Mount St Benedict College Library: Fantasy

Tunuva Melim is a sister of the Priory. For fifty years, she has trained to slay wyrms - but none have appeared since the Nameless One, and the younger generation is starting to question the Priory's purpose.
To the north, in the Queendom of Inys, Sabran the Ambitious has married the new King of Hroth, narrowly saving both realms from ruin. Their daughter, Glorian, trails in their shadow - exactly where she wants to be.
The dragons of the East have slept for centuries. Dumai has spent her life in a Seiikinese mountain temple, trying to wake the gods from their long slumber.
Now someone from her mother's past is coming to upend her fate. When the Dreadmount erupts, bringing with it an age of terror and violence, these women must find the strength to protect humankind from a devastating threat.

Bev may not know who she was before she showed up in the quaint village of Pigsend five years ago, but that doesn't bother her much. She's made a tidy little life for herself as the proprietor of the Weary Dragon Inn, where the most notable event is when she makes her famous rosemary bread. But when earthquakes and sinkholes start appearing all over town, including near Bev's front door, she's got to put on her sleuthing hat to figure out what-or who-might be causing them before the entire town disappears. Drinks and Sinkholes is the first book in the Weary Dragon Inn Series.

The regulars at Café Funiculi Funicula are well acquainted with the whimsical ability it grants them to take a trip into the past -- as well as the strict rules involved, including that each traveller must return to the present in the time it takes for their coffee to get cold. In Toshikazu Kawaguchi's previous novels, patrons have been reunited with old flames, made amends with estranged family and visited loved ones. Now readers will once again be introduced to a new set of visitors.

High in his attic bedroom, twelve-year-old David mourns the death of his mother, with only the books on his shelf for company. But those books have begun to whisper to him in the darkness. Angry and alone, he takes refuge in his imagination and soon finds that reality and fantasy have begun to meld. While his family falls apart around him, David is violently propelled into a world that is a strange reflection of his own -- populated by heroes and monsters and ruled by a faded king who keeps his secrets in a mysterious book, The Book of Lost Things.

A prim and proper lady thief must save her aunt from a crazed pirate and his dangerously charming henchman in this fantastical historical romance. Cecilia Bassingwaite is the ideal Victorian lady. She's also a thief. Like the other members of the Wisteria Society crime sorority, she flies around England drinking tea, blackmailing friends, and acquiring treasure by interesting means. Sure, she has a dark and traumatic past and an overbearing aunt, but all things considered, it's a pleasant existence. Until the men show up. Ned Lightbourne is a sometimes assassin who is smitten with Cecilia from the moment they meet. Unfortunately, that happens to be while he's under direct orders to kill her. His employer, Captain Morvath, who possesses a gothic abbey bristling with cannons and an unbridled hate for the world, intends to rid England of all its presumptuous women, starting with the Wisteria Society. Ned has plans of his own. But both men have made one grave mistake: never underestimate a woman. When Morvath imperils the Wisteria Society, Cecilia is forced to team up with her handsome would-be assassin to save the women who raised her-hopefully proving, once and for all, that she's as much of a scoundrel as the rest of them.

Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal. 1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he'll enroll in Oxford University's prestigious Royal Institute of Translation-- also known as Babel. Babel is the world's center for translation and, more importantly, magic. Silver working-- the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation using enchanted silver bars-- has made the British unparalleled in power, as its knowledge serves the Empire's quest for colonization. For Robin, Oxford is a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge obeys power, and as a Chinese boy raised in Britain, Robin realizes serving Babel means betraying his motherland. As his studies progress, Robin finds himself caught between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society, an organization dedicated to stopping imperial expansion. When Britain pursues an unjust war with China over silver and opium, Robin must decide-- can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence?

High fantasy, low stakes - with a double-shot of coffee. After decades of raising hell, Viv the orc barbarian is finally hanging up her sword for good. Now she sets her sights on a new dream - one that involves pulling more shots than punches. Armed with hope and a hard-earned secret, she plans to open the first coffee shop in Thune. To build something that will last, Viv needs a new crew. She enlists a gruff hob builder shunned by humans, and a shy baker whose cinnamon rolls are to die for. Then there's Tandri, a charming succubus who's determined not to let anyone assume anything about her. But Thune has a shady underbelly that keeps goading Viv to take up her sword once more. New enemies threaten her beloved coffee shop and rag-tag team. And Viv's adventuring past isn't so eager to leave her behind - or the fabled piece of loot she took with her.

An antique shop haunted by a ghost. A silver treasure with an injustice in its story. An adventure to the past she'll never forget. Xanthe and her mother Flora leave London behind for a fresh start, taking over an antique shop in the historic town of Marlborough. Xanthe has always had an affinity with some of the antiques she finds. When she touches them, she can sense something of the past they come from and the stories they hold. When she has an intense connection to a beautiful silver chatelaine, she has to know more. It is while she's examining the chatelaine that she's transported back to the seventeenth century, where she discovers an injustice in its history. The spirit that inhabits her new home confronts her and charges her with saving her daughter's life, threatening to take Flora's if she fails. While Xanthe fights to save the girl in 1605, she meets architect Samuel Appleby. He may be the person who can help her succeed. He may also be the reason she can't bring herself to leave. With its rich historical detail, strong mother-daughter relationship, and picturesque English village, The Little Shop of Found Things delivers a heartfelt page-turner.

