Customer Reviews:
A Nudie Bar and Murder.......2007-09-05
Meg and Andy are about to be married, and Quill is working hard at making sure that happens. Meg seems determined to mess it up. Plus Jerry Grimsby seems to be mucking things up. He's supposed to be filling in as chef at the Inn at Hemlock Falls while Meg is on her honeymoon.
In the midst of all this, there's a fire at the old MacAvoy barn and a body is found. Then it is announced that Leo "Boom-Boom" Maltby and his business partner Norwood Ferguson will be opening Lovejoy's Nudie Bar and Grill in Hemlock Falls. Many of the women of the village protest it.
Quill has her own problems at the Inn. Doreen steps in to help, only does it really help? Quill ends up giving some promotions that provide their own challenges.
Can Quill find the murderer while making sure Meg and Andy get married in a few days? And can she do it without putting herself in danger?
I always devour the books in this series. I would love to spend a week at the Inn at Hemlock Falls. Quill and Meg are great characters and have really grown with the series. I love all the peripheral characters and the roles that they play. They really add to the story, especially all the town folks and the Chamber of Commerce members.
I highly recommend this book and the whole series.
A Dinner to Die For - the Guilliam sisters are at it again.......2007-04-04
Claudia Bishop is on a roll with her story line about two sisters who own an Inn in mid-state New York. Both are a bit wacky, funny, and like to get into other people's business. The is always a murder or two to solve and this edition is no different. If you like light bed cozy type mysteries, then this will be a new favorite of yours.
Pleasant enough time passer.......2006-08-14
These are individually pleasant, competent mysteries. There is a fairly large continuing cast of characters that are well differentiated from one another and a fair amount of humor. Given the length of this series, obviously a lot of people like it; I think that a fan of the series will be very happy with it.
I find them extremely repetitious - if you've read one, you've pretty much read them all except for plot details. I don't find the two main characters, Sarah (Quill) and Meg particularly endearing. Sarah is a fool and Meg is an explosive tantrum thrower, which I find a little wearisome. An exemplar of what I don't like about this series is Max the dog. For five or six books at least, Max has been running wild, infuriating the other townspeople, and causing various kinds of damage. Get a dog chain! Get kennel fencing! Get a leash! This might be amusing if I didn't have to carry a large stick to ward off other dogs when I walk my own.
I'm also not terribly fond of "gourmet" food - I wouldn't care to even taste most of the dishes that this celebrated chef prepares, but clearly that does interest a lot of people, so take that into consideration when deciding. There is usually at least one recipe in each book.
Another point is that if I'm going to read farce, I want it completely off the wall, not mixed with reality. I know that some people will be extremely amused by things that leave me rolling my eyes.
If you're looking for something to read, you could do a lot worse, and indivudually they can be cute and charming.
Book Description
Berkely, California has been transformed from hippie to yuppie, but it's still home to homocide detective Jill Smith. And even in the Bay Area, some elements of the human condition remain eternal... like murder. Now the owner of a local gourmet eatery has completed his karma: poisoned at his own fabulous Paradise Restaurant. A sixties holdover who has made food his life, Mitchell Biekma also made it a catalyst for deadly rivalries and rage. A street crazy, a disgruntled dishwasher, and a neighborhood activist all would have gladly seen him in hell. Paradise serves food of the gods, but it leaves Jill with the bitter taster of broken dreams and face-to-face with her mortality.
Product Description
Paperbacks
Product Description
5 massmarket paperbacks.
