Showing results by author "S.A" in All Categories

In the 1840s, the Fox Sisters—and the legions of mediums they inspired—ignited the Spiritualist movement that swept through Victorian parlors and presidential campaigns alike. Contacting the dead wasn't merely a parlor trick: It was a political statement, a declaration of self that still echoes. Séances attracted suffragists and scientists, skeptics and charlatans, giving women a voice in a society that often refused to hear them. But as Spiritualism surged, it also blurred the lines between faith, fraud, feminism, and financial opportunity.

My friends found their happily-ever-afters with a couple of sweet, doting, over-the-top, in-love athletes. They got nicknames like Kitten and Sugar. But me? I got stuck with a dickhead who riles me up on purpose and calls me Banshee. Yeah, he might have a voice made explicitly for wet dreams. And he might have a body and face carved by the gods. And he might have a level of Alpha-hole that gets me all hot and bothered. But when he presses my buttons, he presses ALL my buttons.

The story of a writer's singular journey - from one place to another, from the British colony of Trinidad to the ancient countryside of England, and from one state of mind to another - is perhaps Naipaul's most autobiographical work. Yet it is also woven through with remarkable invention to make it a rich and complex novel.

In this slyly funny and lavishly inventive novel, Nobel Prize winner V. S. Naipaul traces the unlikely career of Ganesh Ramsumair, a failed schoolteacher and impecunious village masseur who in time becomes a revered mystic, a thriving entrepreneur, and the most beloved politician in Trinidad. Witty, tender, filled with the sights, sounds, and smells of Trinidad's dusty Indian villages, The Mystic Masseur is Naipaul at his most expansive and evocative.

The Sentinels narrowly escaped the collapsing edge of the Divide. They have mustered a few other surviving Sentinels, but with no engines they have no way to leave the edge of the universe before they starve. Adequin Rake has gathered a team to find the materials they'll need to get everyone out. To do that they're going to need new allies and evade a ruthless enemy. Some of them will not survive.

The power to devour souls and grow stronger with every kill. In the monster-infested wastelands where the very air burns at night, James must learn to control his abilities and hunger. A cultivation fantasy where power comes at the ultimate price. Alongside Luna, a demi-human shunned by society, James carves a bloody path through Forsaken-infested ruins, collecting corpses, crafting makeshift gear, and struggling with the monstrous instincts rising inside him.

When the body of one of his own colleagues is found in Scarborough harbour, DCI Tom Raven throws himself into finding out what led to the young man’s death.

The Discarded Image paints a lucid picture of the medieval worldview, providing the historical and cultural background to the literature of the middle ages and renaissance. It describes the 'image' discarded by later years as "the medieval synthesis itself, the whole organization of their theology, science, and history into a single, complex, harmonious mental model of the universe". This, Lewis' last book, has been hailed as "the final memorial to the work of a great scholar and teacher and a wise and noble mind".

T.S. Eliot's - Four Quartets consist of four interlinked meditations (“Burnt Norton,” “East Coker,” “The Dry Salvages,” and “Little Gidding”) with a common theme of man’s relationship with time, the universe, and the divine. Note: Please listen on headphones (if possible)

Meet Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy like no other, the embodiment of every Regency lady's romantic dream: a gentleman to the core and one who remains so even after facing numerous trials. Insults is a novel that heralds the power of true love and how it always prevails.

What does God want? Sounds like a simple question, but if you give it a bit of thought, it’s really not. For starters, you have to know who’s asking the question. People will ask it for a lot of different reasons. Best-selling author Dr. Michael S. Heiser shows listeners that the answer is pretty simple. That might surprise you. There’s actually a long, remarkable story behind the answer - one that isn’t well known by most people interested in the question.

Military history often highlights successes and suggests a sense of inevitability about victory, but there is so much that can be gleaned from considering failures. Study these crucibles of history to gain a better understanding of why a civilization took - or didn't take - a particular path.

Aubrey Grant lives in the tropical paradise of Old Town, Key West, has a cute cottage, a sweet moped, and a great job managing the historical property of a former sea captain. With his soon-to-be-boyfriend, hotshot FBI agent Jun Tanaka, visiting for a little R&R, not even Aubrey's narcolepsy can put a damper on their vacation plans. But a skeleton in a closet of the Smith Family Historical Home throws a wrench into the works. They uncover a tale of long-lost treasure, the pirate king it belonged to, and a modern-day murderer who will stop at nothing to find the hidden riches.

As the number one quarterback in college football, my only dream is to make it to pro. My richer-than-sin parents have a different goal. Their plan is for me to score a trophy wife whose trust fund can hold its own against mine, then join the family empire after graduation. The latter half of that plan means giving up my dream of professional football. The first part means sitting through excruciating dates with girls who already have their wedding vows written. In an attempt to free myself from one of my perpetual nightmares, I announce that I’m already in a serious, long-term relationship.

Rome has a new emperor; a strong emperor. Septimius Severus, a lion of the battlefield, now moves east to face the usurper Pescennius Niger, contesting with a clever opponent with the ultimate prize in the balance: the throne of Rome. But with civil war raging all across the East, problems abound. One of the frumentarii, the emperor's military agents, has gone missing in Arabia, and with him has gone a list of the service's personnel.

Charlotte thought marrying Cassian was the price she had to pay to honor her grandfather's dying wish. What she didn't expect was a husband who mocked her scars, chained her body, and turned her vows into a prison. Until she finally had enough and left. But before she could start over, her father found her first. He had her quietly committed to a psych ward, where she was drugged, erased, and kept hidden from the world. Cassian never knew she was taken. All he knew was that she had disappeared.

Bounty hunter Aster Night always gets her man. Except when it comes to getting a man. Thanks to a curse placed on the Chastity coven centuries ago, she can't get busy with anyone until she marries a man from the boring Koda coven. Instead, she finds a way out of the curse on her own, breaking it with such a bang that she ends up naked with one sexy as sin man and his two, oh-so-alpha clan brothers. Her love life is looking up, until she's hired to track down a serial killer preying on witches, and learns her three new boyfriends were once romantically involved with one of the victims.

For all his many days, Allarion has been faithful to queen and country. In their sparkling city on the sea, the fae live long lives of pleasure and luxury. But pretty things can be rotten at their core, and not all is as it seems. A betrayal at the heart of the fae court shatters Allarion's belief in all that he once held sacred. Now in hiding, he must make his own sanctuary in the human kingdom of Eirea.

Lord Roland Crewe wants nothing to do with love or romance. He's already proven he's a terrible husband-twice!-and has no interest in doing it again. But for some reason, he struggles to remember that when he's with Aurelia. He knows a scarred, hardened man like him has nothing to offer a beautiful young idealist like her. So, why can't he stay away?

Still reeling from an unimaginable loss and the revelation of an identity she isn't sure she wants to embrace, Casia has one plan: Try to control the strange magic awakening inside of her. Mastering that magic will take her and her friends on a quest through cursed lands, into the dwellings of old gods, and deep into a Southern empire filled with deadly foes and unlikely allies.