![]() ![]() ![]() You still know that the narrator is the killer but you don’t know their name.Īs well as Zoe, we meet Max Morgan and Aaron Morgan who are the components to Zoe’s love triangle. Some people might argue that you don’t find out who the killer is straight away because “Zoe Collins” is actually a pseudonym and, again, you don’t find out her real name until the end of the book. What’s interesting about this book is that it’s like a reverse murder mystery novel because we find out who the murderer is first but you have to keep reading and try to figure out who the victim is. ![]() She tells the story to Stuart Harris of how she got in to that situation and the run up of events before she committed the crime whilst showing us snippets of her life now and how she is dealing with the guilt and remorse and how her life has changed since. Throughout the letters, we switch between the past and the present. In the first letter, we find out that our main character, Zoe Collins, has killed someone and has literally gotten away with murder. ![]()
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![]() ![]() ![]() My second oldest brother, Bob, told me that there was a God in a heaven and that everything was going to be alright. I was crying one night after a funeral because I was afraid to die. How easy? Being passionate about the visual fine arts, when the missionaries showed me a Book of Mormon, all I had to do was look at its illustrations by Arnold Friberg and I instantly knew the book was true! My conversion story started when I was a very young child of four or five years. Unlike closet doubters, agnostics, unbelievers, and atheists that I have known, my faith in Jesus Christ and his Gospel plan always come easy for me. ![]() As Louis Pasteur cogently said, “Chance favors the prepared mind.” While a Seventy and Branch Mission Leader in Auburn, Alabama, I saw that it took several preparatory events or crises before anyone was really ‘ready’ for the restored gospel in their lives. Spiritual preparation led to spiritual growth, which in turn led to spiritual opportunities of which I could then take advantage. Like most people, my conversion story and testimony came in bits and pieces, finally welding themselves into believing faith. When Professor Daniel Peterson of the BYU Department of Asian and Near Eastern Languages asked me to share my testimony from a scholar’s perspective, I was very pleased because I’ve never shared it in this manner before. ![]() ![]() ![]() At Masada, Yael is sent to work in the dovecote, gathering eggs and fertilizer. There too Jachim and Yael begin a tragic love affair. ![]() Hoffman's research renders the ancient world real as the group treks into Judea's desert, where they encounter Essenes, search for sustenance and burn under the sun. Yael, her father, and another Sicarii assassin, Jachim ben Simon, and his family flee Jerusalem. It is 70 CE, and the Temple is destroyed. Told in four parts, the first comes from Yael, daughter of Yosef bar Elhanan, a Sicarii Zealot assassin, rejected by her father because of her mother's death in childbirth. This is a feminist tale, a story of strong, intelligent women wedded to destiny by love and sacrifice. Hoffman ( The Red Garden, 2011, etc.) births literature from tragedy: the destruction of Jerusalem's Temple, the siege of Masada and the loss of Zion. ![]() ![]() ![]() Kinda like Avatar if the elements were sorta like pets? Ish.Īnyway. Like, sometime around puberty most of the people get a connection to an element (earth, water, fire, air) but they vary in their powers. Especially those elemental thingies that (almost) everyone seemed to have. I liked it a lot! I mean, sure there were a whole bunch of things about the world itself that I could have used more explanation on. There's not really an overwhelming Yes! This! Read this! vibe happening, so I never felt any pressure to pick it up.Īfter all that worrying, it turns out that I liked it. Plus, this book has a lot of mixed reviews among my friends. Some of us don't do well with that sort of thing, you know?! Even the name Codex Alera is just.?Įhhhhh? Seemed like there would be too much funky Lord of the Rings y world-building for a fantasy-lite reader like myself. ![]() I've been reading Butcher's urban fantasy series, Dresden Files for a long time now, but I've avoided reading his Codex Alera stuff because it sounded too weird for me. ![]() In fact, I'm not even sure what makes something high fantasy. I don't really read a lot of high fantasy. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() The neighbours themselves are little more than sketches and stereotypes. Days after Billy moves in, his neighbours take a shine to him because… well, who knows, really the relationships feel rushed and unconvincing. It’s during Billy’s time in Midwood that the reader gets an inkling this novel isn’t pedigree King. ![]() And in a rundown part of town where he hides out incognito to let things blow over after he makes the hit, he is computer geek Dalton Smith. In Gerard Tower (from which he will eventually take the shot) and at the suburban home in Midwood where he bides his time waiting for his target to be extradited, he is writer David Lockridge. ![]() To his employers he is ‘dumb’ Billy Summers he talks more slowly and reads comic books. It requires that he set up not just one but three false identities. In spite of this self-imposed moral code, he comes to believe he is little better than those he kills and