Showing results for "Book of Shadows" in Historical

"Anyone who enjoys novels that are scary, erotic, touching, tragic and thrilling should rush right out to the nearest bookstore and pick up The Shadow of the Wind. Really, you should." —Michael Dirda, The Washington Post “Wondrous...masterful...The Shadow of the Wind is ultimately a love...

It’s January of 1704, and Matthew Corbett continues his mission to Italy, accompanied by Hudson Greathouse and former enemy Professor Fell. They seek Brazio Valeriani and information about the mirror created by his father, the sorcerer Ciro. Legend claims the mirror can be used to summon demons from beyond. But fate has other plans for Matthew as their ship is disabled by a pod of whales, and they seek refuge on a secluded island. The islanders welcome them with a massive feast, but all is not what it seems.

Private investigator Matilda Wren is posing as the wife of Inspector William Maxwell from the City of London Police to infiltrate a burial club scheme. Maxwell is a skilled detective, but he isn't Hadrian—her usual ally and the man she trusts most. When the club's administrator is murdered, Tilda needs Hadrian's expertise, notably his uncanny ability to glimpse others' memories.

Elizabeth Miles Bates has returned from her honeymoon cruise and is taking great pride in having completely forsaken her past life as a con artist. Then her friend, Anna Vanderslice, begs her to use her talents to help save her widowed mother from a disreputable medium. Since the war and the flu epidemic left so many families bereaved, interest in contacting the dead has experienced a revival. Once quite popular, séances have come back into vogue as desperate families mourn their loved ones and long to communicate with them.

Journalist Joe Talbert investigates the murder of the father he never knew, and must reckon with his own family's past, in this "brilliant sequel" to the national bestseller The Life We Bury (Publishers Weekly) Joe Talbert, Jr. has never once met his namesake. Now out of college, a cub reporter...

August 1920, Dublin, Ireland: A fraught task keeps Verity and her husband Sidney in the country after their initial clandestine mission has been completed: the traitor Lord Ardmore is scheming to employ the deadly phosgene gas he's stolen for some terrifying purpose, and the couple will need both the Crown forces and the rebels' help to thwart him. As they pursue their quarry, they are drawn into a case involving a series of cunning and brazen jewel thefts.

Drawing upon her background in ancient history and her experiences on archaeological digs, author C.S. Harris crafts authentic, compelling novels that appear regularly on best-seller lists and have won numerous awards. In 1812, surgeon Paul Gibson discovers a stiletto wound in the base of a corpse’s skull and immediately contacts Sebastian St. Cyr. And when another body turns up with the same injury, the lives of St. Cyr’s family are threatened if he doesn’t back off. Now, the pressure’s on to find the culprit before anyone else gets killed.

When Kate goes to look after her estranged sister’s children in their creepy old house, she takes a photo of what seems to be a ghost. Frightened yet intrigued, Kate undertakes to uncover the secrets of the house and the two mysterious sisters who lived there over a hundred years before. But like the illusions of light and shadow in the sisters’ strange and disturbing Victorian post-mortem photography, Kate discovers that all is not what it seems. Someone – or something – has their own plans for Rookswood House – and for Kate.

In the spring of 1803, England's foreign secretary is dead, and his widow, Lady Violette Hawkestone, insists that Ravenna help discover the killer. Ravenna, only nine months a widow, doesn't want to get involved, but when an investigator, Mr. Chadwick, appears to suspect her, Ravenna fears he's going to uncover a past she'd rather forget. In an effort to protect her own secrets and to protect her stepson, who's in line for the foreign secretary position, she can lose no time in discovering the killer's identity.

Judge Dee Renjie, Empress Wu's newly appointed Imperial Circuit Supervisor for the Tang Empire, is visiting provinces surrounding the grand capital of Chang'an. One night a knife is thrown through his window with a cryptic note attached: "A high-flying dragon will have something to regret!"

