Lestat. The vampire hero of Anne Rice's enthralling new novel is a creature of the darkest and richest imagination. Once an aristocrat in the heady days of pre-revolutionary France, now a rock star in the demonic, shimmering 1980s, he rushes through the centuries in search of others like him, seeking answers to the mystery of his eternal, terrifying existence. His is a mesmerizing story --- passionate, complex, and thrilling.

Engage Your Readers with Emotion While writers might disagree over showing versus telling or plotting versus pantsing, none would argue If you want to write strong fiction, you must make your readers feel. The reader's experience must be an emotional journey of its own, one as involving as your characters' struggles, discoveries, and triumphs are for you. That's where The Emotional Craft of Fiction comes in. Veteran literary agent and expert fiction instructor Donald Maass shows you how to use story to provoke a visceral and emotional experience in readers. Topics covered    • emotional modes of writing    • beyond showing versus telling    • your story's emotional world    • moral stakes    • connecting the inner and outer journeys    • plot as emotional opportunities    • invoking higher emotions, symbols, and emotional language    • cascading change    • story as emotional mirror    • positive spirit and magnanimous writing    • the hidden current that makes stories move Readers can simply read a novel...or they can experience it. The Emotional Craft of Fiction shows you how to make that happen.

A faltering war in the middle east. A band of elite warriors determined to fight to the death to protect Christianity’s holiest sites. A global financial network unaccountable to any government. A sinister plot founded on a web of lies.Jerusalem 1119. A small group of knights seeking a purpose in the violent aftermath of the First Crusade decides to set up a new order. These are the first Knights Templar, a band of elite warriors prepared to give their lives to protect Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land. Over the next two hundred years, the Templars would become the most powerful religious order of the medieval world. Their legend has inspired fervent speculation ever since. In this groundbreaking narrative history, Dan Jones tells the true story of the Templars for the first time in a generation, drawing on extensive original sources to build a gripping account of these Christian holy warriors whose heroism and alleged depravity have been shrouded in myth. The Templars were protected by the pope and sworn to strict vows of celibacy. They fought the forces of Islam in hand-to-hand combat on the sun-baked hills where Jesus lived and died, finding their nemesis in Saladin, who vowed to drive all Christians from the lands of Islam. Experts at channeling money across borders, they established the medieval world’s largest and most innovative banking network and waged private wars against anyone who threatened their interests.Then, as they faced setbacks at the hands of the ruthless Mamluk sultan Baybars and were forced to retreat to their stronghold in Cyprus, a vindictive and cash-strapped King of France set his sights on their fortune. His administrators quietly mounted a damning case against the Templars, built on deliberate lies and false testimony. Then on Friday October 13, 1307, hundreds of brothers were arrested, imprisoned and tortured, and the order was disbanded amid lurid accusations of sexual misconduct and heresy. They were tried by the Pope in secret proceedings and their last master was brutally tortured and burned at the stake. But were they heretics or victims of a ruthlessly repressive state? Dan Jones goes back to the sources tobring their dramatic tale, so relevant to our own times, in a book that is at once authoritative and compulsively readable.

The highly anticipated new thriller from internationally renowned author Sara Gran, author of Come Closer and the Claire DeWitt series. A mysterious book that promises unlimited power and unrivaled sexual pleasure. A down-on-her-luck book dealer hoping for the sale of a lifetime. And a twist so shocking, no one will come out unscathed. After a tragedy too painful to bear, former novelist Lily Albrecht has resigned herself to a dull, sexless life as a rare book dealer. Until she gets a lead on a book that just might turn everything around. The Book of the Most Precious Substance is a 17th century manual on sex magic, rumored to be the most powerful occult book ever written—if it really exists at all. And some of the wealthiest people in the world are willing to pay Lily a fortune to find it—if she can. Her search for the book takes her from New York to New Orleans to Munich to Paris, searching the dark corners of power where the world’s wealthiest people use black magic to fulfill their desires. Will Lily fulfill her own desires, and join them? Or will she lose it all searching for a ghost? The Book of the Most Precious Substance is an addictive erotic thriller about the lengths we’ll go to get what we need—and what we want.

When Mary Forrest receives the gift of an astrological reading for her birthday, she doesn't expect it to be the harbinger of her life's imminent upheaval. This is Mary's Saturn Return year, her twenty-ninth; the year that the planet Saturn returns to exact spot it was in when she was born. It presages a time of change, change that Mary is unprepared for. She must overcome intimacy and abandonment issues, resurrect her relationship with her ailing mother, and learn to trust the man that she loves.

