Her father’s voice shook her from the daze, and she heard the thudding of the French axes as they struck again and again against the thick heavy wood of the monastery’s front door. ‘Josie! For God’s sake, get over here, girl!’ Josie looked down and saw that life had left him, and, for all the surrounding chaos, the horror of it so shocked her that for a moment she could not shift her stare from his lifeless eyes. The rifleman’s hand within hers jerked and then went limp. Most of her father’s men were dead, Sarah and Mary too. Stones that had for three hundred years sheltered monks and priests and holy Mass now witnessed carnage. ‘En avant! En avant! Vive la République!’ She heard their cries.Īll around was the acrid stench of gunpowder and of fresh spilt blood. The French hail of bullets through the holes where windows had once stood continued as the French dragoon troopers began to surge forwards in a great mass, the sound of their pas de charge loud even above the roar of gunpowder. She stayed where she was, kneeling by the soldier on the dusty stone floor of the old monastery in which her father and his men had taken refuge. High up in the deserted village of Telemos in the mountains north of Punhete, Josephine Mallington was desperately trying to staunch the young rifleman’s bleeding when the French began their charge.
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Trapped in a quiet, coastal town where nothing ever happens, 16-year-old warrior Fenn longs for adventure and glory. SHORT STUFF is available from the IP Web Store, Bookshop, Apple, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository, Amazon, and an indie bookstore near you. Price: $13.99 print / $4.99 multi-format ebook Edited by Alysia Constantine (Olympia Knife, Sweet). SHORT STUFF features stories from Julia Ember (The Seafarer’s Kiss), Jude Sierra (Idlewild, What It Takes), Kate Fierro (Love Starved), and the writing team of Tom Wilinsky and Jen Sternick (Snowsisters). In SHORT STUFF, bestselling and award-winning authors dial down the angst in four meet-cute LGBTQ young adult romances. At a swim club, with the future in sight. In a coffee shop, when the whole world is new. “Breezy tales of first crushes and kisses.” - Kirkus ReviewsĪt a summer vacation at the lake, just before heading off to college. Unable to be touched by another human being. We knew what Maddie’s past had entailed but could only guess as to what made Flame the way he was. I just knew this was going to be a very heartbreaking journey and I was ready for the challenge.įlame and Maddie both have had the most horrific childhoods. Tillie kept our interests piqued throughout the first two books where Flame and Maddie were concerned. So when we get to their book, we already have a vested interest in the characters. I LOVE the Hades Hangmen series!! I mean FREAKING LOVE it!!! Since book one I have been intrigued by the dynamics between Flame and Maddie! What I love about this series is that even though each book is about a different couple, all of these characters are very much a part of the story throughout the series. “I used to wonder how two people – one broken girl, and one broken boy – could ever move on from their dark and tortured pasts. I might end up warily watching things from the corner of my eye while fighting to maintain a happy smile but it would be something to remember. The combination of WWII, which is a favorite time period of mine, plus the witch who just wants to have fun did.Įve Harbinger and her clan sound like a blast to go partying with and I’d certainly love to sit in on one of their Christmas celebrations. It takes something special to grab my attention and make me put aside my usual reluctance for things non-human. “In this captivating tale of adventure and timeless romance, novelist Camille DeAngelis blends World War II heroics with witchcraft and wit, conjuring a fabulously rich world where beldames and mortal men dare to fall in love.”Īs people who follow this blog know, I’m not usually the one to read paranormal books. Jayne B Reviews Category / B- Reviews / Book Reviews Magic / Paranormal / second chances / witchcraft / World War II 4 Comments NovemREVIEW: Petty Magic by Camille DeAngelis While the ‘other I’ is marked merely as amanuensis at the start, it appears as anything but, and obstreperously directs the narrative away from any serious engagement with the swirling conscious - and possibly roiling unconscious - lives of the novel’s various characters in prose so contrived that it pricks the brain. It is primarily because Jeet Thayil’s shallow, pretentious, pseudo-erudite, gratuitously arcane authorial persona invades the narrative and never lets it go. This is not just because it is incredibly difficult to write about induced states in a way that makes them interesting to a non-induced reader. While perhaps all of this makes perfect sense to the narrator, it certainly does not to the reader, and the prose does not emanate from the irrational or the hallucinatory or the surreal. I am very excited to see where Singh takes the story next as this book indicates some far-reaching changes. They are, however, not my favourite and I enjoyed the parts concerned with the larger political developments more. Ethan and Selenka are an interesting and believable couple and I bought into their relationship immediately. Singh explores a new dynamic here with a mating at first sight and while this for sure is not my favourite trope, I