In Victorian England, Londoners wash up dead on Thames, drained of blood and bone. Clandestine Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences is forbidden to investigate. But Eliza Braun, with bulletproof corset, fondness for dynamite, remarkable devices, drags along timorous new partner Wellington Books, of encyclopedic brain, against Phoenix intent on enslaving Britons.
1864. London is a city in transition. The Constantine Affliction - strange malady that kills some of its victims and physically transforms others into the opposite sex - has spread scandal and upheaval throughout society. Scientific marvels and disasters, such as clockwork courtesans, the alchemical fires of Whitechapel, electric carriages, and acidic monsters lurking in the Thames, have forever altered the face of the city.
Pembroke "Pimm" Halliday is an aristocrat with an interest in criminology, who uses his keen powers of observation to assist the police or private individuals - at least when he's sober enough to do so. Ellie Skyler, who hides her gender behind the byline "E. Skye," is an intrepid journalist driven by both passion and necessity to uncover the truth, no matter where it hides.
When Pimm and Skye stumble onto a dark plot that links the city’s most notorious criminal overlord with the Queen’s new consort, famed scientist Sir Bertram Oswald, they soon find the forces of both high and low society arrayed against them. Can they save the city from the arcane machinations of one of history's greatest monsters - and uncover the shocking origin of . . . THE CONSTANTINE AFFLICTION.
Cuando la persona que más ama muere trágicamente, el protagonista de esta historia hará todo lo posible para hablar con ella una última vez. Necesita confesarle el secreto que le atormenta y no se atrevió a contarle en vida.
En el Londres victoriano, en pleno apogeo del espiritismo, una sesión con el mejor médium de la historia se presenta como la única solución, pero en ella se desencadenarán fuerzas más terribles de lo que nadie podía imaginar. El mundo entero está en peligro, y su salvación reside en las páginas de un misterioso libro titulado El mapa del Caos. Si nuestro protagonista no lo recupera, jamás podrá llegar hasta la persona amada, pues incluso el Más Allá dejará de existir.
Pero no estará solo en esta aventura. Contará con la inestimable ayuda de Arthur Conan Doyle, el padre de Sherlock Holmes, de Lewis Carroll, el autor de Alicia en el País de las Maravillas, y por supuesto de H. G. Wells, cuyo Hombre Invisible tal vez haya escapado de las páginas de su famosa novela, para sembrar el terror entre los hombres. Solo ellos pueden descubrir la forma de salvar el mundo. Solo ellos pueden encontrar el camino para reunir a los amantes separados por la muerte. El camino a través de los espejos…
El mapa del Caos es una aventura trepidante, en la que el autor, con la magistral escritura y el fino humor al que nos tiene acostumbrados, mezcla amores imposibles, acción a raudales, fantasmas verdaderos y mediums falsos, en un explosivo coctel que atrapará a los lectores de todo el mundo. O como diría el misterioso narrador de esta novela, de todos los mundos posibles.
It's 1890 and the citizens of Boston are beginning to go missing in the fog.
The police are confounded. The public is frightened. The city is on the edge of hysteria.
It's up to the mysterious Smith, inventor and adventurer, to figure out what's going on with the help of his assistant, April Malone. They'll have to face off against a secret society, corrupt policemen and a mad psychologist hell-bent on dissecting Smith, in order to solve the mystery of what's going on and to save the city from an even more sinister threat.
It’s the first story of Smith, a hard science fiction time traveler with more than a enough quirk to last him several centuries.
A fast-paced 45,000 word tale of scientific adventure combines elements of DOCTOR WHO, SHERLOCK HOLMES and TONY STARK set against turn-of-the-century Boston’s soot-stained streets.
