Bøger udgivet af Hayden Thorne

Even before things can settle down to the expected calm of a bucolic countryside, another mystery drops into Frederick Bisset's lap. This time it involves a skull, its presence in an otherwise pretty and snug cottage revealing a history of madness and its macabre effects on a mother-daughter bond. The cottage's present owner, Ada Darrow, is an aging spinster, an intellectual who suffers neither fools nor supernatural shenanigans, and she willingly takes on Freddy and Jonathan's (unpaid) help in sending otherworldly energies away and past the veil-thing.However, such an endeavor is easier said than done because the skull doesn't seem to want to cooperate, satisfied instead in filling random hours in the cottage with off-key singing. It will take Freddy more than luck to see through a successful completion of this case.In the meantime, a terrible disaster upends life in St. Grimald Priory: Mr. Brummell, Nicodemus, and Nero the Mad have vanished, and there are no clues shedding light to the cats' whereabouts. And nothing -- absolutely nothing -- will keep Prudence Honeysett from turning the countryside inside out to retrieve her beloved mousers. Elsewhere, family drama keeps everyone on their toes when Lucinda hares off for a fortnight spent with friends and spiritualists, leaving the men of her family sorting out their own haunted mystery at home.Humorous letters and journal entries continue to recount more inconvenient misadventures in otherwise idyllic Hoary Plimpton.

Prudence Honeysett is a wealthy, aging widow who's also quite done with the world. A hopeless curmudgeon, she withdraws from Victorian society by purchasing an old priory reputed to be haunted, convinced that her desire for peace and quiet would be perfectly met regardless. Fortune, however, has different plans for her, her hapless servants, and her trio of monstrous cats. The sudden appearance of a heartbroken nephew at her doorstep stirs the ghostly waters even more after Frederick confesses to being a medium, and before Prudence knows it, the long-dead residents of St. Grimald priory emerge from the shadows. And they all come with garbled warnings of a murdered girl and the door to the underworld on its way to being torn down. Through a collection of humorous journal entries and letters, the supernatural misadventures of Prudence and Frederick unfold-filled with sordid family drama, swoony romantic entanglements, dodgy attempts at questionable magic, and restless ghosts a-plenty.

Excitement over a beloved neighbor's birthday has St. Grimald Priory trembling on its foundation. Then again, that can be because of a number of other things, too.Like, one, a new mystery surrounding old dolls appearing and disappearing at will in a gloomy tower house. Two, the distant rumblings of family drama following Freddy's heartfelt letter to his parents. Three, the sudden appearance of a mysterious ghost who knocks on the front door incessantly. Four, the much-anticipated visit from a garishly dressed smut purveyor. Five, the commissioning of a proper birthday portrait from a talented artist with a reputation for degeneracy and Byronic allure. Or, six, the courgettes.The road to Hell is most certainly paved with good intentions, and Prudence Honeysett is about to test this aphorism yet again as spring draws to a bucolic close, and the promise of a glorious summer beckons. Mysterious ghosts, secret young love, vengeful servants, questionable ghost-guides, and the siren call of the drinks cabinet mark the fifth and final novel of the Ghosts and Tea series. Humorous journal entries and letters recount Prue and Freddy's never-ending, ghost-filled, and questionable fun in the peaceful English countryside.

St. Grimald priory is now free of invasive ghosts, and everyone's attention turns to entertaining Felicity Smedley, Prudence Honeysett's "witch-like" best friend. Under her gentle guidance, Freddy grows even more as a gifted medium and takes it upon himself to work on things outside priory walls. But while practice makes perfect, it also leads Freddy down an unexpected road involving a ghostly mother's plea. The encounter reopens wounds from the recent past and darkens his idyllic life under his aunt's ever-watchful and protective eye. Meanwhile, Jonathan Beverly's efforts at clearing out his late uncle's hoard unearths an old inkwell, one that comes with its own genie-like ghost. And not just any ghost at that-Mr. Murgatroyd is an obnoxious busybody, a terrible gossip and family chronicler who's determined to annoy the staid Mr. Beverly to distraction with endless accounts of the family's history of wild living. And all that in addition to escalating family drama in the Bisset household, forcing Antigonous to reach out for help from Prudence, Felicity, and the ever-despairing Linford, his unfortunate firstborn. The dust hasn't quite settled yet as more madcap adventures are recounted in letters and journal entries in this installment of Ghosts and Tea.

