From the bestselling author of Sanctuary comes a thrilling Orwellian vision of Britain, with a rebellious Hunger Games heart. Tarnished City is the second title in Vic James's electrifying Dark Gifts Trilogy, following Gilded Cage. A corrupted city A dark dream of power Luke is a prisoner, condemned for a murder he didn’t commit. Abi is a fugitive, desperate to free him before magic breaks his mind. But as the Jardines tighten their grip on a turbulent Britain, brother and sister face a fight greater than their own. New alliances and old feuds will remake the nation, leaving Abi and Luke questioning everything – and everyone – they know. And as Silyen Jardine hungers for the forgotten Skill of the legendary Wonder King, the country’s darkest hour approaches. Freedom and knowledge both come at a cost. So who will pay the price?
MAGIC COMPELS. WE BLEED. The captivating dystopian trilogy that began with Gilded Cage continues. In a modern Britain where magic users control wealth, politics—and you—an uprising has been crushed. In its aftermath, two families will determine the country’s fate. The ruthless Jardines make a play for ultimate power. And the Hadleys, once an ordinary family, must find the extraordinary strength to fight back. Abi Hadley is a fugitive. Her brother, Luke, a prisoner. Both will discover that in the darkest places, the human spirit shines brightest. Meanwhile, amid his family’s intrigues, Silyen Jardine dreams of forgotten powers from an earlier age. As blood runs in the streets of London, all three will discover whether love and courage can ever be stronger than tyranny. How do you choose when you can’t save everyone? Look for all three books in the mesmerizing Dark Gifts trilogy: GILDED CAGE • TARNISHED CITY • BRIGHT RUIN Praise for Tarnished City “Highly recommended . . . There’s an admirable level of world-building . . . with real moments of empathy and compassion [and] a true nail-biter of a cliffhanger ending.”—Fantasy Literature “Multifaceted complexity . . . lively, determined characters.”—Publishers Weekly
MAGIC RULES. WE SERVE. In a darkly fantastical debut set in modern-day Britain, magic users control everything: wealth, politics, power—and you. If you’re not one of the ultimate one-percenters—the magical elite—you owe them ten years of service. Do those years when you’re old, and you’ll never get through them. Do them young, and you’ll never get over them. This is the darkly decadent world of Gilded Cage. In its glittering milieu move the all-powerful Jardines and the everyday Hadleys. The families have only one thing in common: Each has three children. But their destinies entwine when one family enters the service of the other. They will all discover whether any magic is more powerful than the human spirit. Have a quick ten years. . . . Look for all three books in the mesmerizing Dark Gifts trilogy: GILDED CAGE • TARNISHED CITY • BRIGHT RUIN Praise for Gilded Cage “Beautifully characterised and compellingly plotted, Gilded Cage is an impressive debut.”—The Guardian “Exquisitely wicked . . . a lavishly opulent, yet brutally vivid, alternate England which subtly questions modern beliefs . . . If ever there was a speculative fiction book that captured the zeitgeist of an era this is it.”—SFFWorld “An alternate modern-day England where enticing drama and social unrest mix with aristocratic scandal and glamorous magic . . . conjuring up the specters of Les Misérables and Downton Abbey . . . an absorbing first installment that presages an intriguing new fantasy series.”—Kirkus Reviews “Gilded Cage is a heart-pounding combination of dark magic, political revolution, and forbidden romance that had me addicted from the first page!”—Danielle L. Jensen, USA Today bestselling author of The Malediction Trilogy “Devious and deliciously dark with lashings of magic, mystery, and mayhem, this juggernaut of a book will keep you hanging on by your fingernails until the very last page.”—Taran Matharu, New York Times bestselling author of the Summoner series “A dark and intriguing vision of an alternate, magic-drenched Britain, Gilded Cage kept me up long into the night.”—Aliette de Bodard, author of The House of Shattered Wings
In the “thrilling conclusion”* to the dystopian trilogy that began with Gilded Cage and Tarnished City, the people of Britain rise up against their magically gifted masters. They must break the system—or be broken. MAGIC RUINS. WE RISE. The rules are simple, the system cruel: the lower classes must give ten years in service to Britain’s powerfully gifted rulers. With one uprising crushed by the glittering elite, commoners and aristocrats alike now take sides for a final confrontation. At the center of it all are two ordinary siblings: Abi Hadley and her brother, Luke. Each has reason to hate the ruling Jardine family. Abi, who was once their servant, now seeks revenge for a terrible wrong. Luke was imprisoned on their whim—but his only hope may be an alliance with the youngest and most powerful of the clan, the cold and inscrutable Silyen Jardine. Risking everything to end a bright and shining tyranny, Abi, Luke, and Silyen find themselves bound by a single destiny. Their actions will change their fates—and change the world. But at a cost almost too terrible to contemplate. What price would you pay for freedom? *Library Journal (starred review, Pick of the Month) Look for all three books in the mesmerizing Dark Gifts trilogy: GILDED CAGE • TARNISHED CITY • BRIGHT RUIN Praise for Bright Ruin “Fast-paced, entertaining, and a satisfying end to an epic story [with] dramatic class division based not on mere financial wealth but on a family’s magic.”—Booklist “A triumphant conclusion to this outstanding fantasy series . . . It will keep you up at night until you finish it, and you’ll take a huge breath as you can’t believe the story is over. If you haven’t read the first two installments, please do so, and then jump into the finale. You’ll fly through them all as you see Britain as you’ve never imagined—and you’ll hope against hope for the freedom that may never come.”—Bookreporter “Rebellion comes to a deadly boil in the final chapter of James’s Dark Gifts alternate history fantasy trilogy (after Tarnished City). . . . [An] intricate tale of ruthless scheming and bloody betrayals backlit by an unquenchable glimmer of hope.”—Publishers Weekly
