Metaphysical Fiction

Sex, science and spirituality! These were the triad of influences on the poetry of the seventeenth century. Following the golden age of Elizabeth I this century was to be one of great tensions; between Parliament and the Monarchy, Canterbury and Rome, science and religion; a civil war, the beheading of a King, The Republic, The Restoration, and finally, the Glorious Revolution which deposed a King and firmly reasserted the Protestant ascendancy.

After living in the city of Orphalese for 12 years, a prophet is about to board a ship which will carry him home. He is stopped by a seeress and the people of the city, who ask him for his insights into life. The book is divided into chapters dealing with love, marriage, children, giving, eating and drinking, work, joy and sorrow, houses, clothes, buying and selling, crime and punishment, laws, freedom, reason and passion, pain, self-knowledge, teaching, friendship, talking, time, good and evil, prayer, pleasure, beauty, religion, and death.

Renaissance Raines has found her place among the psychopomps - the guides who lead the souls of the recently departed through the Seven Gates of the Underworld - and done her best to avoid the notice of gods and mortals alike. But when a young boy named Ramses St. Cyr manages to escape his foretold death, Renai finds herself at the center of a deity-thick plot unfolding in New Orleans. Someone helped Ramses slip free of his destined end - someone willing to risk everything to steal a little slice of power for themselves. When she finds the schemer, there's gonna be hell to pay....

Best-selling author Carlos Ruiz Zafón conceived of this collection of stories as an appreciation to the countless admirers who joined him on the extraordinary journey that began with The Shadow of the Wind. Comprising 11 stories, most of them never before published in English, The City of Mist offers the listener compelling characters, unique situations, and a gothic atmosphere reminiscent of his beloved Cemetery of Forgotten Books quartet.

At the Madrid café where she stops for breakfast each day before work, María Dolz finds herself drawn to a couple who is also there every morning. Though she can hardly explain it, observing what she imagines to be their "unblemished" life lifts her out of the doldrums of her own existence. But what begins as mere observation turns into an increasingly complicated entanglement when the man is fatally stabbed in the street.

The Largesse of the Sea Maiden is the long-awaited new story collection from Denis Johnson. Written in the luminous prose that made him one of the most beloved and important writers of his generation, this collection finds Johnson in new territory, contemplating the ghosts of the past and the elusive and unexpected ways the mysteries of the universe assert themselves.

Paul is a top business executive hoping to be the next CEO of Ascendant - a New York-based tech giant. His fast-paced life is interrupted when he travels to Glastonbury, England, to visit friends in a village rich in history and mysticism. When he returns to New York, his wife, Mary, is skeptical. His journey both scares and intrigues her as she watches him struggle to navigate between the business and spiritual worlds. A series of events draws Paul closer to Glastonbury and Christine, compelling him and a reluctant Mary to return, unaware that their lives will never be the same.

All residents of the City have recently died, and they will remain in the City only as long as someone still living on Earth remembers them. On Earth, however, the population has been devastated by a terrible pandemic. Laura Byrd, isolated at an Antarctic research station, may be the only person to have survived the pandemic. But she's running out of time and supplies, and her memories are fading.

Following the tragic death of his sister, 10-year-old Dill's life changes forever. In an attempt to escape their grief, Dill and his parents move to his grandmother’s remote cottage in the countryside. Isolated from his family, who are struggling to come to terms with their loss, Dill spends his time exploring the wild landscape with his trusty spaniel, Bramble. He soon learns that life in his new home, the Dip-n-Dells, is anything but lonely.

Hay quien obedece sus propias reglas porque se sabe en lo cierto; quien expresa un especial placer en hacer algo bien; quien adivina algo más que lo que sus ojos ven; quien prefiere volar a comprar y comer. Todos ellos harán amistad duradera con Juan Salvador Gaviota. Habrá también quienes volarán con Juan Gaviota por lugares de encanto y aventura, y gozarán como él de una luminosa libertad. Para unos y otros será una experiencia inolvidable.

When novice monk Tenzin Dorje is told by his lama that the Red Army is invading Tibet, his country's darkest moment paradoxically gives him a sense of purpose like no other. He accepts a mission to carry two ancient, secret texts across the Himalayas to safety. Half a century later, in a paradox of similarly troubling circumstances, Matt Lester is called upon to convey his own particular wisdom as a scientist, when Matt's nanotech project is mysteriously moved from London to a research incubator in Los Angeles.

The Book of Strange New Things is a mind-blowing work that fearlessly tackles the search for meaning in an unfathomable universe. It concerns Peter and Beatrice, whose marriage is tested when Peter travels as a missionary, spreading the Gospel to a faraway land, and Beatrice is left to deal with troubles at home. In the most extraordinary and spellbinding ways, it deals with faith - religious faith, to be sure, but also faith in oneself, faith in salvation and faith in those we love.

In Vita Nostra, Sasha Samokhina, a third-year student at the Institute of Special Technologies, was in the middle of taking the final exam that would transform her into a part of the Great Speech. After defying her teachers’ expectations, Sasha emerges from the exam as Password, a unique and powerful part of speech. Accomplished and ready to embrace her new role, she soon learns her powers threaten the old world, and despite her hard work, Sasha is set to fail.

A moving story of one man, deeply troubled by the circumstances of his life, who travels to the islands of Hawaii hoping to find peace. Here, he is befriended by two intriguing people who speak in ways that mystify yet fascinate him. Thus begins a spiritual journey into a world of extraordinary feelings, which bring him understanding and an answer beyond anything he had ever dreamed possible. In this novel, set in a world of soft tropical beauty, the author shares his quiet philosophical knowledge in a comprehensible yet profound manner.

In Winter, life force matches up to the toughest of the seasons. In this second novel in her acclaimed Seasonal cycle, the follow-up to Ali Smith's sensational Autumn, Smith's shape-shifting quartet of novels casts a merry eye over a bleak post-truth era with a story rooted in history, memory, and warmth, its taproot deep in the evergreens: art, love, laughter. It's the season that teaches us survival.

Living deep within the mysterious southern forests, the spiritual Ninkuraaja people are being hunted to the brink of extinction by bloodthirsty raiders known only as Woves. Nobody knows better than a Ninkuraa that a Wove deserves only death.

After losing his wife and two young sons in an airplane crash, professor David Zimmer spends his waking hours in a blur of alcoholic grief and self-pity. Then, watching television one night, he sees a clip from a lost film by the silent comedian Hector Mann. Zimmer soon finds himself embarking on a journey around the world to study the works of this mysterious figure who vanished from sight in 1929.

From their first meeting, it was clear that Gwen and Tancred were meant to be together. But, as we know, the course of true love never did run smooth. Gwen’s mother, intuiting that her daughter is in love, gives her a magic ring that has been passed down through endless generations of mothers and daughters. This ring grants its wearer the opportunity to change three things about her beloved. Like all blessings, this may also be a curse.

A group of travellers chance to meet, first in a castle, then a tavern. Their powers of speech are magically taken from them and instead they have only tarot cards with which to tell their stories. What follows is an exquisite interlinking of narratives, and a fantastic, surreal, and chaotic history of all human consciousness.

In the city of Verdholm, canals separate the highborns in the center sections of the city from the lowborns along the outer sections. The city is isolated, surrounded by a deadly swamp and steam fields which should protect the people of the city from the dangerous outside world. Until it doesn't. For Sam, an orphaned thief who wants only to protect her brother, protection means stealing enough so she can one day buy her way into a better section. She's a skilled thief, and when she's offered a job that can change everything for her, what choice does she have but to take it?