The winter months finally give way to the promise of spring. Likewise, St. Grimald Priory's residents emerge from the shadows of a dreary winter to face the world-or, in this case, Hoary Plimpton-with hope and excitement. But the living aren't the only ones determined to enjoy the shifting seasons. A new ghost encroaches on the tranquility of the priory grounds, intent on offending the cats and attacking every person who still breathes with prayers and curses. Another haunts the footpaths, seeking out a particular kind of person on whom to lavish his attentions. And poor Frederick Bisset, being the only medium around, finds himself the center of both hauntings as one ghost curses him for his nature, and the other chases after him for being young, male, and quite agreeable. No one else sees the ghosts this time, and Frederick is forced to resort to drastic measures to rid Hoary Plimpton of two unsavory specters. Prudence Honeysett has a trick up her own sleeve as well to ensure the preservation of her lovely garden and her nephew's sanity, though it's a trick that has backfired before in the worst possible way. She is determined, however, for no one, living or dead, ever crosses a Bisset.

The dust never really settles in a haunted priory, and Prudence Honeysett learns that valuable lesson all too quickly. An idyllic stretch of quiet passes following the disaster in the priory's garden, and normalcy hints at a return with the final stages of the priory grounds' beautification and the upgrading of the interior with newly purchased antiques and - well - "antiques". Trouble once again brews when Prudence and Frederick go on a shopping spree, and they unwittingly purchase an item that's apparently haunted by a dead letch. But ghostly warnings tend to come in riddles, and a frenzied search for the mystery item turns into yet another dip in the waters of frayed nerves, late night tipples, and terrified young servants being harassed by the image of a lascivious dead man in the mirror. In the meantime, Freddy gets whisked off to help a neighboring French gentleman whose Medieval hall is haunted by a lost servant who, literally, can't find her way around the maze of passageways and rooms. Freddy's attention is now divided, leaving Prudence to sort out priory troubles with a bit of help from an overly zealous friend. Throw in a generous dose of a young man's clumsy sexual awakening, a visiting dandy who's also a purveyor of literary smut, and a servant suddenly allowed a note-book into which he can share his energetic accounts (and marvelous art) of the madness within St. Grimald priory's walls, and readers are in for another madcap epistolary adventure over tea.

A dark and deadly curse haunts a dying family, manifesting itself with neither rhyme nor reason in its frequency except for its victim: a male child who will then be born without a soul. Living in a great house designed specifically for entrapment, monsters and the women who become reluctant champions for their children carry on a tragic cycle shaped by an inexplicable mystery.And every final confrontation between the tainted and the protector is recorded in an old journal-a bloodstained volume handed down from champion to champion who must then learn how to rid her life of the monster she loves.Helena Ash is terminally ill, and she is forced to take on the mantle of guardian for her grandson's sake. Crispin is only seventeen, and he is blind and has lived a secluded and sheltered life. Keeping him safe while confronting otherworldly forces intent upon destroying their bloodline means Helena will have to resort to every trick in the book to ensure her grandson's survival.Now that includes, perhaps, the recruiting of a young gentleman who stumbles across the great house during a storm. Tadzio Michalak, a cynical Polish student traveling with his tutor, suddenly finds himself caught in a grotesque web that sounds like something his misguided and occult-loving father would prefer him to experience. And the longer he shelters against the storm's fury outside, the more he realizes there is simply no going back-no, not when Crispin lays unexpected claim on his heart.

A peaceful spell falls on Hoary Plimpton following a rowdy time around Jonathan Beverly's birthday. Unfortunately for the residents of St. Grimald priory, a peaceful spell means the inevitable unleashing of ghostly drama, family drama, and culinary drama that will shake the foundation of a venerable sanctuary.As summer draws to a close, bringing with it Freddy Bisset's much-anticipated twentieth birthday, Prudence Honeysett finds herself neck-deep in household troubles with her housekeeper taking ill and unable to follow through on her plans for a celebratory banquet. Then here comes the perfect Jonathan Beverly and his insidious news of more ghostly hauntings needing Freddy's special touch as a medium.Two gentlemen haunt two different places, but there's more to them than meets the eye, and it's up to Freddy, Mr. Beverly, the hapless Brody, and the ever-noble Velasco the horse to unearth the answers to a tragic mystery. In the meantime, family drama continues to brew in the background as Freddy's father emerges from the shadows of psychic hoaxes and justice. And a guilt-ridden housekeeper is determined to overcompensate for missing her beloved master's birthday. A collection of humorous journal entries and letters continue to recount Prue and Freddy's adventures in the first sequel to the Ghosts and Tea epistolary series.

