The White Road: Journey into an Obsession by Edmund de Waal

 

 

An extraordinary blend of narrative history and memoir, by the author of the award-winning and bestselling international sensation, The Hare with Amber Eyes

In The White Road, artist Edmund de Waal gives us an intimate portrait of his lifelong obsession with porcelain, or “white gold.” A potter who has been working with porcelain for more than forty years, de Waal describes how he set out on five journeys to places where porcelain was dreamed about, refined, collected, and coveted―and that would help him understand the clay’s mysterious allure. From his studio in London, he begins by travelling to three “white hills”―sites in China, Germany, and England that are key to porcelain’s creation. But his search eventually leads him around the globe and reveals more than a history of cups and figurines; rather, he is forced to confront some of the darkest moments of twentieth-century history.

Part memoir, part history, part detective story, The White Road chronicles a global obsession with alchemy, art, wealth, craft, and purity.

 

The Crows (Pagham-on-Sea) by C. M. Rosens (Author), Charlotte Ashley (Editor), Thomas Brown (Illustrator)

 

 

Carrie Rickard, leaving an abusive relationship back in London, tries to escape her own past by throwing herself into her restoration project: Fairwood House, known to locals of Pagham-on-Sea as The Crows. Unable to resist as it whispers to her, Carrie’s obsession only grows when she discovers it was the site of a gruesome unsolved murder.

As Carrie digs deeper into the mystery surrounding the bloodless child stuffed up the kitchen chimney in the 1950s, she awakens dark and dangerous forces that threaten her own life.

Cue an introduction to her eldritch neighbour, Ricky Porter, a foul-mouthed modern-day Merlin in a hoody and a tracksuit, who claims he can see the future. But Ricky, as obsessed with The Crows as Carrie is, has an agenda and several secrets of his own, not least of which are what’s really under his hood, and what he’s got in the cellar…

...Is his offer of help sincere? Or is he the reason she's doomed?

THE CROWSis a Gothic Paranormal novel for fans of haunted houses, eldritch monsters, and things that go bump in the night.Content Warning for psychological abuse, body horror, gore, strong language, and scenes of an unsettling nature.

 

A Mentor and Her Muse by Susan Sage

 

 

Under the guise of mentor and muse, a frustrated writer and her ambitious teenage protégé take an illicit summer road trip fraught with racial and sexual tension. This is a compelling psychological novel about social norms, artistic ambition, and obsession. Maggie Barnett works in the media center of a school in Flint, Michigan where she meets Taezha Riverton, an aspiring teenage writer. After discovering that Maggie is also a writer, Taezha turns to her as both mentor and friend. Alone and childless, it's not enough for Maggie to take Tae to restaurants and poetry slams. Although Tae’s mother has nothing against Maggie, she is less than thrilled when Maggie proposes to take her daughter on a summer road trip. Permission is never explicitly granted, but shortly after school is out for the summer, Maggie and Tae head for the Southeast.