would've run.
Now, I'm a girl who's seeking refuge in a decrepit lighthouse with a man who loathes me almost as much as he craves me. He wants to hurt me, but the old caretaker of the abandoned island may have intentions far more sinister.
It's no longer a question of who I am, but rather, will I survive?
]]>We travel the country, offering terrifying haunted houses, thrilling rides and the tastiest food. And with every passing town, I cleanse this world, one execution at a time.
I hide within the walls, casting my judgement for those that reek of evil, singing lullabies to their rotting souls.
Once you've been chosen, there's no escaping my henchmen they cater to my every desire.
You can run and you can hide, but it only excites me.
Come.
Take a walk through my dollhouse, where your screams will blend and your cute little pleas will go unanswered.
But I can't promise it'll be over quickly...
Recommended Reading Order for the C&M Universe:
Satan's Affair
Haunting Adeline
Hunting Adeline
Where's Molly
When River McAllister escaped from Shallow Hill, she left her innocence behind and some of her sanity, too. Now she's rebuilding her life with her dream man and life couldn't be better.
Ryan Fitzgerald is everything you'd want in a man. Attractive, rich, an aspiring lawyer, and would do anything to keep River. But that's not the only thing that attracts her. It's his attentiveness, his possessiveness...maybe not so much his temper.
When her relationship takes a dark turn, Ryan's estranged brother, Mako, is the only one who sees it. He knows exactly what Ryan is capable of, and it's not the first time he had to be a knight in shining armour.
River came from Shallow Hill, though. She's never needed saving before. What Mako doesn'tsee, is that River is perfectly capable of taking care of herself.
The only one who should be scared is Ryan.
]]>Chiyo-ni (1703-1775), also known as Kaga no Chiyo, is Japan's most celebrated female haiku poet. A student of Basho's disciples, she worked in an age when haiku was largely a male domain. As a poet, painter, and Buddhist nun, she lived a vibrant life while creating poems of crystalline clarity and delicate sensuality. This volume presents more than one hundred of her finest seasonal haiku, renku (linked verse) and haibun (travel poems).
The collected poems include:
morning glory
the well bucket entangled
I ask for water
a hundred gourds
from the heart
of one vine
rouged lips
forgotten-
clear spring water
These luminous, lucidly translated 'haiku moments' give the reader an intimate experience of Chiyo-ni's remarkable vision and bid us to stop and appreciate each moment of our lives. Handsomely illustrated with artwork by Chiyo-ni and others, the volume also includes illuminating essays on her life and art, informative notes, and a glossary of haiku-related terms.
]]>Yoshie Ishibashi is a researcher and the co-translator of Chiyo-jo's Haiku Seasons and The Classic Tradition of Haiku, among other works.
Natalie Goldberg is the author of 16 books, including Writing Down the Bones and, most recently, Writing on Empty (St. Martin's Press 2024) and Three Simple Lines: A Writer's Pilgrimage into the Heart and Homeland of Haiku (New World Library 2021) which includes haiku by Chiyo-ni. Natalie lives in northern New Mexico and has practiced zen for many years.
]]>In the pale dawn
your coldness as we parted
froze my heart
nothing now so chills me
as morning's early light
Mibu no Tadamine
This completely new translation of the most famous collection of Japanese poetry ever produced, the Hyakunin Isshu ("A hundred poems by a hundred poets"), contains works written between the 7th and 8th centuries that were collected and published by the poet Fujiwara no Teika at the end of that era. The collection is still widely read in Japan today by school children and everyday people.
These poems provide insights on daily life in ancient Japan while addressing universal themes of love, loneliness, aging and the beauty of nature all highly relevant today.
The poets whose works are featured here include:
Each poem is presented in the Japanese script with a Romanised version and English translation. An introduction by translator Michael Freiling provides essential information about the collection, an overview of the poems and poets, and reflections on why the work remains so popular in Japan today.
This new hardcover gift edition is illustrated in full-colour with stunning woodblock prints created for the poems by the famous 19th-century artists Hiroshige, Kuniyoshi and Kunisada. Free online audio recordings of all the poems are available in Japanese and English.
]]>Sometimes called Wind Walkers for their ability to command the wind, unlike their human rulers, the Feng people have bark faces, carved limbs, arms of braided branches, and hair of needle threads. Bound by duty and tradition, Liu Lufeng, the eldest princess of the Feng royalty, is the next bride to the human king. The negotiation of bridewealth is the only way to stop the expansion of the humans so that the Feng can keep their lands, people, and culture intact. As the eldest, Lufeng should be the next in line to lead the people of Feng, and in the past, that made her sisters disposable. Thankful that her youngest sister, Chuiliu, is too young for a sacrificial marriage, she steps in with plans to kill the king to finally stop the marriages.
But when she starts to uncover the truth about her peoples' origins and realizes Chuiliu will never be safe from the humans, she must learn to let go of duty and tradition, choose her allies carefully, and risk the unknown in order to free her family and shape her own fate.
A powerfully imaginative, compelling story of a young woman seeking to save her family and her home, as well as a devastating meditation on the destruction of the natural world for the sake of an industrial future.
]]>Edira Brillwyn has a secret. Edira Brillwyn is a threadmender. She holds a rare, lifesaving power that can cure disease and heal injuries in the blink of an eye. But magic always comes with a cost and saving anyone sacrifices a sliver of her own life. Edira's beloved aunt Rowena a fellow threadmender taught her to conceal this ability to protect herself from people who would take advantage, especially their powerful and wealthy neighbours. Withholding her magic will save her life. Orin Fernglove is immortal an everliving and head of the prominent Fernglove house.
The Ferngloves own the local mines, possess magic powerful enough to alter the stars, and don't take 'no' for an answer. When Edira's brothers unexpectedly contract blight, an incurable virus killing people throughout the town, Orin offers to help. If Edira returns to Fernglove Manor to assist in researching a cure to the blight, Orin can slow their sickness while she hones her magic. Using her magic could save the world. The remaining Ferngloves are less confident in Edira's ability and perhaps more dangerous than the ever-present disease. While Edira and Orin race against her brother's increasingly precarious health, the family's pristine exterior begins to crack, exposing the true nature of Edira's presence within the crumbling estate and the power she has to tear it all down.
]]>What do you see...?
When the mutilated body of a young woman is discovered in the desert on the outskirts of Los Angeles, the detective assigned to the case can't deny the similarities between this murder and one that occurred a year prior. Media outlets are quick to surmise this is the work of a budding serial killer, but Detective Bill Renney is struggling with an altogether different scenario: a secret that keeps him tethered to the husband of the first victim.
What do you hear...?
Maureen Park, newly engaged to Hollywood producer Greg Dawson, finds her engagement party crashed by the arrival of Landon, Greg's son. A darkly unsettling young man, Landon invades Maureen's new existence, and the longer he stays, the more convinced she becomes that he may have something to do with the recent murder in the high desert.
What do you feel...?
Toby Kampen, the self-proclaimed Human Fly, begins an obsession over a woman who is unlike anyone he has ever met. A woman with rattlesnake teeth and a penchant for biting. A woman who has trapped him in her spell. A woman who may or may not be completely human.
In Ronald Malfi's brand-new thriller, these three storylines converge to create a tapestry of deceit, distrust, and unapologetic horror. A brand-new novel of dark suspense set in the City of Angels, as only 'horror's Faulkner' can tell it.
]]>A brand-new collection of four intense, claustrophobic and terrifying horror tales from the Bram Stoker Award (R)-nominated and Splatterpunk Award-winning author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke.
Four devastating tales from a master of modern horror...
This Skin Was Once Mine. When her father dies under mysterious circumstances, Jillian Finch finds herself grieving the man she idolised while struggling to feel comfortable in the childhood home she was sent away from nearly twenty years ago by her venomous mother. Then Jillian discovers a dark secret in her family's past - a secret that will threaten to undo everything she has ever known to be true about her beloved father and, more importantly, herself. It's only natural to hurt the things we love the most...
Seedling. A young man's father calls him early in the morning to say that his mother has passed away. He arrives home to find his mother's body still in the house. Struggling to process what has happened he notices a small black wound appear on his wrist-the inside of the wound as black as onyx and as seemingly limitless as the cosmos. He is even more unsettled when he discovers his father is cursed with the same affliction. The young man becomes obsessed with his father's new wounds, exploring the boundless insides and tethering himself to the black threads that curl from inside his poor father...
Prickle. Two old men revive a cruel game with devastating consequences...
All the Parts of You That Won't Easily Burn. Enoch Leadbetter goes to buy a knife for his husband to use at a forthcoming dinner party. He encounters a strange shopkeeper who draws him into an intoxicating new obsession and sets him on a path towards mutilation and destruction...
Content warning found inside book.