On the surface, life is going well for Victorian special agent Sir Maurice Newbury, who has brilliantly solved several nigh-impossible cases for Queen Victoria with his indomitable assistant, Miss Veronica Hobbes, by his side. But these facts haven’t stopped Newbury from succumbing increasingly frequently to his dire flirtation with the lure of opium. His addiction is fueled in part by his ill-gotten knowledge of Veronica’s secret relationship with the queen, which Newbury fears must be some kind of betrayal. Veronica, consumed by worry and care for her prophetic but physically fragile sister Amelia, has no idea that she is a catalyst for Newbury’s steadily worsening condition.
Veronica and Newbury’s dear friend Bainbridge, the Chief Investigator at Scotland Yard, tries to cover for him as much as possible, but when the body of a well known criminal turns up, Bainbridge and Veronica track Newbury down in an opium den and drag him out to help them with the case. The body is clearly, irrefutably, that of the man in question, but shortly after his body is brought to the morgue, a crime is discovered that bears all the dead man’s hallmarks. Bainbridge and Veronica fear someone is committing copycat crimes, but Newbury is not sure. Somehow, the details are too perfect for it to be the work of a copycat. But how can a dead man commit a crime?
Awakening from a fevered delirium, Celeste Temple finds herself in a fishing village on the remote Iron Coast. She has no idea where her companions, Cardinal Chang and Doctor Svenson, might be—nor whether any of her enemies survived the dirigible crash that marked her last conscious moment. And while her body seems intact, she cannot say the same for her mind. For she must contend not only with the possibility that peril awaits her but with the memory of her traitorous fiancé’s murder at sea…along with thousands of other memories that now live within her—courtesy of a bewitching glass book.
Hunted by murderous opportunists and cruel mercenaries of every kind, Miss Temple, Chang, and the Doctor are soon propelled into a quest that will draw them one by one into a realm of reckless, lawless terror. At every turn lies another enigma—and the stench of indigo clay, the raw material used to enslave even the most steadfast soul. Now they alone stand in the path of a diabolical conspiracy involving the books—one that will mean an alarming new world where once-free-roaming minds are wiped completely clean… if they live long enough. As Miss Temple, Cardinal Chang and Dr. Svenson uncover the devilish schemes of their deadly enemies, the terrifying secrets contained in The Dark Volume will be revealed one by one. For the blue glass is more lethal than they’d ever imagined—and those who possess it, as well as those who pursue it, are playing with fire.
A masked terrorist has brought London to its knees - there are bombs inside books, and nobody knows which ones. On the day of the launch of the first expedition to Mars, by giant cannon, he outdoes himself with an audacious attack. For young poet Orphan, trapped in the screaming audience, it seems his destiny is entwined with that of the shadowy terrorist, but how? Like a steam-powered take on V for Vendetta, rich with satire and slashed through with automatons, giant lizards, pirates, airships and wild adventure, The Bookman is the first of a series.
An opium-addicted beauty. An infamous poet living in self-imposed exile. An ancient treasure about to fall into the wrong hands.
Melanie Karsak's Chasing the Star Garden takes readers on a thrilling adventure from the gritty opium dens of gaslamp London to the gem-coloured waters of the ancient world. Lily Stargazer, a loveable but reckless airship racer with a famous lover and shattered past, reluctantly plunges into a centuries-old mystery in a romantic adventure best described as Dan Brown meets Mary Shelley.
It all begins on one of the worst days of Lily’s life. She just lost the London leg of the 1823 Airship Grand Prix. To top it off, a harlequin fleeing from constables shoved a kaleidoscope down her pants, told her to fly to Venice, then threw himself from her airship tower. What’s a girl to do? For Lily, the answer is easy: drink absinthe and smoke opium.
Lily’s lover, Lord Byron, encourages her to make the trip to Venice. Lily soon finds herself at the heart of an ancient mystery which has her running from her past and chasing true love and the stars along the way.
Elizabeth Barnabus lives a double life—as herself and as her brother, the private detective. She is trying to solve the mystery of a disappearing aristocrat and a hoard of arcane machines. In her way stand the rogues, freaks and self-proclaimed alchemists of a travelling circus. But when she comes up against an agent of the all-powerful Patent Office, her life and the course of history will begin to change. And not necessarily for the better…
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