With The Mysteries of Udolpho, Ann Radcliffe raised the Gothic romance to a new level and inspired a long line of imitators. Portraying her heroine's inner life, creating a thick atmosphere of fear, and providing a gripping plot that continues to thrill readers today, The Mysteries of Udolpho is the story of orphan Emily St. Aubert, who finds herself separated from the man she loves and confined within the medieval castle of her aunt's new husband, Montoni. Inside the castle, she must cope with an unwanted suitor, Montoni's threats, and the wild imaginings and terrors that threaten to overwhelm her. This new edition includes an introduction that discusses the publication and early reception of the novel, the genre of Gothic romance, and Radcliffe's use of history, exotic settings, the supernatural, and poetry.

Set in the same magical, madcap world as E. B. Asher’s USA Today bestseller This Will Be Fun, this heartwarming, hilarious fantasy follows an unlikely band of heroes who must get to the bottom of an assassination plot gone wrong without breaking the one rule of do not fall in love with your questmates.  Galwell True was the perfect hero, the legend who sacrificed himself to save the realm…only for his friends to unexpectedly resurrect him ten years later. These days, he’s feeling less “Galwell the Great” and more “Galwell the Lost.” River Pricemark is an excellent assassin. When the Deathrose Guild, an organization known for banishing evil, tasks her with eliminating Galwell, she sees her chance to climb the ranks. So, it’s bad luck when her ambush is interrupted by Celine Hazelton, a scribesheet reporter who questions why the Guild is targeting Galwell at all. It’s worse luck that Celine is also her childhood crush. Queen Thessia of Mythria is tired of being the damsel. She’s just married the kind and handsome King Hugh and is meant to live happily ever after—but her story feels incomplete. Upon learning Galwell, her ex, is in danger, she turns her royal honeymoon into a rescue, bringing everyone overseas to the opulent land of Vestriya. Between underground lairs, magical grottos, horseball matches, and masquerades, Galwell must rely on his newfound questmates—including beautiful Vestriyan criminal Mona Grandhart, who seems determined to corrupt him in more ways than one. Good thing he’s set a single rule for everyone on this no romance. But we all know how this ends, don't we? Filled with dangerous impersonators, the inimitable power of friendship, and the realm’s most infamous horseball championship, This Will Be Interesting is a slow burn, cozy, and hilarious quest romantasy featuring: Sapphic friends to loversHero x villain romanceReluctant allies to loversFake marriageFound family

In ancient Scandinavia, a land beset by monstrous creatures and legends, Beowulf is warrior of extreme renown. Born in battle and shaped by steel, she has spent years proving that strength is not solely a man's domain. When the halls of Heorot threaten to buckle under the horror of a monstrous creature known as Grendel, Beowulf answers the call. As she battles creatures of nightmare, she finds herself drawn to a queen who she should slay for the good of the realm, a woman whose heart holds both solace and peril. In this sapphic retelling of the Old English epic, Beowulf fights not just for victory, but for the right to wield her own destiny, defend her love and stand toe to toe against monsters that lurk in the dark.

Bending the Rules is a fascinating, provocative, and highly entertaining visual exploration of identity and gender through fashion.Celebrated costume designer Camille Benda seamlessly weaves together the cutting-edge and the historical—spanning high fashion, dress in film, trendsetting brands, art history, and more—showing that gender and fashion have always been intertwined. Brought to life with a dazzling array of more than 160 images, Bending the Rules combines short essays and interviews with creative professionals to offer snapshots of fashion and gender expression across cultures, places, and time.This unique portrait of fashion and identity explores how clothing can be serious and playful, limiting or liberating, express joy or longing, fear or fun, and much more. Readers will find captivating examples as wide-ranging as gender-confirming underwear line Urbody to Buddhist monastic life, Brad Pitt’s red-carpet skirt to gay cowboys and codpieces, Playboy and bustiers to Native American Two-Spirit beings. For anyone fascinated by fashion or the sociology of clothing, identity, and gender, this book offers a one-of-a-kind immersive experience.VISUALLY More than 160 visuals include illustrations by Gwyn Conaway, a costume designer, fashion historian, and culture specialist, as well as archival and contemporary photography, self-portraits, magazine covers, embroidery, and more.  AN ACCESSIBLE ENTRY POINT TO THE WORLD OF Through illustrated timelines, custom graphics, and content crafted with a sense of humor, playfulness, and curiosity, this artful social science book is accessible for newcomers and experienced fashion enthusiasts, from tweens exploring their own newly forming identity to cool aunts and switched-on grandparents.A GLOBAL From an 18th-century French chevalier to Japanese kimonos, medieval alchemical manuscripts to 15th-century Flemish paintings, African Ndebele aprons to Scottish tartans, this deeply researched exploration spans time, cultures, and geography.Perfect Fashion enthusiasts Costume and clothing designers Beauty and body image advocates LGBTQIA and nonbinary readers seeking examples of gender expression throughout history Students and educators Anyone interested in fashion, design, gender studies, sociology, and history