]]>2559. It has been a year since the rogue artificial intelligence Cortana seized control of the Domain, an otherworldly dimension housing a vast information network. With an array of Forerunner weapons at her disposal, Cortana set out to enforce an authoritarian peace on the civilisations of the galaxy. But as the United Nations Space Command flagship Infinity prepares to strike against Cortana at Zeta Halo, another plan has also been set in motion.
An ancient access point hidden on a seemingly insignificant human colony has become the focus of a parallel effort to claim the Domain and its immeasurable capabilities. The UNSC, however, needs a key: a living, forsaken product of an old war. As a new generation of heroes rise to meet this challenge, and Cortana's pursuit of control reaches a desperate and sudden crescendo, a cunning, ruthless warrior emerges from the shadows of the Banished, who has vowed to fill the new power vacuum by any means necessary...
]]>Christopher Sequeira is a conceptualist and commission ing editor of mystery, science fiction, horror and fantasy prose and comic-book anthologies, as well as being a writer himself. He has worked on such books as the four volume Cthulhu: Deep Down Under series; Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Was Not; Sherlock Holmes: The Australian Casebook; Dracula Unfanged; the all-star creator anthology Caped Fear: Superhuman Horror Stories (featuring Joe R. Lansdale, George R. R. Martin and others); Kolchak the Night Stalker Nosferatu; and Nosferatu Unbound. His comic-book scripts include work on the franchises X-Men, Iron Man, Justice League, Star Trek, and The Human Fly, as well as original concepts of his own. He lives in Sydney with his family. His first novel, a crime thriller, debuts in 2026.
]]>When Laurel Fletcher's meticulously ordered world is upended by the discovery of a possible Anglo-Saxon burial site on her beloved family farm, the last person she expects to see is Dr. Nate Daley the man she hoped never to encounter again.
As old university resentments resurface, Nate is baffled by Laurel's hostility and strives to build a friendship with her. As they reconnect, Laurel and Nate realise their feelings run deeper than they initially thought. But just as they start to envision a future together, unexpected revelations threaten to tear them apart. Can they overcome their past to build a future together?
Perfect for fans of: Forced Proximity Enemies to lovers Only one bed Workplace romance
'I came for the hot British archaeologist, but stayed for the strong female main character. I absolutely loved it. I was swept up in the chemistry and couldn't put it down.' Leonie Mack, author of In Italy for Love
]]>**One of Stylist's Best New Feminist Retellings to Read in 2023**
In the Garden of Eden, at the beginning of time, an outrageous lie is born: that women are inferior...
Lilith and Adam are equal and happy in the Garden of Eden. But when Adam decides Lilith should submit to his will and lie beneath him, she refuses and is banished forever from Paradise. Demonised and sidelined, Lilith watches in fury as God creates Eve, the woman who accepts her submission. But Lilith has a secret: she has already tasted the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. Endowed with Wisdom, she knows why Asherah God's wife and equal, the Queen of Heaven is missing. Lilith has a plan: she will rescue Eve, find Asherah, restore balance to the world and regain her rightful place in Paradise.
'Nikki Marmery's exquisite prose brings this compelling, highly relevant tale of Adam's first wife to life.' Laura Shepperson, Sunday Times bestselling author of Phaedra
'Dynamite. I laughed loud, fumed louder. Nikki Marmery takes you upriver to the wellspring of sexism, but sends you floating back down on a little tide of hope.' Meg Clothier, author of The Book of Eve
'Lilith is a dark, enraging and enthralling story that reimagines a world free from the ancient clutches of patriarchy... utterly original and much-needed' Jennifer Saint, author of Ariadne
'At long last we have the origin story women deserve. Furious and beautiful, rich and moving, Lilith is an astonishing achievement. A new heroine with an unforgettable tale to anger and heal.' Miranda Malins, author of The Rebel Daughter
'Lilith is a battle cry of a book. A rich, vividly written story of passion, betrayal and female rage.' Sophie Keetch, author of Morgan is My Name
]]>In between filming seasons of Floggit and Leggit!, ageing actors Edward Lowe and John Le Breton sign up for short run at the Leeds Playhouse, lured by the promise that the play will transfer to the Stadsschouwburg the Amsterdam Playhouse. Once in Leeds, they discover they have been invited to join for two reasons because the company manager is keen to take advantage of the publicity surrounding Floggit and Leggit! (now a massive hit) and because Sir Nathaniel Thompson, the much-lauded star of the show and knight of the realm, has been sacked for drunkenness and failing to turn up for work.
John fears an awkward scene, should Thompson who he knew during the war return to reclaim his job, but when Thompson's body is found, bludgeoned to death in a nearby alleyway, this ceases to be an issue. Once more, the elderly thespian sleuths decide to investigate.
]]>In 1970, on the set of downmarket sitcom 'Floggit and Leggit', leading man Edward Lowe stumbles across the body of a woman, apparently the victim of a tragic drowning accident. But there's something about her that rings the faintest of bells in Edward's head and, convinced the woman has been murdered, he enlists the help of his co-star John le Breton to investigate further. Crossing the country and back again during gaps in filming, the two men uncover both a series of murders in the modern day, and links to another unfortunate death during the War. As the body count mounts, Edward and John face a race against time to save the innocent victims of a serial killer...
]]>Judge Dee and Lao She must use all their powers of deduction and kung fu skills to take down a sinister conspiracy between Imperial Russia, Japan, and China in 1920s London.
London, 1924. Following several months abroad, Judge Dee Ren Jie has returned to the city to intercept a transaction between a Russian diplomat and a Japanese mercenary. Aided by Lao She-the Watson to his Holmes-along with several other colorful characters, Dee stops the illicit sale of an extremely valuable 'dragon-taming' mace.
The mace's owner is a lovely Chinese businesswoman who thanks Dee for its retrieval by throwing a lavish dinner party. In attendance is British banking official A. G. Stephen, who argues with the group about the tenuous state of Chinese nationalism and is then poisoned two days later. Dee knows this cannot be a coincidence, and suspects Stephen won't be the only victim. Sure enough, a young Chinese communist of Lao's acquaintance is killed not long after and a note with a strange symbol is found by his body.
What could connect all these disparate, bizarre events? It is once again up to Dee's brilliant investigative skills and Lao's well-meaning but often bumbling assistance to get to the bottom of the Railway Conspiracy before anyone else ends up on the chopping block.
]]>For fans of Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes films, this stunning, swashbuckling series opener by a powerhouse duo of authors is at once comfortingly familiar and tantalisingly new.
Two unlikely allies race through the cobbled streets of 1920s London in search of a killer targeting Chinese immigrants.
London, 1924. When shy academic Lao She meets larger-than-life Judge Dee Ren Jie, his life abruptly turns from books and lectures to daring chases and narrow escapes. Dee has come to London to investigate the murder of a man he'd known during World War I when serving with the Chinese Labour Corps. No sooner has Dee interviewed the grieving widow than another dead body turns up. Then another. All stabbed to death with a butterfly sword. Will Dee and Lao be able to connect the threads of the murders - or are they next in line as victims?
John Shen Yen Nee and S. J. Rozan's groundbreaking collaboration blends traditional gong'an crime fiction and the most iconic aspects of the Sherlock Holmes canon. Dee and Lao encounter the aristocracy and the street-child telegraph, churchmen and thieves in this clever, cinematic mystery that's as thrilling and visual as an action film, as imaginative and transporting as a timeless classic.
]]>John Shen Yen Nee is a highly experienced transmedia executive and entrepreneur with 30 years of experience in comics and book publishing, video games, tabletop games, and collectables. He specialises in building and directing teams to develop and deploy IP across multiple mediums, with an emphasis on growing and maintaining strong fan communities. He is the ex-Publisher of Marvel Comics and ex-Senior Vice President of DC Comics. Twitter/X: @johnnee
]]>For many years, 'nature poetry' has evoked images of Romantic poets standing on mountain tops. But our poetic landscape has changed dramatically, and so has our planet. Edited and introduced by the twenty-fourth Poet Laureate of the United States, Ada Limn, this book challenges what we think we know about 'nature poetry', illuminating the myriad ways our landscapes both literal and literary are changing.
You Are Here Each poem engages with its author's local landscape be it the breathtaking variety of flora in a national park, or a lone tree flowering persistently by a bus stop offering an intimate model of how we relate to the world around us and a beautifully diverse range of voices from across the United States.
Joyful and provocative, wondrous and urgent, this singular collection of poems offers a lyrical reimagining of what 'nature' and 'poetry' are today, inviting readers to experience both anew.
'Whoever you are, you will find yourself and your own world in the expansiveness of this collection.' Margaret Renkl,New York Times
'A lovely book to take with you to read at the end of your next hike.' Los Angeles Times
]]>Setting out on a mission to re-weird this lost stretch of the ritual year, Johnny Mains returns with a collection of tales of the bizarre, the beastly and the brutal to welcome the summer and raise the cry: Wyrd is Icumen in!
