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Shiftless (Wolf Rampant, #1)
Shiftless (Wolf Rampant, #1)
10
10.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Terra is shiftless --- a werewolf uncomfortable in her own animal skin.
A decade after learning to squash her wolf and flee the repressive village where she grew up, the packless ache still gnaws at Terra's insides. But despite her yearnings, she struggles against being reeled back into her old life.
To Terra's dismay, her father and half a dozen of his henchmen finally ambush her and demand her return. Yet they do offer one way out --- hunt down her nephew Keith, teach him to shift, and bring the youngster back into the fold in her place.
Problem upon problem piles up as Terra strives to do her father's bidding. The female shifter has hidden from her wolf for so long that she finds herself unable to change back into canine form, and she also realizes that her nephew is too good-natured to survive for a minute walking in his grandfather's footsteps. Plus, there's an alpha standing in her way who's equal parts enticing and terrifying.
Will Terra be able to relearn her werewolf abilities --- and overcome her morals --- before her father steals away her hard-earned independence? And as that tantalizing alpha reels her in closer and closer, the question becomes --- does she really want to stay away?

This is the story of Terra Wilder who is 27 now; She left her home and wolf pack ten years ago.
Her father who is the Alpha of her old pack has tracked her down and given her an ultimatum.
Terra has made herself shiftless by locking away her wolf side in her mind for the past 10 years and now needs it.
This is definitely different from other shifter novels which I like about it.
Good plot, great characters and can't wait to see how they develop.
Really good story and can't believe it's a first novel.
Recommend reading.
  
A Leonard Bernstein Weekend by Leonard Bernstein
A Leonard Bernstein Weekend by Leonard Bernstein
2005 | Classical
(0 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"My Father introduced me to this, he was very passionate about culture, literature and music, especially jazz and classical music and he would take me to see it. I lived in L.A. and on the long drives home he’d put on whatever music he was interested in at the time and was always really passionate about it. “I was a classical and jazz nerd when I was a kid, that’s what was around me and what I was learning about. My older brother started learning the guitar when I was about ten and I started then too, I got really serious about it and he sort of stopped. “I’m of a generation where we really listened to records as records, I’d go extremely deep with symphonies and jazz records and this one was really major. It’s a piece of music that’s stuck with me since I was fourteen years old, it’s the harmonic sensibility in it, the drama and the way it paints this very intense, almost kind of landscape picture. There’s a mid-20th Century sense of harmony to it that’s stuck with me and I’ve continued revisiting it and referencing it in my mind as an example of really rich, really emotive writing, without any words whatsoever. “It was my first experience of a deeply technical piece of music that was deeply emotional and accessed your emotional brain in a really intense and overwhelming way. That’s always been the goal, not to make music that’s cerebral, but to use your technical ability to channel something that hits your emotional brain and takes your entire brain over in almost a trance-like experience. “This was the first piece of music that I heard that had that level of complexity, but it was still as affecting as a Beatles record."

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The Darkest Sin
The Darkest Sin
D. V. Bishop | 2022 | Crime, Fiction & Poetry, Mystery, Thriller
9
9.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
I loved this follow up to The City of Vengeance, and Cesare Aldo is quickly becoming one of my favourite characters in historical fiction at the moment. And that’s saying a lot, because I read quite a bit of historical fiction!!

This story picks up not long after book 1, and Aldo is called to a convent that has had reports of an intruder. This isn’t a harmonious convent, though. There are opposing ideas on what sort of convent it should be (with some very unchristian nuns!), and it has it’s share of secrets.

Meanwhile, Constable Carlo Strocchi has taken his new wife home to introduce her to his mother, and he happens to stumble across the remains of a rather unpopular former officer of the city’s criminal court. And it looks as though he has been murdered.

I love this blend of historical fact and fiction: the Medici’s and the roles of nuns (to be enclosed or not?), the inequalities in Italian society at the time, women’s roles and lack of power, the structure of authority and how the catholic church ruled supreme (and not particularly morally). Aldo is the bastard son of a wealthy man, and when he is ‘reunited’ with his family, he’s not exactly welcomed back with open arms. He does however meet his niece, and she is far more accepting of him, even if it is, I think, a way of getting her own way!!

This is such an atmospheric read, and is thoroughly addictive. There are enough twists, turns and threats to Aldo’s life to make it very difficult to put the book down!

So is Aldo a threat to my love of Giordano Bruno or Matthew Shardlake? Err, nope, but he’s joining them - and if you like either of these, you’ll love Aldo Cesare!