![]() ![]() Shizuka doesn’t have time for crushes or coffee dates, what with her very soul on the line, but Lan’s kind smile and eyes like stars might just redefine a soul’s worth. “Shizuka meets Lan Tran, retired starship captain, interstellar refugee, and mother of four. ![]() She’s found her final candidate.īut where does a donut shop fit into all of this? Enter Katrina, a young transgender runaway who catches Shizuka’s ear with her wild talent Shizuka can almost feel the curse lifting. To escape damnation, she must entice seven other violin prodigies to trade their souls for success. Shizuka, long ago, made a deal with the devil. ![]() All are women running from something and grasping for something that will, in the most literal sense, save them. The premise involves three women, Shizuka Satomi, Katrina Nguyen, and Lan Tran. However, instead of Light From Uncommon Stars feeling overly jangly like a tin can full of pennies…this book comes together like a bit of sugar-dusted magic. Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki is a collection of discordant elements: California’s San Gabriel Valley, cursed violins, Faustian bargains, queer alien courtship and fascination for fresh-made donuts. ![]()
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![]() ![]() Chicago and New York are reduced to rubble a man possessed by Misquamacus reaches deep into a woman's body and pulls her inside out the Indian spirit performs the hastiest eyeball-removal seen on paper since Jerzy Kosinski's The Painted Bird. ![]() Against these forces, modern America writhes in agony. But this time the horrific wraith teams up not only with a Lovecraft-like god of the underworld (a hulking shadow complete with tentacles) but also with the spirit of a voodoo priest eager to pay back whites for their enslavement of his tribe. Once again the spirit of Misquamacus, the greatest of all Indian medicine men, ventures forth from the world of the dead to avenge the near-extermination of his people. Masterton blends horror and humor with aplomb in this gleefully gruesome second sequel to his best-known novel, The Manitou. ![]() ![]() ![]() 13 & up)Įveryone believes that Salil Singh killed his girlfriend, Andrea Bell, five years ago-except Pippa Fitz-Amobi. CW-worthy dialogue, quirky secondary characters, romance and suspense: a winning combination. Camelia can’t help being drawn to Ben even when he warns her to stay away. Meanwhile, Ben reveals his ability to sense the future through touch, a power he only partially controls and which failed to save his ex. Is it new boy Ben? Jock John? Ex-boyfriend Matt? Or even Camelia’s young boss at the pottery studio and shop? Whoever he is, he’s determined to win Camelia at any cost, and the tension ratchets up until the action-packed ending. As if that’s not excitement enough, Camelia seems to have attracted a secret admirer, and her lively first-person narrative is interrupted by passages from the perspective of this prospective suitor. Three months ago a handsome boy saved Camelia’s life now he’s enrolled at her school, followed by rumors that he killed his girlfriend. The prolific Stolarz ( Blue is for Nightmares, 2003, etc.) here launches the new Touch series. ![]() ![]() ![]() Liberty, by placing men to equal footing, creates association, amalgamation, union, security.” To say that the liberty exists is to say that classlessness exists, to say that brotherhood and equality exist.Īuthority, by dividing men into classes, creates dichotomy, disruption, hostility, fear, disunion. ![]() ![]() Thus, to say that authority exists is to say that class and cast exist, that submission and inequality exist. Authority exists when one man obeys another, and liberty exists when one man do not obey other men. If authority implies submission, liberation implies equality. The obedient always think about themselves as virtuous, rather than cowardly. Spartacus was not a hero, and obedient slaves were virtuous. To the Roman slave owners, Spartacus was not the hero and obedient slaves were not cowards. “Submission is identified not with cowardliness, but with virtue, rebellion not with heroism, but with evil. ![]() ![]() She believes daydreaming is a vastly underrated pastime and probably spends way too much time at it. If there were more hours in the day, she’d like to become a better arti Finn Marlowe is a paralegal by day and erotic (M/M) romance novelist by night. Finn calls British Columbia home and when she’s not enjoying the beautiful outdoors, she’s inside reading or resenting the fact her kids are better video game players than she is. Paranormal romance is her favorite genre to write, and the story’s usually on the dark side because she still believes in things that go bump in the night. Her kids no longer ask what’s wrong when they spy her staring off into space-they just assume she’s writing a scene from her next novel and they’re probably right. ![]() Finn Marlowe is a paralegal by day and erotic (M/M) romance novelist by night. ![]() ![]() ![]() In fact, there are few mysteries written for adults that are as obsession-making and intricate, and with $200 million at stake in the game, figuring out the clues is hardly child's play. It's enjoyed by readers aged eight to eighty. ![]() It's taught in elementary and middle schools all over the United States. Once you win the Newbery, though, you're golden the rest is gravy.