]]>Bristol, the early eighteenth century. On the run following a fatal accident at school, the orphan Will Harvell joins a voyage setting sail in search of a mariner's missing son. But the mystery of his disappearance harbours a deeper secret; a dark current pulling the crew ever closer to an ancient Gorgonian terror of the ocean.
Combining elements of Conradian sea adventure, Atlantean mythology and sublime horror, Medusa was first published in 1929 and achieved cult classic status in the late twentieth century as a neglected masterpiece of weird fiction.
'Visiak achieved the terror and wonder, the sense of awe, that Lovecraft could only grasp at.' R. S. Hadji, 1983
]]>On the eve of Elaine Southey's 21st birthday, Ivan Sweet has been found dead in his flat in the basement of the Southeys' historic north London home. A slick charmer to some of the tenants and a loathsome young scoundrel to others his death doesn't draw out many tears among the house's residents and neighbours. And yet the sordid truth starts to seep into the heart of their small community a murder is living among them, and who's to say when they might strike again? The shrewd Oxford man Superintendent Paul Grainger finds himself faced with a small circle of suspects whose connections and hidden motives heap complexity upon complexity in this tightly wrought mystery, shot through with a chilling touch of the macabre.
]]>Would you risk everything and travel back in time to find the love you thought you'd lost forever?
Nathan leads a solitary life centring around his passion for antique watches. One day, he chances across an old photograph of Mia, his high school crush, who moved to Japan many years ago with her family, then died under suspicious circumstances. Or did she?
Not long after, Nathan receives text messages from someone named Mia. Are these a hoax or is she alive? He vows to find out, which leads him to Kyoto and a mysterious organisation called the Taira Corporation who seem to know everything about him, and offer to transport Nathan into the past in search of Mia. But along the way he must fight off the rival Genji Corporation-who will stop at nothing to destroy Nathan and his friends.
Eternity in Kyoto is a fast-paced techno thriller set against the backdrop of ancient Japan that takes the reader on an exciting journey to 12th-century Kyoto. It weaves together a touching love story with profound revelations about the essential foundations of our shared humanity.
]]>When a Hollywood producer visits Oriana Fallaci at the end of her life to propose a movie, the story unfolds of her trailblazing career as a journalist, her tragic love, and her greatest regret.
Oriana was born in Italy, moved to Manhattan, and shot to international fame for her provocative interviews of world leaders and celebrities. At her peak in 1973, Oriana was called 'the best reporter in the world'. That's when she fell in love with Alexander Panagoulis, Greek hero and poet. He was ten years younger and lived in a different country, but Oriana didn't care. She had finally found what she longed for: a full life. Can a woman ever have it all, or does life always exact a price?
Christiane Amanpour calls Oriana her role model, saying, 'I wanted to be her!'
Oriana holds a place alongside Mike Wallace and Barbara Walters as a legendary interviewer. But her story is little-known in America, until now.
The first biographical novel of the glamorous Italian, the iconic journalist, the woman in love.
]]>When Cockney private detective George Harley saves a young girl's life on a dark London night in 1929, he doesn't realise it marks the beginning of an investigation which will change his life forever. The incendiary book which inspired the girl's abduction also seems to be linked to a series of grisly murders that are taking place on Harley's patch, and though he's delighted to be asked by Scotland Yard to help find the killer before they strike again, he could do without the local razor- and cosh-wielding mobsters thinking he's in the police's pocket.
Set during the Golden Age of Crime Fiction, Harley's world is a far cry from the country house of an Agatha Christie whodunnit. This working-class sleuth does his 'sherlocking' in the frowzy alleyways and sleazy nightclubs of Soho the city's underbelly peopled with lowlife ponces, jaded streetwalkers, and Jewish and Maltese gangsters: a world of grubby bedsits, all-night cafes, egg and chips, and Gold Flake cigarettes.
Here, the midnight streets are black as pitch and, as Harley finds himself embroiled in the macabre mysteries of a city in which truth is as murky as the pea-souper smog and the sins are as dark as stout porter beer, he begins to realise he may never find a way out.
]]>In 1930, the killing of a Soho prostitute is hardly a priority for Scotland Yard. But when a second, similar murder comes to light, and then a third, everything changes. Cuthbert and his team find themselves in a nightmarish world of people-trafficking, prostitution and drug use amongst the upper classes.
Using all his forensic skills, Cuthbert sets out to solve one of the most baffling cases of his career. One final question remains unanswered until a faded photograph reveals its tragic secret.
]]>Death is a lonely business . . .
No one who meets Dr Jack Cuthbert forgets him. Tall, urbane, brilliant but damaged, this Scottish pathologist who works with Scotland Yard is the best the new DCI has seen. But Cuthbert is a man who lives with secrets, and he still battles demons brought back from the trenches.
When not one but two corpses are discovered in a London park in 1929, Cuthbert must use every tool at his disposal to solve the mystery of their deaths. In the end, the horrifying truth is more shocking than even he could have imagined.
]]>Unsex Me Here is a prayer book tied together by the strings of a corset. Glamourous ramblers, haunted by the sense of another world drawing near, wander in and out of its inexplicable twilight. From a West Texas town with a supernatural past to a stalactite cavern in the birthplace of Aphrodite, from hotel rooms to gardens to the far horizon of a thought, they seek the source of the disturbance in their minds. Heartbreak is not so far from rapture; holy babble is another kind of gossip. Every pilgrimage is as dense with symbolism as it is refined by desire.
'A fairy tale, in the classic, sparkling, and powerful ways.' Michelle Tea
]]>Chickens have a collective soul. Heaven is full of the skateboarders you kissed in middle school. If the algorithm is its own hell, Lauren Cook, author of the critically (and uncritically) acclaimed Sex Goblin, stands in front of it fully armored.I Love Shoppinginvites its readers to inhabit a world just like ours, reflected through a big, benevolent funhouse mirror.
First published in a limited edition, this will be the first trade edition of the cult classic.
]]>As if hauled up squirming from the bowels of the internet, Sex Goblin metabolizes sex writing, popular culture, and autofiction to present the real and the imagined as equally surreal possibilities. In the narrator's childlike voice, all things become both mundane and strange a child and their dog fused after a car accident, moments of tenderness amidst frat hazing, witches, and hiking accidents. At turns charming and bizarre, Sex Goblin channels sexual violence through the lens of the absurd to alchemize shame and abuse into something that registers differently than trauma. Sex Goblin is a barely factual but deeply felt field guide to relationships and relatability.
]]>A decade ago, Azaan, a rebellious teenager with dreams of becoming an actor, was exiled from Redding, California to a religious academy in Egypt by his imam father. His crime? Getting caught kissing Madison, the girlfriend he wasn't supposed to have.
But while letting his family believe he is studying to become a preacher, Azaan ditched school and embarked on an acting career. Given that he has minimal contact and nonexistent plans to return home, he figured no one would ever know.
Now, however, Azaan's grandfather has a dying wish: he wants to see his grandson one last time. In order to maintain the story he's told his family for years, Azaan decides to become a fake imam. Playing at being a religious leader, he finds a community in Redding on the brink of a scandal involving his family. It'll be the most challenging role of his life.
Navigating his new identity and old relationships, Azaan reunites with Madison, connects with old friends, and uncovers a shocking truth about his family history that threatens to expose his father as a fraud. It turns out, Azaan isn't the only one pretending to be something he isn't.
Before he can finish weighing the consequences of exposing his father or protecting him, an untimely death shakes Azaan's priorities. He is forced to grapple with his religion, future, and family in a way that is sure to break hearts, but might heal a few along the way.
]]>Have you ever engaged in totally normal male behaviour like:
Stealing porn magazines?
Hooking up with guys on Grindr?
Attempting to work in an open-pit mine despite having no relevant job experience?
Crossdressing as a woman?
Attending Gnostic Mass?
Running for government office?
Then this is a book for you!
It is definitely not a deeply felt collection of transsexual short stories, engaged in dissident metaphysical investigation of the normative tenets of gender in our society! Bro, how could you say that? It is very dramatic and exciting, yes, but it is not metaphysical at all. In fact, it is Realistic Fiction.
As if Charlie Chaplin re-wrote the works of Kafka, and he was a Russian trans man, Anton Solomonik brings a funny, heartbreaking, and startlingly unique new voice to contemporary short fiction.
'Outrageously funny.' Paul Harding
'There is nobody doing it like Anton.' Tuck Woodstock
]]>Bud Stanley is an obituary writer who is afraid to live. Yes, his wife recently left him for a 'far more interesting' man. Yes, he goes on a particularly awful blind date with a woman who brings her ex. And yes, he has too many glasses of Scotch one night and proceeds to pen and publish his own obituary. The newspaper wants to fire him. But now the company's system has him listed as dead. And the company can't fire a dead person. The ensuing fallout forces him to realise that life may be actually worth living.
