Choking Back the Devil by Donna Lynch is an invocation, an ancient invitation that summons the darkness within and channels those lonely spirits looking for a host. It's a collection that lives in the realm of ghosts and family curses, witchcraft and urban legends, and if you're brave enough to peek behind the veil, the hauntings that permeate these pages will break seals and open doorways, cut throats and shatter mirrors. You see, these poems are small drownings, all those subtle suffocations that live in that place between our ribs that swells with panic, incubates fear. Lynch shows her readers that sometimes our shadow selves--our secrets--are our sharpest weapons, the knives that rip through flesh, suture pacts with demons, cut deals with entities looking for more than a homecoming, something better, more intimate than family. It's about the masks we wear and the reflections we choose not to look at, and what's most terrifying about the spells is these incantations show that we are the possessed, that we are our greatest monster, and if we look out of the corner of our eyes, sometimes--if we've damned ourselves enough--we can catch a glimpse of our own burnings, what monstrosities and mockeries we're to become. So cross yourselves and say your prayers. Because in this world, you are the witch and the hunter, the girl and the wolf. "Lynch mixes in childhood fables with waking nightmares, the result is electrifying; sometimes in a few razor sharp words; sometimes in longer numbered verses counting down the cycle of a damaged life. The silent cries of souls tormented to healthiness by pills and poultices, force fed by imperfect humans, echo in the silhouette of these poems. I smiled at the shadows unexpectedly delivered by her words, as will you."--Linda D. Addison, award-winning author of How to Recognize a Demon Has Become Your Friend and HWA Lifetime Achievement Award winner "This collection is not for the chronically disturbed, as fear is doled out in terse, potent portions. I got the shivers reading these unsettling poems."--Marge Simon, Bram Stoker Award winner, SFPA Grand Master Poet "Choking Back the Devil is unlike any other poetry collection you've ever read. Donna Lynch crafts beautifully terrifying worlds, packed with dense imagery and horrifying yet lush details. This collection will get your blood racing even as it breaks your heart." --Gwendolyn Kiste, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of The Rust Maidens "Some dark poets use their verse as a means to exorcise their demons. Lynch instead embraces her torment, nurtures it, and transforms it into equal parts hideous and heavenly. With a mix of wicked wit, carnal fury, and commentary that has sharpened its fangs to drain you until you're left with nothing but despair, Choking Back the Devil is essential sustenance for harrowed souls."--Chad Stroup, author of Secrets of the Weird and Sexy Leper

Hold your screams and enter a world of seasonal creatures, dreams of bones, and confessions modeled from open eyes and endless insomnia. Christina Sng’s?A Collection of Nightmares?is a poetic feast of sleeplessness and shadows, an exquisite exhibition of fear and things better left unsaid. Here are ramblings at the end of the world and a path that leads to a thousand paper cuts at the hands of a skin carver. There are crawlspace whispers, and fresh sheets gently washed with sacrifice and poison, and if you’re careful in this ghost month, these poems will call upon the succubus to tend to your flesh wounds and scars.?? ?These nightmares are sweeping fantasies that electrocute the senses as much as they dull the ache of loneliness by showing you what’s hiding under your bed, in the back of your closet, and inside your head. Sng’s poems dissect and flower, her autopsies are delicate blooms dressed with blood and syntax. Her words are charcoal and cotton, safe yet dressed in an executioner’s garb.?? ?Dream carefully.?? ?You’ve already made your bed.?? ?The nightmares you have now will not be kind.?? ?And you have no one to blame but yourself.

When Patrick McGoohan first starred in “Danger Man” in 1960 and as ‘Number 6’ in cult show “The Prisoner”, industry insiders hailed the arrival of an enigmatic genius and Hollywood beckoned. But who was this man who worked as a chicken farmer and bank clerk before becoming a hugely successful actor simply by chance? In this up-to-date biography Rupert Booth reveals the true character of a man whose off-screen behaviour matched his fiery on-screen persona. Why was he so puritanical, refusing even to kiss a woman for any part he played? Why was he so controlling over his work in “The Prisoner” and other productions? A timely exploration of the man whose declaration ‘I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, de-briefed or numbered!’ continues to resonate with audiences decades after it was first uttered with such conviction.

Jim, a young British seaman, joins his captain and other crew members in abandoning their sinking ship full of passengers. A few days later, they are picked up, and the passengers are later also saved. The reprehensible actions of the crew are exposed. The other participants evade the judicial court of inquiry, leaving Jim to the court alone.

William Legrand becomes obsessed with searching for treasure after being bitten by a bug appearing to be made of pure gold. He notifies his closest friend, the narrator, telling him to immediately come visit him at his home on Sullivan's Island in South Carolina. Upon the narrator's arrival, Legrand informs him that they are embarking upon a search for lost treasure along with his African-American servant Jupiter. The narrator has intense doubt and questions whether Legrand, who has recently lost his fortune, has gone insane.

Tales of Mother Goose feature some of the best known fairy tales including: Blue Beard, Little Thumb, Puss in Boots, Riquet with the Tuft, The Fairy, Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, The Sleeping Beauty.

Once upon a time there lived a King and Queen who had two beautiful sons and one little daughter, who was so pretty that no one who saw her could help loving her. When it was time for the christening of the Princess, the Queen—as she always did—sent for all the fairies to be present at the ceremony, and afterwards invited them to a splendid banquet...

