The night was dark and stormy as a group of friends gathered around a crackling fire in the middle of the woods. Jenna, a self-proclaimed horror enthusiast, had convinced her friends to embark on a camping trip to the remote location in search of a mysterious chest rumored to have been conjured by a powerful witch centuries ago. The flames danced erratically, casting elongated shadows that seemed to writhe with a life of their own against the dense foliage surrounding their campsite. The air was thick with the scent of pine and petrichor, punctuated by the occasional crack of thunder that made even the bravest among them flinch. Jenna's eyes gleamed with an almost feverish excitement as she gazed into the fire. Her long, dark hair whipped about her face in the wind, giving her an almost wild appearance. Beside her, her childhood friend Mark shifted uncomfortably, his usually easygoing demeanor replaced by a palpable tension. "I still can't believe you talked us into this, Jen," he muttered, pulling his jacket tighter around his broad shoulders. "This place gives me the creeps." On the other side of the fire, Karen and Tom huddled close together, their fingers intertwined. Karen's pale face was a mask of anxiety, her free hand clutching a worn leather-bound book to her chest – a tome of local legends she'd borrowed from the town library before their trip. "Maybe this wasn't such a good idea," Karen ventured, her voice barely audible over the howling wind. "The stories in this book... they're not just campfire tales, Jenna. People have gone missing in these woods." Jenna's laugh cut through the night, sharp and dismissive. "That's what makes it exciting, Karen! Besides, we're all adults here. What's the worst that could happen?" As if in answer, a bolt of lightning illuminated the sky, followed almost immediately by a deafening clap of thunder. In that brief flash of light, Tom could have sworn he saw something move in the trees beyond their campsite – something large and distinctly inhuman. He blinked, trying to convince himself it was just a trick of the light. "Guys," he said, his voice shaky, "maybe we should head back in the morning. This storm is getting worse." But Jenna was already launching into the legend of the chest, her voice taking on a hypnotic quality that held her friends spellbound despite their misgivings. "It all started back in 1692," she began, her eyes reflecting the dancing flames. "A woman named Abigail Thorne lived on the outskirts of a small settlement, not far from where we are now. The townsfolk whispered that she was a witch, but they had no proof – until the night of the blood moon." As Jenna spoke, the wind seemed to die down, as if nature itself was listening to her tale. The fire cra "On that night, Abigail was seen dancing naked in the woods, chanting in a language no one recognized. The next morning, three children from the village had vanished without a trace. When the townspeople confronted Abigail, they found her in possession of a strange chest – the very one we're looking for." Karen's grip on Tom's hand tightened as Jenna's story unfolded. Even Mark, who had been skeptical from the start, found himself leaning in, captivated by the tale. "They say Abigail had made a deal with dark forces to create the chest," Jenna went on, her voice dropping to a near-whisper. "It was said to grant immense power to whoever possessed it, but at a terrible cost. The chest was cursed, bringing misfortune and death to all who dared to open it." A twig snapped in the darkness beyond their circle of firelight, causing everyone to jump. Tom's eyes darted around nervously, searching for the source of the sound, but saw nothing but impenetrable shadows. "W-what happened to Abigail?" Karen asked, her voice trembling. Jenna's eyes glittered with a mix of excitement and something darker, more primal. "They tried to burn her at the stake, but she escaped. The chest disappeared with her, and Abigail was never seen again. But they say her spirit still haunts these woods, guarding the chest and waiting for someone worthy – or foolish enough – to seek its power."

The authoritative true story of the notorious deadly chest and the victims of the curse placed on it around 1830. The original letter by Virginia Cary Hudson is researched and published by Dr. Beverly Mayne Kienzle, Virginia's granddaughter and retired Harvard professor.

Beware...this book is cursed! These strange but true stories of the world’s most infamous items will appeal to true believers as well as history buffs, horror fans, and anyone who loves a good spine-tingling tale. They’re lurking in museums, graveyards, and private homes. Their often tragic and always bizarre stories have inspired countless horror movies, reality TV shows, novels, and campfire tales. They’re cursed objects, and all they need to unleash a wave of misfortune is . . . you. Many of these unfortunate items have intersected with some of the most notable events and people in history, leaving death and destruction in their wake. But never before have the true stories of these eerie oddities been compiled into a fascinating and chilling volume. Inside, readers will learn about: • Annabelle the Doll, a Raggedy Ann doll that featured in the horror franchise The Conjuring • The Unlucky Mummy, which is rumored to have sunk the Titanic and kick-started World War I • The Dybbuk box, which was sold on eBay and spawned the horror film The Possession • The Conjured Chest, which has been blamed for fifteen deaths within a single family • The Ring of Silvianus, a Roman artifact believed to have inspired J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit • And many more!

I fell into the deepest of holes. I am no one. I awake in a windowless room--naked, filthy, bruised, robbed of my every memory. I feel inexplicably drowned in a sea of hatred and rage. I...don't know who I am. But I know I must escape. This is Matt Wells, hero of The Death List and The Soul Collector, as you've never seen him. Crime writer Matt Wells could never have conjured a plot this twisted--a secretive militia running sick brainwashing experiments in the Maine wilderness, himself a subject. He knows they've been subconsciously feeding him instructions...but for what? Taunted by maddening snatches of a life he can't trust as his own, Matt's piecing it together: three gruesome killings he's blamed for...and a woman...someone from his past he should remember.

