Reviews
Priestess of the Dragon Temple (Anamat #2)
Once, Iola flew with a dragon. She might fly again, but only if she can become ambassadress to the dragons' realm. First, though, she must navigate life as an ordinary priestess, which is not quite what she'd hoped for. Some of her fellow priestesses are dragon-blind and corrupt. Worse, they see Iola's devotions as evidence of greed.
Then the ambassadress returns, too sick to fly again. Iola and three other young priestesses are chosen to nurse her, and to have a chance at taking her place. Iola's main rival, Tiagasa, was raised in a prince's palace. She thrives on political intrigue and gossip, and her lover is about to become governor of the city.
Iola is just a village girl dazzled by dragons. Her few friends and allies aren't much more savvy than she is. Still, they hope to persuade the new governor – whoever he might be – to make Iola ambassadress, and to choose faith over scheming, one way or another.
Gentlemen of the Road
Michael Chabon's Pulitzer Prize-winning bestseller, “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay”, sprang from an early passion for the derring-do and larger-than-life heroes of classic comic books. Now, once more mining the rich past, Chabon summons the rollicking spirit of legendary adventures—from “The Arabian Nights” to Alexandre Dumas to Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories—in a wonderful new novel brimming with breathless action, raucous humor, cliff-hanging suspense, and a cast of colorful characters worthy of Scheherazade's most tantalizing tales.
They're an odd pair, to be sure: pale, rail-thin, black-clad Zelikman, a moody, itinerant physician fond of jaunty headgear, and ex-soldier Amram, a gray-haired giant of a man as quick with a razor-tongued witticism as he is with a sharpened battle-ax. Brothers under the skin, comrades in arms, they make their rootless way through the Caucasus Mountains, circa A.D. 950, living as they please and surviving however they can—as blades and thieves for hire and as practiced bamboozlers, cheerfully separating the gullible from their money. No strangers to tight scrapes and close shaves, they've left many a fist shaking in their dust, tasted their share of enemy steel, and made good any number of hasty exits under hostile circumstances.
Not Every Girl
Olivia Davenport’s plan is destined to fail.
She is going through with it anyway, of course. After all, it is the chance of a lifetime. The unreasonable rules of others should not stand in her way.
In her small kingdom of Stewartsland, Olivia trains with the squires and harbors a secret dream. She longs to become a knight under the command of the Master-of–Arms, who just happens to be her father. He has indulged her passion so far, but they both know a simple fact – girls may not attain knighthood. Dismayed by the constant discouragement of her ambitions, she makes an impetuous decision to disguise herself as a boy in order to sneak on a mission. The consequences are not at all what she anticipated.
The Hobbit
In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.
Written for J.R.R. Tolkien’s own children, “The Hobbit” met with instant critical acclaim when it was first published in 1937. Now recognized as a timeless classic, this introduction to the hobbit Bilbo Baggins, the wizard Gandalf, Gollum, and the spectacular world of Middle-earth recounts of the adventures of a reluctant hero, a powerful and dangerous ring, and the cruel dragon Smaug the Magnificent. Unforgettable!
Shadow Scale (Seraphina #2)
The kingdom of Goredd: a world where humans and dragons share life with an uneasy balance, and those few who are both human and dragon must hide the truth. Seraphina is one of these, part girl, part dragon, who is reluctantly drawn into the politics of her world. When war breaks out between the dragons and humans, she must travel the lands to find those like herself—for she has an inexplicable connection to all of them, and together they will be able to fight the dragons in powerful, magical ways.
As Seraphina gathers this motley crew, she is pursued by humans who want to stop her. But the most terrifying is another half dragon, who can creep into people’s minds and take them over. Until now, Seraphina has kept her mind safe from intruders, but that also means she’s held back her own gift. It is time to make a choice: Cling to the safety of her old life, or embrace a powerful new destiny?
Scrapplings (Anamat #1)
Everyone in the Tiadun Keep is dragon-blind, even the priestesses. Darna pretends she can't see the realm's guardian dragon either – she already gets teased enough for her limp. She flees to the legendary city of Anamat, where some still see the dragons, or so the minstrels say.
On her journey, she meets Myril, an older scrappling girl with an eerie sense of hearing and frequent premonitions. Together, they hope to find their places in the city.
Then there's Iola, who actually wants to be a priestess. She's so dragon-struck that she can't see through the temples' thin veils of piety, can't see the priestesses' greed as they fleece their sweaty devotees.
The Buried Giant
"You've long set your heart against it, Axl, I know. But it's time now to think on it anew. There's a journey we must go on, and no more delay..."
The Buried Giant begins as a couple set off across a troubled land of mist and rain in the hope of finding a son they have not seen in years.
Sometimes savage, often intensely moving, Kazuo Ishiguro's first novel in nearly a decade is about lost memories, love, revenge, and war.
Scandal’s Heiress
Miss Hyacinth Grey has had a quiet life, managing her father's household in Gibraltar. Then she learns that she's heir to a small fortune, left by her grandmother, an infamous courtesan. She sets sail for England with plans to found a charitable school for girls. Her father warns her away from her fellow passenger aboard the Whistler, saying that he's a black sheep from a family of scoundrels.
Thomas Pently, alias Smithson, made his fortune in the East India Company. Then his mistress was murdered, and his aristocratic family summoned him home. He's now second in line to his uncle's duchy, after his aging father.
Savor the Moment (The Bride Quartet #3)
Laurel McBane has always relied on her friends for support, especially when her dream of attending culinary school was almost ruined by her parents’ financial problems. Now Laurel is repaying the kindness of her friends by creating extravagantly luscious tiers of cakes and other confectionary delights that add the perfect touch to their clients’ weddings. As for romance, Laurel believes in it — in theory. But she’s too low-key to appreciate all the luxuries that other women seem to long for. What she does appreciate is a strong, intelligent man, a man just like Parker’s older brother, Delaney Brown, on whom Laurel has had a mega crush since childhood. But some infatuations last longer than others, and Laurel is convinced that the Ivy League lawyer is still out of her reach. Plus, Del is too protective of Laurel to ever cross the line with her, or so she thinks. When Laurel’s quick- silver moods get the better of her — leading to an angry, hot, altogether mind-blowing kiss with Del — she’ll have to quiet the doubts in her mind to turn a moment of passion into forever…
Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?
In her first memoir, Roz Chast brings her signature wit to the topic of aging parents. Spanning the last several years of their lives and told through four-color cartoons, family photos, and documents, and a narrative as rife with laughs as it is with tears, Chast's memoir is both comfort and comic relief for anyone experiencing the life-altering loss of elderly parents.
When it came to her elderly mother and father, Roz held to the practices of denial, avoidance, and distraction. But when Elizabeth Chast climbed a ladder to locate an old souvenir from the "crazy closet"--with predictable results--the tools that had served Roz well through her parents' seventies, eighties, and into their early nineties could no longer be deployed.
