A girl full of heart A thief touched by darkness A boy with a fiery temper An unwitting servant of evil The era of magic was once thought to be a myth, but after the Reemergence ushered forces both dark and light into the mundane world, it has since become a harsh reality. Now those affected by this strange power-a specialized group of Empowered called Jokers, known collectively as Cardplay-must protect their world from the darkness that threatens to consume it, all the while fighting for equality in a society clinging to normalcy. But the Reemergence was only the beginning. When another influx occurs on the seventh anniversary of that fateful event, an unfortunate encounter at ground zero lands Iori Ryone, a teenage boy in possession of a corrupt and legendary magic, in the care of recent Joker graduate Ellen Amelia Jane. From him, she learns the Reemergence may not have been the inevitable natural disaster it first seemed. Someone is trying to tear down the barrier that separates the magical realms from the mundane. The question is, can Cardplay stop them before it's too late? Bloody Spade is the first installment in an urban fantasy duology that follows a cat-eared thief and a spirited girl as they try to navigate his wild magic, her hotheaded brother, a sinister plot, and the feelings they're developing for each other.

Sean Logan's mother was butchered by a gang that did not take kindly to her. His father was jailed for the murder of her assailant. Sean's birth coincides with his mother's death. Brought up by his aunt on the family farm near Tullis on the east coast of Scotland, Sean is a boy of immense intelligence. He understands guns, ammunition, explosives. Yet, he was born dumb; and whilst he has no words to speak, still he has one burning thought on his mind: REVENGE. REVENGE. REVENGE. This is the tale of a young boy's memory, his struggle to come to terms and ultimately his need to settle scores and lay to rest the ghosts of his mother's killers. However, the desire for revenge belongs to us all and sometimes the hunter becomes the hunted.

Winner of the 2018 Stella Prize A collective memoir of one of Aboriginal Australia’s most charismatic leaders and an epic portrait of a period in the life of a country, reminiscent in its scale and intimacy of the work of Nobel Prize-winning Russian author Svetlana Alexievich. Miles Franklin Award-winning novelist Alexis Wright returns to non-fiction in her new book, Tracker, a collective memoir of the charismatic Aboriginal leader, political thinker, and entrepreneur who died in Darwin in 2015. Taken from his family as a child and brought up in a mission on Croker Island, Tracker Tilmouth returned home to transform the world of Aboriginal politics. He worked tirelessly for Aboriginal self-determination, creating opportunities for land use and economic development in his many roles, including Director of the Central Land Council. He was a visionary and a projector of ideas, renowned for his irreverent humour and his anecdotes. His memoir has been composed by Wright from interviews with Tilmouth himself, as well as with his family, friends, and colleagues, weaving his and their stories together into a book that is as much a tribute to the role played by storytelling in contemporary Aboriginal life as it is to the legacy of a remarkable man. ‘A magnificent work of collaborative storytelling…It paints a vision of action and possibility for this continent that makes it required reading for all Australians and all those interested in this land.’ — Sydney Morning Herald ‘Wright builds, as much as anyone is able to in writing, a detailed portrait of a complex man, whose vision “to sculpt land, country and people into a brilliant future on a grand scale” is inevitably accompanied by an irrepressible humour and suspicion of authority.’ — The Guardian ‘Tilmouth was a man who worked through conversation and yarn more than with paper and pen, and this is a book about the place of the story in Indigenous culture and politics as much as it is about Tracker himself.’ — The Monthly ‘[Wright] enacts the complex relationship between self and community that a Western biography could not…There is a cumulative power in the repetitions, backtrackings and digressions the formula necessitates: a sinuous, elegant accommodation of selves. It is a book as epical in form and ambition as the life it describes.’ — The Australian ‘Wright’s brace of ineffable, awkward, uncanny novels will be unravelled and enjoyed by readers when other contemporary fiction is forgotten. Tracker, a book performed by a folk ensemble rather than a solo virtuoso, adds to her enduring non-fiction oeuvre that captures the unique ground-level realpolitik of Aboriginal Australia.’ — Australian Book Review ‘Alexis Wright is one of the most important voices in our literary landscape…This is a landmark work – epic in its scope and empathy.’ — Readings

From the Costa-shortlisted author of Life! Death! Prizes!, an exhilarating modern fairy tale of risk, reward, and happily-ever-afters. For decades, Nicky and Russell have kept up the friendship they began in childhood, and for decades, Russell's annual birthday celebration has reminded Nicky of how much more successful Russell is, how astronomically rich he is, and how much further he has come since their suburban childhood. But on his fiftieth birthday, Russell drops dead in his San Francisco mansion, with Nicky as the only witness. And now Nicky has come up with an uncharacteristically daring plan. If he were to become Russell and leave his old life lying dead on the bathroom floor, then he, his wife, Sarah, and their daughter, Scarlett, could start again. Only with better clothes, better hair, better stuff, and a better future: everything that money can buy. Especially happiness. But when the foundations of their glittering new existence start to crack, the impact of Nicky's hasty decision is felt by all those around him: by his daughter; by his own distant, confused father; by a young English woman who has come to America in search of her father; and by the mysterious Catherine, an ex-soldier who seems to take an unhealthy interest in Nicky's activities. Sharp, funny, warm, and acutely observed, Wake Up Happy Every Day is a novel about dreams and delusions, family and friendship, and what happens if you actually find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

This book, first published in 1994, sets ‘repertoire against raconteur’ in order to explore one of the world’s largest collections of folk literature. The author’s findings, and his creative and synthetic methodologies, enhance greatly our understanding of the world of the legend, and especially the basic question of ‘Who tells what to whom in the form of a legend and why?’ This work is an in-depth exploration of rural Denmark, and provides us with an excellent vantage point from which to understand legends in their cultural contexts and within the lives of their tellers.

Kallendaros is a land conquered by the Dragons. In a treaty agreed upon between the races, it was decreed that every youth between the ages of fifteen and seventeen would receive the branding as a mark of loyalty to their conquerors. Justias, a brash seventeen-year-old, encounters Marek, a former Dragon Cleric fleeing from his own army. Justias hides Marek to save him, setting in motion a chain of events that leaves his village destroyed, and both of them running for their lives. The two become embroiled in a rebellion instigated by the Noble Houses of the southlands, who wish to overthrow the Dragon Clerics. Traveling to Southdeep, the last bastion of Human freedom, Justias embarks on a seemingly hopeless quest against their true enemy: the Dragons. Gildaryss, Tyrant Wyrm, molds the events to further her own plot: the annihilation of all Humanity. In a vain bid for peace with the Dragon Clerics, Southdeep's young lord Uriel is captured by the enemy. Presumed dead, the tension between the Clerics and the Nobility reaches the breaking point, with war inevitable. On the heels of such dire news, Justias finds himself hailed as the Dragon Slayer King: the warrior for whom the southlands have been waiting for more than 200 years.

Eighteen twenty-five dash eighteen sixty-eight: a mans life summed up on a gravestone, as though his birth and death are the only cardinal facts of his existence. Certainly, a Mozart concerto is much more than the first and the last notes or even the total number of notes contained in the work. It is the manner in which Mozart arranged those notes, the themes they demonstrate, and the sentiments they elicit that give the composition its beauty and importance. In the same sense, the dash on the gravestone really represents the whole fabric of the life of the deceased and consists of a complex weft and warp of events, emotions, and actions all the threads that produced, day by day, the cloth of that mans life. At least some of those threads are undoubtedly worthy of note in the existence of any man. The story that follows is the dash of Daniel Locke Todd, M.D.