5/31/2023 0 Comments A Bed of Spices by Barbara SamuelThe Making of a Duchess by Shana Galen *. Jilted bride decides to ditch nice girl image, black sheep hero, “that demmed, elusive Pimpernel”, and British spies romping about in Napoleonic Narrative framework alternates between Eloise, a modern scholar researching The Secret History of the Pink Carnation by Lauren Willig Heroine isĪ skilled archer, swashbuckling adventure, Robin Hood & King John. Marriage, heroine-as-saviour, rakehell hero, clever repartee, perennial romance Templars, Cathars, Inquisition, troubadours. Heroine opens book business, scholarly hero has secret profession, light suspense.Ī Wheel of Stars by Laura Gilmour Bennett **. Whisper His Name by Elizabeth Thornton *. Little-used geographical setting is that diverse characters remain rare even asīoundaries have expanded elsewhere in the genre. As for diversity, a regrettable consequence of being a (**) in continental France as defined by its current borders, including Provence, Languedoc, etc. Of stories located in one of my favourite countries, France.Īsterisks denote romances set partially (*) or mostly/entirely Isles or North America can be a bit of a chore. Identifying historical romances set outside the British
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5/31/2023 0 Comments Hitch 22 by christopher hitchensOf course, his spectacular conversion, if that is the word, from left to right, if that is how to put it, has dismayed many of his former comrades or colleagues, and a good deal of his career since 9/11 has been spent pugnaciously defending himself against the outrage visited upon him for becoming, inter alia, a flag-waver for the second Gulf war. I consider Runciman no slouch, although privately wondered how it could be possible that Hitchens could produce an unlikeable book. T wo things, penury aside, stopped me buying this book when it came out in hardback: the title, and a withering review in the London Review of Books by David Runciman, the gist of which was that the book was self-serving, not intentionally funny, and - his closing words - "very hard to like, never mind love". 5/31/2023 0 Comments Nayomi munaweera novelsYet in recent times a brand of militant nationalist Buddhism led by the BBS has risen to prominence in part as a response to what monks see as the unchecked spread of Islam and the economic strength of the Muslim community. For much of the country’s history (despite a 26 year long ethnic civil war) the religions have generally coexisted. But the most ubiquitous religious icons are the Buddha statues dotting the country from tiny garden shrines to 80-foot tall figures rising from the forest in the ancient Buddhist citadels of Polonaruwa and Anuradhapura. Lonely country crossroads shelter shrines to Ganesh or St. Almost every street in the capital, Colombo, boasts churches, mosques, and temples, often in close proximity. Sri Lanka is a country of deep devotions. In English, “Bodhu Bala Sena” translates as the “Buddha Power Force,” a puzzling oxy-moron that represents a militant faction of Buddhist monks dead set on defending the country from what they see as encroachment from Muslims and Christians by any means necessary. On Sunday June 15 th 2014, in Sri Lanka, the land of my birth and a country I feel deeply tied to by both love and despair, the Bodhu Bala Sena went on the warpath. |