Blessed with the unique talent of Inscriptive magic, twenty-year-old Mathieu Perrault leaves his old life in France and the orphanage that has been his home since his childhood for work as the new tutor to a five-year-old mute girl. His head filled with dreams and endless possibilities, Mathieu soon finds himself in a great house tucked away in the quiet wooded hills of the northern region of Luxembourg.A house occupied by an ailing Dutch artist, one burdened with a terrible secret, and his charming family. A house shadowed by the sudden death of a well-loved servant. A servant, in fact, whose ghost stirs from its dusky world and seeks out Mathieu in terror. Through echoes of past events in unlit hallways, incoherent messages carved into walls, and the eerie vigilance of crows guarding the family, the ghost does what it can to warn Mathieu of a coming danger.And in the midst of warmth, laughter, and family, of friendship and magic, of young love blooming against a backdrop of terrible heartache and tragedy, Mathieu searches for answers in a dreamer's bid to give the ghost the peace long denied it. All the while, a twisted shadow from the past creeps forward, inching closer and closer to him, a vicious hunger that leaves ruin and death in its wake.In that isolated great house among the silent trees and the watchful crows, Mathieu will soon learn that the restoration of balance in a world gone awry doesn't always lie in the sphere of ordinary, mortal men.

Two adjoining houses stand in a quiet street for fifty years. One now lies in ruins, the other is haunted by the ghost of a young woman long dead. Quinn Geiger, twenty-one, is compelled to return home from college, though he doesn't understand why. A month or two after his return, his grandmother suddenly develops an obsession for sewing a never-ending tapestry filled with strange details pointing to a supernatural world. A tapestry, she claims, whose design is dictated to her by the mournful phantom who seems desperate to reach out for help.As the days pass, odd, unnerving events begin to happen more and more frequently, leaving the Geiger household scratching their heads and Quinn taking on the troublesome task of unraveling the mystery of twin houses. Things turn even murkier when a young man suddenly appears in the mirrors in Quinn's home, looking and behaving as though he were caught in a dark spell.Quinn-with the help of his long-suffering best friend, a heartthrob of a sorcerer, and the determined spirit of a murdered young mother-will find himself the unlikely and awkward hero of a supernatural adventure. A daring one, at that, where time is of the essence, and the survival of a lost young man depends on Quinn's ability to keep his head straight in the world of the trapped and aimless dead.

A tiny, rustic cabin stands alone in the rural fringes of the bustling city of Dolores. Not too far from it lies an old and overgrown cemetery whose thirteen sleepers appear to have been forgotten by the world. Darcy Winter is a young man whose strange legacy includes the cabin, which he calls home, and St. Anthony's cemetery, whose silent occupants come to him for their midnight lullabies on his cello every seven days.An eerie bond has long formed between Darcy and the ghostly "mothers". While he suspects he's the latest of a dying bloodline to be compelled to maintain a connection with the nameless and forgotten dead, he still doesn't know why the Winter family seems to be bound forever to the cabin and St. Anthony's. Unless, of course, terrifying fragments of dark dreams - soft voices calling his name in the shadows - hold the answers to the mystery.Arlen Stroescu is a sorcerer-hunter from the Institute of Arcane Studies. Intelligent, driven, and a symbol of the Arcane Institute's future academic leaders, his single-minded desire to learn more about the darker workings of the otherworld enjoys a boost when he crosses paths with Darcy and reads unusually strong supernatural imprints on him. One encounter leads to another, and Arlen realizes those imprints defy all his efforts at further understanding, giving his magic an unsettling sense of nothingness and an impenetrable void.Darcy Winter could very well be in danger without knowing it, and Arlen decides to get to the bottom of things by nurturing a deeper friendship with him. A casual date offers Arlen an excellent chance at gathering information. But it also turns into an awkward and increasingly complicated dance. One that leaves Arlen suddenly unsure of his purpose for getting close to a lonely young man bearing the weight of what Arlen soon discovers to be a centuries-old curse.

