Showing results by publisher "W. F. Howes Ltd" in Contemporary

The boundaries between gods and mortals blur in a futuristic world where ancient Hindu deities reign supreme, not by divine right, but through advanced technology and manipulation of human consciousness. Enter the protagonist, Sam, who dares to challenge these self-proclaimed gods by resurrecting the forgotten concept of Buddhism, symbolizing a cosmic rebellion against tyranny and the timeless struggle for spiritual and intellectual freedom.

In this ordinary North Carolina suburb, family secrets are always in bloom. Samantha Montgomery pulls into the driveway of her family home to find a massive black vulture perched on the mailbox, staring at the house. Inside, everything has changed. Gone is the eclectic warmth Sam expects; instead the walls are a sterile white. Now, it's very important to say grace before dinner, and her mother won't hear a word against Sam's long-dead and little-missed grandmother, who was the first to put down roots in this small Southern town.

When Selena travels to the remote desert town of Quartz Creek in search of her estranged Aunt Amelia, she is desperate and short of options. Fleeing an unhappy marriage, she has exactly twenty-seven dollars to her name, and her only friend in the world is her dog, Copper. On arrival, Selena learns Amelia is dead. But the inhabitants of Quartz Creek are only too happy to have a new resident. Out of money and ideas, Selena sees no harm staying in her aunt’s lovely house for a few weeks, tending to her garden and enjoying the strange, desolate beauty of the desert.

A funeral. A heist. A desperate mission. When Dymitr is called back to the old country for the empty night, a funeral rite intended to keep evil at bay, it's the perfect opportunity for him to get his hands on his family's most guarded relic—a book of curses that could satisfy the debt he owes legendary witch Baba Jaga. But first he'll have to survive a night with his dangerous, monster-hunting kin.

On the eve of Genie’s thirtieth birthday, her grandmother gives her an unexpected gift: a wish at midnight. Genie, forever the family skeptic, laughs it off and, after an evening fending off invasive questions about her nonexistent love life, returns home to her empty house and her golden retriever, Rory. She really should’ve listened to her grandmother. She's turned Rory into a human with big golden retriever energy. But he doesn’t like being a human. He doesn’t like wearing clothes or human manners, and he most definitely can’t manage a human job. It's like she suddenly has a child.

When Among Crows is swift and striking, drawing from the deep well of Slavic folklore and asking if redemption and atonement can be found in embracing what we most fear. We bear the sword, and we bear the pain of the sword. Pain is Dymitr’s calling. His family is one in a long line of hunters who sacrifice their souls to slay monsters. Now, he’s tasked with a deadly mission: find the legendary witch Baba Jaga. To reach her, Dymitr must ally with the ones he’s sworn to kill.

In the House of the Dead he has been given a name. That name is Wakim, but Wakim knows that this name is not his true name not the name that he carried with him in life. Wakim has been commanded by his master Anubus to find and destroy The Prince Who Was A Thousand. Wakim leaves the House of the Dead intent on carrying out his mission to destroy The Prince Who Was A Thousand, but he has a second personal mission...to find his true name. And if he does Wakim cannot even imagine how that will change everything.

Why did Cecil B. DeMille really bury the Pharaoh’s Palace set after he filmed The Ten Commandments in 1923? Fugitives Sebastian Vickery and Ingrid Castine find themselves plunged into the supernatural secrets of Los Angeles—from Satanic indie movies of the ‘60s, to the unquiet La Brea Tar Pits at midnight, to the haunted Sunken City off the coast of San Pedro . . . pursued by a Silicon Valley guru who is determined to incorporate their souls into the creation of a new and predatory World God.

Fetter was raised to kill, honed as a knife to cut down his sainted father. This gave him plenty to talk about in therapy. He walked among invisible powers: devils and anti-gods that mock the mortal form. He learned a lethal catechism, lost his shadow, and gained a habit for secrecy. After a blood-soaked childhood, Fetter escaped his rural hometown for the big city, and fell into a broader world where divine destinies are a dime a dozen.

