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'The body you are wearing used to be mine.' So begins the letter Myfanwy Thomas is holding when she awakes in a London park surrounded by bodies all wearing latex gloves. With no recollection of who she is, Myfanwy must follow the instructions her former self left behind to discover her identity and track down the agents who want to destroy her. She soon learns that she is a Rook, a high-ranking member of a secret organization called the Checquy that battles the many supernatural forces at work in Britain. She also discovers that she possesses a rare and deadly supernatural ability of her own.
THE CHECQUY: A centuries-old covert organization that protects the nation from supernatural threat. THE GRAFTERS: A centuries-old supernatural threat. After centuries of rivalry and bloodshed, two secret and otherworldly organisations – The Checquy and The Grafters – are on the verge of joining forces, and only one person has the supernatural skills – and the bureaucratic finesse – to get the job done: Myfanwy Thomas. But as a wave of gruesome atrocities sweep London, ingrained paranoias flare, old hatreds ignite and negotiations grind to a halt. It is up to Myfanwy to find the culprits before they trigger a devastating, all-out, supernatural war between the reluctant allies.
September, 1940. Three women of the Checquy, the secret organization tasked with protecting Britain from supernatural threats, stand in the sky above London and see German aircraft approach. Forbidden by law to interfere, all they can do is watch as their city is bombed. Until Pamela, the most sensible of them, breaks all the rules and brings down a Nazi bomber with her bare hands. The three resolve to tell no one about it, but they soon learn that a crew member is missing from the downed bomber. Charred corpses are discovered in nearby houses and it becomes apparent that the women have unwittingly unleashed a monster. Through a city torn by the Blitz, the friends must hunt the enemy before ...
Counter Reformation, Catholic Reformation, the Baroque Age, the Tridentine Age, the Confessional Age: why does Catholicism in the early modern era go by so many names? And what political situations, what religious and cultural prejudices in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries gave rise to this confusion? Taking up these questions, John O'Malley works out a remarkable guide to the intellectual and historical developments behind the concepts of Catholic reform, the Counter Reformation, and, in his felicitous term, Early Modern Catholicism. The result is the single best overview of scholarship on Catholicism in early modern Europe, delivered in a pithy, lucid, and entertaining style. Althoug...
Supernatural agents, Djinn, rats: here are three great new fantasy novels at a great price. THE ROOK: 'The body you are wearing used to be mine.' So begins the letter Myfanwy Thomas is holding when she awakes in a London park surrounded by bodies all wearing latex gloves. An astonishing fantasy debut about the secret organization keeping Britain safe from supernatural threat. THE DESERT OF SOULS: Amid the trackless sands of ancient Arabia, two companions – a swordsman and a scholar – search for the ruins of the lost city of Ubar. Before their quest is over, they will battle necromancers and animated corpses, they will confront a creature that has traded wisdom for the souls of men since the dawn of time and they will fight to save a city's soul. THE TWYNING: A story of love, war and rats, pitting their world against their mortal enemy: humankind.
The workings of Western intelligence in our day--whether in politics or the arts, in the humanities or the church--are as troubling as they are mysterious, leading to the questions: Where are we going? What in the world were we thinking? By exploring the history of four "cultures" so deeply embedded in Western history that we rarely see their instrumental role in politics, religion, education, and the arts, this timely book provides a broad framework for addressing these questions in a fresh way.
Trent, the Catholic Church’s attempt to put its house in order after the Reformation, has long been praised and blamed for things it never did. This one-volume history, the first in modern times, explores the volatile issues that pushed several Holy Roman emperors, kings and queens of France, five popes, and all of Europe to the brink of disaster.
John W. O’Malley gives us the most comprehensive account ever written of the Society of Jesus in its founding years, one that heightens and transforms our understanding of the Jesuits in history and today. Following the Society from 1540 through 1565, O’Malley shows how this sense of mission evolved. He looks at everything—the Jesuits’ teaching, their preaching, their casuistry, their work with orphans and prostitutes, their attitudes toward Jews and “New Christians,” and their relationship to the Reformation. All are taken in by the sweep of O’Malley’s story as he details the Society’s manifold activities in Europe, Brazil, and India.
During four years in session, Vatican Council II held television audiences rapt with its elegant, magnificently choreographed public ceremonies, while its debates generated front-page news on a near-weekly basis. By virtually any assessment, it was the most important religious event of the twentieth century, with repercussions that reached far beyond the Catholic church. Remarkably enough, this is the first book, solidly based on official documentation, to give a brief, readable account of the council from the moment Pope John XXIII announced it on January 25, 1959, until its conclusion on December 8, 1965; and to locate the issues that emerge in this narrative in their contexts, large and s...
'An impeccably dark parable, endlessly inventive and utterly compelling' M R Carey, author of The Girl with all the Gifts Beth's world is falling apart. Then she discovers a hidden London, full of marvels, magic . . . and menace. Perfect for fans of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere. Hidden under the surface of everyday London is a city where wild train spirits stampede over the tracks and glass-skinned dancers with glowing veins light the streets. When a devastating betrayal drives her from her home, Beth stumbles into the secret city, where she finds Filius Viae, London's ragged crown prince, just when he needs someone the most. For an ancient enemy has returned to the darkness under St Paul's Cathedral, bent on reigniting a centuries-old war. Desperate to find a way to save the city they both love, they find themselves in a desperate race through this bizarre urban wonderland, but when Beth's best friend is captured, she must choose between this wondrous existence and the life she left behind. The City's Son is the first book of The Skyscraper Throne trilogy: a story about family, friends and monsters, and how you can't always tell which is which.