Cain Casey is close to getting everything she wants. Her partner Emma is pregnant with their third child, her children are safe and happy, and her business is still thriving despite the FBI's vendetta. Life is perfect on the surface, but it's the underbelly that worries her. Her long-time enemy Juan Luis and his new partner, rogue agent Anthony Curtis have disappeared; her cousin Muriel has gotten serious about Shelby Philips, the FBI agent in charge of the Casey surveillance team; and her business partner, Remi Jatibon, is facing trouble from her new love Dallas's secret past. While Cain struggles to defeat a new enemy—a woman who just may be her equal when it comes to destroying those who stand against her family—an unimaginable betrayal may bring Cain's charmed life to an end.

"Damned" explores the long, dark history of one of the most influential figures in Western history: the Devil. With an extraordinary array of images from medieval illuminated manuscripts and Renaissance painting to modern cinema, comic strips, and advertising, "Damned" portrays the Devil in both religious and secular realms, while the text traces the Devil's evolution from the sadistic beast of the monastic imagination to the Devil who lurks inside every pleasure-seeking individual today.

Think adolescence is hell? You have no idea... Welcome to Dante's Inferno, by way of The Breakfast Club, from the mind of American fiction's most brilliant troublemaker. "Death, like life, is what you make out of it." So says Madison, the whip-tongued 11-year-old narrator of Damned, Chuck Palahniuk's subversive homage to the young adult genre. Madison is abandoned at her Swiss boarding school over Christmas while her parents are off touting their new film projects and adopting more orphans. Over the holidays she dies of a marijuana overdose--and the next thing she knows, she's in Hell. This is the afterlife as only Chuck Palahniuk could imagine it: a twisted inferno inspired by both the most extreme and mundane of human evils, where The English Patient plays on repeat and roaming demons devour sinners limb by limb. However, underneath Madison's sad teenager affect there is still a child struggling to accept not only the events of her dysfunctional life, but also the truth about her death. For Madison, though, a more immediate source of comfort lies in the motley crew of young sinners she meets during her first days in Hell. With the help of Archer, Babette, Leonard, and Patterson, she learns to navigate Hell--and discovers that she'd rather be mortal and deluded and stupid with those she loves than perfect and alone.

Centuries ago, Brax committed unforgivable sins, killing his lover and himself, and to escape eternal damnation, he made a bargain with the Devil. Now immortal, he roams the earth, corrupting and collecting souls for Hell's infernal legions in anticipation of the coming apocalypse. And he is very, very good at what he does.When he is given the special assignment of corrupting Maggie Westbrook, a seemingly timid high school senior who also happens to be one of the Nephilim, children of angels with the purest of mortal souls, Brax believes his goal of commanding his own legion in Hell's army is finally within his reach. Maggie isn't just any Nephilim; she's the lamb who will break the seals that will usher in Armageddon, and her corruption will tip the scales of that final battle towards Hell.But he quickly finds that the job will be more difficult than he first anticipated. For one thing, he has competition in the form of the demon Corbin Black, whose powers of corruption rival his own. And Maggie is not unguarded, as the Nephilim and host of Heaven will do everything they can to stop him. Most disconcerting, though, is Maggie herself. From the moment Brax first sees her, he is drawn to her purity and innocence, and as he comes to know her, long-forgotten emotions begin to rise within him, emotions he hasn't felt for centuries...While Testimony is an epic story of good and evil battling for control of an innocent soul, with the fate of the world hanging in the balance, it's also the more personal story of a deeply flawed man trying as hard as he can to overcome the devastating sins of his past and find true love and redemption.This book contains mature themes, violence, drug use, drinking, and sexual situations. Reader discretion is advised.

In her analysis of the cultural construction of gender in early America, Elizabeth Reis explores the intersection of Puritan theology, Puritan evaluations of womanhood, and the Salem witchcraft episodes. She finds in those intersections the basis for understanding why women were accused of witchcraft more often than men, why they confessed more often, and why they frequently accused other women of being witches. In negotiating their beliefs about the devil's powers, both women and men embedded womanhood in the discourse of depravity.Puritan ministers insisted that women and men were equal in the sight of God, with both sexes equally capable of cleaving to Christ or to the devil. Nevertheless, Reis explains, womanhood and evil were inextricably linked in the minds and hearts of seventeenth-century New England Puritans. Women and men feared hell equally but Puritan culture encouraged women to believe it was their vile natures that would take them there rather than the particular sins they might have committed.Following the Salem witchcraft trials, Reis argues, Puritans' understanding of sin and the devil changed. Ministers and laity conceived of a Satan who tempted sinners and presided physically over hell, rather than one who possessed souls in the living world. Women and men became increasingly confident of their redemption, although women more than men continued to imagine themselves as essentially corrupt, even after the Great Awakening.

A comprehensive exploration of Dr. Faust, the man who sold his soul to the devil, and those who lived to tell his tale. Volume I includes: New insights into the life and times of the historical Dr. Faustus, the notorious occultist and charlatan who reputedly declared the devil was his brother-in-law. A detailed study of the first Faust books and the popular Faustian folk tales. Original discussions on Christopher Marlowes famous drama and his atheistic rendition of the Faustian myth, including a unique and controversial analysis of the A and B texts. The days of the Faust puppet plays. Gotthold Ephraim Lessings unfinished Faust drama. Volume II features: A unique, in-depth account of Johann Wolfgang von Goethes masterpiece, Faust, Parts One and Two. An examination of the early sketches of his classic drama. Includes detailed explanations of Goethes hidden symbolism in the text, his interest in history and science, the occult, alchemy, Freemasonry and his warnings to future generations.

THE STORY: Jabez Stone, young farmer, has just been married, and the guests are dancing at his wedding. But Jabez carries a burden, for he knows that, having sold his soul to the Devil, he must, on the stroke of midnight, deliver it up to him. Shortly before twelve Mr. Scratch, lawyer, enters and the company is thunderstruck. Jabez bids his guests begone; he has made his bargain and will pay the price. His bride, however, stands by him, and so will Daniel Webster, who has come for the festivities. Webster takes the case. But Scratch is a lawyer himself and out-argues the statesman. Webster demands a jury of real Americans, living or dead. Very well, agrees the Devil, he shall have them, and ghosts appear. Webster thunders, but to no avail, and at last realizing Scratch can better him on technical grounds, he changes his tactics and appeals to the ghostly jury, men who have retained some love of country. Rising to the height of his powers, Webster performs the miracle of winning a verdict of Not Guilty.