Laura's bookshelf: all en-US Sat, 31 May 2025 04:24:21 -0700 60 Laura's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[The Death Cure (The Maze Runner, #3)]]> 7864437 It’s the end of the line.

WICKED has taken everything from Thomas: his life, his memories, and now his only friends—the Gladers. But it’s finally over. The trials are complete, after one final test.

Will anyone survive?

What WICKED doesn’t know is that Thomas remembers far more than they think. And it’s enough to prove that he can’t believe a word of what they say.

The truth will be terrifying.

Thomas beat the Maze. He survived the Scorch. He’ll risk anything to save his friends. But the truth might be what ends it all.

The time for lies is over.]]>
325 James Dashner 0385738773 Laura 0 currently-reading 3.78 2011 The Death Cure (The Maze Runner, #3)
author: James Dashner
name: Laura
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/05/31
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<![CDATA[The Scorch Trials (The Maze Runner, #2)]]> 7631105 Solving the Maze was supposed to be the end.
Ìý
Thomas was sure that escape from the Maze would mean freedom for him and the Gladers. But WICKED isn’t done yet. Phase Two has just begun. The Scorch.
Ìý
There are no rules. There is no help. You either make it or you die.
Ìý
The Gladers have two weeks to cross through the Scorch—the most burned-out section of the world. And WICKED has made sure to adjust the variables and stack the odds against them.
Ìý
Friendships will be tested. Loyalties will be broken. All bets are off.
Ìý
There are others now. Their survival depends on the Gladers� destruction—and they’re determined to survive.]]>
362 James Dashner 0385738757 Laura 0 3.90 2010 The Scorch Trials (The Maze Runner, #2)
author: James Dashner
name: Laura
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2010
rating: 0
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A Steep and Savage Path 195340459 From the SUNDAY TIMES bestselling author of THE THORNS REMAIN comes an enemies-to-lovers journey to the underworld unlike any other, for fans of THE CRIMSON MOTH and THE CRUEL PRINCE

An immortal vampire. A mortal bride. A vow that even death can’t break.

Irina is about to be married to a dead man. She is the willing village sacrifice for the Wedding of the a desperate ritual designed to lay the hungry vampire that has been terrorising her Transylvanian village to rest. Irina’s beloved sister’s soul is trapped in the land of the dead. If Irina can retrieve it, she could bring her back � but Irina would need a guide, one who can walk between the living and the dead.

Irina strikes up a deal with her new husband � if he agrees to get her safely there and back again, then he can drink her blood as much as he wants.

They begin a perilous journey through the afterlife together, in which Irina realises Stefan isn’t the cruel and terrifying monster that she thought. In a land of three-headed beasts, winged creatures and walking corpses, the last thing Irina would have expected was to fall in love.

Only, Irina learns that by bringing Stefan to the land of the dead she has put him in grave danger, and will be faced with an impossible choice. Will they be able to make it out, undead or alive?]]>
384 J.J.A. Harwood 0008517983 Laura 0 currently-reading 3.71 2025 A Steep and Savage Path
author: J.J.A. Harwood
name: Laura
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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Belladonna (Belladonna, #1) 59227936
Orphaned as a baby, nineteen-year-old Signa has been raised by a string of guardians, each one more interested in her wealth than her well-being—and each has met an untimely end. Her remaining relatives are the elusive Hawthornes, an eccentric family living at Thorn Grove, an estate both glittering and gloomy. Its patriarch mourns his late wife through wild parties, while his son grapples for control of the family’s waning reputation, and his daughter suffers from a mysterious illness. But when their mother’s restless spirit appears claiming she was poisoned, Signa realizes that the family she depends on could be in grave danger and enlists the help of a surly stable boy to hunt down the killer.
Ìý
However, Signa’s best chance of uncovering the murderer is an alliance with Death himself, a fascinating, dangerous shadow who has never been far from her side. Though he’s made her life a living hell, Death shows Signa that their growing connection may be more powerful—and more irresistible—than she ever dared imagine.]]>
409 Adalyn Grace 0316158232 Laura 0 3.96 2022 Belladonna (Belladonna, #1)
author: Adalyn Grace
name: Laura
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2025/05/19
date added: 2025/05/19
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<![CDATA[The Maze Runner (The Maze Runner, #1)]]> 6186357 There are alternate cover editions for this ASIN here and here.

If you ain’t scared, you ain’t human.

When Thomas wakes up in the lift, the only thing he can remember is his name. He’s surrounded by strangers—boys whose memories are also gone.

Nice to meet ya, shank. Welcome to the Glade.

Outside the towering stone walls that surround the Glade is a limitless, ever-changing maze. It’s the only way out—and no one’s ever made it through alive.

Everything is going to change.

Then a girl arrives. The first girl ever. And the message she delivers is terrifying.

Remember. Survive. Run.]]>
384 James Dashner 0385737947 Laura 0 4.05 2009 The Maze Runner (The Maze Runner, #1)
author: James Dashner
name: Laura
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at: 2025/05/16
date added: 2025/05/16
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<![CDATA[Etta Lemon: The Woman Who Saved the Birds]]> 55655447
A heroine for our times, Etta Lemon campaigned for fifty yearsÌýagainst the worldwide slaughter of birds for extravagantly feathered hats. Her legacy is the RSPB, grown from an all-female pressure group of 1889 with the splendidly simple pledge: Wear No Feathers.

Etta’s long battle against ‘murderous millinery� triumphed with the Plumage Act of 1921 � but her legacy has been eclipsed by the more glamorous campaign for the vote, led by the elegantly plumed Emmeline Pankhurst.

This gripping narrative explores two formidable heroines and their rival, overlapping campaigns. Moving from the feather workers� slums to high society, from the first female political rally to the rise of the eco-feminist, it restores Etta Lemon to her rightful place in history � the extraordinary woman who saved the birds.]]>
320 Tessa Boase 0711263388 Laura 0 currently-reading 3.88 2021 Etta Lemon: The Woman Who Saved the Birds
author: Tessa Boase
name: Laura
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/05/07
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<![CDATA[The Dead of Winter: Beware the Krampus and Other Wicked Christmas Creatures]]> 210594739 Enter the dark side of discover the monsters, witches, and nightmarish traditions behind one of the most celebrated holidays in the world When we imagine the origins of Christmas, we picture halcyon images of mangers, glowing fireplaces, and snow-blanketed winter hills. But the holiday is celebrated during the darkest time of year in the Northern Hemisphere—a season so dark it has given rise to the most outlandish traditions imaginable. In The Dead of Winter, Oxford-trained historian Sarah Clegg delves deep into the folkloric roots of Christmas in Europe, comparing their often-horrific past to the way they continue to haunt and entertain us now in the 21st century. Detailing the hideous masks and curling horns of "Krampus runs" in Austria, the fearsome horseheads of "hoodenings"Ìýin Southeast England, and the candle-crowned young witches of Finland's St. Lucy Festival, the author captures the wild revelry at heart of the winter madness. Ìý In Clegg’s fascinating investigation, these strange, wonderful traditions are cast in their illuminating historical context. And the closer we get to the dark magic and bright enchantment described inÌýThe Dead of Winter, the more we start to see how fun it might be to let just a bit of the ancient darkness in.]]> 208 Sarah Clegg 1643757083 Laura 0 3.72 2024 The Dead of Winter: Beware the Krampus and Other Wicked Christmas Creatures
author: Sarah Clegg
name: Laura
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/05/03
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Horror Movie 200101541 A chilling twist on the “cursed filmâ€� genre from the bestselling author ofÌýThe Pallbearers Club andÌýThe Cabin at the End of the World.

In June 1993, a group of young guerilla filmmakers spent four weeks making Horror Movie, a notorious, disturbing, art-house horror flick.

The weird part?ÌýOnly three of the film’s scenes were ever released to the public, but Horror Movie has nevertheless grown a rabid fanbase. Three decades later, Hollywood is pushing for a big budget reboot.

The man who played “The Thin Kid� is the only surviving cast member. He remembers all too well the secrets buried within the original screenplay, the bizarre events of the filming, and the dangerous crossed lines on set that resulted in tragedy. As memories flood back in, the boundaries between reality and film, past and present start to blur. But he’s going to help remake the film, even if it means navigating a world of cynical producers, egomaniacal directors, and surreal fan conventions � demons of the past be damned.

But at what cost?Ìý

Horror Movie is an obsessive, psychologically chilling, and suspenseful twist on the “cursed film� that breathlessly builds to an unforgettable, mind-bending conclusion.]]>
277 Paul Tremblay 0063070014 Laura 0 3.29 2024 Horror Movie
author: Paul Tremblay
name: Laura
average rating: 3.29
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Darkdawn (The Nevernight Chronicle, #3)]]> 23264672
The Nevernight Chronicle is a complex fantasy series about Mia Corvere, a kick-butt, flawed heroine who trains as an assassin as part of her mission for personal revenge. Her tale takes place in the immersive world of Godsgrave which, although based on ancient Rome and Venice, is imaginative with many original details provided by a beloved snarky narrator.

The Republic of Itreya is in chaos. Mia has assassinated Cardinal Duomo and rumors of Consul Scaeva’s death ripple through the street of Godsgrave like wildfire. But buried beneath those same streets, deep in the ancient city’s bones, lies a secret that will change the Republic forever.

Mia and her brother Jonnen must journey through the depths of the ancient metropolis. Their quest will take them through the Godsgrave underdark, back to the library of the Quiet Mountain and the poisoned blades of Mia’s old mentors, and at last the fabled Crown of the Moon. There, Mia will at last discover the origins of the darkin, and learn the destiny that lies in store for her and her world. But with the three suns now in descent, and Truedark on the horizon, will she survive?]]>
491 Jay Kristoff 146688505X Laura 0 4.30 2019 Darkdawn (The Nevernight Chronicle, #3)
author: Jay Kristoff
name: Laura
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at: 2025/04/27
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<![CDATA[Sunrise on the Reaping (The Hunger Games, #0.5)]]> 214331246 When you’ve been set up to lose everything you love, what is there left to fight for?

As the day dawns on the fiftieth annual Hunger Games, fear grips the districts of Panem. This year, in honor of the Quarter Quell, twice as many tributes will be taken from their homes.

Back in District 12, Haymitch Abernathy is trying not to think too hard about his chances. All he cares about is making it through the day and being with the girl he loves.

When Haymitch’s name is called, he can feel all his dreams break. He’s torn from his family and his love, shuttled to the Capitol with the three other District 12 tributes: a young friend who’s nearly a sister to him, a compulsive oddsmaker, and the most stuck-up girl in town. As the Games begin, Haymitch understands he’s been set up to fail. But there’s something in him that wants to fight . . . and have that fight reverberate far beyond the deadly arena.]]>
387 Suzanne Collins 1546171460 Laura 0 4.56 2025 Sunrise on the Reaping (The Hunger Games, #0.5)
author: Suzanne Collins
name: Laura
average rating: 4.56
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at: 2025/03/27
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<![CDATA[Childhood and Death in Victorian England]]> 34412430
Drawing on actual instances of Infanticide and baby farming the reader is taken into a world of unmarried mothers, whose shame at being pregnant drove them to carry out horrendous crimes yet walk free from court, without consequence. For others, they were not so lucky.

The Victorian children in this publication lived in the rapidly changing world of the Industrial Revolution. With the introduction of the New Poor Law in 1834 the future for some pauper children changed - but not for the better. Studies have also unearthed a religious sect known as the 'Peculiar People' and gives an insight into their beliefs.

This book is not recommended for those easily offended as it does contain graphic descriptions of some child murders, although not intended to glorify the tragedies, they were necessary to inform the reader of the horrific extent that some killers went to.

