Bøker av Barbara Hambly

Welcome to Hollywood of the 1920s: a world filled with glamour, fake names . . . and the occasional felony! July, 1924. After nine months of living in Hollywood and working as a companion to her beautiful silent-movie star sister-in-law, young British widow Emma Blackstone is settling into her new role: doctoring film scenarios whenever the regular scenarist is overwhelmed with work, which seems to be most of the time. Shoots for the Western movie Our Tiny Miracle are in full swing, with little seven-year-old Susy Sweetchild playing the lead and acting most professionally. Maybe too professionally, Emma thinks, shocked to the core when the child star is nearly killed in a stunt scene and her mother - former screen siren Selina Sutton - seems only to care that Susy gets the job done. But Emma's concerns only worsen when news reaches her that Susy and her mother have been kidnapped. The ransom note says to keep the cops out of it, so it's up to Emma and Kitty to find them before the unthinkable happens and Emma is forced to rewrite Our Tiny Miracle with a far more tragic ending . . . New York Times bestselling author Barbara Hambly once again brings the glamour and intrigue of Hollywood to life! An unputdownable mystery for fans of female-fronted historical mysteries set in the roaring twenties.

A cursed statue . . . A haunted house . . . A seemingly supernatural death . . . The unexpected arrival of a friend from his past plunges musician, sleuth and free man of color Benjamin January into an old, unsolved case in this historical mystery set in New Orleans December 1840. Surgeon turned piano-player Benjamin January is looking forward to a peaceful holiday with his family. But the arrival of an old friend brings unexpected news - and unexpected danger. Persephone Jondrette has found Arithmus: a Sudanese man with extraordinary mental abilities who January last saw in France, nearly fifteen years ago, during a ghost-hunting expedition to a haunted chateau. January and his friends survived the experience . . . but Arithmus' benefactor, the British explorer Deverel Wishart, did not. He was discovered dead one morning, his face twisted in horror, and shortly afterwards Arithmus vanished, never to be seen again. Did Deverel succumb to the chateau's ghosts - or did Arithmus murder him and run away? January is determined to uncover the truth about the tragic incident from his past, and clear his old friend's name - but even he isn't prepared for what happens next . . . The Nubian's Curse by NYT-bestselling author Barbara Hambly is the latest instalment of the critically acclaimed historical mystery series featuring talented amateur sleuth and free man of color, Benjamin January.

As a girl growing up in Kentucky, she lived a sheltered, privileged life filled with picnics and plantation balls. Vivacious, impulsive, and intoxicated by politics, she is a Todd of Lexington, an aristocratic family whose ancestors defeated the British. But no one knows her secret fears and anxieties. Although she is courted by the most eligible suitors in the land, including future senator Stephen Douglas, it is a gangly lawyer from Illinois who captures her heart. After a stormy courtship and a broken engagement, Abraham Lincoln will marry twenty-four-year-old Mary Todd and give her a ring inscribed with the words "Love Is Eternal.” But their happiness won't last nearly so long. Their first child will be born under the gathering clouds of a civil war, and three more follow. As Lincoln's star rises, the pleasure-loving Mary learns, often the hard way, the rules of being a politician's wife. But by the time the fiery storm of war passes, tragedy will have claimed two sons, scandal will shadow her days as First Lady, and an assassin's bullet will take Lincoln himself, leaving Mary alone and all but forgotten by the nation that owed her husband its survival. Yet it is in the years to come that Mary Todd Lincoln will truly come into her own. In public, she will fight to preserve Lincoln's memory even as she battles a bitterly contested insanity trial. In private, she will struggle with depression and addiction as she endures the betrayals-both real and imagined-of family and friends. With a gifted novelist's imagination and a historian's eye for detail, Barbara Hambly tells a story of astonishing scope, richly peopled with real-life characters and their fictional counterparts, a tour-de-force tale of power, politics, and the role of women in nineteenth- century America. The result is a Mary Todd Lincoln few have seen and none will forget-the fascinating, controversial woman of whom her husband could say: "My wife is as handsome as when she was a girl and I fell in love with her; and what is more, I have never fallen out”-Mary Todd, the woman who loved Abraham Lincoln.

1840. When Eve Russell vanishes into thin air, her frantic parents call on free man of color Benjamin January for help. Did the teenager run away - or was she kidnapped? The answer lies in distant New York, a hotbed of new religions, of human circuses . and of dangerous slave traders. If January uncovers the truth, will he ever get home to tell it?

New Orleans 1836: When free black musician and surgeon Benjamin January attends a friend's funeral an accident tips the dead man out of his coffin - only to reveal the corpse of a white man: Hannibal Sefton, one of January's closest friends. But he seems unwilling to talk about his connection to the dead man.

An anthology of 15 new stories about female vampires, from ancient times to the present, stalking nocturnal forests, city lights and suburban PTAs.

A whirlwind fantasy classic set in the richest world imaginable, with unforgettable characters and the highest stakes - The Armies of Daylight is the third and final book in Barbara Hambly's epic Darwath Trilogy.

