Black Swan Rising


Book Description

A fascinating new urban fantasy series by an award-winning author




The Shape Stealer


Book Description

Jewelry designer Garet James is the Watchtower—the last in a long line of powerful women sworn to protect the world from evil. Although she had once defeated evil in New York City, her pursuit of her true love, the 400-year-old vampire Will Hughes, has now unleashed an age-old evil onto the modern world, and the entire planet is at risk. Marduk, the ageless descendant of a demonic Babylonian deity, is now loose in Paris. He has joined forces with the villainous John Dee in a plan to destroy the world's economy and plunge the entire world into chaos. To fight this threat, Garet enlists the help of a modern-day band of knights who are dedicated to preserving the sanctity of the timeline. As she and her allies face this threat, new challenges arise in the form of a rival faction of knights who will stop at nothing to bring about the destruction of everything Garet holds dear. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.




The Watchtower


Book Description

The last in a long line of women sworn to guard our world against evil, jeweller Garet James is struggling to come to terms with who - or what - she really is. Will Hughes, the alluring four-hundred-year-old vampire who tasted her blood and saved her life, could help, but he's disappeared. Garet believes he's in France, searching for the Summer Country, the legendary land of the Fey where he might be freed from his vampire curse. Desperate to understand her legacy, Garet follows Will. In Paris, she encounters strange, mythic beings - an ancient botanist metamorphosed into the city's oldest tree, a gnome who lives beneath the Labyrinth at the Jardin des Plantes, a dryad in the Luxembourg Gardens - meetings that convince her she is on the right path. But Garet is not the only one trying to find the way in to the Summer Country - and the closer she gets, the more dangerous it becomes...




Black Swan Green


Book Description

By the New York Times bestselling author of The Bone Clocks and Cloud Atlas | Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize Selected by Time as One of the Ten Best Books of the Year | A New York Times Notable Book | Named One of the Best Books of the Year by The Washington Post Book World, The Christian Science Monitor, Rocky Mountain News, and Kirkus Reviews | A Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist | Winner of the ALA Alex Award | Finalist for the Costa Novel Award From award-winning writer David Mitchell comes a sinewy, meditative novel of boyhood on the cusp of adulthood and the old on the cusp of the new. Black Swan Green tracks a single year in what is, for thirteen-year-old Jason Taylor, the sleepiest village in muddiest Worcestershire in a dying Cold War England, 1982. But the thirteen chapters, each a short story in its own right, create an exquisitely observed world that is anything but sleepy. A world of Kissingeresque realpolitik enacted in boys’ games on a frozen lake; of “nightcreeping” through the summer backyards of strangers; of the tabloid-fueled thrills of the Falklands War and its human toll; of the cruel, luscious Dawn Madden and her power-hungry boyfriend, Ross Wilcox; of a certain Madame Eva van Outryve de Crommelynck, an elderly bohemian emigré who is both more and less than she appears; of Jason’s search to replace his dead grandfather’s irreplaceable smashed watch before the crime is discovered; of first cigarettes, first kisses, first Duran Duran LPs, and first deaths; of Margaret Thatcher’s recession; of Gypsies camping in the woods and the hysteria they inspire; and, even closer to home, of a slow-motion divorce in four seasons. Pointed, funny, profound, left-field, elegiac, and painted with the stuff of life, Black Swan Green is David Mitchell’s subtlest and most effective achievement to date. Praise for Black Swan Green “[David Mitchell has created] one of the most endearing, smart, and funny young narrators ever to rise up from the pages of a novel. . . . The always fresh and brilliant writing will carry readers back to their own childhoods. . . . This enchanting novel makes us remember exactly what it was like.”—The Boston Globe “[David Mitchell is a] prodigiously daring and imaginative young writer. . . . As in the works of Thomas Pynchon and Herman Melville, one feels the roof of the narrative lifted off and oneself in thrall.”—Time




White Swan, Black Swan


Book Description

The world's most famous choreographer becomes infatuated with a coltish young dancer who proves both siren and muse. A rising star plunges into an affair with a principal but finds that ecstasy on the stage can't be surpassed in the bed. A dying legend reflects on the evanescent beauty of a life of gesture, lost to everything but memory. Each bittersweet story plants the reader amid a cast of dancers and choreographers who struggle—valiantly, playfully, fiercely—to find in the rigorous discipline and animating beauty of ballet a counterbalance to the chaos of unscripted life. Many of the tales dare to imagine the inner lives of the century's titans—Balanchine, Fonteyn and Nureyev—which rival in emotional complexity and pathos the classic dramas they enacted onstage: La Bayadere, Don Quixote, Swan Lake. White Swan, Black Swan translates the pure and essential gestures of ballet into starkly elegant prose while showing the sweat and sex beneath the serene surface. Adrienne Sharp's debut is a bravura performance.