This book will appeal to anyone with an interest in the social history of the Victorian period.]]>
200 Sarah Seaton 1473877024 Laura 0 3.65 2017 Childhood and Death in Victorian England
author: Sarah Seaton
name: Laura
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at: 2025/03/01
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<![CDATA[Godsgrave (The Nevernight Chronicle, #2)]]> 23264671 419 Jay Kristoff 1250073030 Laura 0 4.44 2017 Godsgrave (The Nevernight Chronicle, #2)
author: Jay Kristoff
name: Laura
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at: 2025/02/20
date added: 2025/02/20
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<![CDATA[Belle: The True Story of Dido Belle]]> 22531200 The inspiration behind the powerful new film starring Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Tom Wilkinson and Emily Watson, this is the story of Dido Belle, whose adoption by an aristocratic family challenged the conventions of 18th century England.

In one of the most famous portraits in the world, a pretty girl walks through the grounds of Kenwood House, a vision of aristocratic refinement. But the eye is drawn to the beautiful woman on her right. Pointing at her own cheek, she playfully acknowledges her remarkable position in eighteenth-century society. For Dido Belle was the illegitimate, mixed-race daughter of a Royal Navy captain and a slave woman, adopted by the Earl of Mansfield. As Lord Chief Justice of England he would preside over the notorious Zong case � the drowning of 142 slaves by an unscrupulous shipping company. His ruling provided the legal underpinning to the abolition of slavery in Britain.

From the privileged yet unequal lives of Dido and her cousin Elizabeth, to the horrific treatment of African slaves, Paula Byrne � the bestselling author of ‘The Real Jane Austen� � vividly narrates the story of a family that defied convention, the legal trial that exposed the cruelties of slavery and the woman who challenged notions of race at the highest rank.

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306 Paula Byrne 0007589727 Laura 0 3.44 2014 Belle: The True Story of Dido Belle
author: Paula Byrne
name: Laura
average rating: 3.44
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/19
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Mr Sponge's Sporting Tour 2952731 512 Robert Smith Surtees 1845882121 Laura 0 3.83 1853 Mr Sponge's Sporting Tour
author: Robert Smith Surtees
name: Laura
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1853
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/08
date added: 2025/01/08
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<![CDATA[Nevernight (The Nevernight Chronicle, #1)]]> 26114463
Daughter of an executed traitor, Mia Corvere is barely able to escape her father’s failed rebellion with her life. Alone and friendless, she hides in a city built from the bones of a dead god, hunted by the Senate and her father’s former comrades. But her gift for speaking with the shadows leads her to the door of a retired killer, and a future she never imagined.

Now, Mia is apprenticed to the deadliest flock of assassins in the entire Republic—the Red Church. If she bests her fellow students in contests of steel, poison and the subtle arts, she’ll be inducted among the Blades of the Lady of Blessed Murder, and one step closer to the vengeance she desires. But a killer is loose within the Church’s halls, the bloody secrets of Mia’s past return to haunt her, and a plot to bring down the entire congregation is unfolding in the shadows she so loves.

Will she even survive to initiation, let alone have her revenge?]]>
427 Jay Kristoff 1250073022 Laura 0 4.19 2016 Nevernight (The Nevernight Chronicle, #1)
author: Jay Kristoff
name: Laura
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at: 2024/12/27
date added: 2024/12/27
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House of Glass 40635416 June 1914 and a young woman - Clara Waterfield - is summoned to a large stone house in Gloucestershire. Her to fill a greenhouse with exotic plants from Kew Gardens, to create a private paradise for the owner of Shadowbrook. Yet, on arrival, Clara hears something is wrong with this quiet, wisteria-covered house. Its gardens are filled with foxgloves, hydrangea and roses; it has lily-ponds, a croquet lawn - and the marvellous new glasshouse awaits her. But the house itself feels unloved. Its rooms are shuttered, or empty. The owner is mostly absent; the housekeeper and maids seem afraid. And soon, Clara understands their for something - or someone - is walking through the house at night. In the height of summer, she finds herself drawn deeper into Shadowbrook's dark interior - and into the secrets that violently haunt this house. Nothing - not even the men who claim they wish to help her - is quite what it seems.

Reminiscent of Daphne du Maurier, this is a wonderful, atmospheric Gothic page-turner.

]]>
295 Susan Fletcher 0349007667 Laura 0 3.88 2018 House of Glass
author: Susan Fletcher
name: Laura
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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Becoming 38746485
In her memoir, a work of deep reflection and mesmerizing storytelling, Michelle Obama invites readers into her world, chronicling the experiences that have shaped her—from her childhood on the South Side of Chicago to her years as an executive balancing the demands of motherhood and work, to her time spent at the world’s most famous address. With unerring honesty and lively wit, she describes her triumphs and her disappointments, both public and private, telling her full story as she has lived it—in her own words and on her own terms. Warm, wise, and revelatory, Becoming is the deeply personal reckoning of a woman of soul and substance who has steadily defied expectations—and whose story inspires us to do the same.]]>
426 Michelle Obama 1524763136 Laura 0 4.42 2018 Becoming
author: Michelle Obama
name: Laura
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at: 2024/10/12
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<![CDATA[Delphi Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated)]]> 18916807 11184 J. Sheridan Le Fanu 1909496510 Laura 0 4.11 1977 Delphi Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated)
author: J. Sheridan Le Fanu
name: Laura
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1977
rating: 0
read at: 2024/10/06
date added: 2024/10/06
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<![CDATA[Poison in Their Hearts (Castles in Their Bones, #3)]]> 44098910
They were promised for marriage since birth, and raised to bring down kingdoms, but the triplet princesses of Bessemia’s true destiny has always been to die—and one already has. Since Sophronia’s murder Princesses Daphne and Beatriz have discovered the truth: that they are pawns in their mother’s game. A scheme that will see her empress not just of Bessemia, but the entire continent of Vesteria. But the princesses have their own plans.

Beatriz and Daphne are still separated by a continent, and there are enemies everywhere, but now they have allies, and they stretch across the borders of Vesteria. Sophronia’s husband, the deposed King Leopold; Violie, a former spy for Empress Margaraux; and Beatriz’s missing husband, Pasquale and his lover, Ambrose. Now, with their help and the magic of the stars above, the princesses are ready to make their final stand.

But whispers of an ancient prophecy follow them--there are secrets from the their past that have yet to be revealed—and every move they make, the empress seems to always be one step ahead them. If there’s any hope for the princesses, the girls will need to use every skill their mother taught them, trust in the magic in their veins, and defy fate, itself—or all is lost for the people of Vesteria.]]>
544 Laura Sebastian 059311826X Laura 0 4.02 2024 Poison in Their Hearts (Castles in Their Bones, #3)
author: Laura Sebastian
name: Laura
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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Gallant 58064046 Everything casts a shadow. Even the world we live in. And as with every shadow, there is a place where it must touch. A seam, where the shadow meets its source.

Olivia Prior has grown up in Merilance School for girls, and all she has of her past is her mother’s journal—which seems to unravel into madness. Then, a letter invites Olivia to come home—to Gallant. Yet when Olivia arrives, no one is expecting her. But Olivia is not about to leave the first place that feels like home, it doesn’t matter if her cousin Matthew is hostile or if she sees half-formed ghouls haunting the hallways.

Olivia knows that Gallant is hiding secrets, and she is determined to uncover them. When she crosses a ruined wall at just the right moment, Olivia finds herself in a place that is Gallant—but not. The manor is crumbling, the ghouls are solid, and a mysterious figure rules over all. Now Olivia sees what has unraveled generations of her family, and where her father may have come from.

Olivia has always wanted to belong somewhere, but will she take her place as a Prior, protecting our world against the Master of the House? Or will she take her place beside him?]]>
338 V.E. Schwab 0062835777 Laura 0 3.70 2022 Gallant
author: V.E. Schwab
name: Laura
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2024/10/05
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Looking Glass Sound 60784412 Looking Glass Sound is the newest twisty psychological horror novel from Catriona Ward, the internationally bestselling author of The Last House on Needless Street and Sundial.

In a lonely cottage overlooking the windswept Maine coast, Wilder Harlow begins the last book he will ever write. It is the story of his childhood summer companions and the killer that stalked the small New England town. Of the body they found, and the horror of that discovery echoing down the decades. And of Sky, Wilder’s one-time best friend, who stole his unfinished memoir and turned it into a lurid bestselling novel, Looking Glass Sound.

But as Wilder writes, the lines between memory and fiction blur. He fears he’s losing his grip on reality when he finds notes hidden around the cottage written in Sky’s signature green ink.

Catriona Ward delivers another mind-bending and cleverly crafted tale about one man’s struggle to come to terms with the terrors of his past� before it’s too late.]]>
342 Catriona Ward 1250860024 Laura 0 3.45 2023 Looking Glass Sound
author: Catriona Ward
name: Laura
average rating: 3.45
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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The House of Whispers 63108737
Rome, 1938.

As the world teeters on the brink of war, talented pianist Eva Valenti enters the house of widower Dante Cavallera to become his new wife.

On the outside, the forces of Fascism are accelerating, but in her new home, Eva fears that something else is at work, whispering in the walls and leaving mysterious marks on Dante's young daughter.

Soon she starts to wonder whether the house itself is trying to give up the secrets of its mysterious past - secrets that Dante seems so determined to keep hidden.

However, Eva must also conceal the truth of her own identity, for if she is discovered, she will be in greater danger than she could ever have imagined...]]>
288 Anna Mazzola 1398703869 Laura 0 3.68 2023 The House of Whispers
author: Anna Mazzola
name: Laura
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2024/08/29
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<![CDATA[Confessions of an English Opium Eater]]> 87635 Confessions is a remarkable account of the pleasures and pains of worshipping at the 'Church of Opium'. Thomas De Quincey consumed daily large quantities of laudanum (at the time a legal painkiller), and this autobiography of addiction hauntingly describes his surreal visions and hallucinatory nocturnal wanderings through London, along with the nightmares, despair and paranoia to which he became prey. The result is a work in which the effects of drugs and the nature of dreams, memory and imagination are seamlessly interwoven, describing in intimate detail the mind-altering pleasures and pains unique to opium. Confessions of an English Opium-Eater forged a link between artistic self-expression and addiction, paving the way for later generations of literary addicts from Baudelaire to James Frey, and anticipating psychoanalysis with its insights into the subconscious.

This edition is based on the original serial version of 1821, and reproduces two 'sequels', 'Suspiria de Profundis' (1845) and 'The English Mail-Coach' (1849). It also includes a critical introduction discussing the romantic figure of the addict and the tradition of confessional literature, and an appendix on opium in the nineteenth century.

Thomas De Quincey (1785-1859) studied at Oxford, failing to take his degree but discovering opium. He later met Coleridge, Southey and the Wordsworths. From 1828 until his death he lived in Edinburgh and made his living from journalism.

If you enjoyed Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, you might like William S. Burroughs' Junky, available in Penguin Modern Classics.

'De Quincey was one of the first great autobiographers'
Jonathan Bate]]>
352 Thomas de Quincey Laura 0 3.30 1821 Confessions of an English Opium Eater
author: Thomas de Quincey
name: Laura
average rating: 3.30
book published: 1821
rating: 0
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The Invisible Man 17184 192 H.G. Wells 0451528522 Laura 0 3.63 1897 The Invisible Man
author: H.G. Wells
name: Laura
average rating: 3.63
book published: 1897
rating: 0
read at: 2024/08/28
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Mansfield Park 45032 488 Jane Austen Laura 0 favorites 3.86 1814 Mansfield Park
author: Jane Austen
name: Laura
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1814
rating: 0
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Now We Shall Be Entirely Free 37805364 421 Andrew Miller 1444784692 Laura 0 3.81 2018 Now We Shall Be Entirely Free
author: Andrew Miller
name: Laura
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at: 2024/08/01
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<![CDATA[The Temple of Fortuna (Wolf Den Trilogy #3)]]> 61185028
Amara's journey has taken her far; from a slave in Pompeii's wolf den to a high-powered courtesan in Rome... though her story is not over yet.