In the early 19th Century, Adelaide Lenormand, a fortune teller popular with the Paris elite, conjures a golem for Napoleon Bonaparte during a dinner party. But something goes wrong. It looks nothing like the manservant she promised. Even worse, immediately after it arrives, the golem steals the Emperor’s Emerald Scarab from a chain around his neck and mysteriously disappears. Minutes later in London, Elise Dubois, an ER nurse from Tucson, is found sprawled in front of The Quiet Woman Public House. She’s wearing nothing but tattered shorts, a sports bra, and one pink running shoe. Gripped in her fist is an Egyptian jewel, the scarab. Now Bonaparte’s Minister of Police is breathing down Adelaide’s neck while her wealthy clients are abandoning her. The women of La Société d’Isis, so wickedly encouraging when she’d first launched her plot, remain silent to her pleas for help. Adelaide has no choice but to find the golem and restore her reputation. Troubled by nightmares of a wild-eyed French woman and worried she might be losing her mind, Elise tries to blend in at the pub. But blending in is not her forte. She knows the moment the opportunity arises she’ll stop at nothing to return to 21st Century Arizona, even if that means breaking the heart of the one man who understands her. The Conjured Woman is the first in the Emerald Scarab Adventure series aimed at lovers of hard-edged heroines. In a story of time travel, romance, and fortune, anything can happen.

“A brave and moving novel [that] has a tender empathy with the natural world.” —Hermione Lee, The New York Review of Books From the two-time Booker Prize finalist author of Days Without End comes a dazzling companion novel about memory and identity, set in Tennessee in the aftermath of the Civil War Winona Cole, an orphaned child of the Lakota Indians, finds herself growing up in an unconventional household on a farm in west Tennessee. Raised by her adoptive parents John Cole and Thomas McNulty, whose story Barry told in his acclaimed previous novel Days Without End, she forges a life for herself beyond the violence and dispossession of her past. Tennessee is a state still riven by the bitter legacy of the Civil War, and the fragile harmony of her family is soon threatened by a further traumatic event, one which Winona struggles to confront, let alone understand. Exquisitely written, A Thousand Moons is a stirring, poignant story of love and redemption, of one woman's journey and her determination to write her own future.

For the first time—and in the best translation ever—the complete Book of Disquiet, a masterpiece beyond comparison The Book of Disquiet is the Portuguese modernist master Fernando Pessoa’s greatest literary achievement. An “autobiography” or “diary” containing exquisite melancholy observations, aphorisms, and ruminations, this classic work grapples with all the eternal questions. Now, for the first time the texts are presented chronologically, in a complete English edition by master translator Margaret Jull Costa. Most of the texts in The Book of Disquiet are written under the semi-heteronym Bernardo Soares, an assistant bookkeeper. This existential masterpiece was first published in Portuguese in 1982, forty-seven years after Pessoa’s death. A monumental literary event, this exciting, new, complete edition spans Fernando Pessoa’s entire writing life.

Contains over seventy tales of ghostly hauntings from each of the fifty United States and Canada.

Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), the only medieval woman known to have authored systematic works of exegesis, composed fifty-eight little-studied Expositiones euangeliorum, homilies on twenty-seven Gospel passages. Hildegard described her divine charge to restore the tottering faith of her era through the revelation of hidden mysteries in the Scriptures. She was to continue the exegetical tradition of the Fathers and to construct moral fortifications with the words of Scripture in order to defend her sisters against the forces of evil. Hildegard of Bingen and her Gospel Homilies constitutes the first in-depth study of Hildegard's Expositiones and of her exegesis, preaching, and use of sources. It explores the Expositiones in the context of Hildegard's intellectual and cultural milieu and underscores the central role of biblical interpretation in the seer's works. Furthermore, this book re-examines Hildegard's self-depiction in the context of monastic education for women, the magistra's exchange with her mentors and friends, and her rich use of divine voice to empower her own expression. This is a new, exciting, and erudite study on one of the most influential female mystics.

SELECTED FOR STYLIST'S FICTION YOU CAN'T MISS IN 2022 - 'AN ESSENTIAL READ' NAMED AS A BOOK OF 2022 BY ESQUIRE, STYLIST, SHEERLUXE AND FOYLES 'A stone-cold masterpiece by a shocking new talent' OLIVIA LAING 'Pure delight ... A queer romance novel like no other' TATLER It's four in the morning, and our narrator is walking home from the club when they realise that it's February 29th – the birthday of the man who was something like their first love. Piecing together art, letters and memory, they set about trying to write the story of a doomed affair that first sparked and burned a decade ago. Ten years earlier, and our young narrator and a boy named Thomas James fall into bed with one another over the summer of their graduation. Their ensuing affair, with its violent, animal intensity and its intoxicating and toxic power play will initiate a dance of repulsion and attraction that will cross years, span continents, drag in countless victims – and culminate in terrible betrayal. At Certain Points We Touch is a story of first love and last rites, conjured against a vivid backdrop of London, San Francisco and New York – a riotous, razor-sharp coming-of-age story that marks the arrival of an extraordinary new talent. 'Lauren John Joseph writes with such wit, glamour, and style! I haven't read a book that so powerfully evokes what it's like to be a wild young artist among other wild young artists since the Bright Young Things' TORREY PETERS, author of Detransition, Baby 'Screamingly funny, scandalously hot, opulent, deep - a devastating torch song of obsession and excess' JEREMY ATHERTON LIN, author of Gay Bar 'Lauren's debut novel is so exciting. The writing is so fresh, funny and gripping - and carries the trademark wit that I have always loved from Lauren' TRAVIS ALABANZA 'The struggle to find ones place in the world as an artist and lover, creating self and culture as you go along - At Certain Points We Touch captures this fleeting, dazzling moment with glamour and heart' MICHELLE TEA