Mythology & Folk Tales

The exciting new historical novel in Mark Knowles’ Blades of Bronze series. You’ve read the myths of Ancient Greece… now see how life really was in the Age of Heroes.

Decades after the voyage of the fabled Argo, the last remaining Argonauts are scattered to the corners of the Greek world, old men living on past glories.

The great victory at Troy is naught but a memory. The gods have abandoned Greece. The last vestiges of once-mighty kingdoms are crumbling and the enemy is nearly at the gates.

The Age of Heroes is dead. The Sea People are coming…

Only one young man can rise up, channel the spirit of the Argonauts, and inspire and renew the heroism of old: Xandros, callow grandson of the great Jason. His mission is a desperate one, and it may yet be too late. Will the old world crumble and burn once and for all, or will a new hero rise to victory?

Reviews for the Blades of Bronze series:

‘A bold and thrilling voyage that plunges you deep into the world of ancient myth. Knowles’s storytelling captured my imagination from the very first page. Wonderfully atmospheric.’ Daisy Dunn
‘What a spectacular triumph! Knowles has taken a reassuringly familiar legend and elevated it into a new, realistic and engrossing story.’ Sam Taw
‘A deeply researched historical epic, so brilliantly brought to life I could taste the salt air on my tongue.’ Adam Lofthouse

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‘Illusory, frightening, and deeply moving, The Fisherman is a modern horror epic. And it’s simply a must read’ Paul Tremblay

In upstate New York, within the woods, Dutchman’s Creek flows out of the Ashokan Reservoir. Steep-banked and fast-moving, it offers the promise of fine fishing, and of something more, a possibility too fantastic to be true.

When Abe and Dan, two widowers who have found solace in each other’s company and a shared passion for fishing, hear rumours of the Creek and what might be found there, the remedy to both their losses, they dismiss them. Soon, though, the men find themselves drawn into a tale as deep and old as the Reservoir.

It’s a tale of dark pacts, of long-buried secrets, and of a mysterious figure known as the Fisherman. It will bring Abe and Dan face to face with all that they have lost, and with the price they must pay to regain it.

‘An epic, yet intimate, horror novel. Langan channels M. R. James, Robert E. Howard and Norman Maclean. What you get is A River Runs Through It… straight to hell’ Laird Barron

More praise for The Fisherman

‘Reading this, your mouth fills with worms. Just let them wriggle and crawl as they will, though—don’t swallow. John Langan is fishing for your sleep, for your soul. I fear he’s already got mine’ Stephen Graham Jones

‘What starts as a slow, melancholy tale gains momentum and drops you head first into a churning nightmare from which you might escape, but you’ll never forget, and the memory of what you saw will change you forever’ Richard Kadrey

‘The Fisherman is a treasure, the kind of book you just want to snuggle up and shiver through. I can’t say enough good things about the confidence, the patience, the satisfying cumulative power of this book. It was a pleasure to read from the first page to the last’ Victor LaValle

‘Stories within stories, folk tales becoming modern legends, all spinning into a fisherman’s tale about the one he wishes had gotten away. Langan’s latest is at turns epic and personal, dense yet compulsively readable, frightening but endearing’ Adam Cesare

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