As Bud awaits his fate at work, his life hangs in the balance. Given another shot by his boss and encouraged by his best friend, Tim, a worldly and wise former art dealer, Bud starts to attend the wakes and funerals of strangers to learn how to live.
Thurber Prize-winner andNew York Timesbestselling author John Kenney tells a funny, touching story about life and death, about the search for meaning, about finding and never letting go of the preciousness of life.
'Razor-sharp, darkly comedic, and emotionally piercing. With the satirical bite of Richard Russo'sStraight Man, the introspection of Fredrik Backman'sA Man Called Ove, and the reinvention of Andrew Sean Greer'sLess, Kenney's vivid prose transforms the mundane into unexpected hilarity.' Booklist(starred review)
]]>Some of the greatest (and grooviest) music ever committed to vinyl has come out of Italy.
And some of the greatest music to come out of Italy is the rich diversity of soundtracks composed for the indigenous film industry - particularly for gruesome thrillers known as 'gialli'. The maestros who composed for these include Ennio Morricone, Piero Piccioni, Armand Trovajoli...
And Valerius Passeri.
He was one of the finest composers of this genre and his original LPs from his 1960s heyday fetch a fortune from collectors.
No one disputes that Passeri was a genius...
The argument is whether or not he was a murderer.
Passeri's mistress was killed in London in the 1960s while he was here on location for a film shoot. There was never enough hard evidence to lead to a prosecution but the stink of scandal has never gone away.
Passeri's granddaughter Chloe has come to England to hire the Vinyl Detective. She wants him to negotiate for a collection of her father's LPs. The mastertapes of the albums have been destroyed and she needs immaculate vinyl copies to provide the source for a series of reissues Chloe's mission is to preserve her grandfather's heritage. And also, it transpires, to clear his name.
So it turns out that the Vinyl Detective's real job will be to find out who actually committed a murder over half a century ago, in Swinging London.
But the real killer is not enchanted with the notion of being exposed. And, having killed once before, they see no problem in doing so again.
]]>Paris, 1940. The course of Fatiha Bin-Khalid's life is changed forever when she befriends the Muslim feminist Doria Shafik. But after returning to Egypt and dedicating years to the fight for women's rights, she struggles to reconcile her political ideals with the realities of motherhood.
Cairo, 1966. After being publicly shamed when her relationship with a bisexual boyfriend is revealed, Fatiha's daughter is faced with an impossible decision. Should Yasminah accept a life she didn't choose, or will she leave her home and country in pursuit of independence?
Bristol, 2011. British-born Nadia is battling with an identity crisis and a severe case of herpes. Feeling unfulfilled (and after a particularly disastrous one-night stand), she moves in with her old-fashioned Aunt Yasminah and realises that she must discover her purpose in the modern world before it's too late.
Following the lives of three women from the Bin-Khalid family, Daughters of the Nile is an original and darkly funny novel that examines the enduring strength of female bonds. These women are no strangers to adversity, but they must learn from the past and relearn shame and shamelessness to radically change their futures.
Everyone's talking about Daughters of the Nile...
'A writer to watch.' @ElementaryMyDear_
'Mesmerising.' @alicetheunique
'Not to be missed.' @Silvia_reviews
'A true gem.' @stratospherekawaiigirl
]]>What if the only way to fix toxic masculinity were to erase it entirely?
Mark Vogel is like the older brother Stefan never had, but one day he disappears without a trace. A year later, after encountering a woman who looks near-identical to Mark, Stefan becomes obsessed. He finds that dozens of young men have disappeared over the years, many of them students at the Royal College of Saint Almsworth, and most of them troubled or unruly. Why are students going missing? Who are these women who bear striking resemblances to them? And what is their connection to the selective student accommodation on the edge of campus, Dorley Hall?
Stefan starts studying at Saint Almsworth for one reason and one reason only: to find out exactly what happened to the women who live at Dorley Hall, and to get it to happen to him, too.
An electrifying debut by Alyson Greaves, Welcome to Dorley Hall is an intense exploration of gender and society.
]]>www.mythicalbritain.co.uk/@mythicalbritain
]]>King Arthur's Death (commonly referred to as the Alliterative Morte Arthure) is a Middle English poem that was written in Lincolnshire at the end of the fourteenth century. A source work for Malory's later Morte d'Arthur, it is an epic tale which documents the horrors of war, the loneliness of kingship and the terrible price paid for arrogance.
This magnificent poem tells of the arrival of emissaries from Imperial Rome demanding that Arthur pays his dues as a subject. It is Arthur's refusal to accept these demands, and the premise of foreign domination, which leads him on a quest to confront his foes and challenge them for command of his lands.
Combining heroic action, probing insight into human frailty and a great attention to contemporary detail, King Arthur's Death is not only a lesson in effective kingship, it is also an astonishing mirror on our own times, highlighting the folly of letting stubborn dogma drive political decisions.
]]>www.mythicalbritain.co.uk/@mythicalbritain
]]>Michael Smith's translation of this magnificent Arthurian romance draws on his intimate experience of the North West of England and his knowledge of mediaeval history, culture and architecture. He takes us back to the original poetic form of the manuscript and brings it alive for a modern audience, while revealing the poem's historic and literary context.
The book is beautifully illustrated throughout with detailed recreations of the illuminated lettering in the original manuscript and the author's own linocut prints, each meticulously researched for contemporary accuracy. This is an exciting new edition that will appeal both to students of the Gawain-poet and the general reader alike.
]]>www.mythicalbritain.co.uk
]]>This anthology contains work from both the established masters of Folk Horror, and some more surprising contributors: from Shirley Jackson and M. R. James to E. F. Benson and William Croft Dickinson. Tales Accursed will raise the hairs on your neck and keep you alert to the slightest rustle in the trees: through the chill splendour of moonlit nights come apparitions through the orchard; sea-witches perch on the sharp fangs of rocks as they weave their spells; fir-woods lie unnaturally still with no birdsong, no breeze, nor any undergrowth; and hooded creatures crouch on grey secluded beaches. This book combines ancient horrors from the wilderness with sinister shadows of the landscape to remind us of the settings of our ancestors.
Tales Accursed is a gloriously creepy collection of chilling Folk Horror tales that is both thrilling and unnerving.
]]>Hanna, a 12-year-old girl with Down's Syndrome, is looking for her father. Marius, her companion, seems to be hiding from something. Aided by a simple instruction card, Hanna explores what it is to be human, as Tavares creates an abstract yet touching portrait of the true victims of war.
]]>When forger Slate is convicted of treason, she faces a death sentence. But her unique gift for sniffing out magic (literally) earns her a reprieve of sorts.
Along with a paladin, Caliban, possessed by a demon, her murderous ex-lover, and an irritating misogynist scholar, Slate sets off on a mission to learn about the Clockwork Boys, deadly mechanical soldiers from a neighbouring kingdom who have been terrorising their lands. If they succeed, rewards and pardons await, but they must survive a long journey through enemy territory to reach Anuket City. And Slate has her own reasons to dread returning to her former home.
Slate and her crew aren't the first to be sent on this mission. None of their predecessors have returned, and Slate can't help but feel they've exchanged one death sentence for another. Her increasing closeness to Caliban isn't helping matters: for the first time in a long time, Slate might actually care about surviving.
]]>Cocun, a desolate town nestled between the hot jungle and the frigid Andes, is about to slip away from memory. This is where Mildred was born, and where everything she had her animals, her home, her lands was taken from her after her mother's death. Years later, a series of strange events, disappearances, and outbursts of collective delirium will force its residents to reckon with the legend of old Mildred. Once again, they will feel the shadow of death that has hung over the town ever since she was wronged. The voices of nine characters Mildred, Ezequiel, Agustina, Manzi, Carmen, Vctor, Baltasar, Hermosina, and Filatelio tell us of the past and present of that doomed place and Mildred's fate. Natalia Garca Freire's vivid language blurs the lines between dreams and reality and transports the reader to the hypnotic Andean universe of Ecuador.
]]>Victor Meadowcroft is a translator from Spanish and Portuguese and a graduate of the University of East Anglia's master's programme in literary translation. His published translations include stories by Agustina Bessa-Lus in Take Six: Six Portuguese Women Writers (co-translation with Margaret Jull Costa, Dedalus Books, 2018) and Too the Infallible by Evelio Rosero (co-translation with Anne McLean, New Directions, 2022), which was shortlisted for the PEN Translation Prize in 2023 and longlisted for the Queen Sofa Spanish Institute of Translation Prize in the same year. His translation of Natalia Garca Freire's This World Does Not Belong to Us was published by World Editions in 2022 and was shortlisted for the TA First Translation Prize and the Premio Valle Incln.
