Beautifully written, thought-provoking, intense and cleverly wrought, this is the most extraordinary first novel from a mesmerising new talent. One August afternoon, on the shoreline of the north-eastern edge of Russia, two sisters are abducted. In the ensuing weeks, then months, the police investigation turns up nothing. Echoes of the disappearance reverberate across a tightly woven community, with the fear and loss felt most deeply among its women. Set on the remote Siberian peninsula of Kamchatka, Disappearing Earth draws us into the world of an astonishing cast of characters, all connected by an unfathomable crime. We are transported to vistas of rugged beauty - densely wooded forests, open expanses of tundra, soaring volcanoes and the glassy seas that border Japan and Alaska - and into a region as complex as it is alluring, where social and ethnic tensions have long simmered, and where outsiders are often the first to be accused. In a story as propulsive as it is emotionally engaging, and through a young writer's virtuosic feat of empathy and imagination, this powerful novel provides a new understanding of the intricate bonds of family and community, in a Russia unlike any we have seen before. Praise for Disappearing Earth "A genuine masterpiece, but one that is easily consumed in a feverish stay-up-all-night bout of reading pleasure." Gary Shteyngart "Suspenseful, original and compelling, Disappearing Earth is a strange and haunting voyage into a strange and haunting world.' Simon Sebag-Montefiore, author of The Romanovs "Julia Phillips is at once a careful cartographer and gorgeous storyteller... . A mystery of two missing girls burns at the center of this astonishing debut, and the complexity of ethnicity, gender, hearth and kin illuminates this question and many more." Tayari Jones, author of An American Marriage 'A most extraordinarily beautiful and haunting first novel, and the unveiling of a rare and special talent' New Statesman 'A knock-out... .The stitches of Phillips's language make you go, Damn, that's good.' The Los Angeles Review of Books 'A superb debut.' New York Times 'Phillips explores the devastation in this complex, imaginative and beautifully written crime novel, which is as beautiful as the scenery it depicts.' Woman's Weekly 'I was so absorbed I forgot to take notes...each new domestic world was deftly conjured and fresh.' Sarah Moss, The Guardian 'This book takes the 'missing girl' trope and turns it on its head' Elle 'Intriguing, tantalising, perfectly executed.' Spectator

From gifted storyteller Julia Phillips Smith comes a darkly seductive tale of vampire horror, where creatures of the darkness are engaged in a bloody battle for supremacy in a Dark Age world... It is a time when only an elite brotherhood of immortal warriors stands between humans and vampires, preventing the complete annihilation of the human race. Who are called to this service? Only those warriors who curse God with their dying breath.... Bold and courageous Welsh warrior Peredur is one such man. He falls to a spear on a raging battlefield before he can claim his beloved Tanwen for his bride. In those final moments Peredur utters the curse that seals his fate and leads him to another life. Using the power of a saint whose bone makes up an amulet, Peredur takes on the trials to become a true member of the brotherhood-and wage war against the dangerous prowling creatures of the night. Yet his need for Tanwen still burns.... Tanwen resists her father's command to take a husband. The only one who understands her sorrow is Cavan, the wise woman's son. When he promises to use dark forces to reunite her with her beloved, she agrees to his terms. But does Tanwen truly understand the depth of the price that must be paid?

No one is safe when the dragon glides low over the Eighth Dominion. Not the high born who plot and spill blood. Not the low born who serve with one eye to the sky and the other glancing back. Young Scorpius is fetched from the estate nursery, once raised to live among the nobility--claimed finally not by his family, but by a falconer to serve as his apprentice. Scorpius soon learns that a noble hides his monstrous appetites beneath velvet and jewels, while the leathery-winged dragon is honest about his own. His master does his best to shield Scorpius from the world outside their cottage, but the falconer is merely a servant who must obey his own masters. An attempt on the life of a young lord while on a hunt sends the falconer's apprentice on an abruptly different path, bringing Scorpius into the service of the House of Pruzhnino. Court intrigue sinks its talons into everyone, even Scorpius--especially a former falconer's apprentice once raised to be a lord in his own right.

Four days are left now, and Miranda and her friends are running out of time and resources to stop Kadar from taking over Dalriada Castle and using his pathway into the world; Bryn. The less Miranda sees of a future, the more she turns to her past. Defined by events she cannot alter, she is forced to look inside for strength and she is not finding it. Slowly, her allies arrive at the castle, prepared to face the enemy; but as Kadar's forces gather, they will be outnumbered. Hope is in short supply as a traitor wreaks havoc on the inner circle, but it is the unexpected players that will tip the scale; one way or the other.

