Metaphysical Fiction

Don Alvaro, a young but wise man, invokes Satan in a goetic-style magical ritual. Upon seeing the young Alvaro, Beelzebub falls in love with him and assumes the appearance of a beautiful young woman. In the journey that unfolds, Satan, disguised as a woman, tries to seduce Alvaro who rejects his advances lest he lose his precious virginity.

America today is teetering on the edge of the alarming vision presented in LeVar Burton’s debut novel, written more than two decades ago. In 2012, the first African American president is assassinated by a White extremist - just four days after he is elected. The horrific tragedy leads to riots, financial collapse, and ultimately, a full-on civil war. In its aftermath, millions are left homeless as famine and disease spread throughout the country. But from Chicago, a mysterious voice cries out.

In the year 1960, private eye John Nyquist arrives in Delirium, a city of a million borders, to pursue his strangest case yet: tracking down Oberon, the stolen, sentient image of faded film star Vince Craven. As Nyquist tracks Oberon through a series of ever-stranger and more surreal borders, he hears tantalising stories of the Yeald, a First Wall hidden at Delirium's heart. But to get the help he needs to find it, he'll have to journey into the fractured minds of the city's residents, and even into his own.

The conclusion of the Amazon and Audible best-selling Halfhero series. When The Deterrent comes out of hiding and kidnaps the titans, it triggers the biggest manhunt in history. On one side, the military might of the United States and Air Commodore Fiona Bardock, Britain’s most talented investigator. On the other, three halfheroes, one human and a puddle of slime. Daniel Harbin hopes to get through this alive and track down the children he never knew existed. What no one realises is they’re about to confront the greatest danger of all.

Eve has no idea she's the oldest soul on earth, with a pre-wired connection to every other soul on the planet and that the boy she's mysteriously drawn to, named Roman, has been her soul mate, her love of nearly 300 lifetimes - until he tells her. But what Roman doesn't mention is that the new genetic test called Animus will soon expose what she is to the whole world and that he's being tasked with the impossible; steering her, into the open arms of another, a boy named Jude.

Kenji Miyazawa (1896-1933) is one of Japan's most beloved writers and poets, known particularly for his sensitive and symbolist children's fiction. This volume collects stories which focus on Miyazawa's love of space and his use of the galaxy as a metaphor for the concepts of purity, self-sacrifice and faith which were near and dear to his heart.

The Twelve is an extraordinary and unforgettable novel about a most unusual man. As a child, Max lives in a world of colors and numbers, not speaking until the age of six. As an adult, Max ventures on a journey of destiny to discover the secret behind the ancient Mayan prophecy about the end of time, foretold to occur on December 21, 2012.

On the verge of adulthood, Rafi attends the Lyceum, a school for the psionically gifted. Rafi possesses mental abilities that might benefit people . . . or control them. Some wish to help Rafi wield his powers responsibly; others see him as a threat to be contained. Rafi’s only freedom at the Lyceum is Wallrunning: a game of speed and agility played on vast vertical surfaces riddled with variable gravity fields. Serendipity and Ntenman are also students at the Lyceum, but unlike Rafi they come from communities where such abilities are valued.

In April, I woke up one morning, out of the blue, and there was a sort of voice in my head. Not exactly a voice, but sort of a telepathic thing, saying, “You will now write the Purple Fables, there will be four of them, and you will do one in each day and the title is to be Purple Fables,” and I said okay. They were sort of dictated from somebody else, someplace, I guess.

Skyward Inn, within the high walls of the Western Protectorate, is a place of safety, where people come together to tell stories of the time before the war with Qita. But safety from what? Qita surrendered without complaint when Earth invaded; Innkeepers Jem and Isley, veterans from either side, have regrets but few scars. Their peace is disturbed when a visitor known to Isley comes to the Inn asking for help, bringing reminders of an unnerving past and triggering an uncertain future.

Ordinary realities and yearnings to transcend them lead to miraculous other worlds in this dazzling collection of stories. A woman's deceased father appears in her dreams with clues about the afterlife; a Russian professor in a small American town constructs elaborate fantasies during her cigarette break; a man falls in love with a marble statue as his marriage falls apart. With the emotional insight of Chekhov, the surreal satire of Gogol, and a unique blend of humor and poetry all her own, Tolstaya transmutes the quotidian into aetherial alternatives.

“As I remember, I had just woken up from a nap when I decided to create the universe.” So begins Alan Lightman’s playful and profound new novel, Mr. g, the story of Creation as narrated by God. Bored with living in the shimmering Void with his bickering Uncle Deva and Aunt Penelope, Mr. g creates time, space, and matter - then moves on to stars, planets, consciousness, and finally intelligent beings with moral dilemmas.

Alec Thorn is a thirty-something go-getter looking to make it big. When a key business ally dies suspiciously, his dream is shattered. Sophie, a wise, eccentric florist, mysteriously leads him to a discovery that will change his life forever - the leader of an elite group of mercenaries has a personal vendetta against him (centuries old) and wants him dead.

David, a college student, takes a summer job at a run-down family resort in a dying English resort town. This is against the wishes of his family because it was at this resort where David's biological father disappeared fifteen years earlier. But something undeniable has called David there. The characters have a suspicious edge to them.

After one death-defying adventure after another, he's ready for some well-deserved downtime. So he's gone to a hot beach in Mareta, a sleepy fishing village in southern Portugal. The year is 1964. He hopes only to flirt with bikinied tourists and drink cold Sagres beers. But two things seem to follow Matt wherever and whenever he goes. A chance to help someone in need, and trouble-trouble-trouble.

They knew us before we began to walk upright. Shamans called them guardians, mythmakers called them tricksters, pagans called them gods, churchmen called them demons, folklorists called them shape-shifters. They've obligingly taken any role we've assigned them, and, while needing nothing from us, have accepted whatever we thought was their due?

Prepare to lose yourself in the heady, mythical expanse of the Vorrh. In B. Catling's twisting, poetic narrative, Bakelite robots lie broken - their hard shells cracked by human desire - and an inquisitive Cyclops waits for his keeper and guardian, growing in all directions. Beyond the colonial city of Essenwald lies the Vorrh, the forest which sucks souls and wipes minds.

It is a perfect spring day in Istanbul. Kemal, a wealthy heir, is about to become engaged to the aristocratic Sibel when he encounters Füsun, a beautiful shop girl. He falls in love and finds his established world of Westernized families, opulent parties, society gossip and dining room rituals is shattered.

Told in a mesmerizing voice that will beguile listeners with its fierceness, vulnerability, honesty, and black humour, Strange Hotel immerses us in the currents of attraction, love, and grief. It is an immensely moving and ultimately revelatory exploration of one woman's attempts to negotiate her own memories and impulses, and what it might mean to return home.

Death is already approaching; it feels like it can't be much longer now. The virus had me on the ropes even before the bone dagger in my side sped the process along. The betrayal of one of the members of my team, together with the Feathered Serpent's attack, should have been the final events of my life....