The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender

The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender PDF Author: Leslye Walton
Publisher: Candlewick Press
ISBN: 0763670340
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 317

Get Book Here

Book Description
A 2015 William C. Morris YA Debut Award Finalist Magical realism, lyrical prose, and the pain and passion of human love haunt this hypnotic generational saga. Foolish love appears to be the Roux family birthright, an ominous forecast for its most recent progeny, Ava Lavender. Ava — in all other ways a normal girl — is born with the wings of a bird. In a quest to understand her peculiar disposition and a growing desire to fit in with her peers, sixteen-year old Ava ventures into the wider world, ill-prepared for what she might discover and naive to the twisted motives of others. Others like the pious Nathaniel Sorrows, who mistakes Ava for an angel and whose obsession with her grows until the night of the summer solstice celebration. That night, the skies open up, rain and feathers fill the air, and Ava’s quest and her family’s saga build to a devastating crescendo. First-time author Leslye Walton has constructed a layered and unforgettable mythology of what it means to be born with hearts that are tragically, exquisitely human.

The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender

The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender PDF Author: Leslye Walton
Publisher: Candlewick Press
ISBN: 0763670340
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 317

Get Book Here

Book Description
A 2015 William C. Morris YA Debut Award Finalist Magical realism, lyrical prose, and the pain and passion of human love haunt this hypnotic generational saga. Foolish love appears to be the Roux family birthright, an ominous forecast for its most recent progeny, Ava Lavender. Ava — in all other ways a normal girl — is born with the wings of a bird. In a quest to understand her peculiar disposition and a growing desire to fit in with her peers, sixteen-year old Ava ventures into the wider world, ill-prepared for what she might discover and naive to the twisted motives of others. Others like the pious Nathaniel Sorrows, who mistakes Ava for an angel and whose obsession with her grows until the night of the summer solstice celebration. That night, the skies open up, rain and feathers fill the air, and Ava’s quest and her family’s saga build to a devastating crescendo. First-time author Leslye Walton has constructed a layered and unforgettable mythology of what it means to be born with hearts that are tragically, exquisitely human.

Dark Breakers

Dark Breakers PDF Author: C. S. E. Cooney
Publisher: Mythic Delirium Books
ISBN: 1732644055
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 292

Get Book Here

Book Description
World Fantasy Award finalist for Best Story Collection Locus Award finalist for Best Story Collection “Welcome to a Gilded Era like you’ve never before known and will never be able to forget …If Titania herself were to commission a book, it would be this one.” —Fran Wilde, two-time Nebula Award-winning author of Updraft and Riverland "Cooney’s lush follow-up to Desdemona and the Deep offers five stories linked by an intricate shared world … Throughout, Cooney’s descriptions are extravagant and gorgeous, and the musical cadence of her prose makes it exceptionally easy to be drawn into the worlds she weaves … Romantic fantasy readers will find a lot to love." —Publishers Weekly A young human painter and an ageless gentry queen fall in love over spilled wine-at the risk of his life and her immortality. Pulled into the Veil Between Worlds, two feuding neighbors (and a living statue) get swept up in a brutal war of succession. An investigative reporter infiltrates the Seafall City Laundries to write the exposé of a lifetime, and uncovers secrets she never believed possible. Returning to an oak grove to scatter her husband's ashes, an elderly widow meets an otherworldly friend, who offers her a momentous choice. Two gentry queens of the Valwode plot to hijack a human rocketship and steal the moon out of the sky. Dark Breakers gathers three new and two previously uncollected tales from World Fantasy Award-winning writer C. S. E. Cooney that expand on the thrice-enfolded worlds first introduced in her Locus and World Fantasy award-nominated novella Desdemona and the Deep. In her introduction to Dark Breakers, Crawford Award-winning author Sharon Shinn advises those who pick up this book to "settle in for a fantastical read" full of "vivid world-building, with layer upon layer of detail; prose so dense and gorgeous you can scoop up the words like handfuls of jewels; a mischievous sense of humor; and a warm and hopeful heart." “C. S. E. Cooney’s prose is like a cake baked by the fairies—beautifully layered, rich and precise, so delicious that it should be devoured with a silver fork.” —Theodora Goss, World Fantasy and Mythopoeic Award-winning author of The Extraordinary Adventures of the Athena Club series “Dark Breakers is compounded of voluptuous invention and ferocious structural loves—for new romances and old friends, for the works of hands, for mortality and its gifts, and all the possibilities of worlds bleeding, weeping, wandering into each other’s arms.” —Kathleen Jennings, World Fantasy Award-winning author of Flyaway “Few people create worlds as lavish and sensual as those to spring from Cooney’s effervescent imagination. Her writing isn’t so much inspirational, but inspiration itself: gentry-magic spun into pages and paragraphs of glittering, fizzing, jaw-dropping beauty.” —Cassandra Khaw, British Fantasy Award-nominated author of The All-Consuming World MORE PRAISE FOR C. S. E. COONEY "C. S. E. Cooney is one of the most moving, daring, and plainly beautiful voices to come out of recent fantasy. She's a powerhouse with a wink in her eye and a song in each pocket." —Catherynne M. Valente, New York Times-bestselling author of Space Opera "C. S. E. Cooney's imagination is wild and varied, her stories bawdy, horrific, comic, and moving-frequently all at the same time." —Delia Sherman, author of The Evil Wizard Smallbone "C. S. E. Cooney is a master piper, playing songs within songs. Her stories are wild, theatrical, full of music and murder and magic." —James Enge, author of Blood of Ambrose "Newcomers will find Cooney's glittering narrative skills and vivid worldbuilding addictive, her diverse characters intriguing, and her message of justice and freedom stirring." —Publishers Weekly