A whirlwind fantasy classic set in the richest world imaginable, with unforgettable characters and the highest stakes - The Walls of Air is the second book in Barbara Hambly's epic Darwath Trilogy.

A whirlwind fantasy classic set in the richest world imaginable, with unforgettable characters and the highest stakes - The Time of the Dark is the first book in Barbara Hambly's epic Darwath Trilogy.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 in her home inhe 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. Gil dismisses the dreams until a wizard appears in her apartment. He has crossed into her dimension, passing through the fraying fabric of the universe, to ask her help. For mankind to survive he must protect an infant prince, whom he plans to hide in Gil's world. The student of history is about to get much closer to evil than she ever imagined.

The thundering conclusion to Barbara Hambly's landmark quartet, The Winterlands, Dragonstar is a riot of magic, demons and dragons that will stay with you long after you turn the final page.Condemned to die for consorting with demons, dragonslayer Lord John Aversin sits in a dank prison cell and calculates the odds of escape, all the while smelling the smoke of the executioners' pyres.Far away in Winterlands, Jenny Waynest pays a heavy price for turning away from dragonkind and choosing to be human. She mourns the loss of her husband, Lord John even as she turns to face the dangers that engulf her family.But it is the season of the Dragon Star, and hope shines brightest in the dark.As a pitched battle between demons and humanity rages, Jenny and John will be given one last chance to understand all that has happened to them and why, who their true enemies and allies are, and most of all, who they were always meant to be.The thundering conclusion to Barbara Hambly's landmark quartet, The Winterlands, Dragonstar is a riot of magic, demons and dragons that will stay with you long after you turn the final page.

Knight of the Demon Queen is the third book in Barbara Hambly's fantasy tour de force, The Winterlands - an epic, classic quartet full of high stakes, magic and dragons.Once the most powerful mage in the land, defeater of dragons, Jenny Waynest is now a broken woman.She was possessed and corrupted by a demon, losing all she held dear - including her love's trust. Rebuilding her life seems impossible.Her husband, Lord John, now bears his own torment, far away: he tricked the beautiful and cruel Aohila a rival hell's demon queen, in order to free his wife from possession and now he is plagued by her memories. Condemned to death for making deals with demons, John cannot forgive himself for opening the door to a far greater evil - an evil that now haunts his dreams. And not only his dreams...For the vengeful Aohila needs mortal aid in realms beyond her power, and who better to provide it than John? Blackmailed into cooperating, John must fight his way through unimaginable horrors in a quest that may doom the world he has left behind...Knight of the Demon Queen is the third book in Barbara Hambly's fantasy tour de force, The Winterlands - an epic, classic quartet full of high stakes, magic and dragons.

Dragonshadow is book two in the breath-taking The Winterlands - an epic, classic fantasy quartet full of whirlwind adventure, magic and dragons.Lord John Aversin and the mageborn Jenny Waynest continue to battle and study dragons. Many years have passed since their battle at Bel and while they remain strong, their love for one another has begun to wane with the passing seasons.But time moves against them in more ways than one. For a danger unlike any they have ever known in their long years of violence begins to stir.Demonspawn from a dark dimension have learned to drink the magic and the souls of mages and dragons alike, turning their victims into empty vessels. The demons are rising and have stolen the couple's young son.In desperation, John seeks the help of the eldest and strongest dragon: Morkeleb the Black. But it may not be enough. In the coming struggle, all will question what they believe in, and some may have to sacrifice what they value most in order to survive...Dragonshadow is book two in the breath-taking The Winterlands - an epic, classic fantasy quartet full of whirlwind adventure, magic and dragons.

A rich and breath-taking fantasy classic full of whirlwind adventure, magic and dragons - Dragonsbane is the first book in Barbara Hambly's landmark epic quartet, The Winterlands.When the Black Dragon seizes the capital of Bel, the young noble, Gareth, must journey into the decaying Northlands to find John Aversin, Dragonsbane - the only living man ever to slay a dragon. Upon arrival, Gareth also meets Jenny Waynest the half-taught sorceress and mother of Aversin's sons.A bargain is struck: witch and dragonkiller agree to rid the city of its monster in return for the king's aid in their wintry home which is beset by bandits. But when they reach court, nothing is as they expected.For Gareth is no mere noble, and the king is in the thrall of a deeply evil power that seeks total control over the land. The kingdom crumbles. Perhaps the dragon that Jenny and John have been brought to slay is the least of their enemies...

Even with the vampire Don Simon Ysidro on their side, there's no guarantee that anything - or anyone - is who or what they appear to be. Nor is there any certainty that they'll see their child again - or survive the experience themselves

War is descending on the world, and James Asher is called to Paris. Why, his wife Lydia has no idea. But when James is found unconscious in the cemetery of the Church of St. Clare with multiple puncture-wounds in his throat and arms, there is only one person Lydia can call on for help: their old friend and adversary, the vampire Don Simon Ysidro.