]]>The Fifteenth Doctor and Ruby are just starting out on their adventures together and it's going to be an exhilarating ride! With a new sonic, and new Tardis, and new companion, the Doctor is ready to explore all of time and space once more. But is he ready to face his greatest fears...? Bursting straight out of the long-running hit television series, this Doctor Who collection continues the time-travelling tales of the Doctor and friends. Buy it, read it, then travel back in time to read it for the first time all over again...!
]]>Dan Watters is a British comic book writer who has written several titles, including Dark Souls: Legends of the Flame, Wolfenstein, Assassin's Creed: Uprising for Titan Comics and Limbo for Image Comics.
]]>Living alone in Paris, estranged from his family, suffering from heartbreak and possibly madness, Alioscha Coll works with saintly intensity on what will be his final manuscript:Attila. Once the final words have been written, he vows to end his life, convinced that his existence will lose all purpose.
Told through the viewpoint of a literary critic and journalist,Attilaexpands Javier Serena's investigation into artists who remained dedicated to their art, to their aesthetic vision in the face of complete dismissal by the publishing world and reading public. In the case ofLast Words on Earth and Ricardo Funes (the stand in for Bolao in that novel), things work out and he briefly becomes the star of the literary world could the same happen for Alioscha Coll?
]]>Katie Whittemoretranslates from the Spanish. Her translations include novels by Sara Mesa, Javier Serena, Aroa Moreno Durn, Lara Moreno, Nuria Labari, Katixa Agirre, Jon Bilbao, Juan Gmez Brcena, Almudena Snchez, Aliocha Coll, and Pilar Adn. She received an NEA Translation Fellowship in 2022 for Lara Moreno'sIn Case We Lose Power, and has been a finalist for the Spain-USA Foundation Translation Prize and the Queen Sofa Spanish Institute Translation Prize, and longlisted for the National Translation Award.
]]>Attila the Hun, reimagined as a visionary leader, contemplates the fate of his people at the gates of Rome. His son, Quijote, is caught between empires and ideals, forced to choose between his father's vision of a Hunnic utopia and the decaying allure of Roman civilisation. As Rome burns, Quijote journeys through both real and surreal landscapes, encountering psychedelic visions, mystical revelations, and existential dilemmas.
Quijote's journey blurs the lines between past and future, uniting Biblical, Classical, and Buddhist traditions while moving between planes of existence. Attilais an intricate and elusive masterpiece from the explosive and disorienting imagination of Aliocha Coll, where characters from myth and history intermingle in a stunning labyrinth of allegory and metaphor.
]]>Katie Whittemore translates from the Spanish. Her translations include novels by Sara Mesa, Javier Serena, Aroa Moreno Durn, Lara Moreno, Nuria Labari, Katixa Agirre, Jon Bilbao, Juan Gmez Brcena, Almudena Snchez, Aliocha Coll, and Pilar Adn. She received an NEA Translation Fellowship in 2022 for Lara Moreno's In Case We Lose Power, and has been a finalist for the Spain-USA Foundation Translation Prize and the Queen Sofa Spanish Institute Translation Prize, and longlisted for the National Translation Award.
]]>Will the chance for a new life be Angel's last shot? Tagged as a cop killer when a mission of vengeance goes wrong, Angel Dare finds herself on the run, with an unexpected burden: she's pregnant. Her desperate flight takes Angel across the American west, where cattle barons lock horns with rodeo bullfighters and life can end suddenly and brutally. A renegade couple living off the grid near the border might offer a chance of escape but can Angel reach them in time...?
]]>QUARRY'S BACK FOR HIS TOUGHEST JOB EVER.
The ruthless professional killer known as Quarry long ago disappeared into a well-earned retirement. But now a media magnate has lured the restless hitman into tackling one last lucrative assignment. The target is an unlikely one: Why, Quarry wonders, would anyone want a beautiful young librarian dead?
And why in hell does he care?
On the 30th anniversary of the enigmatic assassin's first appearance, bestselling author Max Allan Collins brings him back for a dark and deadly mission where the last quarry may turn out to be Quarry himself.
]]>First published in 1886, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is Robert Louis Stevenson's classic tale of the duality of human nature and his iconic presentation of what would come to be referred to as the 'split personality'.
]]>This Side of Paradisetells the story of Amory Blaine, the only child of wealthy parents, whose journey from adolescence to adulthood follows him from prep school through to Princeton University, where his literary talents flourish, in contrast to his academic failure. A sequence of love affairs with beautiful young women is fatally damaged by the collapse of his family's fortune, and the novel ends with him poised to face the challenge of making his own way in the world.
]]>Emma Lou Morgan's dark complexion is a source of sorrow and humiliation not only to herself, but also to her lighter-skinned family members and the white community of her hometown, Boise, Idaho. Hoping to find a safe haven, Emma travels to New York's Harlem, the Black Mecca of the 1920s. Wallace Thurman brings to life this legendary time and place in rich detail, describing Emma's visits to nightclubs, dance halls, and house-rent parties, her sex life and catastrophic love affairs, her dreams and her disillusions and the momentous decision she makes to survive.
A lost classic of Black American literature, The Blacker the Berry is a compelling portrait of the destructive depth of intra-racial bias in the Black community.
]]>The legendary adventures of King Arthur, his Knights of the Table Round, and the court of Camelot come to life in a lively and accessible retelling by Howard Pyle.
When the young Arthur pulls the embedded sword from the stone, his future as the King of England is foretold. This imaginative retelling of the classic legends recounts the story of Arthur's formation of the Knights of the Round Table, his securing of the enchanted sword Excalibur, his wooing of the Lady Guinevere, and many other beloved Arthurian tales.
]]>This title collects Poe's fiction and poetry, including 'The Fall of the House of Usher', 'The Tell-Tale Heart', 'The Pit and the Pendulum', 'The Raven', 'Annabel Lee', and the novel 'The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket'.
]]>One apartment, three women, one man. One of the women is dead. When the emergency personnel arrive, they realise: Elisabeth starved to death, encouraged by her roommates.
In the middle of a summer night, Elisabeth, the oldest resident of the Sound & Love Commune, dies. Her sister Melodie and their two other housemates are arrested: the group's attempts to stop eating and start living on light and love alone appears to have been fatal to Elisabeth. From unworldly idealists on the fringes of society, the three suddenly become suspects in a criminal case. Through the eyes of the night, the neighbors, doubt, the scent of an orange, and many other characters and entities, we see how each of those involved gives a different answer to the question of how Elisabeth came to die. Who is to blame? And does the commune still have a future? We Are Light is a highly original and entertaining novel about manipulation, vulnerability, and trying to be better.
]]>Michele Hutchison studied at UEA, Cambridge, and Lyon universities and worked in publishing for a number of years. In 2004, she moved to Amsterdam. Among the many works she has translated are La Superba by Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer, Slaves to Fortune by Tom Lanoye, both Craving and Roxy by Esther Gerritsen, and Stadium IV by Sander Kollaard, for which she received the Vondel Translation Prize 2020. In the same year, her translation of Marieke Lucas Rijneveld's novel The Discomfort of Evening was awarded the International Booker Prize. She also co-authored the successful parenting book, The Happiest Kids in the World.
]]>When Alex Easton travels to Gallacia as a favour to their friend, the excellent Miss Potter, they find their home empty, the caretaker dead, and the grounds blanketed by an uncanny silence. The locals won't talk about what happened to the caretaker. None of them will set foot on the grounds.
Whispers of an unearthly breath-stealing creature from Gallacian folklore don't trouble practical Easton. But as strange visions disturb their sleep and odd happenings increase, they are forced to confront the dark shadow that hangs over the house...
]]>Cordelia knows her mother is unusual. Their house doesn't have any doors between rooms there are no secrets in this house! Cordelia isn't allowed to have a single friend. Unless you count Falada, her mother's beautiful white horse. The only time Cordelia feels truly free is on her daily rides with him. But more than a few quirks set her mother apart. Other parents can't force their daughters to be silent and motionless obedient for hours or days on end. Other mothers aren't...sorcerers.
After a suspicious death in their small town, Cordelia's mother insists they leave in the middle of the night, riding away together on Falada's back, leaving behind all Cordelia has ever known. They arrive at the remote country manor of a wealthy older man, the Squire, and his unwed sister, Hester. Cordelia's mother intends to lure the Squire into marriage. Cordelia knows this can only be bad news for the bumbling gentleman and his kind, intelligent sister. And indeed Hester sees the way Cordelia shrinks away from her mother. How the young girl sits eerily still at dinner every night. Hester knows that to save her brother from bewitchment and to rescue the terrified Cordelia, she will have to face down a wicked witch of the worst kind.