The Clockwork Dagger

The Clockwork Dagger PDF Author: Beth Cato
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062313851
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 233

Get Book Here

Book Description
Full of magic, mystery, and romance, an enchanting steampunk fantasy debut in the bestselling vein of Trudi Canavan and Gail Carriger. Orphaned as a child, Octavia Leander was doomed to grow up on the streets until Miss Percival saved her and taught her to become a medician. Gifted with incredible powers, the young healer is about to embark on her first mission, visiting suffering cities in the far reaches of the war-scarred realm. But the airship on which she is traveling is plagued by a series of strange and disturbing occurrences, including murder, and Octavia herself is threatened. Suddenly, she is caught up in a flurry of intrigue: the dashingly attractive steward may be one of the infamous Clockwork Daggers—the Queen’s spies and assassins—and her cabin-mate harbors disturbing secrets. But the danger is only beginning, for Octavia discovers that the deadly conspiracy aboard the airship may reach the crown itself.

A Clockwork Heart

A Clockwork Heart PDF Author: Liesel Schwarz
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0091950708
Category : Fantasy fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 388

Get Book Here

Book Description
They gather at night. The steady click keeping them in time, unified, controlled. Their maker made them that way. As more Londoners disappear, their numbers grow. One has joined their ranks. A special one, with power more potent than any other. Old warlock magic, and something else... an enchantment wound so tight it's near impossible to unravel. And only Eleanor Chance - the girl they call the Oracle - has a hope of saving these unfortunate souls... ... souls that are burdened with the slow death from a clockwork heart.

The Clockwork Muse

The Clockwork Muse PDF Author: Eviatar Zerubavel
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674135865
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 124

Get Book Here

Book Description
For anyone who has blanched at the uphill prospect of finishing a thesis, dissertation, or book, this piece holds out something more practical than hope: a plan.

In the Forest of Forgetting

In the Forest of Forgetting PDF Author: Theodora Goss
Publisher: Mythic Delirium Books
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 205

Get Book Here

Book Description
“It doesn't seem too hasty to exclaim, ‘Classic!’” —Booklist, starred review “An original voice, and an original vision: crystalline, precise, mordant and devastating.” —Ellen Kushner. A Mythopoeic Award finalist Mythic Delirim Books is proud to make World Fantasy Award and Locus Award winner Theodora Goss’s 2006 story collection In the Forest of Forgetting available in electronic format. With an introduction by Terri Windling, this book gathers seventeen tales from an author that Locus at the time dubbed “one of the more distinctive, graceful, and haunting new voices in fantasy.” Cover art by Virginia Lee.

Unseaming

Unseaming PDF Author: Mike Allen
Publisher: Mythic Delirium Books
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 223

