Search Results for: beauty

The Elder Isles – an ancient land where chivalry and the realm of fairie exist side by side. A land of mystery, strange beauty, high adventure and arcane magic. Kings are at war, opposing magicians devise ever more cunning stratagems. It is a land where princesses and changelings both can become embroiled in political rivalries and the quest for the grail.

The Gollancz Black Books have proved to be an immensely successful formula for getting well loved stories into the hands of people who also love well made books. Jack Vance’s Complete Lyonesse is a perfect addition to the series and contains Madouc the novel for which Vance won the World Fantasy Award.

Caught in a freak storm, John Webster takes shelter in an old barn with weird symbols carved in the doors. The landowner offers him a place to stay and John, on leave from University, takes him up on the offer.

But it turns out the barn has more history than he first suspected. A portal back in time, to be precise. He meets the beautiful Johanna, who is being tracked by the Witch Finder General. Modern science says that witches aren’t real… but then, neither are portals back in time, so what can John believe?

John finds himself torn between the past and the present, caught in a web of magic, mystery, suspicion and witchhunts.

A gripping retelling of the myth of Perseus by award-winning author Gwyneth Jones, writing as Ann Halam.

Perseus, the God-Touched son of Zeus, lives in luxury on the island of Serifos. But trouble is brewing in the world – Gods and mortals are bringing discord closer to his home shores.

When a beautiful stranger, a fugitive from another disaster zone, arrives on the island, Perseus is smitten. But Andromeda isn’t all she seems. She must die to save her people, and a stunning, world-changing discovery will die with her, unless Perseus abandons everything to confront the Medusa quest.

When Meg Frazer’s actress mother is killed in a Hollywood accident, nineteen-year-old Meg finds it hard to adapt to life in Britain with her cold, distant father . . . and at night she is haunted by a strange dream of a face which she is sure has something to do with her past.

Meg follows a clue from the past to a remote Cornish Village. There she becomes involved in a nightmare web of terror and suspense . . . She meets a young man called Toby, who is different from her staid fiancé, but how is he wrapped up in the secrets she is unravelling?

First written as a short suspense story in the 1960’s, this YA romantic thriller went on to win an Edgar Allan Poe Award from the Mystery Writers of America for Joan Aiken in 1972

“A cunning thriller romance, with the ever popular suspense and terror… good holiday reading for the not so bookish” Elaine Moss, Times

“Young, beautiful, talented, engaged to a handsome and successful stockbroker, she should have been content to stay in London. But irresistibly Meg was drawn back to Penlaggen…back into a forgotten past… And waiting for her was a man who exercised a strange and fearful power over her…and a secret that led her ever closer to danger” Fiction Database

“The suspense is wonderfully sustained and leads to a terrifying climax, and there is even a satisfying love story” Publisher’s Weekly

“A dream has haunted nineteen-year-old Meg for ten years, ever since her mother’s death. Now engaged and determined to exorcise the dream before her marriage, Meg drives to the remote Cornwall village of Penleggen where the author’s gift for direful scene and gripping incident takes control…the physical danger mounts as Meg’s psychological mystery is solved and a literate thriller gathers momentum” Kirkus review

The planet Elysium should be a paradise.

Like Earth before the Age of Waste, it is both beautiful and bountiful, inhabited by peaceful aboriginals and human colonists. But in its chief city, Port of Plenty, the first colonists have kept the superior technology sent from Earth for themselves, governing the outlying settlements with an iron fist.

As unrest grows, two unlikely allies, Richard Florey, an employee of the city’s university, and Miguel Lucas, a settler who has ‘gone dingo’, are caught up in a revolution that could awaken the alien aboriginals and change the balance of power on Elysium forever . . .

A beautiful woman – with no memory – and the people who claim to know her may not have her best interests at heart…

‘Vera Caspary is an expert at suspense and suspicion’ New York Times

Kate and Allan Royce are driving home from a party in Westport, Connecticut one night when they see a girl in a beautiful but muddied dress wandering in the road and stop to pick her up. She is suffering from amnesia, so they name her Elizabeth X and take her into their home while the police try to establish her identity.

They are left in peace, until first a couple claim her as their daughter and then a psychiatrist arrives to say that she has escaped from his clinic. What does seem certain is that she is the child of wealthy parents.

