And even if she can save her dad, Mup’s not sure if anything will ever be the same again. In a world of rhyming crows, talking cats, and golden forests, it’s all Mup can do to keep her wits about her. But everything is odd in the strange, glittering Witches Borough, even Mam. When witches carry off her dad, Mup and her mam leave the mundane world to rescue him. Pale, cold, and relentless, the witches will do anything for the tyrannical queen who has outlawed most magic and enforces her laws with terror and cruelty - and who happens to be Mup’s grandmother. On the night that Aunty dies, the raggedy witches come for Mup’s family. Can she reunite her family and find her way back? When witches kidnap her dad, Mup is swept up in a wild tide of magic that carries her to another world.
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5/24/2023 0 Comments Drift by Sharon Carter RogersIn some ways, the comics version of Sharon Carter and Steve Rogers is more fulfilling than his Endgame fate with Peggy. While Cap was briefly romantically-involved with Peggy Carter's niece, Sharon Carter, in Captain America: Civil War, his ongoing series provide a much more substantial look at their relationship. Related: Sharon Carter Is Officially Marvel's New Iron Patriot And while this provided emotional closure to his MCU story arc, Captain America's current comics provide a less lonely experience for Steve Rogers. The Marvel Cinematic Universe depicted his difficulties with finding a romantic partner with shared life experience in the 2014 film, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, before he was able to return at the end of Avengers: Endgame to his first love from the 1940s, Peggy Carter. Relationships, both platonic and romantic, have been another area of struggle for Captain America in the twenty-first century. 5/24/2023 0 Comments Garth nix sabriel seriesGoing through the arch, from mud into snow, from bright sun into the pallid luminescence of a snowfall, from her past into her future. All to answer if Sabriel is capable of growing to the needs of her dire quest. Along this journey, the reader will experience moments of wonder, moments of apprehension, and moments of fear. In her mind, she carries the words of the ever-changing book of the dead, and on her body, a sword and seven bells of seven sizes, each if rang true will carry its sound even beyond life. The book tells the story of Sabriel and her journey into the Old Kingdom, a place filled with magic and wonders and ruins where dormant evils await in shallow graves. As to what I am, I was once many things, but now I am only several. Either way, I'm glad that I started because I was hooked by the writing style from the beginning. Maybe it's because I've been living under a rock, but by coincidence, I had not seen any posts or commentaries about it here before I start reading it. This was my first book by Garth Nix and I was not expecting to like his writing so much. Sabriel is the best fantasy novel I read in more than a year. All woven by beautiful charming language which gives the whole novel the feeling of a fairy tale, or of a waking dream being imagined just before the all-consuming sleep. Talking cat, magic bells, abandoned castles, a journey into an old kingdom, the eerie feeling of impending darkness. 5/24/2023 0 Comments River of the gods millardTwo years in, deep in the African interior, Burton became too sick to press on, but Speke did, and claimed he found the source in a great lake that he christened Lake Victoria. They would endure tremendous hardships, illness, and constant setbacks. Speke was a young aristocrat and Army officer determined to make his mark, passionate about hunting, Burton’s opposite in temperament and beliefs.įrom the start the two men clashed. He was also mercurial, subtle, and an iconoclastic atheist. Burton spoke twenty-nine languages, and was a decorated soldier. Richard Burton and John Hanning Speke were sent by the Royal Geographical Society to claim the prize for England. At the same time, European powers sent off waves of explorations intended to map the unknown corners of the globe – and extend their colonial empires. In the 19th century, there was a frenzy of interest in ancient Egypt. "A lean, fast-paced account of the almost absurdly dangerous quest by to solve the geographic riddle of their era." - The New York Times Book Reviewįor millennia the location of the Nile River’s headwaters was shrouded in mystery. The harrowing story of one of the great feats of exploration of all time and its complicated legacy-from the New York Times bestselling author of The River of Doubt and Destiny of the RepublicĪ BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: THE WASHINGTON POST. 5/24/2023 0 Comments Mr tickle 1971The Little Miss series followed 10 years later. Happy and the accident-prone, heavily bandaged Mr. Tickle was joined by a cohort of friends, including the perpetually smiling Mr. The character became a book, and that book, in turn, became a runaway success, even leading to a television series narrated by “Dad’s Army” actor Arthur Lowe. In response, his father drew a little orange man with a blue hat and arms of incredible length. “My question was: ‘what does a tickle look like?'” Hargreaves explained. It was his own childish question-“one of those impossible questions that children like to pose to their parents,” he said-that prompted his father to draw the first Mr. Men and the Little Miss series that followed, whose characters are named after the emotion or behaviour they embody. The younger Hargreaves played no small role in the genesis of the Mr. The books’ enduring popularity after the first story’s publication in 1971 is an indication of “how strong my father’s idea really is”, he added. “It is an amazing fact that we’ve reached half a century, it’s a very long time for a series to be so successful,” Adam Hargreaves told AFP. The popular series has now entered its sixth decade in 2021, surviving its British creator Roger Hargreaves thanks to the dedication of his son. Men children’s books are celebrating their 50th birthday. It’s an occasion that might make even Mr. Men