Average customer rating:
|
Die Hofkuche des Kaisers: Die k.u.k. Hofkuche, die Hofzuckerbackerei und der Hofkeller in der Wiener Hofburg
Josef Cachee
Manufacturer: Amalthea
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 General
| Baking
| Cooking, Food & Wine
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Cooking, Food & Wine
| Subjects
| Books
Austria
| Europe
| History
| Subjects
| Books
German
| Foreign Language Nonfiction
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
History
| German
| Foreign Language Books
| Specialty Stores
| Books
Nonfiction
| German
| Foreign Language Books
| Specialty Stores
| Books
All German Books
| German
| Foreign Language Books
| Specialty Stores
| Books
ASIN: 3850022080 |
Average customer rating:
- "SEX, MURDER AND THE SINGLES SCENE"
|
A Dinner To Die For
Harry Burker
Manufacturer: Execu-com Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Police Procedurals
| Mystery & Thrillers
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0970396600 |
Book Description
"A Dinner To Die For" is an unusually gripping tale of terror that weaves the obsessions of a psychopathic killer with the dubious pleasures of the sexual freedom enjoyed by the liberated young career women and the hurdles they face in their search for success in their careers and social lives. Simultaneously, many women, abandoned by untimely death or divorce, void of any understanding of their financial affairs, experience panic and a debilitating sense of hopelessness. Three young women, close friends, are impacted in different ways by their family backgrounds, each having different views toward sex, careers and family relationships. After graduating from college together, they vow to meet monthly and share their experiences over dinner. When serial murderer, Lenny Radnor, a victim of a childhood incestuous incident, attaches himself to one of the women, their friendship is shattered. Detective Polanski pursues the serial killer across the country, eventually overtaking him in a bizarre confrontation.
Customer Reviews:
"SEX, MURDER AND THE SINGLES SCENE".......2001-04-09
Book Review by Priscilla Friedersdorf
"A Dinner To Die For"
Sanibel author Harry Burker has written a murder mystery, "A Dinner To Die For," and it is a gripping tale of terror. The novel weaves lustful obsessions of a psychopathic killer with the dubious pleasures of the sexual freedom enjoyed by liberated young career women. The plot leads them down a dual track and finally to the crossing of a fatal path. This is not a book for the squeamish, the faint of heart, or your old Aunt Maude. It is an exceptionally thrilling murder mystery involving the singles scene in Chicago. The book is reminiscent in some ways to the 1977 thriller based on a similar subject; the perils of swift and easy romance in the bars of New York City, entitled, "Looking for Mr. Goodbar," a book which was later made into a film.
But Burker has written a book that updates the dating experience to the year 2000. It has an intriguing case study approach to the examination of the lives of three young women. Burker is able to balance the use of dialogue, descriptive passages and cultural observation in a polished and well-written novel. He has perception and insight, really quite unusual for a book written by a man--(if I can be allowed to say that without appearing overly sexist)--into the problems women encounter in trying to further their careers and the uncertainty and hesitancy each feels with the ever changing sexual mores in our society. These women attempt to exude a aura of bravado but it is a thin veneer spread over their fears and self doubt. Burker, who is a retired CEO of a major corporation, has pondered the plight of contemporary women and the pitfalls and danger involved in their ever evolving roles.
The descriptive passages in the book illustrate the exceptional talent Burker draws upon. In an early chapter his word images artfully set the scene in an economically floudering Midwest steel town on the outskirts of Chicago, "The house had been on the market for more than eight months...[it] was a small, two-story structure with white asphalt siding, rapidly turning a dirty gray...the owner had obviously been unable to afford the overlay of shiny white aluminium siding used to disguise the signs of decay and depression...On this particular rainy morning...A lone square of light emanated from the kitchen window." Burker understands the woman who sits "...wrapped in a faded blue chenille robe." Her tears flow as she stares at a stack of unpaid bills and wonders at the events that led her into an early marriage nearly twenty-five years ago. Burker examines the cause and the effect of the anger and resentment the woman's daughter, Vicki, feels toward her deceased father due to his subjugation of her mother.
In Vicki, Burker has created a character who is determined to succeed in the business world in spite of occasionally enduring sexist behavior on the part of some of the male executives. Maria Santiago, another of the young career women in Chicago, believes she can take control of her frequent encounters with men and use the men to her advantage. She enjoys regaling her two best friends, Val and Vicki, with graphic accounts of her conquests. But one night she meets Lenny, "As Lenny drove away, he laughed to himself. His ability to create stories that played on a woman's sympathy never ceased to amaze him." Val is the third of the young women profiled in the novel; intelligent, shy and 'not unusually pretty' but also, like the other two, determined to succeed. She is employed by an investment advisor in a large Chicago firm where she strives to improve her position while attempting to avoid romantic entanglement in the workplace.