But who really is Elizabeth X, and what has happened to her?

A beautiful Cornish coastal village is the setting for a highly sinister conspiracy involving a kidnapped baby, mysterious monks and an almost irresistible new perfume…

‘Joan Aiken’s triumph with this genre is that she does it so much better than others’ New York Times Book Review

Martha works for an advertising agency, filming a TV commercial on location on the stunning Cornish coast. The client is the eccentric owner of a chemicals company that has invented a new, almost irresistible perfume, and Martha is in charge of shooting the romantic ads – unfortunately starring his beautiful but highly manipulative daughter-in-law.

Before long, Martha finds herself embroiled in the conspiracy over the perfume’s true origin – to say nothing of a kidnapped baby, sinister monks, her own long-since vanished ex-husband and a series of exploding soup cans. And what of her own floundering love life…?

‘Witty and acute … a nice romantic thriller’ Punch

Chosen Among The Beautiful – Cho, for short – has been alone her whole life. Orphaned, she was raised by machines, with her cat, Divine Endurance, for company.

When an earthquake destroys her isolated shelter, Cho leaves to find her long lost brother, cat in tow. She finds herself in a land torn apart by warring gangs, clans and princes, revolutionaries and outcasts, all under the thumb of the distance Rulers, reduced to petty in-fighting to try and gain any power at all.

Divine Endurance seeks out the Rulers; Cho instead finds Derveet, a rebel leader. She finds love.

Can there be a future for them in this brutal world? What does Cho really know about humanity after being separated from it all her life? What does she even know about herself?

A group of strangers are forced to take shelter in a remote house – and then the murders begin…

‘A new Ellery Queen book has always been something to look forward to’ Agatha Christie

‘Ellery Queen is the American detective novel’ Anthony Boucher

When Ellery Queen and his father take shelter from wildfires in an isolated manor, they don’t expect their detective skills to be required. But the next morning a body is discovered. The suspects include a society beauty, a highly secretive valet, and a pair of conjoined twins.

When another murder follows, and the only clue is a torn playing card, Queen must use all his powers of deduction to unpick a web of alibis, motives and evidence, before the killer strikes again.

A dark tale of the destructive power of love and obsession from ‘The supreme master of suspense’ NEW YORK TIMES

‘The father of the modern suspense story’ LA TIMES

When Louis Durand first meets his bride-to-be after a months-long courtship by mail, he’s shocked that she doesn’t match the photographs sent with her correspondence. But Durand has not exactly been truthful, either, concealing the details of his wealth. Mostly, he feels fortunate she is so much more beautiful than he expected.

Soon after they marry, however, he becomes increasingly convinced that the woman in his life is not the same woman with whom he exchanged letters – and then she suddenly disappears with his fortune.

Alone and desperate, Louis becomes obsessed with finding Julia and bringing her to justice – but it is only when he finally tracks her down that the nightmare truly begins…

A millennium from now, global warming has gone into retreat as the Sun’s dynamics convulse. The great ice returns, driving humankind back to its primitive origins. Here, bands of brutal warriors wage war in the bitter cold. Xaraf Firebridge, powerful young son of a barbarian chieftain, enrages his sire by adopting the pacifistic doctrine of an outland mystic, Darkbloom. Before he can break his vow and slay his father, he is drawn into a temporal wormline and flung a further million years into the Earth of the Failing Sun.

Clever and determined, Xaraf wanders landscapes haunted by prospects of doom and overseen by a trio of godlike Powers. Since childhood he has dreamed of a beautiful young woman. His fate, he sees, is to rescue her from captivity–and perhaps save the whole world, now moved into the outer solar system and lit by a string of tiny orbiting suns.

He has yet to meet his true foe, the dragon whose history stands opposed to humankind’s. But which will prove to be this world’s mythic Galahad?

