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Peace at Last by Jill Murphy5/11/2023 ![]() These include the Worst Witch novels and the award-winning Large Family series, which have each sold over five million copies. It became an instant bestseller, launching an extraordinary publishing career that spanned almost five decades and over thirty children's books. ![]() ![]() She left school at sixteen and attended Chelsea, Croydon and Camberwell Schools of Art, writing her first novel, The Worst Witch, when she was just eighteen. Born and raised in London, Jill spent her childhood writing and illustrating stories. ![]() Jill Murphy is one of the UK's most treasured author-illustrators and was the creator of many bestselling books for children, including the Bear Family picture books Peace at Last, Whatever Next! and Just One of Those Days which together have sold over four million copies worldwide. ![]()
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Sing me to sleep gabi burton5/11/2023 ![]() ![]() Questions pile up, leading Saoirse into a deep web of deceit and intrigue in a thrilling page-turner. ![]() ![]() When she is instead offered a position as a guard to Prince Hayes, she initially rejects the position out of disdain for the Royals, but when Rain, Saoirse’s beloved and vulnerable little sister, receives a threatening letter, Saoirse joins the prince’s guard in hopes that proximity to the Royals will help her identify the blackmailer. No shrinking violet, Saoirse is at the top of her class at graduation and gunning for an esteemed position in the Keirdren military. ![]() Because Royals hate sirens more than any other creature, she hides in plain sight, disguised as an ikatus, or fae without a magical affinity. Her earnings supplement her family’s meager income from operating a flour mill under the exploitative rule of the Royals, the all-powerful fae at the top of Keirdre’s social hierarchy. The trouble is that Saoirse is very much a siren-and not only does she live in Keirdre, she regularly gives into her instincts to kill by seducing men marked for death by the Employer, her anonymous boss, using her astounding beauty and entrancing singing. In the kingdom of Keirdre, sirens are presumed extinct. ![]()
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The bonfire of the vanities by tom wolfe5/11/2023 ![]() ![]() Actually the woman was driving but various forces-including the police, district attorney's office, mayor, newspapers and community activists-work to catch and convict the guy for the allegedly hate-motivated crime, mainly because he is rich and white. ![]() A rich, white guy and his mistress take a couple of wrong turns in his car and end up running down a black kid in a poor neighbourhood. Not clever in its plot-it is somewhat simple compared to your average legal thriller these days. The Bonfire of the Vanities is certainly one of the cleverest novels you'll ever read. What does "heart" mean anyway? Sentimentality? A happy ending? Inspirational passages? ![]() I can tell you though what the book is missing: A heart. ![]() So many people, whose opinions I otherwise value, have told me how incredibly impressed they were by The Bonfire of the Vanities that I wonder what I'm missing, since I have only a middling appreciation for Tom Wolfe's first novel. ![]()
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The Foundry by Frank Dravis5/11/2023 ![]() That being said, the engaging and descriptive writing is immediately immersive, without being overly dense. Reading the series’ first book is essential, as it provides a foundation for this expansive world, along with the multiple vying factions, the characters’ myriad motivations, and the tumultuous history of Dianis itself. Heavy with military procedure, sci-fi drama, and remarkably detailed world-building, along with unexpectedly relatable characters and conflicts, this novel hits all the right notes. Intergalactic intrigue, forbidden romance, a missing agent from an advanced peace-keeping organization, and a primitive planet’s ultimate fate collide in The Matriarch, the second book of the impressive Dianis, A World in Turmoil series by author Frank Dravis.Ī violent and self-serving mining company is threatening to take control of the precious aquamarine resources on Dianis, while Chief Achelous of the IDB has disappeared and is being hunted, but his son and wife may hold the secret to the planet’s powerful religious sect and the contentious world’s entire future. ![]()
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![]() ![]() TLDR: Looking for a steamy fantasy romance that you can devour in a couple of sittings? Look no further.Ī Touch of Darkness is a true guilty pleasure read. Her growing attraction to Hades further complicates matters, for even if she manages to complete the bargain without her mother ever finding out about it, will she be able to walk away from him? Persephone inadvertently finds herself in one such bargain, and the terms are not in her favor – she must either create life in the Underworld or face eternity in Hades’ realm. ![]() As she is keen to hide her divinity and pass as a mortal, Persephone has so far not been tempted to break that promise, but all that changes after she accompanies one of her friends to Nevernight, Hades’ infamous nightclub where mortals and gods alike can strike bargains with the god of the dead himself. ![]() Her freedom, however, is contingent upon a promise that she made to her mother, the goddess Demeter: she will not associate with any of the gods, least of all the God of the Underworld, Hades. In this modern-day spin on the Hades and Persephone myth, Persephone is a journalism student, who after years of forced confinement at home, is enjoying her newfound freedom in the city of New Athens. ![]()
