Portal of a Thousand Worlds
Portal of a Thousand Worlds

Author: Dave Duncan

Publisher: Open Road Media

Published: 2017-02-14

Total Pages: 382

ISBN-13: 1504038746

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The looming threat of a once-in-a-millennium magical event sends nineteenth-century China into violent chaos in this epic alternate-history fantasy. Author of the Seventh Sword series Dave Duncan transports us to Imperial China in an alternate nineteenth century—an Asian epoch not unlike the Boxer Rebellion era—with a spellbinding tale of rebellion, political intrigue, larceny, seduction, shape-shifting, dark magic, and murder. These are troubled years in the Good Land. Ten centuries have passed since the last time the Portal of a Thousand Worlds opened, bringing chaos, upheaval, and radical change to the then-ruling dynasty, and now the mystical gateway is rumored to be on the verge of opening once more. Only the Firstborn—he who has been reincarnated through countless generations and remembers all he has ever learned—knows what the future holds, but he has been imprisoned for refusing to comply with a repressive imperial government’s wishes. Now, those hoping to seize the opportunity for wealth and position are hatching sinister plots. And as the cold-hearted dowager empress closely guards a fateful secret, and a rebel army led by a fanatical zealot gathers strength under the Bamboo Banner, the cataclysm approaches. . . . The recipient of two Aurora Awards and numerous Locus and Endeavour Award nominations, Dave Duncan is an acknowledged master of sword-and-sorcery adventure on par with George R. R. Martin of Game of Thrones fame. A sprawling epic with a colorful cast of royals, thieves, prostitutes, gods, warriors, dragons, assassins, merchants, and mages set against the backdrop of a volatile alternate Asia, Portal of a Thousand Worlds is a magnificent work of invention from one of the premier fantasists of our day.

Leah's Gift
Leah's Gift

Author: Destanne Norris

Publisher: Balboa Press

Published: 2020-08-19

Total Pages: 108

ISBN-13: 1982250577

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How do you live with the unanswerable questions that surface when someone you love dies? This question and others lay beneath visual artist Destanne Norris’ voyage through the mysteries that shroud life and death. In this autobiographical story, Norris journeys through the loss of her daughter as she illuminates her artworks - some of which were created before her daughter was born - that were mounted in an exhibition entitled, Leah’s Gift. Through her narrative and paintings, she tells how she navigated grief and learned to reframe her questions to find new purpose and meaning. By sharing her experience and insight, people from all walks of life and places on the planet may be inspired to reframe the challenging questions they may be living with, leading them to make positive changes that benefit themselves and those they love. Advance Praise for Leah’s Gift “Leah’s Gift is a gift of love to all who are blessed to read this great book. The author is sharing a heart-wrenching journey and the valuable lessons learned to help anyone dealing with loss or grief.” —Peggy McColl, New York Times Bestselling Author

Priestdaddy
Priestdaddy

Author: Patricia Lockwood

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2017-05-02

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 069818839X

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ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW'S 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR NAMED ONE OF THE 50 BEST MEMOIRS OF THE PAST 50 YEARS BY THE NEW YORK TIMES SELECTED AS A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY: The Washington Post * Elle * NPR * New York Magazine * Boston Globe * Nylon * Slate * The Cut * The New Yorker * Chicago Tribune WINNER OF THE THURBER PRIZE FOR AMERICAN HUMOR “Affectionate and very funny . . . wonderfully grounded and authentic. This book proves Lockwood to be a formidably gifted writer who can do pretty much anything she pleases.” – The New York Times Book Review From Booker Prize finalist Patricia Lockwood, author of the novel No One Is Talking About This, a vivid, heartbreakingly funny memoir about balancing identity with family and tradition. Father Greg Lockwood is unlike any Catholic priest you have ever met—a man who lounges in boxer shorts, loves action movies, and whose constant jamming on the guitar reverberates “like a whole band dying in a plane crash in 1972.” His daughter is an irreverent poet who long ago left the Church’s country. When an unexpected crisis leads her and her husband to move back into her parents’ rectory, their two worlds collide. In Priestdaddy, Lockwood interweaves emblematic moments from her childhood and adolescence—from an ill-fated family hunting trip and an abortion clinic sit-in where her father was arrested to her involvement in a cultlike Catholic youth group—with scenes that chronicle the eight-month adventure she and her husband had in her parents’ household after a decade of living on their own. Lockwood details her education of a seminarian who is also living at the rectory, tries to explain Catholicism to her husband, who is mystified by its bloodthirstiness and arcane laws, and encounters a mysterious substance on a hotel bed with her mother. Lockwood pivots from the raunchy to the sublime, from the comic to the deeply serious, exploring issues of belief, belonging, and personhood. Priestdaddy is an entertaining, unforgettable portrait of a deeply odd religious upbringing, and how one balances a hard-won identity with the weight of family and tradition.

