Lombardy, summer, 1324 Alaric spat. “Mongols,” he said, the word itself an epithet. “Never trust them.” Jaufre thought of the Mongol Baron Ogodei, and didn’t disagree. “Yes, well, when the Mongols didn’t come, Robert told us it was over.” His smile was wry. “We didn’t believe him, of course.” “Wilmot did,” Alaric said. “But you…
A novel that is based on the life of a true-life midwife who lived and worked in post-Revolutionary War Maine. The author is well aware of Chekhov’s dictum that if there is a gun in the first act, it has to go off in the second. I had to go back and reread that earlier…
Lombardy, summer, 1324 THEY SOON DISCOVERED that travel in Europe was nothing like travel in Cathay, or in Persia for that matter. The Road was marked by steles built by the Great Khan. Each of the cities along its many routes had clean, well-maintained caravansaries for travelers and their livestock, or at the very least…
Gargantuan novel (almost 1000 pages) but don’t let that scare you. A young man has been seduced into a cult and his father hires Robin and Strike to get him out. Robin goes in undercover and Galbraith could give Jordan Peele lessons in how to creep us out. I think she’s nailed how hard it…
Venice, May, 1324 “Get ready,” Gradenigo said. “Are we too close?” Jaufre said in a low voice, rising to his feet, hands at the tie of his robe. “He’s an old man, how far can he throw?” Gradenigo said. The old man’s arm raised and Johanna saw the tiny gold ring in his hand, illuminated…
Great action adventure trilogy about an unspecified and unexplained Event that picks up present day Nantucket Island and US Coast Guard tall ship Eagle, who just happen to be cruising off shore at the time, and sets them down again in 1250 BC. Rameses II is on the throne of Egypt, Agamemnon is on the…
Venice, spring, 1324 Both of them turned to see Donata Polo standing there in her luxurious dark robes with not a fold out of place. She was attended on her right by a serving woman who looked every bit as censorious as her mistress and on her left by the man who had shut the…
Read more “I will say what pleased your father and what did not!”
Fifteen years before nine experienced hikers went missing in a blizzard. Only six bodies were recovered immediately following the event, all in bizarre circumstances never explained. Some obviously died of exposure but what drove them from their tent into a storm in the first place? In the present day two more victims are discovered by…
Excerpt… “Your eyes,” Jean de Valmy said hesitantly to Shasha. “These are how eyes are made where I come from,” she said. “And where would that be?” “Cathay.” “Cathay!” Jean de Valmy’s eyes lit up. “Is it true that jewels rain from the skies in Cathay?” “Only when the moon is full for the second…
Read more “Is it true that jewels rain from the skies in Cathay?”
Five people in present day Tokyo have come to crossroads in their lives and find their way to their local library, where reference librarian Sayuri Komachi felts objects while she listens to their stories and then creates a list of books for them to help them on their way, along with a felted object of…
