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Blood Justice (Blood Debts)
by Terry J. Benton-WalkerBlood Justice is the hotly anticipated sequel to Terry J. Benton-Walker's debut Blood Debts.'An extravaganza' Chloe GongCristina and Clement Trudeau have conjured the impossible: justice. Having restored their family's stolen throne, the time has come to look forward to a brighter future for the magical community. But for Valentina Savant, she lost everything and is hellbent on revenge. And lucky for her, she's not the only one. Hateful anti-magic protesters and a ruthless detective with a personal vendetta sabotage their reign at every turn. Worst of all, to protect the boy he loves, Clem has summoned a brutal god that stalks them from the shadows. Shocking murders, disappearances, and new alliances are changing the game forever - and not everyone will survive the final round.'Sings with hope and barely disguised rage'TJ Klune
Blood on the Tide
by Katee RobertSet sail for adventure and love in the next spicy fantasy romance from Katee Robert, the New York Times bestselling author of the TikTok smash hit Neon Gods.As a bloodline vampire, Lizzie has never had a problem taking what she wants, and right now what she wants are the family heirlooms that were stolen from her, a ship, and a portal home. Unfortunately, even that short list is impossible to accomplish on her own—and her allies have bigger things to worry about. When they rescue a selkie, it’s the perfect solution to her problem. Lizzie needs a guide through Threshold and the selkie needs her skin back.Maeve didn’t choose to give up her skin—it was stolen from her. Now she’s in an uneasy partnership with a dangerous woman who seems more apt to kill than to share a kind word. It’s terrifying…and a bit alluring. Even though she knows it will end in heartbreak, Maeve can’t help being drawn to Lizzie.Unfortunately, the danger to Maeve’s heart is the least of her worries. The ship they’re seeking belongs to the Cwn Annwn, and they don’t take kindly to people who cross them. They’re coming hunting, and not even Lizzie’s viciousness or Maeve’s knowledge will be enough to save them…
Blue Hunger
by Viola Di GradoFrom one of Italy's most electrifying voices, a fearless story of queer love and obsession set against the glassy surfaces of Shanghai."Blue Hunger is irresistible, evocative, dripping with desire, and brilliantly written-Viola Di Grado is a genius."-Jami AttenbergAfter her twin's death, a solitary young woman leaves Rome for Shanghai, the city where her brother Ruben had long dreamed of opening a restaurant. Teaching Italian to Chinese students, she meets a mysterious girl named Xu, who is also running from a turbulent past: a violent father, an absent mother, and an extended family who wishes she'd been a boy. Xu's house is dingy and full of rotting food, like a museum of decomposing organic matter. In the gloom of abandoned textile factories and dilapidated slaughterhouses, the two discover an extreme dimension where biting, swallowing, and taking each other in are part of the erotic ritual. Rooted in an experience of cultural limbo, Blue Hunger takes the reader on a visually stunning, taboo-demolishing journey into the depths of the psyche, from mourning to falling in lust-all in a city of potent dreams, stories, and stimulations.
Bluff: A powerful new collection reckoning with America, protest and poetry itself
by Danez SmithA searing new collection from the Forward Prize-winning American poet about the year 2020, the year that the world’s gaze turned to Minneapolis – Smith's own home.'Bluff is my book of the year. Absolutely breathtaking' Joelle Taylor, author of C+NTO: + Othered Poems'You will want to underline almost every line ... One of the best books of poetry I've read: buy it for anyone you love' Hollie McNish, author of Plum'Gripping ... It’s as though the world is a scattered puzzle that Danez analyses and bears witness to' Yomi Sode, author of ManorismWritten during the time the world came to a halt due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and Minneapolis became the epicentre of protest following the murder of George Floyd, Bluff is Danez Smith’s powerful reckoning with their responsibility as a poet and with their hometown.Smith brings a startling urgency to these poems, their questions demanding a new language, new textual shapes and a deep self-scrutiny. Ars poetica gives way to 'ars america'. A photographic collage makes clear the consequence of accepting mass shootings. A brilliant long poem maps the history of Minneapolis-Saint Paul’s vibrant Rondo neighbourhood, before and after officials decided to run an interstate directly through it.Bluff is a manifesto about artistic resilience when the places we most love – those given and made – are burning. In this collection, Smith turns to honesty, hope, rage and imagination to envision futures that seem possible.PRAISE FOR DANEZ SMITH:‘A poet of exceptional linguistic exuberance, style and grace’ Kayo Chingonyi, author of Kumukanda‘A writer who never loses their way’ New York Times'Smith’s ability to look death squarely in the eye and seize from it language that is fertile with myth, beauty and intellect is astonishing' Sandeep Parmar, Guardian
Bodies of Evidence: The Practice of Queer Oral History (Oxford Oral History Series)