Fresh out of college and armed with nothing more than a degree in Art History, Leander Caron strikes out on his own in a bid to find some direction in his life. His efforts land him in Dolores, a city burdened with shadows of grief and death. Where ghosts yearn for their past. Where sorcerer-hunters heed the call of the goddess of the crossroads and battle darker forces from the otherworld.A cheerful, artistic, and doting widow welcomes him into her old Victorian house as her lone boarder, and there Leander finds the company and affection he's never enjoyed from his own mother. Luck changes for him as well in the guise of Efrain Thorley, a sorcerer-hunter who not only offers him desperately needed employment but also a reason to hope for a happiness Leander has never come to expect for himself.But as it happens in a world shaped by potent forces of old magic and science, inexplicable events gradually turn into alarming confrontations with malignant forces from a shadow world. Portraits meant to comfort the grieving turn into corrupted shades of their inspiration. An unseen presence watches an isolated young man with heartbreaking yearning. And something dangerous and terrifying shadows Leander's steps night after night. Inching closer and closer. Confounding Efrain's efforts and all but ensuring Leander's fate as collateral damage in a failed hunt.

Iulian Dalca is a twenty-one-year-old musical prodigy with big dreams. He's also blessed with a hint of light magic in his blood, a gift that's apparently unique to prodigies and whose purpose appears to be the developing of an extremely strong connection between artist and audience during a performance. Unknown to most, the gift of light magic also allows him a powerful and inexplicable psychic link to someone who remains invisible, a person he's never met in the real world. It's a connection that strengthens over time, a symbiotic bond whose purpose remains a closely guarded secret among the goddesses believed to have created it.Cosmin Vasile is an eighteen-year-old young man living in obscurity and poverty in a rural village in the Wallachian countryside. Gifted in song, he spends his time adding to his parents' meager income by weaving and gathering wool for sale, singing rustic songs he knows by heart as he works. He's also plagued by mysteriously restless sleep lasting a week and occurring once a year since he turned eleven, though he remembers nothing of the dreams or nightmares that may have caused the disturbance.Then out of the blue on two separate occasions, a once-in-a-lifetime chance at fulfilling their dearest dreams suddenly comes along, and youthful hope takes flight...Only to tumble headlong down a nightmarish pit of old magic twisted for a darker purpose, where lines separating reality and decades-long madness blur. Haunting portraits of long gone students, a cursed mirror hiding a terrifying world of corruption and death, a monstrous satyr lurking in the shadows of the mirror's world - time and hope for escape disappear as Iulian and Cosmin suddenly discover the awful price of being marked as the Muses' rare, favored children.

When nineteen-year-old Dominic Coville's parents die in an accident, leaving him not only alone but on the brink of poverty, he desperately searches for work and is thrilled when the post of secretary is awarded to him despite his obvious inexperience and ignorance. Mr. Wynyard Knight of Mandrake Abbey, however, gladly welcomes Dominic and earns the young man's immediate sympathy for his fragile health as well as gratitude for the promising new life now awaiting Dominic.Inside rock and timber, hungry shadows seek...But unusual things soon happen and appear to focus solely on him, and Dominic begins to wonder about the true history of Mr. Knight, the strange young man haunting the third floor, and Mandrake Abbey. With the persistent and increasingly violent attempts at communication by an angry ghost shadowing his hours, Dominic struggles to unravel the mysteries of his new home. And even with the help of a handsome young gentleman who's an aspiring supernaturalist as well as his clairvoyant sister, danger closes in far too quickly.Then it's only a matter of time before carefully constructed façades fall away, and the sickly, decaying underbelly of Mandrake Abbey's centuries-old collection of stone and timber will reveal itself.Set in an alternate England sometime before the mid-19th century, Guardian Angel weaves a tangled and dark tapestry of old magic, romance, and madness, a celebration of classic gothic fiction and its macabre sensibilities.

