magic realist fiction

"1910, Edinburgh. Jessie MacRae has been sent to a tenement building by her recently-deceased father to bear a child for a wealthy man and his fianc?e. The . . . events that follow lead to a curse on the building and its residents--a curse that will last for the rest of the century. Over nine decades, 10 Luckenbooth Close bears witness to emblems of a changing world outside its walls. An infamous madam, a spy, a famous Beat poet, a coal miner who fears daylight, a psychic: these are some of the residents whose lives are plagued by the building's troubled history in disparate, sometimes chilling ways. The curse creeps up the nine floors as a suppressed spirit world swells to the surface, desperate for the true horror of the building's longest kept secret to be heard"--Dust jacket flap.

"Sent to stay with her aunt in Prague and witness the humble life of an artist, Ilana Lopez--a biracial Jewish girl--finds herself torn between her dream of becoming a violinist and her immigrant parents' desire for her to pursue a more stable career. When she discovers a forgotten Jewish cemetery behind her aunt's cottage, she meets the ghost of a kindhearted boy named Benjamin, who died over a century ago. As Ilana restores Benjamin's grave, he introduces her to the enchanted side of Prague, where ghosts walk the streets and their kisses have warmth. But Benjamin isn't the only one interested in Ilana. Rudolph Wassermann, a man with no shadow, has become fascinated with her and the music she plays. He offers to share his magic, so Ilana can be with Benjamin and pursue her passion for violin. But after Ilana discovers the truth about Wassermann and how Benjamin became bound to the city, she resolves to save the boy she loves, even if it means losing him--forever"--OCLC.

"Emily Wilde is a genius scholar of faerie folklore who just wrote the world's first comprehensive encyclopedia of faeries. She's learned many of the secrets of the Hidden Ones on her adventures . . . and also from her fellow scholar and former rival Wendell Bambleby. Because Bambleby is more than infuriatingly charming. He's an exiled faerie king on the run from his murderous mother and in search of a door back to his realm. And despite Emily's feelings for Bambleby, she's not ready to accept his proposal of marriage: Loving one of the Fair Folk comes with secrets and dangers. She also has a new project to focus on: a map of the realms of faerie. While she is preparing her research, Bambleby lands her in trouble yet again, when assassins sent by his mother invade Cambridge. Now Bambleby and Emily are on another adventure, this time to the picturesque Austrian Alps, where Emily believes they may find the door to Bambleby's realm and the key to freeing him from his family's dark plans. But with new relationships for the prickly Emily to navigate and dangerous Folk lurking in every forest and hollow, Emily must unravel the mysterious workings of faerie doors and of her own heart"--Provided by publisher.

"In the early 1900s, a curmudgeonly professor journeys to a small town to study faerie folklore, where she discovers dark fae magic, friendship, and love. Cambridge professor Emily Wilde is good at many things: She is the foremost expert on dryadology, the study of faeries. She is a genius scholar and a meticulous researcher who is writing the world's first encylopedia of faerie lore. But Emily Wilde is not good at people. She could never make small talk at a party--much less get invited to one. And she prefers the company of her books, her dog Shadow, and the Fair Folk to that of friends or lovers. So when she arrives in the hardscrabble village of Hransvik, Emily has no intention of befriending the gruff townsfolk. Nor does she care to spend time with another new arrival: the dashing and insufferably handsome Wendell Bambleby, who manages to charm the townsfolk, get in the middle of her research, and utterly confound and frustrate Emily. But as Emily gets closer and closer to uncovering the secrets of the Hidden Ones--the most elusive of all faeries--lurking in the shadowy forest outside the town, she also finds herself on the trail of another mystery: Who is Wendell Bambleby, and what does he really want? To find the answer, she'll have to unlock the greatest mystery of all--her own heart"--Provided by publisher.

"When six-year-old Beatrice Willoughby vanished at the Amadeuses' annual All Hallows Eve party, people in the tiny mountain town of Nevermore were quick to whisper: They were always odd. Their house is full of dark magic. And when Mort Amadeus was pegged for the crime, the Amadeuses, once the center of society, retreated. They closed their doors, disappeared from life. People almost forgot. Until thirteen years later, when six envelopes land at the doorstep of six households in town: We cordially invite you to a celebration on the 31st of October this Saturday evening at the Amadeus household. So begins the mystery of who was really responsible for the missing girl thirteen years ago. Was it Duchess von Pelt, whose face no one has ever seen? Mrs. Raven, the keeper of the local inn? Wormwood, the Amadeuses' mysterious caretaker? Dr. Foozle, the town pharmacist? Count Baines, who seems to know when unlucky things are about to happen? Judge Ophelius, who presided over Beatrice's case originally? Mr. and Mrs. H, a couple who no one can ever quite remember? Or somehow, might precocious, eleven-year- old Dewey and his storytelling dad, Chaucer, be somehow mixed up in all this? The guests must work together to identify the guilty party among them over the course of the evening--but beware the ticking clock, because at midnight, everything is going to change! Told from different perspectives, this is a sly, darkly funny mystery. Filled with strange characters and set in a mansion deep, deep in the woods. G. Z. Schmidt has crafted an unforgettable puzzle, perfect for reading on a dark autumn night" --.

"Privately questioning her remote community's superstitions about dangerous powerful spirits in their Devil's Alley home, Cecelia Rios experiments with the forbidden art of brujer?a to rescue her kidnapped sister"--OCLC.

When travel journalist and mountaineer Nick Grevers awakens from a coma, he is horrified to learn his climbing partner, Augustin, is missing and presumed dead, and he himself has suffered extensive injuries. He claims amnesia, but he remembers everything than happened on Maudit, a remote and scarcely documented peak in the Swiss Alps. He begins to question his sanity as he starts to believe that he was changed on the mountain, and his boyfriend Sam tries to piece together what really happened on Maudit.

"A woman fresh out of a failed marriage has seemingly written her soulmate into existence--only to discover that great love begets greater tragedy--in this fantastical reimagination of Romeo and Juliet"--Provided by publisher.

"For Lewis and Wren, their first year of marriage is also their last. A few weeks after their wedding, Lewis receives a rare diagnosis. He will retain most of his consciousness, memories, and intellect, but his physical body will gradually turn into a great white shark. As Lewis develops the features and impulses of one of the most predatory creatures in the ocean, his complicated artist's heart struggles to make peace with his unfulfilled dreams. At first, Wren internally resists her husband's fate. . . . Then, a glimpse of Lewis's developing carnivorous nature activates long-repressed memories for Wren, whose story vacillates between her childhood living on a houseboat in Oklahoma, her time with a college ex-girlfriend, and her unusual friendship with a woman pregnant with twin birds. Woven throughout this . . . novel is the story of Wren's mother, Angela, who becomes pregnant with Wren at fifteen in an abusive relationship amidst her parents' crumbling marriage. In the present, all of Wren's grief eventually collides, and she is forced to make an impossible choice"--Provided by publisher.

Anna enters a surreal hotel where no one ever leaves, and when the clock strikes midnight, she will be trapped there forever, unless she decides to break all her rules to break free from its magic.