1650: The Black Forest, Wurttemberg. Fifteen years after the witch in the gingerbread house, Greta and Hans are struggling to get by. Their father and stepmother are long dead, Hans is deeply in debt from gambling, and the countryside lies in ruin, its people recovering in the aftermath of a brutal war. Greta has a secret, though: the witch's grimoire, secreted away and whispering in her ear, and the recipe inside that makes the most sinfully delicious -- and addictive -- gingerbread. As long as she can bake, Greta can keep her small family afloat. But in a village full of superstition, Greta and her intoxicating gingerbread is a source of ever-growing suspicion and vicious gossip. And now, dark magic is returning to the woods and Greta's own power -- magic she is still trying to understand -- may be the only thing that can save her. If it doesn't kill her first.

Emmett Farmer is working in the fields when a letter arrives summoning him to begin an apprenticeship. He will work for a Bookbinder, a vocation that arouses fear, superstition and prejudice - but one neither he nor his parents can afford to refuse. He will learn to hand-craft beautiful volumes, and within each he will capture something unique and extraordinary: a memory. If there's something you want to forget, he can help. If there's something you need to erase, he can assist. Your past will be stored safely in a book and you will never remember your secret, however terrible. In a vault under his mentor's workshop, row upon row of books - and memories - are meticulously stored and recorded. Then one day Emmett makes an astonishing discovery: one of them has his name on it.

When Princess Atalanta is born, a daughter rather than the son her parents hoped for, she is left on a mountainside to die. But even then, she is a survivor. Raised by a mother bear under the protective eye of the goddess Artemis, Atalanta grows up wild and free, with just one condition: if she marries, Artemis warns, it will be her undoing. Although she loves her beautiful forest home, Atalanta yearns for adventure. When Artemis offers her the chance to fight in her name alongside the Argonauts, the fiercest band of warriors the world has ever seen, Atalanta seizes it. The Argonauts' quest for the Golden Fleece is filled with impossible challenges, but Atalanta proves herself equal to the men she fights alongside. As she is swept into a passionate affair, in defiance of Artemis's warning, she begins to question the goddess's true intentions. Can Atalanta carve out her own legendary place in a world of men, while staying true to her heart?

In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. Circe is a strange child - not powerful and terrible, like her father, nor gorgeous and mercenary like her mother. Scorned and rejected, Circe grows up in the shadows, at home in neither the world of gods or mortals. But Circe has a dark power of her own: witchcraft. When her gift threatens the gods, she is banished to the island of Aiaia where she hones her occult craft, casting spells, gathering strange herbs and taming wild beasts. Yet a woman who stands alone will never be left in peace for long - and among her island's guests is an unexpected visitor: the mortal Odysseus, for whom Circe will risk everything.

In this novel death is a beginning, a new start.
Liz is killed in a hit-and-run accident and her 'life' takes a very unexpected turn. At nearly sixteen she knows she will never get married, never have children, and perhaps never fall in love. But in Elsewhere all things carry on almost as they did on Earth except that the inhabitants get younger, dogs and humans can communicate (at last), new relationships are formed and old ones, sadly interrupted on earth, are renewed.

In 1893, there's no such thing as witches. There used to be, in the wild, dark days before the burnings began, but now witching is nothing but tidy charms and nursery rhymes. If the modern woman wants any measure of power, she must find it at the ballot box. But when the three Eastwood sisters join the suffragists of New Salem, they begin to pursue the forgotten ways that might turn the women's movement into the witches' movement. Stalked by shadows and sickness, hunted by forces who will not suffer a witch to vote--and perhaps not even to live--the sisters must delve into the oldest magics, draw new alliances, and heal the bond between them if they want to survive.

A man awakes in a clearing in what appears to be medieval England with no memory of who he is, where he came from, or why he is there. Chased by a group from his own time, his sole hope for survival lies in regaining his missing memories, making allies among the locals, and perhaps even trusting in their superstitious boasts. His only help from the "real world" should have been a guidebook entitled The Frugal Wizard's Handbook for Surviving Medieval England, except his copy exploded during transit. The few fragments he managed to save provide clues to his situation, but can he figure them out in time to survive?

Piranesi lives in the House. Perhaps he always has. In his notebooks, day after day, he makes a clear and careful record of its wonders: the labyrinth of halls, the thousands upon thousands of statues, the tides that thunder up staircases, the clouds that move in slow procession through the upper halls. On Tuesdays and Fridays Piranesi sees his friend, the Other. At other times he brings tributes of food and waterlilies to the Dead. But mostly, he is alone. Messages begin to appear, scratched out in chalk on the pavements. There is someone new in the House. But who are they and what do they want? Are they a friend or do they bring destruction and madness as the Other claims? Lost texts must be found; secrets must be uncovered. The world that Piranesi thought he knew is becoming strange and dangerous.

Eleven-year-old Malcolm Polstead and his dæmon, Asta, live with his parents at the Trout Inn near Oxford. Across the River Thames (which Malcolm navigates often using his beloved canoe, a boat by the name of La Belle Sauvage) is the Godstow Priory where the nuns live. Malcolm learns they have a guest with them; a baby by the name of Lyra Belacqua . . .

As for queens, they are either hated or forgotten. She already knows which option suits her best...

You were born to a king, but you marry a tyrant. You stand by helplessly as he sacrifices your child to placate the gods. You watch him wage war on a foreign shore, and you comfort yourself with violent thoughts of your own. Because this was not the first offence against you. This was not the life you ever deserved. And this will not be your undoing. Slowly, you plot.

But when your husband returns in triumph, you become a woman with a choice.

Acceptance or vengeance, infamy follows both. So, you bide your time and force the gods' hands in the game of retribution. For you understood something long ago that the others never did.

If power isn't given to you, you have to take it for yourself.

A blazing novel set in the world of Ancient Greece for fans of Jennifer Saint and Natalie Haynes, this is a thrilling tale of power and prophecies, of hatred, love, and of an unforgettable Queen who fiercely dealt out death to those who wronged her.