by Nan Alamilla Boyd Horacio N. Roque RamirezBodies of Evidence: The Practice of Queer Oral History is the first book to provide serious scholarly insight into the methodological practices that shape lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer oral histories. Each chapter pairs an oral history excerpt with an essay in which the oral historian addresses his or her methods and practices. With an afterword by John D'Emilio, this collection enables readers to examine the role memory, desire, sexuality, and gender play in documenting LGBTQ communities and cultures. The historical themes addressed include 1950s and '60s lesbian bar culture; social life after the Cuban revolution; the organization of transvestite social clubs in the U.S. midwest in the 1960s; Australian gay liberation activism in the 1970s; San Francisco electoral politics and the career of Harvey Milk; Asian American community organizing in pre-AIDS Los Angeles; lesbian feminist "sex war" cultural politics; 1980s and '90s Latina/o transgender community memory and activism in San Francisco; and the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. The methodological themes include questions of silence, sexual self-disclosure and voyeurism, the intimacy between researcher and narrator, and the social and political commitments negotiated through multiple oral history interviews. The book also examines the production of comparative racial and sexual identities and the relative strengths of same-sexuality, cross-sexuality, and cross-ideology interviewing.
Bodies of Evidence: The Practice of Queer Oral History (Oxford Oral History Series)
by Nan Alamilla Boyd, Horacio N. Roque RamírezBodies of Evidence: The Practice of Queer Oral History is the first book to provide serious scholarly insight into the methodological practices that shape lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer oral histories. Each chapter pairs an oral history excerpt with an essay in which the oral historian addresses his or her methods and practices. With an afterword by John D'Emilio, this collection enables readers to examine the role memory, desire, sexuality, and gender play in documenting LGBTQ communities and cultures. The historical themes addressed include 1950s and '60s lesbian bar culture; social life after the Cuban revolution; the organization of transvestite social clubs in the U.S. midwest in the 1960s; Australian gay liberation activism in the 1970s; San Francisco electoral politics and the career of Harvey Milk; Asian American community organizing in pre-AIDS Los Angeles; lesbian feminist "sex war" cultural politics; 1980s and '90s Latina/o transgender community memory and activism in San Francisco; and the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. The methodological themes include questions of silence, sexual self-disclosure and voyeurism, the intimacy between researcher and narrator, and the social and political commitments negotiated through multiple oral history interviews. The book also examines the production of comparative racial and sexual identities and the relative strengths of same-sexuality, cross-sexuality, and cross-ideology interviewing.
Bodies of Men
by Nigel FeatherstoneShortlisted for the 2019 Queensland Literary Awards - FICTIONLonglisted for the 2020 ARA Historical Novel Prize2019 Canberra Critics Circle Award - FICTION'a beautiful, tender, captivating story' - Joanna Nell, author of The Single Ladies of Jacaranda Retirement Village'It is a tender, liberating love story, but, as Featherstone originally intended, a provoking one about our definitions of masculinity, bravery and courage.' - Canberra Times'a novel about intimacy and devotion, the power of tenderness, the mysteries of time, presence, and absence, secrets revealed and withheld, and friendships between strangers emerging from dire circumstances' - Australian Book ReviewThere is nothing more important than love and refuge.Egypt, 1941. Only hours after disembarking in Alexandria, William Marsh, an Australian lieutenant at twenty-one, is face down in the sand, caught in a stoush with the Italian enemy. He is saved by James Kelly, a childhood friend from Sydney and the last person he expected to see. But where William escapes unharmed, not all are so fortunate. William is sent to supervise an army depot in the Western Desert, with a private directive to find an AWOL soldier: James Kelly. When the two are reunited, James is recovering from an accident, hidden away in the home of an unusual family - a family with secrets. Together they will risk it all to find answers.Soon William and James are thrust headlong into territory more dangerous than either could have imagined.'A beautifully written, tender and sensitive love story told within the tense and uncertain context of war.' - Karen Viggers, bestselling author of The Lightkeeper's Wife'This is a strangely gentle novel about wartime conflict, violence, and chaos.' - Sydney Morning Herald
The Bodies of Others: Drag Dances and Their Afterlives (Triangulations: Lesbian/Gay/Queer Theater/Drama/Performance)
by Selby Wynn SchwartzThe Bodies of Others explores the politics of gender in motion. From drag ballerinas to faux queens, and from butoh divas to the club mothers of modern dance, the book delves into four decades of drag dances on American stages. Drag dances take us beyond glittery one-liners and into the spaces between gender norms. In these backstage histories, dancers give their bodies over to other selves, opening up the category of realness. The book maps out a drag politics of embodiment, connecting drag dances to queer hope, memory, and mourning. There are aging étoiles, midnight shows, mystical séances, and all of the dust and velvet of divas in their dressing-rooms. But these forty years of drag dances are also a cultural history, including Mark Morris dancing the death of Dido in the shadow of AIDS, and the swans of Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo sketching an antiracist vision for ballet. Drawing on queer theory, dance history, and the embodied practices of dancers themselves, The Bodies of Others examines the ways in which drag dances undertake the work of a shared queer and trans politics.
