The Outside World clamours at the wrought iron gates, and the evil alliance within Stonewylde threatens to destroy everything. With the new business and their relationship in tatters, Yul and Sylvie find their once-beautiful world has been desecrated by the dark forces. But Stonewylde is as old as the hills themselves, and the landscape endures. Leveret has discovered her true calling and is determined to lead the community back to the golden age of magic and prosperity. As the enchanting tale of Stonewylde draws to its end, Sylvie finally realises why she was brought here and Yul understands his true destiny. Whilst Leveret sees exactly what lies ahead for Stonewylde ...

How far would you go to save your child? Exhausted single-mum Miranda is prepared to try anything. Suffering from baffling allergies and illnesses, her teenage daughter Sylvie has been written off by doctors. An offer of alternative therapy at a grand Dorset estate may be her last hope and so, against her better judgement, Miranda grabs this life-line. Stonewylde is a beautiful and magical place, a sanctuary free from modern taint. The retreat is remote, hidden away behind high walls and iron gates, and soon the rat-race outside fades to insignificance. Stonewylde is ruled by the charismatic Magus, who vows to cure Sylvie and give both their hearts' desires. He promises the earth and it seems he can deliver. But everything comes at a price. Life at Stonewylde is too idyllic, too wholesome, too perfect. The ancient rituals in the stone circle are not quite what they seem and neither is the Magus, whose sinister sensuality hides a darker secret. Sylvie and Miranda join the community and both fall in love for the first time. But their arrival triggers a brutal chain of events that could destroy the unique world of Stonewylde. Mother and daughter will eventually discover the truth: Stonewylde may cure, but it can also kill.

Something's lying patiently in wait, until the time is right ... Thirteen years have passed since Yul fought for his life at the quarry, and Stonewylde has flourished in a new, golden age. But now the shadows are gathering. Wild and disobedient, Leveret is the bad girl who disappears at night time and would rather roam the woods than sit in school. Only Clip recognises the girl's magical sensitivity and believes she may be the one to lead Stonewylde out of the approaching darkness. The shadows thicken as Yul and Sylvie find that something - or someone - is tearing their beautiful relationship apart. As Stonewylde starts to disintegrate, a sinister alliance is forming but they have no idea what evil they're really up against ...

The cracks are beginning to show in the idyllic Stonewylde community. As Yul and Sylvie's forbidden friendship grows into something deeper, Magus' true nature starts to emerge through his charming façade. Ever since Yul defied him at the Summer Solstice, his power has been waning, and his mood darkening. Yul is the problem - and Magus is going to deal with him. Nobody challenges his authority and survives. Sylvie is in danger too. Magus has discovered her secret and now, for all its beauty, her magical gift and Magus' desire to possess it is putting her life at risk. As each full moon rises Sylvie is made to suffer more, and the agony she endures as her magic is stolen leaves her increasingly exhausted, sapping her will to fight back. Unless Magus can be stopped, every full moon could be Sylvie's last. As glorious summer turns to golden autumn, the magic of Stonewylde is becoming a curse to the very people it should nurture ... Are Yul and Sylvie the only ones who see the truth behind Magus' mask of kindness? Why is everyone so deceived by his charm - and why is Mother Heggy, the mysterious wise-woman the only one who will help them? The darkness of winter is coming, and as it does Sylvie and Yul's lives hang by a whisker. Either they will save each other, or history will repeat itself at the sinister standing stone above the cliffs.

Yul stands at the threshold between life and death. Poisoned at the festival of the dead, his life now hangs by a thread. More than his own will to survive, it's his fellow Stonewylders who must save him. But will they, when Magus has done so much to undermine Yul and turn the people against him? Yet there are cracks in Magus' following. When he confesses a secret that shocks the community, the Stonewylde folk begin to understand his true nature. Magus' spiral into obsession and darkness continues, his kindness and charm now vanished. The cruelty that lies beneath is becoming clear ... as is the deadly web of deceit and betrayal in which Yul and Sylvie are trapped. The Winter Solstice approaches and Yul and Sylvie refuse to give up hope. But Sylvie is unaware of Magus' real plans for her and she's horrified when he finally shows his hand. Can this really be why she was brought to Stonewylde? As the final conflict draws near, how can she avoid Magus' trap? Yul will need all his strength, and all his supporters, if he is to make a stand and put an end to what Magus has started. As the darkness draws in around them, the wise woman on the hill makes a chilling prophecy. There is no escape and no compromise when death comes knocking: five will die at Stonewylde. The only question is who ...