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Marked by Lucifer by Aiden Pierce5/10/2023 ![]() ![]() And maybe, deep down, you felt that you finally deserved the mortality that you so desperately desired. ![]() For the first time in your miserable life, Cain, you were selfless. Cain does, in fact, lose his mark with Chloe's unwitting help, but Lucifer later points out that Cain self-actualized its loss when he fell for Chloe, rather than Chloe falling for him, "You were willing to sacrifice the one thing you wanted to protect someone else. Eventually, he theorized that since Detective Chloe Decker loved Lucifer, and Lucifer was vulnerable near her, he, too, would benefit from such vulnerability if she could be made to love him. Pierce tired of eternity and made a deal with Lucifer to gain his assistance in breaking the curse so he could finally die. It is eventually revealed that Amenadiel was the one assigned by God to give Cain his mark. Cain (aka Marcus Pierce) has a unique circular welt, his MarkĪfter killing Abel and becoming the first murderer, Cain was marked by God and cursed with immortality, "doomed to walk the Earth alone for a tortured eternity". ![]()
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Stephen king books billy summers5/10/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() As a result, this second novel, Billy Summers, was one of my most anticipated reads for the second half of the year, and I was excited when I received my copy, especially as it contained a really cool story.īilly Summers is an assassin and gun for hire. Due to how much I liked Later, I made sure to keep an eye out for any additional Stephen King releases, and I was extremely intrigued to see that he had a second book coming out with a great-sounding plot. While I have not had a lot of experience reading Stephen King novels in the past, I really got into Later due to its likeable characters and thrilling narrative, and it ended up being one of the best audiobooks I listened to in the first part of 2021. ![]() His first book of 2021 was the interesting horror novel, Later, which followed a child who can see and talk to the recently deceased. Stephen King returns with another exceptional read, Billy Summers, an awesome and memorable character driven thriller that has proved to be one of the best books of the year so far.Ģ021 has been quite an amazing year for Stephen King, who has released two outstanding and impressive novels in a short period of time. Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton (Trade Paperback – 3 August 2021) ![]()
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The colossus of maroussi by henry miller5/10/2023 ![]() We must abandon the hard-fought trenches we have dug ourselves into and come out into the open, surrender our arms, our possessions, our rights as individuals, classes, nations, peoples." It's bombastic, to be sure, but it's also a reaction to events, a pained cry of: why can't we just act differently? It's an attempt to imagine a different, better world, and I was sympathetic to it, just as I was sympathetic to Miller's imagining of the Greek spirit he wanted to capture, a spirit that was as much a creature of his own mind as anything else. I can certainly understand why some readers will have no patience for passages such as: "It is not enough to overthrow governments, masters, tyrants: one must overthrow his own preconceived ideas of right and wrong, good and bad, just and unjust. Part travelogue, part diatribe, this is a book that's not going to be for everyone. Henry Miller travels to Greece, ostensibly to visit a Greek writer but really to reacquaint himself with the humanistic spirit he sees flowing from there-a life-affirming spirit that's the opposite of the impending death everywhere else. ![]() ![]() ![]() Dark forces are gathering across Europe, about to tear the continent apart in an unprecedented act of barbarity. ![]()
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The death mrs westaway5/10/2023 ![]() ![]() Hal just has to figure out exactly who this girl was…without getting herself killed. As Hal desperately tries to keep up her charade of belonging to the family, she realizes that the malevolent atmosphere of Trepassen House has strong roots in the past, when a young girl came to live there, fell in love, and was imprisoned in her bedroom. There she meets several possible uncles and a creepy old housekeeper right out of a Daphne du Maurier novel, all against the backdrop of a run-down mansion. So when she receives a letter saying she's been named in the will of, possibly, an unknown grandmother, she decides to travel to Cornwall, despite fearing that it’s probably all a mistake. Worse still, she’s under threat from a loan shark who’s come to collect the interest on an earlier debt. ![]() ![]() Her mother died in a hit-and-run several years before, and in her grief, Hal has drifted into a solitary and impecunious life. In Ware’s ( The Lying Game, 2017, etc.) fourth novel in as many years, Harriet “Hal” Westaway is barely making ends meet as a tarot reader on the Brighton Pier. Is it a case of mistaken identity, or will it reveal some truth about her family? ![]() A young woman receives notice of a mysterious bequest. ![]()
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![]() ![]() (Sakai uses the terms nation to describe a group of people united by race or ethnicity, positing that people of colour within America constitute “nations” deprived of self-determination through their oppression by whites). White settlers (US citizens of European descent) benefit from the exploitation and subjugation of other nations. Sakai argues that the US is an oppressor nation, dominated by the institutions of white supremacy. ![]() While acknowledging the ingenuity of Sakai’s thought, I intend to address some of his work’s shortcomings in an effort to advance our struggles against the politics of domination. However, despite Settlers’ vitality, Sakai’s critical inquiry is hobbled by certain critical lapses and overly strict conceptual categories. ![]() First published in the early 1980s to inform and empower people of colour struggling against the white capitalist hegemony of American society, Settlers: The Mythology of the White Proletariat remains a relevant historical materialist interrogation of “whiteness” that has much to offer our understanding of the workings of race. ![]() |