While Amara plays for power in Rome's imperial palace, those dearest to her remain in Pompeii. But it is AD 79, and mighty Mount Vesuvius is about to make itself known...]]>
384 Elodie Harper 1838933611 Laura 0 4.36 2023 The Temple of Fortuna (Wolf Den Trilogy #3)
author: Elodie Harper
name: Laura
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2024/06/26
date added: 2024/06/26
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<![CDATA[Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands (The ^ASchomburg Library of Nineteenth-Century Black Women Writers)]]> 709969 256 Mary Seacole 0195066723 Laura 0 3.40 1857 Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands (The ^ASchomburg Library of Nineteenth-Century Black Women Writers)
author: Mary Seacole
name: Laura
average rating: 3.40
book published: 1857
rating: 0
read at: 2024/06/14
date added: 2024/06/14
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The Fair Botanists 57012610
When newly widowed Elizabeth arrives in Edinburgh to live with her late husband's aunt Clementina, she's determined to put her unhappy past in London behind her. As she settles into her new home, she becomes fascinated by the beautiful Botanic Garden which border the grand house and offers her services as an artist to record the rare plant's impending bloom. In this pursuit, she meets Belle Brodie, a vivacious young woman with a passion for botany and the lucrative, dark art of perfume creation. Belle is determined to keep both her real identity and the reason for her interest the Garden secret from her new friend. But as Elizabeth and Belle are about to discover, secrets don't last long in this Enlightenment city. And when they are revealed, they can carry the greatest of consequences . . .]]>
384 Sara Sheridan 152933621X Laura 0 3.81 2021 The Fair Botanists
author: Sara Sheridan
name: Laura
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2024/06/05
date added: 2024/06/05
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<![CDATA[The Complete Works of Shakespeare [38 plays, 4 poems, sonnets]]]> 32512
The fifth edition of this comprehensive anthology addresses the two key issues confronted by students approaching Shakespeare today: a lack of knowledge about the historical period and difficulty with the language of Shakespeare's plays. A richly illustrated general introduction offers insight into Shakespeare's England and background on the literary and cultural contexts in which Shakespeare wrote and produced plays. Each play is introduced by a descriptive essay designed to help students appreciate the cultural contexts and interpretive issues raised by the play, without dictating students' interpretations. Thoroughly revised and updated notes and glosses support student readers line by line, paraphrasing Elizabethan idioms in clear and accessible language.

New to This Edition

Expanded coverage of stage performance and film. Introductory essays for each play have been revised and updated to include additional information on historical and modern performances, describing how stage and film directors have dealt with interpretive and cultural issues.

New 16-page color section, “Shakespeare's World: A Visual Portfolio,� includes historical documents, art, and photos to allow students to grasp the cultural context in which Shakespeare wrote. The Visual Portfolio also includes photos and production stills taken from recent stage and film productions, to help students to visualize on-stage scenes and dramatic situations.

Completely revised and updated notes and glosses assist modern student readers by providing clear, accessible paraphrases and contexts for Shakespearean idioms and word-play, while incorporating state-of-the-art critical insight and scholarship on the plays.]]>
1744 William Shakespeare Laura 0 4.57 1623 The Complete Works of Shakespeare [38 plays, 4 poems, sonnets]
author: William Shakespeare
name: Laura
average rating: 4.57
book published: 1623
rating: 0
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The Thorns Remain 62047662
1919. In a highland village forgotten by the world, harvest season is over and the young who remain after war and flu have ravaged the village will soon head south to make something of themselves.

Moira Jean and her friends head to the forest for a last night of laughter before parting ways. Moira Jean is being left behind. She had plans to leave once � but her lover died in France and with him, her future. The friends light a fire, sing and dance. But with every twirl about the flames, strange new dancers thread between them, music streaming from the trees.

The fae are here.

Suddenly Moira Jean finds herself all alone, her friends spirited away. The iron medal of her lost love, pinned to her dress, protected her from magic.

For the Fae feel forgotten too. Lead by the darkly handsome Lord of the Fae, they are out to make themselves known once more. Moira Jean must enter into a bargain with the Lord to save her friends � and fast, for the longer one spends with the Fae, the less like themselves they are upon return. If Moira Jean cannot save her friends before Beltine, they will be lost forever�

Completely bewitching, threaded with Highland charm and sparkling with dark romance, this is a fairytale that will carry you away.]]>
416 J.J.A. Harwood 0008603162 Laura 0 3.42 2023 The Thorns Remain
author: J.J.A. Harwood
name: Laura
average rating: 3.42
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2024/05/09
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Fyneshade 62805543
On the day of her grandmother's funeral, Marta discovers that she is to be sent to be governess at Fyneshade, her charge the young daughter of the owner, Sir William Pritchard.

All is not well at Fyneshade. Sir William is mysteriously absent, and his son and heir Vaughan is forbidden to enter the house. Marta finds herself drawn to him, despite the warnings of the housekeeper that Vaughan is a danger to all around him. But Marta is no innocent to be preyed upon. Guided by the dark gift taught to her by her grandmother, she has made her own plans. It will take more than a family riven by murderous secrets to stop her...]]>
384 Kate Griffin 1788168747 Laura 0 3.73 2023 Fyneshade
author: Kate Griffin
name: Laura
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2024/04/17
date added: 2024/04/17
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Starve Acre 45890523
Starve Acre is a devastating new novel by the author of the prize-winning bestseller The Loney. It is a novel about the way in which grief splits the world in two and how, in searching for hope, we can so easily unearth horror.]]>
256 Andrew Michael Hurley Laura 0 3.69 2019 Starve Acre
author: Andrew Michael Hurley
name: Laura
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at: 2024/04/17
date added: 2024/04/17
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The Shadow Key 146774530 There's something mysterious about the village of Penhelyg. Will unlocking its truth bring light or darkness?

Meirionydd, 1783. Henry Talbot has been dismissed from his post at a prestigious London hospital. The only job he can find is as a physician in the backwaters of Wales where he can't speak the language, belief in myth and magic is rife, and the villagers treat him with bewildering suspicion. When Henry discovers his predecessor died under mysterious circumstances, he is determined to find answers.

Linette Tresilian, the unconventional mistress of Plas Helyg, lives a lonely life. Her father is long dead, her mother haunted by demons which keep her locked away in her room, and her cousin treats her with cool disdain - she has had no choice but to become fiercely self-reliant.

Linette has always suspected something is not quite right in the village, but it is only through Henry's investigations that the truth about those closest to her will come to light...a truth that will bind hers and Henry's destinies together in ways neither thought possible.]]>
464 Susan Stokes-Chapman 1787302903 Laura 0 4.11 2024 The Shadow Key
author: Susan Stokes-Chapman
name: Laura
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2024/04/06
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Juvenilia (Vols. 1-3) 814223 * Frederic & Elfrida
* Jack & Alice
* Edgar & Emma
* Henry and Eliza
* The Adventures of Mr. Harley
* Sir William Mountague
* Memoirs of Mr. Clifford
* The Beautifull Cassandra
* Amelia Webster
* The Visit
* The Mystery
* The Three Sisters
* Detached Pieces (A Fragment, A beautiful description, The generous Curate, Ode to Pity)
* Love and Freindship
* Lesley Castle
* The History of England
* A Collection of Letters
* Scraps (The Female Philosopher, The First Act of a Comedy, A Letter from a Young Lady, A Tour through Wales, A Tale)
* Evelyn
* Catharine]]>
538 Jane Austen 1414500157 Laura 0 3.72 1787 Juvenilia (Vols. 1-3)
author: Jane Austen
name: Laura
average rating: 3.72
book published: 1787
rating: 0
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The Raven's Head 23288742
'A compelling blend of historical grit and supernatural twists' Daily Mail on The Falcons of Fire and Ice

Vincent is an apprentice librarian who stumbles upon a secret powerful enough to destroy his master. With the foolish arrogance of youth, he attempts blackmail but the attempt fails and Vincent finds himself on the run and in possession of an intricately carved silver raven's head.

Any attempt to sell the head fails ... until Vincent tries to palm it off on the intimidating Lord Sylvain - unbeknown to Vincent, a powerful Alchemist with an all-consuming quest. Once more Vincent's life is in danger because Sylvain and his neighbours, the menacing White Canons, consider him a predestined sacrifice in their shocking experiment.

Chilling and with compelling hints of the supernatural, The Raven's Head is a triumph for Karen Maitland, Queen of the Dark Ages.]]>
500 Karen Maitland 1472215060 Laura 0 3.73 2015 The Raven's Head
author: Karen Maitland
name: Laura
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at: 2024/03/04
date added: 2024/03/04
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<![CDATA[The Gentleman's Daughter: Women's Lives in Georgian England]]> 716491
Based on the letters, diaries, and account books of over one hundred women from commercial, professional, and gentry families, this book transforms our understanding of the position of women in Georgian England. In their own words, they tell of their sometimes humorous, sometimes moving experiences and desires, and of their many roles, including kinswoman, wife, mother, housekeeper, consumer, hostess, and member of polite society. By the nineteenth century, family duties continued to dominate women’s lives, yet, Vickery contends, the public profile of privileged women had reached unprecedented heights.]]>
436 Amanda Vickery Laura 0 3.90 1998 The Gentleman's Daughter: Women's Lives in Georgian England
author: Amanda Vickery
name: Laura
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1998
rating: 0
read at: 2024/02/22
date added: 2024/02/22
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Insomnia 58587864
Emma Averell loves her life—her high-powered legal career, her two beautiful children, and her wonderful stay-at-home husband—but it wasn’t always so perfect. When she was just five years old, Emma and her older sister went into foster care because of a horrific incident with their mother. Her sister can remember a time when their mother was loving and “normal,� but Emma can only remember her as one thing—a monster. And that monster emerged right around their mother’s fortieth birthday, the same age Emma is approaching now.

Emma desperately wants to keep her successful life separate from her past, so she has always hidden her childhood trauma. But then she’s unable to sleep, and now losing time during the day, also one of the first symptoms her mother showed. Is the madness in her blood, just as her mother predicted? Could she end up hurting her family in her foggy, frenetic state? Or is she truly beginning to lose her mind?]]>
336 Sarah Pinborough Laura 0 3.65 2022 Insomnia
author: Sarah Pinborough
name: Laura
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2024/01/31
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<![CDATA[In These Times: Living in Britain Through Napoleon's Wars, 1793�1815]]> 22237168
We know the thrilling, terrible stories of the battles of the Napoleonic Wars―but what of those left behind? The people on a Norfolk farm, in a Yorkshire mill, a Welsh iron foundry, an Irish village, a London bank, a Scottish mountain? The aristocrats and paupers, old and young, butchers and bakers and candlestick makers―how did the war touch their lives?

Jenny Uglow, the prizewinning author of The Lunar Men and Nature's Engraver , follows the gripping back-and-forth of the first global war but turns the news upside down, seeing how it reached the people. Illustrated by the satires of Gillray and Rowlandson and the paintings of Turner and Constable, and combining the familiar voices of Austen, Wordsworth, Scott, and Byron with others lost in the crowd, In These Times delves into the archives to tell the moving story of how people lived and loved and sang and wrote, struggling through hard times and opening new horizons that would change their country for a century.]]>
752 Jenny Uglow 0374280908 Laura 0 3.99 2014 In These Times: Living in Britain Through Napoleon's Wars, 1793–1815
author: Jenny Uglow
name: Laura
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at: 2024/01/30
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<![CDATA[The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (The Hunger Games, #0)]]> 51901147 Ambition will fuel him.

