Books Out Of The Ordinary

A selection that will break your reality this upcoming Christmas.

The Belladonna Collection - by Adalyn Grace

The New York Times bestselling author of All the Stars and Teeth brings to life a highly romantic, Gothic-infused world of wealth, desire, and betrayal. ​

Orphaned as a baby, nineteen-year-old Signa has been raised by a string of guardians, each one more interested in her wealth than her well-being—and each has met an untimely end. Her remaining relatives are the elusive Hawthornes, an eccentric family living at Thorn Grove, an estate both glittering and gloomy. Its patriarch mourns his late wife through wild parties, while his son grapples for control of the family’s waning reputation, and his daughter suffers from a mysterious illness. But when their mother’s restless spirit appears claiming she was poisoned, Signa realizes that the family she depends on could be in grave danger and enlists the help of a surly stable boy to hunt down the killer.

However, Signa’s best chance of uncovering the murderer is an alliance with Death himself, a fascinating, dangerous shadow who has never been far from her side. Though he’s made her life a living hell, Death shows Signa that their growing connection may be more powerful—and more irresistible—than she ever dared imagine.

House of Leaves Paperback – by Mark Z. Danielewski

The novel is written as a work of epistolary fiction and metafiction focusing on a fictional documentary film titled The Navidson Record, presented as a story within a story discussed in a handwritten monograph recovered by the primary narrator, Johnny Truant. The narrative makes heavy use of multiperspectivity as Truant's footnotes chronicle his efforts to transcribe the manuscript, which itself reveals The Navidson Record's supposed narrative through transcriptions and analysis depicting a story of a family who discovers a larger-on-the-inside labyrinth in their house.

House of Leaves maintains an academic publishing format throughout with exhibits, appendices, and an index, as well as numerous footnotes including citations for nonexistent works, interjections from the narrator, and notes from the editors to whom he supposedly sent the work for publication. It is also distinguished by convoluted page layouts: some pages contain only a few words or lines of text, arranged to mirror the events in the story, often creating both an agoraphobic and a claustrophobic effect. At points, the book must be rotated to be read, making it a prime example of ergodic literature.

The book is most often described as a horror story, though the author has also endorsed readers' interpretation of it as a love story. House of Leaves has also been described as an encyclopedic novel, or conversely a satire of academia.

Void Wind - by Marcela Dantés

In Quina da Capivara, no one is immune to the penetrating and maddening Empty Wind. Through the hallucinatory voices of four residents tormented by their stories, Marcela Dantés writes an original novel where guilt, obsessions, and secrets flirt with a loss of contact with reality. If it weren't for his beloved Teodora, Miguel Sem-Fim wouldn't have found a home in Quina da Capivara, the place he arrived disoriented, his body covered in burns. It was also thanks to his friend that he got the job as a watchman at the wind farm. He seemed to have found his footing, but when they closed it without explanation, an abyss opened in his consciousness, bringing to the surface terrible memories that push him to the brink of sanity. In this desolate land, people know not to go out when the maddening Empty Wind blows. Cícera fears him, but prefers to stay in the yard when he arrives, determined to dig an endless hole around the house while caring for her infant daughter. Alma, on the other hand, doesn't take the superstition seriously, and the orphan Maura, a girl with impulsive behavior and disjointed speech, requires special attention, with or without wind. A triptych narrated in four voices, Empty Wind unfolds the lives of these residents, linked both by the space they share and by the ghosts that accompany them. Recurring thoughts and memories that cannot be erased move with the wind in this unique novel by Marcela Dantés, in which repressed feelings are an invitation to lose one's mind. Marcela Dantés is a writer who doesn't shy away from the struggle of creating complex characters. She holds her own, tells a story, and adds her voice to the voices of the best storytellers in the Brazilian tradition – Socorro Acioli.

I think it's fair to explain that "Void Wind" is divided into 3 parts: "Miguel's Book", "The Others' Book" and "Maura's Book". "Miguel's Book", as you can imagine, is the part that tells his story, how that black man, a little over 70 years old, arrived at the small place covered in burns, screaming and tormented by the fire that burned his house. He was taken in by Teodora, a kind woman who always welcomed people who passed through the place in some way. Miguel has lived in Quina da Capivara for over 20 years and has become a watchman at the Wind Power Plant and is now old enough to confuse his own age, sometimes saying he is younger or older, but perhaps it's the passage of time – or perhaps there seems to be something untrustworthy about him, leaving the final judgment to the reader.

THE FIFTH SEASON - by K. Jemisin

“The 21st-century fantasy trilogy that changed the game.” That’s how the New York Times defines “The Broken Earth,” a trilogy by N. K. Jemisin, whose first book, “The Fifth Season,” is in the Season in the Future selection. The only woman to win the Hugo Award three years in a row, the American author has cemented her name in speculative fiction.

In “The Fifth Season,” we are transported to Stillness—not a state of mind, but the continent of a fictional planet. Devastated, hostile, and dominated by a lack of compassion, Stillness sustains itself through the enslavement of the orogenes, humanoid beings with the ability to use geological energy. When one of them decides that the only way to free their people is to end the empire, thus altering the continent's structure, climate, and atmosphere, everyone must grapple with imminent doom, but also with the opportunity to create a new world.

“Jemisin created a fantastic universe where the relationship between the planet and its inhabitants is central. People know magic and technology, but insist on governing through fear and violence. It’s a fiction that tells us a lot about the present,” comments Stephanie Borges, curator of the season. “The end of the world in Quietude is just the beginning of another story,” she concludes.

The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers

Time is a flat circle in this beautiful gift edition of the cult classic work of weird fiction and supernatural horror that inspired H.P. Lovecraft and HBO’s True Detective

"…For we do not know what beasts the night dreams when its hours grow too long for even God to be awake." – Attributed to Hildred Castaigne, narrator of “The Repairer of Reputations.”

The weird tales in this slim volume are all linked by a play, the second act of which reveals truths so terrible and beautiful that it drives all who read it to despair: The King in Yellow.

I cannot forget Carcosa where black stars hang in the heavens; where the shadows of men’s thoughts lengthen in the afternoon . . . I pray God will curse the writer, as the writer has cursed the world with this beautiful, stupendous creation, terrible in its simplicity, irresistible in its truth–a world which now trembles before the King in Yellow.

These four macabre, uncanny, and unsettling stories are some of the most thrilling ever written in the field of weird fiction, exploring themes of the supernatural, spirituality, and the potentially corrosive influence of belief in the afterlife. Since their first publication in 1895, they have become a cult classic, influencing everyone from the renowned master of cosmic horror, H.P Lovecraft, to the creators of HBO’s True Detective.

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