Burker, after acquainting the reader with the diverse backgrouds of these primary characters, proceeds to weave an intricate and chilling tale of mystery and terror. He has an analytical ability which translates into dialogue which is natural and skillfully moves the story along. The plot is well thought out and cleverly constructed to keep the reader in suspense. He has based the deep-seated psychopathic nature of the criminal, Lenny, partially on cases documented by child welfare departments in New York and more recently a case in Chicago.
Each of his characters represents a different degree of accommodation to today's lifestyle choices by women in the workplace and the equally confusing mating rituals that often find the woman victimized and sexually subjugated.
Be forewarned! The book contains very explicit sexual situations.
-30-
Customer Reviews:
Female, swashbuckling scholar.......2005-02-10
Original and exciting story, from general plot to specific action, of a female, swashbuckling scholar. Enjoyed the philosophy and integrity of the Steerswomen. Enjoyed figuring out the science behind the wizardry. Wizardry based on science, so much more interesting and exciting than mysticism. As the book cover says, "[B]y using their power against her, the wizards risked more than they realized. For Rowan questioned magic itself!" I have seldom looked forward to a sequel with so much anticipation.
The Machination of Wizards.......2003-07-16
The Steerswoman is the first novel in the Steerswoman series. Steerswomen, and a very few Steersmen, are members of an order dedicated to discovering and disseminating knowledge. Although they are foremost navigators of the high seas, Steerswomen are also explorers and cartographers upon land as well as sea. With one exception, they are pledged to always answer any question put to them with as truthful a response as is possible within their own limitations. However, they also require anyone of whom they ask questions to respond in the same manner, upon penalty of the Steerswomen's ban; those under the ban do not receive answers from the steerswomen.
In this novel, Rowan is a Steerswoman who is interested in some strange jewels which have been found distributed in an unusual pattern. THese jewels are made of strange materials bonded onto metal. Some think that such jewels are magically produced.
Rowan meets Bel, an Outskirter warrior, in a frontier tavern and asks her about a collection of such jewels that she is wearing as a belt. Bel tells her that the belt had been made by her father with jewels found embedded in the Dust Ridge far beyond the Outskirts. Rowan is intrigued by this information and wants to visit the site, but first she needs to return to the Steerswomen Archives. Bel has come to the tavern with friends and plans on returning to the Outskirts with them, but the chance to see the Inner Lands is too good to miss. She suggests that she travel to the Archives with Rowan and then accompany her from there to the Dust Ridge. Rowan agrees and they leave the next day.
On the way, Rowan and Bel discuss the jewels and their distribution. Rowan notes that the jewels are scattered like thrown objects. When she tries plotting various velocities and initial heights on a graph, she begins to suspect that the jewels were thrown from a very high place at great velocity. Bel suggests that they are part of the disappeared moon, but Rowan knows from her prior investigations that the jewels impacted on the surface long after the Moon vanished. One aspect of her graphs disturbs her; she notices that objects thrown from a great height with sufficient velocity will never hit the planet, but will circle it endlessly.
Early the next day, they are attacked and almost killed by one of five men who had been wearing a wizard's uniform in the tavern. Later they are almost killed when they are trapped in a burning inn which has been attacked by a swarm of young dragons; the local wizard who normally controls these dragons arrives on the scene only after the building is fully ablaze. At this point, Rowan begins to suspect that some wizard has ordered her death.
Rowan and Bel manage to slip away from the fire scene with a party from the Morgan's Chance, the vessel upon which they have obtained passage, and sail away to Wulfshaven and then overland to the Archives. There Rowan and Bel report these events and the Steerswomen make plans to investigate the wizards.
This novel has the immediacy and impact of Kingsbury's Courtship Rite. It has the same sense of exotic ambiance, strange customs and struggle to survive in an alien environment. The characters have deepset traits that motivate their actions, yet exhibit a flexible response to their environment. Best of all, this jewel of a story has sequels: The Outskirter's Secret is at least as good as this novel and The Lost Steersman should be another excellent read.
