Urban Historical

In the late 20th century, the streets of Paris are lined with haunted ruins. The Great Magicians' War left a trail of devastation in its wake. The grands magasins have been reduced to piles of debris, Notre-Dame is a burnt-out shell, and the Seine has turned black with ashes and rubble and the remnants of the spells that tore the city apart. But those that survived still retain their irrepressible appetite for novelty and distraction, and the great houses still vie for dominion over France's once-grand capital.

Born in the slums of Brooklyn, in the first year of the 20th century, Willie Sutton came of age at a time when banks were out of control. If they weren’t taking brazen risks, they were shamelessly seeking bailouts. Trapped in a cycle of bank panics, depressions and soaring unemployment, Sutton saw only one way out. So began the career of America’s most successful bank robber. Sutton became so good at breaking into banks, and such a master at breaking out of prisons, police called him one of the most dangerous men.

L.A. Woman is quintessential Babitz, the story of Sophie, a 20-something blonde Jim Morrison groupie gliding through a golden existence in L.A.; and Lola, a German immigrant who settles in Hollywood in the '20s to drive Pierce Arrows recklessly down Sunset Boulevard and who knows that Maybelline mascara cakes and that Rudolph Valentino is the essence of life. Sophie and Lola, like the many other women who move in and out of this electric saga, know that while L.A. is constantly changing, it is essentially eternal.

On a cool evening in Kolkata, India, beneath a full moon, as the whirling rhythms of traveling musicians fill the night, college professor Alok encounters a mysterious stranger with a bizarre confession and an extraordinary story. Tantalized by the man's unfinished tale, Alok will do anything to hear its completion. So Alok agrees, at the stranger's behest, to transcribe a collection of battered notebooks, weathered parchments, and once-living skins.

In 1892 New Fiddleham, New England, things are never quite what they seem, especially when Abigail Rook and her eccentric employer, R. F. Jackaby, are called upon to investigate the supernatural. First, a vicious species of shape-shifters disguise themselves as a litter of kittens, and a day later their owner is found murdered with a single mysterious puncture wound.

Francesca "Chess" Varani is an ultra-bright, sassy, but vulnerable Barnard freshwoman from a blue-collar background in the vibrantly gritty New York City of the mid-'80s. She strikes up a volatile and somewhat toxic friendship with drama-queen classmate Kendra Marr-Löwenstein and falls into the bewitching orbit of her Salingeresque, high-toned family. Upon graduation, she moves into the Marr-Löwenstein house in the West Village as a secretary/girl-of-all-work.

When Elsie and Bert Jones move with their children, Ann and Arthur, to Candle Lane, a modest street in Battersea, they miss their comfortable house in Wimbledon. But the move is the right thing to do, as it will enable Bert to finance his new removal business. They are a warmhearted family, and Elsie soon makes friends with her less fortunate neighbour, Ruth, and her daughter, Sally. But before long Elsie realises that all is not well in the house next door....

The parish of Manningtree and Mistley has a dark history. In 1644, Cromwell's Witchfinder General tortured scores of women there, including Liza the herbalist, whose cottage still stands. Some say the spirits of his victims still haunt the old shop on the High Street. Emma Dickson gave up her high-flying career to live in Liza’s cottage, but as Halloween approaches, visions of a terrible past are driving her to madness. In despair, Emma turns to the local rector for help, but he, too, is in the grip of something inexplicably dangerous.

Once upon a time, there was a forgotten era of magic and monster. But the remnants—and all memory—of the old world have been replaced by the sane, the scientific, and the rational. But sometimes the magical past isn’t content to stay past. That’s where Jack Damian comes in. It’s his joy to protect our present from the supernatural remnants of an earlier time, a different history. It’s his job to make the past safe. Jack is called to the Tate Museum, where dozens of people have disappeared beneath the surface of a painting.