Perpetually seventeen, Callum the witch has been in the service of Lucifer, collecting souls, as his own soul is indebted to the devil until he completes 666 tasks for him. Summoned to Hell on assignment, Lucifer tells Callum that completing his next task will wipe the remaining tasks from his ledger and he will return Callum’s soul to him upon completion. All Callum must do is ensure his latest charge, Augustus, makes it from London to America, by the next blood moon.As they journey across the sea, Callum grows to care for Augustus “Auggie”. Auggie seems unlike any mark Callum has ever been charged with and Callum wonders why such a noble boy would sell his soul to the devil. Upon reaching New York, Callum discovers that Auggie never sold his soul to the devil at all but is an innocent. But is Callum willing to forfeit his own freedom to save Auggie?

Myung and Laleh are keepers of the whale of babel. They roam within its cosmic chambers, speak folktales of themselves, and pray to an enigmatic figure they know only as 'Great Wisa'. To Laleh, this is everything. For Myung, it is not enough. When Myung flees the whale, she stumbles into a new universe where shapeshifting islands and ancient maps hold sway. There, she sets off on an adventure that is both tragic and transformative, for her and Laleh. For at the heart of her quest lies a mystery that has confounded scholars for centuries: the truth about the mad sisters of Esi. Fables, dreams and myths come together in this masterful work of fantasy by acclaimed author Tashan Mehta, sweeping across three landscapes, and featuring a museum of collective memory and a festival of madness. At its core, it asks: In the devastating chaos of this world, where all is in flux and the truth ever-changing, what will you choose to hold on to?

There is a lifeform so strange and wondrous that it forces us to rethink how life works…Neither plant nor animal, it is found throughout the earth, the air and our bodies. It can be microscopic, yet also accounts for the largest organisms ever recorded, living for millennia and weighing tens of thousands of tonnes. Its ability to digest rock enabled the first life on land, it can survive unprotected in space, and thrives amidst nuclear radiation. In this captivating adventure, Merlin Sheldrake explores the spectacular and neglected world of fungi: endlessly surprising organisms that sustain nearly all living systems. They can solve problems without a brain, stretching traditional definitions of ‘intelligence’, and can manipulate animal behaviour with devastating precision. In giving us bread, alcohol and life-saving medicines, fungi have shaped human history, and their psychedelic properties, which have influenced societies since antiquity, have recently been shown to alleviate a number of mental illnesses. The ability of fungi to digest plastic, explosives, pesticides and crude oil is being harnessed in break-through technologies, and the discovery that they connect plants in underground networks, the ‘Wood Wide Web’, is transforming the way we understand ecosystems. Yet they live their lives largely out of sight, and over ninety percent of their species remain undocumented. Entangled Life is a mind-altering journey into this hidden kingdom of life, and shows that fungi are key to understanding the planet on which we live, and the ways we think, feel and behave. The more we learn about fungi, the less makes sense without them.

Winner, A Friend of Darwin Award, 2024 A gorgeously composed narrative nonfiction book about the longstanding relationship between prehistoric plants and life on Earth. Immaculately framed by ancient stone, the leaves look as if they were pressed between the gray pages of a great geological diary. If we were to see the plant alive, we would simply pass it by, but the fossil is a whisper from a time more than 55 million years ago, when alligators dwelled within the Arctic Circle and gigantic dragonflies buzzed through the air. This little plant is an entry-point into this lost world. Past, present, and future, this ancient specimen has roots in all of them. We often retell the history of life on Earth as a series of great moments in which fascinating animal life springs forth, all the while forgetting the plants that made these moments possible. But we can’t understand our own history without them. Or, our future. Dinosaurs, saber-toothed cats, and all mammals would be nothing without the efforts of their leafy counterparts. Even humans would likely not exist had plants not taken root to sow the land for our amphibious ancestors. Using the same scientifically-informed narrative technique that readers loved in the award-winning The Last Days of the Dinosaurs, in When the Earth Was Green, Riley Black brings readers back in time to prehistoric seas, swamps, forests, and savannas where critical moments in plant evolution unfolded. Each chapter stars plants and animals alike, underscoring how the interactions between species have helped shape the world we call home. As the chapters move upwards in time, Black guides readers along the burgeoning trunk of the Tree of Life, stopping to appreciate branches of an evolutionary story that links the world we know with one we can only just perceive now through the silent stone, from ancient roots to the present.