Minerva is a witch on a mission to beat the dreaded menopause disease while teenage daughter Rhiannon faces up to the trials of an unexpected pregnancy. The story undulates between Minerva's ridiculous antics to snare the local guitar-playing vicar (with tarot cards for guidance and brandy for confidence) and Rhiannon's emotional turmoil. A horse-riding accident and many crazy spells later throw mother and daughter into both a tragic and comical cauldron of change. How much difference will it make? And as one thing leads to another and madness threatens to engulf their small world...will magic save the day? Enter the almost familiar world of contemporary magical realism written by an author with first-hand experience of modern witchcraft. This book is alive with laughter, magical possibility and the challenges and realities of life.

Fate sealed Rourke and Dane Grayland's destinies thirty years ago. So why are their tastes in everything from food to sex changing? Maybe because one is the prince of the wolf pack and the other is a dreaded demon dragon shifter and leader of the Lore. Lindsey Cameron, a fae shifter, understands why she's irresistibly drawn to both the Werewolf and the dragon. Surely with her succubus nature, she'll be capable of seducing the two Alphas, but will she be able to convince them sharing her to fulfill the Prophecy would be better than the alternative—chaos, destruction, or death?

Regency England was a pivotal time of political uncertainty, with a changing monarchy, the Napoleonic Wars, and a population explosion in London. In Susanna Clarke's fantasy novel Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, the era is also witness to the unexpected return of magic. Locating the consequences of this eruption of magical unreason within the context of England's imperial history, this study examines Merlin and his legacy, the roles of magicians throughout history, the mythology of disenchantment, the racism at work in the character of Stephen Black, the meaning behind the fantasy of magic's return, and the Englishness of English magic itself. Looking at the larger historical context of magic and its links to colonialism, the book offers both a fuller understanding of the ethical visions underlying Clarke's groundbreaking novel of madness intertwined with magic, while challenging readers to rethink connections among national identity, rationality, and power.

Many human beings have considered the powers and the limits of human knowledge, but few have wondered about the power that the idea of knowledge has over us. Steven Connor’s The Madness of Knowledge is the first book to investigate this emotional inner life of knowledge—the lusts, fantasies, dreams, and fears that the idea of knowing provokes. There are in-depth discussions of the imperious will to know, of Freud’s epistemophilia (or love of knowledge), and the curiously insistent links between madness, magical thinking, and the desire for knowledge. Connor also probes secrets and revelations, quarreling and the history of quizzes and “general knowledge,” charlatanry and pretension, both the violent disdain and the sanctification of the stupid, as well as the emotional investment in the spaces and places of knowledge, from the study to the library. In an age of artificial intelligence, alternative facts, and mistrust of truth, The Madness of Knowledge offers an opulent, enlarging, and sometimes unnerving psychopathology of intellectual life.

In a world that shuns magic, seventeen-year-old Prince Tarik hides a dangerous secret. Keeping his magical powers hidden is the only way to protect his Crown…and possibly even his life. But when an underground society of mages is accused of plotting a ruthless assassination, Tarik's buried power may be the key to uncovering the truth. But at what risk? Masked as a foreign mage named Shade, Tarik ventures into the underbelly of the city, into a treacherous realm of conspiracy and rebellion. Friendship is a strange word on the streets, and trust is stranger still, but he will need both to survive the city’s darkest currents. In an attempt to earn the confidence of the city’s outcast mages, he forges an unlikely alliance with Hayli, a streetwise shapeshifter who harbors her own painful secrets. As their connection grows stronger, powers awaken within them that they never imagined possible. But in a realm of deception and peril, can they truly rely on each other, or will the lies they tell destroy everything they’ve worked to achieve? In this gripping dark fantasy, the fragile line between sanity and madness blurs, and the price of survival becomes increasingly steep. With political intrigue, heart-pounding action, and a dash of madness, immerse yourself in a world where the only way to escape the darkness is to embrace the shadows.

Myth pervades heavy metal. With visual elements drawn from medieval and horror cinema, the genre's themes of chaos, dissidence and alienation transmit an image of Promethean rebellion against the conventional. In dialogue with the modern world, heavy metal draws imaginatively on myth and folklore to construct an aesthetic and worldview embraced by a vast global audience. The author explores the music of Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Metallica and many others from a mythological and literary perspective.

Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds is a study of crowd psychology by Scottish journalist Charles Mackay. The subjects of Mackay's debunking include witchcraft, alchemy, crusades, duels, economic bubbles, fortune-telling, haunted houses, the Drummer of Tedworth, the influence of politics and religion on the shapes of beards and hair, magnetizers (influence of imagination in curing disease), murder through poisoning, prophecies, popular admiration of great thieves, popular follies of great cities, and relics. Contents: Volume 1: National Delusions: The Mississippi Scheme The South Sea Bubble The Tulipomania Relics Modern Prophecies Popular Admiration for Great Thieves Influence of Politics and Religion on the Hair and Beard Duels and Ordeals The Love of the Marvellous and the Disbelief of the True Popular Follies in Great Cities Old Price Riots The Thugs, or Phansigars Volume 2: Peculiar Follies: The Crusades The Witch Mania The Slow Poisoners Haunted Houses Volume 3: Philosophical Delusions : The Alchemysts Fortune Telling The Magnetisers

Publisher description

Although ecstasy has been explored in several Indian contexts, surprisingly little scholarship has been devoted to its central role in Bengali devotion. In The Madness of the Saints, June McDaniel undertakes the first comprehensive study of religious ecstasy in Bengal, examining the texts that describe it, the people who experience it, and the traditions that support it.

On June 25th, 2009, the world was rocked by the tragic, shocking news that Michael Jackson - the biggest and most influential music icon since Elvis Presley - was pronounced dead on arrival at a Los Angeles hospital. He was 50 years old. As the news reverberated around the world, it was accompanied by even more shocking and controversial information - a sickening revelation to Jackson's millions of fans: that Jackson had died in the care of his personal physician, Dr Conrad Murray - a whole 83 minutes before Murray put a 911 call in to emergency services. In this, a comprehensive and truly horrifying account of those crucial minutes - Murray's frantic attempts to cover his tracks and revive his client before the truth could be revealed - are laid bare. This is a compelling, multi-perspective tracking of all who were involved at the scene, and their part to play in the events surrounding Jackson's tragic passing. The shocking cocktail of drugs employed to keep Jackson alive, adminstered by Murray himself; the harrowing and squalid conditions in which this troubled musical genius ended his life, all is 100% accurately described from official court transcripts and documentation. A powerful and compelling account of the brutal truth behind the rumours.