Trapped within the confines of a multilevel prison world, Clive Folliot and his fellow captives face a new death daily. Torn between continuing the search for his twin, Neville, and helping his comrades return home, Clive splits their forces to double their chances of success--or failure!

Sheriff Poole & The Mech Gang is set near de Lint's fictional desert town of Santo del Vado Viejo, where his novels The Mystery of Grace and The Painted Boy take place, and where some of his recent short fiction has been set. It is available here for the first time in any format. Dan Cutler lives with his wife Mason in the foothills of the Hierro Madera Mountains near the ruins of Showdown Ranch, his father's old amusement park. Although the ranch is now owned by developers, nothing has been done with it since the day Dan's father died there in a mysterious explosion. Four generations of Cutler men have worked with carnival machines called animatrons—large metal figures whose clockwork workings delight and captivate audiences. Ever since the explosion Dan has been salvaging parts of these mechanical men from the ruins and bringing them home to try to put them back in working order. But there is a greater reason to make these machine men operational once more—something that threatens the Cutlers' very existence.

A Newford artist must come to terms with the power she creates with her work--and make peace with a past that haunts her.

Charles de Lint's beloved fictional city of Newford is the backdrop for this riveting urban fantasy which pays homage to ancient Native American legends of secret "animal people" living among us and features an afterword original to this edition.Come join the misfits, marginalized and orphans of the modern world—street folks who sit around the fire by Moth's trailer in the junkyard in their own "family of choice." Meet a punky pair of Crow Girls—delightful yet dangerous, who will insert themselves into your heart and change you forever; Raven—engimatic keeper of the pot that safeguards the ways of our world; Coyote—handsome Trickster ever driven to stir the pot with good intentions yet dire consequences; Fox—seductive canid whose past indiscretions return to haunt him; Jack Daw—storyteller who spins captivating tales while hiding his deepest sorrow; the Cuckoo family—viscious, amoral and determined to gain control of whatever will destroy the corbae (crow) clans.Combine these with...

The heart-pounding conclusion to the thrilling Wildlings trilogy.  At the end of Over My Head, Josh has propelled himself into the Otherworld where he believes his former girlfriend Elzie is in imminent danger. He leaves behind his closest friends: Marina, whose fledgling romance with Theo is increasingly complicated by her undeniable feelings for Josh, and Des, who is trying to figure out his own role amongst his Wildling friends. In this unpredictable world a side-step from our own, Josh discovers more about the awesome power he holds within as he deals with hostility from certain animal clans and elders.  Back in Santa Feliz his friends are facing a huge anti-Wildling rally that threatens all Wildling teens with segregation and incarceration. In the most tense and perilous of circumstances in both worlds, Josh and his friends must rely on each other’s love, ingenuity and loyalty just to survive. 

In this whimsical, original folktale written and illustrated throughout in vibrant full color by two celebrated masters of modern fantasy, a young girl's journey becomes an enchanting coming-of-age story about magic, friendship, and the courage to shape one's own destiny. Lillian Kindred spends her days exploring the Tanglewood Forest, a magical, rolling wilderness that she imagines to be full of fairies. The trouble is, Lillian has never seen a wisp of magic in her hills--until the day the cats of the forest save her life by transforming her into a kitten. Now Lillian must set out on a perilous adventure that will lead her through untamed lands of fabled creatures--from Old Mother Possum to the fearsome Bear People--to find a way to make things right.

SUMMARY: 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 mast, 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.

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. "Charles de Lint is the modern master of urban fantasy. Folktale, myth, fairy tale, dreams, urban legend—all of it adds up to pure magic...

When asked to choose his “very best” stories, Charles de Lint went directly to his fans, who helped him select this collection of timeless, magical tales. From his beloved Newford to the streets of modern Ottawa, these stories take you effortlessly to a place where mystery and myth are right next door. To quote his readers: “His stories are good for the heart and soul…he reminds you of hope and strength and Beauty and Grace that you may have forgotten.” “Just as Charles de Lint’s pen drips magic and enchantment, he is also never afraid to write about the darker and painful side of life, and he writes it in a way that moves you. Give this wonderful book a chance; I promise you it won’t disappoint you. Even more, I can assure you, you won’t be the same person when you are done with it: de Lint will have changed you with his magic.” Reviews: Contemporary fantasist de Lint built this winning compilation with help from his readers, who voted on their favorite stories. The result is an outstanding and widely varied collection of 29 tales. The delightfully light-hearted "Pixel Pixies" adds magic and mischief to innocent online interactions. ("If you're lucky, [the pixies are] still on the Internet and didn't follow you home.") "Merlin Dreams in the Mondream Wood" investigates the nature and meaning of memories. The heart-wrenching "In the House of My Enemy," later developed into the novel The Onion Girl, narrates the decisions made by a pregnant girl with an abusive past. Longtime fans and newcomers alike will fall in love with de Lint's graceful, poetic language and characters like "an old man who wore the shape of a red-haired boy with crackernut eyes that seemed as bright as salmon tails glinting up the water." —Publishers Weekly When it comes to urban waifs and strays, Ottawa fantasy writer Charles de Lint has his own unusual take, creating in his fiction a fantastic world populated by artists, musicians, booksellers, scholars, runaways and, well, magic. With The Very Best of Charles de Lint, the author, who is also a musician, has created a greatest-hits set with a twist. To determine which stories to include (from a body of work spanning 25 years), he asked his fans for their favourites via Facebook and Twitter. The resulting volume is more than 400 pages of the finest urban fantasy fiction of the past three decades, characterized by de Lint’s deep and passionate humanism. —Robert Wiersema, National Post There are a number of stories here—quite an impressive number of them—that are simply perfect. By that, I mean that they hit the mark they've aimed at. (And de Lint never aims low.) They've achieved the intended effect. An artistic balance has been achieved between lyricism and clarity of language, consistent and well-developed characterisation that propel the plot at a good pace, and the elements of myth dosed out carefully enough that they retain the elements of mystery. And it's easy to miss that exquisite feat of craft in sheer enjoyment of the story, and the set of feelings the author has evoked. And that, my friends, is storytelling at its best. —Green Man Review

