A Blackthorn Winter

"Treasure, financial hardship, and pirate mistique [sic] all add to a cleverly woven tale of uncommon honor in the face of insideous treachery that stretches from the days of cutlasses and muskets to our own."--Page 4 of cover.

With her parents on a trial separation, the last thing fifteen-year-old Juliana wants is to be dragged by her mother to an artists' colony in England. Halfway across the world, Juliana misses her father terribly. But soon she has bigger worries when the sleepy town of Blackthorn is set on its heels by the murder of one of its own. Juliana feels compelled to solve the crime, but she is shocked and frightened when she uncovers clues that have chilling parallels to her own mysterious past. Can she figure out who the murderer is before anyone else--herself included--gets hurt?

In April, when blackthorn blossom clothes the hedgerows like a wedding veil, there sometimes comes a frost so severe that it seems as if the summer will never come. Country people call this a blackthorn winter. For Claudia Barron, arriving in the Dorset village of Court Barton that April, blackthorn winter seems like a metaphor for everything that has happened to her. Hiding from her previous life, she adopts an assumed name and applies for a job in the local school. But villages don’t much like mysteries and secrets and soon the inhabitants of Court Barton set out to find out what it is that Claudia Barron is hiding from and why.

This tale of four fey sisters is “a golden slice of British rural fantasy in the tradition of Diana Wynne Jones and Tanith Lee. . . . I loved it” (Paul Cornell, New York Times–bestselling author of Witches of Lychford). Levelheaded Bee still lives at Mooncote, the family home in Somerset, where she has an unconventional boyfriend of whom her sisters are unaware. Stella, a DJ who’s just done some gigs in Ibiza, has vowed never to return to Mooncote after a row with Bee. Single mother and fashion designer Serena lives in Notting Hill with growing doubts about her relationship with her longtime boyfriend, a rock musician. And Luna, the youngest, is a wanderer living out of a horse-drawn van while she follows a trail of horse fairs across the country. The four Fallow sisters are scattered like the four winds. But now, with the comet due, they’re drawn back together, united in their desire to find their mother, free-spirited Alys, who disappeared a year ago. They have help, of course, from the star spirits and the no-longer-living, but such advice tends to be cryptic and is hardly the most dependable of guides . . . “In Comet Weather, Liz Williams has crafted something marvellous. This is a book full of wonder, horror, love, heartbreak, strangeness, and a gorgeously evoked sense of time and place. Between one page and the next you’ll be laughing out loud, then shivering to your bones.” —Alastair Reynolds, award-winning author of Eversion and Revelation Space “This quick-witted and intriguing contemporary fantasy is fresh and original, while also harking back to the mythology of the English landscape and the classic literature that has inspired. A many-faceted delight.” —Juliet E. McKenna, author of the Green Man series “A perfect pleasure to read. Think [Neil] Gaiman: imagination enriched with history, culture, geography, astronomy and archaeology, and a dash of romance.” —Aurealis “One of the most affecting and accomplished fantasy novels of the year so far.” —Locus “Mesmerizing.” —SciFi Mind

In 1666, after four months away, friends Christopher Rowe, Tom, and Sally return to London triumphantly but, guided by coded riddles, face a conspiracy that threatens Christopher, as well as the King himself.

"Two worlds. One planet. A race to save mankind. What if magic and myth are true and all that we have been told about the history of the earth is false? What if there is a sinister shadow government creating war and chaos in an attempt to destroy humanity? What if there are cosmic cycles that bring truth and lies face to face for one final showdown? When all these forces collide, Tilly Greenway and her stepbrother Zack find themselves at the centre of a power struggle that reaches back to the dawn of time. What they do next will decide the fate of humanity forever ..."--Cover p. 4.

Four sisters are drawn from their ordinary lives into darker realms: “Combines stellar character work with exploration of British folklore and fairy tales.” —The Fantasy Hive Bee, Stella, Serena, and Luna are preparing for Christmas, but all is not merry and bright when fashion designer Serena’s new collection is maliciously destroyed on the eve of its debut. A wealthy man miraculously comes to the rescue—but he may be hiding something. Meanwhile, Bee has met a frightened, green-skinned child in a churchyard and offered her shelter. Is any of this connected to the magpie changeling who claims to be an angel sent to watch over Stella, or the increasingly frequent timeslips a pregnant Luna is experiencing? Something is coming for the Fallow sisters and those they love, but they don’t know what—and the siblings can’t turn to their mother for help since she’s gone wandering again. . . . Rediscover your sense of wonder in this follow-up to Comet Weather that “matches the charm, magic and lyricism of its predecessor” (The Fantasy Hive). Praise for the Fallow Sisters novels “The coolest sisters in contemporary fantasy.” —Locus “I’m on board for anything Liz Williams writes.” —SciFi Mind