Maxima Library

Un castello gotico nel bel mezzo di una foresta. Un gruppo di eccentrici musicisti alle prese con una partitura estremamente complicata e con la convivenza forzata. Le tensioni sessuali tra i membri del gruppo rivelano in realtà una più profonda, segreta nevrosi, resa ancor più minacciosa dalla clausura. E una donna fragile, alla deriva, è affascinata da strane urla nella notte... L’autore di “Il Petalo cremisi e il bianco” (2003) e di “Sotto la pelle” (2004) è nato in Olanda e cresciuto in Australia. Ora vive nelle Highlands scozzesi.

It begins with Peter, a devoted man of faith, as he is called to the mission of a lifetime, one that takes him galaxies away from his wife, Bea. Peter becomes immersed in the mysteries of an astonishing new environment, overseen by an enigmatic corporation known only as USIC. His work introduces him to a seemingly friendly native population struggling with a dangerous illness and hungry for Peter’s teachings — his Bible is their “book of strange new things.” But Peter is rattled when Bea’s letters from home become increasingly desperate: typhoons and earthquakes are devastating whole countries, and governments are crumbling. Bea’s faith, once the guiding light of their lives, begins to falter.

Suddenly, a separation measured by an otherworldly distance, and defined both by one newly discovered world and another in a state of collapse, is threatened by an ever-widening gulf that is much less quantifiable. While Peter is reconciling the needs of his congregation with the desires of his strange employer, Bea is struggling for survival. Their trials lay bare a profound meditation on faith, love tested beyond endurance, and our responsibility to those closest to us.

Marked by the same bravura storytelling and precise language that made The Crimson Petal and the White such an international success, The Book of Strange New Things is extraordinary, mesmerizing, and replete with emotional complexity and genuine pathos.

This edition of Maxim Jakubowski’s Best New Erotica series auspiciously appears with a new collection of fiction from forty-eight artisans of the sensual. Selected from stories by more than 4,000 authors of erotica from around the world, these artful excursions into the libido represent the current states of desire in Great Britain, the United States, Canada, Australia, and France. In this third new volume of voluptuary pursuits, tales by popular talents in the arts of titillation like Michel Faber, Michael Crawley, M. Christian, O’Neil De Noux, Alison Tyler, and Cara Bruce stand alongside stories from promising newcomers to the field of erotic fiction. All of them nonetheless share a standard of excellence and elegance that takes their often humorous, sometimes dark, and always original fictions far beyond tired conventions. So it is that John Grant presents “The Adventures of Thomas the Rock Star in the Court of the Queen of Faery,” while Cheyenne Blue depicts the misadventures of a city girl in “Cactus Ass.” Then, too, there’s Dawn O’Hara’s “London Derrière.” Claire Tristram serves up “Tomatoes: A Love Story in Three Parts” while Susannah Indigo offers the combination of “Bacon, Lola and Tomato,” as Mark Ramsden relishes what’s “Truly Scrumptious.”

Hailed as “original and unsettling, an Animal Farm for the new century” (Wall Street Journal), this debut novel lingers long after the last page has been turned.

Described as a “fascinating psychological thriller” (The Baltimore Sun), this entrancing novel introduces Isserley, a female driver who picks up hitchhikers with big muscles. She, herself, is tiny-like a kid peering up over the steering wheel.

Scarred and awkward, yet strangely erotic and threatening, she listens to her hitchhikers as they open up to her, revealing clues about who might miss them if they should disappear. At once humane and horrifying, Under the Skin takes us on a heart-thumping ride through dangerous territory, our own moral instincts and the boundaries of compassion. A grotesque and comical allegory, a surreal representation of contemporary society run amok, Under the Skin has been internationally received as the arrival of an exciting talent, rich and assured.