Orphaned as a young child, Mirin O'Malley has been brought up by her grandparents on their isolated, rambling estate Hob's Hallow. Long ago her family prospered due to a deal struck with the mer, the terrifying creatures who live in the depths of the sea: safety for their merchant ships in return for a child of each generation. But for many years the family have been unable to keep their side of the bargain and their fortunes have suffered as a result. When Mirin's grandfather dies, her grandmother puts in train a plan to restore their glory - but at the price of Mirin's freedom.

Four friends have a pact: to meet up on the same day every year in their small hometown in southern Italy. Art, the charismatic leader of the group, has always been adamant about the pact. But this year, he doesn't show up. Searching for him, the friends make a worrying discovery: Art has been farming marijuana, a very dangerous activity in mafia-controlled country. 

In this warm-hearted, witchy rom-com a young woman works to create the bookstore of her dreams, only to discover a powerful magic that’s been lying dormant—and a forbidden love she can't resist. Perfect for readers of The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches and The Unfortunate Side...

Kay Harper falls in love with a puppet in the window of the Quatre Mains, a toy shop that is never open. She is spending her summer working as an acrobat with the cirque while her husband, Theo, is translating a biography of photographer Eadweard Muybridge. Late one night, Kay fears someone is following her home. Surprised to see that the lights of the toy shop are on and the door is open, she takes shelter inside. The next morning Theo wakes up to discover his wife is missing. Under police suspicion and frantic at her disappearance, he obsessively searches the streets of the Old City.

Something weird is happening to the Los Angeles freeways—phantom cars, lanes from nowhere, and sometimes unmarked offramps that give glimpses of a desolate desert highway—and Sebastian Vickery, disgraced ex-Secret Service agent, is a driver for a covert supernatural-evasion car service. But another government agency is using and perhaps causing the freeway anomalies, and their chief is determined to have Vickery killed because of something he learned years ago at a halted Presidential motorcade.

Finding seeds of inspiration in the Brothers Grimm, seventeenth-century French lore, and Scottish ballads, Kelly Link spins classic fairy tales into utterly original stories of seekers—characters on the hunt for love, connection, revenge, or their own sense of purpose.

His companions, scattered, are making for Malarkoi—the city of the Mistress, the Master's most powerful enemy. Hoping to find welcome there, or at least safety, they find neither... and instead become embroiled in a life and death struggle against assassins, demi-gods, and the cunning plans of the Mistress.

1996—Luca Saracino is thirteen and has been completely blind for eight months when his parents move to a Southern Italian farmhouse they dream of turning into a hotel. With his brother dropping out of university and the family reeling from Luca's diagnosis, they are chasing dreams of rebirth and reinvention.

Jobless, jaded and on the 'wrong' side of 30, Jack Corman is facing the threat of eviction from his London flat while reeling from the sudden death of his father, one-time film director Bob Corman. Back in the '80s, Bob poured his heart and soul into the creation of his 1986 puppet fantasy, The Shadow Glass. But The Shadow Glass flopped, and Bob became a laughing stock. In the wake of Bob’s death, Jack returns to his decaying home, a place creaking with movie memorabilia and painful memories. Then, during a freak thunderstorm, the puppets in the attic start talking.

The Road runs from the unimaginable past to the far future, and those who travel it have access to the turnoffs leading to all times and places—even to the alternate time-streams of histories that never happened. Why the Dragons of Bel'kwinith made the Road—or who they are-—no one knows. But the Road has always been there and for those who know how to find it, it always will be!

Alison Spedding is a loner - no real friends, no boyfriend and a job in which she goes unnoticed. At 32, her only passion is bird-watching. One afternoon, high on a Scottish mountain, earnestly waiting for the rarest of sights - a white tailed eagle returning to its nest - she slips, falling silently. In shock, her fellow twitchers return to the hostel to raise the alarm, heavy with the realisation that she must be dead. What they find shocks them even more. Alison is already there, alive and unscathed....