Body Impossible: Desmond Richardson and the Politics of Virtuosity (Oxford Studies in Dance Theory)
by Ariel OsterweisBody Impossible theorizes the concept of virtuosity in contemporary dance and performance through a study of the career of dancer Desmond Richardson. A virtuoso for the ages, Richardson is renowned for delivering commanding performances over decades in contexts ranging from the stages of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and Ballett Frankfurt to featured appearances with Michael Jackson and Prince, along with his work as co-founder of Complexions Contemporary Ballet, inaugurating a virtuosic queer black aesthetic with choreographer Dwight Rhoden. Focusing on Richardson's creative insistence on improvisatory fun and excellence throughout the decades approaching the millennium (shaped by Reaganism, the Culture Wars, the AIDS epidemic, the New Jim Crow, and MTV), this book brings dance into conversation with paradigms of blackness, queerness, masculinity, and class in order to generate a socioculturally attentive understanding of virtuosity. Virtuosity obscures the border between popular and concert performance, and Richardson's versatility epitomizes the demands on the contemporary virtuosic dance artist. Author Ariel Osterweis suggests that discourses of virtuosity are linked to connotations of excess, and that an examination of the formal and socio-cultural aspects of virtuosic performance reveals under-recognized heterogeneity in which we detect ?vernacular? influences on ?high art.? In doing so, Body Impossible accounts for the constitutive relationship between disciplined perceptions of virtuosity's excess and the disciplining of the racialized body in national and transnational contexts.
Body Impossible: Desmond Richardson and the Politics of Virtuosity (Oxford Studies in Dance Theory)
by Ariel OsterweisBody Impossible theorizes the concept of virtuosity in contemporary dance and performance through a study of the career of dancer Desmond Richardson. A virtuoso for the ages, Richardson is renowned for delivering commanding performances over decades in contexts ranging from the stages of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and Ballett Frankfurt to featured appearances with Michael Jackson and Prince, along with his work as co-founder of Complexions Contemporary Ballet, inaugurating a virtuosic queer black aesthetic with choreographer Dwight Rhoden. Focusing on Richardson's creative insistence on improvisatory fun and excellence throughout the decades approaching the millennium (shaped by Reaganism, the Culture Wars, the AIDS epidemic, the New Jim Crow, and MTV), this book brings dance into conversation with paradigms of blackness, queerness, masculinity, and class in order to generate a socioculturally attentive understanding of virtuosity. Virtuosity obscures the border between popular and concert performance, and Richardson's versatility epitomizes the demands on the contemporary virtuosic dance artist. Author Ariel Osterweis suggests that discourses of virtuosity are linked to connotations of excess, and that an examination of the formal and socio-cultural aspects of virtuosic performance reveals under-recognized heterogeneity in which we detect ?vernacular? influences on ?high art.? In doing so, Body Impossible accounts for the constitutive relationship between disciplined perceptions of virtuosity's excess and the disciplining of the racialized body in national and transnational contexts.