With her family in fragments and hopes for a relationship with the charming Lord Braedon in peril, death and heartache cling to Lady Ravenna Birchfield like a shadow. Yet, life must go on in her charity work and in providing a home and guidance for her abandoned niece. When Lord Franklin Thornley is murdered at a charity gala and a precious black opal known as the Widow's Fire goes missing, one of Ravenna's closest friends becomes the focus of the investigation. Determined to keep her friend out of prison, Ravenna searches for the killer.

On June 2nd, 1894, in the wake of President Marie Francois Sadi Carnot's assassination, France descends into chaos and riots in the streets of Varbourg. Many lives are lost in the mayhem, but when one lady of the night is found murdered with brutal incisions and no sign of a struggle, it is clear something is amiss. Madeleine Karno, the tenacious protagonist from Doctor Death, must ask herself the terrifying question: Do they have their very own Jack the Ripper in France?

Rescued from a pandemic’s wreckage and raised by the eccentric surgeon Dr. Horace Croft, orphan Nora Beady cares little for Victorian conventions. While other young ladies busy themselves with needlework and watercolors, Nora perfects her sutures and anatomical illustrations. Women face dire consequences if caught practicing medicine, but in Croft’s private clinic, Nora is his most trusted - and secret - assistant. That is, until the new surgical resident, Dr. Daniel Gibson, arrives.

After losing his knighthood, Crispin Guest has found a new calling as the Tracker, a private investigator who can locate anything—or anyone. Now famed French alchemist Nicholas Flamel needs Crispin to locate his wife, Perenelle, and his apprentice, Thomas Cornhill. But the case takes a sinister turn when Flamel's apprentice is found murdered. The kidnapper promises that Flamel's wife will be next...unless he hands over his precious Philosopher's Stone, a magical object that can turn lead into gold.

Over two hundred years ago, in the dark of night, a child vanished from his bed never to be seen again - and Pixie must discover the truth of those final moonlit hours. As the story undulates between the past and the present, secrets are revealed, love affairs exposed and, ultimately, Pixie will be forced to make a devastating choice that will change everything.

In a strange room in Morocco, Mary Russell is trying to solve a pressing mystery: Who am I? She has awakened with shadows in her mind, blood on her hands, and soldiers pounding on the door. Out in the hivelike streets, she discovers herself strangely adept in the skills of the underworld, escaping through alleys and rooftops, picking pockets and locks. She is clothed like a man, and armed only with her wits and a scrap of paper containing a mysterious Arabic phrase. Overhead, warplanes pass ominously north.

1955: Tampa, Florida, is a city pulsing with Sicilian and Cuban gangsters, cigar factories, sweet rum, and violence. The death of retired kingpin Charlie Wall—the White Shadow—has shocked the city, sending cops, reporters, and associates scrambling to find those responsible. As the trail winds through neighborhoods rich and poor, enmeshing the innocent and corrupt alike all the way down to the streets and casinos of Havana, an extraordinary story of revenge, honor, and greed emerges.

Southern France, 1944: What should be a simple assignment with a Special Operations Executive officer gets complicated quickly as Billy navigates the tensions between Resistance groups in the process of gathering information on Vichy officials and other collaborators who escaped with the retreating Germans. Unexpectedly, the SOE officer has many enemies in the Resistance, linked to the failed Vercors uprising. With sacrifice and betrayal afoot, Billy doesn’t know who he can trust, or how close to death this case may bring him.

Scotland Yard’s Inspector Ian Rutledge brought the Great War home with him, and its horrors haunt him still. On New Year’s Eve 1919, he finds a brass cartridge casing, similar to countless others he’d seen on the battlefield, on the steps of a friend’s house. Soon there are more, purposely placed where he is sure to discover them. Unexpectedly drawn away from London to a small Northamptonshire village, he investigates the strange case of a local constable shot with a bow and arrow.

Leonora Spencer has an acquaintance with death. Sixteen years ago, only she survived the brutal murder of her family. Now, as an assistant in her uncle's London morgue, she uses her photographic memory to catalogue details for his coroner reports. She also isn't opposed to helping him during postmortems if his skilled hands begin to shake. After a thief breaks into the morgue and steals a locket from a young woman's corpse, Leo is determined to understand why, even if it means going against Detective Inspector Jasper Reid's express orders to keep her nose out of it.