Showing results by author "Barbara Hambly" in All Categories

In a world where wizards are relegated to ghettos, it is no surprise to see one murdered in the street. But for Stonne Caris, a young warrior monk who sees the killing and gives chase to the culprit, there is nothing ordinary about seeing a murderer disappear into a black, inky portal. The Archmage sends him in search of Antryg Windrose - a half-mad mage who understands the nature of these passages between dimensions.

The summer of 1833 has been one of brazen heat and brutal pestilence, as the city is stalked by Bronze John - the popular name for the deadly yellow fever epidemic that tests the healing skills of doctor and voodoo alike. Even as Benjamin January tends the dying at Charity Hospital during the steaming nights, he continues his work as a music teacher during the day. When he is asked to pass a message from a runaway slave to the servant of one of his students, January finds himself swept into a tempest of lies, greed, and murder that rivals the storms battering New Orleans.

The year 1924. After six months in Hollywood, young British widow Emma Blackstone has come to love her new employer, glamourous movie-star Kitty Flint — even if her late husband’s sister is one of the worst actresses she’s ever seen. Looking after Kitty and her three adorable Pekinese dogs isn’t work academically minded Emma dreamed of, but Kitty rescued her when she was all alone in the world. Now, the worst thing she has to worry about is the shocking historical inaccuracies of the films Kitty stars in.

Abishag Shaw is seeking vengeance for his brother’s murder - and Benjamin January is seeking money after his bank crashes. Far beyond the frontier, in the depths of the Rocky Mountains, both men are to be found at the great Rendezvous of the Mountain Men, a month-long orgy of cheap booze, shooting matches, tall tales, and cutthroat trading. But at the rendezvous, the discovery of a corpse opens the door to hints of a greater plot - of madness and wholesale murder.

It’s 1835, and the relentless glare of the late July sun has slowed New Orleans to a standstill. When Hesione LeGros - once a corsair’s jeweled mistress, now a raddled hag - is found slashed to death in a shanty on the fringe of New Orleans’ most lawless quarter, there are few to care. But one of them is Benjamin January, musician and teacher. He well recalls her blazing ebony beauty when she appeared, exquisitely gowned and handy with a stiletto, at a demimonde banquet years ago.

New Orleans, 1838. When Benjamin January suddenly finds that his services playing piano at extravagant balls held by the city's wealthy are no longer required, he ends up agreeing to accompany sugar planter Henri Viellard and his young wife, Chloe, on a mission to Washington to find a missing friend. Plunged into a murky world, it soon becomes clear that while it is very possible the Viellards' friend is dead, his enemies are very much alive - and ready to kill anyone who gets in their way.

New Orleans, 1836. When free Black musician and surgeon Benjamin January attends the funeral of a friend, an accident tips the dead man out of his coffin - only to reveal an unexpected inhabitant. Just one person recognizes the corpse of the White man: Hannibal Sefton, fiddle-player and one of January’s closest friends. But he seems unwilling to talk about his connection to the dead man....

Gifted with courage, strength, and the intelligence to know when to fight, Sun Wolf is the greatest mercenary in a land overrun by war. With his first lieutenant, Starhawk - a woman more deadly than any man - at his side, he has laid waste to countless cities, taking the best of their treasures for himself, and distributing the rest among his bloodthirsty crew.

Something is amiss with the world's magic. Spells don't work the way they used to—when they work at all. Only the powers of the Crystal Mages remain as they were, powers founded on the use of the mystical element adamis, the harvesting of which has enslaved the peoples of the Twilight Lands. Ravenous beasts have begun to appear, legendary creatures that seem to be proof against any magic.

Mexico City in the autumn of 1835 is a lawless place, teeming with bandits and beggars. But an urgent letter from a desperate friend draws Benjamin January and his new bride, Rose, from New Orleans to this newly free province. Here they pray they’ll find Hannibal Sefton alive - and not hanging from the end of a rope.

