The Daemoniac

It's August 1888, just three weeks before Jack the Ripper will terrorize Whitechapel, and another murderer is stalking the streets of New York. His handiwork bears the hallmarks of a demonic possession—but amateur sleuth Harrison Fearing Pell is certain her quarry is a man of flesh and blood. And she hopes to make her reputation by solving the bizarre case before the man the press has dubbed Mr. Hyde strikes again. From the squalor of the Five Points to the high-class gambling dens of the Tenderloin and the glittering mansions of Fifth Avenue, Harry follows the trail of a remorseless killer, uncovering a few embarrassing secrets of New York's richest High Society families along the way. Are the murders a case of black magic—or simple blackmail? And will the trail lead closer to home than she ever imagined? Praise for The Daemoniac "While the clever mystery is reason enough to keep pages turning, the novel’s writing remains its greatest asset. Employing a tone that affects the style of Victorian literature and the Conan Doyle stories, but without the stiffness readers might associate with older fiction, the prose is a genuine delight. Furthermore, the characters conjure Holmes and Watson without belaboring the point or adopting a sense of smug superiority. Ross provides two endlessly charming sleuths, and Harry’s womanhood adds new depth to familiar ground. All in all, there’s an impressive amount of detail and care packed into these pages, not only in references to the Holmes canon, but also in inventive storytelling and colorful portraiture of 19th-century New York. An unexpected treat of a detective novel with a strong heroine, making Ross a name to look out for." -Kirkus Reviews "Harry and John are a most appealing pair…Frequent nods to the Sherlock Holmes canon and a blend of charm and darkness turned this first volume of a hopefully long-running series into a few hours of pure pleasure." -Buried Under Books "This mash-up of genres is amazing…Anyone who enjoys mysteries will appreciate this unique setting and intriguing setup. The characters are deep and the background is gripping." -Desert Rose Reviews "A truly gorgeous gothic mystery." -Mama Reads Blog "Greatly entertaining, fun, thrilling, at times chilling and with a light hint of romance. I have no word left to say, only 'perfect'." -Field of Bookish Dreams "Absolutely fascinating and delightful! The Daemoniac kept me guessing with a great cast of characters, wonderful atmosphere, and a mystery that I was eager to have unraveled. Definitely looking forward to the next book!" -It Starts at Midnight "The Daemoniac is a great read. Perfect for fans of the Jackaby series and of the Netflix TV show Penny Dreadful." -Book Briefs "Ross proved that the landscape of historical New York is just as magical as any fantasy setting." –Crazy for YA "An incredibly well written and developed story and one that will grab you from the very first page…This is a must read. That ending!!! Can't wait to see where the author goes with it!!" -Book Lovers Life

This work, in 6 volumes, is a compendium of traditional cosmologies worldwide. The material includes the global mythology of creation and destruction, but also comprises information drawn from other areas of traditional knowledge, ritual, iconography, shamanism, costume, and dance. Relying on original sources, universal points of agreement are identified, often on counter-intuitive ideas. These suggest a single template, a blueprint for a universal mythology of origins with local variations. Volume 5 documents a large number of traditions concerning unusual and often undesirable properties and activities of the sun and moon. To name just a few examples, prominent beliefs were that the moon was originally brighter than the sun and that the earth once succumbed to the heat caused by the sun's former proximity, its greater strength, its failure to move or the appearance of multiple luminaries.