A COMIC SCIENCE FICTION MASTERPIECE!
In the spirit of Monty Python, Arthur Schopenhauer and Douglas Adams, Striped Holes is science fiction with a sense of humor.
Sopwith Hammil might be the nation’s top chat-show host but his peace of mind is shattered when a time traveling bureaucrat lands on his couch. To save his life and the human race (They’re turning the Sun off!), Sopwith must find a wife inside three hours. Turns out it’s not that easy, Soppy.
Meanwhile, popular astrologer and certified lifesaver O’Flaherty Gribble, a favorite guest on Sopwith’s show, has discovered the Callisto Effect and how to build striped holes. And in a future that makes Nineteen Eighty-Four look like Brave New World or vice versa, beautiful Hsia Shan-Yun is about to have her brain scrubbed for knitting one of those striped holes, with frightful consequences. But luckily, O’Flaherty finds himself seated on a plane next to God. Tighten your belt, it’s that kind of novel.

It was rarer and more beautiful and more precious than any piece of mineral, and its dark glory outshone the lights of the heavens. The Gods had wrought it in the Country of the Immortals, and no other thing like it had ever been upon the earth.

No emperor could hold the Throne without the Black Star. And now it was missing.

The evil Green-Robed One who had usurped the Throne would use his darkest powers to reclaim it – and the young warrior fleeing across the embattled land with his beautiful lady to save this treasure of all the world would know the torments of the damned…

Deep in the Tower of the Moon, among the Hills of Arniak, dwelt the beautiful and sensuous Tara. And with Chanthu the Sorcerer, Zarlic the metal man, and Khaldur the great golden cat as her tutors, she grew wise and swift, skilled and strong.

Tara was raised to be a fighting woman, not some man’s pampered pet and plaything. For she had pledged herself a War Maid, a virgin swordswoman sworn to the Moon.

She would journey to Twilight to search for the secret of her birth and the sword of her dream. Her life would be the long road and the open sky, the flash of naked steel and the hot spurt of fresh gore!

Come with us out of this dull, workaday world to Terra Magica, the land beyond World’s Edge, where knights ride out on wonder quests, where beautiful princesses wait for rescue from sea serpents, where sky-high giants seek human morsels for their cookpots, and where a king may seek a champion to set aside his realm’s enchantment.Here again is Kesrick, knight of Dragonrouge, in combat against villainy. At his side stand a Scythian princess and a lost nobleman of Tartary. Here be wizards of good and wizards of evil; here be mighty giants and witches of utter meanness. Here be high fantasy from the golden pen of the Grand Master himself, Lin Carter!

BOOK ONE OF THE PERILOUS QUEST FOR LYONESSE

In the year of Our Lord 1403, as England smoulders with suppressed rebellion, young Simon Branthwaite sets sail across the Atlantic in search of the lost realm of Lyonesse. His quest will take him to Rockall, a land wreathed in legend; a land of weird beasts and wondrous happenings, of great beauties and terrible dangers.

And there begin adventures stranger than the wildest of Simon’s imaginings; adventures that will change the course of his life and reshape that land for ever…

Princes of Sandastre is the first in Anthony Swithin’s fantastical Lyonesse sequence, edited by Mark Sebanc.

Come with us out of this dull, workaday world to Terra Magica, tha land beyond World’s Edge, where knights ride out on wonder quests, where beautiful princesses wait for rescue from sea serpents, where sky-high giants seek human morsels for their cookpots, and where a king may seek a champion to set aside his realm’s enchantment.Here again is Kesrick, knight of Dragonrouge, in combat against villainy. At his side stand a Scythian princess and a lost nobleman of Tartary. Here be wizards of good and wizards of evil; here be mighty giants and witches of utter meanness. Here be high fantasy from the golden pen of the Grand Master himself, Lin Carter!

Hurled from Earth through the depths of space by a force beyond human comprehension, Jonathan Dark is forced to pit his strength and wits against the terrors of savage jungles and plains on the Jovian moon, Callisto. As Jandar, he must fight cunning wizards and grotesque beasts of prey, to survive on this savage planet and someday find a way home.

In the merciless clutches of Zhu Kor, last of the legendary Mind Wizards of Callisto, the beautiful raven-haired jungle maiden is spirited away upon a hideous winged ghastozar. Captives of a vicious tribe that worships the evil Zhu Kor as a god, while their jungle stronghold is attacked by a rival tribe, Ylana and Tomar battle savages and predatory monsters alike … until the Galleon of the Clouds finds them in the very jaws of doom ….