A legend of a long-dead murderer buried in a mysterious maze. A cruel, childish trick gone wrong. A dangerous vow made in trust by a shy and lonely young boy. And somewhere in the idyllic Swedish countryside, a centuries-old entity is summoned from its thorny grave.Fourteen years later, twenty-two-year-old Fredrik Niequist returns from his travels, a brilliant financier who intends to break new ground in the Swedish agricultural industry by commercializing local nature magic. He is also newly engaged to a wealthy childhood friend in a cynical and loveless partnership.Twenty-year-old Lauris Ahlberg, meanwhile, turns his mind to botany as a promising apprentice to an English botanic occultist. As he studies a flower species displaying marks of the night world, he realizes the tainted flowers' sudden appearance near his home and the ominous pattern they form signify a terrifying presence coming from a familiar source.When Fredrik and Lauris cross paths again, old wounds break open, and promises of forever after ring hollow as the two awkwardly rekindle their friendship. And in the meantime, a creeping threat takes physical shape, breaking past its prison of thorns in order to lay claim to what has long belonged to it.

Decima is a centuries-old Italian city on the water, a vanity project meant to be a fairy tale escape for the titled and the privileged. But something in the distant past had turned it into a murky, putrid dreamscape instead, a crumbling city haunted by a scourge of revenants whose origins and purpose now seem destined to be hidden in the shadows forever. Not even the brave, dogged attempts at fighting midnight creatures by the descendants of a select bloodline can rid the city of the near-daily threat.Michele De Santis is a young minor sorcerer, a reluctant champion who, along with his twin sister and his cousin, has lost too much through the years and has resigned himself to a life of endless midnight hunts while selling healing and protection spells and artifacts during the day. A life of loneliness, of a forced solitude in a desperate bid at keeping collateral damage at a minimum appears to be his only future.When long-dead corpses suddenly turn without vampire bites, logical patterns no longer hold true, leaving the weary hunters baffled and unsure for the first time. Decima's bronze guardians fall silent for no reason, a dark, binding spell muting their warnings. A long-abandoned church shows signs of life in the most grotesque ways imaginable. And everything seems to point to an unknown threat, one that's long lain dormant but has been awakened by the arrival of a young English heir and his amateur antiquarian uncle.Romance and the gothic layer Hell-Knights with the dark, rich textures of an alternate universe Europe, a nineteenth century world where magic reigns supreme, and love knows no gender.

Coming out to his parents may have burdened him with unfortunate difficulties, but nineteen-year-old Adam Sheridan didn't expect a sudden flood of nightmares and fragmented dreams to ruin his nights and threaten his mental health. But there's a reason for these dreams, these baffling images of people and moments from a time and place that have never once crossed Adam's mind. As these grow more and more insistent, triggered by harmless little things in his day-to-day movements such as a co-worker's whistling, a framed print of an old painting, and even a quick escape in an old church, Adam realizes these are really memories surfacing. Memories from someone who lived three hundred years ago, in fact. A young man such as himself who once harbored hopes and dreams-all of which were lovingly recorded in a journal-who fell in love with another, and whose life was cut tragically short. But for what reason? And how? As Adam navigates through the murky and risky waters of living in a household bent on stifling his nature, his dreams call him back to the old church again and again. It's there, in a small and silent side chapel dedicated to the Virgin, where the answers lie. Answers guarded closely by the mournful specter of a man who has known Adam through the centuries.

A dying young mother's desperate hope for her child leads her to a fateful meeting in the clearing of an old wood. A meeting whose otherworldly purpose quietly and gradually takes shape as the child matures. A meeting that has left the wood under a dark spell, unable to rise up in fury to undo what it sees as a violation of natural laws.Two families from old aristocratic lines agree to end the century-long and bloody feud that has left one side fading and the other flourishing. To achieve such an end, Laurent Veilleux, the youngest of his family, and Brys Lajoie, the last of his bloodline, are forced to marry though still strangers to each other. Marriages of convenience and political marriages are common among the upper-crust, and despite their initial reluctance and disdain, Laurent and Brys slowly allow themselves to open their hearts and minds to each other in hopes that somehow, by some miracle, love would eventually bloom between them.But their union has awakened something, a fragrant and deadly shadow that leaves a trail of bodies in its wake. Healthy people suddenly fall ill and die after suffering long, excruciating declines marked by symptoms of poison. Plants and flowers wilt, butterflies and birds tumble to the ground dead, and it appears as though this murderous shadow follows the young couple everywhere.To make matters worse, this threat seems to gather more strength when Laurent and Brys develop the emotional connection they've always hoped for. And somewhere in the French countryside, the woodlands finally emerge from the dark spell, unleash their fury, and seek justice for a past wrong, the trees' reach spanning distances in search of the unsuspecting pair.Inspired by the poison maiden legend from India, which Nathaniel Hawthorne also adapted in "Rappaccini's Daughter", The Flowers of St. Aloysius is a gothic gay fairy tale set in an alternate universe nineteenth century France.

