Metaphysical Mysteries

Hannah Skye, a young woman in search of meaning, receives a cryptic letter from her missing and eccentric Aunt Jewelia. Her experience of a recurring powerful pumpkin patch dream unfolds into a spiritual journey to a mysterious island of eternal autumn, Maple Hollow, where she discovers the mystical Skye Manor and her magickal family legacy.

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.

On the occasion of the centenary of Mata Hari's execution for espionage in 1917, Paulo Coelho reconsiders her life and character in a fictional memoir. In a series of letters written from prison on the eve of her death, Mata Hari reflects on the choices she has made to always pursue her own truth - from her childhood in a small Dutch town to unhappy years as the wife of an alcoholic diplomat in Java to her calculated and self-fashioned rise to celebrity in Paris and across Europe as an exotic dancer.

For New Yorker Nick Dalca, wealth is a birthright. But his perfect life is starting to crumble. During a flight to Europe, his private jet goes missing with his wife and son aboard. They are presumed dead. Having no one left, Nick makes a shocking decision: to negotiate the sale of his business conglomerate, a deal which may turn him into one of the richest men in the world. Faced with making many decisions alone, he is drawn to his longtime secretary, Anne. She has one special gift. A gift that can radically alter his destiny.

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.

After uncovering a mystical link to the ancient civilization of Galderkhaan, child psychologist Caitlin O'Hara is left with strange new powers. Suddenly she can heal her young patients with her mind and see things from other places and other times. But as she learns more about her powers, she also realizes that someone is watching her, perhaps hunting her - and using her son to do it.

Cass Neary made her name in the 70s as a photographer embedded in the burgeoning punk movement in New York City. Her pictures earned her a brief moment of fame. Thirty years later she is adrift, on her way down, and almost out when an old acquaintance sends her on a mercy gig to interview a famously reclusive photographer who lives on an island in Maine. When she arrives Down East, Cass stumbles across a decades-old mystery that is still claiming victims, and she finds one final shot at redemption.

The unifying factor of this collection is that, without exception, every author included here was in some way or another involved with or interested in the occult. In some cases, they were members of an occult organization, such as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the Theosophical Society, or similar such groups. Others simply had a strong personal interest in the subject matter or practiced some form of the esoteric sciences in private.

Anthropologist Calliope Santiago awakens to find herself in a strange and sinister wasteland, a shadow of the New Mexico she knew. Empty vehicles litter the road. Everyone has disappeared - or almost everyone. Calliope, heavy-bellied with the twins she carries inside her, must make her way across this dangerous landscape with a group of fellow survivors in search of answers. Long-dead volcanoes erupt, the ground rattles and splits, and monsters come to ominous life. Calliope will be forced to reconcile the geological record with the heritage she once denied.

In The Second Rule of Ten, Norbu investigates the unexplained death of his former client, Hollywood mogul Marv Rudolph, and searches for the sister, lost during World War II, of wizened Los Angeles philanthropist Julius Rosen. With two cases and an unforeseen family crisis that sends him back to Tibet, Ten finds himself on the outs with his best buddy and former partner, Bill, who is heading the official police investigation into Marv's death.

One day, one of her clients tells Lily and a group of fellow students about an autopsy that was accidentally performed on the wrong body at the hospital where she works. She was hoping to send the body to the funeral home as quickly as possible, but when the medical examiner’s report is complete, it states that death was due to homicide! Lily (along with the clients who were present that day) is intrigued and can’t help doing a little investigating. The murkiness of the woman’s death sparks the very type of passion and interest she has been yearning to feel.

Two women, two millennia apart with seemingly unconnected lives - one from the Lake District in England and the other from Bethany in Palestine. Both experience loss and betrayal, which engender feelings of fear and uncertainty about what the future holds. Martha from the Lake District faces challenge and change in 2,000 A.D. as her deepest insecurities are exposed. But supported by her partner Ben, she discovers the mystical Aramaic teachings of Yeshua that offer her a pathway to self-realization and freedom.

At the end of a metaphysical conference, reluctant attendee Camille Dare discovers an envelope with her name on it. Filled with travel documents, a photograph, and bloody scarf material, the source of the envelope and its contents remain anonymous, but the directive is clear: Find the missing person in this unusual case. The missing person, Katherine Agurre, comes from a high-profile family. A growing obsession with the missing person case and her own quest for self-understanding compel Camille to begin a trip to meet people she never knew and locations she never expected to visit.

Jack Staunton, an American businessman, makes a pilgrimage to war-torn Israel in hopes of rekindling his Christian faith. While traveling with his friend Punjeeh, an ER doctor from Jerusalem, Jack acquires an ancient scroll written by the Gnostics, a mystical group of early Christians, and his spiritual quest takes an unexpected turn. The scroll makes the startling claims that the Gnostics were the original followers of Jesus, and that they retained secret knowledge of Jesus that was not included in the Bible.

Jane Frey inherits a Gothic mansion filled with unexpected treasures: original paintings by 18th-century visionary William Blake, secret rooms, and an ancient underground cavern. A prophecy claims it hides an important artifact - the key to an energy grid laid down by the Founding Fathers themselves. Whoever controls this grid controls the very centers of world power. Except Jane has no idea what they're looking for.

Tarot reader Sara Wilde has spent her whole life finding the lost with the use of her trusty cards. But when her newest assignment sends her straight to Hell, she discovers more than she bargained for. The journey through Dante's playground forces Sara to endure a client's bitter loss, fall victim to a vicious betrayal by her own kind, and come face-to-face with the woman she might have been. Not even Sara's blossoming love for the darkly sensual Magician is safe in the underworld. She's tested in ways she never fathomed, ways that could drive her mad or utterly destroy her.

Sam Meeko never thought that he’d ever get a superpower, especially one that allows him to smell everything. Everything. With his unconventional power, Sam joins forces with a group of women hellbent on getting to the bottom of a countrywide conspiracy. It’s going to take some thinking outside the box, and when that doesn’t work, Sam and his group might need to tear the walls down.

Poet Gabriel Syme believes in the beauty of order and, as such, is recruited by Scotland Yard to an anti-anarchist police corp. While undercover, Syme meets fellow poet Lucian Gregory, a verse writer devoted to disorder, who introduces him to London’s anarchist underworld. Just as Gregory is to be elected to the central council, Syme’s cover is revealed and he is forced to make a decision that sends the cabal into chaos. Is anyone in this underground faction who or what they seem? Syme suddenly realizes he doesn’t have all the answers.

Deep down, Robert Goldner knows he's a mistake. His mother told him so when he was just five years old. But he never found the courage to ask just what she meant before she was murdered under mysterious circumstances on his 11th birthday. Now, on the eve of his 17th birthday, Robert is dead set on becoming a Virginia high school state wrestling champion in order to redeem himself once and for all, reversing whatever curse his mother saw within him.

Big bugs, cloned cats, and feral star-children play leading roles in the seven stories that make up Fast’s unconventional and thought-provoking collection. The Edge of Tomorrow is a significant foray into science fiction by one of the 20th century’s most prolific novelists. In looking beyond our universe, Fast reveals much about the America of his time - where the Cold War and a nascent civil rights movement stoked unconscious fears and desires.