The start of a WWII series from Iain Gale, author of Alamein.

As a color, black comes in no other shades: it is a single hue with no variation, one half of a dichotomy. But what it symbolizes envelops the entire spectrum of meaning—good and bad. The Story of Black travels back to the biblical and classical eras to explore the ambiguous relationship the world’s cultures have had with this sometimes accursed color, examining how black has been used as a tool and a metaphor in a plethora of startling ways. John Harvey delves into the color’s problematic association with race, observing how white Europeans exploited the negative associations people had with the color to enslave millions of black Africans. He then looks at the many figurative meanings of black—for instance, the Greek word melancholia, or black bile, which defines our dark moods, and the ancient Egyptians’ use of black as the color of death, which led to it becoming the standard hue for funereal garb and the clothing of priests, churches, and cults. Considering the innate austerity and gravity of black, Harvey reveals how it also became the color of choice for the robes of merchants, lawyers, and monarchs before gaining popularity with eighteenth- and nineteenth-century dandies and with Goths and other subcultures today. Finally, he looks at how artists and designers have applied the color to their work, from the earliest cave paintings to Caravaggio, Rembrandt, and Rothko. Asking how a single color can at once embody death, evil, and glamour, The Story of Black unearths the secret behind black’s continuing power to compel and divide us.

We've all seen them—the broken-down car by the side of the road, mutely signaling for help from passing drivers … the stubborn tail-gater who follows too close, for too long … the wild driver who weaves through lanes on a crowded highway—the driver who causes accidents but is never a victim of one … These are the jackals, hunters who follow the nation's highways and byways, preying on the weak and unsuspecting. The jackals are human enough - except for a strangeness about their eyes, and the way their laughter lingers in the night air—but they have no mercy. Jim Scott's been hunting jackals for some time now. They took someone he loved, once, and he's never forgiven them. And he's never loved again. Love makes you vulnerable. But love isn't predictable, and when beautiful, battered Rachel turns up on Jim Scott's doorstep with a tale that can only mean she barely escaped a hunting pack, Jim finds that the barricades he built around his heart are not impregnable. The jackals have come in force for their final showdown with Jim Scott. But Jim no longer fights alone—he leads a group of jackal-killers, each determined to exterminate the hunters or die trying.

In 1888 Oswell Danford is living a hard but satisfying life as a rancher in Virginia when he receives an unexpected telegram. A wedding invitation should be cause to celebrate but not when it means he'll have to face past deeds that he's deeply ashamed of. Now he and his brother, along with their ex-compatriot, an inveterate gambler from New York, will have to travel to Montana Territory to settle an old score they'd nearly forgotten. They will join the expectant congregation at the church for the marriage of their former brother-in-arms. But while everyone else will be wishing a blissful future for the happy couple they will be praying the darkness from their past doesn't devour the entire town. A Congregation of Jackals is an unrelenting tale of betrayal and revenge told with a precision and brutality that will leave you breathless and haunted. Fans of Zahler's breakout hits Bone Tomahawk and Wraiths of the Broken Land will be floored by this, originally the first installment of his western horror trilogy.

The sequel to THE BLACK JACKALS is set in the turmoil of the eastern Mediterranean in 1941, with the Brits struggling to hold their line in Greece against the powerful German and Italian forces.

"One of the most extraordinary works of fantasy, for adults or children, published so far this century."—Time magazine, on the Fairyland series September misses Fairyland and her friends Ell, the Wyverary, and the boy Saturday. She longs to leave the routines of home and embark on a new adventure. Little does she know that this time, she will be spirited away to the moon, reunited with her friends, and find herself faced with saving Fairyland from a moon-Yeti with great and mysterious powers. The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two is another rich, beautifully told, wisely humorous, and passionately layered book from New York Times–bestselling author Catherynne M. Valente.