Life can be a real hot mess for a budding teenage poet. Meet Eric Plath: an ordinary high school boy with an obsession for the color blue, a gay kid surrounded by loving parents and an annoying older sister, a teenager who'd have gone through this dicey life stage without a hitch had it not been for those crummy superheroes and supervillains. This omnibus contains the original three books of a seven-volume superhero comedy series. Rise of Heroes: Strange things are happening in Vintage City, and sixteen-year-old Eric seems to be right in the middle of them. There's a new villain in town, one with super powers, and he's wreaking havoc everywhere and on Eric's life. The new superhero who springs up to defend Vintage City is almost as bad, making Eric all hot and bothered, enough so that he almost misses the love that's right under his nose.Evolution: While his friends continue to develop their newfound powers, Eric begins to feel the effects of being the odd man out, and work-related stress creeps into Eric's relationship with Peter. To make matters worse, there are the strange headaches, sleepwalking, and nightmares that haunt Eric, as well as the Devil's Trill's call for him to take his place as a supervillain sidekick.Ordinary Champions: As a newly-transformed supervillain sidekick, Eric struggles with his conscience and schemes to turn the tables on the Trill. But his powers deteriorate, growing more and more unstable. He realizes that he doesn't have much time left to set things right on his own, even if it costs him his life.

London during the Great Exhibition of 1851 is a new world of technological advances, eye-popping inventions, and glimpses of exotic treasures from the East. For fifteen-year-old Norris Woodhead, it's a time of spectral figures mingling with London's daily crowds and an old rectory in a far corner of the English countryside -- a great house literally caught in time, where answers to curious little mysteries await him. Confined by his family's financial woes, Norris suffers a lonely and unsatisfying time till the day he (and only he) notices "shadow-people" in the streets. Then a strange widow appears, rents a vacant room in the house, and takes him under her wing. She becomes his guardian, slowly revealing those shadows' secrets, Norris' connection with them, and the life-altering choices he has to face in the end. The Twilight Gods is a retelling of the Native American folktale, "The Girl Who Married a Ghost." Set in Victorian England, it's an alternative perspective on a gay teen's coming-out experience, with Norris' journey of self-discovery couched in magical and supernatural terms and imagery.

An ambitious young princess, Ulrike, turns to the dark arts in order to become queen despite her younger sister's warnings of a fatal consequence to mortgaging her soul. She succeeds, yet Ulrike finds herself trapped in a hateful marriage, her mind slowly being devoured by her powers, while conceiving and giving birth to a boy.Alarick -- "the bastard prince" -- becomes the court's favorite object of mockery because of the scandal of his conception, his mother's spiraling madness compounding his ordeal. When Alarick falls in love with a childhood friend, Roald von Thiessen, the added sin of an unnatural romance gets caught up in a tumultuous aristocratic environment that's rife with hypocrisy, cruelty, betrayal, and murder.Forcibly separated from each other during a bloody uprising, Roald and Alarick become helplessly ensnared in nightmarish adventures designed to twist their characters and destroy their minds in the process. The young lovers fight for their souls and a way back to each other in a world weighed down by the forces of dark and light magic, and gods grapple with each other over mortal destinies.Arabesque is more than a gothic, homoerotic retelling of the Snow White folktale. It is also a dark allegory exploring contemporary issues such as misogyny, homophobia, and conversion therapy.

