In A Midnight Wood

Beloved heroine Jane Lawless finds that some secrets don't stay buried forever in Mystery Writers of America Grandmaster Ellen Hart's In a Midnight Wood, the 27th mystery in this cultishly popular series. Minnesota private investigator Jane Lawless is headed on a little getaway. She and her best friend, Cordelia Thorn, plan to visit their old friend Emma in her hometown of Castle Lake, while also participating in the small town's local art festival. Between the festival and an upcoming high school reunion for the class of 1999, no one in Castle Lake is quite sure who will make an appearance. But back in 1999, Emma's boyfriend and Castle Lake high school senior Sam Romilly went missing. Everyone thought he ran away, though the town rumor mill has always claimed his father murdered him. Today, within a week of his class's 20th reunion, Sam’s remains are found in someone else's burial plot. Suddenly the case is warming up fast. People who knew Sam—friends and enemies alike—will be in town for the much anticipated reunion. It’s up to Jane to sort the innocent from the guilty, before it's too late.

In this contemporary fantasy, the grieving biographer of a Victorian fantasist finds himself slipping inexorably into the supernatural world that consumed his subject. Failed father, failed husband, and failed scholar, Charles Hayden hopes to put his life back together with a new project: a biography of Caedmon Hollow, the long-dead author of a legendary Victorian children's book, In the Night Wood, and forebear of his wife, Erin. Deep in mourning from the loss of their young daughter, they pack up their American lives, Erin gives up her legal practice, and the couple settles in Hollow's remote Yorkshire mansion. In the neighboring village, Charles meets a woman he might have loved, a child who could have been his own daughter, and the ghost of a self he hoped to bury. Erin, paralyzed by her grief, immerses herself in pills and painting images of a horned terror in the woods. In the primeval forest surrounding Caedmon Hollow's ancestral home, an ancient power is stirring, a long-forgotten king who haunts the Haydens' dreams. And every morning the fringe of darkling trees presses closer. Soon enough, Charles and Erin will venture into the night wood. Soon enough, they'll learn that the darkness under the trees is but a shadow of the darkness that waits inside us all.

Experience an evocative combination of fantasy, history, and Jewish folklore in this lush and lyrical fairytale-inspired novel from the author of The Sisters of the Winter Wood. Deep in the Hungarian woods, the sacred magic of King Solomon lives on in his descendants. Gathering under the midnight stars, they perform small miracles and none are more gifted than the great Rabbi Isaac and his three daughters. Hannah, bookish and calm, can coax plants to grow even when the weather is bitterly cold. Sarah, defiant and strong, can control the impulsive nature of fire. And Levana, the fey one, can read the path of the stars to decipher their secrets. But darkness is creeping across Europe, threatening the lives of every Jewish person in every village. Each sister will have to make an impossible choice in an effort to survive—and change the fate of their family forever. Praise for The Light of the Midnight Stars: "Storytelling as spellcasting. Rossner has conjured something vivid and wild and true."—Kiran Millwood Hargrave, author of The Mercies "Rossner creates a lush, immersive world through which the sprawling plot meanders, punctuated by moments of intense grief. The result is as lovely as it is heartbreaking." —Publishers Weekly "Rossner's tale is as lyrical as the slow growth of roots, the quick dance of fire, and the stately procession of the stars. Blending folktale with history, hope with tragedy, its touch will linger on your heart long after you put it down."—Marie Brennan For more from Rena Rossner, check out The Sisters of the Winter Wood.

After decades of warfare, the tribes of the Tiste Edur have at last united under the rule of the Warlock King. But peace has been exacted at a terrible price - a pact made with a hidden power whose motives are at best suspect, at worst deadly. To the south, the expansionist kingdom of Lether has devoured all of its less-civilised neighbours with rapacious hunger. All save one - the Tiste Edur. But Lether is approaching a long-prophesied renaissance that it will take it from a kingdom and lost colony to an empire reborn - and has fixed its gaze on the rich lands of the Tiste Edur. It would seem inevitable that the tribes will surrender, succumbing to the suffocating weight of gold, or to slaughter at the edge of a sword. Or so Destiny has decreed. A pivotal treaty between the two sides nears, but unknown ancient forces are awakening. For the impending struggle between these two peoples is but a pale reflection of an altogether more profound, primal battle - a confrontation driven by a still-raw betrayal and a craving for vengeance. War and confrontation, magic and myth collide in this, the stunning fifth chapter in Steven Erikson's magnificent The Malazan Book of the Fallen - a series hailed as an epic of the imagination and a classic work of high fantasy.