Other books that might interest you

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  The Sand-man - A truly defining...

  E T A Hoffman

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  Ernst Theodor Wilhelm Hoffman was born on the 24th January 1776, the youngest of three children, in Königsberg, then in Prussia but now part of the Kaliningrad Russian enclave. 
   
  His parents separated when he was two and for many years life was to be provincial and, despite his talents for the creative arts and the classics, much was passing him by. 
   
  At 20 Hoffman obtained employment as a clerk and to the art that now surrounded him.  Two years later he was in Berlin attempting a career as a composer with an operetta called ‘Die Maske’.  His gift for drawing caricatures and sharing them often got him into trouble that was easier to avoid. 
   
  The years of Napoleon ravaging Europe were bad for Hoffman; he moved often and took on works as varied as theatre management and music critic.  In this his talents were now more evident.  His works on Beethoven where highly regarded by the master himself. 
   
  His literary breakthrough came in 1809, with ‘Ritter Gluck’, about a man who believes he has met the composer 20 years after his death.  However the various jobs and the wars continued and plagued any career advancement despite his constant travel for opportunities, often through dangerous territories. 
   
  In the wake of Napoleon’s defeat in 1814, Hoffmann returned to Berlin where his opera ‘Undine’ was performed by the Berlin Theatre.  Life was now more settled and many of his most famous works were written at his time. 
   
  From 1819, Hoffmann was struggling with both legal disputes and ill health.  Alcohol abuse and syphilis were physically weakening him and from 1822 paralysis set in.  His last works were dictated to his wife or to a secretary as all around him society descended into an anti-liberal agenda, stifling dissent with threats of legal action and even treason.  The ailing Hoffman was among them. 
   
  E T A Hoffmann died on the 25th June 1822 in Berlin of syphilis.  He was 46.

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  The Doll

  R.M. Burthom

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  Not everything stays hidden in our past, sometimes it returns when you least expect it. Lillian realized this when the demonic doll she owned years ago somehow resurfaced. Now fifteen-year-old Janie has the toy. 
  Blaming herself for the young woman’s brewing terror, Lillian tries to help Janie and get the doll back. Unfortunately, Janie refuses to listen to reason. A decision she might not live long enough to regret. 
  Will Lillian be able to get the hellish toy back and destroy it before somebody dies? Or will the doll succeed in committing murder?

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  The Sadist's Bible

  Nicole Cushing

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  What is heaven? What is hell? Ellie lives with the fear that she is an abomination. An affront to God. If her Bible Belt community were to ever discover Ellie's desires for the intimate touch of a woman, then her husband, pastor, friends, and neighbors would all despise and shun her. But by way of the World Wide Web, Ellie finds a kindred spirit in Lori Morris, a beautiful young woman with a hideous secret. Brought together by their lust, their shame, and a shared sense of hopelessness, Ellie and Lori agree to end their lives in a single night of sex, torture, depravity, and finally suicide in a luxurious hotel. But Lori has another agenda: to escape an oppressive force that could be God, or possibly the devil. In truth, he's something far, far worse. Just remember: He wants us broken.
  An Author's Republic audio production.

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  Mantle of the World Ruler

  Kate Gateley

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  An ancient curse broken, a new prophecy foretold, and a grimoire of dark Druidic magic. 
  After a year of unimaginable violence, magic, and an all-consuming love that has followed her through countless incarnations, Julia Harrison has not only come into her own as a magic Bearer—far surpassing those women in her bloodline who came before her—but is about to start down a path that can end in only one of two ways: with her fulfilling her prophesized role as Sovereign, chalice of the World Ruler; or with the death of everyone and everything she holds dear at the hands of Cassius Longinus, The Child of Rome, in his brutal and inexorable quest to finally achieve true immortality. 
  Mantle of the World Ruler—Book Two of the Lost Wells Trilogy—begins directly after the events of its predecessor, and with it, author Kate Gateley draws the reader right back into the romantic, magical, and often terrifying world of Bearers and Wielders, Knaves and Wraiths, and Domhnall O’Brien, cursed by choice to follow his love through one life after another until they can save each other at last. 
  With the Sovereign standing tall, the World Ruler too must bear his crown… 
  …Darkness reigns where light cannot, and from its root, the land will rot.

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  Dis Mem Ber - And Other Stories...

  Joyce Carol Oates

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  In this disturbing short story collection, Joyce Carol Oates explores the inner lives of vulnerable girls and women.   Joyce Carol Oates is renowned for her rare ability to “illuminate the mind’s most disturbing corners” (The Seattle Times). That genius is on full display in this collection of seven feverishly unsettling works, DIS MEM BER and Other Stories of Mystery and Suspense.   In the title story, a precocious eleven-year-old named Jill is in thrall to an older male relative, the mysterious, attractive black sheep of the family. Without telling her parents Jill climbs into his sky-blue Chevy to be driven to an uncertain, and unforgettable, fate. In “The Drowned Girl,” a university transfer student becomes increasingly obsessed with the drowning/murder of another female student, as her own sense of self begins to deteriorate. In “Great Blue Heron,” a recent widow grieves inside the confines of her lakefront home and fantasizes about transforming into that great flying predator unerring and pitiless in the hunt. And in the final story, “Welcome to Friendly Skies,” a trusting group of bird-watchers is borne to a remote part of the globe, to a harrowing fate.   At the heart of this meticulously crafted, deeply disquieting collection are girls and women confronting the danger around them, and the danger hidden inside their turbulent selves.

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  Grim Death and Bill the...

  Mike Mignola, Thomas E. Sniegoski

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  From New York Times best-selling authors and illustrators Mike Mignola and Tom Sniegoski come two thrilling antiheroes: Grim Death and Bill the Electrocuted Criminal, battling against crime.  
  An uneasiness festers upon the city streets, threatening the peace and safety of law-abiding citizens. A war is escalating, and it seems as though the good and righteous are being crushed beneath the unholy weight of evil's onslaught. Organized crime is spreading in an unchecked reign of terror. Until a mysterious agent of retribution rises up from the shadows to challenge the villains. A lone figure, clad in a slouch hat and clothes seemingly stitched from the blackest shadows, masked in the guise of a skull-faced death - a Grim Death - emerges with guns blazing. With him, a wronged ex-con clad in the striped costume of his misfortune - Bill the Electrocuted Criminal.  
  In this 1930s pulp-style novel, two dark new characters by New York Times best-selling author and comic book writer Tom Sniegoski and New York Times best-selling, award-winning creator of Hellboy Mike Mignola, who also worked on the Hellboy movies with Guillermo del Toro, take to the street to fight the growing infection of organized crime. Grim Death and Bill the Electrocuted Criminal are not your average heroes, but they want justice.

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