thought she pulled it off. But, if like me you enjoy these books (or if you like romance and interesting sci-fi-esque fantasy worlds and haven’t read any of her books, I really recommend you remedy that!), you will be pleased to hear that her latest (the 19th full-length novel in her Psy-Changeling universe) is as great as we all hoped. I have read more than 20 books by Nalini Singh in about 18 months, I love what she does with her world building and I nearly always adore the couple she centers in each of these books. There was very little chance of me not enjoying this book – therefore it feels necessary to begin this review with a disclaimer. Alpha Night (Psy-Changeling #19) by Nalini Singh "I think he leads on policy," said Lummis about DeSantis. Although DeSantis may be doing more now to influence the future direction of the party, Trump may still get the nod as the presidential nominee. Lummis’ most recent comment provides a little more nuance on her perspective about the two frontrunners so far in the race for the Republican nomination of the 2024 election. It’s a similar take to the position she gave in November, saying she believed DeSantis, not Trump, to be the party’sleader. That's why I think he's the leader of the party." "But DeSantis - his style and the issues he chooses to emphasize - are very much in keeping with what the public is talking about. "Clearly, President Trump is leading the pack for the presidential nomination at this point," Lummis told Business Insider this week. Ron DeSantis has overtaken former President Donald Trump as the driving voice of the national Republican Party. Cynthia Lummis has doubled down on a statement she made nearly six months ago that Florida Gov. just being seen reading it made me feel like such a common tourist. it was impossible to earnestly defend such a spectacle of michael bay proportions. i couldn't keep my eyes out of the book "it's really well-researched" was my mantra whenever my friends would look at it with doubtful, critical eyes. Reading this in the central plaza of Oaxaca during a sunny week preceding the Day of the Dead made the experience a vital one, and a really embarrassing one as well. doom and good fortune are doled out plentifully. it is a jacobean soap opera writ large, candide placed in his trashiest adventure yet: the always-horny narrator moving constantly through varied scenes of destruction, despair, bawdy comedies of manner, periods of learning and excitement, times of cold anger and lingering resentment, from youth to infirmity. some enjoyments inspire only guilt: the numerous, excitedly engorged accounts of atrocity and bloodshed, the overripe sex scenes that become almost ridiculous in their frequency and comically graphic, often grotesque detail. some enjoyments are guilt-free: the sense of wonder, the lavish details, the description of native civilizations - so many aspects of so many cultures, all so clearly well-researched and engagingly depicted. If a guilty pleasure can elevate itself to the level of transformative epic, and then come plummeting back down to farce and depravity, and then up again, and then down again, and around and around and around. The two meet up every five years, but they are never able to push it beyond that. They end up finding each other again five years later, but circumstances drove them apart again. Chasing Daisy: Paige Toon Kindle Edition by Paige Toon (Author) Format: Kindle Edition 735 ratings Kindle Edition 4.99 Read with Our Free App Audiobook 0.00 Free with your Audible trial THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR Escape to the summer and feel the warmth of Paige Toon's storytelling Daisy has been dumped, unceremoniously jilted. Nell and Van met as children when their parents fell in love, but when that relationship didn’t last neither did theirs. Despite her best intentions, Daisy ends up falling for someone and he’s a man who risks it all every time he steps on the track so he’s more than willing to do the same for her.įive Years From Now is the story of what happens when you meet the right person at the wrong time. The crew travels from Brazil to Monte Carlo and many other far off places, and Daisy’s new life is as fast as the drivers she caters for. Daisy decides to get out and join the world so she becomes a caterer on the Formula 1 circuit. She’s decided that now is the time to give up on men, but life has a way of getting in the way of best laid plans. If You Like Paige Toon Books, You’ll Love…Ĭhasing Daisy starts with Daisy having been dumped and left jilted. It is this man's son who closes the trilogy with his experiences in China and in presumably, America. The second novel focuses on the third son who the reader believes will be a great man but then we find in the third installment, that he becomes what he loathed all along. The second installment explores the aftermath of Wang Lung's death and the choices his sons make and their lack of suffering serves as a foil for the first novel, which, I think is why I preferred the first. She maintains this style throughout the trilogy. Buck's writing style reminded me of Hemingway as it was straightforward but I found it to have a nuance and elegance all its own. The main character, Wang Lung is relatable and realistic. The first book, The Good Earth was by far my favorite as it documents a man and then a family's struggle though famine and poverty into prosperity. This trilogy was thrilling from beginning to end. |