Green Swans


Book Description

Even leading capitalists admit that capitalism is broken. Green Swans is a manifesto for system change designed to serve people, planet, and prosperity. In his twentieth book, John Elkington—dubbed the “Godfather of Sustainability”—explores new forms of capitalism fit for the twenty-first century. If Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s “Black Swans” are problems that can take us exponentially toward breakdown, then “Green Swans” are solutions that take us exponentially toward breakthrough. The success—and survival—of humanity now depends on how we rein in the first and accelerate the second. Green Swans draws on Elkington’s firsthand experience in some of the world’s best-known boardrooms and C-suites. Using case studies, real-world examples, and profiles on emergent technologies, Elkington shows how the weirdest “Ugly Ducklings” of today’s world may turn into tomorrow’s world-saving Green Swans. This book is a must-read for business leaders in corporations great and small who want to help their businesses survive the coming shift in global priorities over the next decade and expand their horizons from responsibility, through resilience, and onto regeneration.




Black Swan Rising


Book Description

Sarah Price wants a career in politics. But she has a secret past that won't stay past, threatening her job on a San Diego congressman's reelection campaign. Casey Cheng wants a story. An ambitious local television reporter, Casey needs to get her career back on track after being seriously injured in a mass shooting. When she investigates the man who nearly killed her, she finds a connection to a group of online harassers called #TrueMen—and realizes her shooter may not be the only killer they have inspired. Casey's investigation and Sarah's secret put them both in the crosshairs of a hate group that targets anyone they've deemed to be against their cause, including Sarah's boss, the congressman. Now Sarah and Casey have a choice to make—do they hide? Or do they fight back? Praise: "Riveting thriller...Readers will furiously turn the pages to see how it all ends."—Publishers Weekly "An absorbing and apocalyptic vision of American politics that leaves the reader hoping it will never come to this."—Booklist "Lisa Brackmann's Black Swan Rising is a savvy, riveting thriller that's also deeply human, with characters who are as authentic as they are compelling."—Lou Berney, Edgar Award–winning author of The Long and Faraway Gone "Lisa Brackmann writes with passion, guts, and heart. Black Swan Rising is more than just a thrilling read—it's also an unflinching examination of the corrosive effects of racism and misogyny on American culture."—Chris Holm, Anthony Award–winning author of The Killing Kind "A raw and masterful mystery thriller that explores the real darkness of the human soul."—Jonathan Maberry, New York Times bestselling author of Glimpse "Black Swan Rising is more than the sum of its parts...In this gripping novel, Lisa Brackmann tells not just the harrowing story of two women impacted by a mass shooting but the story of America's deadly love affair with guns."—Bryn Greenwood, New York Times bestselling author of All the Ugly and Wonderful Things "Reading Black Swan Rising is like peering into a dark mirror that perfectly captures the societal turmoil and fractures of our time. Thrilling and provocative, this is Lisa Brackmann at the top of her game."—Hilary Davidson, Anthony Award–winning author of One Small Sacrifice "Fierce, fearsome, and distressingly relevant."—Elizabeth Little, Los Angeles Times bestselling author of Dear Daughter "At the intersection of current issues and events, Black Swan Rising is a gripping story that rockets forward with action and suspense."—Jamie Mason, author of Monday's Lie "An important book that looks at where our currently divided political climate could take us, and where it already has."—Catherine McKenzie, bestselling author of The Good Liar "A smart thriller that captures the heat of our country's moral and civic battles."—Kim Fay, author of The Map of Lost Memories "A terrifying novel that focuses on a political campaign plagued by gun violence and misogyny. It cuts deep in a way that is all too distressingly believable, but Brackmann's smart prose and winning female protagonists go a long way towards fighting the darkness."—Steph Cha, author of Dead Soon Enough "Black Swan Rising is a must-read for everyone who cares about what's happening in our country."—Libby Fischer Hellmann, author of Set the Night on Fire "Reflects the turbulent times of today and, in doing so, provides an entertaining and thought-provoking tale."—Suspense Magazine




benediction for a black swan


Book Description

In Benediction for a Black Swan, Mimi Zollars explores the topics of childhood, children, marriage and divorce, alcoholism, and the sensual world in a series of edgy, seductive, irreverent, and ethereal poems. Incorporating elements of magical realism, Zollars’ sexy, darkly beautiful works embrace the miraculous as ordinary—and turn the ordinary into the extraordinary.




The Black Swan of Paris


Book Description

An exquisite WWII novel illuminating the strength of three women in occupied Paris, for fans of The Nightingale, The Alice Network and The Lost Girls of Paris. "A truly outstanding novel...reminds us of the power of love, hope and courage."—Heather Morris, #1 bestselling author of The Tattooist of Auschwitz Paris, 1944 Celebrated singer Genevieve Dumont is both a star and a smokescreen. An unwilling darling of the Nazis, the chanteuse’s position of privilege allows her to go undetected as an ally to the resistance. When her estranged mother, Lillian de Rocheford, is captured by Nazis, Genevieve knows it won’t be long before the Gestapo succeeds in torturing information out of Lillian that will derail the upcoming allied invasion. The resistance movement is tasked with silencing her by any means necessary—including assassination. But Genevieve refuses to let her mother become yet one more victim of the war. Reuniting with her long-lost sister, she must find a way to navigate the perilous cross-currents of Occupied France undetected—and in time to save Lillian’s life. In this heart-wrenching novel, bestselling author Karen Robards showcases the extraordinary lengths one goes to save their family from a German prison. A web of spies, the resistance and a vivid portrayal of Paris in wartime.




Swan Song


Book Description

In a nightmarish, post-holocaust world, an ancient evil roams a devastated America, gathering the forces of human greed and madness, searching for a child named Swan who possesses the gift of life.