Dark Ages Literature

When a demonic parasite turns her classmates into an army of sleepwalkers, 16-year-old Jo must confront her celestial identity and reveal the mystery of existence. With the help of her best friends and a Galactic Compass, Jo unleashes the cosmic powers of creation to prevent the Lord of Darkness from enslaving all of humanity into obscurity. Will she be able to decode the artificial system in time to save her friends and the sacred Light?

"I am the unhinged...and the world is my asylum". Thirteen-year old Harper is in therapy for the death of her mother. And that's saying nothing of the trafficking victim she rescued from her next door neighbor's cellar. As her father becomes embroiled in a criminal case that threatens to destroy their lives, the despondent teenager is left to confide in her detached and aloof therapist Charlotte. If the woman who she began seeing to cope with Nancy's suicide can't help her through these harrowing events, Harper's shattered family stands to be permanently damaged.

Meet Sonny Anderson, funny failed LA Galaxy hopeful, recovering misophonic meth-head and Shaun of the Dead-obsessed survivor. On his 21st birthday, gifted the opportunity of inheriting a life-changing sum of money, Sonny needs answers to a few important questions. For instance, where is his mother? He last saw her age five when his dad kidnapped him and took him to live on a commune in Brazil. His dad claimed to be a spiritual guru, but what kind of man was he really? To find his answers Sonny must leave his home in California and return to the UK, his country of birth.

Valrin and his companions narrowly escaped their deaths and flee east. By chance, they have learned of a gaseous poison in the hands of the dwarves capable of slaughtering thousands. How will the Stormborn, with the power of the ancients at his command, find a way to stop them? Now, he must trust his shadow elf friend in seeking out the mysterious daughter of the Ice Mage. With her power of elemental magic and sorcery unlike any before her, she could prove a powerful ally. But will her own dark secret hinder his own task as Stormborn?

In a post-apocalyptic future where survivors scavenge in the harsh Australian Outback for spoils from a buried civilization, a girl races across the desert, holding her treasures close, pursued by the Reckoner. Riding her sand ship, living rough in the blasted landscape whose taint she carries in her blood, she scouts the broken infrastructure and trades her scraps at the only known settlement, a ramshackle fortress of greed, corruption, and disease known as the System.

Nina is a struggling writer, a college dropout, a liar, and a cheater. More than anything she wants love. She deserves it. From the burned-out suburbs of Florida to the anonymous squalor of New York City, she eats through an incestuous cast of characters in search of it: her mother, a narcissistic lesbian living in a nudist polycule; Odessa, a single mom with even worse taste in men than Nina; Seth, an artist whose latest show is comprised of three Tupperware containers full of trash; Brian, whose roller-coaster affair with Nina is the most stable "relationship" in his life; and more.

It’s the end of summer 2003. George W. Bush has recently declared the mission in Iraq accomplished, the unemployment rate is at its highest in years, and Martha Stewart has just been indicted for insider trading. Meanwhile, somewhere in the Midwest, Troy Augustus Loudermilk (fair-haired, statuesque, charismatic) and his companion Harry Rego (definitely none of those things) arrive at America’s most prestigious creative-writing program, to which Loudermilk has recently been accepted for his excellence in poetry. Loudermilk, however, has never written a poem in his life.

The strongest of them all. Eyes blacker than the darkness they all fantasize about, but have never seen. An abomination. Hemera Harkibel has spent her life concealing abilities she doesn’t fully understand. She is hated and feared because of her black eyes and inhuman strength. When her people’s underground cave system is attacked, Hemera is thrust above ground into a dangerous world where the sun’s rays can kill in seconds and enemies are tracking her every move.... Hemera comes to learn that her very existence is a threat in the war brewing between humans and Halves.

We live in trying times. Anti-demon sentiment is at an all time high. Gone are the days when devils could get together on a Sunday night to sacrifice some virgins and crack open a few cold ones. While we have been shunned and despised since our first ancestors arrived here from Hell, today it’s impossible to walk even a single city block without running into a self-proclaimed “hunter.” Living under this threat of constant danger, it has never been more pertinent to hold on to our sense of identity. And more importantly, to pass that along to our spawn.

Joanne Haynes has a secret: that is not her real name. And there’s more. Her flat’s not hers. Her cats aren't hers. Even her hair isn’t really hers. Nor is she any of the other women she pretends to be. Not the best-selling romance novelist who gets her morning snack from the doughnut van on the seafront. Nor the pregnant woman in the dental surgery. Nor the chemo patient in the supermarket for whom the cashier feels ever so sorry. They're all just alibis. In fact, the only thing that’s real about Joanne is that nobody can know who she really is.

