"For thousands of years, Golem Mages ruled the volcanic mountain ranges of Ingleheim, but when Herrscher Heinrich declared himself Führer, he took measures to ensure he would be the last with the power to bend golems to his will. Twenty years later, his regime uncovers the resting place of an Alpha Golem with the power to burn the life force out of anyone caught in its destructive gaze. Katja, a passionate Golem Expert, is tasked to help bring the Alpha under the Führer's control. She is determined to keep it out of his murderous hands and has no choice but to team up with a nameless and faceless soldier, trained in the efficiently ruthless discipline of Steinkamp. A word synonymous with death. The pair challenge immense power, but their most trying task is learning how to trust in a world where everyone is afraid of you--or wants to kill you."--Dust jacket.
Katja, a headstrong scholar with a pension for adventure must team up with a nameless and faceless killer to undermine a tyrannical Regime's plans to awaken a dangerous mythical beast-The Golem of Death. The pair challenge immense power, but their greatest task is learning how to trust each other.
Zephira, Princess of Del'Cabria, was handed over to the Overlord of Herran in return for peace. Now he's gone, and she's unaccounted for. Jeth has gotten away with murder. But when Del'Cabrian soldiers threaten his people, he gives up his freedom for their lives. He is sure to get the noose, but as the only one who knew the Overlord's plans, he might be too valuable to hang. Vidya is hungry for revenge and ready to see her plan through. Step one: Punish the sirens who betrayed her. Step two: Destroy the one man who deserves the Harpy's wrath above all others. Her husband. The missing princess will bring their paths together. One will risk all to find her, the other will stop at nothing to capture her. Neither are prepared to face the Immortal Serpent's final secret.
In this collection, Rachael Llewellyn explores the outer edges of humanity and the horror that comes with it. Twisting between the disturbing and the heartbreaking, Human Beings will make you second guess everyone around you.
July Fourth, "The Star-Spangled Banner," Memorial Day, and the pledge of allegiance are typically thought of as timeless and consensual representations of a national, American culture. In fact, as Cecilia O'Leary shows, most trappings of the nation's icons were modern inventions that were deeply and bitterly contested. While the Civil War determined the survival of the Union, what it meant to be a loyal American remained an open question as the struggle to make a nation moved off of the battlefields and into cultural and political terrain. Drawing upon a wide variety of original sources, O'Leary's interdisciplinary study explores the conflict over what events and icons would be inscribed into national memory, what traditions would be invented to establish continuity with a "suitable past," who would be exemplified as national heroes, and whether ethnic, regional, and other identities could coexist with loyalty to the nation. This book traces the origins, development, and consolidation of patriotic cultures in the United States from the latter half of the nineteenth century up to World War I, a period in which the country emerged as a modern nation-state. Until patriotism became a government-dominated affair in the twentieth century, culture wars raged throughout civil society over who had the authority to speak for the nation: Black Americans, women's organizations, workers, immigrants, and activists all spoke out and deeply influenced America's public life. Not until World War I, when the government joined forces with right-wing organizations and vigilante groups, did a racially exclusive, culturally conformist, militaristic patriotism finally triumph, albeit temporarily, over more progressive, egalitarian visions. As O'Leary suggests, the paradox of American patriotism remains with us. Are nationalism and democratic forms of citizenship compatible? What binds a nation so divided by regions, languages, ethnicity, racism, gender, and class? The most thought-provoking question of this complex book is, Who gets to claim the American flag and determine the meanings of the republic for which it stands?