Īnd Raskin's book has remained super-popular in the thirty-plus years since it was published. Written in 1978 by Ellen Raskin, it won the 1979 Newbery Medal, which is pretty much the best prize you can get in children's literature. It reveals what every single character is hiding, as well as what they're hiding from. But it's also a lot more than that-the puzzle at its heart does more than just reveal whodunnit. This novel ticks the three Awesome Murder Mystery boxes: it has an unusual plot, a nutso bunch of characters, and more unexpected twists than you can count. or shake a candlestick at (in the library with Colonel Mustard), for that matter. ![]() And believe us, we've read more mysteries than you can shake a stick at. The Westing Game is a murder mystery like no other. You know how you're not supposed to hate the player, you're supposed to hate the game? Well, when it comes to this totally bizarre, ominous and brain-tickling mystery, you'll end up loving both the game and its cast of players. ![]() ![]() This is a novel we need, even if it's somewhat predictably moved by a ghostly patriotism that doesn't dampen rage so much as bewilder it. It recounts an alternative history where Jesse lived instead of his brother, so there was no Sun Records and thus no rock 'n' roll, just a "short-lived rock & rhythm craze" - in which the Beatles went nowhere so the bassist cut an avant-garde album (under a pseudonym four punks from Queens would never adopt for their own band) that captured "the sound of our crazy century dying to the rustle of its own flesh falling from our times like leaves from trees." The review is printed in twin columns, like the Towers, like the Presley brothers, like America. ![]() ![]() ![]() The plot of the novel - such as it is, and please do not imagine me capable of summarizing it - turns on a question Stephen Dedalus phrased in "Ulysses" this way: "But can those have been possible seeing that they never were? Or was that only possible which came to pass?" Jesse Presley, the shadowborn, leaps from the South Tower in 2021 to land in Andy Warhol's Factory in 1966, at which point the narrative is interrupted by Jesse's 12-page review of a record no one's heard by a band called J. ![]() ![]() ![]() Read the earlier book in this series called The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and you will find the full story of how he was killed by the White Witch and came to life again. “What Aslan meant when he said he had died is, in one sense plain enough. Jill cannot understand what she has just seen, so Aslan explains that Caspian had died and so had he. Aslan, Eustace, and Jill are in Aslan’s Country and they have just witnessed the restoration of the dead King Caspian to full life and youthful vigor. Anne seems to have written Lewis about a scene from Chapter XVI, ‘The Healing of Harms,’ in The Silver Chair. It is in one of Lewis’ last letters (March 5, 1961) to an older child, Anne, that Lewis most fully explains his intentions for The Chronicles of Narnia. His books including The Chronicles of Narnia have been read by 100 million people, many of whom have seen a deeper truth in them. ![]() His radio programs reached millions and galvanized a new revival in the 1940s in the United Kingdom during World War II. Lewis was the great Christian apologist of the 20th Century. An atheist from boyhood, he converted at age 33 to Christianity and devoted much of the rest of his life to writing about faith.Ĭ.S. Lewis in the 1950s, when he was a high-powered Oxford professor and perhaps the 20th Century’s most famous convert to Christianity. The Chronicles of Narnia series was written by C.S. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Jones's skill for wry understatement never wavers." Kevin Wilson in a Salon feature on writers' favorite books of 2011 It is amazing to watch, time and time again in this book, how Jones reveals the ways in which family both creates and destroys our identity." "In Silver Sparrow-an amazing novel about a man with two families, one hidden and one public-Jones does something breathtaking and difficult: She renders a unique family dynamic with such precision and sensitivity that it becomes universal. Michele Norris of NPR's All Things Considered "This is a complicated, heartbreaking and very rich story about how secret sisters find each other but lose as much as they gain in the process." Jones explores the rivalry and connection of siblings, the meaning of beauty, the perils of young womanhood, the complexities of romantic relationships and the contemporary African-American experience." ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() § Speaking of things LGBTQ, yesterday’s Caitlyn Jenner debut brought a lot of talk about transgender people and Boing Boing has a GLAAD guide on what various terms mean, what should be used, what shouldn’t and how to talk about this without being an asshole. ![]() Second Avenue Caper got very little attention when it came out and it deserves a lot more. Anyway, I hope these LAMMY nominees get more attention. I much prefer this list to the GLAAD Media awards, which I know are meant are meant to recognize mainstream work with gay themes, but end up making it look like a superhero sidekick who is portrayed well is the equal of a heartfelt work. And the winner, courtesy of Cecelia Tan who live tweeted the awards isĪnd the #lammys for LGBT graphic novel goes to Second Avenue Caper by Joyce BrabnerĮdited to clarify my thoughts: all five nominees and the winner are just really damn good comics that reflect the gay community and creators so well. ![]() |