Orchid & the Wasp brings to life the charged, compulsive voice of Gael Foess - daughter of a self-interested investment banker and a once-formidable orchestral conductor, and sister to a vulnerable younger brother - as she strives to build a life raft in the midst of economic and familial collapse. Moving by wits alone, Gael cuts a swathe through the leather-lined, coke-dusted social clubs of London, the New York gallery scene and birth-throes of the Occupy movement.

After the death of her father and her own serious issues, Kara Maven decides to move back to her hometown to complete her senior year at Belman University. She settles into life on campus when her world is shaken by a handsome bad boy with a knack for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Dominic Benenati is a half-demon Damamah, or whisperer, whose role on earth is to ensure Hell’s population thrives by pushing humans to act upon their sinful thoughts. To complicate matters, enter Cayden Adams who is an angel determined to save Kara from Dominic’s influence. But does Kara really want to be saved?

After the performance of a lifetime at the sold-out Stade de France, comic Édouard Bresson decides to vanish. Très drôle. His estranged son Arthur isn’t laughing. Édouard has sent him a letter and instructions to a puzzle - a treasure hunt for the son he ignored and misses and loves. If Arthur is willing to find out everything there is to know about his father and to understand the choices he made, all he has to do is put the pieces together. As the trail of clues winds its way through the past, what unfolds is a surprising journey of forgiveness, family, and self-discovery.

Twenty-eight-year-old Lana Green has never been good at making friends. She’s perfectly happy to be left alone with her books. Or at least that’s what she tells herself. Nancy Ellis Hall was once a celebrated writer. Now 80, she lives alone in her North London house and thinks she’s doing just fine. But dementia is loosening Nancy’s grip on the world. When Lana and Nancy become unconventional housemates, their lives will change in ways they never expected. But can an unusual friendship rescue two women who don’t realise they need to be saved?

Logan Ragsdale and his younger sister, Ariana, have been marked, chosen to be unwilling participants in a war between angels and demons. Logan can sense something's not quite right. Like an unexpected chill on a summer's day, he can feel the unseen closing in. He's had these feelings before, and each time, someone close to him died. He's afraid this time it might just be Ariana. Logan's fears are soon confirmed when he discovers their new friends aren't human, but rather representatives from Heaven and Hell sent to Earth to ensure he and Ariana accept their roles.

A clever but obnoxious teen (think Youth in Revolt's Nick Twisp) is stuck in his parents' basement during a uniquely literary yet crowd-pleasing apocalypse. It involves not zombies but a breakdown in general logic and order. Lloyd's mother, a William Blake scholar, goes mad in a flurry of Blakean invective. Lloyd's neighbor clips toenails on her lawn. An acting group believes a tribute to Dennis Hopper might save the world.

Life is short. Jimmy's life may prove shorter. His gang mates have grown up and shipped out, and the nine to five is grinding Jimmy into a person he no longer recognizes. There has to be more to existence than waking up every Saturday with a half-eaten kebab and empty wallet. The wide blue skies of America sing a siren's song, and Jimmy decides he's ready to give life a do-over - even if it means leaving his childhood sweetheart Kelly behind.

This is a touching coming-of-age tale about a young man struggling to deal with his father's cancer diagnosis. As Dad edges ever closer to his destiny, the relationship with his son reaches boiling point, but how will their final encounter pan out? Gently fusing the humorous with the tragic, this London-based drama will have you crying both tears of joy and sadness.

Nina does not have a drinking problem. She likes a drink, sure. But what 17-year-old doesn't? Nina's mum isn't so sure. But she's busy with her new husband and five-year-old Katie. Nina's almost an adult, after all. And if Nina sometimes wakes up with little memory of what happened the night before, then her friends are all too happy to fill in the blanks. Nina's drunken exploits are the stuff of college legend. But then one dark Sunday morning, even her friends can't help piece together Saturday night.

Spokane, Washington, is nearly perfect for most people, but Jack Fitzpatrick is not one of them. Hours after graduation and armed with his final paycheck from his nemesis, Jack heads for Southern California. Dreams are a dime a dozen in the City of Angels. Broke, barely scraping by, and hating his life as a temp, L.A. is definitely not what Jack expected. But after reading "Best Paying Jobs of 1987" in Time magazine, he decides to go after the only one he thinks he has a shot at: institutional bond broker.