Body My House: May Swenson's Work and Life
by Paul Crumbley Patricia M. GanttThe first collection of critical essays on May Swenson and her literary universe, Body My House initiates an academic conversation about an unquestionably major poet of the middle and late twentienth century. Between the 1950s and the 1980s, May Swenson produced eleven volumes of poetry, received many major awards, was elected chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, and was acclaimed by writers in virtually every school of American poetry. Essays here address the breadth of Swenson's literary corpus and offer varied scholarly approaches to it. They reference Swenson manuscripts---poems, letters, diaries, and other prose---some of which have not been widely available before. Chapters focus on Swenson's work as a nature writer; the literary and social contexts of her writing; her national and international acclaim; her work as a translator; associations with other poets and writers (Bishop, Moore, and others); her creative process; and her profound explorations of gender and sexuality. The first full volume of scholarship on May Swenson, Body My House suggest an ambitious agenda for further work. Contributors include Mark Doty, Gudrun Grabher, Cynthia Hogue, Suzann Juhasz, R.R. Knudson, Alicia Ostriker, Martha Nell Smith, Michael Spooner, Paul Swenson, and Kirstin Hotelling Zona.
The Body of Jonah Boyd: A Novel
by David LeavittDenny is a secretary who has just begun an affair with her boss, while also maintaining a friendship with his wife. Invited to the family's house for Thanksgiving dinner, she enters into a chain of events that will change everyone's lives in ways that none can imagine. Hilarious, scorching, and full of surprises, The Body of Jonah Boyd is a tribute to the power of home, the lure of success, and, above all, the sisterhood of secretaries. "The book, with its acerbic tone and tight plot, is an unlikely vehicle for a paean to domesticity, yet it's this odd fit that makes The Body of Jonah Boyd such a pleasure."-New York Times Book Review
Bolla
by Pajtim StatovciIt is April, 1995. Kosovo is a country on the cusp of a dreadful war. Arsim is twenty-two, newly married, cautious - an Albanian trying to keep his head down and finish his studies in an atmosphere of creeping threat. Until he encounters Milos, a Serb, and begins a life in secret. Bolla is the story of what happens when passion and history collide - when a relationship, already forbidden and laced with danger, is ripped apart by war and migration, separated by nations and fate. What happens when you are forced to live a life that is not yours, so far from your desires? Can the human remain?
Bonding: The beach read with big ideas
by Mariel FranklinThe beach read with big ideas'I absolutely loved it.' - Zadie Smith, author of The Fraud'Audacious, hot, deeply uncomfortable and genuinely thrilling' - Saba Sams, author of Send NudesAdrift in her early thirties, Mary sets out to change her life, one ill-advised decision at a time.First, she books a spontaneous flight to Ibiza where she meets Tom, a brilliant young chemist working on an experimental drug called Eudaxa that claims to cure the anxieties of modern life. As their connection deepens, Mary thinks she might finally be falling in love.Then Mary lands a job at Openr, an innovative dating app with no limits. Its founder, Mary’s ex girlfriend Lara, will do everything it takes to make it a global phenomenon.When Mary introduces Lara and Tom, love and pharma collide with devastating consequences. As whispers about Eudaxa’s side effects begin to grow, Mary is forced to ask whether love is even possible in a society that is falling apart.Electrifying, urgent, and darkly funny, Mariel Franklin's Bonding is a uniquely modern story of sex and freedom in the messy tangle of our digital age.'Part love story, part love-mare, Bonding asks big, bold questions about the future of human relations and relationships' - Sarah May, author of Becky
Bone Black: Memories of Girlhood
by bell hooksOne of bell hooks' foundational works introduced to the UK for the first time.'With the emotion of poetry, the narrative of a novel, and the truth of experience, bell hooks weaves a girlhood memoir you won't be able to put down―or forget. Bone Black takes us into the cave of self-creation' Gloria SteinemStitching together the threads of her girlhood memories, bell hooks shows us one strong-spirited child's journey toward becoming the pioneering writer we know. Along the way, hooks sheds light on the vulnerability of children, the special unfurling of female creativity and the imbalance of a society that confers marriage's joys upon men and its silences on women.In a world where daughters and fathers are strangers under the same roof, and crying children are often given something to cry about, hooks uncovers the solace to be found in solitude, the comfort to be had in the good company of books.Bone Black allows us to bear witness to the awakening of a legendary author's awareness that writing is her most vital breath.