The Art of War is written by Sun Tzu, a high-ranking military general, strategist and tactician. The text is composed of 13 chapters, each of which is devoted to one aspect of warfare. It is the definitive work on classic military strategy and tactics. The book influenced Eastern and Western military thinking, business tactics, legal strategy and beyond.

The story of two conjoined brothers who, though separated at birth, can still feel each other's pains.

Santa Claus, as a baby is found in the Forest of Burzee and placed in the care of the lioness Shiegra. The Wood Nymph, Necile, breaks the law of the forest and takes the baby because she desires to raise a child of her own as mortals do. Necile calls him Claus, meaning little one in the old Burzee language.

Farther Brown may be walking into a trap when he tries to save his soul as his precious Blue Cross is targeted by the notorious criminal Flambeau.

Emma Woodhouse, aged 20 at the start of the novel, is a young is a young, beautiful, witty, and privileged woman in Regency England. As the novel opens, Emma has just attended the wedding of Miss Taylor, her best friend and former governess. Having introduced Miss Taylor to her future husband, Mr. Weston, Emma takes credit for their marriage, and decides that she rather likes matchmaking. She greatly overestimates her own matchmaking abilities; she is blind to the dangers of meddling in other people's lives, and her imagination and perceptions often lead her astray.

A psychologically thrilling tale, The Black Monk delves into the murky region between fantasy and reality and asks what separates self-confidence from self-delusion. Our protagonist Andrei Kovrin, a brilliant scholar who takes a leave of absence from academia due to stress, and recuperates at the house of his former guardian Pesotsky. He grows close to Pesotsky’s daughter Tatiana as they tend the orchard together. Kovrin enjoys taking long walks in the garden, and one night he sees a dark, spectral figure and realizes that it is the black monk, whose legend he had just told Tatiana. Upon seeing the monk, Kovrin feels radiant and inspired, and asks for Tania’s hand in marriage. As his romance progresses, Kovrin continues to meet and talk with the monk in the garden. The monk tells him that he is one of God’s chosen, but soon after Kovrin's health begins to deteriorate.

Little Red Riding Hood, a French fairy tale about a young girl and a big bad wolf and thirty three other European tales are featured in this volume of Grimm's tales. Little Red Riding Hood story follows a mean wolf that wants to eat the little girl but is afraid to do so in public. He secretly stalks her behind trees, bushes, and patches of tall grass. He approaches Little Red Riding Hood and she na?vely tells him where she is going.

A group of eccentrics is gathered, each with a single monomaniacal obsession, and derives humour and social satire from their various interactions and conversations.

A member of an anarchist cell and a secret agent Mr. Verloc is ordered to carry out a terrorist attack on Greenwich Observatory by a bomb explosion. The novel is set in London and follows lives of Verloc, who also owns a sex shop, and his friends, a group of anarchists, largely ineffectual as terrorists, yet well known to the police.

Balzac's masterpiece novel follows lives of three central characters: the law student Eugene de Rastignac, a mysterious agitator named Vautrin, and an elderly retired vermicelli-maker named Jean-Joachim Goriot. The old man is ridiculed frequently by the other boarders, who soon learn that he has bankrupted himself to support his two well-married daughters.

Our first ever collection of plays with multiple roles for large casts. Suitable for schools, colleges, youth theatres, amateur dramatic societies and community groups to perform. This great collection of critically acclaimed plays has been produced internationally. ‘Twice Upon a Time’ – Somewhere in the distant future, a shape-changing creature known as the Cailleach deceives a young warrior into entering the Otherworld, a place where a single moment can equal an eternity. Can he find his way back to the girl he loves? ‘Small Fry’ – shortlisted for The Writers Guild Award for Best Children's Play. A play in which the small fry take on the mighty dragon, win the jackpot and outwit the scavengers and predators that usually prevail. ‘The Minotaur’ – A spell-binding version of the famous myth of Theseus and the Minotaur. ‘Talking with Angels’ – An original and highly imaginative retelling of the complex story of Joan of Arc.

After the festive dinner with its eight courses and its endless conversation, Olga Mihalovna, whose husband’s name-day was being celebrated, went out into the garden. The duty of smiling and talking incessantly, the clatter of the crockery, the stupidity of the servants, the long intervals between the courses, and the stays she had put on to conceal her condition from the visitors, wearied her to exhaustion. She longed to get away from the house, to sit in the shade and rest her heart with thoughts of the baby which was to be born to her in another two months.

Mirabell and Fainall have just finished playing cards. A footman comes and tells Mirabell that Waitwell and Foible were married that morning. Mirabell tells Fainall about his love of Millamant and is encouraged to marry her. Witwoud and Petulant appear and Mirabell is informed that should Lady Wishfort marry, he will lose ?6000 of Millamant's inheritance. He will only get this money if he can make Lady Wishfort consent to his and Millamant's marriage.

There?is a vein of superstition in every human heart, and many men who have played a great part in the world’s history have not been ashamed to seek help from occultists, when the tangle of life seemed too involved for them to unravel with the ordinary means at their disposal. This book will take you through the basics and intricacies of fortune telling through cards. You will learn about different systems, methods, significations of the cards and mystic meanings. Everything you need to know from basics to complete Tarot layouts and understanding of the future from card readings.