Urban Historical

Damballah, Hiding Place, and Sent for You Yesterday provide a stunning introduction to the uncompromising work of John Edgar Wideman, whose literary achievements have inspired The New York Times to name him “one of America’s premier writers of fiction”. Damballah’s narratives examine the vexed history of Homewood, a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, neighborhood whose origins are rooted in a time when slavery was still legal in the United States of America.

Der Busausflug nach Prag und ins Banat läuft anders, als der junge Len sich je hätte ausmalen können. Auch wenn seine Großmutter immer behauptet hatte, er sei ein Drăculești und der letzte Nachfahre von Vlad II, hat er selbst nie daran geglaubt. Bis er in Prag von Vampiren gejagt wird – denn Vlad und seine Familie galten als erbitterte Feinde der Blutsauger. Nun fürchten sie, dass Len ein Vorbote ist: für die Rückkehr der Schwarzen Königin! Sie wollen über ihn an die alten magisch-alchemistischen Aufzeichnungen der geheimnisvollen Herrscherin. Dumm nur, dass Len nicht den blassesten Schimmer hat.

Der Greif hat sie gefunden! Lange hatten sich Arthur und seine Frau Martha nach dem Krieg in ihrem beschaulichen Kleinstadtidyll in Sicherheit gewähnt. Doch als sie ihrem Sohn Karl zum 16. Geburtstag die geheimnisvolle Chronik schenken, tauchen die Kreaturen des grausamen Herrschers auf und entführen Martha in den Schwarzen Turm. Verzweifelt folgt Arthur ihnen in die Parallelwelt und erreicht erneut Martens Hof. Aus dem Gehöft ist inzwischen eine befestigte Stadt geworden, in der sich rasend schnell die Kunde verbreitet.

Ein Bombenangriff legt Bingen in Schutt und Asche. Im letzten Augenblick können Arthur und Martha, die sich seit einem halben Jahr auf dem Dachboden in Arthurs Elternhaus verstecken, vor der SS fliehen. Zusammen mit der jüdischen Familie Diestelzweig tauchen sie in der Parallelwelt des Schwarzen Turms unter. Hier sind seit Arthurs letztem Besuch unglaublicherweise achtzig Jahre vergangen. Längst bewohnt nicht mehr Marthas Familie Martens Hof, und man gewährt ihnen nur widerwillig Unterschlupf.

Arthur starrt in die Pistolenmündung. Sekunden, bevor ihn die tödliche Kugel trifft, öffnet sich ihm ein geheimer Gang. Verwundert kann er fliehen und gelangt über eine abstruse Himmelstreppe in den Schwarzen Turm. Doch in der fantastischen Parallelwelt lauern unberechenbare Gefahren. Gejagt von den Häschern des grausamen Greifen, rettet Arthur sich auf Martens Hof. Paradiesischer Frieden herrscht hier, und am liebsten würde Arthur für immer bleiben, zusammen mit der hübschen Bauerntochter Martha.

The Herbarium, an enchanted sacred text written by the ancients, is safely hidden in a monastery outside of Chartres, or is it? In present day California, thirty-something Paige Delaney is struggling to cope. Since the death of her husband, she's felt lost, aimless, and frustrated. At the urging of her best friend, she accepts an invitation to join a Wiccan ceremony. And it's a night that changes everything. Haunted by the vivid apparition she sees in the bonfire, Paige is sent reeling when her mother reveals a long-kept family secret: that Paige is a descendant of a powerful line of witches

The events which killed dozens of people and put the word "werewolf" on people's lips have been covered up. Deaths blamed on gang warfare, drugs, and costumes. A secret operation is in process to make sure that the truth about what happened in Boxford stays buried. But some things refuse to lie down and be still. There are perpetual loose ends that continue to multiply and carry on a legacy that began well before the Second World War.

Canterbury Cathedral, 1170. Four knights break sanctuary to brutally murder Archbishop Thomas Becket for their king, Henry II. Running from their crime, the four knights - Hugh de Morville, William de Tracy, Reginald FitzUrse, and Richard le Brett - flee north to Knaresborough Castle, where Morville is overlord. Initially celebrating ridding their king of the pest that Becket had become, they find themselves increasingly isolated as the church and public opinion turn against them.