The Outside World clamours at the wrought iron gates, and the evil alliance within Stonewylde threatens to destroy everything. With the new business and their relationship in tatters, Yul and Sylvie find their once-beautiful world has been desecrated by the dark forces. But Stonewylde is as old as the hills themselves, and the landscape endures. Leveret has discovered her true calling and is determined to lead the community back to the golden age of magic and prosperity. As the enchanting tale of Stonewylde draws to its end, Sylvie finally realises why she was brought here and Yul understands his true destiny. Whilst Leveret sees exactly what lies ahead for Stonewylde ...

An anonymous account of a boy who grew up as a clairvoyant in Victorian England.

Kellen It was only supposed to be a well-deserved, three-day break from life back in the city. Three days in the islands without interruptions from work or anything else. Then I met her. She was beautiful and sexy, and she insisted we didn’t share names. I would have been crazy not to agree to a long weekend of anonymous sex. I don’t know when it happened, but it turned into more. I started thinking about forever with my mystery woman. That doesn’t sound like something a bad boy ever considers, but there it is. I’d found the woman for me. And just when I had it all, I blew it. Salem He crashed into my life like a hurricane. He was sexy and charming, but he was a bad boy through and through, untamed and wild. I should have run away the moment he walked up to my table. Instead, I let myself be seduced by his soulful dark brown eyes and a body made for pleasure. I thought I could be safe if I kept our time together anonymous. How wrong I was. Fate has a way of giving people what they deserve, and it seems to think I should have a chance to make him suffer. Now this good girl has to decide if she still cares for that bad boy she met in the islands or wants to exact her revenge.

Surface Detail is among Iain M. Banks' Culture novels, a breathtaking achievement from a writer whose body of work is without parallel in the modern history of science fiction. It begins in the realm of the Real, where matter still matters. It begins with a murder. And it will not end until the Culture has gone to war with death itself. Lededje Y'breq is one of the Intagliated, her marked body bearing witness to a family shame, her life belonging to a man whose lust for power is without limit. Prepared to risk everything for her freedom, her release, when it comes, is at a price, and to put things right she will need the help of the Culture. Benevolent, enlightened and almost infinitely resourceful though it may be, the Culture can only do so much for any individual. With the assistance of one of its most powerful -- and arguably deranged -- warships, Lededje finds herself heading into a combat zone not even sure which side the Culture is really on. A war -- brutal, far-reaching -- is already raging within the digital realms that store the souls of the dead, and it's about to erupt into reality. It started in the realm of the Real and that is where it will end. It will touch countless lives and affect entire civilizations, but at the center of it all is a young woman whose need for revenge masks another motive altogether. The Culture Series Consider Phlebas The Player of Games Use of Weapons The State of the Art Excession Inversions Look to Windward Matter Surface Detail The Hydrogen Sonata

An epic tale of freedom and slavery, love and war, and the potential futures of humankind tells of a twenty-first century California clan caught between two clashing worlds, one based on tolerance, the other on repression. Declaration of the Four Sacred Things The earth is a living, conscious being. In company with cultures of many different times and places, we name these things as sacred: air, fire, water, and earth. Whether we see them as the breath, energy, blood, and body of the Mother, or as the blessed gifts of a Creator, or as symbols of the interconnected systems that sustain life, we know that nothing can live without them. To call these things sacred is to say that they have a value beyond their usefulness for human ends, that they themselves became the standards by which our acts, our economics, our laws, and our purposes must be judged. no one has the right to appropriate them or profit from them at the expense of others. Any government that fails to protect them forfeits its legitimacy. All people, all living things, are part of the earth life, and so are sacred. No one of us stands higher or lower than any other. Only justice can assure balance: only ecological balance can sustain freedom. Only in freedom can that fifth sacred thing we call spirit flourish in its full diversity. To honor the sacred is to create conditions in which nourishment, sustenance, habitat, knowledge, freedom, and beauty can thrive. To honor the sacred is to make love possible. To this we dedicate our curiosity, our will, our courage, our silences, and our voices. To this we dedicate our lives. Praise for The Fifth Sacred Thing “This is wisdom wrapped in drama.”—Tom Hayden, California state senator “Starhawk makes the jump to fiction quite smoothly with this memorable first novel.”—Locus “Totally captivating . . . a vision of the paradigm shift that is essential for our very survival as a species on this planet.”—Elinor Gadon, author of The Once and Future Goddess “This strong debut fits well against feminist futuristic, utopic, and dystopic works by the likes of Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Ursula LeGuin, and Margaret Atwood.”—Library Journal