Highly recommended to Kingsbury fans and to anyone else who enjoys tales of unusual cultures on alien planets with a touch of mystery.
Making a Life of Knowledge.......2003-03-14
There's good news, bad news and, finally, some more good news.
This is an excellent book, especially for a first book. A well-conceived world where Asimov's Axiom - "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." - is given a wonderful twist. The geography, the culture and the people are skillfully developed. Best of all, there is a woman protagonist who is simply delightful, and who brings a life devoted to the acquisition of knowledge to a quest tale. The sequel, "The Outskirter's Secret," is even better and begins to give you glimpses of the true nature of the world in which these tales are told.
The bad news is that the tale is only half told. Fans of Kirstein and her heroine have been waiting years to see what happens next. It was starting look like the story would never be finished.
The new good news is that a third book - "The Steerswomans Road" - is coming out later this year.
With any luck, the publisher will re-publish the first two books, which appear to be out of print, and allow Kirstein's story to reach a broader audience.
This is a terrific introduction to a well-crafted world. Strongly recommended.
A well written fantasy book based on sound educational ideas.......1999-08-10
Rosemary Kirstein has given us a story that will unfold with precision and enjoyment. This is a book for those who do not need a lot of whizz bang socery, but solid characters etched with humour and humanity. It is written in a style similar to Terry Goodkind, yet the story is not as drawn out. Rowan is a gatherer of information that is happily and deliberately given out to any who would ask of it, in a land where the population has no education, only wizards who would keep their secrets as their power base.
It is a riveting tale and I look forward to a second book from Rosemary Kirstein's clever pen.
Possibly the best book I've ever read.......1998-04-01
The story is of a traveller trying to understand more of her own world. She is a steerswoman, a navigator both in the conventional sense, and as someone who is trying to find out the truth in a land where anything incomprhensible is labelled as magic, often with apparently good reason. The usual approach in a fantasy tale is to keep characterisation to a minimum, and load up on wonder and spectacle. This is quite different. She is the focus of the story, and becomes so familiar to the reader that when she does try to disguise her manner it is obvious without being explained who this mysterious newcomer really is. What is known or unknown is a major theme. The reader will soon find the "magic" disturbingly familiar, and will even be able to second guess what an enchantment will do next. The steerswoman has no such knowledge, and her frustration at not being able to work out from first principles what the reader would have learned in school, becomes a powerful theme. Ignorance kills. This is not a heavy book. the story is short and the style unchallenging. Yet it manages both adventure without childishness and moral and intellectual themes without the crashing preachy stlye adopted by most book of the genre. Do not miss this book.
Book Description
If you ask, she will answer. If she asks, you must reply. A steerswoman will speak only the truth to you, as long as she knows it—and you must do the same for her. And so, across the centuries, the Steerswomen— questioning, searching, investigating—have slowly learned more and more about the world through which they wander. All knowledge the Steerswomen possess is given freely to those who ask. But there is one kind of knowledge that has always been denied them: Magic.
When the steerswoman Rowan discovers a small, lovely blue jewel of obviously magical origin, her innocent questions lead to secret after startling secret, each more dangerous than the last—and suddenly Rowan must flee or fight for her life. Or worse, she must lie.
With every wizard in the world searching for her, Rowan finds unexpected assistance. A chance-met traveler turned friend, Bel is a warrior-poet, an Outskirter, and a member of a barbaric and violent people. Or, so it would seem.
For Bel, unknowing, possesses secrets of her own: secrets embedded in her culture, in her people, in the very soil of her homeland. From the Inland Sea to the deadly Outskirts, surrounded by danger and deceit, Rowan and Bel uncover more and more of the wizards’ hidden knowledge. As the new truths accumulate, they edge closer to the single truth that lies at the center, the most unexpected secret of them all. . . .
Customer Reviews:
Female, swashbuckling scholar.......2007-07-07
Reprint of two novels:
Steerswoman: Original and exciting story, from general plot to specific action, of a female, swashbuckling scholar. Enjoyed the philosophy and integrity of the Steerswomen. Enjoyed figuring out the science behind the wizardry. Wizardry based on science, so much more interesting and exciting than mysticism. As the book cover says, "...by using their power against her, the wizards risked more than they realized. For Rowan questioned magic itself!"
