Talon and Shasta soon grow closer than anyone, especially her father, could have predicted. But what Shasta doesn't know is that her new guardian has a very well-kept secret: he is actually a she. With the threat of another attempt on Shasta's life imminent, her father declares that the young hero will be come the Princess's bodyguard. Shasta, the only remaining heir to the throne, narrowly escapes the assassin's blade thanks to the intervention of a traveling acrobat named Talon. But in the midst of a birthday celebration, her world shatters when a mysterious assassin takes her brother's life. Princess Shasta Soltranis enjoys a pampered life of court dances, elaborate finery, and the occasional secret fencing match with her twin brother, Daric. A shocking assassination creates an unconventional bond between a princess and her guardian in a kingdom filled with political intrigue, danger and unexpected romance.
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In The Data Detective, Harford lays out ten rules that help separate facts from fiction. “I grew increasingly uneasy when fans of More or Less complimented the way we ‘debunked false statistics slowly…came to appreciate that the real joy was not in shooting down falsehoods but in trying to understand what was true” (11). His ambitious goal with his recent book, The Data Detective, is to create an alternative to Huff’s skepticism: to provide his readers with a set of common sense principles that will allow them to sift statistical truth from lies. Economist Tim Harford used to think that Huff had the right idea, but in the years since he began hosting the BBC program More or Less in 2007, he has become increasingly uncomfortable with Huff’s view. Readers tend to leave the book feeling quite cynical about statistics. 60 years later, Huff’s persuasive demonstration of the power of statistics, when used to back misinformation with seemingly solid data, remains popular. “There are lies, damn lies, and statistics.” Have you heard that before? Said it before? The quote is often wrongly attributed to Mark Twain and has been popularized in many places, including a little book called How To Lie With Statistics, written by Darryl Huff in the 1950s. Seems to be permanently reserved for women. This mild-looking, slightly bony woman in a long cardigan, distant, inoffensive, quite nice eyes, rather large hands and feet, meek neck, not wanting to go anywhere, but having given my word that I would stay away for a month until everyone decides that I am myself again. Hotel du Lac is set in a hotel by Lake Geneva, and we see it all through the eyes of romance novelist Edith Hope. So I shall judge merely Hotel du Lac I will not try and extrapolate beyond that to Brookner as a writer. Thomas did warn us several times that Hotel du Lac, although Brookner’s most famous novel, is not her best – and I did listen to him – but it felt expedient to read the novel I had on my shelves already. And so I duly took down her 1984 Booker Prize winning Hotel du Lac off my shelf, and have just finished reading it.Īnd oh dear, it is not in the spirit of the thing, but… this might be something of a lukewarm post. Having intended to read Brookner for a number of years, this seemed like the perfect time to give the old girl a whirl. Happy 83rd birthday, Anita Brookner, and Happy International Anita Brookner Day to the rest of you – surely the most publicised literary event of the past decade, courtesy of Thomas (and Simon is co-hosting). Nonetheless, with a little help from her friend Belinda and a handsome but enigmatic gentleman named Darcy O’Mara, Georgie manages not only to survive but to solve a murder. And as a member of the royal family, Georgie can’t just go out and get a job, because the only destiny approved by her lofty relatives is to marry the fish-faced Prince Siegfried, who doesn’t even like women. Alas, the Rannoch family-although rich in property-hasn’t a farthing to its illustrious name due to the unfortunate gambling habits of the first duke, Lady Georgie’s father. It’s 1932, and Lady Georgiana Rannoch, a twenty-something who is “thirty-fourth in line to the British throne,” has fled her ancient but drafty ducal castle in Scotland for the family mansion in London. I picked it up, opened it, and fell in love. Back in the days when brick-and-mortar bookstores were common in suburban America, I was browsing the shelves at my local Borders when a title caught my eye: Her Royal Spyness by Rhys Bowen. It is not intended for anyone under 18 years of age. Please Note: This book contains explicit content and darker elements, including mature language, violence, and rape. With romance, intrigue, and danger, the gilded world of Orea will grip you from the very first page. This compelling adult fantasy series is as addictive as it is unexpected. But the monsters on the other side might make me wish I’d never left. And I realize that everything I thought I knew about Midas might be wrong.īecause these bars I’m kept in, no matter how gilded, are still just a cage. Until war comes to the kingdom and a deal is struck. And even though I don’t leave the confines of the palace, I’m safe. He gave me protection, and I gave him my heart. I’m the woman he Gold-Touched to show everyone that I belong to him. Dug me out of the slums and placed me on a pedestal. In Highbell, in the castle built into the frozen mountains, everything is made of gold. Gold floors, gold walls, gold furniture, gold clothes. Paperbacks from Hell chronicles the history of the horror paperback publishing boom that started in the early Seventies with the release of Rosemary's Baby, The Exorcist, and The Other and died in the early Nineties as serial killers lured horror paperbacks into their murder basements. I love it!”