Shadow The Books

As the conclusion to Bradshaw's Arthurian trilogy, this book serves wonderfully to tie up loose ends and terminates with the classic tragedy, Arthur's kingdom falls because of his wife's infidelity; however, Bradshaw adds new spice and flavour to the whole story by telling it from Guinevere's point of view and her names for the characters are Welsh. I highly recommend this book to those looking for a new slant on the Arthurian trilogy.

This is a book about the Legendary King Arthur, and Gillian Bradshaw uses her pen to draw you into the fear, mistrust, anger, love and all other emotions as Medraut tries to take over the throne from his father, Arthur. This book will keep you in suspense while you are reading it, and make you cry at the end.

In Winter's Shadow is the third and final book of Gillian Bradshaw's version of the Arthurian saga, which began with "Hawk of May" and continued with "Kingdom of Summer." She manages to make this one of the most emotionally compelling novel re-tellings of this classic story, and to do so is no small feat. Because Bradshaw paints such a remarkable picture of sixth century Britain, has such a canny touch with magic, and creates such depth of character, the reader is drawn through this legend as if they've never heard it before. I highly recommend every book of this trilogy; it is one of the finest examples of fantasy/historical fiction I've ever read. And it will make you cry!

If you think you know the story of Arthur - try again. Gillian Bradshaw completes her trilogy in an exceptional tale. This time the story is told from the perspective of Gwynhwyfar. Some of the basics hold true - the love triangle, the usurping, treasonous, illegitimate son and the battle of "good vs. evil".
However, Lancelot's name does not appear in this work - neither does Merlin's. Bradshaw holds true to the Welsh version of the tale and uses the more traditional characters of Cai and Bedwyr among others.

The end of Camlann comes not with a barge and three queens sailing Arthur off into the sunset...but with how kingdoms truly end and lives along with them.

It is a gripping, exciting read filled with good military strategy for those of you who like that aspect of Arthurian tales. If you like this legend - this is a must read. This collection will never leave my bookshelf!

While reading The Innkeeper's Wife, the Christmas story that I have heard my whole life seemed to come alive. This beautifully written story made me feel like I was right there seeing the birth of our Savior through the eyes of a dear sister. It is so exciting to me that this book tells how it may very well have happened! The author's description of the details and moments of the event brings the reality of our Savior's birth closer to home and not "out there" in the distance. I truly love this book!!! It is simple yet heart stirring and I believe the author was inspired. I shall be reading it to my grandchildren for many years to come and I predict that it shall be a classic.

I absolutely loved this different perspective of the Christmas story! Of course, Mary would've needed help in childbirth and of course, it could've been the innkeeper's wife. Yet, why do we not read about her in the Bible? This very well written book answers that question. The author made the story very real and I really connected with it! It is a great Christmas gift and I have given it to many friends.

I loved this book. Lately I've been passing along to other people my Christmas books and decorations that are not Christ-centered, and whittling down my collection to things that seem to me to be more germane to the season. This lovely book certainly will take a prominant place in my reworked collection. The story is beautifully told, and very plausible. If events didn't happen exactly like Ms Wilson imagines, well, they certainly could have!

The illustrations are also lovely, although I wish the Holy family had been more middle-Eastern looking. Oh well.

This book is so wonderful and it brought tears to my eyes! It made the events of the Christmas story real for me in a way nothing else ever had. The skillfull writing and inspired story will touch your heart and make you say a prayer of gratitude that that joyous event took place. A must have for any Christmas Book collection! I'm buying it for everyone I know for Christmas. :)

Regan Black has created a futuristic world that draws the reader in, and her heroine, Jaden, is a woman to be admired. A gripping storyline and well-drawn characters make it a book you can't put down.

I'm always a sucker for a great premise. Sometimes that back cover blurb is misleading and I end up disappointed with the story itself.

Not with Justice, this book IS as fascinating an entire work as that back cover intimates. I felt like I was watching a movie, every detail was so crystal clear.