Competition will drive him.

But power has its price.

It is the morning of the reaping that will kick off the tenth annual Hunger Games. In the Capitol, eighteen-year-old Coriolanus Snow is preparing for his one shot at glory as a mentor in the Games. The once-mighty house of Snow has fallen on hard times, its fate hanging on the slender chance that Coriolanus will be able to outcharm, outwit, and outmaneuver his fellow students to mentor the winning tribute.

The odds are against him. He's been given the humiliating assignment of mentoring the female tribute from District 12, the lowest of the low. Their fates are now completely intertwined -- every choice Coriolanus makes could lead to favor or failure, triumph or ruin. Inside the arena, it will be a fight to the death. Outside the arena, Coriolanus starts to feel for his doomed tribute... and must weigh his need to follow the rules against his desire to survive no matter what it takes.]]>
541 Suzanne Collins Laura 0 3.99 2020 The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (The Hunger Games, #0)
author: Suzanne Collins
name: Laura
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2024/01/15
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Beloved (Beloved Trilogy, #1) 6149 Staring unflinchingly into the abyss of slavery, this spellbinding novel transforms history into a story as powerful as Exodus and as intimate as a lullaby.

Sethe, its protagonist, was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. She has too many memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. And Sethe's new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved. Filled with bitter poetry and suspense as taut as a rope, Beloved is a towering achievement by Nobel Prize laureate Toni Morrison.]]>
325 Toni Morrison Laura 0 3.96 1987 Beloved (Beloved Trilogy, #1)
author: Toni Morrison
name: Laura
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1987
rating: 0
read at: 2023/12/27
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<![CDATA[Something Wicked This Way Comes]]> 248596 Something Wicked This Way Comes, now featuring a new introduction and material about its longstanding influence on culture and genre.

For those who still dream and remember, for those yet to experience the hypnotic power of its dark poetry, step inside. The show is about to begin. Cooger & Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show has come to Green Town, Illinois, to destroy every life touched by its strange and sinister mystery. The carnival rolls in sometime after midnight, ushering in Halloween a week early. A calliope’s shrill siren song beckons to all with a seductive promise of dreams and youth regained. Two boys will discover the secret of its smoke, mazes, and mirrors; two friends who will soon know all too well the heavy cost of wishes…and the stuff of nightmares.

Few novels have endured in the heart and memory as has Ray Bradbury’s unparalleled literary masterpiece Something Wicked This Way Comes. Scary and suspenseful, it is a timeless classic in the American canon.]]>
293 Ray Bradbury 0380729407 Laura 0 3.91 1962 Something Wicked This Way Comes
author: Ray Bradbury
name: Laura
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1962
rating: 0
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Dawnlands (The Fairmile #3) 60459297
Alinor’s son, Rob, is determined to stay clear of the war, but when he and his nephew set out to free Ned from execution for treason and Rowan from a convict deportation to Barbados, they find themselves enmeshed in the creation of an imposter Prince of Wales—a surrogate baby to the queen.

From the last battle in the desolate Somerset Levels to the hidden caves on the slave island of Barbados, this third volume of an epic story follows a family from one end of the empire to another, to find a new dawn in a world which is opening up before them with greater rewards and dangers than ever before.]]>
526 Philippa Gregory 150118721X Laura 0 3.91 2022 Dawnlands (The Fairmile #3)
author: Philippa Gregory
name: Laura
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2023/11/22
date added: 2023/11/22
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Moonstone 197977718 400 Laura Purcell 0008562849 Laura 0 my-books 3.33 2024 Moonstone
author: Laura Purcell
name: Laura
average rating: 3.33
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/11/22
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The Lie Tree 23592175 The leaves were cold and slightly clammy. There was no mistaking them. She had seen their likeness painstakingly sketched in her father's journal. This was his greatest secret, his treasure and his undoing. The Tree of Lies. Now it was hers, and the journey he had never finished stretched out before her.

When Faith's father is found dead under mysterious circumstances, she is determined to untangle the truth from the lies. Searching through his belongings for clues, she discovers a strange tree. A tree that feeds off whispered lies and bears fruit that reveals hidden secrets.

But as Faith's untruths spiral out of control, she discovers that where lies seduce, truths shatter...]]>
410 Frances Hardinge 144726410X Laura 0 3.83 2015 The Lie Tree
author: Frances Hardinge
name: Laura
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at: 2023/08/26
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The Glass-Blowers 18869976
Years later, Sophie Duval reveals to her long-lost nephew the tragic story of a family of master craftsmen in eighteenth-century France. Drawing on her own family's tale of tradition and sorrow, Daphne du Maurier weaves an unforgettable saga of beauty, war, and family.]]>
272 Daphne du Maurier 0316253510 Laura 0 3.74 1963 The Glass-Blowers
author: Daphne du Maurier
name: Laura
average rating: 3.74
book published: 1963
rating: 0
read at: 2023/08/09
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Heresy (Giordano Bruno, #1) 6611809
Giordano Bruno was a monk, poet, scientist, and magician on the run from the Roman Inquisition on charges of heresy for his belief that the Earth orbits the sun and that the universe is infinite. This alone could have got him burned at the stake, but he was also a student of occult philosophies and magic.

In S.J. Parris's gripping novel, Bruno's pursuit of this rare knowledge brings him to London, where he is unexpectedly recruited by Queen Elizabeth I and is sent undercover to Oxford University on the pretext of a royal visitation. Officially Bruno is to take part in a debate on the Copernican theory of the universe; unofficially, he is to find out whatever he can about a Catholic plot to overthrow the queen.

His mission is dramatically thrown off course by a series of grisly murders and a spirited and beautiful young woman. As Bruno begins to discover a pattern in these killings, he realizes that no one at Oxford is who he seems to be. Bruno must attempt to outwit a killer who appears obsessed with the boundary between truth and heresy.

Like The Dante Club and The Alienist, this clever, sophisticated, exceptionally enjoyable novel is written with the unstoppable narrative propulsion and stylistic flair of the very best historical thrillers.]]>
435 S.J. Parris 0385531281 Laura 0 3.74 2010 Heresy (Giordano Bruno, #1)
author: S.J. Parris
name: Laura
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2010
rating: 0
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Frenchman's Creek 84573
Eventually Dona lands in remote Navron, looking for peace of mind in its solitary woods and hidden creeks. She finds the passion her spirit craves in the love of a daring French pirate who is being hunted by all of Cornwall.

Together, they embark upon a quest rife with danger and glory, one which bestows upon Dona the ultimate choice: sacrifice her lover to certain death or risk her own life to save him.]]>
260 Daphne du Maurier 1844080412 Laura 0 3.97 1941 Frenchman's Creek
author: Daphne du Maurier
name: Laura
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1941
rating: 0
read at: 2023/07/08
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The Fascination 119129516 The estranged grandson of a wealthy collector of human curiosities becomes fascinated with teenaged twin sisters, leading them into a web of dark obsessions. A dazzlingly dark gothic novel from the bestselling author of The Somnambulist.

‘Mysterious, sometimes shocking, full of surprises and twists � brimming with Victorian wonders!� Sean Lusk

A magical, macabre masterpiece’�A.J. West

‘Fascinating and immersive’�Anna Mazzola

___________________

Victorian England. A world of rural fairgrounds and glamorous London theatres. A world of dark secrets and deadly obsessions�

Twin sisters Keziah and Tilly Lovell are identical in every way, except that Tilly hasn't grown a single inch since she was five. Coerced into promoting their father's quack elixir as they tour the country fairgrounds, at the age of fifteen the girls are sold to a mysterious Italian known as ‘Captain� .

Theo is an orphan, raised by his grandfather, Lord Seabrook, a man who has a dark interest in anatomical freaks and other curiosities � particularly the human kind. Resenting his grandson for his mother� s death in childbirth, when Seabrook remarries and a new heir is produced, Theo is forced to leave home without a penny to his name.

Theo finds employment in Dr Summerwell� s Museum of Anatomy in London, and here he meets Captain and his theatrical ‘family� of performers, freaks and outcasts.

But it is Theo� s fascination with Tilly and Keziah that will lead all of them into a web of deceits, exposing the darkest secrets and threatening everything they know�

Exploring universal themes of love and loss, the power of redemption and what it means to be unique,The Fascination is an evocative, glittering and bewitching gothic novel that brings alive Victorian London � and darkness and deception that lies beneath�

_________________

‘An opium trance of a novel, a vivid fantasmagoria� Noel O� Reilly

‘Deliciously dark, full of twists and surprises’�Liz Hyder

‘Filled with gothic darkness and glorious hope’�Liz Fenwick

‘Rich, dark and heady � a glorious gothic carnival� Kate Griffin

‘Truly unexpected and original� Kate Forsyth

‘Beautifully researched, full of horrors and delights� Bridget Walsh

‘A cast of characters Dickens would be proud of� Frances Quinn

‘A dizzying potion of a novel� Polly Crosby

‘A twisty, gothic� Rebecca John

‘Rich in peril, tempered with strange, theatrical beauty’�Kate Mascarenhas

‘Haunting and emotive� Gill Paul

‘A gorgeously gothic slice of Victoriana� Katherine Clements

‘Exceptional storytelling, exquisitely told� Nydia Hetherington

‘Very fine historica]]>
317 Essie Fox 1914585542 Laura 0 3.74 2023 The Fascination
author: Essie Fox
name: Laura
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Strange Victoriana: Tales of the Curious, the Weird and the Uncanny from Our Victorian Ancestors]]> 29139405 352 Jan Bondeson 1445658852 Laura 0 3.64 Strange Victoriana: Tales of the Curious, the Weird and the Uncanny from Our Victorian Ancestors
author: Jan Bondeson
name: Laura
average rating: 3.64
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rating: 0
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date added: 2023/06/06
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<![CDATA[The Other Lives of Miss Emily White]]> 61839398
1864. Banished from her parents� farm to a boarding school for young ladies, Ivy feels utterly alone. In a crumbling and isolated seminary that has seen better days, she is shunned by the other pupils for her working-class origins, and mourns for her sister, who died not long after she was sent away.

Hope comes in the form of a new teacher: Mademoiselle Emily Blanc is elegant and fascinating, captivating all the pupils, including Ivy, and the only person to encourage her artistic talent. Yet as Ivy’s devotion grows, odd reports begin to circulate that Mademoiselle Blanc has unusual powers. She has been glimpsed teaching a class while she was outside in the garden, standing at her own shoulder while she instructs from the blackboard. A book in another pupil’s possession tells of a teacher who had a doppelgänger, and the two drove their pupils to hysteria and almost closed down the school. Soon the students are convinced Mademoiselle Blanc appears in two places at once. As increasingly strange rumours abound, Ivy’s obsession spins out of control, and with Emily Blanc’s future at stake, she will do anything to keep her only friend.]]>
368 A.J. Elwood 1803363703 Laura 0 3.24 2023 The Other Lives of Miss Emily White
author: A.J. Elwood
name: Laura
average rating: 3.24
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2023/05/17
date added: 2023/05/17
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<![CDATA[The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle]]> 35967101 A brilliantly original high concept murder mystery from a fantastic new talent: Gosford Park meets Inception, by way of Agatha Christie and Black Mirror.

'Somebody's going to be murdered at the ball tonight. It won't appear to be a murder and so the murderer won't be caught. Rectify that injustice and I'll show you the way out.'

It is meant to be a celebration but it ends in tragedy. As fireworks explode overhead, Evelyn Hardcastle, the young and beautiful daughter of the house, is killed.

But Evelyn will not die just once. Until Aiden � one of the guests summoned to Blackheath for the party � can solve her murder, the day will repeat itself, over and over again. Every time ending with the fateful pistol shot.