"Outside, on the bough of a tree, sat the living nightingale. She had heard of the emperor's illness, and was therefore come to sing to him of hope and trust. And as she sung, the shadows grew paler and paler."- Hans Christian Andersen, "The Nightingale" A marionette, a weeping willow, a house shade, and a lonely, abused boy - there are more to them than what meets the eye.Written in a style reminiscent of classic European folktales, the four original fairy tale novellas in this collection explore a gay teen's coming-of-age in settings steeped in magic, wonder, romance, and infinite possibilities.In Benedict, a marionette is given a strange puzzle to solve during the king's quarter dance. A cursed tree finds salvation in the love of a homeless, ragged boy in The Weeping Willow. In Grave's End, a house shade learns what it means to be human. And in Ansel of Pryor House, a boy rescued from his abusive father discovers the darker fate marked for those whom Nature refuses to forgive.

All fifteen-year-old Noah Hipwell wants is to go through high school in peace. Yet he finds himself suspended after a bully pushes him too far, and Noah's forced to defend himself. His mother, fed up with the school's indifference to his plight, pulls him out completely and leaves Noah uncertain of his future while they look for a good and safe school for him.All Dorothy "Dot" Hipwell wants is to go through single motherhood in peace. Yet she and her son are harassed by weekly phone calls from her evangelical family hell-bent on guilt-tripping them both back into the fold. Then Noah's grandparents ask strange questions about their old van after dropping cryptic references to a group called The Soul Warriors. Pushed to her limits, Dot takes Noah away for a much-needed getaway, only to find themselves suddenly transported to an alternate world, where a town called Helleville awaits them and all other condemned souls.Along with warm-blooded, living human beings, the Hipwells rub shoulders with zombies, vampires, house ghosts, and occasional "green vomit piles" while picking up the pieces and sorting out what could very well be an eternity in a bizarre, fanciful, and humorous world of ghouls and banned books.When residents suddenly disappear one by one with no trace and for no logical reason, however, doubts being "housed" in an alternate world for their sins are raised, and time suddenly becomes of the essence as Noah and the rest of Helleville's condemned race to find answers to what's quickly turning into a dangerous puzzle.

It is the Christmas season in mid-19th century Bavaria. Two fathers, Abelard Bauer and Andreas Schifffer, are brought together through the tragic deaths of their sons. Bauer, a brilliant toymaker, fashions glass Christmas ornaments, and his latest creation is a minstrel with a secret molded into its features.When Schiffer sees Bauer's minstrel ornament in the toy shop, he realizes that Bauer is struggling to keep his son's memory alive through his craft. At first he tries to fault him for this, but then recognizes that he, too, is seeking solace and healing by reading his son's diary, a journal that reveals, in both painful as well as beautiful detail, the true nature of Heinrich's relationship with Stefan.Fifteen-year-old Jakob Diederich is the son of a poor widow. The boy is burdened with his own secret, and he develops an obsession with a traveling Englishman who stays at the inn where Jakob works. The lives of Bauer, Schiffer, and Diederich intersect during the holiday as Schiffer tries to focus on his family in the present, Bauer struggles to reconcile his past, and Jakob copes with an uncertain future.Echoing the sensibilities of melancholy 19th Century folktales, lyrical prose and rich period detail quietly weave a moving tale of redemption, hope, and haunting, but timeless, themes.

Nathaniel Wakeman is the only child and son of a modest vicar, who lives in the quiet and idyllic confines of the Isle of Wight. When his maternal grandfather dies, Natty's mother reconnects with her estranged and wealthy brother and his family in hopes of raising Natty up in the world, to urge him to go beyond the humble life he's always known.Though his cousins show no particular regard for him, one of them, at least, lures him away from his retired life and introduces him to the world-and to the son of a baron from Somerset, Miles Lovell. Natty gradually finds himself drawn toward the older and worldlier gentleman and returns to his father's vicarage a changed young man. He also seems to have attracted the attention of a ghost, one that has followed him back to the island.Haunted by a woman in white, who seems to appear when he's at his weakest, Natty struggles with his own nature and with his family's increasing difficulties. His mother is distant, hiding things from him as she never has, and his father is aging before his eyes. Quarrels between his parents grow more and more frequent, and Natty's increasing terror of familiar and beloved footpaths add to the spiraling tension at home.While Natty tries to find his place in the world, his childhood is crumbling around him, and he becomes more and more convinced that his persistent ghost is a harbinger of doom.