Jaden is my kind of heroine - tough but tender, wise, yet vulnerable. Ms. Black may be a new author on the scene but she writes like a seasoned veteran. This book won't disappoint.

I ordered this book because the cover caught my eye and the excerpt sounded wonderful. I couldn't wait to get my copy because I kept thinking about that excerpt. When the book arrived, I gobbled down the story and was not disappointed! I can't wait for the next book to come out. I love action adventure stories and add in some romance, I'm over the moon!

Ms. Black really knows how to weave a solid mystery in as well. I think my favorite part was discovering what ancient weapon Jaden could use to defeat the demon she's been reincarnated to fight again and again. The futuristic setting was handled so very well and believable. The references to 'history' in the story made the time of this reincarnation all the more believable and excellent.

Normally, I'm a little leary of reading new authors--but in this case, I would never have thought Ms. Black didn't have a whole library of other books that I hadn't read. In a way, I wish she did--I wouldn't have to wait so long for more!!

In 2096 Chicago, security expert Jaden Michaels knows more about her past lives than ever before and vows to make a final victorious stand in this reincarnation against the evil that successfully has killed her over and over again since he first killed her in 1066. Although she acknowledges that is the same pledge she has made in each of her previous lives, Jaden feels she remembers more than ever before so takes hope in that.

Her beloved over the years this time is a by the book cop Brian Thomas, who enforces the law to the strictest level including those peddling contraband like black market coffee. Unlike his beloved Jaden, he remembers nothing and never has about previous lives. Her malevolent killer, whose memories run the millennium, happens to be Albertson, a man that Brian, holds in high regard sort of like a beloved father figure. He rejects Jaden's plea that he will kill her as she offers no evidence except some cockamamie story. Will history repeat itself or will Jaden succeed on what she vows is her last stand?

JUDGE INCARNATE is a terrific reincarnation thriller that the audience will read in one sitting as the tense story line grips the audience because of the relational triangle through lifetimes. Jaden is a fabulous besieged protagonist who cannot get her beloved to believe her as he needs proof to believe something as intriguingly Brian is the only ignorant member of the war. Fans will appreciate this strong tale in which the audience will believe in past lives while looking forward to future Shadows of Justice novels.

Harriet Klausner

Kitty Nirvana: The First Ginger & Shadow Collection is a webcomic anthology following the (only slightly exaggerated) adventures of author's two cats, who were adopted from an animal shelter when they were 6 week old kittens. Ginger is the queen of cool cats, self-assured, manipulative, suave, while Shadow is more nervous, soft-hearted, sentimental, and unusually pacifistic among carnivores. Their adventures with one another and their family are sure to strike a chord among cat lovers of all walks of life. "'I'm really getting fed up with this diet thing.' 'You're just built for comfort, not speed.'" The charming black-and-white art captures the essence of cartoon felinity in this wonderfully entertaining collection. Highly recommended, especially as a giftbook for fellow feline fanciers.

I can so relate to these two felines. My wife and I have two cats, Tigger and Shadow... look so much like these characters as a matter of fact. I love good humor, especially anthropomorphic style cartoons like Opus, Snoopy, Red & Rover. I put Barry Corbett's characters and his ability to make me laugh right up there with the others. Looking forward to book #3.

Cats. We are useful visitors in a world they are quick to make clear to us belongs to them. Putting two of them with opposite personalities (based on his real life pets) in a hapless family, as cartoonist Barry Corbett says, creates strips that practically write themselves. Some of these are funny. Some insightful and a few are a little self-conscious (and if there is one thing cats are not, it is self-conscious). By the way, I once had a cat that when annoyed with me would hit at the computer keyboard. I would see pages and pages of "nnnnnnnnnnnn...."