The only way to break this cycle is to identify the killer. But each time the day begins again, Aiden wakes in the body of a different guest. And someone is determined to prevent him ever escaping Blackheath...

Also titled as The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle.]]>
505 Stuart Turton Laura 0 3.87 2018 The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle
author: Stuart Turton
name: Laura
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at: 2017/11/07
date added: 2023/04/21
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Now She is Witch 61028415 She dug her mother's grave in the poison garden so it would stay hidden...

From the snowy winter woods to the bright midnight sun; from lost and powerless to finding your path, Now She is Witch conjures a world of violence and beauty - a world where women grasp at power through witchcraft, sexuality and performance, and most of all through throwing each other to the wolves.

Lux has lost everything when Else finds her, alone in the woods. Her family, her lover, her home - all burned. The world is suspicious of women like her. But Lux is cunning; she knows how to exploit people's expectations, how to blend into the background. And she knows a lot about poisons.

Else has not found Lux by accident. She needs her help to seek revenge against the man who wronged her, and together they pursue him north. But on their hunt they will uncover dark secrets that entangle them with dangerous adversaries.]]>
338 Kirsty Logan 178730342X Laura 0 3.51 2023 Now She is Witch
author: Kirsty Logan
name: Laura
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2023/04/14
date added: 2023/04/14
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<![CDATA[Dangerous Lord, Innocent Governess (Belston & Friends #2)]]> 11041137
Lord Colton is suspicious of the alluring new governess—and with the furor surrounding him he must control his passion. But a man has his limits, and the delectable Miss Collingham is pure temptation�.]]>
288 Christine Merrill 0373296487 Laura 0 3.48 2009 Dangerous Lord, Innocent Governess (Belston & Friends #2)
author: Christine Merrill
name: Laura
average rating: 3.48
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at: 2023/04/14
date added: 2023/04/14
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The Flames 61783836 Set in the extravagant, Bohemian art world of early 20th century Vienna, the electrifying untold story of the four women who posed for and inspired the groundbreaking erotic art of controversial painter Egon Schiele

Amid an opulent society living under the shadow of war are four muses, women whose bodies were shown in intimate detail, depicted by the charming yet controversial artist Egon Schiele. Adele, his passionate and fierce admirer; Gertrude, his sister who survived their blighted childhood but is possessive, single-minded, and jealous; his mistress Vally, a poor young woman from a bad background but with steel at her core; and the two, very different, Harms sisters, Edith and Adele, both of whom vie to become Schiele’s wife.

Over the course of little more than a decade, the four women risk everything—their reputations, their most precious relationships, and their sanity and souls—as they try to hold on to the man they adore. As World War I throws their lives off course forever, and the Spanish influenza pandemic ravages Europe, threatening everyone in its path, one question remains: Will any of them emerge unscathed from their relationship with this man? Sophie Haydock’s The Flames reimagines the intertwining lives of these women: four wild, blazing hearts longing to be known. In an elegant Bohemian city like 1900s Vienna, everything seems possible. But just as a flame has the power to mesmerize, it can also destroy.]]>
464 Sophie Haydock 1419766317 Laura 0 3.86 2022 The Flames
author: Sophie Haydock
name: Laura
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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Pandora 61102619
But what Edward discovers about the vase has Dora questioning everything she has believed about her life, her family, and the world as she knows it. As Dora uncovers the truth, she comes to understand that some doors are locked and some mysteries are buried for a reason, while others are closer to the surface than they appear.

Steeped in mystery and rich in imagination, an exhilarating historical novel set in Georgian London where the discovery of a mysterious ancient Greek vase sets in motion conspiracies, revelations, and romance.]]>
408 Susan Stokes-Chapman 0063280027 Laura 0 3.60 2022 Pandora
author: Susan Stokes-Chapman
name: Laura
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2023/03/17
date added: 2023/03/17
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Weyward 60654349 I am a Weyward, and wild inside.

2019: Under cover of darkness, Kate flees London for ramshackle Weyward Cottage, inherited from a great aunt she barely remembers. With its tumbling ivy and overgrown garden, the cottage is worlds away from the abusive partner who tormented Kate. But she begins to suspect that her great aunt had a secret. One that lurks in the bones of the cottage, hidden ever since the witch-hunts of the 17th century.

1619: Altha is awaiting trial for the murder of a local farmer who was stampeded to death by his herd. As a girl, Altha’s mother taught her their magic, a kind not rooted in spell casting but in a deep knowledge of the natural world. But unusual women have always been deemed dangerous, and as the evidence for witchcraft is set out against Altha, she knows it will take all of her powers to maintain her freedom.

1942: As World War II rages, Violet is trapped in her family's grand, crumbling estate. Straitjacketed by societal convention, she longs for the robust education her brother receives––and for her mother, long deceased, who was rumored to have gone mad before her death. The only traces Violet has of her are a locket bearing the initial W and the word weyward scratched into the baseboard of her bedroom.

Weaving together the stories of three extraordinary women across five centuries, Emilia Hart's Weyward is an enthralling novel of female resilience and the transformative power of the natural world.]]>
329 Emilia Hart 125028080X Laura 0 4.03 2023 Weyward
author: Emilia Hart
name: Laura
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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The Leviathan 58645179
Norfolk, 1643. With civil war tearing England apart, reluctant soldier Thomas Treadwater is summoned home by his sister, who accuses a new servant of improper conduct with their widowed father. By the time Thomas returns home, his father is insensible, felled by a stroke, and their new servant is in prison, facing charges of witchcraft.

Thomas prides himself on being a rational, modern man, but as he unravels the mystery of what has happened, he uncovers not a tale of superstition but something dark and ancient, linked to a shipwreck years before.

Something has awoken, and now it will not rest.]]>
320 Rosie Andrews Laura 0 3.46 2022 The Leviathan
author: Rosie Andrews
name: Laura
average rating: 3.46
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2023/01/23
date added: 2023/01/23
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Far From the Madding Crowd 31463 This is an alternate cover edition for ISBN 9780141439655

Independent and spirited Bathsheba Everdene has come to Weatherbury to take up her position as a farmer on the largest estate in the area. Her bold presence draws three very different suitors: the gentleman-farmer Boldwood, soldier-seducer Sergeant Troy and the devoted shepherd Gabriel Oak. Each, in contrasting ways, unsettles her decisions and complicates her life, and tragedy ensues, threatening the stability of the whole community. The first of his works set in the fictional county of Wessex, Hardy's novel of swift passion and slow courtship is imbued with his evocative descriptions of rural life and landscapes, and with unflinching honesty about sexual relationships.]]>
433 Thomas Hardy Laura 0 3.96 1874 Far From the Madding Crowd
author: Thomas Hardy
name: Laura
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1874
rating: 0
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Circus of Wonders 56379302
But when Jasper Jupiter’s Circus of Wonders arrives in the village, Nell is kidnapped. Her father has sold her, promising Jasper Jupiter his very own leopard girl. It is the greatest betrayal of Nell's life, but as her fame grows, and she finds friendship with the other performers and Jasper’s gentle brother Toby, she begins to wonder if joining the show is the best thing that has ever happened to her.

In London, newspapers describe Nell as the eighth wonder of the world. Figurines are cast in her image, and crowds rush to watch her soar through the air. But who gets to tell Nell’s story? What happens when her fame threatens to eclipse that of the showman who bought her? And as she falls in love with Toby, can he detach himself from his past and the terrible secret that binds him to his brother?

Moving from the pleasure gardens of Victorian London to the battle-scarred plains of the Crimea, Circus of Wonders is an astonishing story about power and ownership, fame and the threat of invisibility.]]>
384 Elizabeth Macneal 1529002532 Laura 0 3.61 2021 Circus of Wonders
author: Elizabeth Macneal
name: Laura
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[The House with the Golden Door (Wolf Den Trilogy, #2)]]> 58591630 Amara has escaped her life as a slave in the town's most notorious brothel, but now her existence depends on the affections of her a man she might not know as well as she once thought.

At night she dreams of the wolf den, still haunted by her past. Amara longs for the women she was forced to leave behind and worse, finds herself pursued by the man who once owned her. In order to be free, she will need to be as ruthless as he is.

Amara knows her existence in Pompeii is subject to Venus, the goddess of love. Yet finding love may prove to be the most dangerous act of all.

We return to Pompeii for the second instalment in Elodie Harper's Wolf Den Trilogy, reimagining the lives of the women from the town's lupanar.]]>
472 Elodie Harper 1838933603 Laura 0 4.21 2022 The House with the Golden Door (Wolf Den Trilogy, #2)
author: Elodie Harper
name: Laura
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2022/09/24
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<![CDATA[The Wolf Den (Wolf Den Trilogy, #1)]]> 56563852
Amara was once a beloved daughter, until her father's death plunged her family into penury. Now she is a slave in Pompeii's infamous brothel, owned by a man she despises. Sharp, clever and resourceful, Amara is forced to hide her talents. For as a she-wolf, her only value lies in the desire she can stir in others.

But Amara's spirit is far from broken.

By day, she walks the streets with her fellow she-wolves, finding comfort in the laughter and dreams they share. For the streets of Pompeii are alive with opportunity. Out here, even the lowest slave can secure a reversal in fortune. Amara has learned that everything in this city has its price. But how much is her freedom going to cost her?

Set in Pompeii's lupanar, The Wolf Den reimagines the lives of women who have long been overlooked.]]>
464 Elodie Harper Laura 0 4.04 2021 The Wolf Den (Wolf Den Trilogy, #1)
author: Elodie Harper
name: Laura
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2022/08/18
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A Pocketful of Crows 34913762 I am as brown as brown can be,
And my eyes as black as sloe;
I am as brisk as brisk can be,
And wild as forest doe.
(The Child Ballads, 295)

So begins a beautiful tale of love, loss and revenge. Following the seasons, A Pocketful of Crows balances youth and age, wisdom and passion and draws on nature and folklore to weave a stunning modern mythology around a nameless wild girl.

Only love could draw her into the world of named, tamed things. And it seems only revenge will be powerful enough to let her escape.

Beautifully illustrated by Bonnie Helen Hawkins, this is a stunning and original modern fairytale.]]>
185 Joanne M. Harris Laura 0 3.85 2017 A Pocketful of Crows
author: Joanne M. Harris
name: Laura
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at: 2022/07/28
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The Book Eaters 58724745
Devon is part of The Family, an old and reclusive clan of book eaters. Her brothers grow up feasting on stories of valor and adventure, and Devon—like all other book eater women—is raised on a carefully curated diet of fairy tales and cautionary stories.

But real life doesn't always come with happy endings, as Devon learns when her son is born with a rare and darker kind of hunger—not for books, but for human minds.]]>
298 Sunyi Dean 1250810183 Laura 0 3.59 2022 The Book Eaters
author: Sunyi Dean
name: Laura
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2022/07/14
date added: 2022/07/14
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The Book of Werewolves 1534461 The Book of Werewolves&lt/;i> was the first serious academic study of lycanthropy and “blood-lust� written in English. Combining a vast body of observation, myth, and lore, it explores the tradition of werewolves as a widespread and persistent theme throughout history.

Sabine Baring-Gould, a prominent Victorian theologian, was a gifted and original thinker who possessed a vast knowledge of folklore and mythology. He draws upon his impressive store of scholarship to trace lycanthropy among the ancients and onward through medieval and latter-day Europe. His real-life case studies examine the bloody deeds of cannibals and grave desecrators, including an extended treatment of the crimes of Gilles de Retz, the notorious associate of Joan of Arc, who was convicted and executed for necrosadistic crimes. One of the most oft-cited references on the subject, this book is an essential and primary document on lycanthropy.]]>
266 Sabine Baring-Gould 1859580726 Laura 0 3.59 1865 The Book of Werewolves
author: Sabine Baring-Gould
name: Laura
average rating: 3.59
book published: 1865
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3)]]> 7260188 My name is Katniss Everdeen.
Why am I not dead?
I should be dead.

