A novelette of 10,000 words, sequel to Hambly's Darwath series. The Keep of Dare is an enclosed fortress: no one knows all its secrets and corners. When people start disappearing, the Archmage Ingold Inglorion and his two Californian companions - warrior Gil Patterson and novice wizard Rudy Solis - are faced with the possibility that some deadly entity is hiding in the darkness of the Keep. And the situation is not improved when Ingold himself disappears.

The new ‘James Asher’ vampire novel from the best-selling author - It’s 1911. War is coming, and according to one of the vampires of St. Petersburg, the Kaiser is trying to recruit vampires. James Asher, Oxford don and formerly on His Majesty’s Secret Service, is forced to team up again with his vampire partner Don Simon Ysidro for a journey to the subarctic Russian capital. Are they on the trail of a rogue vampire with a plan to achieve the power to walk in daylight? Asher wonders. Or is Ysidro’s real agenda to seek the woman he once loved?

A novelette of 16,000 words, the follow-on to the Asher and Ysidro vampire series. When Lydia Asher, recently arrived in New York in the closing years of World War One, asks her friend, the "recovering" vampire Don Simon Ysidro, to accompany her and an acquaintance to a seance, she expects only to find evidence of fraud. What they find, instead, is a plot to steal a fortune - and to commit murder.

A novelette of 15,000 words, sequel to Hambly's Sun Wolf and Starhawk novels. Former barbarian mercenary Sun Wolf re-visits the ruined fortress of the Wizard-King, hoping to find the books of magic that the dead sorcerer hoarded. He finds, instead, that a) the defenses and curses that Wizard-King set on his fortress are still very much active and b) there are other mages, as inexperienced as himself, in quest of those books: mages who will stop at nothing to get to them first.

"You shall never have a penny of my money. Leave me alone or I will shoot you dead!" 1924. After six months in Hollywood, young British widow Emma Blackstone has come to love her new employer, glamourous movie-star Kitty Flint – even if her late husband's sister is one of the worst actresses she's ever seen. Looking after Kitty and her three adorable Pekinese dogs isn't work Emma dreamed of, but Kitty rescued her when she was all alone in the world. Now, the worst thing academically-minded Emma has to worry about is the shocking historical inaccuracies of the films Kitty stars in. Until, that is, Rex Festraw – Kitty's first husband, to whom she may or may not still be married – turns up dead in her dressing room, a threatening letter seemingly from Kitty in his pocket. Emma's certain her flighty but kind-hearted sister-in-law has been framed. But who by? And why? From spiteful rivals to jealous boyfriends, the suspects are numerous. But as Emma...

A short story in the Benjamin January Free Man of Color series. Rose Janvier, Benjamin's wife, is left at home in pre-Civil-War New Orleans when Benjamin goes off to solve a crime in another city. When the high-living brother of one of her neighbors is murdered, Rose uses her own detective skills to track down the killer, despite the fact that the white City Guards have arrested her and everyone else on the street as suspects.

Who\'s been killing the vampires of London, tearing open their coffins to let in lethal sunshine as they sleep--and then drinking their blood? "Hambly\'s examination of vampirism is beautifully detailed, with a fine realistic background and strong sense of atmosphere...Will give Anne Rice a run for her money."--Publishers Weekly --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

A novelette of 15,000 words, sequel to the Windrose Chronicles series by Barbara Hambly. When the head of a Los Angeles criminal gang seeks out exiled wizard Antryg Windrose looking for wizardly advice on his love life, Antryg realizes that the man's girlfriend is a lamia, a trans-dimensional creature that absorbs the soul and personality of her victim, a little at a time. Unfortunately her victims become addicted to the process of having their souls drained, who while the lamia is becoming more and more like a Los Angeles criminal - in cunning, ruthlessness, and selfishness - her victim, though demanding his freedom from her, is not really willing to give her up. And this is before she starts hunting other victims...

When Rhion the banker\'s son met the Master Wizard Jaldis, Jaldis said, "Come." Rhion came, leaving everything behind to answer the call in his blood. And through long years of drudgery and persecution, he had no regrets. Thus he became a wizard. A noble burned out Jaldis\' eyes to please some god; Rhion made magic glasses so he could see. Together, they opened the dark well to the Abyss between universes, and a cry for help came from a world that had lost all magic. Could that happen to their world? Though forced to flee again, Jaldis was determined to reach that world through the Abyss, to help and to find how the magic was lost. Rhion had nightmares over that. Jaldis was blind without magic. Rhion could not let him go alone. Yet the Abyss terrorized Rhion. Guided only by a voice without magic, they might land on the wrong world or drift forever in the hell of the void. And how could they ever return? The idea made Rhion shudder to the depths of his soul. Yet he was sure that someday the nightmare must come true!

Down through the deathless centuries, the vampires had drunk human blood for sustenance and for sport. They preyed where they willed, for no mortal humans could resist their unclean powers. But now came the ultimate perversion, the unthinkable: someone was conscripting the vampires into the secret services of a foreign power. No government agency or bureaucrat could control the Undead. The idea was absurd, as Dr. James Asher knew all too well. Years in His Majesty\'s service had taught Asher the finer points of espionage. And he knew the secrets of the vampires--a familiarity hard-won in unwilling service to Don Simon Ysidro, oldest and most subtle of the hunters of the London night. What Asher didn\'t know was why one of England\'s established vampires would risk everything to travel across the European continent at the behest of a ruthless spymaster. But he could see the terrifying potential of such an unholy alliance...

