Newford

Myth, music, and magic-and dreams underfoot Welcome to Newford-to the music clubs, the waterfront, and the alleyways where ancient myths and magic spill into the modern world. Gemmins live in abandoned cars and skells traverse the tunnels below, while mermaids swim in the grey harbor waters and fill the cold night with their song. Come meet Jilly, painting wonders in the rough city streets; and Geordie, playing fiddle while he dreams of a ghost; and the Angel of Grasso Street, gathering the fey and the wild and the poor and the lost. Like Mark Helprin's A Winter's Tale and John Crowley's Little, Big,Dreams Underfoot, a collection of nineteen stories, is a must-read book, not only for fans of urban fantasy but for all who seek magic in everyday life.

Isabelle Copley, as the young student of the cruel, brilliant artist Vincent Rushkin, discovered that she could paint images so vividly real that they brought her wildest fantasies to life, freeing ancient spirits. But when the forces she unleashed brought tragedy to those she loved, she turned her back on her talent and her dreams. Now, twenty years later, Isabelle must come to terms with the shattering memories she has long denied and unlock the slumbering power of her brush. And, in a dark reckoning with her old master, she must find the courage to live out her dreams and bring the magic back to life. This is a tale of love, courage, and the transforming power of imagination.

Two lives. Two souls. One miracle. Max Trader is a luthier, a maker of guitars. Johnny Devlin is chronically unemployed. Max is solitary, quiet, responsible. Johnny is a lady-killer, a drunk, a charming loser. When they inexplicably wake up in each other's bodies, Johnny gleefully moves into Max's comfortable and stable existence, leaving Max to pick up the pieces of a life he had no part in breaking. Penniless, friendless, homeless, Max begins a journey that will take him beyond the streets of the city to an otherworld of dreams and spirits, where he must confront both the unscrupulous Johnny Devlin and his own deepest fears.

Lily is a photojournalist in search of the "animal people" who supposedly haunt the city's darkest slums. Hank is a slumdweller who knows the bad streets all too well. One night, in a brutal incident, their two lives collide-uptown Lily and downtown Hank, each with a quest and a role to play in the secret drama of the city's oldest inhabitants. For the animal people walk among us. Native Americans call them the First People, but they have never left, and they claim the city for their own. Not only have Hank and Lily stumbled onto a secret, they've stumbled into a war. And in this battle for the city's soul, nothing is quite as it appears.

In the Old Country, they called them the Gentry: ancient spirits of the land, magical, amoral, and dangerous. When the Irish emigrated to North America, some of the Gentry followed... only to find that the New World already had spirits of its own, called manitou and other such names by the Native tribes. Now generations have passed, and the Irish have made homes in the new land, but the Gentry still wander homeless on the city streets. Gathering in the city shadows, they bide their time and dream of power. As their dreams grow harder, darker, fiercer, so do the Gentry themselves - appearing to those with the sight to see them, as hard and dangerous men, invariably dressed in black. Bettina can see the Gentry and knows them for what they are. Part Indian, part Mexican, she was raised by her grandmother to understand the spirit world. Now she lives in Kellygnow, a massive old house run as an arts colony on the outskirts of Newford, a world away from the Southwestern desert of her youth. Outsider her nighttime window, she often spies the dark men, squatting in the snow, smoking, brooding, waiting. She calls them los lobos, the wolves, and stays clear of them - until the night one follows her to the woods, and takes her hand... Ellie, an independent young sculptor, is another with magic in her blood, but she refuses to believe it, even though she too sees the dark men. A strange old woman has summoned Ellie to Kellygnow to create a mask for her based on an ancient Celtic artifact. It is the mask of the mythic Summer King - another thing Ellie does not believe in. Yet lack of belief won't dim the power of the mask, or its dreadful intent. Donal, Ellie's former lover, comes from an Irish family and knows the truth at the heart of the old myths. He thinks he can use the mask and the "hard men" for his own purposes. And Donal's sister, Miki, a punk accordion player, stands on the other side of the Gentry's battle with the Native spirits of the land. She knows that more than her brother's soul is at stake. All of Newford is threatened, human and mythic beings alike. Once again Charles de Lint weaves the mythic traditions of many cultures into a seamless cloth, bringing folklore, music, and unforgettable characters to life on modern city streets.

In his stunning novels of magic and danger in the modern world, Charles de Lint has brought an entire imaginary North American city to vivid life: Newford, where magic lights the dark streets, myths walk clothed in modern shapes, and a broad cast of extraordinary people work to keep the whole world turning. At the center of it all stands a young artist named Jilly Coppercorn, with her tangled hair and paint-splattered jeans, whose paintings capture the hidden beings that dwell in the city's shadows. Now, at last, de Lint tells Jilly's own story; for behind the painter's fey charm lies a dark secret that she's labored to forget. "I'm the onion girl," Jilly Coppercorn says. "Pull back the layers of my life, and you won't find anything at the core. Just a broken child. A hollow girl. She's very, very good at running-but the past has come to claim her now."

Ever since Jilly Coppercorn and Geordie Riddell were introduced in de Lint's first Newford story, "Timeskip," back in 1989, their friends and readers alike have been waiting for them to realize that they belong together. Now, in Widdershins, a stand-alone novel of fairy courts set in shopping malls and the Bohemian street scene of Newford's Crowsea area, Jilly and Geordie's story is finally being told. Before it's over, we'll find ourselves plunged into the rancorous and sometimes violent conflict between the magical North American "animal people" and the more newly arrived fairy folk. We'll watch as Jilly is held captive in a sinister world based on her own worst memories-and Geordie, attempting to help, is sent someplace even worse. And we'll be captivated by the power of love and determination to redeem ancient hatreds and heal old magics gone sour.

Juniper Wiles once starred as a plucky teen detective in the popular TV show, Nora Constantine. When the series ended seven years ago, Juniper made a decision to leave L.A. and return home to Newford where she joined friends at the artists' collective, Bramleyhaugh, the center of which is her pal, beloved faerie artist Jilly Coppercorn. Now, out of the blue, the fictional world of Nora Constantine is bleeding into Newford, starting with the inexplicable murder of a young man. Juniper may have wanted to leave her role as a detective behind, but when she's accosted by the ghost of that young man everything changes. To solve this crime will require all the skills she learned training for Nora Constantine. And the effervescent Jilly, always up for a new adventure, is ready to come along for the ride.

Anyone who knows her wouldn't be surprised to learn that Jilly sees the world through a prism of faerie tales. It was years before I came to understand that she wasn't just being whimsical when she talked so easily about hobs and brownies and various kinds of faerie creatures. They were real. Faerieland, otherworlds, and all the denizens and creatures you might imagine to live there. It was all real. And so were ghosts. I remember when I first realized this. I felt like my head was going to explode. * * * Juniper should have known better after her last foray into the otherworld. But when she's asked to look into a mysterious box full of poltergeists she ends up making a promise to seven teenage ghosts that puts here directly in the crosshairs of a blood witch's deadly ire.