Katniss Everdeen, girl on fire, has survived, even though her home has been destroyed. Gale has escaped. Katniss's family is safe. Peeta has been captured by the Capitol. District 13 really does exist. There are rebels. There are new leaders. A revolution is unfolding.

It is by design that Katniss was rescued from the arena in the cruel and haunting Quarter Quell, and it is by design that she has long been part of the revolution without knowing it. District 13 has come out of the shadows and is plotting to overthrow the Capitol. Everyone, it seems, has had a hand in the carefully laid plans—except Katniss.

The success of the rebellion hinges on Katniss's willingness to be a pawn, to accept responsibility for countless lives, and to change the course of the future of Panem. To do this, she must put aside her feelings of anger and distrust. She must become the rebels' Mockingjay—no matter what the personal cost.]]>
390 Suzanne Collins 0439023513 Laura 0 4.10 2010 Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3)
author: Suzanne Collins
name: Laura
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at: 2022/06/20
date added: 2022/06/20
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<![CDATA[Catching Fire (The Hunger Games, #2)]]> 6148028 Sparks are igniting.
Flames are spreading.
And the Capitol wants revenge.

Against all odds, Katniss Everdeen has won the Hunger Games. She and fellow District 12 tribute Peeta Mellark are miraculously still alive. Katniss should be relieved, happy even. After all, she has returned to her family and her longtime friend, Gale. Yet nothing is the way Katniss wishes it to be. Gale holds her at an icy distance. Peeta has turned his back on her completely. And there are whispers of a rebellion against the Capitol—a rebellion that Katniss and Peeta may have helped create.

Much to her shock, Katniss has fueled an unrest that she's afraid she cannot stop. And what scares her even more is that she's not entirely convinced she should try. As time draws near for Katniss and Peeta to visit the districts on the Capitol's cruel Victory Tour, the stakes are higher than ever. If they can't prove, without a shadow of a doubt, that they are lost in their love for each other, the consequences will be horrifying.

In Catching Fire, the second novel of the Hunger Games trilogy, Suzanne Collins continues the story of Katniss Everdeen, testing her more than ever before . . . and surprising readers at every turn.]]>
391 Suzanne Collins 0439023491 Laura 0 4.34 2009 Catching Fire (The Hunger Games, #2)
author: Suzanne Collins
name: Laura
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at: 2022/06/01
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<![CDATA[The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1)]]> 2767052
In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV.

Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen regards it as a death sentence when she steps forward to take her sister's place in the Games. But Katniss has been close to dead before-and survival, for her, is second nature. Without really meaning to, she becomes a contender. But if she is to win, she will have to start making choices that weigh survival against humanity and life against love.]]>
374 Suzanne Collins 0439023483 Laura 0 4.34 2008 The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1)
author: Suzanne Collins
name: Laura
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at: 2022/05/13
date added: 2022/05/13
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<![CDATA[My Double Life: The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt (Women Writers in Translation)]]> 741732 345 Sarah Bernhardt 0791440540 Laura 0 3.71 1907 My Double Life: The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt (Women Writers in Translation)
author: Sarah Bernhardt
name: Laura
average rating: 3.71
book published: 1907
rating: 0
read at: 2022/04/18
date added: 2022/04/18
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<![CDATA[Pan's Labyrinth: The Labyrinth of the Faun]]> 42117981 The Hazel Wood and The Cruel Prince will relish this atmospheric and absorbing book based on Guillermo del Toro’s critically acclaimed movie.

Oscar winning writer-director Guillermo del Toro and New York Times bestselling author Cornelia Funke have come together to transform del Toro’s hit movie Pan’s Labyrinth into an epic and dark fantasy novel for readers of all ages, complete with haunting illustrations and enchanting short stories that flesh out the folklore of this fascinating world.

This spellbinding tale takes readers to a sinister, magical, and war-torn world filled with richly drawn characters like trickster fauns, murderous soldiers, child-eating monsters, courageous rebels, and a long-lost princess hoping to be reunited with her family.

A brilliant collaboration between masterful storytellers that’s not to be missed.]]>
256 Guillermo del Toro 0062414461 Laura 0 4.27 2019 Pan's Labyrinth: The Labyrinth of the Faun
author: Guillermo del Toro
name: Laura
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at: 2022/04/18
date added: 2022/04/18
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<![CDATA[The House of Fortune (The Miniaturist, #2)]]> 58560514 The House of Fortune is the sequel to Jessie Burton’s million copy bestselling The Miniaturist. Set in the golden city of Amsterdam in 1705, it is a story of fate and ambition, secrets and dreams, and one young woman’s determination to rule her own destiny.

Thea Brandt is turning eighteen, and is ready to welcome adulthood with open arms. At the theatre, Walter, the love of her life, awaits her, but at home in the house on the Herengracht, winter has set in � her father Otto and Aunt Nella argue endlessly, and the Brandt family are selling their furniture in order to eat. On Thea’s birthday, also the day that her mother Marin died, the secrets from the past begin to overwhelm the present.

Nella is desperate to save the family and maintain appearances, to find Thea a husband who will guarantee her future, and when they receive an invitation to Amsterdam’s most exclusive ball, she is overjoyed � perhaps this will set their fortunes straight. And indeed, the ball does set things spinning: new figures enter their life, promising new futures. But their fates are still unclear, and when Nella feels a strange prickling sensation on the back of her neck, she wonders if the miniaturist has returned for her . . .]]>
416 Jessie Burton 1509886087 Laura 0 3.90 2022 The House of Fortune (The Miniaturist, #2)
author: Jessie Burton
name: Laura
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2022/03/23
date added: 2022/03/23
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The Invisible Eye 2656701
Emile Erckmann (1822�99) and Louis Alexandre Chatrian (1826�90) began their writing partnership in the 1840s, and continued working together—producing plays, novels, and short stories—until the year before Chatrian's death. At the height of their powers they were known as 'the twins', and their works proved popular in England, where they began appearing (in translation) as early as 1865. After their deaths, however, they slipped into obscurity; and apart from the odd tale reprinted in anthologies, and the ill-fated collection of their weird tales published by Millington in 1981, their work has remained difficult to find.

In The Invisible Eye, Hugh Lamb has collected together the finest weird tales by Erckmann–Chatrian, adding several stories to those which he assembled for the Millington volume (the fate of which he discusses in the appendix to the present work). The world of which Erckmann–Chatrian wrote has long since vanished; a world of noblemen and peasants, enchanted castles and mysterious woods, haunted by witches, monsters, curses, and spells. It is a world brought to life by the vivid imaginations of the authors, and presented here for the enjoyment of modern readers who wish to be transported to the middle of the nineteenth century: a time when, it seems, anything could happen—and sometimes did.

CONTENTS: Introduction by Hugh Lamb; The Invisible Eye; The Owl's Ear; The White and the Black; The Burgomaster in Bottle; My Inheritance; The Wild Huntsman; Lex Talionis; The Crab Spider; The Mysterious Sketch; The Three Souls; A Legend of Marseilles; Cousin Elof's Dream; The Citizen's Watch; The Murderer's Violin; The Child Stealer; The Man-Wolf; APPENDIX: The Mysterious Case of the Missing Books.]]>
296 Erckmann Ohatrian 1553100298 Laura 0 3.51 1880 The Invisible Eye
author: Erckmann Ohatrian
name: Laura
average rating: 3.51
book published: 1880
rating: 0
read at: 2022/03/06
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<![CDATA[The Time Traveller's Guide to Regency Britain: The Immersive and Brilliant Historical Guide to Regency Britain]]> 51003607

This is the age of Jane Austen and the Romantic poets; the paintings of John Constable and the gardens of Humphry Repton; the sartorial elegance of Beau Brummell and the poetic licence of Lord Byron; Britain's military triumphs at Trafalgar and Waterloo; the threat of revolution and the Peterloo massacre. In the latest volume of his celebrated series of Time Traveller's Guides, Ian Mortimer turns to what is arguably the most-loved period in British history - the Regency, or Georgian England.

A time of exuberance, thrills, frills and unchecked bad behaviour, it was perhaps the last age of true freedom before the arrival of the stifling world of Victorian morality. At the same time, it was a period of transition that reflected unprecedented social, economic and political change. And like all periods in history, it was an age of many contradictions - where Beethoven's thundering Fifth Symphony could premier in the same year that saw Jane Austen craft the delicate sensitivities of Persuasion .

Once more, Ian Mortimer takes us on a thrilling journey to the past, revealing what people ate, drank and wore; where they shopped and how they amused themselves; what they believed in and what they were afraid of. Conveying the sights, sounds and smells of the Regency period, this is history at its most exciting, physical, visceral - the past not as something to be studied but as lived experience.]]>
432 Ian Mortimer 1847924565 Laura 0 4.24 2022 The Time Traveller's Guide to Regency Britain: The Immersive and Brilliant Historical Guide to Regency Britain
author: Ian Mortimer
name: Laura
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2022/02/25
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The Terror 3974 Terror have every expectation of triumph. As part of the 1845 Franklin Expedition, the first steam-powered vessels ever to search for the legendary Northwest Passage, they are as scientifically supported an enterprise as has ever set forth. As they enter a second summer in the Arctic Circle without a thaw, though, they are stranded in a nightmarish landscape of encroaching ice and darkness. Endlessly cold, with diminishing rations, 126 men fight to survive with poisonous food, a dwindling supply of coal, and ships buckling in the grip of crushing ice. But their real enemy is far more terrifying. There is something out there in the frigid darkness: an unseen predator stalking their ship, a monstrous terror constantly clawing to get in.

When the expedition's leader, Sir John Franklin, meets a terrible death, Captain Francis Crozier takes command and leads his surviving crewmen on a last, desperate attempt to flee south across the ice. With them travels an Inuit woman who cannot speak and who may be the key to survival, or the harbinger of their deaths. But as another winter approaches, as scurvy and starvation grow more terrible, and as the terror on the ice stalks them southward, Crozier and his men begin to fear that there is no escape.]]>
769 Dan Simmons 0316017442 Laura 0 4.06 2007 The Terror
author: Dan Simmons
name: Laura
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2007
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/02/13
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People of Abandoned Character 53566011
London, 1888: Susannah rushes into marriage to a young and wealthy surgeon. After a passionate honeymoon, she returns home with her new husband wrapped around her little finger. But then everything changes.

Thomas's behavior becomes increasingly volatile and violent. He stays out all night, returning home bloodied and full of secrets. The gentle caresses she enjoyed on her wedding night are now just a honeyed memory.

When the first woman is murdered in Whitechapel, Susannah's interest is piqued. But as she follows the reports of the ongoing hunt for the killer, her mind takes her down the darkest path imaginable. Every time Thomas stays out late, another victim is found dead.

Is it coincidence? Or is her husband the man they call Jack the Ripper?]]>
421 Clare Whitfield Laura 0 3.76 2020 People of Abandoned Character
author: Clare Whitfield
name: Laura
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2022/02/11
date added: 2022/02/11
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The Key In The Lock 57878015 I still dream, every night, of Polneath on fire. Smoke unfurling out of an upper window and a hectic orange light cascading across the terrace.

By day, Ivy Boscawen mourns the loss of her son Tim in the Great War. But by night she mourns another boy - one whose death decades ago haunts her still.

For Ivy is sure that there is more to what happened all those years ago: the fire at the Great House, and the terrible events that came after. A truth she must uncover, if she is ever to be free.