In Dark Lady, Richard North Patterson displays the mastery of setting, psychology, and story that makes him unique among writers of suspense, and one of today's most original and enthralling novelists. In Steelton, a struggling Midwestern city on the cusp of an economic turnaround, two prominent men are found dead within days of each other. One is Tommy Fielding, a senior officer of the company building a new baseball stadium, the city's hope for the future. The other is Jack Novak, the local drug dealers' attorney of choice. Fielding's death with a prostitute, from an overdose of heroin, seems accidental; Novak is apparently the victim of a ritual murder. But in each case the character of the dead man seems contradicted by the particulars of his death. Coincidence or connection? The question falls to Assistant County Prosecutor Stella Marz. Despite a traumatic breach with her alcoholic and embittered father, she has risen from a working-class background to become head of the prosecutor's homicide unit. A driven woman, she is called the Dark Lady by defense lawyers for her relentless, sometimes ruthless, style: in seven years only one case has gotten away from her, and only because the defendant took his own life. She has earned every inch of both her official and her off-the-record titles, and recently she's decided to go after another: to become the first woman elected Prosecutor of Erie County. But that was before the brutal murder of her ex-lover--Jack Novak. Novak's death leads her into a labyrinth where her personal and professional lives become dangerously intertwined. There is the possibility that Novak fixed drug cases for the city's crime lord, Vincent Moro, with the help of law enforcement personnel, and perhaps with someone in Stella's own office . . . the bitter mayoral race which threatens to undermine her own ambitions . . . her attraction to a colleague who may not be what he seems . . . the lingering, complicated effects of her painful affair with Novak . . . the growing certainty that she is being watched and followed. Making her way through a maze of corruption, deceit, and greed, trusting no one, Stella comes to believe that the search for the truth involves the bleak history of Steelton itself--a history that now endangers her future, and perhaps her life. For his uncanny dialogue, subtle delineation of character, and hypnotic narrative, critics have compared Richard North Patterson to John O'Hara and Dashiell Hammett. Now, in the character of the Dark Lady, he has created a woman as fascinating as her world is haunting. Dark Lady is his signature work.
As Ruskin suggests in his Seven Lamps of Architecture: "We may live without [architecture], and worship without her, but we cannot remember without her." We remember best when we experience an event in a place. But what happens when we leave that place, or that place no longer exists? This book addresses the relationship between memory and place and asks how architecture captures and triggers memory. It explores how architecture exists as a material object and how it registers as a place that we come to remember beyond the physical site itself. It questions what architecture is in the broadest sense, assuming that it is not simply buildings. Rather, architecture is considered to be the mapping of physical, mental or emotional space. The idea that we are all architects in some measure - as we actively organize and select pathways and markers within space - is central to this book's premise. Each chapter provides a different example of the manifold ways in which the physical place of architecture is curated by the architecture in our "mental" space: our imaginary toolbox when we think of a place and look at a photograph, or visit a site and describe it later or send a postcard. By connecting architecture with other disciplines such as geography, visual culture, sociology, and urban studies, as well as the fine and performing arts, this book puts forward the idea that a conversation about architecture is not exclusively about formal, isolated buildings, but instead must be deepened and broadened as spatialized visualizations and experiences of place.
The Cloak Society has risen and heroes will fall in the epic conclusion to the Cloak Society series—a thrilling middle grade trilogy that's perfect for fans of the Alex Rider Adventures and the 39 Clues. The Cloak Society has finally risen to power—by posing as the saviors of Sterling City. As long as the people believe Cloak's lies, Alex and his friends are all that stand in the way of total Cloak domination. But to bring Cloak to justice, Alex must make a final stand against his parents, his past, and the life of supervillainy he's always known. Praised by Publishers Weekly for its "rapid-fire, comic book–style action" and by School Library Journal for having "the same wide appeal as Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson books," the Cloak Society trilogy delivers high-stakes battles, extraordinary superpowers, and an original twist on the superhero stories readers know and love. Can a villain ever truly become a hero? In this explosive series finale, the stakes are higher than ever—and the answer will be decided once and for all.
In the running debate we call the "culture wars," there exists a great feud over religious diversity. One side demands that only their true religion be allowed in the public square; the other insists that no religions ever belong there. The Right to Be Wrong offers a solution, drawing its lessons from a series of stories--both contemporary and historical--that illustrates the struggle to define religious freedom. The book concludes that freedom for all is guaranteed by the truth about each of us: Our common humanity entitles us to freedom--within broad limits--to follow what we believe to be true as our consciences say we must, even if our consciences are mistaken. Thus, we can respect others' freedom when we're sure they're wrong. In truth, they have the right to be wrong.