Gil Patterson is a woman familiar with dark stories. As a student of medieval history, she knows the Crusades, the Black Death, and the horrors of life in the Middle Ages. But it is another kind of darkness has begun to stalk her dreams: when she falls asleep she sees forces of evil assaulting a beleaguered kingdom, whose kind people are on the brink of annihilation, and awakes each morning in a cold sweat.

May, 1924. It's been months since young British widow Emma Blackstone arrived in Hollywood to serve as companion to Kitty Flint: her beautiful silent-movie star sister-in-law. Kitty is generous, kind-hearted . . . and a truly terrible actress. Not that Emma minds; she's too busy making her academic parents turn in their graves with her new job writing painfully historically inaccurate scenarios for Foremost Studios. So when one of Kitty's old flames calls Emma and tells her it's imperative he meet with Kitty that morning, she's not surprised. Until, that is, he adds that lives depend on it.

Nineteenth-century New Orleans is a blazing hotbed of scorching politics and personal vendettas. And it’s into this fire that Benjamin January falls when he is hired to follow Oliver Weems, a bank official who has absconded with $100,000 in gold and securities. But it’s more than just a job for January. The missing money is vital to the survival of the school for freed slaves that he and his wife, Rose, have founded.

RAN AWAY. So began a score of advertisements every week in the New Orleans newspapers, advertising for slaves who’d fled their masters. But the Turk, Hüseyin Pasha, posted no such advertisement when his two lovely concubines disappeared. And when a witness proclaimed he’d seen the “devilish infidel” hurl their dead bodies out of a window, everyone was willing to believe him the murderer. Only Benjamin January, who knows the Turk of old, is willing to seek for the true culprit, endangering his own life in the process.

It is 1923, and silent film reigns in Hollywood. Of all the starlets, none is more beloved than Chrysanda Flamande, a diva as brilliant as she is difficult to manage. Handling her falls to Norah, widow of Chrysanda’s dead brother. She has always done her job well, but she was never equipped to deal with murder. When a violent killing shocks Chrysanda’s entourage, and other weird happenings swiftly follow, Norah begins to suspect that some strange power is stalking the star. In Chinatown she receives warning that a curse has been placed on the actress as vengeance for wearing a sacred amulet in one of her films.

Once upon a time, Gil and Rudy lived simple lives. Until they met Ingold, Gil was an ordinary PhD candidate and Rudy was a drifter, whiling away his life riding motorcycles under the California sun. But wizards have a way of complicating things. Ingold brought them across the Void, where an evil known as the Dark threatened to devour civilization whole. Civilization's hopes rested on an infant prince, and to protect him Gil and Rudy had to draw on newfound powers—she as a warrior, he as a wizard.

Feltipern Trevagg has traded in his life as a bounty hunter for the security of an Imperial office - as a tax-official to be precise. But the predatory Gotal misses the chase and yearns for a conquest to take him away from his clerical duties. The opportunity to do so eludes him, until one day, during his usual walk through the marketplace, he senses the vibrations of a Jedi Knight. If his senses prove correct, this particular bounty could prove worth his weight in gold to the Empire.

Finally, Rudy, Gil, and the rest of mankind's survivors will take the offensive, bringing an end to this terrible war, for better or for worse.

Kyra was preparing for her final wizard test before the Council. But suddenly, something was twisting her magic, weaving sinister portents of doom into even the simplest of her spells. Then she knew for certain that her young sister Alix was soon to marry--and soon to die. And so she journeyed back to the family who had disowned her. To save her sister, Kyra would have to face down her father's rage, stand firm against the venomous rivalries of her family's enemies, and confront the Inquisition. Then she must defeat a still deadlier foe--if only she could find it!

No one can talk to the dead...can they? Free man of color Benjamin January gets caught up in a strange, spiritual world that might lead to his own demise, as he hunts for a missing teenager in this gripping, atmospheric historical mystery. New Orleans, 1840. Freshly home from a dangerous journey, the last thing Benjamin January wants to do is leave his wife and young sons again. But when old friends Henri and Chloë Viellard ask for his help tracking down a missing girl in distant New York, he can’t say no.