Brimming with secrets, this lyrical haunting historical thriller is perfect for fans of Elizabeth Macneal, Sarah Waters and Diane Setterfield.]]>
304 Beth Underdown 0241503302 Laura 0 3.63 2022 The Key In The Lock
author: Beth Underdown
name: Laura
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2021/12/26
date added: 2021/12/26
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The Whispering Muse 59737212 From the Sunday Times bestselling author comes a gripping tale of obsession, superstition and ambition, set against the atmospheric backdrop of Victorian London. Be careful what you wish for it may just come true.

At The Mercury Theatre in London's West End, rumours are circulating of a curse. It is said that the lead actress Lilith has made a pact with Melpomene, the tragic muse of Greek mythology, to become the greatest actress to ever grace the stage. Suspicious of Lilith, the jealous wife of the theatre owner sends dresser Jenny to spy on her, and, desperate for the money to help her family, Jenny agrees.

What Jenny finds is a woman as astonishing in her performance as she is provocative in her nature. On stage, it's as though Lilith is possessed by the characters she plays, yet off stage she is as tragic as the muse who inspires her, and Jenny, sorry for her, befriends the troubled actress. But when strange events begin to take place around the theatre, Jenny wonders whether the rumours are true and fears that when the muse comes calling for payment, the cost will be too high.]]>
304 Laura Purcell 1526627183 Laura 0 my-books 3.94 2023 The Whispering Muse
author: Laura Purcell
name: Laura
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/12/20
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Fallen Skies 161851 640 Philippa Gregory 0061093785 Laura 0 3.46 1995 Fallen Skies
author: Philippa Gregory
name: Laura
average rating: 3.46
book published: 1995
rating: 0
read at: 2021/12/08
date added: 2021/12/08
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Theatre of Marvels 58311995
But something is amiss, and when Crillick's new act goes missing Zillah feels compelled to investigate, knowing the fates that can befall women in Victorian London.

From the bustle of the West India Docks to the coffee houses of Fleet Street to the parlours of Mayfair, Zillah's journey for answers will find her caught between both sides of her own identity, and between two men: her wealthy white admirer, and an African merchant appalled by her act.

Will Zillah be forced to confront the price of her own performance? And in risking everything can she also save herself?

Featuring a defiant heroine for our times and a theatrical world of fragile dreams and ruthless ambition, Theatre of Marvels shines a light on the experience of being Black and British in Victorian London through one woman's journey to live her life on her own terms.]]>
320 Lianne Dillsworth 0358627915 Laura 0 3.38 2022 Theatre of Marvels
author: Lianne Dillsworth
name: Laura
average rating: 3.38
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2021/10/31
date added: 2021/10/31
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Sundial 57693183 Sundial is a new, twisty psychological horror novel from Catriona Ward, internationally bestselling author of The Last House on Needless Street.

You can't escape what's in your blood...

All Rob wanted was a normal life. She almost got it, too: a husband, two kids, a nice house in the suburbs. But Rob fears for her oldest daughter, Callie, who collects tiny bones and whispers to imaginary friends. Rob sees a darkness in Callie, one that reminds her too much of the family she left behind. She decides to take Callie back to her childhood home, to Sundial, deep in the Mojave Desert. And there she will have to make a terrible choice.

Callie is worried about her mother. Rob has begun to look at her strangely, and speaks of past secrets. And Callie fears that only one of them will leave Sundial alive�

The mother and daughter embark on a dark, desert journey to the past in the hopes of redeeming their future.]]>
292 Catriona Ward 1250812682 Laura 0 3.77 2022 Sundial
author: Catriona Ward
name: Laura
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2021/09/13
date added: 2021/09/13
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Prophecy (Giordano Bruno, #2) 11156918
The second book in S. J. Parris’s bestselling, critically acclaimed series following Giordano Bruno, set at the time of Queen Elizabeth I Autumn, 1583. Under Elizabeth’s rule, loyalty is bought with blood�

An astrological phenomenon heralds the dawn of a new age and Queen Elizabeth’s throne is in peril. As Mary Stuart’s supporters scheme to usurp the rightful monarch, a young maid of honour is murdered, occult symbols carved into her flesh.

The Queen’s spymaster, Francis Walsingham, calls on maverick agent Giordano Bruno to infiltrate the plotters and secure the evidence that will condemn them to death.

Bruno is cunning, but so are his enemies. His identity could be exposed at any moment. The proof he seeks is within his grasp. But the young woman’s murder could point to an even more sinister truth�

Perfect for fans of C. J. Sansom and Hilary Mantel

Praise for S. J. Parris

‘A delicious blend of history and thriller� The Times

‘An omnipresent sense of danger� Daily Mail

‘Colourful characters, fast-moving plots and a world where one false step in religion or politics can mean a grisly death� Sunday Times

‘Pacy, intricate, and thrilling� Observer

‘Vivid, sprawling � Well-crafted, exuberant� Financial Times

‘Impossible to resist� Daily Telegraph

‘Twists and turns like a corkscrew of venomous snakes� Stuart MacBride

‘It has everything � intrigue, mystery and excellent history� Kate Mosse

‘The period is incredibly vivid and the story utterly gripping� Conn Iggulden

‘A brilliantly unusual glimpse at the intrigues surrounding Queen Elizabeth I� Andrew Taylor

“Rich in both historical detail and ingenious twists� Sam Bourne (bestselling author of The Righteous Men)

Perfect for fans of A D Swanston, Paul Walker and E.M. Powell.]]>
425 S.J. Parris 0007317735 Laura 0 3.84 2011 Prophecy (Giordano Bruno, #2)
author: S.J. Parris
name: Laura
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/09/02
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<![CDATA[The Apocrypha King James Version Study the Apocraypha in the Poetry of King James Version]]> 7694380 198 Anonymous 0529101831 Laura 0 3.64 1611 The Apocrypha King James Version Study the Apocraypha in the Poetry of King James Version
author: Anonymous
name: Laura
average rating: 3.64
book published: 1611
rating: 0
read at: 2018/12/29
date added: 2021/08/28
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The Whistling 57203848
With Mary defiantly silent, Elspeth turns to the islanders. But no one will speak of what happened to William. Just as no one can explain the hypnotic lullabies sung in empty corridors. Nor the strange dolls that appear in abandoned rooms.

Nor the faint whistling that comes in the night...

As winter draws in and passage to the mainland becomes impossible, Elspeth finds herself trapped.

But is this house haunted by the ghosts of the past?

OR THE SECRETS OF THE LIVING..?

Chilling, twisty and emotionally gripping, The Whistling is an atmospheric page-turner with shades of the classics, yet a unique character of its own. Perfect for fans of Susan Hill and Laura Purcell.]]>
378 Rebecca Netley 0241533996 Laura 0 3.64 2021 The Whistling
author: Rebecca Netley
name: Laura
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2021/08/22
date added: 2021/08/22
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Mrs England 56089437
When newly graduated nurse Ruby May takes a position looking after the children of Charles and Lilian England, a wealthy couple from a powerful dynasty of mill owners, she hopes it will be the fresh start she needs. But as she adapts to life at the isolated Hardcastle House, it becomes clear there's something not quite right about the beautiful, mysterious Mrs England. Ostracised by the servants and feeling increasingly uneasy, Ruby is forced to confront her own demons in order to prevent history from repeating itself. After all, there's no such thing as the perfect family - and she should know.

Simmering with slow-burning menace, Mrs England is a portrait of an Edwardian marriage, weaving an enthralling story of men and women, power and control, courage, truth and the very darkest deception. Set against the atmospheric landscape of West Yorkshire, Stacey Halls' third novel proves her one of the most exciting and compelling new storytellers of our times.]]>
424 Stacey Halls 1838772863 Laura 0 3.86 2021 Mrs England
author: Stacey Halls
name: Laura
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2021/08/03
date added: 2021/08/03
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<![CDATA[Edith Craig and the Theatres of Art]]> 28964966
She captured the imagination of Virginia Woolf, inspiring the portrait of Miss LaTrobe in her 1941 novel Between the Acts , and influenced a generation of actors, such as Sybil Thorndike and Edith Evans. Frequently eclipsed in accounts of theatrical endeavour by her younger brother, Edward Gordon Craig, Edith Craig's contribution both to theatre and to the women's suffrage movement receives timely reappraisal in Katharine Cockin's meticulously researched and wide-ranging biography, released for the seventieth anniversary of Craig's death.]]>
328 Katharine Cockin 1472570618 Laura 0 4.00 Edith Craig and the Theatres of Art
author: Katharine Cockin
name: Laura
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2021/07/16
date added: 2021/07/16
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<![CDATA[Nelly Dean: A Return to Wuthering Heights]]> 25673956
But Nelly is not the only one who finds her life disrupted by this strange newcomer. As death, illness, and passion sweep through the house, Nelly suffers heartache and betrayals at the hands of those she cherishes most, tempting her to leave it all behind. But when a new heir is born, a reign of violence begins that will test even Nelly’s formidable spirit as she finds out what it is to know true sacrifice.

Nelly Dean is a wonderment of storytelling and an inspired accompaniment to Emily Bronte’s adored work. It is the story of a woman who is fated to bear the pain of a family she is unable to leave, and unable to save.]]>
474 Alison Case 1605989614 Laura 0 3.86 2015 Nelly Dean: A Return to Wuthering Heights
author: Alison Case
name: Laura
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at: 2021/07/16
date added: 2021/07/16
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Carmilla 48037
But as Carmilla becomes increasingly strange and volatile, prone to eerie nocturnal wanderings, Laura finds herself tormented by nightmares and growing weaker by the day� Pre-dating Dracula by twenty-six years, Carmilla is the original vampire story, steeped in sexual tension and gothic romance.]]>
108 J. Sheridan Le Fanu 0809510839 Laura 0 3.88 1872 Carmilla
author: J. Sheridan Le Fanu
name: Laura
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1872
rating: 0
read at: 2021/07/03
date added: 2021/07/03
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<![CDATA[Growing Things and Other Stories]]> 42118050 The Cabin at the End of the World and A Head Full of Ghosts..

In The Teacher, a Bram Stoker Award nominee for best short story, a student is forced to watch a disturbing video that will haunt and torment her and her classmates� lives.

Four men rob a pawn shop at gunpoint only to vanish, one-by-one, as they speed away from the crime scene in The Getaway.

In Swim Wants to Know If It’s as Bad as Swim Thinks, a meth addict kidnaps her daughter from her estranged mother as their town is terrorized by a giant monster . . . or not.

Joining these haunting works are stories linked to Tremblay’s previous novels. The tour de force metafictional novella Notes from the Dog Walkers deconstructs horror and publishing, possibly bringing in a character from A Head Full of Ghosts, all while serving as a prequel to Disappearance at Devil’s Rock. “The Thirteenth Temple� follows another character from A Head Full of Ghosts—Merry, who has published a tell-all memoir written years after the events of the novel. And the title story, Growing Things, a shivery tale loosely shared between the sisters in A Head Full of Ghosts, is told here in full.

From global catastrophe to the demons inside our heads, Tremblay illuminates our primal fears and darkest dreams in startlingly original fiction that leaves us unmoored. As he lowers the sky and yanks the ground from beneath our feet, we are compelled to contemplate the darkness inside our own hearts and minds.