Get Book Here

Book Description
NOW WITH NEW BONUS CONTENT! 2014 Shirley Jackson Award finalist for best collection 2014 This Is Horror Award finalist for best collection 2015 Chesley Award finalist for best cover Mike Allen has put together a first class collection of horror and dark fantasy. Unseaming burns bright as hell among its peers. --Laird Barron, author of The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All Allen's stories deliver solid shivering terror tinged with melancholy sorrow over the fragility of humankind. --Publishers Weekly, starred review The stories ... range from the sly to the splatteringly horrific, with every nuance of dread and menace in between. --Library Journal, starred review Everyone in the world awakens covered in blood-and no one knows where the blood came from. A childhood doll arrives to tear its owner's reality limb from limb. A portal to the spirit realm stretches wide on the Appalachian Trail, and something more than human crawls through on eight legs. Words of comfort change to terrifying sounds as a force from outside time speaks through them. The buttons in the bin will unseam your flesh to bare your nastiest secrets. Opening with "The Button Bin," a finalist for the Nebula Award for Best Short Story, and culminating with its sequel, "The Quiltmaker," which Bram Stoker Award and Shirley Jackson Award winner Laird Barron has hailed as Mike Allen's masterpiece, this debut collection gathers fourteen horror tales that, in the words of Barron's introduction, "rival anything committed to paper by the likes of contemporary masters such as Clive Barker, Ramsey Campbell, or Caitlín Kiernan. This is raw, visceral, and sometimes bloody stuff. Primal stuff." More praise for Unseaming: Throughout Unseaming, reality is usually in bad shape right from the start-and from there things proceed to go downhill. Such is the general background and trajectory of life in Mike Allen's fictional world. More could be said, of course, but there's one thing that I feel especially urged to say: these stories are fun. Not "good" fun, and certainly not "good clean" fun. They are too unnerving for those modifiers, too serious, like laughter in the dark-unnerving, serious laughter that leads you through Mr. Allen's funhouse. The reality in there is also in bad shape, deliberately so, just for the seriously unnerving fun of it. The prose is poetic, except it's nonsense poetry, the poetry of deteriorating realities, intermingling realities, realities without Reality. And all the while that unnerving, serious laughter keeps getting louder and louder. Are we having fun yet? --Thomas Ligotti, author of Teatro Grottesco and The Spectral Link Allen can write as lyrically and as viscerally as the best of them ... an exceptional debut collection. --Locus Mike Allen's Unseaming confirms his status as a poet who writes in dread and awe rather than ink. His most recurrent themes are those of wrenching loss and transformative retribution, with a liberal helping of the literal fear of God(s); sowing out a hundred different apocalypses, personal and otherwise, these stories reap an unforgettable crop of nightmares, sketching a chimeric universe in which shape-changing is less a rumour or an option than a sad, simple inevitability. Not to be missed. --Gemma Files, author of We Will All Go Down Together Mike Allen blends a poet's attention to language with a crime reporter's instinct for the darker precincts of human behavior...These stories glow with demonic energy, and what they illuminate are the faces of our secret selves, screaming back at us from the mirror's depths. --John Langan, author of The Wide, Carnivorous Sky and Other Monstrous Geographies Offbeat, gruesome conceits and expert delivery. --Asimov's Science Fiction One of the most original practitioners of the body horror subgenre since Clive Barker's Books of Blood. --Rue Morgue

Phoenix Flame

Phoenix Flame PDF Author: Sara Holland
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1526621541
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 274

Get Book Here

Book Description
New York Times bestselling author Sara Holland continues her blockbuster contemporary fantasy series, Havenfall, with this unforgettable sequel. 'Sara Holland is a fierce storyteller' STEPHANIE GARBER After saving the inn at Havenfall from the wicked Silver Prince, Maddie thought all her problems were over. The Silver Prince has been banished, her uncle the beloved Innkeeper is slowly recovering from a mysterious coma, and there are still a few weeks of summer left to spend with her handsome more-than-just-a-friend Brekken. But danger still looms and Maddie soon realises there's more work to be done to protect Havenfall, the safe haven between worlds that her family has run for centuries. Maddie must embark on a dangerous mission: to venture into the icy Realm of Fiordenkill and put an end to the black market trading of souls that threatens the balance of the Realms. As Maddie tries to accomplish these seemingly impossible tasks, she stumbles upon family secrets that could change everything. What if saving everyone means destroying the only home she's ever known? This next breathtaking fantasy from the bestselling author of Everless is perfect for fans of Melissa Albert and Holly Black.

