The Twisted Tree

Part ghost story, part Nordic mystery - a creepy and chilling tale steeped in Norse myth, perfect for fans of Neil Gaiman and Michelle Paver's DARK MATTER.SEQUEL OUT NOW: The Crooked MaskMartha can tell things about a person just by touching their clothes, as if their emotions and memories have been absorbed into the material. It started the day she fell from the tree at her grandma's cabin and became blind in one eye.Determined to understand her strange ability, Martha sets off to visit her grandmother, Mormor - only to discover Mormor is dead, a peculiar boy is in her cabin and a terrifying creature is on the loose.Then the spinning wheel starts creaking, books move around and terror creeps in . . .Set in the remote snows of contemporary Norway, THE TWISTED TREE is a ghost story that twists and turns - and never takes you quite where you'd expect.

The "twisted tree" is a blackthorn branch, picked by Tansy Penderil, a naive young Cornish girl, on the same day she meets the handsome but diabolical Roger Chailey in the woods for the first time. But it is not the only souvenir of their encounter: eighteen years later, Tansy's son, David, is the living image of Chailey, sharing not only his father's good looks but also his immoral ways. David's resemblance to her first lover triggers powerful feelings in Tansy and leads to a strange relationship between mother and son, as well as a terrible and shocking conclusion . . . The Twisted Tree (1935) is the extremely rare first novel by Frank Baker (1908-1983), best known for his avian apocalypse novel The Birds (1936) and his classic fantasy Miss Hargreaves (1940). A story that one critic said might have been "written by the ghost of D. H. Lawrence seated on the grave of Mary Webb," Baker's brooding Gothic drama is an important rediscovery that remains a gripping and powerful read. "A dark and terrible tale." - Howard Spring "An imaginative novel told with a haunting sense of subconscious evil . . . The climax comes with startling effect. A vivid and stirring book." - Manchester Evening News "A thoroughly interesting and often moving tale." - Compton Mackenzie

Deep in a forest in northern Norway lies the Circus of Myth & Mayhem. Martha is certain that unsolved mysteries are hidden there - and talks her way into getting a job as a psychic. She soon learns there's something very strange about the circus. When an old friend shows up at the circus Martha is thrown into turmoil. Is he there because he misses her or because he wants to stop her discovering the truth?

Earning first place in a horror story contest, a literary winner is invited to spend a weekend with famous horror writers at the Twisted Tree Lodge, where everyone turns into werewolves. Original.

This “beautifully written” novel about a murder in small-town South Dakota explores “a haunted territory of regret, longing and guilt” (Jess Walter). Hayley Jo Zimmerman is gone. Taken. And the citizens of the windswept prairie town of Twisted Tree must come to terms with this tragedy—the loss, the repercussions, and the secrets they carry—as one girl’s short life unfolds through the stories of those who knew her. Among them are a supermarket clerk hiding the terrors of her past; an ex-priest who remembers a lost love; an abused caretaker exacting a long-awaited revenge; Hayley Jo’s best friend, who fed her addiction; and her father, channeling his grief in desperate and unexpected ways. As Hayley Jo’s murder recasts and reconnects these left-behind lives, her absence roots itself in the community in astonishingly violent and tender ways. One of the best contemporary writers on the American West, Kent Meyers takes us into the complexity of community regardless of landscape, and offers a tribute to the powerful effect one person’s life can have on everyone she knew. “Meyers’s small masterpiece deserves comparison to the work of Raymond Carver, Joy Williams, and Peter Matthiessen.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review “Like Russell Banks in The Sweet Hereafter, Kent Meyers spins out his intimate life stories from the hub of a small town tragedy and takes us into places we never thought we’d go.” —Stewart O’Nan, author of Songs for the Missing

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • WINNER OF THE GOVERNOR GENERAL'S LITERARY AWARD FOR NON-FICTION • WINNER OF THE WRITERS’ TRUST NON-FICTION PRIZE “Absolutely spellbinding.” —The New York Times The environmental true-crime story of a glorious natural wonder, the man who destroyed it, and the fascinating, troubling context in which this act took place. FEATURING A NEW AFTERWORD BY THE AUTHOR On a winter night in 1997, a British Columbia timber scout named Grant Hadwin committed an act of shocking violence in the mythic Queen Charlotte Islands. His victim was legendary: a unique 300-year-old Sitka spruce tree, fifty metres tall and covered with luminous golden needles. In a bizarre environmental protest, Hadwin attacked the tree with a chainsaw. Two days later, it fell, horrifying an entire community. Not only was the golden spruce a scientific marvel and a tourist attraction, it was sacred to the Haida people and beloved by local loggers. Shortly after confessing to the crime, Hadwin disappeared under suspicious circumstances and is missing to this day. As John Vaillant deftly braids together the strands of this thrilling mystery, he brings to life the ancient beauty of the coastal wilderness, the historical collision of Europeans and the Haida, and the harrowing world of logging—the most dangerous land-based job in North America.

My name is Amber Reynolds. There are three things you should know about me: 1. I’m in a coma. 2. My husband doesn’t love me anymore. 3. Sometimes I lie. Amber wakes up in a hospital. She can’t move. She can’t speak. She can’t open her eyes. She can hear everyone around her, but they have no idea. Amber doesn’t remember what happened, but she has a suspicion her husband had something to do with it. Alternating between her paralyzed present, the week before her accident, and a series of childhood diaries from twenty years ago, this brilliant psychological thriller asks: Is something really a lie if you believe it's the truth?

The fourth book in The Song of Shattered Sands series--an epic fantasy with a desert setting, filled with rich worldbuilding and pulse-pounding action. When a battle to eradicate the Thirteenth Tribe goes awry, the kingdoms bordering the desert metropolis of Sharakhai see the city as weak and ripe for conquest. Çeda, now leader of the Shieldwives, a band of skilled desert swordswomen, hopes to use the growing chaos to gain freedom for Sehid-Alaz, the ancient, undying king of her people. Freeing him is only the beginning, however. Like all the people of her tribe on that fateful night four centuries earlier, Sehid-Alaz was cursed, turned into an asir, a twisted, miserable creature beholden to the kings of Sharakhai—to truly free her king, Çeda must break the chains that bind him. As Sharakhai’s enemies close in and the assault on the city begins, Çeda works feverishly to unlock the mysteries of the asirim’s curse. But danger lies everywhere. Enemy forces roam the city; the Blade Maidens close in on her; her own father, one of the kings of Sharakhai, wants Çeda to hang. Worst of all, the gods themselves have begun to take notice of Çeda’s pursuits. When the combined might of Sharakhai and the desert gods corner the survivors of the Thirteenth Tribe in a mountain fastness, the very place that nearly saw their annihilation centuries ago, Çeda knows the time has come. She was once an elite warrior in service to the kings of Sharakhai. She has been an assassin in dark places. A weapon poised to strike from the shadows. A voice from the darkness, striving to free her people. No longer. Now she's going to lead. The age of the Kings is coming to an end . . .