It’s what you don’t know that kills you. Shara Desai left India to escape a dark past. Unfortunately, it has followed her to Florida in the form of murderous brother-in-law Vihan, who will stop at nothing to destroy her family and control a source of power they are unwilling to use. Her one hope lies in the man she once rejected. Disgraced analyst Crystal Dumont gets her break when an Indian billionaire hires her to scrutinise a competitor’s shady operations. The investigation shatters her logical world and leads her to unravel a mystery that has kept Asia’s elites in power for centuries. Now, Vihan plans to use the same illicit power to build a criminal empire in the States. To stop him, unlikely allies will have to escape hitmen, outwit an intelligence agency, and outrun time itself. The key to accomplishing all this is Jeremy Spade, a consummate adventurer who has every reason not to trust the system. Brimming with action, intrigue and romance, Fortune’s Favor is the first joint effort by internationally bestselling, inter-cultural, inter-generational author duo Thomas Locke and Jyoti Guptara.

The end always comes at a price. . . To save his cousin Claire, Nyx Fortuna was forced to release the goddess Hecate. Free and bent on destroying the world, Hecate will kill anyone that gets in her way. . . starting with every member of the Wyrd family. Now, Nyx and company must join forces with the Fates and fight to return Hecate to her underworld prison. Magical and mortals alike must take sides to survive, but no war is without its casualties. . .

The award winning author's fourth book of poetry finds her meditating on the heroic journey of famed polar explorer Robert Falcon Scott (1868-1912). The poems are adapted from Scott's journals of the doomed Terra Nova expedition of 1910-13. Through "disciplined, beautifully descriptive verse" [Linda Pastan], Roberts creates an "epic that chronicles an expedition to the South Pole" [Francisco Aragon] which "has seldom been told with such formal control, flashes of color, and suspense." [Reginald Harris]"

An accessible, in-depth exploration of the runes as a living spiritual tradition. Diana Paxson has distilled her many years of experience working with the runes into this essential source book. Readers will learn the historical meaning of each individual rune and its use and meaning now, in contemporary culture. But, Paxson reveals, the real power of the runes comes from internalizing them and using their symbols as sources of wisdom and power. At the end of each chapter are rituals and spells for all levels of ability that aim to help internalize the attributions, meanings, symbolism, and use of the runes. Everything regarding runes is covered in this definitive workbook, from the history of runes and how to make your own rune sets, to how to work with them on a psychic, spiritual, and magical level.

A wildly charming and fast-paced mystery written with all the panache of the hardboiled classics, Fortune Favors the Dead introduces Pentecost and Parker, an audacious new detective duo for the ages. “Razor-sharp style, tons of flair, a snappy sense of humor, and all the most satisfying elements of a really good noir novel, plus plenty of original twists of its own.”—Tana French, bestselling author of The Searcher It's 1942 and Willowjean "Will" Parker is a scrappy circus runaway whose knife-throwing skills have just saved the life of New York's best, and most unorthodox, private investigator, Lillian Pentecost. When the dapper detective summons Will a few days later, she doesn't expect to be offered a life-changing proposition: Lillian's multiple sclerosis means she can't keep up with her old case load alone, so she wants to hire Will to be her right-hand woman. In return, Will is to receive a salary, room and board, and training in Lillian's very particular art of investigation. Three years later, Will and Lillian are on the Collins case: Abigail Collins was found bludgeoned to death with a crystal ball following a big, boozy Halloween party at her home—her body slumped in the same chair where her steel magnate husband shot himself the year before. With rumors flying that Abigail was bumped off by the vengeful spirit of her husband (who else could have gotten inside the locked room?), the family has tasked the detectives with finding answers where the police have failed. But that's easier said than done in a case that involves messages from the dead, a seductive spiritualist, and Becca Collins—the beautiful daughter of the deceased, who Will quickly starts falling for. When Will and Becca's relationship dances beyond the professional, Will finds herself in dangerous territory, and discovers she may have become the murderer's next target.