Bone Swans

Bone Swans PDF Author: C.S.E. Cooney
Publisher: Mythic Delirium Books
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 224

Get Book Here

Book Description
Winner of the 2016 World Fantasy Award for Best Collection Contains "The Bone Swans of Amandale," 2015 Nebula Award finalist for Best Novella "C. S. E. Cooney is one of the most moving, daring, and plainly beautiful voices to come out of recent fantasy. She's a powerhouse with a wink in her eye and a song in each pocket." —Catherynne M. Valente, New York Times-bestselling author of the Fairyland novels "These stories are a pure joy. C. S. E. Cooney's imagination is wild and varied, her stories bawdy, horrific, comic, and moving-frequently all at the same time. Her characters are wickedly appealing, and her language—O! her language. Lush, playful, poetic, but never obscure or stilted, it makes her magic more magic, her comedy more comic, and her tragic moments almost unbearable." —Delia Sherman, author of Young Woman in a Garden: Stories "Bone Swans is a joy of feathery bones & ghoulish clowns. I adored every word. Like an eyas cries for meat, I cry for more. C.S.E. Cooney's a major talent and these are major talent stories. Who can resist hero rats, pouting swans, feral children, flying carpets and the Flabberghast? So tongue-tied am I with delight I fall back on the usual cliches: gripping, delightful, insightful, rollicking & lyrical—and yet not one cliche is to be found in Bone Swans, only stories of surpassing delicacy and wit, told by a lady of rare talent. Please, ma'am, might I have some more?" —Ysabeau S. Wilce, Andre Norton Award wining author of Flora's Dare A swan princess hunted for her bones, a broken musician and his silver pipe, and a rat named Maurice bring justice to a town under fell enchantment. A gang of courageous kids confronts both a plague-destroyed world and an afterlife infested with clowns but robbed of laughter. In an island city, the murder of a child unites two lovers, but vengeance will part them. Only human sacrifice will save a city trapped in ice and darkness. Gold spun out of straw has a price, but not the one you expect. World Fantasy Award winner Ellen Kushner has called Cooney's writing "stunningly delicious! Cruel, beautiful and irresistible." Bone Swans, the infernally whimsical debut collection from C. S. E. Cooney, gathers five novellas that in the words of Andre Norton Award winner Delia Sherman are "bawdy, horrific, comic, and moving-frequently all at the same time." Cooney's mentor, Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Grand Master Gene Wolfe, proclaims in his introduction that her style is so original it can only be described as "pure Cooney," and he offers readers a challenge: "Try to define that when you've finished the stories in this book." More praise for Bone Swans "Cooney's brilliantly executed collection of five stories is a delicious stew of science fiction, horror, and fantasy, marked by unforgettable characters who plumb the depths of pathos and triumph. ... All of these stories could easily serve as the foundation for novels while also working beautifully at their current length. These well-crafted narratives defiantly refuse to fade from memory long after the last word has been read." —Publishers Weekly, starred review "In five beautifully crafted stories, Cooney builds imaginary worlds full of flying carpets, fairy-tale characters, and children confronted with a postapocalyptic Earth ... Each tale packs in enough plot for a novel, with adventurous characters who brim with wit." —Library Journal, starred review "Writing without ostentation and featuring characters who may be flippant, terse, or even tongue-tied, Cooney produces memorable prose propelled by extraordinary ideas ... Faced with such twisted genius, I'll say no more!" —Locus "A fascinating mashup between the tropes and resonances of the mythic tale with the sensibilities of contemporary action-oriented fantasy: simultaneously lighthearted and serious, full of consequences but also ubiquitous happy endings." —Tor.com

Jack O' the Hills

Jack O' the Hills PDF Author: C. S. E. Cooney
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781907881039
Category : Fantasy fiction, English
Languages : en
Pages : 69

Get Book Here

Book Description
Jack Yap once had his mouth sewn shut for talking too much. His brother Pudding has to wear stone shoes or he'll just wander off. Will little obstacles like these keep the boys out of trouble? Not for the twinkling of an eye. There is magic in the hills, shapechangers and monsters, and Jack Yap has a hankering to meet them all and maybe kill a few. What he and Pudding find in the hills, however, changes both their lives, taking them out of the country and into the cruel and wonderful world, where witches and princesses await. Sometimes they are even the same person. "Stunningly delicious! Cruel, beautiful and irresistible are C.S.E. Cooney's characters and prose. Just when you thought fantasy had devolved into endless repetition, 'Jack o' the Hills' blows us all over the next hill and into the kingdom beyond. C.S.E. Cooney is a rare and exciting new talent. Whatever she offers us next, I'll waiting in line to read." -- Ellen Kushner, author of Thomas the Rhymer "Claire Cooney spins tales of Grimm horror with elvish gold gleaming in their darkness. They have the vivid colors of an extremely good nightmare, a fertile and vernal radiance all their own: funny and horrifying and moving by turns - and sometimes out of turn. If you've forgotten why you love fantasy, these stories of Jack Yap and Shapechanger Tam will remind you." -- James Enge, author of Blood of Ambrose, nominated for the 2009 World Fantasy Award.