The Black Death! England has won the war with France but the disease which rampages through the land takes both rich and poor, warrior and worker.John Hawkwood and his two companions spend the winter in the north. It is in the spring that he begins to mould his company into a fighting force, and he serves the Baron Mortimer on the Welsh Border. There his men learn to fight as one and John Hawkwood begins the change from archer to man at arms. When the King and the Black Prince commission him to fight for them, first in an action against the Castilian pirates and then on a chevauchée through Gascony, he learns the skill of leadership.The novel culminates in Prince Edward's great raid towards the Loire and the battle of Poitiers where the fate of Gascony and France will be decided. Views: 563
May Sheppard, widowed before the outbreak of the Second World War, believed she would never be a mother. But evacuee, Cliff, brought the joy of temporary motherhood.Cliff loves living in the Dorset countryside and helping May on a farm but, with peace on the horizon, the prospect of his cold-hearted mother taking him back to a life in the city he barely remembers, looms over them.Their dream of becoming a family takes a staggering turn when May is coerced into an undertaking for which they are ill-equipped and unprepared. The prejudice of vindictive villagers adds to their struggle to cope.Perhaps VE Day with bring freedom into their lives at last. Views: 563
"Makes you want to travel, do somersaults and stretches, drink champagne in evening dress, read, think ... Intoxicating."—Publishers Weekly"A deeply human story of beauty and loss."—Christine Coulson, author of Metropolitan Stories: A NovelAlong the French Riviera in the early 1900s, an illustrious family in thrall to classical antiquity builds a fabulous villa—a replica of a Greek palace, complete with marble columns and frescoes depicting mythological gods. The Reinachs—related to other wealthy Jews like the Rothschilds and the Ephrussis—attempt to recreate a "pure beauty" lost in the 20th century. The narrator of this brilliant novel calls the imposing house an act of delirium, "proof that one could travel back in time, just like resetting a clock, and resist the outside world." The story of the villa and its glamorous inhabitants is recounted by the son of a servant from the nearby estate of Gustave... Views: 563
Happy Stories, Mostly is a playful, charged and tender collection of twelve stories – a blend of speculative fiction and dark absurdism, often drawing on Norman Erikson Pasaribu's Batak and Christian cultures. Pasaribu's stories ask what it means to be almost happy – almost to find joy, almost to be accepted, but never quite grasp one's desire. Joy and contentment shimmer on the horizon, just out of reach.In one story, an employee is introduced to their new workplace – a department of Heaven devoted to archiving unanswered prayers. In another, a woman on holiday in Vietnam attempts to find solace following the suicide of her son. In a third, a young man befriends a university classmate obsessed with verifying the existence of a mythical hundred-foot-tall man.Throughout the collection, queerness is a fact of life from which tragicomic events spring, amidst the forces that keep people from those whom they yearn for most, and the miraculous, melancholy... Views: 563
Whisper Hollow, where spirits walk among the living, and the lake never gives up her dead...Fifteen years ago, I ran away from Whisper Hollow, Washington, a small town on Crescent Lake in the Olympic Peninsula. But truth is, if you were born here, you can never really leave. I'm Kerris Fellwater, and I'm a spirit shaman. It's my responsibility to drive the dead back to their graves, because around Whisper Hollow, people—and secrets—don't always stay buried.Veronica, Queen of the Unliving, requests my presence. Something has happened in Whisper Hollow—there's a new menace around, and it's not only attacking the living, but also the denizens of her Court. Now, Bryan and I must enlist the help of the dead in order to keep the spirit world—and the citizens of Whisper Hollow—safe.Series Reading Order:1. Autumn Thorns2. Shadow Silence3. The Phantom Queen Views: 563