“In these mysteries, the stakes are existential: knowing one’s self, knowing how to save the people you can save, and knowing that life is worth living even in the midst of pain. Gran is both blowing up the mystery genre and tying herself to its mast—what an incredible light show. Charming, gritty explorations of the greatest mysteries of all: Who are we, and what is this life?” —Kirkus Reviews (Starred) In her first collection of short stories, Sara Gran dives back into DeWitt’s mysterious universe and creates new worlds, drawing on memories of Choose Your Own Adventure novels, Encyclopedia Brown, Two-Minute Mysteries, and teen sleuths. Who destroyed Professor Wolf’s prize-winning tomatoes? What’s behind the mysterious goings-on at Killington Manor? And why does life sometimes feel like we’re stuck in a mystery, with few clues and no solutions? In her first collection of short stories, Sara Gran explores what detective stories mean and why we need them. If you love mysteries, and wonder why, this book is for you. Featuring both new characters and characters from the beloved Claire DeWitt series. “This playful story collection from Gran (the Claire DeWitt series) takes readers on a gleefully irreverent tour of classic crime tropes. . . . Gran’s characters always feel authentic, and the author infuses even her bleakest premises with a sly wit. This is an equally good bet for Gran’s longtime fans and newcomers to her work.” —Publishers Weekly “Sara Gran writes a kind of pop noir that's always about ten years ahead of its time, full of wisdom and life and perfect sentences that make other writers tear their hair out in jealousy. The stories in this book pack more punch than a lot of novels do, and will have you laughing and crying and thinking about the years that’ve slipped away all at once.” —Ed Brubaker, author of Criminal, Reckless, Pulp, and Night Fever “Gran has an arresting, original imagination. These stories are by turns profound, amusing, and just plain fun.” —Sara Paretsky “A truly fun book of stories packed with clever twists and wry humor—not to mention the return of one of my favorite detectives, Claire DeWitt. Little Mysteries is big on smarts, suspense and style. You won't want to miss it.” —Alison Gaylin, Edgar-winning author of We Are Watching “Irresistible . . . the perfect introduction to one of my favorite writers.” —Ed Park, author of Same Bed Different Dreams “A darkly glittering cabinet of delights and curiosities by a master of the craft. Little Mysteries is a hell of a lot of fun.” —John Wray, author of Gone to the Wolves “Sara Gran puts her detectives to work again on the deepest Mysteries. Thrillingly, without fear, they look beyond criminals and crimes, and into the motives of the Universe, of the Answer That Refuses to Appear, of love and of abandonment. Only Gran can take us this deep with this much pleasure in the reading, and so, Little Mysteries magnifies life itself.” —Conner Habib, author of Hawk Mountain

¡UN MANGA ORIGINAL AMBIENTADO EN EL MUNDO DE THE WITCHER! En un nuevo mundo inspirado en el Japón del período Edo, Geralt se enfrenta a difíciles decisiones éticas mientras lucha contra una serie de yōkai y oni, criaturas inspiradas en la mitología japonesa. Cada encuentro le da una pista en su desesperada búsqueda de una misteriosa aparición conocida como la Dama de las Nieves, Yuki Onna, porque ella es la clave para la persona que busca el brujo, aunque encontrarla no será fácil...

 “Honest and moving . . . Her painful tale is engrossing.”—Washington Post Book WorldFor most of us, it was just another horrible headline. But for Deborah Spungen, the mother of Nancy, who was stabbed to death at the Chelsea Hotel, it was both a relief and a tragedy. Here is the incredible story of an infant who never stopped screaming, a toddler who attacked people, a teenager addicted to drugs, violence, and easy sex, a daughter completely out of control—who almost destroyed her parents’ marriage and the happiness of the rest of her family.

Set in the contemporary Paris of American  expatraites, liasons, and violence, a young man finds  himself caught between desire and conventional  morality. James Baldwin's brilliant narrative delves  into the mystery of loving with a sharp, probing  imagination, and he creates a moving, highly  controversial story of death and passion that reveals the  unspoken complexities of the heart.

The waves roared, a chorus of fury, against the ancient oak of my mind. Odysseus, they called me, but I was a ghost, a wisp of smoke, a memory clinging to the edge of the world. Ten years had passed since Troy fell, and I had become a stranger in my own home.I, the king, the cunning strategist, the man who had braved the wrath of the gods themselves, was now a beggar, a wanderer, a shadow of my former self. My own wife, Penelope, had lost faith, her heart locked away in a fortress of grief. My son, Telemachus, grown tall and strong, knew me only by the tales whispered in the firelight, tales of the hero who never returned.But I was Odysseus, and my heart, though battered, was not broken. The sea had etched its story on my soul, a tapestry woven with the threads of triumph and despair. I had battled monstrous creatures, navigated the treacherous straits of Scylla and Charybdis, and even descended to the underworld, the land of shades, to seek the counsel of the blind prophet Tiresias.