I liked the series where Ginger is trying to teach the introverted, people pleasing "Shadow" how to be cool. There's also an interesting parallel when Ralph Garrick, the burly man of the house, tries to clue in the male Shadow on male/female differences. I love it that the rather hip mom is off to a Star-Trek convention and the segment on cats learning "the Zen of sleeping" is inspired. There's a lot to like, even parts that fail (a cat with a black patch in search of the great, white woodchuck that cost him his eye) show cleverness. And, anyone who has a cat (I have four) can attest to the authenticity of lines like this: "I could use a catnap. It's been about 23 minutes." The accomplished drawings are full of energy and cat grace. Yet there is something that still needs to evolve here. And it will.

In a single page of prose, titled "Diary of a Comic Strip," the author tells how his cast of characters and his technique have grown over the years. You can see the same thing in early Peanuts collections. It is as if the personality of each character has to come into its own over time. When that happens, there are more than cute observations about cats and human foibles. There is fresh insight into something shared by both the reader and the cartoonist. It's recognition that is both surprising (we thought we were the only ones who felt it) and reassuring (now we know that others feel this way too). Our reaction when that happens: to laugh.

Cats have been perennial fodder for comic strips from "Krazy Kat" to "Cicero's Cat" to "Heathclif" to "Garfield". Unlike Garfield, "Ginger and Shadow" is funny, beautifully drawn and right on the money when it comes to the not so secret lives of cats. Anyone who's ever owned a cat (if anyone can actually own a cat, I think cats would beg to differ on that point) can relate to the feline follies of Ginger, Shadow and a wide variety of other characters including Patch, Pilferin' Pete, Feral Frankie and the human family that puts up with it all. Barry Corbett, known on the web as the creator of "Rafferty" and "Embrace the Pun", has another winner with this strip. If you're saying to yourself, "Sure, but it's no 'Funky Winkerbean' ", you need to take your meds and curl up with a copy of this book to see what a real comic is all about.

No cats were harmed in the writing of this review. For the record, this reviewer has never seen "Cats", but is pretty sure "Kitty Nirvana" is way better and definitely a lot cheaper.

Less Than A Shadow is a suspenseful murder mystery by David Chacko. It begins with the murder of a prominent journalist in Istanbul and escalates into a drama involving the Turkish Mafia, a lethal hidden secret, and a terrible threat about to change the Middle East forever at a terrible blood price. An exciting novel that combines action with a labyrinth of motives and deadly perpetrators, Less Than A Shadow is very highly recommended reading for mystery/suspense enthusiasts and documents David Chacko as a gifted author who pays particular attention to background detail and character development making both his stories and his characters come alive in the "mind's eye" imagination of the reader.

LESS THAN A SHADOW is a carefully made story of the present day Middle East and the city of Istanbul. What seems to be a simple murder mystery that must be solved by Jason Ender, a State Department investigator, becomes the shadowy trail that leads to the Mafia and beyond. The death of one American reporter spreads like oil in water, coloring all the things it touches. In the end, only Ender stands between complete chaos and all the things he loves.

LESS THAN A SHADOW is a great adventure that is well-written too. If you don't think that espionage is back, you'll find out when this one lures you into a dark world and takes you by the throat. The streets of Istanbul--the byways of a dead reporter's beat--are the ways that will lead you to know the people and places of a fascinating land.

LESS THAN A SHADOW

by David Chacko

When a high-living journalist, Al Rydell, turns up dead in Turkey, Jason Ender is dispatched by the American State Dept. to investigate the murder. Ender learns that Rydell had travelled to Turkey to interview a mullah for his book. But when Ender searches Rydell's apartment, the manuscript is gone. Ender then begins a dangerous escapade of investigation by pulling a string in a Turkish tapestry of drugs, terrorists, and political intrigue.

Ender follows his leads from the list of informants, thugs and suspicious characters that made up Rydell's nefarious associations - and the other kind, including Rydell's beautiful, high-paid companion. His equally beautiful artist-sister, Veronica, becomes Ender's lover and partner in solving Al's murder as they travel a maze of misdirection and mayhem. At the end of the trail, Ender fingers Rydell's murderer. Should he turn the killer over to authorities or is there another means of poetic justice?