- Mick Garris, creator of Showtime's Masters of Horror "A ferociously entertaining spook-ride through yesterday's horror fiction.This is a helluva lot of fun!!!”- Frank Henenlotter, director of Basket Case Paperbacks from Hell has won a Stoker Award and it's been chosen as one of the Best Books of 2017 by both Barnes & Noble and The Onion's AVClub! That means when you take it out to dinner, you're picking up the check! "as funny as it is engaging" - The Washington Post "The boom may have ended, but it lives - vividly, gruesomely - in this collection." - The New York Times "fabulously detailed, hilariously intense." - The Guardian ".absolutely essential, mandatory reading." - Brian Keene, author “A hugely entertaining, lightning-paced and knowledgeable history. , the movie that catapulted hardcore pornography into the mainstream, its star, Linda Lovelace, claims she was forced to perform in the movie, though everyone else connected to the film contradicts her. And the book's two most fascinating stories-about the making of Deep ThroatĪnd the Traci Lords child pornography case-involve unreliable narrators, which gives them a Rashomon Most chapters contain multiple story lines, which McNeil cleverly weaves together by the end. But beyond the scintillating subject, it's McNeil's skillful technique that elevates this oral history, coauthored by journalists Osborne and Pavia, above the tedium of a courtroom transcript. ) focuses on the industry's dark underbelly: suicide (Savannah), fratricide (the Mitchell brothers), Mafia hits (John Gotti whacked Robert DiBernardo, the mob's point man in the porn business) and gangland slayings (John Holmes). It doesn't hurt that the history of American pornography is inextricably intertwined with all the subjects that captivate us: sex, drugs, beauty, fame, money, the Mafia, law enforcement and violence. This compulsively readable book perfectly captures the pop culture zeitgeist. As Malachus the hunter becomes the hunted, Halani must risk herself and all she loves to save him from the empire's machinations and his own lethal birthright. Unbeknownst to both, the Empire's twisted empress searches for a draga of her own, to capture and kill as a trophy. He has tracked it to a group of free traders, among them a grave-robbing earth witch who fascinates him as much as she frustrates him with her many secrets. The magic that has protected him will soon turn on him - unless he finds a key part of his heritage. Malachus is a draga living on borrowed time. Dragas still walk among the denizens of the empire, disguised as humans. Every year, each village is required to send a young woman to the Empires capital-her fate to be burned alive for the entertainment. When her uncle buys a mysterious artifact, a piece of bone belonging to a long-dead draga, Halani knows it's far more than what it seems.ĭragas haven't been seen for more than a century, and most believe them extinct. In this USA Today bestselling novel, a woman with power over fire and illusion and the enslaved son of a chieftain battle a corrupt empire in this powerful and deeply emotional romantic fantasy. Born with the gift of earth magic, the free trader Halani keeps her dangerous secret closely guarded. Magic is outlawed in the Krael Empire and punishable by death. A dragon shape-shifter and a healer with power over the earth fight a corrupt empire in this thrilling and deeply emotional romantic fantasy from the USA Today best-selling author of Radiance. Wilson also talked about a new book called “Deeper Heaven” which he had written a Foreword to. But Ward was right! Deeper HeavenĮnter Christiana Hale’s book “Deeper Heaven.” Providentially I’d begun re-reading Lewis’ so-called “Space Trilogy” about the time I stumbled onto Doug Wilson’s lectures on the better-named “Ransom Trilogy” and his lecture on Lewis’ “Discarded Image.” There’s a connection. Lewis and the Secret of the Seven Heavens.” See also his “ Planet Narnia.” Ward’s premise was that there was a structure relating to Medieval Cosmology running through the Chronicles, and that Lewis kept it a secret. I discovered Michael Ward’s “The Narnia Code – C. For example, what was this talk of King Arthur? And what was Merlin the magician doing in it? I then read the science fiction series: “Out of the Silent Planet” “Voyage to Perelandra” and “That Hideous Strength.” The first two books were enjoyable, but I had difficulty maintaining interest in “That Hideous Strength.” To me it was strange and out of place, full of ad hoc characters, and ideas. Lewis readers, I began with the Chronicles of Narnia. Lewis’s Ransom Trilogy”, by Christiana Hale and published by Roman Roads Press (Paperback 369 pages). This is A review of “Deeper Heaven – A Reader’s guide to C. What begins as an unusual and challenging investigation will become a terrifying race-against-time to save America from oblivion. It is a textbook murder - and Pilgrim wrote the book. And it will take him to a rundown New York hotel room where the body of a woman is found facedown in a bath of acid, her features erased, her teeth missing, her fingerprints gone. It will help NYPD detective Ben Bradley track him down. But that book will come back to haunt him. Before he disappeared into anonymous retirement, he wrote the definitive book on forensic criminal investigation. The adopted son of a wealthy American family, he once headed up a secret espionage unit for US intelligence. Pilgrim is the codename for a man who doesn't exist. |