Seven Wild Sisters is a publishing event, a short novel by one of today's finest fantasy writers, Charles de Lint, profusely illustrated by the legendary Charles Vess. Together, they have created a modern fairy tale about seven sisters growing up in backwoods hill country, and how one of them finds a mystery in the forest that both endangers and could save them all.

Studying under painter Vincent Rushkin, young artist Isabelle becomes so adept that her paintings take on a life of their own. This riveting novel is about the power of art; about love, loyalty and the depths of friendship; innocence, cruelty, greed & denial; and the intertwining of these. It's about facing buried memories and dreams, and ultimately, the fragility and strength of the human spirit.In the bohemian city of Newford, young Isabelle Copley becomes the chosen student of the brilliant, yet reclusive artist Vincent Rushkin. In the course of her arduous training, Isabelle becomes so adept that her paintings take on a life of their own. But her mentor's cruelty brings such tragedy to Isabelle and her creations that she turns her back on her talent and buries her emotions, memories and dreams in a web of denial.Now, twenty years later, Isabelle must face a past that she has long denied, and once again unlock the slumbering power of her brush. In a dark reckoning with...

A tale of magic and murderThe increasingly bizarre murders have baffled the police—but each death is somehow connected with the city's elusive Gypsy community. The police are searching for a human killer, but the Romany know better. They know the name of the darkness that hunts them down, one by one: Mulengro.

For the past six months, something has been happening to teens in Santa Feliz. Seventeen-year-old Josh Saunders has seen the news reports, but he is still unprepared when it happens to him. One minute he’s arguing with his mother’s boyfriend and the next, he’s looming over the man, blood dripping from his claws—he has transformed into a mountain lion. When Josh switches back to his human body, he knows his life has changed forever. He has become a Wildling. Pursued by both government authorities and criminal factions, Wildlings must hide their newfound abilities to avoid being locked up for study and experimentation. When an accidental betrayal reveals Josh’s secret, his carefully constructed cover is ripped apart, forcing his friends to intervene. They must grudgingly put their trust in other Wildlings—and, most challenging, each other— if they ever hope to save him.

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. “Charles de Lint is the modern master of urban fantasy. Folktale, myth, fairy tale, dreams, urban legend—all of it adds up to pure magic in de Lint’s vivid, original world. No one does it better.”—Alice Hoffman I can never recapture the feeling of first arriving in Newford and meeting the people and seeing the sights as a newcomer. However, part of the beauty of Newford is the sense that it has always been there, that de Lint is a reporter who occasionally files stories from a reality stranger and more beautiful than ours. De Lint also manages to keep each new Newford story fresh and captivating because he is so generous and loving in his depiction of the characters. Yes, there are a group of core characters whose stories recur most often, but a city like Newford has so many intriguing people in it, so many diverse stories to tell, so much pain and triumph to chronicle.—Challenging Destiny “De Lint creates an entirely organic mythology that seems as real as the folklore from which it draws.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review “De Lint is a romantic; he believes in the great things, faith, hope, and charity (especially if love is included in that last), but he also believes in the power of magic—or at least the magic of fiction—to open our eyes to a larger world.”—Edmonton Journal “It’s hard not to feel encouraged to be a better person after reading a book by Ottawa’s Charles de Lint.”—Halifax Chronicle Herald If Ottawa-area author Charles de Lint didn't create the contemporary fantasy, he certainly defined it. …writer-musician-artist-folklorist de Lint has lifted our accepted reality and tipped it just enough sideways to show the possibilities that lie beneath the surface… Unlike most fantasy writers who deal with battles between ultimate good and evil, de Lint concentrates on smaller, very personal conflicts. Perhaps this is what makes him accessible to the non-fantasy audience as well as the hard-core fans. Perhaps it's just damned fine writing. —Quill & Quire In de Lint's capable hands, modern fantasy becomes something other than escapism. It becomes folk song, the stuff of urban myth.―The Phoenix Gazette Charles de Lint shows that, far from being escapism, contemporary fantasy can be the deep mythic literature of our time.―The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction Maybe you find it hard to believe that the dirty, smelly, crowded modern-day city can have any sort of mystique or magic to it, but believe me, there's a lot more than what meets the eye. Legends stalk the slums, ghosts haunt the cobblestoned streets, goblins dwell in the buried part of the city, and nightmares share the roads. The city itself possesses character, spirit, and an identity.—Green Man Review