Gordath Wood
Gordath Wood

Author: Patrice Sarath

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2008-06-24

Total Pages: 340

ISBN-13: 1440632081

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Lynn Romano is a tough woman with a big job: as stable manager for Hunter’s Chase, north of New York City, she manages horses that weigh more than a ton, have unpredictable tempers, and are worth more than most people make in a year. Emergencies are what she’s paid for. When an earthquake tremor—almost unheard of in this part of the world—spooks the stable’s most valuable stallion, Lynn decides to ride him home through Gordath Wood rather than try to load him into a van. They never get there. Something has happened in Gordath Wood. The police think they have a murderer on their hands, but the truth is stranger than that. Lynn has stumbled into a hole between worlds, and now finds herself in a world at war, in a medieval society that doesn’t have much use for women. Someone she needs to keep herself alive long enough to figure out who the good guys are—and to find a way home.

The Portal Thieves
The Portal Thieves

Author: James E Wisher

Publisher: Sand Hill Publishing

Published: 2020-10-09

Total Pages: 285

ISBN-13: 1945763760

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After the failure in Straken, Otto is forced to accept that as long as Garenland’s enemies can send reinforcements through the portals, the Northern Army has no hope of taking Marduke. But Otto has a plan. Seize control of the portals and turn the enemy’s strength against them. To accomplish this seemingly impossible goal, Garenland’s top spies are dispatched to place magical patches on the portals in every capital. Behind enemy lines and on their own, it will be a miracle if the spies can survive, much less complete their missions. Five men will determine Garenland’s future. Can they complete the mission or will they die trying?

No One Is Talking About This
No One Is Talking About This

Author: Patricia Lockwood

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2021-02-16

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 0593189604

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FINALIST FOR THE 2021 BOOKER PRIZE & A NEW YORK TIMES TOP 10 BOOK OF 2021 WINNER OF THE DYLAN THOMAS PRIZE “A book that reads like a prose poem, at once sublime, profane, intimate, philosophical, witty and, eventually, deeply moving.” —New York Times Book Review, Editors’ Choice “Wow. I can’t remember the last time I laughed so much reading a book. What an inventive and startling writer…I’m so glad I read this. I really think this book is remarkable.” —David Sedaris From "a formidably gifted writer" (The New York Times Book Review), a book that asks: Is there life after the internet? As this urgent, genre-defying book opens, a woman who has recently been elevated to prominence for her social media posts travels around the world to meet her adoring fans. She is overwhelmed by navigating the new language and etiquette of what she terms "the portal," where she grapples with an unshakable conviction that a vast chorus of voices is now dictating her thoughts. When existential threats--from climate change and economic precariousness to the rise of an unnamed dictator and an epidemic of loneliness--begin to loom, she posts her way deeper into the portal's void. An avalanche of images, details, and references accumulate to form a landscape that is post-sense, post-irony, post-everything. "Are we in hell?" the people of the portal ask themselves. "Are we all just going to keep doing this until we die?" Suddenly, two texts from her mother pierce the fray: "Something has gone wrong," and "How soon can you get here?" As real life and its stakes collide with the increasingly absurd antics of the portal, the woman confronts a world that seems to contain both an abundance of proof that there is goodness, empathy, and justice in the universe, and a deluge of evidence to the contrary. Fragmentary and omniscient, incisive and sincere, No One Is Talking About This is at once a love letter to the endless scroll and a profound, modern meditation on love, language, and human connection from a singular voice in American literature.