Kirjahaku

Alexander the Great's soldier, Lydias of Miletus, has survived the final campaigns of the king's life. He now has to deal with the chaos surrounding his death. Lydias throws his lot in with Ptolemy, one of Alexander's generals who has grabbed Egypt as his personal territory. Aided by the eunuch Bagoas, the Persian archer Artashir, and the Athenian courtesan Thais, Ptolemy and Lydias must take on all the contenders in a desperate adventure whose prize is the fate of a white city by the sea, and Alexander's legacy.

Take your practice into exciting new territory through an exploration of circular time and the cycles of life that come with it. The Great Wheel incorporates meditation, rituals, and other practices that you can use to align with the patterns of time expressed in the ancient Etruscan concept of the saeculum, or Great Year. Jo Graham first guides you through the wheel of the year and the wheel of life, including the eight phases in a person s life span. Then she introduces the saeculum, revealing how it has appeared in recent times and what it means for the future. Using these concepts together will help you live a more complete life, find peace, and uncover ways to benefit not just yourself, but also the generations to come.

Winter continues the fascinating exploration of the Etruscan system of cycles known as the saecula. With exercises, journaling, and reconstructed esoteric rituals, author Jo Graham invites you to find the spirit of heroism within as you transform your life and soul in the challenging era of Winter. Building on the foundation that was established in The Great Wheel, this book reveals how the energy of Winter influences your spiritual life, your relationship, and your community. Exploring the powerful cycles of generations, life-spans, and seasons, Winter offers specific techniques and support to help you see that this era is only temporary and Spring will come again.

In this book, Jo Graham introduces you to the history and mythology of seven Hellenistic goddesses and teaches you how to work with each one in your spiritual practice. With the help of these powerful deities, you can improve your luck, resilience, teamwork, transformation, and more. Through stories, journal prompts, meditations, and rituals, Jo encourages you to explore your personal connection to each goddess. Draw on Athena's wisdom to bring clarity to your endeavors. Embody the power of a ruling queen with a rite to honor Atargatis. And, enjoy all shades of love under Aphrodite's guidance. With this book, you can apply the ancient but still relevant lessons of Tyche, Isis, Epona, Cebele, and others for a more inspired devotional experience and empowered life.

A Dutch woman flees her marriage to become a courtesan against the backdrop of the French Revolution in this steamy historical novel described as Girl with a Pearl Earring meets Dangerous Liaisons.Liberté, Egalité, Sensualité. . . . As a spirit of change overturns Europe’s old order, strong-willed Elzelina Versfelt enters her own age of revolution. Married as a romantic young girl to a man who wanted only her money, but neither loves nor desires her, Elza refuses to be chained any longer. Leaving Amsterdam, her marriage, and her home, she flees to France—where the old rules no longer apply, debauchery is not a sin . . . and nothing is forbidden. Yet Elza finds herself bound in a new way, to the ambitious General Moreau. And while they share pleasure, pain, and carnal adventures, she dreams of another man, an unruly red-haired soldier she first saw in the promise of a Tarot card. Drawn by this half-real, half-imagined hero, Elza defies her relationship with Moreau, and begins a perilous search across war-torn Europe. . . . But will this woman with the instincts of a survivor, the passion of a courtesan, and the gift of second sight ever find the destiny for which she has risked it all? This stunning novel blends history with the language of the heart to tell a sensual story of an era of upheaval . . . and of the clamoring, dangerous desires of a woman’s soul.

The World is ending. One by one the mighty cities are falling: to earthquakes, to flood and to raiders - on both land and sea.In a time of war and doubt, Gull is an oracle, a mouthpiece of the gods. Daughter of a slave plundered from fallen Troy, she was chosen as a child to serve the Lady of the Dead, and it is her fate to counsel kings.When nine black ships appear as foretold in her dreams, captained by an exiled Trojan prince, Gull must make her choice. She must decide between her sacred calling and the most perilous adventure - joining her mother's people in their desperate flight from slavery. From the doomed bastions of the City of Pirates to the temples of Byblos, from the intrigues of the Egyptian court to the haunted caves beneath Mount Vesuvius, only Gull can guide Prince Aeneas on his quest. And only she can dare the gates of the Underworld itself to lead him to his destiny. In the last shadowed days of the Age of Bronze, one woman dreams of the world beginning anew. This is her story.

