Follow Maewyn on her magical adventure as she learns the terrible secret behind her mean guardian, as she strikes out on her own to learn magick with the help of two wizards and how to protect the villagers she loves. And hapennies are small, trolls are big, so Mae has quite the challenge to overcome! She learns about friendship and family and sacrifice.
A vampyre, a werewolf, and a warlock walk into a bar… But seriously. Aggie gave up that life long ago--even moving across the ocean to avoid it. Power, spells, and the coven's manipulations were supposedly left behind in the States. When Aggie thought to treat herself on her fortieth birthday, the last thing she expected was to be followed home by three hunky, magickal men. She's spent most of her life keeping everyone at arm's length, so why is she suddenly attracting the paranormal like flies to honey? Now, these three men are competing for one prize--her. The only problem? Aggie isn't up for the taking. If she gives up her virginity she unlocks her full powers, and loses her life of solitude once her coven finds her. What's a horny virgin to do? It's like her mother always said, you can't take the itch out of the witch--especially one who's a forty-year-old virgin.
Book 3 of the award-winning Historical Fiction series The Troubadours Quartet 1152: Les Baux de Provence.Medieval France comes to life in a historical page-turner full of intrigue, romance, and adventure! As feuding lords gather in Provence, the troubadours, Estela and her lover, Dragonetz, are plunged into a power struggle that could destroy the fragile peace. The visit of the Comte du Barcelone to Les Baux sparks bitter memories of the recent civil war and Lady Etiennette des Baux has no intention of ceding to her overlord. Nor does she plan to remain a widow and she sets her sights on Dragonetz, offering him Provence as an incentive. With good friends on both sides, Dragonetz weaves a precarious path through the rival factions at court. Behind the chivalry of hunt and tournament war threatens. Meanwhile, Estela faces her own demons. Confronted with her childhood abusers, threatened and attacked, she confides in her friends. Unfortunately, one of those friends is Dragonetz' worst enemy and Estela has no idea of what he is capable. In this third volume of the Troubadours Quartet, Jean Gill, the 'master of historical intrigue', continues to weave the gripping adventures of Dragonetz and Estela seamlessly into real historical events. 'Very accomplished historical fiction.' Historical Novel Society Editor's Choice Winner of the Global Ebooks Award for Best Historical Fiction Finalist in the Wishing Shelf Awards and the Chaucer Awards 5* 'By far the best historical fiction I have read this year!' - Rabia Tanveer, December 2015, for Readers' Favorite
Barry Brown’s mother wished for a different child. Red, unruly hair! A stammer! Non-stop fidgeting! A weird birthmark! To add to all her woes, the silly boy cherished a ridiculous desire to learn magic! She couldn't remember how Mr Foggitt, a most unusual teacher of the real arcane magick arts, encountered in a dusty old shop in London, had persuaded her to allow Barry to have lessons. Barry loved Mr Foggitt’s weaving of wondrous tales of Magius, the greatest of all wizards; and the man who became a bear; and the mysterious Dual Veil, a great wall of mist that separated the human world from Elfenndorr, the world inhabited by marvellous and scary things that humans thought were mere fantasies. Little did Barry know that when Gwyddon, Mr Foggitt’s flame-red owl, flew away, she had delivered a message to Teag-of-the-Laurel (elf lord of Tylwyth Teg, a district of Elfenndorr): The dragon stirs in the long-awaited boy, and the girl we have yet to find. Barry soon discovered that all those tales told by Mr Foggitt were true. Along with school-friend, Maybellyne, he was a child of prophecy destined to travel through the mists of the Dual Veil into Elfenndorr. Only he and Maybellyne could stop Dredammorg, the darkest of all wizards, from melting the glue that holds the worlds together.
