Lioslaith, Last of the Painted Ones is a historical fiction adventure about 9th century Picts amidst the turmoil of events shaping the birth of the Scottish nation. It is the story of a spirited woman's struggle to rise above the brutality of the age and its prejudices. The mysterious customs of her thousand year old culture are buffeted by winds of change that propel her and her fellow Picts headlong to their destiny. Lioslaith struggles to preserve the traditions that define her while a formidable seafaring foe and a new religion sweep across her homeland. Power lust, treachery, and revenge combine to test the strength of love and the human spirit in a tale where lives and Scottish history entwine.
There are qualities we all yearn to experience in our lives—peace, simplicity, grace, connection, clarity. Yet these qualities evade us because each of them arises from an experience of wholeness, and we live in a culture that enforces divisions within each of us. In Radical Wholeness, Philip Shepherd shows the countless ways in which we are persuaded to separate from the body and live in the head. Disconnected from the body’s intelligence, we also disconnect from the wholeness of the present. This schism within us is the primary source of stress not just in our personal lives, but for the systems of the planet. Drawing from neuroscience, anthropology, physics, the arts, myth, personal stories and his experiences helping people around the world to experience wholeness, Philip Shepherd illuminates what true wholeness means and offers practices designed to help readers soften into the intelligence of the body. Radical Wholeness is a call to action: to recover wholeness and experience a new way of being.
Swa wiccan taeca?: ?as the witches teach.' So, explained the Old English translator, it was witches who counseled people to ?bring their offerings to earth-fast stone and also to trees and to wellsprings.' His contextualizing commentary on a Frankish penitential reveals the witches? intimate association with animist, earth-based ceremonies, contradicting the now-engrained idea that they were ?wicked.' In a compelling exploration of language, archaeology, early medieval literature and art, Max Dashu pulls the covers off ethnic lore known to few except scholarly specialists. She shows that the old ethnic names for ?witch? signify wisewoman, prophetess, diviner, healer, shapeshifter, and dreamer. She fleshes out the spiritual culture of the Norse völur (?staff-women?), with their oracular ceremonies, incantations, and ?sitting-out? on the land for wisdom. She examines archaeological finds of women's ritual staffs, many of which symbolize the distaff, a spinning tool that connects with broader European themes of goddesses, fates, witches, and female power. Ecclesiastical records show that these aspects of European women's spiritual culture survived state conversions to Christianity. Witches and Pagans plunges into the megalithic taproot of the elder kindreds, and the ancestral Old Woman known as the Cailleach. It draws on priestly Frankish and German sources to trace the foundational witch-legend of the Women Who Go by Night with the Goddess'and her links to women's spinning sacraments in the orature of Holle, Fraw Percht, and Swanfooted Berthe. The book also looks at the sexual politics of early witch burnings and the female ordeal of treading red-hot iron. Anglo-Saxon ?mystery-singers? shed light on ancestor veneration in early medieval Europe.The webs of Wyrd, weavers? ceremonies, herb-chanters, crystal balls and the Völuspá: this book uncovers the authentic ethnic roots of witchcraft. Putting the common woman at the center results in a very different view of European history than the one we have been taught. Sagas, ecclesiastical canons, laws, chronicles, charms, manuscripts and sculpture show the spiritual leadership of women and the goddesses, fates, and ancestors they revered. These strands can help to reweave the ripped webs of women's culture.
“A thrilling story of seduction, betrayal, and loss, Freud’s Mistress will titillate fans of Memoirs of a Geisha and The Other Boleyn Girl.”—Booklist In fin-de-siècle Vienna, it was not easy for a woman to find fulfillment both intellectually and sexually. But many believe that Minna Bernays was able to find both with one man—her brother-in-law, Sigmund Freud. At once a portrait of two sisters—the rebellious, independent Minna and her inhibited sister, Martha—and of the compelling and controversial doctor who would be revered as one of the twentieth century’s greatest thinkers, Freud’s Mistress is a novel rich with passion and historical detail and “a portrait of forbidden desire [with] a thought-provoking central question: How far are you willing to go to be happy?”* *Publishers Weekly
A foolhardy choice. A teammate captured. A rescue mission into the heart of enemy territory… Against orders, Zariya Chanji has plunged through a magic portal after Warrick Mason, the supe that killed her father. But Zariya's impulsive act has disastrous consequences when a member of Phoenix Team is captured by the enemy. Cut off and out-gunned, Zariya and Konstantin must find a way to rejoin their MASC teammates and mount a rescue operation, without clueing in the mole within Veil Force. Keeping their eyes on the mission is all the more difficult when a desperate act strengthens the undeniable connection between them ten-fold. It will take all Zariya's cunning to guard her heart, rescue her friend, and claim her revenge. Phoenix Captured is the third episode of a SERIALIZED urban fantasy tale. Approximately 25,000 words or 100 print pages. Cliffhangers ahead... The Mythical Alliance series is perfect for fans of Ilona Andrews, Patricia Briggs, Lindsay Hall, and B.R. Kingsolver! Scroll up and one-click today to sink your teeth into this urban fantasy tale filled with fierce heroines, non-stop adventure, and irresistible romance!