Miranda Tate knows leading a double life is hard. Keeping the lies and the facts straight is enough to drive one mad; especially when the worlds are mortal and magick. In one life, she's a computer consultant; in the other, she is the Queen of Argyll, immortal sorceress and leader of the Council of Magicks. While Miranda would gladly stay in her comfortable home in Denver, her duties call her out often; usually with frightening results. None more than her current assignment as mother and mentor to an eight-year-old child sorceress, Bryn. While in her keeping, the girl falls into an unnatural coma induced by enemies unknown; a list of infinite horrors waiting to be revisited. Forced to hide away in the sanctuary of Dalriada Castle, Miranda must untangle the clues and spells before harm befalls everyone she loves. With only seven days to solve the mystery of Bryn's illness and stop the threat, Miranda and her allies race to find the truth. Once again, the world of magick stands on the brink and she must stare down her own fears and face the apocalypse. Old hatreds and resentments must be put aside and new friends step to the front to help save the girl before her fate, and theirs, is forever lost.

The Ottoman-Jewish story has long been told as a romance between Jews and the empire. The prevailing view is that Ottoman Jews were protected and privileged by imperial policies and in return offered their unflagging devotion to the imperial government over many centuries. In this book, Julia Phillips Cohen offers a corrective, arguing that Jewish leaders who promoted this vision were doing so in response to a series of reforms enacted by the nineteenth-century Ottoman state: the new equality they gained came with a new set of expectations. Ottoman subjects were suddenly to become imperial citizens, to consider their neighbors as brothers and their empire as a homeland. Becoming Ottomans is the first book to tell the story of Jewish political integration into a modern Islamic empire. It begins with the process set in motion by the imperial state reforms known as the Tanzimat, which spanned the years 1839-1876 and legally emancipated the non-Muslims of the empire. Four decades later the situation was difficult to recognize. By the close of the nineteenth century, Ottoman Muslims and Jews alike regularly referred to Jews as a model community, or millet-as a group whose leaders and members knew how to serve their state and were deeply engaged in Ottoman politics. The struggles of different Jewish individuals and groups to define the public face of their communities is underscored in their responses to a series of important historical events. Charting the dramatic reversal of Jews in the empire over a half-century, Becoming Ottomans offers new perspectives for understanding Jewish encounters with modernity and citizenship in a centralizing, modernizing Islamic state in an imperial, multi-faith landscape.

The Ottoman-Jewish story has long been told as a romance between Jews and the empire. The prevailing view is that Ottoman Jews were protected and privileged by imperial policies and in return offered their unflagging devotion to the imperial government over many centuries. In this book, Julia Phillips Cohen offers a corrective, arguing that Jewish leaders who promoted this vision were doing so in response to a series of reforms enacted by the nineteenth-century Ottoman state: the new equality they gained came with a new set of expectations. Ottoman subjects were suddenly to become imperial citizens, to consider their neighbors as brothers and their empire as a homeland. Becoming Ottomans is the first book to tell the story of Jewish political integration into a modern Islamic empire. It begins with the process set in motion by the imperial state reforms known as the Tanzimat, which spanned the years 1839-1876 and legally emancipated the non-Muslims of the empire. Four decades later the situation was difficult to recognize. By the close of the nineteenth century, Ottoman Muslims and Jews alike regularly referred to Jews as a model community, or millet - as a group whose leaders and members knew how to serve their state and were deeply engaged in Ottoman politics. The struggles of different Jewish individuals and groups to define the public face of their communities is underscored in their responses to a series of important historical events. Charting the dramatic reversal of Jews in the empire over a half-century, Becoming Ottomans offers new perspectives for understanding Jewish encounters with modernity and citizenship in a centralizing, modernizing Islamic state in an imperial, multi-faith landscape.

Julia Phillips became a Hollywood player in the freewheeling 1970s, the first woman to win the Best Picture Oscar as co-producer of The Sting. She went on to work with two of the hottest young directorial talents of the era: Martin Scorsese (Taxi Driver) and Steven Spielberg (Close Encounters of the Third Kind). Phillips blazed a trail as one of the very few females to break into the upper echelons of a notoriously chauvinistic industry. But for all her success, Phillips remained an outsider in the all-male Hollywood club. She had a talent for deal-making, hard-balling and wise-cracking, and a considerable appetite for drink, drugs and sex. But while these predilections were tolerated and even encouraged among 'the boys', Phillips found herself gradually ostracized. By the late 1980s she was ready to burn bridges and name names, and the result was this coruscating memoir of her career. Julia Phillips died on 1 January 2002 at the age of 57, but her book will stand as one of the classic exposes of La-La-Land in all its excesses and iniquities.