]]>A ground-breaking, mind-bending and wildly imaginative epic verse revolution in Science Fiction. A saga of colony ships, shattering moons and cataclysmic war in a new Eden. Truly unforgettable and richly lyrical eco-fiction, for fans of Kim Stanley Robinson, Adrian Tchaikovsky, and Jeff VanderMeer.
Rochelle wakes from cryostasis to take up her role as engineer on the colony ark, Calypso. But she finds the ship has transformed into a forest, populated by the original crew's descendants, who revere her like a saint. She travels the ship with the Calypso's creator, the enigmatic Sigmund, and Catherine, a bioengineered marvel who can commune with the plants, uncovering a new history of humanity forged while she slept. She discovers a legacy of war between botanists and engineers. A war fought for the right to build a new Earth - a technological paradise, or a new Eden in bloom, untouched by mankind's past. And Rochelle, the last to wake, holds the balance of power in her hands.
]]>At the northern edge of a valley ruled by a ruthless foreign tyrant lies a wild forest, home to otherworldly creatures and dangerous magic. The local people know never to enter for no one who strays into the north woods is ever seen again. No one, that is, except Veris Thorn.
When the children of the Tyrant vanish into the wood, Veris is summoned to rescue them. She has only one day before the creatures of the forest claim the children for their own. If she fails, her punishment will be swift and merciless.
To stand a chance of surviving the wood, Veris must evade traps and trickery, ancient monsters and false friends, and the haunting memory of her last journey into the forest.
Time is running short. One misstep will cost everything.
'A perfect mix of horror and fantasy.' The New York Times
]]>The best science fiction scrutinises our culture and politics, examines the limits of the human condition, and zooms across galaxies at faster-than-light speeds, moving from the very near future to the far-flung worlds of tomorrow in the space of a single sentence. Clarke, publisher and editor-in-chief of the acclaimed and award-winning magazine Clarkesworld, has selected the short science fiction (and only science fiction) best representing the previous year's writing, showcasing the talent, variety, and awesome 'sensawunda' that the genre has to offer.
]]>In 'Zen and the Art of Starship Maintenance', a cloud-based contractor finds a human war criminal clinging to the hull of the ship. The clones of 'All the Colours You Thought Were Kings', about to attend their coming-of-age ceremony, are also plotting treason. During 'A Temporary Embarrassment in Spacetime', two outlaws go on the run after stealing a device from a space cult.
Take a faster-than-light trip to the future. Discover where memes rise and fall in moments. Here are the new, adventurous, and extremely efficient takes on interstellar battles, sentient spaceships, and galactic intrigue. The future is sooner than you think, and there's only so much time to visit.
]]>The collection offers a glimpse into a chilling future world that is similar to our own. Readers will be drawn into experiences at once familiar and bizarre, where our choices have far-reaching consequences and the environment is a force to be reckoned with.
The title of the collection tethers these stories to a shared space. The calvaria is the top part of the skull, comprising five plates that fuse together in the first few years of life. Story collections work like this; disparate parts melding together to make a robust and sturdy whole. The calvaria tree, also known as the dodo tree, adapted to being eaten by the now-extinct dodo bird; its seeds need to pass through the bird' s digestive tract in order to germinate. In a similar way, the stories in Calvaria Fell reflect the idea of adaptation and the consequences of our actions in a changing world.
]]>Shirley Jackson award-winner Kaaron Warren has published five multi-award winning novels (Slights, Walking the Tree, Mistification, The Grief Hole and Tide of Stone) and seven short story collections, including the multi-award winning Through Splintered Walls. Her most recent short story collection is A Primer to Kaaron Warren from Dark Moon Books. Her most recent novella, Into Bones Like Oil (Meerkat Press), was shortlisted for a Shirley Jackson Award and the Bram Stoker Award, winning the Aurealis Award. Her stories have appeared in multiple Year's Best anthologies.
]]>A thrilling, propulsive story of escape as a small-time crook goes on the run across Australia with a stolen secret that will change the world, perfect for fans of William Gibson's All Tomorrow's Parties, Richard Morgan and Ghost in the Shell.
Jackson Nguyen is a petty crook living slim on the mean streets of Melbourne. When he crosses paths with a desperate, but wealthy, Chinese dissident, begging for his help, Jack responds in the only natural way: he steals her shoes.
And yet, despite every effort to mind his own damn business, a wild spiral into the worst kind of trouble begins - Murder, mayhem, fast cars, fast-talking, bent cops, and long straight highways into the terrible beauty of the vast Australian Outback.
In Jack's world, taking a stand against the ruling class is the shortest path to a shallow grave. But when an Earth-shattering technology falls into his hands, he must do everything he can to stop the wrong people taking it. In a world of pervasive government surveillance and oppressive corporate control, it's up to a small-time criminal to keep the spark of human rebellion alive.
]]>Ellie Briar is the first non-witch to be born into her family for generations. The Briar family of witches run the town of Silverton, caring for its inhabitants with their skills and magic. In the usual scheme of things, they would be burnt for their sorcery, but the church has given them dispensation in return for their protection of the borders of the Darklands, where the much-feared Leech Lords hold sway.
Ellie is being trained as a steward, administering for the town, and warding off the insistent interest of the church. When her grandmother dies suddenly, Ellie's cousin Audra rises to the position of Briar Witch, propelling Ellie into her new role. As she navigates fresh challenges, an unexpected new ability to see and speak to the dead leads her to uncover sinister family secrets, stories of burnings, lost grimoires and evil spells. Reeling from one revelation to the next, she seeks answers from the long dead and is forced to decide who to trust, as a devastating plot threatens to destroy everything the Briar witches have sacrificed so much to build.
Told in the award-winning author's trademark gorgeous, addictive prose, this is an intricately woven tale of a family of witches struggling against the bonds of past sins and persecution.
]]>In a Japan transformed by drugs, accompany the 'D-Unit' as they battle addicts with destructive powers. Like the 'Dopemen', readers are addicted and unable to put the novel down.
Dangers lurk at every turn in Dopeman Volume 1. Ryo Yoshigami eradicates the metropolitan Japan that we know, as it has now become a warzone for the authorities and a new enemy.
The legalisation of narcotics unleashed a wave of supernatural powers among drug addicts. To battle the new enemies, the 'D-Unit' is formed comprising of detectives, who alongside the reader, are plunged into a superhuman doping conflict.
The gripping story unfolds in a dark dystopia reminiscent of the hit anime Psycho-Pass, which Yoshigami also had a hand in creating as a screenwriter of the third season and author of the franchise's short novels. Now, fans have the chance to delve even deeper into his immersive worlds, exploring moral dilemmas and complex characters.
Readers will quickly find themselves captivated by the conflict they are immediately thrown into, but perhaps also be morally torn. While it may be 'right' to side with the 'D-Unit', who are attempting to restore law and order, the powerful and cunning 'Dopemen' have a swagger about them as they wreak havoc across Japan.
While narcotics have bestowed fascinating and destructive powers, it will be adrenaline coursing through the reader's veins as they are consumed by the mayhem wrought in 'Dopeman'. Against the backdrop of a Japan corrupted by drugs, the stage is set for epic confrontations and devastating battles.
]]>The acclaimed anime that is Working for God in a Godless World, on Crunchyroll, begins when Yukito goes missing after the cult they grew up in enacts some strange ritual. Little do they know; it is that same ritual and their same God that sends him to another world. But who thought that the older sister he left behind would follow him into this new world? This spin-off of the anime marks the beginning of her adventure that intertwines with her brother's battle. Chiyomaru Urabe has cheat-level super strength, taken from the powers of the God Mitama. She hopes that these powers will be enough to find her missing brother in a world without religion. As she explores the intriguing, yet faithless, land created by Shinya Murata, will super strength be enough to uncover the heavy truth and reach her long-lost brother?
]]>As the fog clears and colossal creatures stand as tall as mountains, be one of the bystanders in their shadows by opening Nykken's explosive manga. Toxic Super Beasts Volume 1 thrusts readers into a reality not too different from ours, until terrifying monsters begin to appear one-by-one.
Chaos ensues from the very first page, as Nykken brings the 'Super Beasts', and the devastation they cause, to life, as the amazing artwork moves the audience from the safety of their own home and into the midst of the mayhem.
While the monsters are so appalling and powerful, that they resemble nothing from reality, their mission to take over a modern world like our own adds a layer of realism that causes unease and resonates with readers. You will find yourself cheering on the military and their impressive monster-fighting tactics and divisions, as they attempt to preserve human life.
Though Nykken remains an enigmatic figure, their action-packed mangas such as Gakuen x Fuusa speak volumes. With dynamic visuals and a thrilling narrative, be immersed in a world of danger from page one.
