Coroner Sir John gets mixed up in alchemy in this twisty instalment in the Crowner John medieval mystery series, set in twelfth-century England. 1195. Prince John plots to seize the throne from his brother, Richard the Lionheart – and he is supported in his wicked schemes by King Philip of France, who offers to help John financially by sending him a mysterious alchemist, a Mohammedan named Nizam, who claims to be able to transmute base metals into gold. But Nizam never makes it England alive. The ship transporting him and his retainers to the Devon tin mines is found wrecked off the south Devon coast, its crew savagely slaughtered. And shortly afterwards, Sir Peter le Calve, a Norman knight living near Exeter, is also found foully murdered, his head stuck on the rood screen of the cathedral. It's up to Sir John de Wolfe, the county coroner, to find a motive and connection between the killings – and it’s clear that his unscrupulous brother-in-law, the disgraced ex-sheriff and known Prince John-sympathiser, Richard de Revelle, has something to hide . . .

"Elixir is a place," Laura murmured, "of unspeakable joy and unspeakable evil, and the journeys we can't avoid taking between them."Highschool English teacher Darin Hartley becomes fascinated with one of his students, Laura Whitcomb, a girl with a tragic and violent past. When he agrees to read the first chapter of a novel she's written, he doesn't realize those few pages will introduce him to the nightmarish town of Elixir, a place certain government agents don't want him asking any questions about. Yet even if Elixir is no longer on any conventional map, Darin has to find and enter it, because it holds the secret to the restoration of his sanity and happiness.

....Arman's afternoon walk became the worst of his nightmares when he found that CD, because the chance discovery was revealing to him what he had always refused to accept, putting him right between life and death. Throughout the centuries, members of some secret elites have manipulated the destiny of millions of people, creating chaos and anarchy throughout history. Maybe fate was presenting Arman with the opportunity to change the course of history a little, but he could risk becoming a hero or a villain. This is a novel where maybe you can spot the difference between reality or continue believing it's all a conspiracy theory. From the Mexican writer, David Enz, author of the saga "The Kingdom of Noor", we present this first part of the "Elixir of Death" trilogy, which will keep you excited from beginning to end.

“Colorful alchemical lore and a vividly imagined 1543 London enrich Lawrence’s engaging . . . sequel to . . . The Alchemist’s Daughter.”—Publishers Weekly In the mid sixteenth century, Henry VIII sits on the throne, and Bianca Goddard tends to the sick and suffering in London’s slums, where disease can take a life as quickly as murder . . . For years, alchemist Ferris Stannum has devoted himself to developing the Elixir of Life, the reputed serum of immortality. Having tested his remedy successfully on an animal, Stannum intends to send his alchemy journal to a colleague in Cairo for confirmation. But the next day his body is found and the journal is gone. Bianca, the daughter of an alchemist, is well acquainted with the mystical healing arts. When her husband John falls ill with the sweating sickness, she dares to hope Stannum’s journal could contain the secret to his recovery. But first she must solve the alchemist’s murder. As she ventures into a world of treachery and deceit, Stannum’s death is only the first in a series of murders—and Bianca’s quest becomes a matter of life and death, not only for her husband, but for herself . . . Praise for The Alchemist’s Daughter “Unique characters, a twisty plot and a bold, bright heroine . . . Mystery and Tudor fans alike will raise a glass to this new series.”—Karen Harper, New York Times bestselling author “A realistic evocation of 16th century London’s underside. The various strands of the plot are so skillfully plaited together.”—Fiona Buckley, author of the Ursula Blanchard Mysteries

The story begins on July 16, 1833, the apparent three hundred and twenty-third birthday of the narrator, Winzy, the self-styled "mortal immortal". Winzy recounts the series of events that lead him to drink an "elixir vitae" at age twenty, during his employment under alchemist Cornelius Agrippa. Winzy was offered gold to stay under Agrippa's tutelage after one of Agrippa's former assistants had "raised [a] foul fiend during his master's absence, and was destroyed by him". Winzy is terrified, but accepts ... (courtesy of mary-shelley-wikia.com)

A modern-day quest that echoes the ancient alchemists’ work to discover the elixir of life • Provides an overview of alchemical practices in the ancient world--from Europe to China • Reveals the alchemical secrets for creating this elixir in clear scientific language In 1989, while attempting to extract precious minerals from his property, a wealthy Arizonan obtained a mysterious white material that initially defied scientific attempts to identify it. After several years of testing, this substance was revealed to consist of gold and platinum--but in a form unknown to modern science. Further research showed that this powder, which had also been discovered to possess marvelous healing powers, contained monatomic forms of precious metals whose electron units had been altered to no longer display the physical, chemical, or electrical properties of the original elements. This substance, Robert Cox shows, bears eerie resemblance to the ultimate quest of the alchemists: the elixir of immortality. The mysterious material-spiritual science of alchemy was once pervasive throughout the ancient world, spanning the globe from China and India to Egypt and medieval Europe. In The Elixir of Immortality, Robert Cox reviews the alchemical lore of these traditions and the procedures each used to produce this fabulous elixir. Using his own alchemical research, Cox then reveals secrets that have been kept hidden for millennia uncovered in his own modern-day quest to rediscover this long-sought elixir of life.