creator Roger Hargreaves drawing one of the Mr. 5/24/2023 0 Comments Katherine anya seton reviewSet in the vibrant 14th century of Chaucer and the Black Death, the story features knights fighting in battle, serfs struggling in poverty, and the magnificent Plantagenets-Edward III, the Black Prince, and Richard II-who ruled despotically over a court rotten with intrigue. This classic romance novel tells the true story of the love affair that changed history-that of Katherine Swynford and John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, the ancestors of most of the British royal family. This book is historically accurate so there will technically be spoilers in this review. I stumbled across it randomly on the Thriftbooks website and I’m so glad that I did. This book was released in 1954 and somehow, despite my love of historical fiction, I had never heard of this book or its author. We’re ending January strong with a review for the best English historical fiction that I’ve read (so far), Katherine by Anya Seton. My first review this month was for The Twelfth Transforming by Pauline Gedge the best Egyptian historical fiction that I’ve ever read. 5/24/2023 0 Comments Sapphire flames ilona andrewsShe turned around and ran down the stairs leading from my loft suite to the rest of the warehouse we used as our home and place of business.Īugustine was absolutely the last person I expected at two o’clock in the morning. “Why?” Why in the world would the Head of House Montgomery be downstairs, in the middle of the night? I snapped out of my relief back to full alert. She wore an old, stained Sailor Moon T-shirt, and her basketball shorts were on backward. It caused me no end of anxiety.Īrabella’s face was flushed, and her blond hair stuck out from her head in weird directions. Our older sister, Nevada her husband and her mother-in-law were flying to Spain for a funeral. I sagged against the door frame in relief. I jumped out of the bed, sprinted across the bedroom, and flung the door open. The alarm clock on my nightstand glowed with bright red. Slowly the familiar contours of my bedroom came into focus through the gloom. The dream tore like wet tissue, and for a disorienting moment I didn’t know where I was. The bright little fishes following me scattered, the crystal-clear water vanished, and I landed on the sand. I was swimming through the warm water of the Gulf when someone knocked on the sky. 5/24/2023 0 Comments The trial breon mitchellThe Trial is a brilliant and lucid vision of this search, of a man who desperately searches for freedom against unknown and unknowable constraints, refusing to believe in these constraints and yet forced in the end to submit to them. While fighting with his feelings for his father, soaked through with love and hatred, Kafka brought to paper the meditations of a mouse in a cage desperately looking for a way out. Finding escape only in writing, he created a personal and innovative style. Full of feelings of alienation and an ostensible hatred for authority, the novel manages both to convince and mislead its readers in a burst of sadness, rebellion and surrender that is quintessentially Kafka-esque.īorn in late nineteenth century Prague, Kafka struggled with the anti-Semitic sentiments of his countrymen and his father's controlling personality. Known for the strange quality of his writing and the presence of ambiguity and ambivalence in his texts, Kafka presents here a work that seems to almost define his style and his voice. It is at this moment that Kafka begins The Trial, probably his most widely read work after The Metamorphosis. awakes one day and instead of getting breakfast discovers he has been arrested. 5/23/2023 0 Comments Fences byPeter to open the gates of Heaven for all of the saved. Because of his diminished mental capacity, he acts in a childlike manner and believes that he is the Angel Gabriel, waiting for St. He suffered a traumatic head injury in World War II that left a metal plate in his head. Rose is the mother of Corey, Troy’s youngest son. Troy maintains an affectionate patriarchal relationship with Rose, demanding respect from her as the head of the household and primary bread winner, though he is greatly influenced by her realistic take on the changing world. Rose is Troy’s second wife, who he married after being released from prison. His past mistakes and failures greatly influence his outlook on life and his relationship with his sons. He was once a great baseball player in the Negro Leagues, but he was too old to join the Major Leagues when they were integrated. Troy is a tragic-hero he is dedicated to a fault to providing for his family and to making sure his sons have better lives than he has had. He works for the Sanitation Department as a garbage collector. He is a working class African American man who lives with his wife, Rose, and son, Corey, in the Hill District of Pittsburgh. 5/23/2023 0 Comments Books like the great aloneI was confident I would not enjoy this book but open to the idea I could be proved wrong. My reaction to having to read The Great Alone ( DB90090) by best-selling author Kristin Hannah for a book club was less than enthusiastic, understandably. It will leave me thinking, grappling and processing long after I’ve read the final page. It will transport me to intriguing times and places and introduce me to characters I wish were flesh and blood. It will be different, refreshing, unique, and free of clichés, formulas and predictability. Literature which merits my approval is all about quality. I think too many authors today care more about numbers and dollar signs versus whether what they write is actually good or worthy of reading. I think I’m so critical of these types of authors and this type of literature because the genre and its writers appear to have fallen prey to the whole quantity over quality debate. These authors publish books so frequently in such short periods of time you begin to wonder if he/she is doing any creative work at all or just telling the same basic story each time with slightly different characters and settings. I’m extremely wary of modern, best-selling fiction authors. |