The trilogy's first installment introduces the unimaginable instantly, a fierce five-headed dragon appears once the fog descends, setting the stage for an epic battle between humanity and the 'Super Beasts'. Toxic Super pushes the boundaries of Kaiju manga while taking readers on a journey of monstrous proportions.
]]>The adventure of a lifetime awaits as the unlikely pair traverse a world of goblins and monsters all for the sake of humanity! The quest to find the dregs of humanity continues in the second volume with Somali and The Golem entering the daring witches' labyrinth!
Somali and The Golem continue to explore the witch's workshop to learn more about the different types of magic in the world they inhabit. But deep in the labyrinth lies a tome that foretells of a time when humans ruled the world, when humans had been the apex, and where the remaining humans may be. The search for sanctuary begins here!
Written and illustrated by the superb Yako Gureishi, Somali and the Forest Spirit's second volume continues the heart-warming story of the Golem that leaves its responsibility behind to protect the life of what could be, the last human child.
Uncover the vibrant world in which goblins, oni and monsters are the norm and humans are ostracised to the brink of extinction, but one forest spirit risks everything to protect what is dearest to him.
]]>Jo must overcome the demons of her past so that the girls with guns can team up with more girls with guns. For fans of the anime and action-packed Shonen manga.
The chaos continues in this prequel to the hit anime on Crunchyroll, as ferocious fights are even more devastating and dangerous.
The Burst Angels are still far from becoming Tokyo's top mercenaries, now they're being hunted by a dangerous cyborg...Perfect for fans of the anime, girls-with-guns, and Shonen manga.
]]>After Princess Stella discovers Remy's amazing powers, the humble tea witch suddenly finds herself acting as a bodyguard to royalty! But with deadly assassins around every corner, how can Remy protect the naive Princess from falling prey to the machinations of the court? Even more troublesome is the blossoming feelings developing between them...but how can a lowly tea witch and a princess ever be in love?!
]]>The battles Kuuga has faced have always been simple: stop the Unknown Life Forms from continuing their murderous game. But now one Gurongi rejects their Gegeru, coming to fight alongside Kuuga instead. Can Godai trust this new ally, or will their beastly nature reveal itself? Meanwhile, Yukina surrenders the powers of Agito to her brother...but with another deadly Gegeru underway, can Shoichi Tsugami control the berseker rage of the legendary Kamen Rider?
]]>Shotaro Ishinomori was a Japanese manga artist who was an influential figure in manga, anime, and tokusatsu, creating several immensely popular long-running series. He won the prestigious Shogakukan Manga Award twice, in 1968 for Sabu to Ichi Torimono Hikae and in 1988 for Hotel and Manga Nihon Keizai Nyumon. He passed away in 1998.
]]>Spinning out of Titan and Heroic Signatures' critically-acclaimed Conan the Barbarian comic series, this epic multi-verse event features the iconic titular hero, Dark Agnes, Solomon Kane, and a host of Howard favourites. Fans will not want to miss this!
CONAN OF CIMMERIA is haunted by shadows, living nightmares connected to a mysterious eye symbol etched in BLACK STONE. The unspeakable evil foretold by THULSA DOOM looms over the Hyborian Age and every age connected to it...and it will take more than a lone barbarian to stop its relentless march upon time, space, and sanity.
Battle of the Black Stone, an epic new CONAN EVENT from Heroic Signatures and Titan Comics, begins HERE, from Jim Zub (Conan the Barbarian, Dungeons & Dragons) and artist Jonas Scharf (Dark X-Men, Basilisk)!
Collects Conan the Barbarian: Battle for the Black Stone #1-4
]]>Jim Zub is a writer, artist and art instructor based in Toronto, Canada. Over the past seventeen years he's worked for a diverse array of publishing, movie and video game clients including Marvel, DC Comics, Disney, Capcom, Hasbro, Cartoon Network, and Bandai-Namco. He juggles his time between being a freelance comic writer and Program Coordinator for Seneca College's award-winning Animation program. His current comic projects include Avengers: No Road Home, a weekly epic event for Marvel's Mightiest Heroes, Champions, Marvel's team of teen superheroes fighting for the future, Dungeons & Dragons, the official comic series of the world's most popular tabletop role-playing game, and Wayward, a modern supernatural story about teens fighting Japanese mythological monsters. You can find him online at www.jimzub.com and on twitter at @jimzub
]]>Roy Thomas' decade-long original run on Conan the Barbarian ranks as one of the greatest in comic book history, and it was crucial in making Conan an icon known the world over! In this action-packed Omnibus, Roy and artistic collaborator John Buscema bring the saga of Belit and her quest for the crown of Asgulun to a conclusion. It's a tale that will forever change Conan's life and the adventures that follow feature a more savage Conan, fiercer than ever and truly unbound! Plus: Thrilling sequels to The Hour of the Dragon, an offbeat What If? tale that places Conan in the middle of modern-day New York City and a massive trove of original art, essays and behind-the-scenes material!
]]>Conan returns for another massive Omnibus collection! The barbarian wields his savage sword against a massive winged monster that guards a tower holding a weather-controlling gem then finds himself surrounded by an army of Picts with their own witch-doctor protector! In The Treasure of Tranicos, Conan matches wits with a band of pirates who'd rather kill each other than share any of the loot all while the wicked Thoth-Amon stalks them from the shadows. And the four-part epic Conan the Liberator sees Conan realise his destiny as he raises an army to overthrow the mad king Numedides! Featuring the stories by Roy Thomas with stunning art by John Buscema, Gil Kane and more!
]]>These are our words.
From our country.
Our lands. Our spirits.
For all the troubles we face every day, we are a passionate people.
When we hear these poems, we know, we are lovers of life.
After selling out its first three print runs and having poems selected for Best of Australian Poems 2021 by Australian Poetry, a second edition of this beautiful anthology was needed! It is being released on the new imprint of Running Water Community Press (formerly Ptilotus Press) from Mparntwe Alice Springs and features poems written by over twenty Arrernte women around the refreshing Arrernte concept of Lyapirtneme.
This second edition includes an additional poem by local heroines, Margaret Kemarre Turner (Arrernte Elder and author) and Maureen Jipiyiliya Nampijinpa O'Keefe (Warlpiri/Kaytetye author), as well as a reinvigorated design by award winning book designer, Gemma Banks. It is an important contribution to the growing body of First Nations literature, particularly from remote Australia.
'Even amongst the extraordinary body of one hundred poems that constitute the first volume of a new annual 'best of' series, Best of Australian Poems, the two poems by Arrente poets, Theresa Penangke Alice and Shirley Kngwarraye Turner, shimmer. Two completely different poems, 'Metal bird' and 'Family are like rocks', but both emanating a profound generosity of knowledge and voice. We are gratefully richer for such 'Women's Talk' gifts, but for myself, as a reader, I actually feel life-changed.' - Jacinta Le Plastrier, CEO Australian Poetry
'Lyapirtneme is an Arrernte word that means growing back, returning. It's like if a bushfire went through the land, and all the trees burnt down, and the roots underground are still alive. When the rain comes you see little shoots growing out of the bottom of the tree, growing back again.' - Therese Perrurle Ryder, Arrernte Elder
'I love this book. It holds so much value. Each poem is a gift and it has been put together with so much care.' Ellen van Neerven, Mununjali poet
]]>Edited by Alison Whitaker, Gomeroi poet and academic, and Steven Lindsay Ross, Wamba Wamba writer, curator and producer.
'It is freeing and glorious to see these expressions of unbridled sexuality, vulnerability and invincible spirit in print from First Nations poets... As you read, you will be struck by the boldness of the writers' audacious self-love, and the deep reverence and restorative love contained within the work for themselves and each other.' - Arlie Alizzi
POETS INCLUDE: Ellen van Neerven, Natalie Harkin, Jazz Money, Gary Lee, John Mukky Burke, Steven Oliver, Yvette Henry Holt, Alison Whittaker, Steven Lindsay Ross, Luke Patterson, Lay Maloney, Tyberius Larking, Jacyn de Santis, Alita Morgan, Kirli Saunders, David Hardy, Sandy O'Sullivan, Elijah Manis, Latoya Aroha Rule, Bebe Backhouse, Colin Kinchela, Nekia Lehman, Domenic Guerrera, Ari Mills, Ellen O'Brien, Vika Mana, Samuel Barsah, Gavin Ivey, Ella Noah Bancroft, Keith Quayle, Laniyuk and Andrew Farrell.
]]>Steven Lindsay Ross is a Wamba Wamba writer, curator and producer.
]]>Sometimes wistful, melancholic, poignant, at times the author's wry sense of fun and humour shines through.
