The magic shop short story5/13/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() The remaining tenant in the strip mall, Bailey’s Bail Bondsmen, had shuttered, leaving only a small convenience store that had overpriced candy, dented cans of soup, and dirty bathrooms. When Marcus and me rode our bikes downtown to Dollar General, we saw a banner along the way, strung across a papered-up storefront. There were many places we wanted to go -but church wasn’t one of them. We both had sad-eyed mothers whose beauty had faded in high school and cantankerous grandparents who complained that we should be in church. Marcus and me had an assortment of older siblings who worked fast food, snuck beers from the fridge, and ignored us entirely. But the latest version was tolerable, and families in our town were flexible that way. He’d had several stepfathers, each one meaner than the last. Marcus had been my best friend since I could remember. Besides, I don’t think he’ll be around much longer.” ![]() All he does is smoke and fuss at the dogs. “Maybe your stepdad could coach?” I asked Marcus. Someone tried to get an Anklebiter football team going, but no adult we knew had the time or inclination to volunteer-since working the night shift at Gas-N-Go takes a toll on a body. Ever since the new Wal-Mart opened by the interstate, there wasn’t much for us to do except throw rocks at the old sock factory. ![]()
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Wicked Saints by Emily A. Duncan5/13/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() Nadya and Malachiasz have nearly polar opposite beliefs on what roles the gods should play in people’s lives. Though still not stellar, the best part of the book is the treatment of religion from two of the main characters. After an attack on her monastery home by Serefin himself, Nadya and her companion escape and form an alliance with a motley crew of people including a Tranavian blood mage named Malachiasz who abandoned his post in the military. The people of Tranavia reject the gods and instead rely on their own magic system which requires blood to be spelt on pieces of paper with spells written on them. The people of Kalyazi are in a century-long war against Tranavia primarily led by a young mage named Serefin who is also the prince of Tranavia. She is able to commune with the entire pantheon of gods and petition them for assistance and magic. Originally published in 2019, Wicked Saints is the first novel in a young adult, fantasy series that follows a young cleric named Nadya from a downtrodden land Kalyazi. ![]() The bad guy by celia aaron read online5/13/2023 ![]() I ran my finger down the harsh line of his jaw, the scar smooth next to the unmarred skin. But I cut class, didn’t pay attention for shit, and I’m pretty sure they just graduated me so I’d quit terrorizing the students and flirting with the younger teachers.” The thought sent a thrill racing to my achy spots. He kissed my forehead, as if he couldn’t go for too long without pressing his lips to some part of me. “You act like you never even went to high school.” ![]() “Is this the book smarts thing? That’s what this is, isn’t it?”Ī smile pulled at my lips. “I’ll swear on whatever you’d like that you gave me something sweeter than I ever thought possible.” Not about this.” He gripped my upper arms and pulled me on top of him so we were face to face. “Really? You’re not just saying that?” I tried not to think of his past, of the others. “It was…” I hated to feed his ego, but I didn’t want to lie, especially not after what we’d just shared. After we’d cleaned up, he pulled me to his chest and kissed the top of my head. “You got jealous of your pool self.” He rose and walked to the bathroom, his hard ass a treat to look at as he went. “You can’t get jealous of your own imaginary self.” ![]() ![]() ![]() “I’ve had a lot of practice talking to imaginary Nate.” He sat back, but couldn’t pull his gaze away from the mess we’d made. ![]() Gravity by raven st pierre5/13/2023 ![]() ![]() RENO GABRINI: FOR HIS LOVER by Mallory Monroe The long-awaited conclusion to the Almeida Brothers series is finally here! Jack Almeida has finally met his match, but can he let go of the past and move on with his life? I cannot wait to find out!Ĭhanta Rand is a “new” author for me, and the blurb immediately caught my attention: Hunky, action star meets plus-size photographer and the ish goes down…Yes, I am intrigued… When a random hookup with a sexy stripper and a plus-size PYT yields some unexpected consequences, whatchu gon’ do? All I can say is, if this happened to me, I would want Marco to be the one I go through it with. Add one hot veterinarian and a cast of funny supporting characters, and you’ve got a great “read in bed” story. ![]() They’re good people, but they aren’t as perfect as they seem. ![]() PICTURE PERFECT DECEPTION by Emeline PiagetĪll I’m gonna say about this one is you have to watch out for them “sweet and docile” chicks. This week’s offerings has something for everyone, and I’ve read all but two, so I have some reading to do too □ ![]() ![]() To learn more about how and for what purposes Amazon uses personal information (such as Amazon Store order history), please visit our Privacy Notice. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie Preferences, as described in the Cookie Notice. Click ‘Customise Cookies’ to decline these cookies, make more detailed choices, or learn more. The blood-stain has been much admired by tourists and others, and cannot be. ![]() Third parties use cookies for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalised ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. His body has never been discovered, but his guilty spirit still haunts the Chase. This includes using first- and third-party cookies, which store or access standard device information such as a unique identifier. If you agree, we’ll also use cookies to complement your shopping experience across the Amazon stores as described in our Cookie Notice. ![]() ![]() We also use these cookies to understand how customers use our services (for example, by measuring site visits) so we can make improvements. We use cookies and