Nineteenth-century New Orleans is a blazing hotbed of scorching politics and personal vendettas. And it's into this fire that Benjamin January falls when he is hired to follow Oliver Weems, a bank official who has absconded with $100,000 in gold and securities. But it's more than just a job for January. The missing money is vital to the survival of the school for freed slaves that he and his wife Rose have founded. Following the suspected embezzler--and the money--onto the steamboat Silver Moon, January, Rose, and their friend Hannibal Sefton are sworn to secrecy about the crime until they can find the trunks containing the stolen loot. And then the unexpected happens: Weems is found murdered and suddenly the job of finding the pirated stash grows not only more difficult--but more deadly. There is no shortage of suspects--from the sinister slave-dealer to the bullying steamship pilot to the suspiciously innocent "lady" with connections to every river pirate in the riotous port of Natchez-Under-the-Hill--who all seem to have something to hide. Now, with time running out, January seeks clues wherever he can find them--and allies among whoever can help. Working in tandem with a young planter named Jefferson Davies, he must uncover the dark web of corruption, betrayal, and greed that has already cost one man his life...and, if he can't catch a brutal, remorseless killer, will soon cost January and his friends theirs.From the Hardcover edition.From Publishers WeeklyHambly's brilliantly crafted eighth historical (after 2003's Days of the Dead) brings the antebellum South so alive you could swear the author traveled back in time to observe her settings firsthand. One day a week the slaves of New Orleans gather at Circus Square (aka Congo Square): "Those who had garden plots sold their surplus produce: tomatoes and corn… and peaches whose scent turned the thick hot air around them to molten gold." Series hero Benjamin January, a former slave, and his gracious wife Rose own a fine home in which they've begun a school to educate young girls of color. But when the president of the bank where all the Januarys' money has been deposited comes to them and confides that a bank employee has cleaned out the coffers, the pair have only one choice: follow the thief and recover the money before a substantial payment is due on their mortgage. Enlisting the aid of their cultured and charming white ne'er-do-well friend, Hannibal Sefton, the two pose as Hannibal's slaves/servants and board a steamboat heading up the Mississippi River. On the boat, they find themselves amid slave runners, abolitionists and a host of interesting, unsavory and downright terrifying individuals. So when their quarry is transformed into a corpse, it's no wonder the trio have no idea who might be trusted. This riveting novel of suspense is sure to win Hambly many new fans. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From BooklistThe latest entry in the deservedly popular Benjamin January series finds the amateur sleuth investigating a couple of mysteries. The bank that holds all his money has suddenly and suspiciously collapsed, and someone has apparently put a curse on a former student in the small school operated by January's wife, Rose. Just goes to show: New Orleans, circa 1836, is a wild and dangerous place. The January novels--this is the eighth since 1997--are solid mysteries, but most readers are not tuning in for the plots. Perhaps because she started out writing sf and fantasy novels (and still keeps her hand in the genre), the author has a sure grasp of the art of writing historical fiction, and the novels in this series are clever mixtures of scholarship and imagination. Where many writers of historical mysteries get bogged down in exposition, or in cataloging details that most readers are not interested in, Hambly keeps things moving, always focused on her characters and her story, and not on showing off the quantity of research she's done. Keep 'em coming! David PittCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

A special three-in-one edition of Barbara Hambly's Sun Wolf and Starhawk Series In The Ladies of Mandrigyn, a brilliant mercenary must lead his army against the forces of the most powerful wizard alive. Gifted with courage, strength, and the intelligence to know when to fight, Sun Wolf is the greatest mercenary in a land overrun by war. With his first lieutenant, Starhawk, at his side, he has laid waste to countless cities, taking the best of their treasures for himself, and distributing the rest among his bloodthirsty crew.Then a woman comes to him, an emissary from the town of Mandrigyn, a lush port city recently sacked by a powerful, mad wizard of unmatched abilities. She offers Sun Wolf untold riches for the use of his army, but the captain is not fool enough to wage war against a magician. He refuses her offer, but that is not the end of it. The women of Mandrigyn can be very persuasive.In The Witches of Wenshar, to harness his...

From a New York Times–bestselling author, three novels of a modern-day medievalist beset by murder and magic—“A fabulously talented writer” (Charlaine Harris). As a student of medieval history, Gil Patterson is a woman familiar with dark stories. She knows the Crusades, the Black Death, and the other horrors of the Middle Ages all too well, but it is another kind of atrocity that has begun to haunt her dreams. She sees forces of evil assaulting a beleaguered kingdom, whose kind people are on the brink of annihilation, and awakes each morning in a cold sweat. In The Time of the Dark, Gil dismisses the dreams until a wizard appears in her apartment. He has crossed into her dimension, passing through the fraying fabric of the universe, to ask her help. For mankind to survive he must protect an infant prince, whom he plans to hide in Gil\'s world. She is about to get much closer to evil than she ever imagined. In The Walls of Air and The Armies of Daylight, Gil and Rudy know the world is no longer safe and there is nowhere to hide from the Dark. Since the Dark Ones returned, the world has been laid to waste. The land’s wizards have been slaughtered, its cities destroyed, and its people scattered in terror. Few have witnessed more of the destruction than Gil and Rudy, and both of them will need all their strength to survive this final challenge. Ingold, the master wizard, has devised a spell to hide the user from the deathly stare of the Dark, and he intends to use it to strike at their very heart. Finally, Gil, Rudy, and the rest of mankind’s survivors will take the offensive, bringing an end to this terrible war, for better or for worse.

Ballantine/Del Rey #36259, 1992. Stated First Edition in fine condition.