Outskirter: Another original and exciting story of this female, swashbuckling scholar. The author has done her research and knows her subject: from a clever sword fight test to uncover the true identity of an opponent, to interesting contrasts of the moral/social considerations of nomads as opposed to village dwellers (there is a core element of agreement, or there would be no basis of understanding).
Two Books In One: The Steerswoman and The Outskirters Secret.......2006-02-05
Rowan is a Steerswomen: that makes her different from the rest of the people in the Inner Lands, The Outskirts and the whole known world. She, and the other members of her order, walk the roads and sail the rivers of their world mapping, asking questions, and giving answers. They are the repositories of knowledge, the keepers of wisdom, and the record keepers.
When you ask a Steerswomen a question she is honoured bound to answer you the truth. When she asks you a question you owe her the same obligation. If you refuse a steerswomen's request for an answer or the truth, you are placed under the Steerswomen's ban that means they are forbidden to answer any question you ask, no matter how banal.
The Steerswomen (there are only a few Steersmen) record everything they learn in their journals. These journals are stored by the order as references for Steerswomen to come, and as a record of events of the ages. No scrape of knowledge is beneath the notice of the Steerswomen; the eating habits of goats in the Outskirts might just play a vital part in the survival of people in another part of the world.
Long ago when the wizards and the first Steerswomen came into contact the wizards were placed under the Steerswomen's ban for refusing to answer questions about their powers and what they did in the world. The wizards did not believe themselves to be subject to the laws of the common folk, and used those who lived in their districts with a capriciousness bordering on the cruel.
Seeing how it is the desire of every Steerswomen, and the direction of the order, to find out as much about everything in their world as they possibly can, the wonder is that they haven't come into open conflict with Wizards until now. But it wasn't until Rowan started to investigate mysterious blue jewels that first appeared in the world forty-five years ago that wizards made any move against a Steerswoman.
Rowan has only been a Steerswoman for five years when she comes across a small blue jewel of which there has been no previous record. It is in The Steerswoman that we first meet her as she is beginning her quest into the origins of these strange items. As she discovers more and more samples of them throughout the know territories she starts to realize that they are distributed in a straight line across the lands.
Unlike a normal jewel that is mined, these have shown up in strange places; embedded inside a tree for instance, only discovered because the tree was felled for construction. When Rowan befriends one of the barbarian Outlanders named Bel the mystery only deepens. Bel wears a belt decorated with those same jewels given her as a reminder of her father.
How could these blue jewels describe a straight line from one end of the world to the other? According to Rowan it's like a huge giant threw them in an arc that causing them to rain down on the earth as they lost momentum. But even that wouldn't be possible, even if there were giants in the world, there would be no place high enough where they could stand that their throw could describe that arc.
High above the world, seemingly affixed in the sky, hang the East and West Guidestars. For centuries everybody has used them as their means of direction finding. Only the Steerswomen believe that they may not have always hung in the sky, and so may not be there forever. Only the Steerswomen can navigate without them when necessary.
The Steerswomen novels by Rosemary Kirstein are elaborate anthropological and sociological studies on the clash of cultures and the impact of technology on a world when its secrets are held in the hands of only a few. It doesn't take us a great leap to figure out that the Guidestars are in fact types of Satellites and that they are connected to the jewels. But for the people of Rowan's world this is magic beyond their comprehension.
The people of the Inner Lands and the Outskirts live equivalent lives to what we would consider medieval peasantry. The majority are illiterate and depend on the Steerswomen for telling them their history and keeping them informed of events in the world outside of their own villages.
The Outskirters are nomadic tribesmen that follow grazing pastures for their goats. Never able to stay in one place for long as their herds devour grazing lands, their environment is so hostile and harsh that they consider themselves to be in a war for survival. They do their utmost to kill the land before it kills them.