When he arrived in Sydney in the 1960s, Bigambul man, Uncle Wes, was not allowed to tell his stories at schools. He set up a fire bucket in his backyard and invited families and children from the local Aboriginal community to come to sit around the fire and share his stories. It did not take long for the police to arrive and arrest him for hosting an unlawful gathering he spent two days in lock-up for sharing his stories.
Uncle Wes is a living treasure of Aboriginal storytelling wisdom. Through his poems Uncle Wes invites the reader to join him by the fire as he generously shares his reflections and reminiscences on one hundred years.
'It is my pleasure to honour Uncle Wes for his work in retaining the age-old storytelling tradition of our people. It is important to maintain this tradition of our Elders sharing their knowledge and insight through story and verse. Thank you Uncle Wes, for sharing your poems with us as you celebrate your 100th year.' - Dr Anne Pattel-Gray: Head of the Australia First Nations Program, World Vision Australia
'Uncle Wes Marne has a unique ability to allow the reader to see through his experienced eyes. The power and wisdom of his words is now more than ever important for the future generations to understand the time and place they exist in.' - Ben Bowen: CEO, Indigenous Literacy Foundation
]]>**Winner, Stella Prize 2024**
**Winner, Queensland Literary Awards, Fiction Book Award**
**Winner, The James Tait Black Prize, Fiction 2024**
**Winner, ALS Gold Medal 2024**
**Shortlisted, The Dublin Literary Award 2024**
**Shortlisted, Queensland Literary Awards 2023, Work of State Significance**
**Shortlisted, Margaret and Colin Roderick Literary Award 2024**
The new novel from the internationally acclaimed, award-winning Australian author Alexis Wright.
Praiseworthy is an epic set in the north of Australia, told with the richness of language and scale of imagery for which Alexis Wright has become renowned. In a small town dominated by a haze cloud, which heralds both an ecological catastrophe and a gathering of the ancestors, a crazed visionary seeks out donkeys as the solution to the global climate crisis and the economic dependency of the Aboriginal people. His wife seeks solace from his madness in following the dance of butterflies and scouring the internet to find out how she can seek repatriation for her Aboriginal/Chinese family to China. One of their sons, called Aboriginal Sovereignty, is determined to commit suicide. The other, Tommyhawk, wishes his brother dead so that he can pursue his dream of becoming white and powerful. This is a novel which pushes allegory and language to its limits, a cry of outrage against oppression and disadvantage, and a fable for the end of days.
'Monumental...calls to mind the work of Thomas Bernhard or the quiet rage of Dostoyevsky...Praiseworthyblew me away.' Australian Book Review
Praise for Alexis Wright:
'The writing is the best in the country, some of the best in the world; we call to mind Alexis Wright when they talk about our country's great literary voice.' - Tara June Winch
'I'm awed by the range, experiment and political intelligence of [Alexis Wright's] work, from fiction such as Carpentaria and The Swan Book, to her "collective memoir" of an Aboriginal elder in Tracker. As essayist, activist, novelist and oral historian she is vital on the subject of land and people.' - Robert Macfarlane, New York Times Book Review
]]>Accompanies the April release of Praiseworthy, Wright's first work of fiction since 2014.
Carpentaria is an epic of the Gulf country of north-western Queensland. Its portrait of life in the precariously settled coastal town of Desperance centres on the powerful Phantom family, leader of the Westend Pricklebush people, and its battles with old Joseph Midnight's renegade Eastend mob 2007 on the one hand, and the white officials of Uptown and the neighbouring Gurfurrit mine on the other. Wright's storytelling is operatic and surreal: a blend of myth and scripture, politics and farce.
Carpentaria was the 2007 winner of the Miles Franklin Literary Award, ALS Gold Medal, Queensland Premier's Literary Award and Victorian Premier's Literary Award. It has been published in the US, UK, France, Italy and China.
'a swelling, heaving tsunami of a novel: stinging, sinuous, salted with outrageous humour, sweetened by spiralling lyricism and swaggering with the confident promise of a tale dominated by risk, roguery and revelation.' - The Australian
'Wright breaks all the rules of grammar and syntax to sweep us along on a great torrent of language that thrills and amazes with its inventiveness and humour and with the sheer power of its storytelling. It's brutal and confronting and it's sad and funny at the same time.' - Sydney Morning Herald
]]>Accompanies the April release of Praiseworthy, Wright's first work of fiction since 2014.
The Swan Book is set in the future, with Aboriginal people still living under the Intervention in the north, in an environment fundamentally altered by climate change. It follows the life of a mute young woman called Oblivia, the victim of gang rape by petrol-sniffing youths, from the displaced community where she lives in a hulk, in a swamp filled with rusting boats, and thousands of black swans, to her marriage to Warren Finch, the first Aboriginal president of Australia, and her elevation to the position of First Lady, confined to a tower in a flooded and lawless southern city. The Swan Book offers an intimate awareness of the realities facing Aboriginal people; the energy and humour in her writing, which draws freely on myth and legend, finds hope in the bleakest situations.
The Swan Book was the winner of the ALS Gold Medal and the Kate Challis RAKA Award, and shortlisted for Miles Franklin Literary Award, Stella Prize, NSW Premier's and Victorian Premier's Literary Awards.
'This is not myth as Western culture understands it: not an imagined dimension, but a literal if incorporeal one that bisects and animates the physical world; it makes for marvellous theatre.' - Elizabeth Lowry, London Review of Books
'This is a novel written out of the very thing it describes: sovereignty, the sheer taken-for-granted fact of it...The Swan Book is about the ethics of hope in our post-apocalyptic world.' - Sydney Morning Herald
]]>**Shortlisted, NSW Premier's Literary Awards 2023, Indigenous Writers' Prize**
**Shortlisted, Prime Minster's Literary Awards, Poetry 2023**
Harvest Lingo is the fourteenth collection of poems by Lionel Fogarty, a Murri man with traditional connections to the Yugambeh people from south of Brisbane and the Kudjela people of north Queensland. He is a leading Indigenous rights activist, and one of Australia's foremost poets, and this collection displays all of the urgency, energy and linguistic audacity for which Fogarty is known.
At the centre of the collection is a series of poems written in India. Deeply empathetic, these poems are remarkable for the connections they draw between the social problems the poet encounters in this country - poverty, class division, corruption - and those he sees in contemporary Australia, besetting his own people.
Other poems tell of encounters between people and between cultures, address historical and cultural issues and political events, and pay tribute to important Indigenous figures. There are intensely felt lyrics of personal experience, and poems which contemplate Fogarty's own position as a poet and an activist, speaking with and for his community.
Fogarty's poems are bold and fierce, at times challenging and confronting, moved by strong rhythms and a remarkable freedom with language. They are an expression of the 'harvest lingo' which gives the collection its title.
]]>The strength of family ties in Aboriginal communities is clearly evident when three-month-old Kerry and her brother lost both parents. Her father, Kevin Gilbert - later to become a famous activist and artist - killed their mother and was jailed for many years. Her father's sister, whom she always called 'Mummy', raised Kerry and her brother, along with her own children and others within the extended family. The book is a tribute to this truly remarkable woman, who not only loved them selflessly and worked tirelessly to support them, but also managed to keep them from being taken/'stolen' by the 'Welfare'.
Told in the child's voice and in the vernacular of her Mob, activist, artist, poet and author, Aunty Kerry, tells her story of love and loss, of dispossession and repeated dislocation growing up in corrugated tin huts, tents and run-down train carriages, of helping her family earn 'an honest living' through fruit picking, and the impact of life as an Aboriginal state ward living under the terror of Protection Laws.
'A wonderful yarn by an Aboriginal Elder about a bygone way of life.' - Melissa Lucashenko, author of Miles Franklin Award-winning Too Much Lip
'Australia has waited too long to read this book of courage and truth. It heralds a timely change in our thinking of Aboriginal activism.' - Jeanine Leane, Wiradjuri writer and academic
'Thank you, Kerry, for sharing your story - so much pain and hurt, but such life-affirming strength and love, too.' - Kate Grenville, author
]]>'The poetry and prose awaiting your creative cultural engagement, all sixty-five poems in content equates to some sixty-five thousand years and beyond of what it means to be here in the now, as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women representing their families, communities, heritage, their shadows, their promise, their matriarch, themselves - it is within these pages you shall find what it means for all of us to be alive and thriving through chapters of millennia as spoken and written by Us Mob Writing.' - Yvette Holt
'Powerful and palpable, Kuracca honours the work of a cultural powerhouse and matriarch in style. The book showcases the strengths and fresh and exciting writing of a tightly bonded group. This is healing.' - Ellen van Neerven
'Through the liberating words written on these pages, women are sharing their own stories and truth. Such inspiration is the legacy of Aunty Kerry Reed-Gilbert RIP.' - Ali Cobby Eckermann
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