Against the rising power of Rome, Egypt is the last and strongest bastion of the Eastern Hellenistic kingdoms. Charmian is Cleopatra's half sister, daughter of Pharaoh and a woman of the harem. She shares a great honour and a terrible burden with Cleopatra and their sister Iras - they are fated to defend Egypt from those who would destroy her.So when Roman Julius Caesar comes to Egypt in pursuit of his enemies, Charmian and her sisters are drawn into a deadly struggle. One that will shape the world to come.From mysterious temples hidden in the desert to the perilous palaces of Rome, from the tomb of Alexander the Great to the very Gates of Amenti, Charmian must face foes seen and unseen in a battle for her family, her love and her gods.

Colonel John Sheppard wakes up on an alien world, in the wreckage of a Puddle Jumper - and can't remember how he got there. As he puts the pieces together, he discovers that his team is scattered across a tropical archipelago, unable to communicate with each other or return to the Stargate. Prisoners of the local population, Sheppard and Teyla are taken as tribute to the planet's Wraith overlord, while McKay, Ronon, and Zelenka team up to mount a daring rescue.

Woman of MysteryThe world knows her as an actress and courtesan, the mistress of one of Napoleon's glittering inner circle, but Elza (aka Ida St Elme) is more than that. Only a few besides her beloved Michel know she is a secret agent in Napoleon's service, a confidential spy who works directly for the Emperor himself. Even fewer know that she is also a Companion, an old soul who has lived many lives and whose flashes of clairvoyance have occasionally given her the edge she needed to unravel an unfathomable mystery.Now Elza faces her greatest challenge yet, but her past threatens to hinder rather than help. What ancient failure weighs heavy on her soul, and how does it complicate her current task for Napoleon? Will ignorance and fear lead them all to repeat past mistakes? Or can Elza overcome the shadow of the past to complete her mission - with no less than the government of France hanging in the balance?From the ballrooms of Warsaw to the streets of Rome, from blood-soaked snowy battlefields to the buried ruins of Pompeii, from palaces to prisons, Elza must face her past to claim her future.

The world is a numinous place, for those who have eyes to see it.Welcome to the Numinous World, where gods and angels intervene in the lives of mortals, and a band of eternal companions unite and reunite over the centuries, striving to make the world a better place despite wars and dark ages, hatred and cruelty. Here are stories from the very beginning of our history, when the Lady of Cats entered the life of a young woman and changed her forever, long ago when farmers first scraped a living from the soil. Here too are stories of the ancient world - of Dion, the peerless scientist of Alexandria, of Lucia, a Roman waif, of a Persian princess and her Jewish sister in law, of Lydias of Miletus who is once and always Ptolemy's man, and of a Nubian girl who begins a long journey toward a strange destiny. There are stories of the Dark Ages, of a last Roman outpost on the shores of Britain and of an Arab warrior who at last comes home to a white city on the sea, of a Scottish witch who serves the Storm Queen and fears no other magic, and a Knight Templar enslaved by the beauty of the world. Others follow - a messenger boy dragged into the Great Story and a desperate ride dogged by the Wild Hunt, and a mercenary captain of the Thirty Years War who finds his destiny in a remote corner of the Bohemian mountains. Here too are more modern tales of the Age of Revolution, when Dion, Emrys, Sigismund and Charmian reunite in Napoleonic Paris, and at last we roll into the twentieth century with a young American girl with extraordinary oracular powers. Of course there is also Michael, Mik-el, Mikhael, who watches over his charges as best he may, though the world may change around them.These are tiny windows into a miraculous world, glimpses through a glass and darkly of all that might be - for those with eyes to see. Table of ContentsThe Ravens of Falkenau 1614 ADDion Ex Machina 4 BCCold Frontier 505 ADSmall Victories 1800 ADHow the Lady of Cats Came to Nagada 8000 BCPrince Over the Water 1040 ADHorus Indwelling 285 BCParadise 641 ADSlave of the World 1203 ADLittle Cat 1012 BCVesuvius 79 ADUnfinished Business 22 BCThe Messenger's Tale 1553 ADMorning Star 469 BCTemplar Treasure 1188 ADWinter's Child 1821 ADBrunnhilde in the Fire 1901 AD

Sounding Dark is a legend, a ghost ship missing two hundred years. Now it may be the only hope for the pirate republic of Eresh to stand against the mighty Calpurnian Navy. In the wake of a terrible defeat, Adelita Massacre, the Steel Captain, knows that their days are numbered without a miracle.Bister is the only survivor of the defeat, a Tainted smuggler and fixer from the interdicted world of Inanna. Found alive, adrift in a spacesuit hours after its air supply should have run out, her survival is a literal miracle. Has the Lady of the Void herself chosen Bister to free her from imprisonment?Now Adelita, Bister, Bister's lover Griffin, and the mysterious Navigator must find Sounding Dark and her ancient weaponry if they hope to protect Eresh from the Calpurnian attack. But Sounding Dark will not give up her secrets easily....