What would happen if you found out someone has been impersonating you? Sara Murray had never met her mother’s parents and was surprised to learn after her death that they were Amish living in Pennsylvania. When she is finally able to make the trip to meet them, she is shocked to learn someone else has been living with them and pretending to be Sara. Sara can’t understand how quickly her grandparents are willing to forgive the impostor. Secrets and deceit seem to follow Sara, and she is so tired of it. Though soon she meets Brad Fuller who is visiting her grandparents for during Christmas. She likes him a lot, but even he seems to pull away from her, not being totally honest. Struggling, Sara finds an old canning jar hidden in the barn that is full of encouraging prayers. Can Sara find a way to forgive the past and move on to building new relationships? This is Book 2 in the brand-new series, The Prayer Jars, from New York Times bestselling author Wanda E. Brunstetter. Book 1 -- The Hope Jar (August 2018) Book 3 -- The Healing Jar (August 2019)
Thoma, the son of Thomas, the Sugar Merchant, born in Egypt but raised in England, is sent to the famous Salernitan Medical School to train as a physician in the early twelfth century. In Sicily, he saves the life of a prince and becomes court physician. But disaster strikes; escaping from Sicily, he is captured by pirates, befriends an assassin, and is plunged into political and religious turmoil in the Holy Land following the first crusade. The adventures of a man torn between religious and political loyalties, and embroiled in international conflict and intrigue, The Travels of ibn Thomas, the second book in the series that began with The Sugar Merchant, is a gripping story of one man's life, and a fascinating glimpse into the tumultuous twelfth century commercial and scientific revolution when the three Abrahamic faiths meet in both cooperation and deadly conflict.
"This complex and fascinating portrait of medieval life will appeal to history devotees." Publishers Weekly "The Sugar Merchant combines medieval lore with adventures on land and sea, stirring romance, arcane information about daily life in Europe in with the time frame, and all-encompassing religious tolerance that has significance for today's world." Chanticleer Book Reviews When Thomas's family is annihilated in a raid, his life changes forever. Wandering for days, starving and hopeless, he is rescued by a monk and is taken to live at the abbey of Eynsham. There he receives a curious education, training to be a scholar, a merchant and a spy. His mission: to develop commerce in Muslim lands and dispatch vital information to the Holy See. His perilous adventures during the 11th century's commercial revolution will take him far from his cloistered life to the great trading cities of Almeria, Amalfi, Alexandria and Cairo. But the world in which he lives is chaotic. Struggling with love and loss, faith and fortune, can Thomas carry out his secret mission before conflict overtakes him? Spanning the tumultuous medieval worlds of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, The Sugar Merchant is a tale of clashing cultures, massive economic change and one man's determination to fulfil his destiny.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Diana Gabaldon weaves a dazzling tale of history, intrigue, and suspense in this first novel featuring one of her most popular characters from the Outlander saga: Lord John Grey. The year is 1757. On a clear morning in mid-June, Lord John Grey emerges from London’s Beefsteak Club, his mind in turmoil. A nobleman and a high-ranking officer in His Majesty’s army, Grey has just witnessed something shocking. But his efforts to avoid a scandal that might destroy his family are interrupted by something still more urgent: The Crown appoints him to investigate the brutal murder of a comrade-in-arms who may have been a traitor. Obliged to pursue two inquiries at once, Major Grey finds himself ensnared in a web of treachery and betrayal that touches every stratum of English society—and threatens all he holds dear. Praise for Lord John and the Private Matter “[A] thoroughly entertaining and wonderfully witty historical mystery set in the richly detailed, occasionally bawdy world of Georgian England.”—Booklist “Packed with vivid description and detail. Gabaldon aptly transports readers to eighteenth-century London, with all its reeking humanity and glitteringly elegant excess.”—BookPage
An enduring classic since its publication in 1970, Mastering Witchcraft is one of the best how-to manuals for those wishing to practice traditional European Witchcraft as a craft rather than a New Age religion. Starting from first principles, Huson instructs the novice step by step in the arts of circle casting, blessing and banning, the uses of amulets and talismans, philters, divination, necromancy, waxen images, knots, fascination, conjuration, magical familiars, spells to arouse passion or lust, attain vengeance, and of course, counter-spells to exorcize and annul the malice of others. "A genuine vade mecum."-The Catholic Herald.