decides to retire following one final high-paying job: $500,000 beforehand, another $1.5 million once the deed is done. The titular Billy Summers is a former marine turned hitman with a difference: he only accepts jobs where he deems the target to be a ‘bad man’. His perfunctory effort at doing so in Billy Summers is emblematic of the novel as a whole – promising concept, mediocre execution. Stephen King’s greatest strength as an author, today and always, has been in rendering small-town America with affection and attention to detail. ![]() ![]() ![]() In 2015, she received the Lifetime Achievement Award from American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW). ![]() Her Christian novels have been awarded or nominated for numerous honors and in 1997, after winning her third RITA Award for Inspirational Fiction, Francine was inducted into the Romance Writers of America’s Hall of Fame. ![]() Since Redeeming Love, Francine has published numerous bestselling novels with Christian themes-including The Masterpiece, Bridge to Haven, and A Voice in the Wind -and she has continued to win both industry acclaim and reader loyalty around the world. A retelling of the biblical story of Gomer and Hosea set during the time of the California Gold Rush, Redeeming Love is now considered by many to be a classic work of Christian fiction and it continues to be one of the industry’s top-selling titles year after year. New York Times bestselling author Francine Rivers had a successful writing career in the general market for several years becoming a born-again Christian she then wrote Redeeming Love as her statement of faith. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() race (racism) and class.Įntwining his own life and personal stories with facts and figures for the naysayers, Akala explores the construct of race, and what it means to be racialised (as he phrases it) as white/black in Britain.ĭivided into 11 chapters, Akala exudes raw honesty as he breaks downs the moment he realised he was black (though mixed race) and his mother white, the reasons why white people (now) love Mandela, the typically English way Great Britannia views its empire as well as state education and the way it stifles black children. Simply put, Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire is a critical analysis of the fragile world structures and foundations that Britain or more broadly the West / global North have built their riches upon…. Thought provoking and insightful are just some of the adjectives that best describe this book. Read on to find out why she loved this book so much. “The book that got me back into non-fiction again”, our Literary Editor, Vanessa Thomas said she read Akala’s Sunday Times bestseller, Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire like she was 15 years old again. ![]() ![]() ![]() Whenever someone says "writing can't be taught," Dan begs to differ and has the track record to prove it. He also worked as a national language-arts consultant, sharing his own "Writing Well" curriculum which he had created for his own classroom. His last four years in teaching were spent creating, coordinating, and teaching in APEX, an extensive gifted/talented program serving 19 elementary schools and some 15,000 potential students. He then worked in elementary education for 18 years - 2 years in Missouri, 2 years in Buffalo, New York - one year as a specially trained BOCES "resource teacher" and another as a sixth-grade teacher - and 14 years in Colorado. in English from Wabash College in 1970, winning a national Phi Beta Kappa Award during his senior year for excellence in fiction, journalism and art.ĭan received his Masters in Education from Washington University in St. ![]() VJ Books Presents Author Dan Simmons! Dan Simmons was born in Peoria, Illinois, in 1948, and grew up in various cities and small towns in the Midwest, including Brimfield, Illinois, which was the source of his fictional "Elm Haven" in Summer of Night and A Winter Haunting. ![]() You are here: Home > Our Authors > Simmons, Dan ![]() ![]() ![]() Has he, in trying to protect Sabina, forced her into the arms of the Prohibition agent bent on tearing her family apart? How can they rebuild what has so long been neglected and do it in the shadow of the dark empire of the Mafia? Despite his morals, he knows at the core he isn’t so unlike his mafiosi father and brothers. But can she truly turn her back on her family?Īll his life, Lorenzo’s family assumed he would become a priest, but he has different ideas-marrying Sabina and pursuing a career in the law. Maybe Lorenzo, the fiancé who barely paid her any attention in the last two years, has the right idea by planning to escape their world. Ambushes, bribes, murder, prostitution-all her life, her father sheltered her from his crimes, but now she can no longer turn away from the truth. Sabina Mancari never questioned her life as the daughter of Chicago’s leading mob boss until bullets tear apart her world and the man she thought she loved turns out to be an undercover Prohibition agent. ![]() ![]() ![]() If you have not received your delivery following the estimated timeframe, we advise you to contact your local post office first, as the parcel may be there awaiting your collection. ![]() Please be aware that the delivery time frame may vary according to the area of delivery and due to various reasons, the delivery may take longer than the original estimated timeframe.
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