"Katharine Breen challenges our understanding of how medieval authors received philosophical paradigms from antiquity in their construction and use of personification in their writings. She shows that our modern categories for this literary device (extreme realism versus extreme rhetoric, or novelistic versus allegorical characters) would've been unrecognizable to their medieval practitioners. Through new readings of key authors and works--including Prudentius's "Psychomachia," Langland's "Piers Plowman," Boethius's "Consolation of Philosophy," and Deguileville's "Pilgrimage of Human Life"--she finds that medieval writers accessed a richer, more fluid literary domain than modern critics have allowed. Breen identifies three different types of personification--Platonic, Aristotelian, and Prudentian--inherited from antiquity that both gave medieval writers a surprisingly varied spectrum with which to paint their characters, while bypassing the modern confusion of conflicting relationships between personifications and persons on the path connecting divine power and human frailty. Recalling Gregory the Great's phrase "machinae mentis" (machines of the mind), Breen demonstrates that medieval writers applied personification with utility and subtlety, much the same way that, within the category of hand-tools, an open-end wrench differs in function from a hex-key wrench or a socket wrench. It will be read by medievalists working at the crossroads of religion, philosophy, and literature, as well as scholars interested in character-making and gendered relationships among characters, readers, and texts beyond the Middle Ages"--

Five full-length books of supernatural suspense set in Gilded Age New York and Europe, starring demons, shifters, necromancers and an unforgettable cast of characters — both human and not — who hunt them in the shadows. The perfect series for anyone who likes their Victorian mysteries with a heaping teaspoon of magic, adventure and romance! Includes The Daemoniac, The Thirteenth Gate, A Bad Breed, The Necromancer’s Bride and Dead Ringer. Praise for the Gaslamp Gothic books “Beautiful landscapes, beasts with more to them than meets the eye, women who fight the darkness, and men seeking redemption. This book was amazing.” –The Caffeinated Reader "Greatly entertaining, fun, thrilling, at times chilling and with a light hint of romance. I have no word left to say, only 'perfect'." -Field of Bookish Dreams “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde combined with Sherlock Holmes . . . If you like historical books that also have mystery, suspense, action and all the other ingredients for a page-turning stay-up-all-night experience, Dead Ringer is a must read!” –Books+Coffee=Happiness “You just can’t help but fall for the male interest. Everything about this book just screams darkness. If you want a page-turning, plot-twisting, soul-burning story, this is it!” –Treestand Book Reviews “Mystery. Paranormal creatures and myths. Intelligent, brave and daring characters. Love and hate. History. What else can you possibly want?” –Dena Garson’s Book Blog Book #1: It’s August 1888 and a bizarre killer is stalking the gas-lit streets of New York. His handiwork bears all the hallmarks of a demonic possession. But are the murders a case of black magic—or simple blackmail? From the gambling dens of the Tenderloin to the glittering mansions of Fifth Avenue, consulting detective Harrison Fearing Pell and her best friend, medical student John Weston, follow a twisted trail of lies, treachery and madness that ends closer to home than they imagined. Book #2: At an asylum in the English countryside, a man suspected of being Jack the Ripper kills an orderly and escapes into the rain-soaked night. Occult investigator Lady Vivienne pursues him across the Atlantic to New York, where a powerful Egyptian amulet has been stolen from the Museum of Natural History. With the bodies mounting, Lady Vivienne joins Harry and John to confront an ancient evil. The key to stopping it is something called the Thirteenth Gate. But where is it? And more importantly, who will find it first? Book #3: After a Romanian village suffers a series of brutal attacks, Lady Vivienne’s ward Anne Lawrence is dispatched to hunt the killer – only to find herself herself at the mercy of a mysterious captor with a beast inside and a memory as old as the ancient legends. As the weeks pass, Anne slowly uncovers a complex and deeply passionate man. But is she willing to pay the price for falling under his spell? Book #4: Forgiveness is not Gabriel D’Ange’s strong suit. A ruthless self-appointed soldier of God, he vanished after Anne stabbed him with his own dagger. The smart thing would be to let him go. But Anne’s world isn’t just lonely without Gabriel. It’s insufferably boring. When she’s drawn into one of his tangled plots, Anne learns just how far she’ll go to save the man she loves. Book #5: Back in New York, Harry and John face off with sewer beasts, doppelgängers and the city’s most devious criminal mastermind to solve one of the strangest cases of their career – a tale of murder, revenge and fairytale bogeymen to make the Brothers Grimm shudder.