The Bone Spindle: Book 1 (The Bone Spindle #1)
by Leslie VedderTwo girl treasure hunters. One sleeping prince. A hundred-year-old curse and one very angry witch. Fantasy with m/f and f/f romance for fans of CINDERELLA IS DEAD. A pacey, fractured twist on a classic fairy tale.Filore, a treasure hunter with a knack for riddles, is busy running from her own deadly curse, when she pricks her finger on a spindle. Bound to the sleeping prince Briar Rose with the spindle's magic - and chosen as the only person who can wake him - Fi is stuck with the prince's ghost until she can break his ancient curse and save his kingdom.She's going to need a partner. A warrior huntswoman with an axe to grind (literally), Shane couldn't care less about curses and ancient texts. But instead of riches, the two girls find trouble.Dark magic, witch hunters, nightmarish beasts - and of course, curses - all stand in their way as Fi and Shane undertake the dangerous journey into a forgotten kingdom where the sleeping prince's body waits.
The Bone Spindle: Book 2 (The Bone Spindle #2)
by Leslie VedderA pacey, fractured twist on a classic fairy tale!Having woken the sleeping prince, Briar Rose, Fi and Shane still have a curse to break, and a terrifying foe to face: the Spindle Witch. If they can defeat her, the land of Andar will be free again. The three journey to the secret city of Everlynd, and all the while Fi is fighting her feelings for Briar, while he is fighting the ever-growing pull of the Spindle Witch. On the way, they are ambushed by Red, the girl who Shane can't stop flirting with and arguing with. The girl in the service of the Spindle Witch. After an accident, the two are forced to work together. But then they're captured by a pack of Witch Hunters. Will Red finally pick the right side?Packed with kick-ass fight scenes and featuring two romantic storylines, this retelling of Sleeping Beauty is the breath-taking sequel to The Bone Spindle.
The Bone Spindle: Book 3 (The Bone Spindle #3)
by Leslie VedderTwo fighting partners. One monstrous prince. A last battle. The finale of The Bone Spindle, a fractured fairy tale based on Sleeping Beauty, with a m/f and a f/f romance. Perfect for fans of CINDERELLA IS DEAD.With Prince Briar Rose's life on the line as he slowly turns into a monster at the hands of the Spindle Witch, treasure hunter Fi must escape from a tower to rescue him.Meanwhile, her axe-wielding partner Shane is on the hunt for a mysterious weapon that holds the key to the Spindle Witch's demise. But Shane must also protect her lover, the beautiful witch Red, from the Spindle Witch's executioner.As tensions rise and partnerships crumble, Fi and Shane need to work together again, putting their treasure hunting skills to the test at the greatest lost ruin of them all - the tomb of the Witch Queen Aurora.Will they finally unravel the thread that ties them all together and defeat the Spindle Witch and her twisted creatures once and for all?Packed with kick-ass fight scenes and featuring two romantic storylines, this retelling of Sleeping Beauty is the spectacular finale to The Bone Spindle.
Bonny & Read
by Julie Walker'A cracking read. . . Fascinating, complex characters and a real page-turner!'LIZ HYDER, author of THE GIFTS 'Bonny and Read has it all. Adventure, atmosphere, sizzling suspense and unforgettable characters. Such a brilliant debut!'SD SYKES, author of THE GOOD DEATH'A deftly told tale of the complexities of friendship, female identity & freedom, featuring two remarkable women determined to define their own destinies . . . the pages turn themselves'ANITA FRANK, author of THE LOST ONES'What a debut! A fabulous, dangerous sea-shanty of a story' KATIE MUNNIK, author of THE AERIALISTSRebels. Pirates. Women. Caribbean, 1720. Two extraordinary women are on the run - from their pasts, from the British Navy and the threat of execution, and from the destiny that fate has written for them.Plantation owner's daughter, runaway wife, pirate - Anne Bonny has forged her own story in a man's world. But when she is involved in the capture of a British merchant ship, she is amazed to find another woman amongst the crew, with a history as unconventional as her own. Dressed as a boy from childhood, Mary Read has been a soldier, a sailor, a widow - but never a woman in charge of her own destiny.As their exhilarating, tumultuous exploits find fame, the ballad of Bonny and Read is sung from shore to shore - but when you swim against the tide of history, freedom is a dangerous thing...An exuberant reimagining of the extraordinary story of Bonny & Read - trailblazing, boundary-defying, swashbuckling heroines whose story deserves to be known. Perfect for fans of Ariadne, The Mercies and The Familiars.
