Banished

Banished is an eye-opening, deeply personal account of life inside the cult known as the Westboro Baptist Church, as well as a fascinating story of adaptation and perseverance. You've likely heard of the Westboro Baptist Church. Perhaps you've seen their pickets on the news, the members holding signs with messages that are too offensive to copy here, protesting at events such as the funerals of soldiers, the 9-year old victim of the recent Tucson shooting, and Elizabeth Edwards, all in front of their grieving families. The WBC is fervently anti-gay, anti-Semitic, and anti- practically everything and everyone. And they aren't going anywhere: in March, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the WBC's right to picket funerals. Since no organized religion will claim affiliation with the WBC, it's perhaps more accurate to think of them as a cult. Lauren Drain was thrust into that cult at the age of 15, and then spat back out again seven years later. Lauren spent her early years enjoying a normal life with her family in Florida. But when her formerly liberal and secular father set out to produce a documentary about the WBC, his detached interest gradually evolved into fascination, and he moved the entire family to Kansas to join the church and live on their compound. Over the next seven years, Lauren fully assimilated their extreme beliefs, and became a member of the church and an active and vocal picketer. But as she matured and began to challenge some of the church's tenets, she was unceremoniously cast out from the church and permanently cut off from her family and from everyone else she knew and loved. Banished is the story of Lauren's fight to find herself amidst dramatic changes in a world of extremists and a life in exile.

Sixteen-year-old Hailey Tarbell, raised by a mean, secretive grandmother, does not know that she comes from a long line of healers until her Aunt Prairie arrives with answers about her past that could quickly threaten her future.

Dorthea of Emerald is used to being treated like the princess she is. Except she's trapped in a strange land called Kansas, where no one recognizes she's royalty. Not her parents, not the hospital's doctors, not even the cute patient who keeps flirting with her. The only one who knows who she really is? The evil Blanc. And she's thundering into Kansas to erase Dorethea's—and everyone else's—story. Back in Camelot, outlaw Rexi's got her own problems...like being locked in a tower. She may have trained with Robin Hood, but she's going to need to steal more than a key to escape Gwenevere's trap to take back Excalibur. And even if Rexi manages to get free, she still needs to reclaim her storyline from Morte's wicked plotting. It's not over until the last spot of ink dries. Dorethea and Rexi won't give up their happily ever afters without a fight. But with the villains of Story scripting their triumph, does this spell The End for Dorethea and Rexi?

Having learned that she has powers both to heal people and to create zombies, Hailey is trying to lead a fairly normal life, but when she attempts to contact her boyfriend, she brings dangerous villains to her doorstep.

It is 1969 and China is in the throes of the Cultural Revolution. The Tao family is banished to the countryside, forced to leave comfortable lives in Nanjing to be reeducated in the true nature of the revolution by the peasants of Sanyu village. The parents face exile with stoicism and teach their son to embrace reeducation wholeheartedly. Is this simple pragmatism, an attempt to protect the boy and ensure his future? Or do the banished cadres really cling to their belief in their leaders and the ideals of the Revolution? These questions remain tantalizingly unanswered in this prize-winning first novel.

With urban poverty rising and affordable housing disappearing, the homeless and other "disorderly" people continue to occupy public space in many American cities. Concerned about the alleged ill effects their presence inflicts on property values and public safety, many cities have wholeheartedly embraced "zero-tolerance" or "broken window" policing efforts to clear the streets of unwanted people. Through an almost completely unnoticed set of practices, these people are banned from occupying certain spaces. Once zoned out, they are subject to arrest if they return-effectively banished from public places. Banished is the first exploration of these new tactics that dramatically enhance the power of the police to monitor and arrest thousands of city dwellers. Drawing upon an extensive body of data, the authors chart the rise of banishment in Seattle, a city on the leading edge of this emerging trend, to establish how it works and explore its ramifications. They demonstrate that, although the practice allows police and public officials to appear responsive to concerns about urban disorder, it is a highly questionable policy: it is expensive, does not reduce crime, and does not address the underlying conditions that generate urban poverty. Moreover, interviews with the banished themselves reveal that exclusion makes their lives and their path to self-sufficiency immeasurably more difficult. At a time when more and more cities and governments in the U.S. and Europe resort to the criminal justice system to solve complex social problems, Banished provides a vital and timely challenge to exclusionary strategies that diminish the life circumstances and rights of those it targets.

Father Thomas Garrity is a Catholic priest who unexpectedly comes face to face with a horrific demon. Through fate or demonic manipulation, he winds up substituting for a prison chaplain who mysteriously committed suicide and was counseling a serial killer condemned on death row. Garrity meets with the convict, who at first is mute, and then becomes all too talkative, claiming to be a demon. A naïve Father Garrity assumes he is dealing with a schizophrenic. Truly possessed by the demon Furfur, the inmate begins his attack on Father Garrity. As all Catholic priests, Garrity is uneducated and unskilled at confronting the supernatural, much less a demon. This demon is intent on destroying Garity's faith in God through any means possible. The one problem is that this "inmate" will be executed in a week, so time is of the essence. At first Garrity thinks that he must only survive until the execution, but then finds he will become hunted afterward by a demon that will transfer to a whole new body. Furfur, a documented fallen angel taken from demonology, initially attempts to overwhelm Garrity with his knowledge and history. Failing, he escalates his efforts to violence, and eventually murders. Father Garrity, as all common parish priests, is inexperienced, but is desperate to defeat this demon, even though his path is crammed with obstacles. He is surrounded by non-believers and a Catholic organization that has created an impossible bureaucracy which frowns on the very mention of exorcism. The demon Furfur intends to deliver the soul of this convict to hell and then transfer himself to another person and continue to torment the priest. Father Garrity finds that Furfur, in documented demonology, ranks high in the hierarchy of hell and has 150,000 demons at his command. Although in prison, Furfur can torture the priest through hurting those close to him simply by using his legions. Father Garrity reaches out to the Vatican and eventually enlists the help of the official head Exorcist. He is also aided by an unofficial American exorcist. Their realization that the limited time until the execution is nowhere near adequate for an exorcism, makes for an unsolvable dilemma.

An orphaned witch. A small Vermont town. An ancient spell linked to the Devil.Travis is a talented witch who believes his inherited magic is elevated because it avoids the ritualistic kills that sustain traditionalists in the coven. To replenish depleted power, he feeds on human fear alone.The horrors he conjures are wiped from victims' memories, so what's the harm?A clique of coeds finds itself caught in Travis' witchcraft, as he comes to discover the magic he thought was benign instead catalyses a diabolical twist that may be worse than murder.But Travis cannot stop. The witches that killed his parents have tracked his whereabouts, and he must refuel to fight them the only way he can: haunting unlucky locals until they manage to break free of the spell.The Banished is ideal for fans of Stephen King, Deborah Harkness, Alex North ¿ and for anyone who loves classic horror, dark fantasy, or thrillers crossed with the occult.