The war between the thief guilds and the powerful allegiance known as the Trifect has slowly dwindled. Now only the mysterious Haern is left to wage his private battle against the guilds in the guise of the Watcher - a vicious killer who knows no limits. But when the son of Alyssa Gemcroft, one of the three leaders of the Trifect, is believed murdered, the slaughter begins anew. Mercenaries flood the streets with one goal in mind: Find and kill the Watcher.

Legend says the Sinclairs' heightened senses are a result of a long ago pact between them and the powerful Raven family. To honor and protect is their creed, but the current Duke of Raven doesn’t make their task easy. Arrogant and aloof, James, Duke of Raven, is determined to forge his own path, and to hell with folk tales that his ancestors created. But when the breathtaking Eden Sinclair saves his life by risking her own, their past resurfaces, and with it comes the uncomfortable realization that they are linked by more than history.

Rick Yancey’s first gothic suspense tale, The Monstrumologist, earned him a prestigious Michael L. Printz Award. The second installment of this acclaimed series, Curse of the Wendigo, finds young Will Henry on the hunt for a supernatural beast plaguing New England in the late 1800s. Will and his mentor, the domineering Dr. Warthrop, are enlisted to help the doctor’s former fiancée. It seems her husband has been lost in the Canadian wilderness.

London 1870: a terrifying place for a young, beautiful woman of limited means. But Eliza is modern before her time. Not for her the stifling if respectable conventionality of marriage, children, domestic drudgery. She longs for more. Through her work as an artist’s model, she meets the magnetic and irascible Devil - a born showman whose dream is to run his own theatre company. Devil’s right-hand man is the improbably named Carlo Bonomi, an ill-tempered dwarf with an enormous talent for all things magic and illusion.

Malcolm of Dunroch is a newly chosen Master, a novice with extraordinary and dangerous powers. But he has already broken his vows, and a young woman's death is on his hands. Malcolm is determined to fight his darkest desires, denying himself all pleasure until fate sends him another Innocent, the beautiful book-seller Claire Camden.

After a career spying for Queen Victoria, James Asher enjoyed a quiet retirement until he met the vampire Don Simon, an immortal Spaniard who taught him about the secret society of bloodsucking undead. Now, one of the vampires, the Earl of Ernchester, has turned his back on Britain. When Asher spots him boarding a train for Paris in the company of an Austrian spy, he springs into action. If the immortals can forge an alliance with England’s enemies, then the Empire is doomed.

As the Iris family consolidates their hold on Nether society, Will finds himself more powerful and yet more vulnerable than ever. His strongest supporters are gone, and his wife has left him, a fact that will destroy him if it comes out. To keep his position - and to stay alive - he needs to get her back, whatever the cost. Cathy has finally escaped the Nether but finds her reliance on Sam's protection chafing.

Athgar and Natalia have everything they have ever dreamed of - family, friends, and a place to call home. When Athgar's long-lost sister unexpectedly walks into the village, he feels as if life is complete, but not everyone trusts her. Ebenstadt, abandoned by the Temple Knights after their defeat, now suffers under the control of a ruthless despot who uses thugs to enforce his will. To complicate matters even more, the neighboring Kingdom of Novarsk is looking on with greedy eyes, eager to expand its borders.

With their enemy pushed back to their last stronghold, Illume and his team march into the heart of darkness itself to face an enemy...an enemy unlike anything they’ve previously faced. Still looking for the traitor in his ranks, our Plane Walker hopes to bring an end to tyranny before his hidden enemy can take his last Life.

Hex is a visceral depiction of what happens when a society is consumed by fear and superstition, exploring how the terrible force of a king's violent crusade against ordinary women can still be felt, right up to the present day.

Towner Whitney, the self-confessed unreliable narrator of The Lace Reader, hails from a family of Salem women who can read the future in the patterns in lace, and who have guarded a history of secrets going back generations. But the disappearance of two women brings Towner home to Salem and the truth about the death of her twin sister to light.