The Book of Frank
by CAConradA visceral, surrealist tale of becoming, from the shamanic cult hero of contemporary queer poetryBeguiling, outrageous, playfully morbid and frequently stunning in its surreal flights of imagination, The Book of Frank follows the eponymous figure as he grows from his troubled childhood into an adult travesty of the ostensibly straight family man in a male-dominated world. Along the way, he navigates a series of darkly comic situations, commits acts of grotesque violence, loses his soul in the post and debates boundary lines with a pig. Frank is one of the great literary creations: a man who can declare that 'however we seek another's weakness is our tyranny', as often touchingly innocent as he is monstrously cruel. Called 'a contemporary masterpiece' by Thurston Moore, a 'desert island book' by Anne Boyer and 'this generation's Dream Songs' by Maggie Nelson, The Book of Frank is one of the crucial poetic works of this century so far. Now, on the 30th anniversary of the first Frank poems' appearance, it is published in the UK for the first time.
The Book of Minor Perverts: Sexology, Etiology, and the Emergences of Sexuality
by Benjamin KahanShortlisted for the Modernist Studies Assocation Book Prize Statue-fondlers, wanderlusters, sex magicians, and nymphomaniacs: the story of these forgotten sexualities—what Michel Foucault deemed “minor perverts”—has never before been told. In The Book of Minor Perverts, Benjamin Kahan sets out to chart the proliferation of sexual classification that arose with the advent of nineteenth-century sexology. The book narrates the shift from Foucault’s “thousand aberrant sexualities” to one: homosexuality. The focus here is less on the effects of queer identity and more on the lines of causation behind a surprising array of minor perverts who refuse to fit neatly into our familiar sexual frameworks. The result stands at the intersection of history, queer studies, and the medical humanities to offer us a new way of feeling our way into the past.
The Book of Non-Binary Joy: Embracing the Power of You
by Ben Pechey'A joy to read' JEFFREY MARSH'I'm so happy this book exists' FREDDY MCCONNELL'Full of wit, fun and wisdom!' ALEX IANTAFFI'Oh hello darling, and welcome to The Book of Non-Binary Joy! This book is here to help you be yourself - free from judgement and expectation - as you unlock more joy in your life. Take my hand, and let's start your journey of self-love today.'Whether you are at the start of your journey or have been on the wild ride of gender introspection for a long time, this guide is here to help you thrive as your authentic - and most fabulous - non-binary self. With personal stories, valuable insights and interactive sections, this inspiring book covers a wide range of topics, including mental health, pleasure, fashion, understanding your past, allyship privilege and self-expression.Written with warmth and unapologetic humour, and with bold illustrations throughout, Ben Pechey has created the ultimate safe space for you to embrace your non-binary life and start living.
The Book of Queer Prophets: 21 Writers On Sexuality And Religion
by Ruth Hunt‘A fascinating and thoughtful exploration of faith in the modern world. If you’re wondering why it matters and how to make sense of it, read on.’ – Clare Balding
A Bookshop of One’s Own: How A Group Of Women Set Out To Change The World
by Jane CholmeleyThe captivating true story of an underdog business – a feminist bookshop founded in Thatcher’s Britain – from a woman at the heart of the women’s liberation movement. An Independent and Stylist Best Non-Fiction Book for 2024
Bookshops & Bonedust: A Heartwarming Cosy Fantasy and TikTok Sensation
by Travis Baldree'Glorious' - Ben Aaronovitch, author of the Rivers of London seriesA standalone cosy fantasy about the power of good bookshops, great friends and the unexpected choices along the way from the bestselling author of BookTok sensation Legends & Lattes. First loves. Second-hand books. Epic adventures.Viv’s career with the renowned mercenary company Rackam’s Ravens isn’t going as planned. Wounded during the hunt for a powerful necromancer, she’s packed off against her will to recuperate in the sleepy beach town of Murk – so far from the action that she worries she’ll never be able to return to it. What’s a thwarted soldier of fortune to do?Spending her hours at a struggling bookshop in the company of its foul-mouthed proprietor is the last thing Viv would have predicted. Even though it may be exactly what she needs. Still, adventure isn’t far away. A suspicious traveller in grey, a gnome with a chip on her shoulder, a summer fling and an improbable number of skeletons prove Murk to be more eventful than Viv could have ever expected.Sometimes, right things happen at the wrong time. Sometimes, what we need isn’t what we seek. And sometimes, we find ourselves in the stories we experience together . . .'A perfectly executed prequel . . . the stakes are higher and the scones are hotter still!' - Nicholas Eames