LESS THAN A SHADOW is a classic, yet contemporary whodunit with a narrative so tight that it squeaks, dialogue so realistic you'll look around you to see who said what you just read, and a story line that will engage you from beginning to end. ***

Deborah Lighfoot Sizemore's The LH7 Ranch: In Houston's Shadow is the fascinating and informative true story of a cattle range that has operated since 1907 and the venerable family who owned it. Men and women worked hard to keep up with ranch life, stand fast through the Great Depression and finally stand up to a conflict with the growing metropolis of Houston. Energetic and aptly researched, The LH7 Ranch is a most compelling and highly recommended slice of Texan-American regional history.

Having reviewed books for THE CATTLEMAN magazine for 30 years, I read with pleasure this well-crafted work about a ranch in a part of Texas not commonly associated with ranching and ranch life. The Marks LH7 Ranch was established at the end of the 19th century in an area only about 20 miles west of the center of Houston. The author was fortunate in her work because she was able to interview all four of rancher E.H. Marks' children. This gives her work an immediacy not allowed to some biographers.--Copyright 1992 K.E. Snyder, Friends of the Fort Worth (Texas) Public Library

I got the book for Christmas and read it in two days. I loved it! Boy, what a family! I do a combination of genealogy and local history writing in the vicinity of the old LH7 Ranch and was thrilled to see what the author had done in this book.

I especially enjoyed the women's part of it and the warmth and reality the author brought to the story. I hope it sells as well as it deserves to.

Raymond is my grandfather and I couldn't be more proud of Anna for writing this book. Anytime I'm feeling lonely, sad, or like I need a little guidance I can just pick up the book and feel like Papa Ray is sitting next to me. The book will lead you through a whirl wind of emotions, but in the end you will be assured that there are only things to look forward to in this life and beyond. I used to be extremely frightened by death and what I thought Heaven would be like....I now know and will be ready to see Papa Ray again when my time comes.

SAFE MILES.....

"A Light in the Shadow" is my way to share my wonderful father, Raymond Mitchell, with as many people as I possibly can. He lived a good life and was the most faithful person I've ever known. This story will take you through every emotion but my intent is for readers to walk away with hope. Hope for the afterlife and for a better life. ENJOY!

This book touched home, as I lost a loved one to cancer. I was so touched as how Ray was going back and forth communicating, and it just made me believe even more in God and Heaven and knowing what a joyous reunion it will be when we are reunited with our families someday in Heaven. Thank you Anna for sharing your story and memories with us. Know it must of been hard to do. What a wonderful angel you had teaching you, of what is to come, and what it takes to get where we need to go. Thanks again.

This amazing book is sure to bring light to anyone who reads it. It reminds people of how the world should be. Absolutely amazing!

Ms. Alden is a talented writer who transports the reader to the South Africa of her youth with vivid, fascinating and absorbing descriptions and details. She had me "hooked" from the first pages and I could not put the book down until I'd read it all.

What a beautifully written account of this place and time. Bea makes this all the more poignant by showing the disturbing truth and subtle self deceptions of apartheid policy from the innocent view of a young child. It is telling that her child's heart knew that 'something was wrong' while the grown-ups were pretending that all was well. This is a wonderfully written view into the world of accepted social separation and the heartache it inevitably causes. Well done!

This is so well written about a place and time I had never considered. It is so easy to ignore what is commonplace to each of us in our every day life and not even notice when there is discrimination or injustice. Now I would like to read 'the rest of the story' and find out what happens when there is more than just unrest in the country and how it affected the lives of Bea and her family.

LIONGOLD "vividly chronicles the troubled life of a white family in the suburbs of Johannesburg...during South Africa's pivotal years of apartheid." Bea Alden's true story is told from her childhood perspective, from about age 4 to her twenties. People often wonder, "How could those white Christian Africans have treated blacks as they did?" Bea answers this question by ushering us into the perspective of white privilege, where "that's just the way things are." But uncomfortable questions inevitably arise as she approaches adulthood.

