The Backstreets of Purgatory
The Backstreets of Purgatory

Author: Helen Taylor

Publisher: Unbound Publishing

Published: 2018-07-12

Total Pages: 390

ISBN-13: 1783525568

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Finn Garvie’s life is one spectacular mess. He spends most of his time fannying around a makeshift Glasgow studio, failing to paint his degree portfolio, while his girlfriend Lizzi treats him like one of her psychology patients, and his best friend Rob is convinced that the tattoos he designs are the height of artistic achievement. To top it all, Finn is worried that some stinking bastard is hanging around, spying on him, laughing at his cock-ups and eating his leftover curry. Fortunately, he has plenty of techniques to distract him – tackling the church hall renovations with the help of his alcoholic neighbour; pining after Kassia, the splendidly stroppy au-pair; and re-reading that book on Caravaggio, his all-time hero. Things take a turn for the strange when he finally encounters the person who’s been bugging him, and it seems to be none other than Caravaggio himself... Art, truth and madness come to blows in this darkly funny debut novel from a startling new talent. 'Fascinating and incredibly funny – this is a bold new voice in Scottish fiction' 17 Degrees 'She has written a Scottish novel of significance and I can’t recommend it enough' Scots Whay Hae 'Memorable and intriguing' Undiscovered Scotland

Nocturnes in Purgatory
Nocturnes in Purgatory

Author: Joseph Armstead

Publisher: By Light Unseen Media

Published: 2012-12-15

Total Pages: 338

ISBN-13: 1935303465

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

New Barrington and West Sussex on California's Borrego Bay are bustling modern cities to nearly all their human inhabitants. But behind their daylight facade is a festering supernatural underworld ceaselessly struggling for control. Metahuman warrior Montgomery Quinn, known as The Adversary, is the only force that can resist the evils threatening to overrun not just the Twin Cities, but all of the mortal world. An ancient artefact of power, The Sigil, has resurfaced, and the factions of Borrego Bay's night world are desperately competing to claim it. The Verrigotta Gather of vampires has rescued a local businessman's daughter, Brooke, from the kidnappers who tortured her to death and revived her as one of the undead. Brooke was investigating mysterious events in her area and learned too much about The Lost Sons of Purgatory, a cult of mass murderers who want The Sigil to bring their god into reality from another dimension. The government agencies responsible for the tenuous truce between humans and the beings called Ultrakin call on Quinn for help, along with a Bloodwitch named January Ulrich, or "Cold Janey." Together, Quinn and Janey track down the mystery of The Sigil, who wants it so badly and why. Reluctantly aiding them are Quinn's sometime-partners, Sam Carstairs and Ashton Brazil, and Patricia Silver, a professor whose love for Quinn led to her becoming one of the vengeful ghosts called Le Grymmeure. Meanwhile, Quinn himself is stalked by three members of his own ancient race, the Olympians, seeking retribution for a past crime of Quinn's. But they also have an interest in The Sigil. In a complex and tangled plot that evokes the best of H.P. Lovecraft and Robert Ludlum, Quinn and his allies--human and Ultrakin--follow the Sigil and its pursuers to a tense final showdown that holds some bitter revelations for The Adversary himself.

YA MUM and Other Stories from the Backstreets of Britain
YA MUM and Other Stories from the Backstreets of Britain

Author: Ben Tallon

Publisher: Ben Tallon

Published: 2020-09-03

Total Pages: 69

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

YA MUM is a rancid collection of short stories, moments and embarrassments from Britain’s cultural underbelly. Whilst hordes of tourists take selfies in front of Tower Bridge and St. Paul’s Cathedral, a used condom is strewn lifelessly on the chewing gum infested pavement. Another spent mattress materialises overnight by the communal bins of a slumbering high-rise apartment block and the skeleton of a bike without wheels cries out for its owner. Writer and illustrator Ben Tallon invites you to take a naughty peek through the two-way mirror, onto all things dubious and dirty at the arse-end of British life.

When Demons Walk
When Demons Walk

Author: Patricia Briggs

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 1998-06-01

Total Pages: 292

ISBN-13: 9780441005345

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Mercy Thompson series and the Alpha and Omega novels comes the fourth novel set in the world of Sianim... Sham had spent most of her young life as a sorceress and thief, stealing from Southwood’s nobility to survive. Now Sham must face the greatest test of her skills. A killer has struck Southwood, claiming the lives of nobles. Lord Kerim, Reeve of Southwood, turns to Sham for help. Posing as his mistress, she delves behind castle walls to find the killer. But this murderer is no mortal—and Sham must use all of her magical wisdom to send the demon away. Because the city of Southwood has nowhere to hide—and no time to run...