When Adeline, a wealthy art student, chances upon a young man from the Midwest known only as Baby in a shady East Village squat, the two begin a fiery friendship that propels them through a decade of New York life. In the apartments and bars of downtown Manhattan to the infamous nightclub The Limelight, Adeline is Baby's guardian angel, introducing him to a city not yet overrun by gentrification. They live through an era of New York punctuated by the deaths of Warhol, Basquiat, Wojnarowicz, and Tompkins Square Park.

> The Stone of Alexandria is a complex, and multifaceted tale that deals with history, magic, metaphysics, folklore, reincarnation, and parallel realities. The story moves between ancient Alexandria and modern day New York City, with a brief excursion into the lost civilization of Atlantis. Michael Valens, is an intelligent, curious graduate student who stumbles into a global and inter-dimensional struggle over a magical stone of incomparable power.

Finna is about to be taken on a journey that will change her life forever. Little does she know that when her mother appears on her doorstep it will begin a chain of events that will eventually impact even the baby she carries. How can she believe the wild stories her mother tells her: A parallel world right next to this one? Gods and goddess, druids? But for some reason she finds herself following the amazingly convincing Catriona, who has an uncanny way of eliminating her fears.

In a strange twist, a young man in love finds himself embroiled in a paranormal adventure that leads him to follow a pale ghostly woman who eventually leads to a discovery that will have a profound impact on his own love life forever.

Sophia Westlake is an extraordinary seer, gifted with the ability to see past, present, and future in dreams and visions. Her talent led to the destruction of the Caribbean pirates plaguing England's shipping and gained her renown and the accolades of her peers. But when she accuses a prominent politician, Lord Endicott, of embezzling from the army, her dream is "proved" false, and she is disgraced, her reputation ruined and her career in the army's War Office over.

Maine, 1905: historian Frances Schmidt travels north in hopes of reading lawyer Garrett Hathaway's collection of books about mermen and mermaids. Ready to charm a crotchety old man, she's surprised to find a handsome young music-lover. But while Garrett seems more than willing to be her friend, he shies from getting any closer.

Heaven lays down the law and Hell gets more hellish in Lawyers in Hell, marking the return of Heroes in Hell - the greatest shared universe of all time. The commandments weren't merely suggestions - and there were over 300 of them. And now, as the higher powers send auditors through the underworlds to dispense yet greater injustice, heroes and villains from all of history are about to be reminded that sin doesn't pay...and in Hell, neither does virtue.

Sara Wolfe was told three things: Her husband and sister-in-law died in a backwater village. Wraiths are only stories. Her nephew needs her. She believes none of it. Following her husband's supposed death, Sara travels to Grey Run in search of answers, quickly becoming embroiled in the village's old hurts and older magic - Grey Run sits on the crossroads between the human realm and the Gloaming: a shadowy world of ghosts and little gods.

Look who's on the Dick Gibson Radio Show: Arnold the Memory Expert ("I've memorized the entire West Coast shoreline - except for cloud cover and fog banks"). Bernie Perk, the burning pharmacist. Henry Harper, the nine-year old orphan millionaire, terrified of being adopted. The woman whose life revolves around pierced lobes. An evil hypnotist. Swindlers. Con-men. And Dick Gibson himself. Anticipating talk radio and its crazed hosts, Stanley Elkin creates a brilliant comic world held together by American manias and maniacs in all their forms.

Mehmet battles for daily survival in the murky Istanbul of 1951 while being forced to learn the craft of theft and violence alongside the other street children. Come evening, he curls up under a stinking jetty in a waterway off the Bosporus Strait. Desperation fills him as he yearns to break free from the life inflicted on him by his drunken, womanizing father, little knowing that his rotting body lies at the bottom of those same waters.

St. Louis in 1880 is full of ghosts - mangled soldiers, tortured slaves, the innocent victims of war - and Jacob Tracy can see them all. Ever since Antietam, when he lay delirious among the dead and dying, Trace has been haunted by the country's restless spirits. The curse cost him his family, his calling to the church, and damn near his sanity. He stays out of ghost-populated cities as much as possible these days, guiding wagon trains west with his pragmatic and skeptical partner, Boz.

Behind every myth there is a spark of truth.... There's nothing special about Ben Garston. Or so he'd have you believe. He won't tell you, for instance, that he's also known as Red Ben. Or that the world of myth and legend is more real than you think. Because it's his job to keep all that a secret. But now a centuries-old rivalry has resurfaced, and the delicate balance between his world and ours is about to be shattered.