Showing results by author "Barbara Hambly" in All Categories

Children of the Jedi introduces Callista, a Jedi warrior of long ago who gave her life to foil one of the Empire's darkest plans, a plot to destroy a sanctuary for the families of Jedi knights. The plot involved a dreadnaught, one of the Empire's most devious inventions. Crippled during the war against the Empire, the vessel has drifted through space for years. But now it is slowly reactivating and resuming its inexorable mission. And only Luke Skywalker can feel its evil presence.

It’s 1835, and the relentless glare of the late July sun has slowed New Orleans to a standstill. When Hesione LeGros - once a corsair’s jeweled mistress, now a raddled hag - is found slashed to death in a shanty on the fringe of New Orleans’ most lawless quarter, there are few to care. But one of them is Benjamin January, musician and teacher. He well recalls her blazing ebony beauty when she appeared, exquisitely gowned and handy with a stiletto, at a demimonde banquet years ago.

Once a spy for Queen Victoria, James Asher has fought for Britain on every continent, using his quick wits to protect the Empire at all costs. After years of grueling service, he marries and retires to a simple academic’s life at Oxford. But his peace is shattered one night with the arrival of a Spanish vampire named Don Simon. Don Simon can disappear into fog, move faster than the eye can see, and immobilize Asher - and his young bride - with a wave of his hand. Asher is at his mercy, and has no choice but to give his help.

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 she 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.

In February 1835, the cold New Orleans streets are alight with masked Mardi Gras revelers as the American Theater’s impresario, Lorenzo Belaggio, brings a magnificent yet controversial operatic version of Othello to town. But it’s pitch-black in the alley where free man of color Benjamin January hears a slurred whisper, spies the flash of a knife, and is himself wounded as he rescues Belaggio from a vicious attack. Could competition for audiences - or for Belagio’s affections - provoke such violent skulduggery?

It is St. John’s Eve in the summer of 1834 when Benjamin January - Creole physician and music teacher - is shattered by the news that his sister has been arrested for murder. The Guards have only a shadow of a case against her. But Olympe - mystical and rebellious - is a woman of color, whose chance for justice is slim. As Benjamin probes the allegation, he is targeted by a new threat: graveyard dust sprinkled at his door, whispering of a voodoo death curse. Now, to save Olympe’s life - and his own - Benjamin knows he must glean information wherever he can find it.

RAN AWAY. So began a score of advertisements every week in the New Orleans newspapers, advertising for slaves who’d fled their masters. But the Turk, Hüseyin Pasha, posted no such advertisement when his two lovely concubines disappeared. And when a witness proclaimed he’d seen the “devilish infidel” hurl their dead bodies out of a window, everyone was willing to believe him the murderer. Only Benjamin January, who knows the Turk of old, is willing to seek for the true culprit, endangering his own life in the process.

Mexico City in the autumn of 1835 is a lawless place, teeming with bandits and beggars. But an urgent letter from a desperate friend draws Benjamin January and his new bride, Rose, from New Orleans to this newly free province. Here they pray they’ll find Hannibal Sefton alive - and not hanging from the end of a rope.

Something is amiss with the world's magic. Spells don't work the way they used to—when they work at all. Only the powers of the Crystal Mages remain as they were, powers founded on the use of the mystical element adamis, the harvesting of which has enslaved the peoples of the Twilight Lands. Ravenous beasts have begun to appear, legendary creatures that seem to be proof against any magic.

When an overworked team of government physicists unwittingly invites something catastrophic into the world, rising young New York lawyer Cal Griffin is forced into a strange new role in a world of nightmare and wonder.

The year 1924. After six months in Hollywood, young British widow Emma Blackstone has come to love her new employer, glamourous movie-star Kitty Flint — even if her late husband’s sister is one of the worst actresses she’s ever seen. Looking after Kitty and her three adorable Pekinese dogs isn’t work academically minded Emma dreamed of, but Kitty rescued her when she was all alone in the world. Now, the worst thing she has to worry about is the shocking historical inaccuracies of the films Kitty stars in.

Gifted with courage, strength, and the intelligence to know when to fight, Sun Wolf is the greatest mercenary in a land overrun by war. With his first lieutenant, Starhawk - a woman more deadly than any man - at his side, he has laid waste to countless cities, taking the best of their treasures for himself, and distributing the rest among his bloodthirsty crew.

May, 1924. It's been months since young British widow Emma Blackstone arrived in Hollywood to serve as companion to Kitty Flint: her beautiful silent-movie star sister-in-law. Kitty is generous, kind-hearted . . . and a truly terrible actress. Not that Emma minds; she's too busy making her academic parents turn in their graves with her new job writing painfully historically inaccurate scenarios for Foremost Studios. So when one of Kitty's old flames calls Emma and tells her it's imperative he meet with Kitty that morning, she's not surprised. Until, that is, he adds that lives depend on it.

The Citadel of Wizards was under siege. Deep in the Vaults beneath the walled city, gates into inhuman realities were opening and closing without warning. Monsters emerged from other dimensions; and ancient, malign magics came to life under the influence of cosmic chaos. Someone was tampering with the Void. The Council of Wizards blamed Antryg Windrose, the rebel mage who had fled their justice to find haven in the City of Angels.

Feltipern Trevagg has traded in his life as a bounty hunter for the security of an Imperial office - as a tax-official to be precise. But the predatory Gotal misses the chase and yearns for a conquest to take him away from his clerical duties. The opportunity to do so eludes him, until one day, during his usual walk through the marketplace, he senses the vibrations of a Jedi Knight. If his senses prove correct, this particular bounty could prove worth his weight in gold to the Empire.

Once, it was said, Wensha had been a city of witches, summoning and controlling demons for their evil magic. But in nearby Tandieras, Kaltha claimed to have found their lost book of spells to perform only white magic. When Sun Wolf arrived, he discovered increasing signs of evil magic and demon-controlling spells. And he realized, too late, that a new swarm of demons was trying to lure him to his death....

After the death of his mentor, an apprentice wizard must fight to escape a world he doesn’t understand. When the wizard Jaldis heard the cry from beyond the Void, telling of a world where magic was dead and begging for his aid, he and his apprentice, Rhion, went to help. Crossing the Void takes all of their strength, and when Rhion awakes on the other side, he learns that the task is beyond them. Jaldis is dead, and the portal home gone with him. Now he is trapped in a place called Earth, in a nation beset from all sides by its enemies. The men who called him here need a wizard to save them, and though Rhion is but a novice, he will have to do.

Sun Wolf knew he had the power of magic, but he needed a master wizard to teach him to fully use his skills. But there was no one who could do the job. When he was called upon to help old friends against the ancient wizard, he did - thus ensuring a curse that would be executed, unless Sun Wolf could harness his own powers and find a way out....

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 audiobook in Barbara Hambly’s epic Darwath Trilogy. Since the Dark Ones returned, the world has been laid to waste. The wizards have been slaughtered, cities destroyed and people have scattered in terror. Few have witnessed more of the destruction than Rudy and Gil - two ordinary Californians who found their way across the Void and took up arms in defence of a strange and magical world.

When Rhion the banker's son met the Master Wizard Jaldis, Jaldis said, "Come." Rhion came, leaving everything behind to answer the call in his blood. And through long years of drudgery and persecution, he had no regrets. Thus he became a wizard. A noble burned out Jaldis' eyes to please some god; Rhion made magic glasses so he could see. Together, they opened the dark well to the Abyss between universes, and a cry for help came from a world that had lost all magic. Could that happen to their world? Though forced to flee again, Jaldis was determined to reach that world through the Abyss, to help and to find how the magic was lost.