Saint Menace
Saint Menace

Author: John Tomaino

Publisher: Tenth Street Press

Published: 2013-03-01

Total Pages: 186

ISBN-13: 0987439979

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The statue of Saint Menaus had been the source of controversy amongst the townspeople for centuries. Some worshipped at the foot of the biblical monument, while others dared not approach it, frightened by generations of folklore about the saint who had succumbed to Satan. The young earned their rite of passage into adulthood upon hearing of the saint’s sins, and only if they refrained from repeating the details and evoking the troubled spirit. A bond now exists to unite all men on earth: The Internet - and Saint Menaus is ready to command his silent army throughout the web. None is more devout than Mr Winter Jeffrey. His feverish evangelism flourishes in the stealth of the net, where old crimes play out in new ways. No messy blood trails. No fleeing from crime scenes. Immune from the reach of traditional policing. A place where identities are lost in online ghettos with dial-up vulnerability. All Saint Menaus needs is a chat-room handle. Jesus had his disciples. God had his saints. But what if the devil didn’t work alone? What if he, too, had a helper? The original devil’s advocate. Satan’s very own servant. Saint Menace: The Patron Saint of Terror.

How Black Was My Valley
How Black Was My Valley

Author: Brad Evans

Publisher: Watkins Media Limited

Published: 2024-04-09

Total Pages: 313

ISBN-13: 1913462854

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Providing a searing insight and honest portrayal of post-industrial communities ravaged by decades of abandonment, How Black Was My Valley is the story of lives defined by poverty, catastrophe and the fading dreams of better futures. How Black Was My Valley is a people's history of the former mining communities of South Wales. Weaving together the personal with the political, it offers a damning depiction of the hardship and suffering, the tragedy and pain, as a politically abandoned people went from powering the British Empire and the Great Wars, to a broken post-industrial community, lost in time. It travels with devastating and yet humane insight across the dark shadows of the valley’s history. In doing so, it deals with disaster and resistance; memory and landscapes of despair; the brutal past and the neglected present; hardship and poverty; unemployment and isolation; lack of opportunity and the normalisation of hopelessness; death and suffering; structural violence and everyday subjugation; onto the crises of white male subjectivity and the exponential rise in drug abuse and personal suicide, whose troubling effects can no longer be easily contained within its mountainous walls. This is not a story of resilience. Instead, readers are taken on a journey into an open wound, whose once silent screams can no longer be ignored.

Jack London
Jack London

Author: Alex Kershaw

Publisher: Macmillan + ORM

Published: 2013-08-20

Total Pages: 422

ISBN-13: 1466851694

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Raised in poverty as an illegitimate child, Jack London dropped out of school to support his mother, working in mind-deadening jobs that would foster a lifelong interest in socialism. Brilliant and self-taught, he haunted California's waterside bars, brawling with drunken sailors and learning about love from prostitutes. His lust for adventure took him from the beaches of Hawaii to the gold fields of Alaska, where he experienced firsthand the struggles for survival he would later immortalize in classics like White Fang and The Call of the Wild. A hard-drinking womanizer with children to support, Jack London was no stranger to passion when he met and married Charmian Kittredge, the love of his life. Despite his adventurous past, London had never before met a woman like Charmian; she adored fornication and boxing, and willingly risked life and limb to sail and explore. She typed his manuscripts while he churned out novels, serving as his inspiration and his critic. Lover, fighter, and onetime hobo, Jack London lived large and died before he was forty. This is a rare biography, from bestselling historian Alex Kershaw, that proves the truth can be more fascinating--and a far greater adventure--than a fiction.

When Stars Die
When Stars Die

Author: Amber Skye Forbes

Publisher: Lulu.com

Published: 2015-11-11

Total Pages: 152

ISBN-13: 1329621034

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The City of Malva is rife with puritanical hatred for witches. It is said they embody the Seven Deadly sins of mankind. Amelia's only chance of saving her brother Nathaniel, a born witch, is to become a professed nun at Cathedral Reims. Enduring a series of trials including starvation, isolation, physical abuse and blood-sucking leaches, she will sacrifice all that she is to save him. Complicating all of this is the fact that Amelia can see what is lurking in the shadows. Shadowmen, seeking witches like Nathaniel to join their ranks. This group of Shadowmen begin planning. The results could be devastating. Oliver Cromwell, a dashing priest at Cathedral Reims, is the only one who can protect Amelia, her brother and save Malva. Yet, he may prove to be more dangerous than the shadows themselves.

The Reach of Rome
The Reach of Rome

Author: Alberto Angela

Publisher: Rizzoli Publications

Published: 2013-10-15

Total Pages: 426

ISBN-13: 0847841413

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In this unconventional and accessible history, Italian best-seller Alberto Angela literally follows the money to map the reach and power of the Roman Empire. To see a map of the Roman Empire at the height of its territorial expansion is to be struck by its size, stretching from Scotland to Kuwait, from the Sahara to the North Sea. What was life like in the Empire, and how were such diverse peoples and places united under one rule? The Reach of Rome explores these questions through an ingenious lens: the path of a single coin as it changes hands and traverses the vast realms of the empire in the year 115. Admired in his native Italy for his ability to bring history to life through narrative, Alberto Angela opens up the ancient world to readers who have felt intimidated by the category or put off by dry historical tomes. By focusing on aspects of daily life so often overlooked in more academic treatments, The Reach of Rome travels back in time and shows us a world that was perhaps not very different from our own. And by following the path of a coin through the streams of commerce, we can touch every corner of that world and its people, from legionnaires and senators to prostitutes and slaves. Through lively and detailed vignettes all based on archeological and historical evidence, Angela reveals the vast Roman world and its remarkable modernity, and in so doing he reinforces the relevance of the ancient world for a new generation of readers.