The city of the dead, invaded by life. Sending Queen Tempest to a world of strife. Forced from her castle, robbed of her crown. The beloved ruler is chased underground. Her people enslaved, tortured and maimed. By one possessing the Legba name. A prophecy misread will pit sister against sister. While one unsuspecting ghoul becomes one's mister. War will rage if wedding bells chime. But can the Corpse Queen make it in time? In the shadows dark secrets loom. Will they free Carnage Crossing? Or seal its doom? "If Beetlejuice, The Good Place, and The Corpse Bride had a love child, it would be this book. Only it would be that funny middle child who makes everyone laugh. There's no rest for the wicked. And no bathroom breaks either. Stacey Rourke drags you into this hilariously fast-paced ride and doesn't let go. A must-read." - International Bestselling Author Tara Brown "Corpse Queen is a uniquely vibrant supernatural landscape of dead deliciousness that is sure to become your next obsession!" - USA Today Bestselling Author Rue Volley "With her usual flair, Rourke brings the dead to life in this wonderfully, macabre tale. With hints of Beetlejuice meets epic fantasy, Corpse Queen takes us on an amazing journey beyond the hidden veil. I can't wait for book two!" - Award-winning Author Tish Thawer "The afterlife isn't ready for Tempest Mortem. Biting sarcasm and gallows humor keep the pages turning as Rourke brings this world to life life few others can." - Award-winning Author Eric R Asher

"In 'The Ruins Lesson,' the National Book Critics Circle Award-winning poet-critic Susan Stewart explores the West's fascination with ruins in literature, visual art, and architecture, covering a vast chronological and geographical range from the ancient Egyptians to T. S. Eliot. In the multiplication of images of ruins, artists, and writers she surveys, Stewart shows how these thinkers struggled to recover lessons out of the fragility or our cultural remains. She tries to understand the appeal in the West of ruins and ruination, particularly Roman ruins, in the work and thought of Goethe, Piranesi, Blake, and Wordsworth, whom she returns to throughout the book. Her sweeping, deeply felt study encompasses the founding legends of broken covenants and original sin; Christian transformations of the classical past; the myths and rituals of human fertility; images of ruins in Renaissance allegory, eighteenth-century melancholy, and nineteenth-century cataloguing; and new gardens that eventually emerged from ancient sites of disaster"--

A provocative examination of the Bible in Christian tradition and contemporary culture