In addition to being a compelling story, LIONGOLD is beautifully written. Alden has an artist's eye for detail and a gift for description. Letty, their "girl," is "all sharp elbows and spiky energy. ... Her bright brown eyes survey the world suspiciously, with a nuanced, guarded look of discontent." Though the tale centers on Alden's white family, she also weaves in a respectful look at what life was like for blacks.

This is a gem of a book with a valuable and rare perspective on this tragic period in modern history.

It's the sort of thing that makes you say, "Why didn't I think of that?"

But it's so much more than that, as well. Poet Mary Ruefle has created a miniature of mysterious beauty, simply by discovering, or unearthing, haiku-like poems embedded like gems in the text of an old book. Could anyone do this? Perhaps ... but it takes that poet's eye to select so precisely, to white out all but a few words, and transform what had been a fairly straightforward page of prose into these ghostly, dreamlike poems, at once delicate & piercing as a cold needle.

And it's a reminder that art, beauty, and mystery are to be found everywhere -- perhaps especially in the everyday, laid out before us, if we only take the time & effort to look. Highly recommended!

This "erasure" is true beauty. Ruefle's unceasingly profound and genius spirit comes through in this tiny treasure. It is truly something to behold ... something to hold ...

I see no mention of the great artist, Tom Phillips, whose great work, "A Humument", surely must have been an influence for Mary Ruefle's wonderful "A Little White Shadow".

For such a small volume, and even without Mr. Phillips imaginative artwork, this publication packs in a great amount of emotion and wonder. I hope to send copies to a few dear ones :-)

Mary Ruefle, A Little White Shadow (Wave Books, 2006)

I have no idea what possessed Mary Ruefle to take the text of an obscure nineteenth-century book (the author of which I've been trying to uncover ever since reading this, with no success) and turn it into poetry by whiting out most of it, but whatever it was, I like it.

I originally took it as one long piece, but others have suggested it's actually a collection, and it does make more sense that way. What Ruefle does here is to white out most of the words on the page, leaving just enough to give an intelligible image here, an interesting twist of action there. It's all quite exciting from a creative standpoint, as there are obviously any number of texts out there which can be used to the same ends, but Ruefle's eye for what to leave in makes for some extremely interesting reading, as well. I'm quite fond of this. ****

Sophie Freud's new book is more than a history of a famous family in the 20thc, but a history of the century in itself. The long arc of Germany's attempt to achieve at least European, if not worldwide, supremacy, is told through the eyes of a family that lived it.

The book is neither long nor hard to read, therefore, I was disappointed when Sophie thanks her editors for helping her cut it down. I want to read it all. Basically the book is Sophie's mother's autobiography. Said Ernestine, who liked to be called Esti married Martin Freud, one of Sigmund Freud's sons. She wrote her book late in her life, and her writings are in Roman type, whereas Sophie's comments are in italics, and thus this whole book which was written AND edited by Sophie becomes a dual biography.

Accompanying the stories of these 2 women are many, many letters written by other members of the Freud family, and from them we can make our own judgements about the people and compare them to the ones that Sophie makes. These other letters are in various fonts.

The mother, Esti, seems at first to be a simple lovely girl in love with Martin, but Sigmund says of her "she is not only maliciously meshugge but also mad in the medical sense." We see this in the early years of their marriage. Talk about dysfunctional families!

The family split up in 1938: Esti and Sophie went to Paris, and Martin and his son, Walter, went to London. For the next 4 years mother and daughter struggled to keep alive, to find decent lodging and food, and to keep barely one step ahead of Hitler as he ran down France. Vichy France became a haven for the Freuds for a while, but eventually they went to Casablanca and then to Lisbon, and finally to the USA. (The movie "Casablanca" may have been fiction, but it was a fiction that many people really lived.)

