Kate Griffin – författare

When a man is tired of London he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford - Samuel Johnson

In fact, Dr Johnson was only half right. There is in London much more than life - there is power. It ebbs and flows with the rhythms of the city, makes runes from the alignments of ancient streets and hums with the rattle of trains and buses; it waxes and wanes with the patterns of the business day. It is a new kind of magic: urban magic.

Enter a London where magicians ride the Last Train, implore favours of The Beggar King and interpret the insane wisdom of The Bag Lady. Enter a London where beings of power soar with the pigeons and scrabble with the rats, and seek insight in the half-whispered madness of the blue electric angels. Enter the London of Matthew Swift, where rival sorcerers, hidden in plain sight, do battle for the very soul of the city . . .

It''s said that if the ravens ever leave the Tower of London, then the Tower will crumble and the kingdom will fall. As it happens, that''s not so far from the truth . . .One by one, the magical wards that guard the city are failing: the London Wall defiled with cryptic graffiti, the ravens found dead at the Tower, the London Stone destroyed. This is not good news. This array of supernatural defences - a mix of international tourist attractions and forgotten urban legends - formed a formidable magical shield. Protection for the City of London against . . . well, that''s the question, isn''t it? What could be so dangerous as to threaten an entire city? Against his better judgement, resurrected sorcerer Matthew Swift is about to find out. And if he''s lucky, he might just live long enough to do something about it . . .

When the city was founded, he was the mad native spirit that waited in the dark, on the edge of the torchlight. When the streets were cobbled over, he became the footsteps heard on stone that you cannot see. When the Victorians introduced street lighting, he was the shadow who always shied away from the light, and when the gas went out, there he was. The shadow at the end of the alley, the footsteps half-heard in the night.A daimyo of the Neon Court is dead. So are two warriors of the Tribe. And a freshly-prophesied ''chosen one'' is missing. Each side blames the other and Matthew Swift is right in the middle of it, trying to keep the peace. Because when magicians go to war, everyone loses. But Swift has even bigger problems. A dead woman is trying to kill him and the city itself is under attack from a force of unimaginable power. As if trying to stay one step ahead of an assassin and juggling magical politics weren''t challenging enough, Swift must also find a way to defeat a primal threat from humanity''s darkest nightmares. Or there may not be a London left to fight over . . .

Matthew Swift, Midnight Mayor, is in charge. And London is having its issues.The new drug on the market is fairy dust and it turns humans into walking drug labs. Teenage vandals are being hunted by a mystical creature. And criminals are dying by magical means.If Swift is going to save London from a rising tide of blood, he''s going to have to learn his lessons - and fast.

''Don''t look back. It wants you to look back.''London''s soul has gone missing. Lost? Kidnapped? Murdered? Nobody knows - but when Sharon Li unexpectedly discovers she''s a shaman, she is immediately called upon to use her newfound powers of oneness with the City to rescue it from a slow but inevitable demise.The problem is, while everyone expects Sharon to have all the answers - from the Midnight Mayor to Sharon''s magically-challenged self-help group - she doesn''t have a clue where to start.But with London''s soul missing and the Gate open, there are creatures loose that won''t wait for her to catch up before they go hunting.STRAY SOULS is the first novel in the Magicals Anonymous series, set in the same fantastical London as the Matthew Swift novels.

Sharon Li: apprentice shaman and community support officer for the magically inclined. It wasn''t the career Sharon had in mind, but she''s getting used to running Magicals Anonymous and learning how to Be One With The City.When the Midnight Mayor goes missing, leaving only a suspiciously innocent-looking umbrella behind him, Sharon finds herself promoted. Her first task: find the Midnight Mayor. The only clues she has are a city dryad''s cryptic warning and several pairs of abandoned shoes... Suddenly, Sharon''s job feels a whole lot harder.