Growing things --
Swim wants to know if it's as bad as swim thinks --
Something about birds --
The getaway --
Nineteen snapshots of Dennisport --
Where we all will be --
The teacher --
Notes for "The Barn in the Wild" --
_______ --
Our town's monster --
A haunted house is a wheel upon which some are broken --
It won't go away --
Notes from the dog walkers --
Further questions for the somnambulist --
The ice tower --
The society of the monsterhood --
Her red right hand --
It's against the law to feed the ducks --
The thirteenth temple --
Notes --
Acknowledgments --
Credits]]>
352 Paul Tremblay 0062679139 Laura 0 3.49 2019 Growing Things and Other Stories
author: Paul Tremblay
name: Laura
average rating: 3.49
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at: 2021/06/24
date added: 2021/06/24
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The Weaker Vessel 234625 738 Antonia Fraser Laura 0 3.94 1984 The Weaker Vessel
author: Antonia Fraser
name: Laura
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1984
rating: 0
read at: 2021/06/14
date added: 2021/06/14
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<![CDATA[The Time Traveller's Guide to Elizabethan England]]> 10372167
We think of Queen Elizabeth I's reign (1558-1603) as a golden age. But what was it actually like to live in Elizabethan England? If you could travel to the past and walk the streets of London in the 1590s, where would you stay? What would you eat? What would you wear? Would you really have a sense of it being a glorious age? And if so, how would that glory sit alongside the vagrants, diseases, violence, sexism and famine of the time?

In this book Ian Mortimer reveals a country in which life expectancy is in the early thirties, people still starve to death and Catholics are persecuted for their faith. Yet it produces some of the finest writing in the English language, some of the most magnificent architecture, and sees Elizabeth's subjects settle in America and circumnavigate the globe. Welcome to a country that is, in all its contradictions, the very crucible of the modern world.]]>
432 Ian Mortimer 1847921140 Laura 0 4.09 2010 The Time Traveller's Guide to Elizabethan England
author: Ian Mortimer
name: Laura
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at: 2021/06/14
date added: 2021/06/14
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After Sundown 53206637
Contents List:

BUTTERFLY ISLAND by C.J. Tudor

RESEARCH by Tim Lebbon

SWANSKIN by Alison Littlewood

THAT’S THE SPIRIT by Sarah Lotz

GAVE by Michael Bailey

WHEREVER YOU LOOK by Ramsey Campbell

SAME TIME NEXT YEAR by Angela Slatter

MINE SEVEN by Elana Gomel

IT DOESN’T FEEL RIGHT by Michael Marshall Smith

CREEPING IVY by Laura Purcell

LAST RITES FOR THE FOURTH WORLD by Rick Cross

WE ALL COME HOME by Simon Bestwick

THE IMPORTANCE OF ORAL HYGIENE by Robert Shearman

BOKEH by Thana Niveau

MURDER BOARD by Grady Hendrix

ALICE’S REBELLION by John Langan

THE MIRROR HOUSE by Jonathan Robbins Leon

THE NAUGHTY STEP by Stephen Volk

A HOTEL IN GERMANY by Catriona Ward

BRANCH LINE by Paul Finch

FLAME TREE PRESS is the new fiction imprint of Flame Tree Publishing. Launched in 2018 the list brings together brilliant new authors and the more established; the award winners, and exciting, original voices.]]>
304 Mark Morris 1787584577 Laura 0 3.77 2020 After Sundown
author: Mark Morris
name: Laura
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2021/06/14
date added: 2021/06/14
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Triflers Need Not Apply 55883417
A woman unhampered by scruples can take from them what she wants. And so Bella sets out to prove to the world that a woman can be just as ruthless, black-hearted and single-minded as any man.

Starting with her long suffering husband, Mads, Bella embarks on a killing spree the like of which has never been seen before nor since.

And through it all her kind, older sister Nellie can only watch in horror as Bella's schemes to enrich herself and cut down the male population come to a glorious, dreadful fruition . . .

Based on the true story of Belle Gunness whose murderous rampage began in Chicago in 1900, Triflers Need Not Apply is a novelistic tour de force exploring one woman's determination to pay men back for all they have taken.]]>
448 Camilla Bruce 0241442303 Laura 0 3.89 2021 Triflers Need Not Apply
author: Camilla Bruce
name: Laura
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2021/05/30
date added: 2021/05/30
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<![CDATA[The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories]]> 160149 A definitive collection of stories from the unrivaled master of twentieth-century horror.

"I think it is beyond doubt that H. P. Lovecraft has yet to be surpassed as the twentieth century's greatest practitioner of the classic horror tale." - Stephen King.

Frequently imitated and widely influential, Howard Philips Lovecraft reinvented the horror genre in the 1920s, discarding ghosts and witches and instead envisioning mankind as a tiny outpost of dwindling sanity in a chaotic and malevolent universe. S. T. Joshi, Lovecraft's preeminent interpreter, presents a selection of the master's fiction, from the early tales of nightmares and madness such as "The Outsider" to the overpowering cosmic terror of "The Call of Cthulhu." More than just a collection of terrifying tales, this volume reveals the development of Lovecraft's mesmerizing narrative style and establishes him as a canonical- and visionary-American writer.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

H. P. Lovecraft was born in 1890 in Providence, Rhode Island, where he lived most of his life. Frequent illnesses in his youth disrupted his schooling, but Lovecraft gained a wide knowledge of many subjects through independent reading and study. He wrote many essays and poems early in his career, but gradually focused on the writing of horror stories, after the advent in 1923 of the pulp magazine Weird Tales, to which he contributed most of his fiction. His relatively small corpus of fiction—three short novels and about sixty short stories—has nevertheless exercised a wide influence on subsequent work in the field, and he is regarded as the leading twentieth-century American author of supernatural fiction. H. P. Lovecraft died in Providence in 1937.

S. T. Joshi is a freelance writer and editor. He has edited Penguin Classics editions of H. P. Lovecraft’s The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories (1999), and The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Stories (2001), as well as Algernon Blackwood’s Ancient Sorceries and Other Strange Stories (2002). Among his critical and biographical studies are The Weird Tale (1990), Lord Dunsany: Master of the Anglo-Irish Imagination (1995), H. P. Lovecraft: A Life (1996), and The Modern Weird Tale (2001). He has also edited works by Ambrose Bierce, Arthur Machen, and H. L. Mencken, and is compiling a three-volume Encyclopedia of Supernatural Literature. He lives with his wife in Seattle, Washington.]]>
420 H.P. Lovecraft 0141182342 Laura 0 4.21 1928 The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories
author: H.P. Lovecraft
name: Laura
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1928
rating: 0
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date added: 2021/05/28
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Doctor Faustus 49697243 76 Christopher Marlowe 1539719200 Laura 0 3.83 1588 Doctor Faustus
author: Christopher Marlowe
name: Laura
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1588
rating: 0
read at: 2020/10/08
date added: 2021/05/11
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I Am Dust 52859156
Now Dust, the iconic musical, is returning after twenty years. But who will be brave enough to take on the role of ghostly goddess Esme Black, last played by Morgan Miller, who was murdered in her dressing room?

Theatre usher Chloe Dee is caught up in the spectacle. As the new actors arrive, including an unexpected face from her past, everything changes. Are the eerie sounds and sightings backstage real or just her imagination? Is someone playing games?

Is the role of Esme Black cursed? Could witchcraft be at the heart of the tragedy? And are dark deeds from Chloe’s past about to catch up with her?

Not all the drama takes place onstage. Sometimes murder, magic, obsession and the biggest of betrayals are real life. When you’re in the theatre shadows, you see everything.

And Chloe has been watching…]]>
300 Louise Beech 1913193217 Laura 0 3.91 2020 I Am Dust
author: Louise Beech
name: Laura
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2021/04/24
date added: 2021/04/24
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The Last Runaway 15705011 New York Times bestselling author of Girl With a Pearl Earring Tracy Chevalier makes her first fictional foray into the American past in The Last Runaway, bringing to life the Underground Railroad and illuminating the principles, passions and realities that fueled this extraordinary freedom movement.

In New York Times bestselling author Tracy Chevalier’s newest historical saga, she introduces Honor Bright, a modest English Quaker who moves to Ohio in 1850, only to find herself alienated and alone in a strange land. Sick from the moment she leaves England, and fleeing personal disappointment, she is forced by family tragedy to rely on strangers in a harsh, unfamiliar landscape.

Nineteenth-century America is practical, precarious, and unsentimental, and scarred by the continuing injustice of slavery. In her new home Honor discovers that principles count for little, even within a religious community meant to be committed to human equality.

However, drawn into the clandestine activities of the Underground Railroad, a network helping runaway slaves escape to freedom, Honor befriends two surprising women who embody the remarkable power of defiance. Eventually she must decide if she too can act on what she believes in, whatever the personal costs.

A powerful journey brimming with color and drama, The Last Runaway is Tracy Chevalier’s vivid engagement with an iconic part of American history.]]>
305 Tracy Chevalier 0525952993 Laura 0 3.81 2013 The Last Runaway
author: Tracy Chevalier
name: Laura
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at: 2021/04/23
date added: 2021/04/23
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Mexican Gothic 53152636
Noemí is also an unlikely rescuer: She’s a glamorous debutante, and her chic gowns and perfect red lipstick are more suited for cocktail parties than amateur sleuthing. But she’s also tough and smart, with an indomitable will, and she is not afraid: Not of her cousin’s new husband, who is both menacing and alluring; not of his father, the ancient patriarch who seems to be fascinated by Noemí; and not even of the house itself, which begins to invade Noemi’s dreams with visions of blood and doom.

Her only ally in this inhospitable abode is the family’s youngest son. Shy and gentle, he seems to want to help Noemí, but might also be hiding dark knowledge of his family’s past. For there are many secrets behind the walls of High Place. The family’s once colossal wealth and faded mining empire kept them from prying eyes, but as Noemí digs deeper she unearths stories of violence and madness.

And Noemí, mesmerized by the terrifying yet seductive world of High Place, may soon find it impossible to ever leave this enigmatic house behind.]]>
320 Silvia Moreno-Garcia 0525620788 Laura 0 3.66 2020 Mexican Gothic
author: Silvia Moreno-Garcia
name: Laura
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2021/04/03
date added: 2021/04/03
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Dark Tides (The Fairmile, #2) 49127754
The second visitor is a beautiful widow from Venice in deepest mourning. She claims Alinor as her mother-in-law and has come to tell Alinor that her son Rob has drowned in the dark tides of the Venice lagoon.

Alinor writes to her brother Ned, newly arrived in faraway New England and trying to make a life between the worlds of the English newcomers and the American Indians as they move toward inevitable war. Alinor tells him that she knows—without doubt—that her son is alive and the widow is an imposter.

Set in the poverty and glamour of Restoration London, in the golden streets of Venice, and on the tensely contested frontier of early America, this is a novel of greed and desire: for love, for wealth, for a child, and for home.]]>
464 Philippa Gregory 150118718X Laura 0 3.70 2020 Dark Tides (The Fairmile, #2)
author: Philippa Gregory
name: Laura
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2021/03/21
date added: 2021/03/21
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The Story of My Life 1862478 228 Ellen Terry 1406808490 Laura 0 3.75 The Story of My Life
author: Ellen Terry
name: Laura
average rating: 3.75
book published:
rating: 0
read at: 2021/02/23
date added: 2021/02/23
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Bird Box (Bird Box, #1) 18498558 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780062259653

Something is out there, something terrifying that must not be seen. One glimpse of it, and a person is driven to deadly violence. No one knows what it is or where it came from.

Five years after it began, a handful of scattered survivors remains, including Malorie and her two young children. Living in an abandoned house near the river, she has dreamed of fleeing to a place where they might be safe. Now that the boy and girl are four, it's time to go, but the journey ahead will be terrifying: twenty miles downriver in a rowboat—blindfolded—with nothing to rely on but her wits and the children's trained ears. One wrong choice and they will die. Something is following them all the while, but is it man, animal, or monster?

Interweaving past and present, Bird Box is a snapshot of a world unraveled that will have you racing to the final page.]]>
262 Josh Malerman Laura 0 4.02 2014 Bird Box (Bird Box, #1)
author: Josh Malerman
name: Laura
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at: 2021/02/20
date added: 2021/02/20
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