Thebes is swirling with threats to the Pharaoh, Ramses III, and the city is awash in intrigue, ambition, greed, and crimes of passion. Against this backdrop Semerket, the so-called Clerk of Investigations and Secrets and a detective half-paralyzed by problems of his own, from heavy drinking to tactless behavior toward the great and powerful, is retained by the authorities to investigate the murder of an elderly, insignificant Theban priestess. They fail to inform him, however, that they don’t expect him to solve the case. In fact, they don’t want him to.

“Miss Vesper Holly leads an active life. In the half-dozen years since my wife, Mary, and I, Professor Brinton Garrett, have been her guardians, I have seen her deal calmly and efficiently with erupting volcanoes, floods, earthquakes, exploding sausages, and other stressful events. The dear girl likes to keep busy.”

Lloyd Alexander’s beloved Indiana Jones-style heroine, Vesper Holly, is back for one last adventure. Delving into the mystery of the origins of Western civilization, Vesper and her friends set out for the site of the legendary Troy, only to fall into a trap laid by the despicable Dr. Helvitius.

From Publishers Weekly In 12th-century France, religion suffuses society. Relics, attributed with great power, are (almost) universally venerated and trade in religious objects is a lucrative, often dangerous business. After losing their first child at birth, ex-novice Catherine Le Vendeur and her English husband, Edgar, last encountered in The Devil’s Door, are drawn into this perilous world when Edgar agrees to pose as a masterless craftsman and infiltrate the group suspected of refashioning stolen religious goods. Also at stake is the future of Catherine’s relatives, Jews living near the Abbey of St. Denis on sufferance of King Louis VII. Natan ben Judah, whose unsavory reputation may endanger his people, has been murdered; and the relic of the arm of Saint Aldhelm of England, which figures in the dynastic struggles between England’s King Stephen and his cousin Matilda, widow of the Holy Roman Emperor, has disappeared.

Vagabond is a follow-up to Harlequin (The Archer’s Tale in the U.S.) – and starts almost as soon as the earlier book ends, carrying on Thomas of Hookton’s story. He has been sent back to England to pursue his father’s mysterious legacy which hints that the Holy Grail might exist and gets tangled with the Scottish invasion of 1347. He survives that only to discover that various powerful folk in France are pursuing the same quest, a complication that takes Thomas back to Brittany and the brutal fighting about La Roche-Derrien.

Things are going well for Decius Caecilius Metellus. He is Praetor Peregrinus, which means he has to judge a case or two, but those cases are outside of the City. His cases will be those dealing with foreigners, and all of Italy is his province. His first stop is Campania, ‘Italy’s most popular resort district’. Decius and his wife, Julia, are happy for a change of scenery. But the good times end when, in a town near Vesuvius, a priest’s daughter is murdered. Decius must find her killer and keep the mob off a young boy who everyone blames but he believes to be innocent. Decius may have acquired more prestige, but he’s also acquired more trouble.

The men on board HMS Terror have every expectation of finding the Northwest Passage. When the expedition’s leader, Sir John Franklin, meets a terrible death, Captain Francis Crozier takes command and leads his surviving crewmen on a last, desperate attempt to flee south across the ice. But as another winter approaches, as scurvy and starvation grow more terrible, and as the Terror on the ice stalks them southward, Crozier and his men begin to fear there is no escape. A haunting, gripping story based on actual historical events, The Terror will chill you to your core.

In the shade of a banyan tree, a grizzled ferryman sits listening to the river. Some say he’s a sage. He was once a wandering shramana &, briefly, like thousands of others, he followed Gotama the Buddha, enraptured by his sermons. But this man, Siddhartha, was not a follower of any but his own soul.

Born son of a Brahmin, Siddhartha was blessed in appearance, intelligence & charisma. In order to find meaning in life, he discarded his promising future for the life of a wandering ascetic. Still, true happiness evaded him. Then a life of pleasure & titillation merely eroded away his spiritual gains until he was just like all the other “child people,” dragged around by his desires.

This tale belongs to the dead and the house they dwell in. Madame Lalaurie inflicted unspeakable acts upon her slaves at 1140 Rue Royale, and now their tortured souls are seeking revenge on the house’s new occupants: an elderly woman named Victoria and her young niece Rebecca. Rebecca must fight for their lives as she learns of the house’s horrifying past, encounters monstrous nuns with a deadly secret in the attic and becomes possessed by one of the spirits in her new home.

There were many staff at Kensington Palace, fulfilling many roles; a man who was employed to catch rats, another whose job it was to sweep the chimneys. That there was someone expected to hunt Demons did not shock the new Queen; that it was to be her was something of a surprise.

London, 1838. Queen Victoria is crowned; she receives the orb, the scepter, and an arsenal of blood-stained weaponry. Because if Britain is about to become the greatest power of the age, there’s the small matter of the demons to take care of first… But rather than dreaming of demon hunting, it is Prince Albert who occupies her thoughts. Can she dedicate her life to saving her country when her heart belongs elsewhere?

From Booklist:“If Lucinda Bromley doesn’t discover who stole her fern, she could end up being charged with murder. Lucinda frequently used her unusual psychic gift to discern death by poisoning to help the London police, but when a nobleman is poisoned by a compound containing elements of a rare fern, one that can only be found in her conservatory, Lucinda knows she better act quickly.

To help her find the real murderer, she hires Caleb Jones, a psychical investigator. Believing there is a connection between Lucinda?s fern thief and a deadly dangerous secret society, Caleb agrees to take the case, but he never expected to become so distracted by his new partner in detection or to find himself flummoxed on so many fronts.

New York Times best-seller Quick delivers another fascinating addition to her original and spellbinding Victorian-era series about the Arcane Society, a 200-year-old secret organization founded by an alchemist and devoted to paranormal research. Once again, Quick (one of Jayne Ann Krentz’s alternative identities) expertly, even magically, dispenses delectably witty dialogue, simmering sexual chemistry, and a plot laced with secrets, dangers, and surprises”. –John Charles of Booklist