All my life, I’ve dreamed of the sea. Mermaids, stormy skies, daring adventures, pirates…it was little wonder I sprinted to the docks the moment I left the orphanage. Eager to begin my new life, I searched for a ship that would have me—and found a thief instead. I chased the bastard. Now I’m trapped. I’m told this place is Neverland, but everything I touch is dead or dying; what’s left is hellbent on killing each other. Monsters lurk around every corner, and everyone I meet hides a damning secret. I’m thrust in the middle of a deadly feud, and the only one capable of unraveling the curse that plagues us. Neverland is my home now. Until it’s done with me? It will never let go. Peter Pan meets Pirates of the Caribbean in A Land of Never After, but reader beware: this children’s tale has been reimagined for adult lovers of all things dark and deadly, with an LGBTQ+ positive twist. Content warnings include language, violence, and mentions of gender dysphoria and suicide.

Since Aristotle's famous declaration that the speculative sciences originated with the emergence of a leisure class, it has been accepted as a truism that intellectual activity requires political stability and leisure in order to flourish. Paradoxically, however, some of the most powerful and influential contributions to Western intellectual culture have been produced in conditions that were adverse-indeed hostile-to intellectual activity. Examples include Socrates' stirring defense of the examined life before a hostile Athenian jury, Boethius writing The Consolation of Philosophy under the specter of impending torture and execution, Galileo devising key notions for modern mechanics while under house arrest, and Jean-Paul Sartre drafting portions of Being and Nothingness in his war diaries, to name only a few of the most famous incidents-all extraordinary achievements spawned, developed or completed in adversity. In cases such as these, a philosopher or scientist must manage somehow to remain intellectually creative and focused despite living in conditions that are adverse or hostile to thought. In brief, they are working on ideas under fire. This book is a survey of several momentous cases of philosophers and scientists working under fire. Each chapter of Ideas Under Fire explores a particular case or set of related cases. For each case contributors consider two questions: How did the individual at the center of a particular moment of discovery overcome such formidable obstacles to leisure and conceptually abstract thought? And how did adversity shape their thinking under fire? Each chapter has been written by a specialist on its respective subject, and the book covers every period of Western history. All the chapters are written in an accessible style that is intended to appeal to both specialists and generalists.

In this elegantly written study, Nancy Mason Bradbury situates Chaucer’s last and most ambitious work in the context of a zeal for proverbs that was still rising in his day. Rival Wisdoms demonstrates that for Chaucer’s contemporaries, these tiny embedded microgenres could be potent, disruptive, and sometimes even incendiary. In order to understand Chaucer’s use of proverbs and their reception by premodern readers, we must set aside post-Romantic prejudices against such sayings as prosaic and unoriginal. The premodern focus on proverbs conditioned the literary culture that produced the Canterbury Tales and helped shape its audience’s reading practices. Aided by Thomas Speght’s notations in his 1602 edition, Bradbury shows that Chaucer acknowledges the power of the proverb, reflecting on its capacity for harm as well as for good and on its potential to expand and deepen—but also to regulate and constrict—the meanings of stories. Far from banishing proverbs as incompatible with the highest reaches of poetry, Chaucer places them at the center of the liberating interpretive possibilities the Canterbury Tales extends to its readers. Revelatory and persuasive, this book will appeal to scholars and students of medieval and early modern English literature as well as those interested in proverbs and the Canterbury Tales.

Middle English is a student guide to the most influential critical writing on Middle English literature. A student guide to the most influential critical writing on Middle English literature. Brings together extracts from some of the major authorities in the field. Introduces readers to different critical approaches to key Middle English texts. Treats a wide range of Middle English texts, including The Owl and the Nightingale, The Canterbury Tales and Morte d’Arthur. Organized around key critical concerns, such as authorship, genre, and textual form. Each critical concern can be used as the basis for one week’s work in a semester-long course. Enables readers to forge new connections between different approaches.