James is skilled, efficient, and deadly, a hired blade navigating the shifting alliances of a deteriorating Assassin’s Guild. Then he meets Thalia, an alluring but troubled dancing girl who offers him a way out—if he’ll help her kill a powerful nobleman. With the Guild falling apart, it just might be worth the risk. But when you live, breathe, and love in a world that’s forever flirting with death, the slightest misstep can be poison. Poison Dance is a short story of approximately 14,000 words long (54 printed pages). The ebook also includes several deleted scenes and behind-the-scenes blog posts about the writing process for this novella.
An exceptional thief… Kyra specializes in nighttime raids, using her sharp senses and uncanny agility to plunder Forge’s wealthiest homes. Then she meets James, the deadly but intriguing Head of the Assassin’s Guild. He has a job for Kyra: infiltrate the impenetrable Palace compound. The pay is good, and the challenge appealing. But as Kyra establishes herself in the Guild, things start to unravel. Her assignments become increasingly violent, demanding more than Kyra is willing to give. And as she grows closer to the darkly attractive James, she can’t shake the feeling that his plans run deeper than he claims. A knight sworn to vengeance… When Tristam’s best friend is killed by Demon Riders—barbarians riding vicious wildcats—he vows to defeat them. The young knight throws himself into his quest, only to find his efforts thwarted by a mysterious and very talented thief. When a twist of fate throws Kyra and Tristam together, they realize that Forge faces greater dangers than either of them had imagined. They must make a choice: continue to fight each other, or work together to unravel the truth. Then, as sinister forces close in, Kyra and Tristam discover a shocking secret that will change their lives forever.
Communism must kill what it cannot control. So for a century, it has killed artists, writers, musicians, and even dancers. It kills them secretly, using bioweapons and poison to escape accountability. Among its victims was Anna Pavlova, history’s greatest dancer, who was said to have God-given wings and feet that never touched the ground. But she defied Stalin, and for that she had to die. Her sudden death in Paris in 1931 was a mystery until now. The Dancer and the Devil traces Marxism’s century-long fascination with bioweapons, from the Soviets’ leak of pneumonic plague in 1939 that nearly killed Stalin to leaks of anthrax at Kiev in 1972 and Yekaterinburg in 1979; from the leak of a flu in northeast China in 1977 that killed millions to the catastrophic COVID-19 leak from biolabs in Wuhan, China. Marxism’s dark past must not be a parent to the world’s dark future. COMMUNIST CHINA PLAYED WITH FIRE AND THE WORLD IS BURNING Nearly ten million people have died so far from the mysterious Covid-19 virus. These dead follow a long line of thousands of other brave souls stretching back nearly a century who also suffered mysterious “natural” deaths, including dancers, writers, saints and heroes. These honored dead should not be forgotten by amnesiac government trying to avoid inconvenient truth. The dead and those who remember and loved them deserve answers to two great questions. How? Why? The Dancer and the Devil answers these questions. It tracks a century of Soviet and then Chinese Communist poisons and bioweapons through their development and intentional use on talented artists and heroes like Anna Pavlova, Maxim Gorky, Raoul Wallenberg and Alexis Navalny. It then tracks leaks of bioweapons beginning in Saratov, Russia in 1939 and Soviet Yekaterinburg in 1979 through Chinese leaks concluding in the recent concealed leak of the manufactured bioweapon Covid-19 from the military lab in Wuhan, China. Stalin, Putin, and Xi, perpetrators of these vast crimes against humanity itself, should not be allowed to escape responsibility. This book assembles the facts on these cowardly murderers, calling them to account for their heartless crimes against man concluding in Covid-19.
The sixteen-volume Handbook of Middle American Indians, completed in 1976, has been acclaimed the world over as the single most valuable resource ever produced for those involved in the study of Mesoamerica. When it was determined in 1978 that the Handbook should be updated periodically, Victoria Reifler Bricker, well-known cultural anthropologist, was elected to be general editor. This third volume of the Supplement is devoted to the aboriginal literatures of Mesoamerica, a topic receiving little attention in the original Handbook. According to the general editor, "This volume does more than supplement and update the coverage of Middle American Indian literatures in the Handbook. It breaks new ground by defining the parameters of a new interdisciplinary field in Middle American Indian studies." The aim of the present volume is to consider literature from five Middle American Indian languages: Nahuatl, Yucatecan Maya, Quiche, Tzotzil, and Chorti. The first three literatures are well documented for both the Classical and Modern variants of their languages and are obvious candidates for inclusion in this volume. The literatures of Tzotzil and Chorti, on the other hand, are oral, and heretofore little has been written of their genres and styles. Taken together, these essays represent a substantial contribution to the Handbook series, with the volume editor's introduction placing in geographic perspective the five literatures chosen as representative of the Middle American literary tradition.
When Liliya is chosen to serve the God of Time, she sees a chance to forget the horrors of her past. Her new life at the temple is full of mysteries, from a globe that displays the future to a handsome young palanquin bearer who makes her smile. But though life is easier amongst the gods, it is also fraught with danger. And soon the threads of time ensnare Liliya in a web she may not be able to escape. Lord of Time is a short story of 4000 words, or roughly 16 printed pages.
After discovering a dangerous way to bring the demon of the palace with her, Raliel, the heir to the Emperor, sets out on her coming-of-age journey, accompanied by her demon-kissed bodyguard Osian, who secretly plans to act as his mother's weapon against the Empire.