“Go to thy master and say that Mardanax hath come. I have lived to see the barbarian Thongor in his tomb.”

As the stranger throws back his cloak the hellish gleam of his emerald eyes confirms his statement – Mardanax, the Black Magician of Zaar – has survived Thongor’s destruction of the dread City of Magicians.

Mardanax strikes swiftly. His evil sorcery explodes with inconceivable power, and Thongor lies dead. Thongor’s beautiful queen is drugged into mindless obedience to the Black Magician. Her son, the prince, is kidnapped. Thongor’s empire seems to have fallen to the forces of Chaos.

Then, wandering in the land of the dead, Thongor finds a powerful sword of light…

Trillions were hard, bright, tiny things which suddenly arrived – millions and millions and millions of them – one windy day in a village called Harbourtown.

No one could explain them, much less why they had suddenly arrived. Were they a blessing, as their beauty suggested, or a deadly, inexplicable threat? A boy with a microscope was just as likely to come up with the answer as all the acknowledged experts in any known kind of science, so somehow it seemed natural for two ‘ordinary’ boys, Scott and Bem, to join forces with an ex-spaceman against the frightening efforts of the ruthless General Harman to destroy the Trillions, no matter what the cost.

Kelder had always dreamed of a life more exciting than what waited for him on the family farm. So when a fortune-teller predicted a glorious future, that he’d roam free and unfettered and be a champion of the lost and forlorn, he immediately set out on the fabled Great Highway to Shan in search of adventure.

But once he was on the road, life was hardly as exciting as he’d hoped – until he met Irith. She was the most beautiful girl, and the only girl with wings, Kelder had ever seen. They teamed up to see the world, and then Kelder found adventures aplenty: there were bandits and demons, and there were curses to lift, wizards to seek spells from, orphans to champion, and legendary cities to visit. For the young and carefree, life on the Great Highway was filled with fun, action, and magic.

But Kelder began to wonder about his beautiful companion. Irith certainly had seen a lot of the world for one so young – and everyone along the highway seemed to know her . . .

Soon, discovering Irith’s secrets became Kelder’s greatest adventure of all . . .

Charlatans or Prophets? At best, the tiny Kandarian Air Fleet would fight until its last ship was blown into infinity. At worst, it would be annihilated without a chance. To young Captain Bors, either course was unthinkable.

The ruthless Dictator of Mekin had already subjugated twenty-two helpless planets. Now he wanted Kandar’s unconditional surrender, or his vastly superior forces would blast it out of existence.

It took a lot of guts, and the hope that is frequently born of despair, for a military man like Bors to throw in his lot with Talents, Incorporated, an untried, unscientific organization. Through peculiar gifts of extra-sensory perception, its personnel could, their leader insisted, out-think and out-guess even the most deadly dictator in the history of mankind. Could it? It just might.

And it just might not. . . . But there was absolutely nothing to lose, and a free world (and a beautiful girl) to win. Captain Bors made his decision, and the loaded die was cast!

In the Well-Built City, Master Drachton Below’s power is absolute, and he will not hesitate to use it. His primary method of control is through his physiognomists, who are trained to read a person’s face and body, perceiving that person’s past and secrets-and even events yet to come. These seers are the judges and jury. Now Drachton has found something that could extend his reign for eternity: a fruit that bestows immortality. To investigate its whereabouts, Below sends cold, collected physiognomist Cley to the remote mining town of Anamasobia. One at a time Cley interrogates the townspeople, performing his usual fact finding without issue. That is, until he meets the beautiful and bright Arla, who harbors a secret that could potentially turn Cley’s world upside down-and topple the Well-Built City itself.

A Kafkaesque journey into the unknown, The Physiognomy is an award-winning trip through a land where the line between reality and imagination is constantly blurred.

In February 1915 the Great War is still raging on the Western Front but back in Westminster a policeman is shot dead. At first, Hardcastle believes the murderer to have been a disturbed burglar. But then, there is another killing – the beautiful wife of a Royal Flying Corps Officer – on whose doorstep the first victim was killed.

As enquiries continue, attention focuses on an antiquarian bookseller, a struggling artist, a reporter and even officers of the Royal Flying Corps. Hardcastle must uncover a tangle of lies, emotions and betrayals before he can get to the truth.