In the High Kingdom of Danton Aurelius, magisters from across the known world are gathering for an unusual meeting. The High King's son is dying of an apparently incurable wasting disease, and he has charged them with providing an explanation and a cure. There is a mystery here, but not the one the High King thinks: the magisters know the cause of the prince's illness but they dare not reveal it for fear that it will expose the secret at the heart of their order. No, the mystery is not what is responsible, but who. . . Now the magisters must embark upon a manhunt, racing against time, before the High King learns the truth. But they have not counted on the young prince's determination to control his own fate, nor on the existence of Kamala, a young woman schooled in their own arts, who will soon shake the world to its very roots.

"Kennedy is not only a romantic but an anarchist." —Anita Brookner Summer, 1947. A bizarre catastrophe rocks a seaside village in Cornwall when a cliff tumbles down on the Pendizack Manor Hotel. The hotel is obliterated, and seven guests are killed in the disaster. Everyone else makes a narrow escape. As the survivors tell their stories, the events of the previous week are revealed, and a parade of sins exposed. Gluttony, Lecherousness, Sloth, Pride, Covetousness, Envy and Wrath: all are in residence at Pendizack Manor, and as the day of the disaster creeps closer, it becomes clear that who’s spared and who’s lost might not be as arbitrary as first assumed. A modern upstairs-downstairs comedy with an old-fashioned morality play tucked away inside, The Feast is sly, kaleidoscopic, and utterly ingenious, a novel that only Margaret Kennedy could have written.

I lay very still, with all my senses telling me that I had gone mad. The plague? Nobody's had the plague for centuries . . . Nathan Field, a talented young actor, arrives at the newly rebuilt Globe Theatre in London to play Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream. As rehearsals begin, eerie echoes of the past begin to haunt Nat, and he falls sick with a mysterious sickness. When he wakes, Nat finds himself in 1599, an actor at the original Globe - and his co-star is none other than the King of Shadows himself: William Shakespeare. Nat's new life is full of excitement, danger and the passionate friendship that he has longed for since the tragic death of his parents. But why has he been sent to the past - and is he trapped there forever?

In England in the late thirteenth century, a young chorister at the Cathedral of Saint Aelred, an outcast due to his crippled foot, sympathizes with the city's other outcasts, the Jews, and sets out to prove their leader innocent of murder.

For those who hunger for small bites of horror sweetened with black humor, this collection of Grim Tales and Gothic Fancies offers a satisfying repast: morbidly playful riffs on the faerie tales of the Brothers Grimm; darkly exquisite Gothic fables in both prose and verse; and hell-raising evocations of beings both demonic and diabolic. A rich feast of horrors leavened with wit, Book of Shadows offers a delicious glimpse into the decadent heart and mordant mind of Manuel Arenas. In "The Sanguinary Saga of Morbidezza Vespertilio, Vampiress," Arenas inverts "Sleeping Beauty" with more than a touch of Gothicism in the style of Hammer horror. With "Rosaire, Master of Wolves," he shows us the dark genesis and bloody destiny of a born werewolf. A lighter touch is used in "Gothilocks," a playfully sardonic update on "Goldilocks and the Three Bears." The dread demon of Christmas makes an appearance in "Greetings from Krampus," and in "Nativity in Black: An Anti-Christmas Story," we are presented with a dark celebration featuring all creatures great and infernal in a pageant-quite literally-from Hell. This volume is sumptuously illustrated by Dan Sauer, whose surreal images heighten the effect of the dark fantasies contained herein.

A unique blend of traditional folklore and contemporary customs brings the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival to life. Two sisters and their grandmother celebrate a popular Chinese holiday with family. Their favorite part? Mooncakes, of course--along with Ah-ma's story of the ancient Chinese tale of Hou Yi, a brave young archer, and his wife, Chang'E. A long, long time ago, Hou Yi rescued the earth from the heat of ten suns. The Immortals rewarded him with a magic potion that could let him live in the sky with them forever. But when a thief tries to steal the potion, what will Chang'E do to keep it out of dangerous hands? The sisters are mesmerized by Ah-ma's retelling and the fact that the very mooncakes they enjoy each holiday are a symbol of this legend's bravest soul.

Using original art sketches and easy-to-understand language, this book helps the reader understand the reason God gave the Law, the Old Testament system of priests, animal sacrifices and feasts. It is an enlightening journey into what has often been a place of confusion to many.