Even the plant life of the Outskirts can be fatal to humans, never mind the packs of goblins who haunt the wastes, and the treacherous bogs waiting to swallow people whole. When Rowan accompanies Bel back to the Outskirts in The Outskirter's Secret in an attempt to find the fallen Guidestar she gets first hand experience of how difficult life is on the plains.
In The Steerswomen and The Outskirter's Secret Rosemary Kirstein establishes a setting for a study of one of the major problems our own world faces. How a select few try to use superior knowledge and access to information to control the majority.
Ms. Kirstein has created marvellous characters that make the themes she is addressing all the more real. Rowan and Bel; the cool, rational, Steerswoman and the fiery, emotional Barbarian Outskirter, could easily have become stereotypes, or clichés. Instead we are given two individuals who unique even amongst their own people. As the reader we see almost everything through Rowan's eyes, so our worldview evolves in tandem with her's.
We share her revulsion at the things the wizards are doing, her excitement as she learns something new, her pleasure in recounting a story to a willing audience, and her wonder at the mysteries of the world. Through her relationship with Bel, both Rowan and the reader discover how two cultures can utilize their differences to compliment each other. We see her piece this bit of information together with what she's learning about the wizards and watch her try to gain an understanding of what it all means.
This omnibus offers a great introduction to a unique and intriguing series of books. The only problem being they whet your appetite for more.
Worthwhile but Uneven.......2005-08-24
I picked up this book on the recommendations of various aquaintences who thought I might like it. I enjoyed it enough that I'll probably seek out and read the next book in the series (The Lost Steersman), but it had some problems that disappointed me.
First was the entire concept of the Steers[wo]men. The wandering scholar part is well done, but the "if you lie or refuse to answer her questions, she'll not answer yours" quickly becomes stilted, gimmicky, and interferes with the smooth telling of the story. It is the hardest part of the story to believe, and the "moral dilemmas" presented by it seem artificial. I seem to find the author digging herself out of this hole often enough that I don't believe the concept could have survived in this fictional world as long as the story claims it has -- it's limiting enough to have endangered the survival of the entire stees[wo]men organization. Worst of all, I don't believe the concept is central to the book. The story could have been told (possibly better) without it.
Next is a writing style that occasionally plods, particularly during dialog. A character will make a statement or ask a question, and the main character spends one or two or six paragraphs turning over in her head how she might respond. When she finally does, you've nearly forgotten what she was responding to, making the thread of the conversation difficult to follow. This is particularly a problem in the first book of this omnibus. Kirstein seems to be ambivalent about trusting the reader. The world-building and the puzzles it presents are excellent (particularly in the second book), but nearly every detail of the here-and-now and its potential impact on the flow of the story is spelled out explicitly. Perhaps this is partly due to the pedagogical leanings of the viewpoint character, but I found myself talking back to the her (saying, "Yeah, I know, I know, get on with it,") far too often.
If this volume had not been an Omnibus, I likely would have quit the series after the first book. It's a good journeyman effort, but not compelling, and I might not have sought out the second. That book is far better than the first, even though it shares some of its faults. The story line is fascinating, and gets better as it progresses. The characters are strong, particularly the outskirters, and the worldbuilding is effective. I expect the next two books to be even better.
A rationalist's adventure novel.......2005-08-21
Kirstein's novels are sometimes described as SF, sometimes as fantasy, probably because the main characters believe in magic - they see wizards do it. By the end of the first book the reader suspects that the wizards are using what we think of as science.
The first thing that delights me in the story is the (unspoken) point that it doesn't matter what you call it; it matters whether you understand it, and what you do with it. This is the worldview that made the technological age, and for that matter the glory of ancient Greek philosophy. I miss it in a lot of modern stories - SF or not - that assume that understanding is someone else's problem.
One of the other interesting reviews here is annoyed by the understand-everything stance, because there are (I oversimplify) depths to the human psyche that can't be understood. It's very true that the kind of ambiguity we venerate _Hamlet_ for is not what the steerswoman Rowan, or even the author Kirstein, specialize in.
