“Hello,” a boy’s voice said. Dana turned. A smiling boy was sitting on the rock wall, watching her pick the sticky fruit. Though he was about her age, Dana had never seen him before; but her family tended to keep to themselves, so that was not unusual. He was skinny, with unruly blond hair that fell to his shoulders, and his green eyes shone in a friendly fashion. Even so, she did not reply to his greeting but merely returned to her berry picking. “My name is Kai,” the boy said to her back. Picked up randomly because I absolutely…
17 CommentsCategory: 2 Stars
“I’ll let you out of your contracts if you want, so you can get jobs with other circuses, but I’m telling you they’ll all go bust if this keeps up – just like the cinemas. But you know where they ain’t got the telly yet? Spain! And you know how I know? Because I been there!!”He stopped to let the magnitude of this revelation sink in. While they had been loafing the winter away, he, Sam Marvel, had been on the job and had gone ferreting out the situation. “That’s right,” he continued, “Spain. There’s telly in some of the…
3 CommentsEdward the Sexy Vampire: Before you, Bella, my life was like a moonless night. Very dark, but there were stars – points of light and reason. And then you shot across my sky like a meteor. Suddenly everything was on fire; there was brilliancy, there was beauty. When you were gone, when the meteor had fallen over the horizon, everything went black. Nothing had changed, but my eyes were blinded by the light. I couldn’t see the stars anymore. And there was no more reason for anything….There was no distraction from the agony. My heart hasn’t beat in almost ninety…
4 CommentsThe gruel disappeared; the boys whispered each other, and winked at Oliver; while his next neighbours nudged him. Child as he was, he was desperate with hunger, and reckless with misery. He rose from the table; and advancing to the master, basin and spoon in hand, said: somewhat alarmed at his own temerity:”Please, sir, I want some more.” The master was a fat, healthy man; but he turned very pale. He gazed in stupefied astonishment on the small rebel for some seconds, and then clung for support to the copper. The assistants were paralyzed with wonder; the boys with fear.…
3 CommentsTeresa was at sea. The boat moved – would she ever forget it? – away from the land. And something was severed; she felt delivered. “I never want to come back!” she screeched. The grey land made no effort to hold her, gave no final sign of enticement. It lay there, apathetic, allowing her to go. The loud-speaker was playing “Indian Summer”. Down pouring a huge flood of sound, drowning the salty air, paralyzing thought, emotion, everything, a vast crocodile tear of farewell, loudly lugubrious, and up against it soared Teresa’s voice, like a skylark beating its frail wings. “I…
Leave a CommentWhen David slept he dreamed more often of the creature he had named the Crooked Man, who walked through forests very like the one beyond David’s window. The Crooked Man would advance to the edge of the tree line, staring out at an expanse of green lawn to where a house just like Rose’s stood. He would speak to David in his dreams. I picked this up almost completely at random. My dad said “What else can we get Mom for Christmas?” and I said “Oh, I know. This.”, and grabbed The Book of Lost Things, which I had been…
2 CommentsOkay, the truth comes out. You won’t believe it, but Anna Leonowens did not, in fact, have a hot but platonic romance with the King of Siam; or if she did, she kept remarkably quiet about it in her book. Although I’m not ruling out the possibility that all the late-night “translating” she was doing for the king was actually sexual favors. Because, you know, she acts like a proper Victorian lady but who knows? Seriously, though, I feel that this memoir (travelogue) lacked a certain something. Taking into account the prejudices of her time, she was still kind of…
2 CommentsTwo months before I’d had a high-profile job with an enviable salary, a sleek black German sedan on lease, an apartment in a fashionable downtown neighborhood, and a collection of not-so-inexpensive shirts and jackets hanging in the closet. Now, there were a few hundred dollars in my pocket, no job or prospect thereof, some clothes jammed into an old handbag, and a bed in a tattered bookstore to call home. All things considered, I couldn’t have been happier. Recommended by: Kate’s Book Blog I really liked the idea of this book. It’s a memoir written by a chap who went…
Leave a CommentRecommended (again) by: http://melissasbookreviews.com You know, books like these are the reason I am so convinced that I don’t like historical fiction. It’s just not my thing, I assure myself, and then something comes along (like The Book Thief, or Indian Captive, or The Poisonwood Bible, or Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell if that counts) and screws up that whole idea and makes me think, You enormous dumbass, of course you love historical fiction. And then I read something like Liszt’s Kiss and realize I was right the first time. I guess what I don’t like is historical romances. And…
1 CommentGod knows I quote: “Isabella.” He pronounced my full name carefully, then playfully ruffled my hair with his free hand [when I think vampires, I think of playful hair-ruffling…you?]. A shock ran through my body at his casual touch. [Of course it did.] “Bella, I couldn’t live with myself if I ever hurt you. You don’t know how it’s tortured me.” He looked down, ashamed again. “The thought of you, still, white, cold…to never see you blush scarlet again, to never see that flash of intuition in your eyes when you see through my pretenses [I love that he’s so…
25 Comments