I have to admire both women who essentially became trilingual in a very short time. For all of Esti's complaining and bitterness (her letters to Walter during the war years must have been devastating to the young man who could do nothing to help). But as a speech therapist, Esti, who first taught in Vienna, learned to teach both in France and then in the USA. Sophie went straight from the lycee in France (already a 2nd language for her) to Radcliffe College. Both women earned Ph.Ds.

Don't be dismayed by the family tree at the beginning. In fact, ignore it at first. However, I wish that dates had been included. The important characters will become clear upon reading. At times the book sounds like a novel, but it is not. Sophie and her brother were thus separated for most of their lives. Walter died not long before Sophie finished the book and his children found about 200 letters from their mother to him. Although most of this book was finished, Sophie had to incorporate many of them into her new publication.

This is a sad book, but who cannot say that the 20th c, esp. the first half, was not sad, in the deepest sense of the word? I enoyed the book thoroughly and I think you will as well. Do not expect to find out much about Sigmund however - that is reserved for other books. You will find out about many members of both the Freud and Drucker (Esti's family) families - some uplifting news and some destructive habits. Many of the Freud family were able to escape Austria, but many were not and were thus exterminated. The last page of the book which contains the final words of both Esti and Sophie (for now at least - let's hope she writes more) is indeed sad. I did not mind reading it early on. You choose.

Sophie Freud's recent book, Living Under the Shadow of the Freud Family, is most interesting and compelling. She masterfully interweaves perspectives on the private (and public) lives of her family and herself, thus offering a memoir that at times reads like a first-rate novel.

Professor Freud's wit, mischievousness, and clear-eyed vision pervades the various narratives and adds a most important and entertaining dimension--not only in her diary entries but in her numerous candid and often wonderfully blunt assessments of others (family members, professors, etc.) and in her self-reflexive comments (e.g. when she reflects puckishly that she may be writing this book to display her own achievements for the Annee Scolaire prize--"who knows, perhaps I am writing this book just for that purpose"). It is this kind of serious play, throughout, that makes this memoir so very readable and revealing, at the same time Sophie Freud's commentary or her mother's autobiographical narrative or numerous letters continue to remind readers of the shadow of her grandfather and other relatives (Tante Janne, her brother, her father, et al. ) and of the sinister shadow of Hitler and WW2 which impinges trenchantly on the lives of the Freud family, not to mention the world. I am reminded of the author, W.G, Sebald, photos included. In short, among other things, I have come away with a very deep and complex feeling for Professor Freud's mother, along with multiple insights into her own fascinating self.

This book is a fascinating read, both in terms of family dynamics and world history. Through letters, diaries and commentary from various family members, Sophie Freud (Sigmund Freud's granddaughter) gives life to her mother Esti, including her troubled marriage to Freud's son Martin, her struggle to be accepted by the Freud family, and her difficult relationships with her children. The book also has moments of historic drama, such as when Sophie and her mother flee Paris by bicycle two days before the Nazis invade. There are also bits of humor, such as when the teenage Sophie's diary reveals that she is much more concerned about boys, her figure, and finishing her qualifying exams than she is about the approaching Nazis. Overall, the book provides unique insight into a complicated (and famous) family at an especially charged time in history. I really enjoyed it.Living in the Shadow of the Freud Family

Sophie Freud, the author of this wonderful book, has kept a diary most of her life, as did her mother, Esti, along with many letters and documents of her fractured family. These documents are the scaffolding of a compelling story of romance, marriage, betrayal, escape and ultimately, the need to reinvent one's self in another country. Ms.Freud uses these papers (in French and German), along with her own commentary and that of her brother. The tale of her escape from Paris on a bicycle with her mother is vivid. She also uses photographs of her family and documents which increase the appeal of the book.
For anyone interested in a life of the twentieth century, with war, loss and emigration, this is a wonderful book.