Instead of ambiguity we get enormous, really astounding, complexity. By the end of _The Language of Power_ I wonder if any of the exciting bits of background will stay background. There's lots of great background; it's an adventure novel, so there are wizards and castles and unmapped territory and barbarian tribes and fiendishly dangerous humming demons. There are dragons! In average SF or fantasy novels all these excitements are basically props. In Kirstein's they're all connected; each one has its own logic that opens into a whole complicated subplot that might confuse or illuminate the problem the novel started with.
One of the pleasures of this is that the numerous adventures are all a bit different because the problems are different. Different monsters, different swordfights, different town politics, different betrayals and divided loyalties.
The main character is bright and driven the way born journalists and born scientists are - and her job combines both, so that's just as well. She's really, really bright, enough to be a little improbable; but this is common in adventure stories, and not totally unknown in reality. Also, as the series goes on, there's reason to suspect that the average person in that world is descended maybe from the smartest people in ours.
The economics are good, the ecology is interesting, the minor characters have their own purposes.
I want to read the rest of the story.
The Steerswoman's Road.......2004-09-14
The Steerswoman's Road consists of two complete novels, The Steerswoman and The Outskirter's Secret. In book one we are introduced to Rowan who is on a journey of discovery; discovery of the how and why of just about everything, a steerswoman. The steerswomen travel the land asking questions of those they meet, in return they must always answer truly to all questions posed to them.
Rowan's curiosity has led her to search for the origin of magical blue gems that have been found in a seemingly distinct pattern across the land. In her travels she befriends the seemingly barbaric outskirter Bel. Contrary to Rowan's perceptions of the outskirters in general, Bel turns out to be an extremely intelligent and educated ally.
Before you know it, Rowan and Bel are on the run from hostile wizards who don't want the gems powers to be discovered.
Book two finds the duo in Bel's home territory, the outskirts, searching for more clues to the gems and what they will mean to the world. The outskirts and its people bear a strong resemblance to steppe nomads in customs and geography. A harsh people and even harsher land, yet Rowan finds them to be quite well educated. Sounds straightforward so far? Heh, guess again, things aren't always what they seem and something's not right within the clan our heroines are traveling with.
I found the Steerswoman's Road to be an absorbing pair of stories, so absorbing in fact I read right through it. It brings into question what is magic after all? Is it really something made of spells and the like or is it simply knowledge? Could be it's a bit of both, you'll have to read to find out, as the resident Faery person in charge, I'm not telling!
Average customer rating:
|
The Steerswoman
Manufacturer: Pan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000GLZ4W2 |
Average customer rating:
|
The Steerswoman
Manufacturer: Pan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000G9PQFY |
Books:
- A Groom with a View (Jane Jeffry Mystery Series #11)
- A Killer in Winter: The Ninthe Matthew Bartholomew Chronicle (Matthew Bartholomew Chronicles)
- A Question of Intent: A Great American Battle With a Deadly Industry
- A Time to Hate (Star Trek The Next Generation)
- Apples of Gold: A Six-Week Nurturing Program for Women
- Art in Chicago: 1945-1995
- Art.Rage.Us.: Art and Writing by Women with Breast Cancer
- Beautiful Bauer: A Pictorial Study with Prices
- Beware of the Purple Peanut Butter (Give Yourself Goosebumps, No 6)
- Billy Straight: A Novel
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- William Ewart Gladstone: Faith and Politics in Victorian Britain
- The Cairo Trilogy: Palace Walk, Palace of Desire, Sugar Street
- Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
- New Mexico: Images of a Land and Its People
- Opening Day: The Story of Jackie Robinson's First Season
- Quantitative Chemical Analysis
- The Illustrated Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era
- The Drawings of Stuart Davis: The Amazing Continuity
- Nothing to Fear: The Key to Cancer Survival
- My Brother, Your Father
Ground to a Halt (Hemlock Falls Mysteries)
The Case of the Roasted Onion (Berkley Prime Crime Mysteries)
The Chocolate Bridal Bash (Chocoholic Mysteries)
Murder Most Frothy: A Coffeehouse Mystery (Coffeehouse Mysteries)
The Cane Mutiny (Den of Antiquity)