The Warlady of Morrigan has been assassinated, and it's up to her military attach , Sandrine Dal-Vesta, to find the killer. For Sandrine and her former secret lover, the electromancer Jauffre Castal-Edo, it's a race against time with control of the planet hanging in the balance. From the snow-scoured peaks of the north to the imaginary deserts of virtuality, from the lost tomb of the Warlord Khreesos to the battlestations of tidally-locked Morrigan's space fleet, Sandrine and Jauffre must trust in each other and the dangerous gift of electromancy. But the ruthless killer isn't the only threat to Sandrine's world. The Calpurnian Navy has been waiting for a moment of weakness to strike Morrigan with all the power at their command

1489-When Giulia Farnese came to Rome to make an arranged marriage with young noble Orsino Orsini, she dreamed of learning and power in the glittering city of the Renaissance popes. However, her mother-in-law seems frightened, and her husband refuses to consummate the marriage at the direction of the head of his family, Lord Bracciano. But Giulia herself has a secret: she sees visions in mirrors and hears the whispers of spirits, the gifts of an ancient sibyl in an age when magic is heresy punishable by death. Is this ability the reason Bracciano has trapped her in this sham of a marriage?As she struggles to unearth answers, Giulia finds herself drawn to her mother-in-law's cousin, Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia. Ruthless, sophisticated, and old enough to be Giulia's father, Rodrigo is a humanist, a collector of pagan art and heretical writings, and a loving father to his illegitimate children. He is a bright spot in Giulia's chilly life-but to Bracciano, he's a political rival to be removed. Bracciano's dark rites to summon demons may make Giulia the instrument of Rodrigo's destruction.Dealing with demons is a mortal sin. Refusing Bracciano would be a fatal mistake. And Giulia's growing attraction to Rodrigo might be her downfall-or the key to her salvation. To defy the demon's power and seize control of her life, Giulia will need to cross the line between innocence and dangerous knowledge. And once she's descended into that underworld, she is not coming back unchanged.

When a Calpurnian faction leader kidnaps the young son of the Guardian of the city of Beira on Menaechmi, it's up to his gaura, the intrepid Caralys, to find a way to rescue the boy. Getting a child off a Calpurnian warship in orbit safely seems impossible, but Caralys has an ace up her sleeve, a freelance agent named Bister. Bister wants Menaechmi's support to repeal the Isolation that keeps her people imprisoned on Inanna, and what better way to get it than to have the Guardian owe her a favor? With the help of Boral, a young Morriganian electromancer on Menaechmi for his first port call, Bister lays her plans to trick the Calpurnians out of their prize. But when the Calpurnians threaten the unarmed cities of Menaechmi, the stakes get higher than one boy's life. The fate of Menaechmi is in play, and Caralys must roll the Golden Lady's dice to save her family and her world.

"Haunting and bittersweet, lush and vivid, this extraordinary story has lived with me since I first read it." -- Naomi Novik, author of His Majesty's Dragon The world is ending. One by one the mighty cities are falling, to earthquakes, to flood, to raiders on both land and sea. In a time of war and doubt, Gull is an oracle. Daughter of a slave taken from fallen Troy, chosen at the age of seven to be the voice of the Lady of the Dead, it is her destiny to counsel kings. When nine black ships appear, captained by an exiled Trojan prince, Gull must decide between the life she has been destined for and the most perilous adventure -- to join the remnant of her mother's people in their desperate flight. From the doomed bastions of the City of Pirates to the temples of Byblos, from the intrigues of the Egyptian court to the haunted caves beneath Mount Vesuvius, only Gull can guide Prince Aeneas on his quest, and only she can dare the gates of the Underworld itself to lead him to his destiny. In the last shadowed days of the Age of Bronze, one woman dreams of the world beginning anew. This is her story.