Curse of Arachnaman follows the events in the first three books in the Masks series. Eric is settling down into a near-normal existence. He's learning to cope with a different kind of closet -- being kept from talking freely about his relationship with Calais and the other superheroes -- as well as an increasingly protective mother, his sister's new squeaky-clean boyfriend, and a bingo-obsessed best friend. Eric also learns that, sometimes, being an asset to the forces of good means simply being himself. In the meantime, Vintage City is under siege from a new threat, one which is proving to be much more dangerous than all of the other supervillains the heroes have faced combined. Good people find themselves at the mercy of an angry lunatic who will stop at nothing to purge the city of what he sees to be undesirable elements.

In the year 8016 on the newly colonized planet Cecilia, space-age technology, hapless Earthling colonists, and a magical realm no one knew existed, will come together in a collision course when two young men from different worlds cross paths and fall in love. Sheridan Diggins, an astro-cab driver barely scraping a living, finds himself thrown into the deep end of a magical pool when Yuli Soulweaver, the prince of the dead, decides to come to the surface and woo him.Of course, as it usually happens, nothing goes as planned, and murderous entities from Yuli's world come after Sheridan to stop him once and for all. In the distant planet Cecilia, there are no grand space operas. No thrilling space adventures. No exciting scientific explorations of unknown quadrants. Only a young Earthling suddenly embroiled in high stakes drama when science and magic come together in the most hilarious ways possible.Contains the novellas Sheridan Diggins and the Dead Horde, The Golem Upstairs, The Romeo and Julian Effect, and Monsters, Science, and Fanatics.

Following the attacks on Vintage City by the Deathtrap Debutantes, life quiets down, and the superheroes are temporarily without work. Unfortunately, unemployed superheroes mean bored superheroes, and with Peter's birthday just around the corner, Eric asks for help in coming up with the most creative gift he can give a boy who's got everything. Tapping into everyone's fondness for computer games, Eric enlists the heroes' help in experimenting with a video game in a desperate bid to amaze Peter with something unique.What they don't expect is a game that's been sabotaged by an old nemesis. Eric and the heroes suddenly find themselves trapped in a horror game, forced to advance against the clock or be stuck in it forever. With three of their friends vanishing from the group, Eric and Ridley are forced to use their wits and their limited abilities to fight their way through monsters that are meant to keep them from finding the others. Outside, Althea as Spirit Wire, along with unexpected allies, scrambles to keep a delicate connection with her friends as she tries to save them all.

In the seventh and final installment of the Masks series, nothing comes easy to sixteen-year-old Eric Plath -- and the Shadow Puppet. On one hand, Eric suffers through the tedium of more homework, more groundings from irate parents, and sudden and inexplicable attention from mutated killer mannequins from the Shadow Puppet's cabal. On the other hand, those evolving mannequins appear to have rattled a supervillain's schemes of terrorizing Vintage City, and no one -- not even the superheroes and the Sentries -- can figure out what's happening.In the middle of this spiraling supervillain craziness are the growing numbers of disappearing teenagers, including Deena Alvarez, Eric's good friend who's in the process of transitioning behind the backs of her disapproving parents and grandparents. And the only clue dropped into Eric's lap makes him an even bigger target to a supervillain who desperately needs it back.

Strange music from a legendary haunted glade can only be heard by a special boy. A grieving young man turns to the dark arts to bring his deceased lover back. A soiled and tired knight protects the innocent from the threat of a dragon. Young love blooms in a desolate garden.Familiar and original fairy tales, myths, and legends explore the complexities in a gay teen's coming-of-age through allegory and metaphor. Rain-drenched circuses, old wives' tales involving candles in windows, water-irises deep in a wood, lonely fairy kings, and magical Christmas parties. These stories not only present valuable lessons, but also provide an escape into worlds in which a gay teen can see himself as the center of adventure, romance, horror, tragedy, and triumph.Contains the following stories: "Clouds' Illusions", "Erl-King", "Out of the Depths", "The Bridge", "The Dollhouse", "The Haunted Glade", "The Knight", "The Water-Irises", and "The Winter Garden".