The Book of Haatan Deluxe Edition

[ecosophia]

While difficult things are going on in my personal life just now, the wider world rolls onward, and now and then the consequences are pleasant. ones. One of these showed up just now: an email from Sphinx Books, the publisher that carries my fiction these days. mentioning that interest in my Ariel Moravec occult detective novels is high enough that they're bringing out a deluxe edition of the soon-to-be-published second volume in the series, The Book of Haatan. Yes, that's a rendering of it on the left.

For those who haven't been following along, Ariel Moravec is eighteen years old, and is learning magic from her grandfather, Dr. Bernard Moravec, one of the most famous occultists in an East Coast city you'll have a hard time finding on a map. Dr. Moravec is also a private investigator specializing in occult cases; in this story, he and Ariel are called in by the city police to look into the theft of an old book of magic -- a book that may reveal a secret for which some people are willing to kill.

It's a lively story, and like all the Ariel Moravec adventures, the magic in it is real magic -- not the make-believe stuff you get from Harry Potter et al., but the sort of things that actual occultists practice and cope with. That's a habit I picked up from Dion Fortune, who did the same thing in her occult fiction; those who've read the first volume in the series, The Witch of Criswell, know that real magic is at least as good a plot engine as the fake kind.

Interested?  The deluxe edition can be preordered from the publisher here. If you already preordered the trade paperback edition from the publisher directly and would like to cancel that order and get the deluxe edition instead, you can contact them at email office@aeonbooks.co.uk to arrange for this.

Comments

[baconrolypoly]

Don't know if you're still accepting comments but wanted to say that I enjoyed The Book of Haatan and found it very entertaining.

One small thing made me smile, which was Paul wearing a dressing gown over his clothes. Amongst many women I've come across, wearing a dressing gown over your clothes is known jokingly as donning the Dressing Gown of Doom and it is employed by husbands who are slightly unwell and want to signal they are too unwell to contribute to household work or childcare. I can't help wondering if you already knew this.