Exorcising Angels

During the London Blitz, a veteran from World War One goes in search of the author Arthur Machen. He has some questions to ask him… “What did I really see in the trenches?” “Were those angels?” “Who am I?” The answers, when they come, challenge everything he has ever believed to be true. When Arthur Machen's "The Bowmen" was published in 1915, many English readers believed his tale of heavenly archers defeating the advancing German troops of WWI to be true. Here, Tim Lebbon & Simon Clark pay homage to Machen with their novella Exorcising Angels, set against the backdrop of The Blitz of WWII, when (in the words of the Bishop of London) all of Great Britain needed to pray a "plea to the Heavenly Father for divine protection against these Swastikad angels of Death."

This book traces the development of John Hejduk’s architectural career, using the idea of "exorcism" to uncover his thought process when examining architectural designs. His work encouraged profound questioning on what, why and how we build, which allowed for more open discourse and enhance the phenomenology found in architectural experiences. Three distinct eras in his architectural career are applied to analogies of outlines, apparitions and angels throughout the book across seven chapters. Using these thematic examples, the author investigates the progression of thought and depth inside the architect’s imagination by studying key projects such as the Texas houses, Wall House, Architectural Masques and his final works. Featuring comments by Gloria Fiorentino Hejduk, Stanley Tigerman, Steven Holl, Zaha Hadid, Charles Jencks, Phyllis Lambert, Juhani Pallasmaa, Toshiko Mori and others, this book brings to life the intricacies in the mind of John Hejduk, and would be beneficial for those interested in architecture and design in the 20th century.

Archdiocese of Washington exorcist Msgr. Stephen Rossetti and his team have a very active caseload of demonic possessions. Msgr. Rossetti presents many of these stories here, without varnish or hype. In these ninety-five detailed cases, two vivid lessons consistently emerge: 1. Demons possess or simply harass people in myriad ways and need to be taken seriously, even when they do not enter a soul. 2. Demons are defeated, decisively, by the power of Christ and His Church, employing prayer, sacramentals, rites of exorcism -- and especially, invocations to the Blessed Mother. "Despite all their bluster and arrogance, demons are cowards," Msgr. Rossetti reveals. In fact, in every section of his work, he offers detailed "Theological Reflections" explaining the meaning of these possessions, why he thinks God permitted each, and the spiritual benefits accrued. The devil is no match for the Lord of Heaven and Earth.

Love is an exorcism of angels... Heaven and Hell are not places, nor times, but rather shared experiences. It's a love whether dark or light, a passion whether of pleasure or pain, and there's a beauty to the ugliness, a smile hidden amongst the tears. Heaven is often defined as paradise; Hell as damnation. The two, while opposites, more often than not, end up being one and the same, especially when it comes to falling in love. So what happens when our Heaven falls in love with our Hell? When the very person who brings us every happiness and every joy, stabs and beats at our hearts, bruising our fantasy of "happily ever after"? What happens when we can't walk away because the pain of love is better than no love at all? When we'd rather die every death again and again, than spend one moment away from our heart's true content? Wytovich plays Virgil in a collection of celestial horror that challenges the definition of angels and demons, of love and hate. She weaves through tales of heartbreak and sorrow, through poems depicting lust and greed, as her words prove testament that Heaven and Hell can be one and the same, a paradise and an inferno. Her women, some innocent, some not, walk through the circles, fall off of clouds, deny their wings, and expose their hearts to demons and devils, to imps and to fiends. They turn their backs on everything they know, question their morals and their faith, all in the name of love, and together, the good help the bad, and the bad, help the good. Not every angel has wings just as not every demon has claws. Wytovich shows us that love isn't always the saving grace that we expect it to be. To her, there is no balance of darkness to light, no line between what one desires and what one gets. There's no choosing who we fall in love with, and just as love is often Heaven, it can as easily be Hell.

You never know when you’ll find yourself falling through one of the cracks in the world.… Two of today’s brightest stars of dark fantasy combine their award-winning, critically acclaimed talents in this spellbinding new tale of magic, terror, and adventure that begins when a young woman slips through the space between our everyday world and the one hiding just beneath it. Always assume there’s someone after you. That was the paranoid wisdom her mother had hardwired into Jasmine Towne ever since she was a little girl. Now, suddenly on her own, Jazz is going to need every skill she has ever been taught to survive enemies both seen and unseen. For her mother had given Jazz one last invaluable piece of advice, written in her own blood. Jazz Hide Forever All her life Jazz has known them only as the “Uncles,” and her mother seemed to fear them as much as depend on them. Now these enigmatic, black-clad strangers are after Jazz for reasons she can’t fathom, and her only escape is to slip into the forgotten tunnels of London’s vast underground. Here she will meet a tribe of survivors calling themselves the United Kingdom and begin an adventure that links her to the ghosts of a city long past, a father she never knew, and a destiny she fears only slightly less than the relentless killers who’d commit any crime under heaven or earth to prevent her from fulfilling it. From the Trade Paperback edition.

From Beacon Hill to Southie, historic Boston is a town of vibrant neighborhoods knit into a seamless whole. But as Jim Banks and Trix Newcomb learn in a terrifying instant, it is also a city divided—split into three separate versions of itself by a mad magician once tasked with its protection. Jim is happily married to Jenny, with whom he has a young daughter, Holly. Trix is Jenny’s best friend, practically a member of the family—although she has secretly been in love with Jenny for years. Then Jenny and Holly inexplicably disappear—and leave behind a Boston in which they never existed. Only Jim and Trix remember them. Only Jim and Trix can bring them back. With the help of Boston’s Oracle, an elderly woman with magical powers, Jim and Trix travel between the fractured cities, for that is where Jenny and Holly have gone. But more is at stake than one family’s happiness. If Jim and Trix should fail, the spell holding the separate Bostons apart will fail too, and the cities will reintegrate in a cataclysmic implosion. Someone, it seems, wants just that. Someone with deadly shadow men at their disposal.

“Urban realism meets dark fantasy in this spine-tingling [and] wonderfully creepy thriller of a ghost story” exploring New Orleans history (Publishers Weekly, starred review). Max Corbett has returned to New Orleans for the funeral of his former girlfriend, Gabrielle Doucette, but between the destruction wrought by Hurricane Katrina and the devastation of his ruined relationship, the city feels alien. At Gabrielle's graveside, Max meets a man who tells him of a real magic practitioner—not some Bourbon Street phony—who could open a window to the past and send a warning to Gabrielle. Maybe Max can even deliver the warning in person? The man offers Max a cheap map and sends him on his way. But it turns out this quest is not so easy. When Max comes to his first stop, he is drawn into the fabric of history to witness dark and violent periods. And with each passing step, a grim conspiracy is revealed... "Golden and Lebbon vividly evoke the rich, enduring character of New Orleans, as well as spinning a compelling fantasy yarn that builds momentum as Max works his way through the city's history." —Booklist