“BUT the man’s almost dead.” The words stung John Hare’s fainting spirit into life. He opened his eyes. The desert still stretched before him, the appalling thing that had overpowered him with its deceiving purple distance. Near by stood a sombre group of men. “Leave him here,” said one, addressing a gray-bearded giant. “He’s the […]
What subtle strange message had come to her out of the West? Carley Burch laid the letter in her lap and gazed dreamily through the window. It was a day typical of early April in New York, rather cold and gray, with steely sunlight. Spring breathed in the air, but the women passing along Fifty-seventh […]
Joan Randle reined in her horse on the crest of the cedar ridge, and with remorse and dread beginning to knock at her heart she gazed before her at the wild and looming mountain range. “Jim wasn’t fooling me,” she said. “He meant it. He’s going straight for the border … Oh, why did I […]
A FACE haunted Cameron—a woman’s face. It was there in the white heart of the dying campfire; it hung in the shadows that hovered over the flickering light; it drifted in the darkness beyond. This hour, when the day had closed and the lonely desert night set in with its dead silence, was one in […]
SCENE I. Antechamber in LEONTES’ palace. Enter CAMILLO and ARCHIDAMUS ARCHIDAMUS If you shall chance, Camillo, to visit Bohemia, on the like occasion whereon my services are now on foot, you shall see, as I have said, great difference betwixt our Bohemia and your Sicilia. CAMILLO I think, this coming summer, the King of Sicilia […]
Two households, both alike in dignity, In fair Verona, where we lay our scene, From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. From forth the fatal loins of these two foes A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life; Whole misadventured piteous overthrows Do with their death bury their […]
Enter LEONATO, HERO, and BEATRICE, with a Messenger LEONATO I learn in this letter that Don Peter of Arragon comes this night to Messina. Messenger He is very near by this: he was not three leagues off when I left him. LEONATO How many gentlemen have you lost in this action? Messenger But few of […]
SCENE I. Britain. The garden of Cymbeline’s palace. Enter two Gentlemen First Gentleman You do not meet a man but frowns: our bloods No more obey the heavens than our courtiers Still seem as does the king. Second Gentleman But what’s the matter? First Gentleman His daughter, and the heir of’s kingdom, whom He purposed […]
Enter THESEUS, HIPPOLYTA, PHILOSTRATE, and Attendants THESEUS Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour Draws on apace; four happy days bring in Another moon: but, O, methinks, how slow This old moon wanes! she lingers my desires, Like to a step-dame or a dowager Long withering out a young man revenue. HIPPOLYTA Four days will quickly […]
Long ago there was a little land, over which ruled a regulus or kinglet, who was called King Peter, though his kingdom was but little. He had four sons whose names were Blaise, Hugh, Gregory and Ralph: of these Ralph was the youngest, whereas he was but of twenty winters and one; and Blaise was […]
“Now, Jack, here is a chance to put your knowledge of the classics to some practical use.” Helen Armstrong paused for a moment before a Latin inscription cut in the upper stones of the boundary wall, and leaned gratefully upon her companion’s arm after the steep ascent. “What does it mean?” Her husband smiled. “That […]
That’s what we always called them, where I come from, huddlers. Damnedest thing to see from any distance, the way they huddle. They had one place, encrusting the shore line for miles on one of the land bodies they called the Eastern Seaboard. A coagulation in this crust contained eight million of the creatures, eight […]
This is the story of what a Woman’s patience can endure, and what a Man’s resolution can achieve. If the machinery of the Law could be depended on to fathom every case of suspicion, and to conduct every process of inquiry, with moderate assistance only from the lubricating influences of oil of gold, the events […]
Three hundred and forty-eight years, six months, and nineteen days ago to-day, the Parisians awoke to the sound of all the bells in the triple circuit of the city, the university, and the town ringing a full peal. The sixth of January, 1482, is not, however, a day of which history has preserved the memory. […]
The rambler who, for old association or other reasons, should trace the forsaken coach-road running almost in a meridional line from Bristol to the south shore of England, would find himself during the latter half of his journey in the vicinity of some extensive woodlands, interspersed with appleorchards. Here the trees, timber or fruit-bearing, as […]
In the days of high-waisted and muslin-gowned women, when the vast amount of soldiering going on in the country was a cause of much trembling to the sex, there lived in a village near the Wessex coast two ladies of good report, though unfortunately of limited means. The elder was a Mrs. Martha Garland, a […]
When Farmer Oak smiled, the corners of his mouth spread till they were within an unimportant distance of his ears, his eyes were reduced to chinks, and diverging wrinkles appeared round them, extending upon his countenance like the rays in a rudimentary sketch of the rising sun. His Christian name was Gabriel, and on working […]
‘A fair vestal, throned in the west’ Elfride Swancourt was a girl whose emotions lay very near the surface. Their nature more precisely, and as modified by the creeping hours of time, was known only to those who watched the circumstances of her history. Personally, she was the combination of very interesting particulars, whose rarity, […]
The sun blazed down and down, till it was within half-an-hour of its setting; but the sketcher still lingered at his occupation of measuring and copying the chevroned doorway—a bold and quaint example of a transitional style of architecture, which formed the tower entrance to an English village church. The graveyard being quite open on […]
One morning, in the fall of 1880, a middle-aged woman, accompanied by a young girl of eighteen, presented herself at the clerk’s desk of the principal hotel in Columbus, Ohio, and made inquiry as to whether there was anything about the place that she could do. She was of a helpless, fleshy build, with a […]
Shadow and Bone – Leigh Bardugo
One of Us is Next – Karen M. McManus
The Dragon Republic – R.F. Kuang
A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder – Holly Jackson
The Lightning-Struck Heart – T.J. Klune
Aru Shah and the Tree of Wishes – Roshani Chokshi
We Hunt the Flame – Hafsah Faizal
A Face Like Glass – Frances Hardinge
A Tale of Magic… – Chris Colfer
Emma in the Night – Wendy Walker
Lock Every Door – Riley Sager
The Language of Thorns – Leigh Bardugo
Archenemies – Marissa Meyer
Crooked Kingdom – Leigh Bardugo
The Rise of Kyoshi – F.C. Yee
The Scandal of the Deceived Duchess – Hanna Hamilton
Secrets of the Lore Keepers – Angela J. Ford
Between the Devil and the Duke – Eva Devon
The Wicked Wife – Mary Lancaster
Lover of Thorns and Holy Gods – Grace Draven