similar tools that are necessary to enable you to make purchases, to enhance your shopping experiences and to provide our services, as detailed in our Cookie Notice. ![]() Steven pinker enlightenment5/13/2023 ![]() ![]() Jean-Jacques Rousseau asked them in Enlightenment Paris, the Romantic movement did the same in the chilling wake of the French Revolution, and Sigmund Freud asked them when reflecting on World War I. Do science and technology genuinely make our lives better, or fill them with new problems as we are dragged, like Charlie Chaplin, by the unstoppable machine of Modern Times? ![]() Pessimism doubts whether progress will deliver on its promise of a better tomorrow, while cynicism questions whether today is truly better than our ancestors’ yesterdays. Yet Steven Pinker argues there is a second, more profound assault on the Enlightenment’s legacy of progress, coming from within intellectual and artistic spheres: a crisis of confidence, as progress’s supporters see so many disasters, setbacks, emergencies, new wars re-opening old wounds, new structures replicating old iniquities, new destructive side-effects of progress’s best intentions. And most expect any attack on those values to come from the far right: from foes of progressivism, from anti-science religious movements, from closed minds. ![]() It is not intuitive that a case needs to be made for “Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress,” stable values that have long defined our modernity. ![]() Come back amelia bedelia5/13/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() Peggy Parish was born and grew up in Manning, South Carolina. Wallace Tripp has illustrated many books for children, including No Flying in the House and Come Back, Amelia Bedelia. But for poor Amelia Bedelia, each new job is a bigger mess than the last. Reading Level: 2.1 Interest Level: Lower Grades Point Value: 0.5Īmelia Bedelia must look for a new job - Mrs. Physical Information: 0.18" H x 5.96" W x 8.8" (0.28 lbs) 64 pagesįeatures: Ikids, Illustrated, Price on Product Series: I Can Read Books (Harper Paperback) Juvenile Fiction | Business, Careers, Occupations Can she ever find a place to belong?Ĭlick for more in this series: I Can Read Books (Harper Paperback) WE WILL NOT BE UNDERSOLD! Click here for our low price guaranteeīinding Type: Paperback - See All Available Formats & EditionsĪnnotation: Amelia Bedelia must look for a new job - Mrs. Contributor(s): Parish, Peggy (Author), Tripp, Wallace (Illustrator) ![]() The Meadow by James Galvin5/13/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() Inside him he had going on in the sky, or some combination of recent weather and what was likely to develop” (224). He is so acclimated to the weather that it affects every part of himself, Galvin says “Those of us who’d known Lyle longer knew he didn’t have moods, he had weather… Lyle had the weather. When Lyle is facing his last days, he is still focusing on the patterns of the weather. Though it becomes quite cyclical, they don’t seem to mind it. ![]() Everyone who lives in the Meadow are used to its characteristics and what it means to live there. Then when December rolls around that same year, their lives come full circle, “11/8 Seven inches of snow. 1/22 I wrote a letter, did some painting. In Clara Van Waning’s diary from 1949, she records, “1/19 It’s cold and snowing again today. This is displayed throughout the entire story, every winter was almost the same: they’d get snow, they’d work hard, they’d stay warm by the fire after almost freezing to death. Right off the bat, Galvin says, “The story of the meadow is a litany of loosely patterned weather, a chronicle of succession” (3). The Meadow by James Galvin is full of patterns and repetition, one main recurring theme is the weather. ![]() The elite charade of changing the world5/13/2023 ![]() ![]() Giridharadas cites one shocking statistic that says just eight billionaires, most from the field of technology, possess as much wealth as the bottom half of the world’s population. ![]() It’s a charade, he argues, because these philanthropic tech billionaires and bankers are really only concerned with maintaining a system that has provided them with unimaginable wealth, while leaving a vast swath of humanity in need of help. ![]() I f you happened to see the video of the Dutch historian Rutger Bregman confronting a Davos audience with the elephant in the room that is tax avoidance (“It feels like I’m at a firefighters’ conference and no one’s allowed to speak about water,” he said) and are looking for something that captures the same spirit, Winners Take All is the book for you.Īnand Giridharadas, a former New York Times columnist, takes aim at the modern plutocratic class that gathers at Davos and Aspen with the stated intention of making the world a better place, what Giridharadas calls in his subtitle: The Elite Charade of Changing the World. ![]() ![]() ![]() The captain’s eyes were fixed on his men, but his thoughts raced ahead to the rich land where he was bound. They fell to work furiously, carrying out orders. From forward and aft all hands came running. “We must shorten sail,” he made up his mind.Ĭupping his hands to his mouth, he bellowed orders: “Furl the topgallant sail! Furl the coursers and the maintopsail! Shorten the fore-topsail!” “When the wind does strike, it will strike with fury.” His steps quickened. ![]() “We lie in the latitude of white squalls,” he said, a look of vexation on his face. ![]() ![]() He plucked nervously at his rusty black beard as if that would help him think. And now this sudden calm, this heavy warning of a storm. The Moor ponies to be delivered to the Viceroy of Peru could not be kept alive much longer. And if he did not get there, and get there soon, he was headed for trouble. He could feel his flesh creep with the sails. It was spilling out of the sails, causing them to quiver and shake. “Cursed be that stallion!” he muttered under his breath as he stamped forward and back, forward and back. The captain of the Santo Cristo strode the poop deck. It was not the cry of an animal in hunger. A WILD, ringing neigh shrilled up from the hold of the Spanish galleon. ![]() |