Like 'Game of Thrones' with real history. The complete set of four award-winning books: Historical Fiction series The Troubadours Quartet Set in the period following the Second Crusade, Jean Gill's spellbinding romantic thrillers evoke medieval France with breathtaking accuracy. She captures the soul of the age and the characters who lived in it. The characters leap off the page and include amazing women like Eleanor of Aquitaine and Ermengarda of Narbonne, who shaped history in battles and in bedchambers. Four Discovered Diamonds Awards; Historical Novel Society Editor's Choice Three out of three: Readers Favourite 5* Awards; Winner of the Global Ebooks Award for Best Historical Fiction Book 1 Song at Dawn: 1150 in Provence On the run from abuse, Estela wakes in a ditch with only her lute, her amazing voice, and a dagger hidden in her underskirt. Her talent finds a patron in Eleanor of Aquitaine and more than a music tutor in the Queen's finest troubadour and Commander of the Guard, Dragonetz los Pros. Meanwhile, their enemies gather, ready to light the political and religious powder-keg of medieval Narbonne. Book 2 Bladesong: 1151 in The Holy Land Estela, the troubadour, is following the destiny of her beautiful voice. Dragonetz, her passionate knight, has a dangerous mission to fulfil. Divided by the times they love in, they fight to be together. Imprisoned in Damascus, Dragonetz suffers the mind games inflicted by his anonymous enemies, as he is forced to remember the traumatic events of the crusade, two years earlier. Instead of remaining safely at home, Estela is desperate to rescue Dragonetz at all costs. She sets out for the Holy Land, never realising that the person she thinks will be her knight's saviour might actually be his doom. Can Estela get him out alive, despite Nur-ad-Din, the Muslim Atabeg; Mélisende, the Queen of Jerusalem; and an avenger from the past? Will she still want to, when she knows what they've done to him? Book 3 Plaint for Provence: 1152 in Les-Baux-de-Provence The Troubadours, Estela and her lover, Dragonetz, are embroiled in two rival claims for power as their feuding liege lords gather in Provence. If the peace fails, Dragonetz' sword will decide the winner and friends will die. Dragonetz weaves a precarious path through the rival factions at court where an uneasy truce prevails behind the chivalry of hunt and tournament. Meanwhile, Estela faces her own demons. Confronted with her childhood abusers, threatened and attacked, she confides in her friends. Tragically, one of those friends is Dragonetz' worst enemy and Estela has no idea of what he is capable. In this third volume of the Troubadours Quartet, Jean Gill, the 'master of historical intrigue', continues to weave the gripping adventures of Dragonetz and Estela seamlessly into real historical events. Medieval France comes alive in all its facets, from healing with leeches to training a goshawk. Book 4 Song Hereafter: 1153 in Hispania and the Isles of Albion Dragonetz has failed Eleanor of Aquitaine once. Now that she plans to be Queen of England he could make amends. Although prepared to risk his own life on an impossible quest, a knight should protect his lady, or so say the troubadour songs. His lady, however, plays to a different tune and she wants partnership, not protection. Estela and Dragonetz fight their enemies, both on the battlefield and in the courts of Christendom, from the sophistication of Zaragossa to the wilds of Wales. Can they win through to song hereafter, together? Or have they broken one rule too many?
Tracing its distant origins to the villa of the Roman emperor Hadrian in the second century AD, the eccentric phenomenon of the ornamental hermit enjoyed its heyday in the England of the eighteenth century It was at this time that it became highly fashionable for owners of country estates to commission architectural follies for their landscape gardens. These follies often included hermitages, many of which still survive, often in a ruined state. Landowners peopled their hermitages either with imaginary hermits or with real hermits - in some cases the landowner even became his own hermit. Those who took employment as garden hermits were typically required to refrain from cutting their hair or washing, and some were dressed as druids. Unlike the hermits of the Middle Ages, these were wholly secular hermits, products of the eighteenth century fondness for 'pleasing melancholy'. Although the fashion for them had fizzled out by the end of the eighteenth century, they had left their indelible mark on both the literature as well as the gardens of the period. And, as Gordon Campbell shows, they live on in the art, literature, and drama of our own day - as well as in the figure of the modern-day garden gnome. This engaging and generously illustrated book takes the reader on a journey that is at once illuminating and whimsical, both through the history of the ornamental hermit and also around the sites of many of the surviving hermitages themselves, which remain scattered throughout England, Scotland, and Ireland. And for the real enthusiast, there is even a comprehensive checklist, enabling avid hermitage-hunters to locate their prey.
The publication of the 44-volume Works of Daniel Defoe continues with this collection of Defoe's satirical poetry and fantasy writings, and writings on the supernatural.
